Advent 4: Magnificat

In churches this morning, we remember Mary’s visit to Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-55) and the joyful Song of Mary , the Magnificat. The first part of Mary’s song praises God and talks about what God has done for her; the middle of the song describes God’s inversion of the economic and political order – casting down the mighty while lifting up the lowly, filling the hungry with good things while the rich are sent away empty -- and it ends with a reminder of God’s promise of mercy. It’s a song about God creating something that’s very new and yet grounded in God’s eternal care and love for God’s people.

Our Daily Office lessons yesterday included Christ’s clear call in Matthew 25 to care for people who are poor, sick, powerless, or lonely. Whenever we do something to serve “the least of these” we are serving Christ; whenever we ignore the needs of the least of these, we turn our backs on Christ. It was in many ways a fitting lesson for the end of the Copenhagen climate conference. The politics of the conference dictated an outcome that keeps the nations in conversation about climate change and leaves the door open for a significant agreement at some unspecified time in the future, but it also leaves people in poorer nations that are already feeling negative effects from climate change where they were at the beginning of the conference. The wealthier nations like the United States, aware of the lack of political will back home to do the hard work of making deep cuts in carbon emissions, negotiated this the way we do other issues.

Compromise is a grand thing, and a few tentative first steps can be claimed as a political victory on many issues, but the physics of climate change doesn’t leave any room for political expediency or compromise. Just as not making a decision is a sort of decision in itself, so declaring ourselves favorable to the idea of making some undefined cuts in carbon emissions without making the commitment to deep change that science tells us is necessary is a decision to turn our backs through our inaction on those who are harmed first and worst by climate change.

One dynamic of this conference was that President Obama did not have a clean energy bill from our Congress to show a real commitment from Americans. The Senate will be debating this legislation in coming weeks and months. Today’s Omaha World Herald has an op-ed piece signed by several of us Nebraska clergy that articulates why climate change is a faith issue that calls for our attention.

In Mary’s song, we hear her joyful faith in God’s mercy and in God’s love for the least of these. Where is our merciful and loving God in the news from Copenhagen, when the needs of the least of these were sacrificed to the agendas of the rich and powerful? God’s promises endure; God calls us back again and again to live in harmony with God’s intentions for our world. Reports from Copenhagen talked about the crowds of people from all over the world who gathered every day and every night outside of the Bella Center, bringing the needs of the poor and vulnerable to the ears of those in power, and giving encouragement and support to the delegates from less powerful places. God is working through these people and through all of us whose words and actions bring the needs of all people – and all species – to the attention of the rest of the world.

This may not look like a success, just as Mary’s baby in the manger didn’t look like a king. God works with whatever is available, and what is available are people of faith who are willing to look at the science of climate change, and look at God’s children who will be most severely affected by climate change, and then do what we can to help. Mary had no power or influence, and yet because of her faith, God was able to use Mary to become Incarnate and change everything for all of us.

The weather in central Nebraska today was sunny and warmer than it has been in several days. With beautiful snow cover still on most of the fields, a big blue sky, and the sound of running water from melting ice and snow, our souls might well magnify the Lord out of sheer joy in God’s creation. Climate scientists tell us that this is a critical time for the future of our climate, and of the planet to which human life is adapted. This is the time for people of faith who find joy in God’s creation and comfort in God’s promises to listen carefully, watch carefully, and see where God is calling us to speak and act.

Advent 3: Despair and Hope

The decisions made in the next couple of days at the climate talks in Copenhagen will be of great importance to all of us, but their effects will initially be felt most keenly by people from places like island nations and Bangladesh who came to Copenhagen with hope for an agreement that might save their homes. At this point, it's difficult for some people to stay hopeful, as the probability of reaching a significant agreement appears to be lessening.

How do we remain hopeful given the possibility that the world’s response to climate change will be too little and too late? What is the Christian response as we face the historically unique possibility of witnessing the social, economic, cultural, and spiritual consequences of inaction, the unraveling of our ways of life on a worldwide scale?

