Second Sunday after Christmas: A New Beginning. Again

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The 12th day of Christmas

As I walk up Beverley Road, the wind is gusting so strong it almost takes my hat off. I stop at El Panaderia JPM so I can pick up a fresh rosca de reyes (Kings' bread) for after the service at Beverley.

Los roscas are ready

They are stacked high filling the bakery in preparation for the celebration of Three Kings Day: El dia de los tres reyes magos.  As I near the church, I'm happy to see Christmas decorations are still up. Inside, Preparations for worship are underway with Geraldine and Irina reviewing the service

Irina and Geraldine

and Evgeny as always doing any and everything needed. He feels a personal call to do what he can for this small faithful community.

The table is all prepared for communion.

The service begins and I am ready to preach. 

ready to preach

This was my reflection:

The table is ready

When I was growing up, Christmas was over on January 1st. We’d get up and watch the Mummers’ Parade from Philadelphia and later the the Tournament of Roses Parade from Pasadena. There were of course college football bowl games games, there were only 4 back in those days. We’d have dinner with my aunt…the last of the holiday cycle of meals fro my family. It was alway a pork roast and Latvian sauerkraut and applesauce. Then around halftime of the Rose Bowl, my dad would  start taking down the tree and that would be it. Thats a wrap, as they say. A week  or so later the local  paper would share its annual brief op ed reminding us of “Russian Christmas.” (Irina and Evgeny seem to enjoy that reference.)But January 1st, that was it for us.

In my life, I’ve tried to encourage others to celebrate all 12 days of Christmas. The frantic build up of what goes on in the world around us, the secular Christmas season, we might call it, has finally passed and I like the idea that we can hold on to the church’s celebration even as the stores are already moving on to Valentine's Day hearts. 

My world was pretty crazy the December. I usually have a tree trimming party the last week before Christmas. But not this year, I’d just about given up. But Christmas Eve I picked up a small tree and last night I had friends over for a “11th night of Christmas Party.” 

So that makes today the 12th day of Christmas, as the song says the for true loves to be giving and receiving "12 drummers drumming" and you know the rest…winding up with a "Partridge in a Pear Tree". And of course there's the the famous Shakespeare play…12th night used to be a major event in England. It used to be a big night for parties…with servants honored and masters serving...So today, maybe there’s one gift left for us to open.

First…what’s going on? Well a President who’s just been impeached has decided to up the ante with Iran by taking out the second most important political figure, Sort of the Iranian VicePresident  and military chief of staff all rolled into one. And we sit, holding our breath, not sure what is going to happen next and praying for peace. During the Hanukah season on three occasions there were deadly Anti-semitic incidents as people feel now freed to say and do the acts of open hatred they could not before. (Today at this very hour there’s a solidarity march across the Brooklyn Bridge…and Monday night there’s a rolling candlelight boil for peace beginning at 5 PM.) And of course we each have our own challenges in our own lives and families. 

And so we have this opportunity to begin. Again. You know the whole idea of NewYears’ resolutions has come under criticism as raising false expectations, etc., but I kind of like it. It's not a bad thing to review your life and decide to change some things, it might actually work. We should write  our list down and bring ft to church with us a year later and see how we did.

So I mentioned one more gift to unwrap. I’m talking about out gospel this morning,. The first chapter of John. And if you think about it, it’s John’s version of the Christmas story. John’s Jesus origin story as it were. And it starts not with a little baby, but with a Christ who is  there and has been there since the beginning of time and will be there until the end of tine. The very source and content  of the light that started shining at creation and continues to shine with, for and in us, even in the darkest times…for the darkness has not overcome it. 

So Christ’s time on earth is an interlude, for us a critically important time, but for him, just part of his reality. But there is this….And the Word became flesh and lived among us,….and from him we receive grace upon grace and grace and truth. Grace, because as it says... who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. Not our will, not our actions, not any decision, we are saved by God’s grace….

And he is truth. We live in a time when truth is an elusive quality that seems to change depending on who’s saying it and what they want. So if we want to know what is true, it has to come as seen through the lens of Christ. What would he see? What would he do? 

That last is important. We don’t do what is right to try and save ourselves. We do what is right because it is right. Because it is true. And just, as John tells us, we know God by what we see in Jesus, others will know Jesus by what the see in us.

So let us make our resolutions.  Let us continue to shine the Christmas light every day. Let us see the face of God in others and seek to show the face  of Jesus to those who see us. Let us take this opportunity for a new beginning, 

All the blessings of Christmas ..and a happy new year to you….

We share our communion together. There are announcements. the woman who we were going to visit with communion has died. We have two visitors from the nearby shelter. They'd like to have a Bible Study to come to. 

The service concludes and its time to go downstairs for another breaking of bread. I will share the Rosca.

Cutting the rosca and looking for Baby Jesus

And it turns out it's me who gets the baby Jesus in my piece, which I am happy to give to Geraldine. Christmas continues. Soon I will be back in the cold blustery wind again heading back to Manhattan. 

Christmas continues

Gospel John 1:(1-9) 10-18

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

6There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

10He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 1314And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. 15(John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”) 16From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

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.