Second Sunday After Christmas/Epiphany:......WORD.......

1/3/16

The gifts of the Magi

I arrive at church ready to wait for Pat and Larry to arrive and decorate only to be surprised that the stage is already set. Dion apparently stayed after Antigona finished last night and set things up.  And I breathe a little easier. 

The stage is set

We are small again. But it lifts my spirits to see Eric from the Noche family back again.

After reading the story of the Magi in Matthew, I share my own little bottles of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Remember past celebrations of El Dia de los Tres Reyes Magos in this place.  And after singing We Three Kings, it’s time for reflection.

We are three days into the new year. I’m guessing more than a few resolutions bit the dust already….but we’re still at THE BEGINNING….as we are every year at this time…a new beginning…so John 1 is a good place to BEGIN…

In the beginning was the WORD…echoes Genesis 1….God says it and it IS….

What does that mean?

For my kids' generation, when someone  says something you agree with, the response is WORD…I have a friend in Washington Heights…down the street from the Presbyterian Deli, I love that….she’s on the board of a coop called WORD UP Bookstore…they tutor, they do workshops, open mics, readings…a completely community based store. As for WORD UP,  it means I totally comprehend what you’re saying, doing…in Greek, it’s almost the same, logos....the ultimate inherently visible  logical reality….

In open mics now we have singers and we have spoken WORD…which is poetry or story or improve or rap without music…like my friend Joel Gold with his 1950’s beat improv…and our man Dion does spoken WORD…stand up, another form

John says, In the beginning was the WORD….

If Christmas is about incarnation, John’s Christmas story is about the WORD becoming FLESH….a WORD that is LIGHT in the darkness….

We speak about the Bible as the Word of God…and Jesus is the living WORD….

What am I up to here?

In my tradition, I’m now called a Teaching Elder…I used to be called a minister of WORD and Sacrament…when I preach I bring the WORD…

We Protestants tend to think in didactic ways…we tend to use music and art  to illustrate the WORD, like pictures in a children’s Bible…but in  fact, a work of art is its own WORD…

Something like Noche’s Antigona doesn't illustrate anything, it simply is. It is it’s own WORD to be in dialogue with the Bible’s WORD or my WORD…and when you see Soledad dance, it doesn't symbolize anything…like you can't take a painting and say, What does this part here mean?  It just IS…You see Soledad dance and all you can say is YES…or, as the kids say, WORD…WORD is given, TRUTH is told.

Which is why it’s appropriate to epiphany…literally

·    Epiphany means: a Christian festival held on January 6 in honor of the coming of the three kings to the infant Jesus Christ or…

·    : a moment in which you suddenly see or understand something in a new or very clear way

You see, it’s the same thing…you SEE something and all of a sudden you GET It…like a light switch goes on…

That’s what it was with Jesus apparently…..people saw it….they got it

St. Francis said ….preach often, use words when necessary

When I see you, I see the WORD. When Dion visits with the homeless people or John walks Rachel home or when Kate and Hope and Marsha serve a meal at a shelter….you see it, you know it….

That’s what I long for, ache for …to be a community that is a living WORD…that when seen is like an epiphany where we see what is is to be WORD…

And that my friends, is  my word for today.

And for our offertory, I play, what else:

                                                                        The WORD

We will pray. And celebrate Eucharist, another visible WORD.  We will hear a WORD of peace, and then out into the world…

"The Word"

Say the word and you'll be free
Say the word and be like me
Say the word I'm thinking of
Have you heard the word is love?
It's so fine, it's sunshine
It's the word, love

In the beginning I misunderstood
But now I've got it, the word is good

Spread the word and you'll be free
Spread the word and be like me
Spread the work I'm thinking of
Have you heard the word is love?
It's so fine, it's sunshine
It's the word, love

Everywhere I go I hear it said
In the good and bad books that I have read

Say the word and you'll be free
Say the word and be like me
Say the word I'm thinking of
Have you heard the word is love?
It's so fine, it's sunshine
It's the word, love

Now that I know what I feel must be right
I'm here to show everybody the light

Give the word a chance to say
That the word is just the way
It's the word I'm thinking of
And the only word is love
It's so fine, it's sunshine
It's the word, love

Say the word, love
Say the word, love
Say the word, love
Say the word, love

The Word Became Flesh

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. ⁴ In him was life,^[a] and the life was the light of men. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

⁶ There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. ⁸ He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

⁹ The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. ¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. ¹¹ He came to his own,^[b] and his own people^[c] did not receive him. ¹² But to all who did receive him,who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, ¹³ who were born,not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. ¹⁵ (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) ¹⁶ For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.^[d] 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God; the only God,^[e] who is at the Father's side,^[f] he has made him known.