Archbishop Desmond Tutu is in Copenhagen. Archbishop Tutu’s experience in the fight against apartheid in South Africa has helped him develop wisdom about being hopeful in situations that appear to be hopeless. The Hopenhagen blog for December 15 provides video clips of Archbishop Tutu talking about what gives him hope this week.

Our lessons for the Third Sunday of Advent have been good companions while following the climate talks. The short passage from Paul’s letter to the Philippians (Philippians 4:4-7) tells us to rejoice and not worry about anything; Paul says “in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God”. There is part of the answer to these difficult questions: pray. Pray for the people participating in the climate conference, for the heads of state who will make the final decisions, for the people with little power who will feel the effects of climate change first and worst, and for a change of heart – repentance – when we are tempted to put our own comfort ahead of the basic needs of others.

In our Gospel lesson (Luke 3:7-18) John the Baptist talked about repentance. In my sermon this Sunday, I was not speaking directly about the climate talks, but it was in the back of my mind as I wrote about hope and despair. No matter what the issue, our call as Christians seems to be to a call to witness, to really look at, the places where there is darkness or despair. As we walk through the darkness, we are supported by our faith that the darkness cannot overcome the light of Christ. I believe our call at this time is to proclaim both the truth about what is at stake as the nations decide on a response to the climate crisis and the message of hope grounded in our faith.

Advent 3C: In the Bleak Midwinter
Zephaniah 3:14-20; Canticle 9 (Isaiah 12:2-6); Luke 3:7-18 (and the Godly Play version of the angel’s visit to the shepherds)
Preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Grand Island, Nebraska, December 13, 2009

It’s good to see so many folks dug out from this week’s snowstorm and able to get here this morning. Little did we know last Sunday that our Tuesday and Wednesday evening church activities would be cancelled this week, children would be home from school, and many other plans changed. I was relieved early Tuesday evening to find out that the earliest morning classes at Hastings College had been cancelled already, as I was wondering how I would get from our house to campus for my 9:00 class. If I’d had to, I could have gotten there on foot if no other way, but it would have been a very difficult and very cold walk, and I was more than happy not to attempt it.

Looking out Wednesday morning after more snow had fallen and it had all been blown around by strong winds, one of my favorite Christmas hymns came to mind, Hymn #112, ‘In the bleak midwinter..’, that beautiful combination of Christina Rossetti’s words and Gustav Holst’s music. “In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, in the bleak midwinter, long ago.”
This morning, though, we are singing Advent hymns and thinking about John the Baptist: “On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry announces that the Lord is nigh…” Our Gospel lesson is John the Baptist at his most prophetic, referring to the crowds who have shown up to be baptized as a “brood of vipers” – the children of snakes – and calling everyone to repentance, to a radical change of heart that will become evident in their everyday choices and actions. John says that the one coming after him will baptize not with water but with the Holy Spirit and fire, and follows this with a very intimidating exhortation about Christ separating the metaphorical wheat from the chaff, in which it becomes very clear that we do not want to part of the chaff. After all of this, which does not at first hearing sound like “tidings of comfort and joy”, Luke writes: “So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.”

We heard another part of Luke’s Gospel today from our children as they told us about the angel coming to the shepherds. Most of us are more familiar with this story, and it sounds more like Good News to us. We’re more comfortable with angels and shepherds, but part of that comfort might be that familiarity has lessened the impact of the prophetic element of this story. The announcement of Christ’s birth came to the shepherds first, not to kings or high priests or the people who lived in comparative comfort in town. Shepherds were poor people who lived outside the walls of the town with the sheep, and sheep are some of the smelliest creatures on God’s green Earth.

It must have been surprising at the least, and perhaps even scandalous, that the shepherds would be the first ones told about the birth of the Messiah. But people who knew and understood Scripture would not have been surprised, because the Hebrew prophets repeatedly talk about God’s care for the outcast, for the people who inhabit the margins of society because that’s where people with more power and wealth have pushed them. In our passage from Zephaniah this morning, the prophet announces God’s message of hope: “I will deal with all your oppressors at that time. And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth.” So this morning we have an angel telling the shepherds about the birth of God’s son, and we have John the Baptist saying that people who have clothing and food must share with those who have nothing, and those with some degree of power – tax collectors and soldiers, for example – must not abuse that power.

The angel says something else, though: “Do not be afraid. Be joyful.” Again we hear an echo of the prophetic voice; Zephaniah says, “The king of Israel is in your midst…Do not fear,” and in our Canticle Isaiah says “Surely, it is God who saves me; I will trust in him and not be afraid.” These prophetic messages bring hope, but that hope often comes intertwined with information or commands that can make us fearful. John’s message, while meant to literally put the fear of God into us, is ultimately hopeful: We can’t do anything about our ancestors or even who we ourselves have been in the past, but what’s important, says John, isn’t the past but what we do now and in the future. We’re invited to repent and live lives that bear good fruit, lives that show we are wheat to be gathered into God’s granary, people living into the Reign of God.

The prophet’s message is always a message of hope because it’s ultimately a message of God’s faithfulness. We not only have nothing to fear when God is with us, but acting out of fear prevents us from responding to God’s faithfulness in a way that moves us from despair to hope, from darkness to light. The prophet’s message is a message of hope, but it’s also a message that calls for a response from us, a call to deep faith that results in good fruits. The prophet’s message in whatever point in history tells it like it is; it doesn’t sugarcoat or deny the reality of the way things are right now. Looking at the reality of our lives and the effects our choices have on Christ’s beloved poor around the world requires us to be open to experiencing uncomfortable emotions like grief and despair. We might grieve the loss of familiar and comfortable ways that we must give up so that others might live; like Ebenezer Scrooge, we might despair when we look outside of our own small worlds and let ourselves see the reality of other people’s lives, and, in our point in history, when we learn about the effects of our lives on the oceans, the air, and other species.

But we have to be willing to walk through the discomfort and darkness of despair to get to hope; a hope based on burying our heads in the sand isn’t hope at all but denial. Just as I was happy to avoid the discomfort of walking through the snow and bitter cold to get to campus, we are understandably reluctant to experience the discomfort of walking through despair to get to hope.

Advent is a time when we hear the prophetic message in our Sunday readings and in our Daily Office lectionary. The Daily Office this week included readings from Amos and Haggai, difficult messages for people of their time to hear, but messages that were ultimately full of hope, full of the promise of God’s faithfulness to a repentant people. Haggai (Haggai 1:5-6) starts out with this: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider how you have fared. You have sown much, and harvested little; you eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and you that earn wages earn wages to put them into a bag with holes.” Yet Haggai moves from this portrait of [in Thoreau’s words] “lives of quiet desperation” to a promise of blessing to a newly obedient people.

The Church calls us to hear the prophet’s message today as well, to hear the words that God is speaking to us in our time. In Advent, the Church calls us to step back a bit and set aside time to enter the silence so we can hear the still, small voice; the Church calls us to enter the darkness so that we can more clearly see the Light of Christ. Advent is about listening to the prophetic call, about hearing the message of hope as we anticipate Christ’s birth and his coming again, and it’s also about choosing our response to a faithful and loving God. But that’s what Christmas is about also: our response to God becoming Incarnate and saying, “Follow me”.

The repentance to which John the Baptist calls us is not simply a matter of adding a few charitable acts to our to-do lists, good though it is to do that. This call is to something deeper, something internal, a profound change of heart. It’s a call to genuine generosity, kindness, compassion, and love. It’s a call to give our fears a nod and then joyfully go ahead and go where Christ calls us to serve as his body in the world – to see with the eyes of Christ, to hear with the ears of Christ, to think with the mind of Christ, to speak with the voice of Christ, and to serve with the hands of Christ.