Seeing Antigona again....

8/4

ANTIGONA

It’s been a very hot day and a day long struggle with the steps.  Alcohol is taking its toll. The older Latino man, stripped to the waist, barefoot, sitting and drinking from an open rum bottle, his eyes, liquid, beyond bloodshot to almost bleeding, mournful tears pouring down.  I tell him he can’t sit there drinking.  He points awkwardly to the two sisters sitting further down. Y ellas, alla…porque?  Because they are not drinking, I say.

Later, the main door is occupied by the man who reminds me of the evil twin of the man who used to be featured on the Uncle Ben’s rice box. Also stripped to the waist and drunk. I am relieved  when Dion arrives for his preshow set up work and helps me move people along.

                                                               ****

Tonight will be my last chance to see Antigona before leaving for Ireland tomorrow.  There are fans and iced down water to keep people cool in the heat. Since review after review has been positive, crowds have been building nightly.  Sold out every night.  But sadly, this one week extension will be it. Professional commitments and family concerns of cast members demand that much of the cast will be returning to Spain. Most disappointed is Soledad who is discovering more of Antigona every performance. She more and more is Antigona. She and Martin had wanted an extended run, especially because so many neighbors who want to see the show won’t return to the city until after Labor Day. Saturday the 15^th will be the final performance.

Something magical happens tonight. Even though I have seen the show countless times,  from the scenes at the Joyce theatre to preview performances at the University of Pennsylvania to the showcase performances at the Pearl to now the fully staged production here at West-Park, it continues to grow, evolve, become, not just Soledad, but the entire cast.

And tonight, it’s all there. No more awkward transitions, it’s almost seamless from scene to scene with an organic and emotional logic. No more sense of flawed wonder. The drama and emotion build and build. Every time you think Soledad has reached her peak, she comes back higher and deeper. Until finally, hair hanging sweat soaked, eyes burning with intensity, defiant and vulnerable, she stares down life itself fiercely embracing its beauty and declaring her agency in the face of the abyss. She, not Creon, not fate, is in control of her destiny.

 And it is the small details I notice, the open smile as she and Haemon share one last dance of love.  As if in that moment, this is enough to redeem. And at the performance’s conclusion, she comes to the center of the stage and gently lifts the chastened, broken Creon, sharing  a look of compassion. (My brother the English teacher maintains Creon is the tragic center of the play.) In that one simple gesture, a suggestion of possible redemption.  And tonight at that moment, I am brought to tears. My breath taken away. And speechless. One of those moments where for just a moment, you see truth. Which is the only purpose of art.

I was asked by someone if I could write an essay on the Christian meaning, the Gospel interpretation of  Antigona. I said No. In theology, we deal in the Word. Our scripture is a word. Jesus is a living word. Those words are their own expression. Art exists not to serve those words, not to be a handmaid, as my friend says, not to illustrate like a children’s Bible.  Art is its own word, seeking to reveal truth. This production of Antigona explores  a host of issues, social-political, spiritual, emotional, but ultimately it is life itself, and the truth revealed in the living of that  life that is at stake. And in that process, the word that is artistic expression is in dialogue with not in service to our words.

That is why this production of Antigona with its intelligence, its competence, its passion and transcendence belongs in a sanctuary. Our sanctuary.

I will visit with my friends. Try to say this. And I will visit Soledad and tell her it is dificil para entender que es possible a ir arriba y arriba….impossible as it seems, she has gone higher and higher.

And for this, I am thankful.

                                                            ****

Tomorrow I will visit with Rudy, seeking a way to bring his work back to West-Park. And then off to Ireland.