The last verse of ‘In the bleak midwinter’ talks about how we can respond to our twofold awareness of our spiritual poverty that points to our need for repentance, along with the joy in our hearts when we hear the Good News of God’s promises and Christ’s birth: “What can I give him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb; if I were a wiseman, I would do my part; yet what I can I give him – give my heart.”
Don’t be afraid; be joyful! God’s promises assure us that when we choose to walk into and look at the dark places where we are called to bring the light of the Gospel, our faithful and loving God will be with us, and Christ will light the way. Amen.

Heat and Snow

Most of Nebraska is snow-covered and very cold today. Every county except for the Panhandle has some sort of winter weather alert, and many counties are under blizzard warnings. Earlier in the day, before the wind picked up, I went outside to see what it was like. Everything was very quiet, as few people were out and about and the snow muffled whatever sounds there were. All I heard was some birdsong. There were juncos under my feeder and in the bushes around our yard, a pair of cardinals with their feathers fluffed out for warmth, and a nuthatch walking up and down the trunk of our hackberry tree.

No doubt when people watch the news this evening and see some story about the climate conference in Copenhagen, they will remark – some jokingly and some very seriously – that there doesn’t seem to be much global warming going on. Global warming, of course, refers to the worldwide climate; we know that general warming might indeed result in colder than normal weather for some locales. This is why some people prefer the term ‘climate change’. But what we really need to keep in mind is that climate scientists look at overall trends. Just as one child with short stature doesn’t disprove the observation that American children today are taller than children were in my generation, a cold week, month, or season doesn’t disprove the observation that global temperatures are rising.

At the Copenhagen climate conference today, Michel Jarraud, the secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, said that so far – nine years into the decade, that is – 2000-2009 is the warmest decade on record. The BBC account of his remarks includes a video clip in which Mr. Jarraud emphasizes the importance of taking action now.

Also from today’s conference , the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, says he is optimistic that a “robust” agreement can be reached at this month’s conference. His hopeful outlook is echoed in a lovely reflection written by Sr. Joan Brown, OSF, who talks about this conference as a light of hope in the darkness this Advent season. Sr. Joan Brown, the Director of New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light, is in Copenhagen as an observer with other people of faith, bringing a moral and spiritual presence to the talks. She is writing a series of reflections from Copenhagen, available here on the Interfaith Power and Light website.

Advent 2: Wilderness, Joy, and Light

Wilderness
Today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 3: 1-6 , begins by placing the story of John the Baptist in a very specific time: the fifteenth year of the Emperor Tiberius. It’s further anchored in time by information about other rulers in power at the time – Pontius Pilate, Herod, Philip, Lysanius – and the high priests Annas and Caiphas. When it comes to place, the passage is much more vague: “the word came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness”. It goes on to tell us that this part of the wilderness is the region around the Jordan River, it doesn’t get any more specific than that. This is, after all, a true wilderness, a place without roads or place names.

What’s going on with Tiberius and Herod and all the rest is less important in the wilderness than it is in the villages and towns. Perhaps that’s why John was in the wilderness: away from all the activity and historical concerns, he could hear God’s voice and become prepared for his prophetic role in the life of Jesus, a role that eventually took him out of his wilderness obscurity and brought him squarely to the attention of Herod.

Throughout the Gospels, there are times when Jesus goes out of the towns and villages to get away and pray. He doesn’t stay there forever, but comes back refreshed and ready to resume his work. There is the temporal element of Sabbath in this, but also a spatial element. Getting away, going into the wilderness, is a spiritual necessity. Having wilderness of some sort, places where we can get away from lights and the noise of machinery, places where our feet can touch the ground instead of concrete, where we see things in natural light, and where we can hear the sounds of birds and insects, of the wind and water is not a luxury. We know now that such places are necessary to the health of our planet, and especially important to the health of our atmosphere. Today’s lesson reminds us that wilderness is also necessary to our spiritual health, to our being whole human beings who desire to be in relationship with God.


Joy
Our parish’s Christmas Eve children’s pageant will be based this year on the Godly Play curriculum. During each of the Sundays of Advent, the children are presenting one of the four pieces of the pageant. This morning’s Godly Play story was about the Holy Family. Joseph talked about feeling the weight of his responsibilities, and Mary said she thought the baby would be born soon and admitted to feeling worried. Then the angel appeared, a very confident angel whose words brooked no dissent: “Don’t be afraid, but be joyful!”

This is also the message the angels will bring to the shepherds, and that an angel will give to the women who go to the tomb after the crucifixion. It’s a message that can keep us from despair as we work to heal the damage we humans have done to our planet: Don’t do this work out of fear, but out of joy in God’s wonderful creation. When we stay focused on the wonder and beauty of creation, we have both motivation for doing the work and nourishment for our souls.

Light
A story today from Associate Press writer Arthur Max shines a light of hope into the gloom that seemed to surround the Copenhagen climate talks as expectations were lowered and the U.S. Senate failed to get a climate bill passed before the talks. The story, " UN says climate finale may have happy ending” notes several recent developments that indicate that the nations will be able to reach agreements that will allow us to keep global warming under control. One of the very hopeful signs is that President Obama is now planning to attend the conference at its end, when other heads of state will be present to help decide on any agreements, instead of at the conference’s beginning. This indicates that there is some sense that there may indeed be something substantive for heads of state to consider as the conference is ending.

It seems especially fitting to find signs of hope during this season of Advent, as we prepare to welcome the Christ and “let heaven and nature sing”!

More about climate change in Nebraska

Reports from this evening's panel discussion about climate change in Nebraska tell about a lively discussion. Joe Duggan's article posted on JournalStar.com gives some examples of the sorts of changes scientists expect to see here in Nebraska.

Nebraska Public Radio interviewed some of the panelists earlier. You can hear that story here; this report talks about some of the changes such as the northward drift of habitats that are already being observed.

It's heartening to see more information about the effects of climate change in our own state being made accessible to the general public. Let's pray that this information can be truly heard and understood, and that we might have the wisdom and will to use it to make good decisions.

Advent 1: Interpreting the Signs

The Gospel lesson yesterday for the First Sunday of Advent was Luke 21: 25-36. In this passage, Jesus is talking about the signs of the coming of the Son of Man. He tells a parable, pointing out that when the fig trees and other trees begin to get new young leaves in the spring, people know that summer is near; in the same way, if people pay attention to the signs around them and know how to interpret them, they will know when Christ is there among them. Being aware of the signs – really seeing them – will help us know what is happening. In describing this time, Jesus talks about the fear and distress that people will experience, but he also tells his followers to stand up and raise their heads high, because all of these things mean that their redemption is near. There’s nothing to fear for the people who recognize Christ and have chosen to follow him, nothing to fear for people who yearn to live into the reign of God.

As a Deacon, I’m prepared to proclaim the Gospel on Sunday mornings. As part of that preparation, I read the Gospel lesson at least a day ahead, both to catch any names I might want to check for pronunciation ahead of time and also to get a sense of the lesson so that I proclaim it in a way that makes its meaning as plain as possible. Because of the Thanksgiving holiday, I hadn't spent as much time thinking about yesterday’s lesson as I usually do, but I had looked it over a couple of days before. It must have been completely out of my thoughts, though, early yesterday morning when I got up and went downstairs to breakfast. I was checking the New York Times headlines online and saw a link to a set of four articles by writers from four different places -- Denmark, South Africa, Brazil, and Japan -- describing the climate changes they have experienced where they live. I had time to read the report from Japan and skim the others before leaving for church.

When I got to church and again looked over the Gospel lesson, I was struck by the concurrence of what I had read about the signs of climate change and the message of our Gospel passage for the day. We have signs of a coming time that will, if our failure to act allows it to come, produce fear and distress throughout the world, with floods, famines, droughts, and outbreaks of diseases. The signs are there; these four writers talk about climate phenomena that anyone living in these places can observe. Because they often happen gradually and over the course of a lifetime, it is easy to ignore the signs right around us. For my part, I have childhood memories of wanting to be excused from the dinner table on Thanksgiving as quickly as possible so that I could get bundled up and go out and play Fox and Geese in the snow with my brother and cousins. When I was home in Ohio this Thanksgiving, there was a wet snowfall that lasted half a day. There also was a lily outside the entrance to my mother’s apartment building that looked like it was ready to bloom; other people told me about pussy willows coming into bud and roses still blooming. When I went into the woods, there were many green plants still growing through this year’s leaf layer on the forest floor.

Besides these anecdotal signs, of course, we have statistical analysis from climate scientists. (A recent Associate Press article found on the Forecast Earth section of The Weather Channel’s website summarizes some of the scientific findings nicely.) The Copenhagen conference is approaching with some encouraging signs that some progress might be made, but also with the knowledge that even the best of what look like the politically possible scenarios won’t bring about enough of a reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to prevent further warming.
We Christians can bring a different perspective to this situation, one of hope. There is the hope that if we pay attention to the signs, if we open our eyes to the reality unfolding right now and have compassion for those who stand to suffer the most from the effects of climate change, if we do all we can to live more responsibly and advocate for more responsible decisions from those in power, that we can live through this time with courage and hope, standing up with our heads raised high. Recognizing the profound severity of the problem is not the same as living without hope; our faith in the healing power of God’s love can empower us to find a way through this. When we learn to live in a way that makes life sustainable for all people and for all the living things that share this planet, we will find ourselves “further up and further in” as we journey into the reign of God.

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What are the expected effects of climate change on Nebraska and its wildlife? The Nebraska Wildlife Federation is holding a public forum tomorrow evening, December 1, at 6:30 on UNL’s East Campus to talk about the effect of climate change on wildlife and agriculture. More information is available from this article from the Lincoln Journal Star.

Giving Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our Thanksgiving holiday is a time when we Americans focus on being thankful for our blessings. Our tradition of gathering with family and friends for a big dinner on this day makes the blessings of family, friends, and food to eat some of the first that come to mind when we think about the things for which we are thankful.

My family usually gathers in Ohio at Thanksgiving time. Because I grew up in Ohio and first experienced the wonders of God’s creation here, I’m always thankful to be able to spend some time outdoors in my first “eco-location”. The reminder of those earliest experiences of wonder – the bird calls, the light in November, the particular sorts of trees and plants – are a reminder that no matter what our circumstances or where we go, there are some elemental things for which to be grateful. Even when we are far from “nature”, when we find ourselves in suburban sprawl or urban density, there are reminders of the beauty and wonder of God’s creation. The plain fact that we exist and that the world exists, that there is something rather than nothing, is the stuff of wonder.

Our diocesan Stewardship Commission is now called the Commission on Gratitude and Generosity, reflecting the spiritual importance of cultivating grateful hearts, which produce generous spirits. We cultivate grateful hearts by doing daily what the secular calendar calls us to do once a year: intentionally looking for the things in our lives for which we can be grateful.

As we cultivate grateful hearts, we find ourselves becoming more whole. Gratitude for the relationships we have with God, with other people, and with all of creation makes us more aware of the nature of these relationships and of the way God, human beings, and the rest of creation are interconnected. The generosity of spirit that results brings us to deeper love; it brings us to a more profound reverence toward God, a deeper compassion towards other people, and an expanded concern for the way we care for creation.

When we enter into the spirit of Thanksgiving, we become aware of our relationship with creation; we become aware of the impact of our choices on God’s creation, on the other people with whom we share our planet, and on our spiritual connection with our loving Creator God. And that's a wonderful thing to celebrate today and every other day of the year!