Sunday
January 3
Faith in Flesh and Bone
By Marsh Chapel
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10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own,[a] and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
14 And the Word became flesh and (dwelt) among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son,[b] 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.’”) 16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son,[c] who is close to the Father’s heart,[d] who has made him known.
Preface
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
Christmas at a social distance need not be Christmas at a spiritual distance. Hear the good news. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. There is a physicality at the dawn of faith, through the echoes of faith, welling up in the gift of faith. There is a physique to faith, your faith, the faith of the church, the faith which has seized us and seizes us still, a faith in flesh and bone. As Paul Lehmann taught us long ago: God is at work in the world to make and keep human life human. God is at work in the world to make and keep human life human. God works through people, through human agency. Incarnation, poetically and wondrously pronounced in John 1, reminds us so, and recalls to us the lasting power of human agency, people, like you, God’s people at work in the world. God’s work must truly be our own. There are many who will scoff at human agency: ‘uh oh, oh no, go slow, veto’. Not you. You know you can make a difference for the good, the true, and the beautiful. YES YOU CAN. Your prayer is that of Howard Thurman. Your motto is that of John Wesley. Your carol is that of his brother Charles.
Howard Thurman:
When the Song of the Angels Is Stilled
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and the princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.
John:
Do all the good you can.
By all the means you can.
In all the ways you can.
In all the places you can.
At all the times you can.
To all the people you can.
As long as ever you can.”
Charles:
Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,
born that we no more may die,
born to raise us from the earth,
born to give us second birth.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the new born King!”
All the theological poetics we can muster, all the poetical theology we can risk, all the words set to music and music made for words, all the musical words, all verbal music, all, and more, that we can find and more than all that we can shape, we shall need, this Christmastide Sunday, and every Sunday through 2021, to herald the gospel, the faith of flesh and bone, the physicality of faith.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
Light A Candle
We have never been far from academia—Colgate, Syracuse, Ohio Wesleyan, Columbia, Cornell, McGill, Lemoyne, University of Rochester, now BU.
Our friend Bob worked at Syracuse University for four decades. He and his wife Connie started coming to our church out of an old family connection, on her side, and because his Boy Scout troop met in the building, on his side. She was an architect, community leader, financial developer, and outgoing spirit. He was quiet, kind, soulful, and real. You could swap stories with him about Eagle Scout courts of honor, about trading neckerchiefs at the National Jamboree, about Philmont Scout Ranch and the Tooth of Time.
Bob worked in a small office on campus. We will need some archaeological tools to describe his life’s labor. He supported students who needed AV and other equipment. In the chaos of his little nest, he could find for you all manner of treasures: carbon paper, white out, typewriter ribbon, film strip projectors, carousel slide projectors, screens, amplifiers, ditto paper, pens and pencils, and virtually anything else you, dear student, might need, some decades ago, for your class presentation due in two hours, due early tomorrow morning, due in 10 minutes. In the joyful freedom of pastoral ministry, as that church grew, the minister could go and visit Bob, and watch the nearly endless stream of orphaned students stampeding their way to his little room. He didn’t hector them: your lack of planning is not my personal crisis…proper planning prevents poor performance…be punctual and do everything at the appointed hour. No. He just helped. He just quietly and joyfully helped. One winter a middle-aged former minister, working on another master’s degree, came by to speak about Bob: “I watch him. He is salt and light. He would give you the shirt off his back. He is there for students.”
On weekends he took his scout troop to be enveloped in the natural world, usually deep into the Adirondacks. There he taught a love of the created order, a respect for the history of places, and the rudiments of leadership: ‘affirm in public, criticize in private’, and other lasting truths. Big eyes covered by big glasses, a big smile, and silent except for laughter. He never bought a thing on credit. Not his house, not his car, not his camping gear. He taught his four children that same frugality.
Connie predeceased him by some years, but until Bob died a few winters ago, one could know and smile to think that at least one Christian walked the earth, in the shadow of the Carrier Dome.
As we were trying to get that urban churching rolling, we one year arranged a December dish to pass dinner. We sang some carols, maybe 100 of us or so. We had asked three of our people just to tell a Christmas story, as our fairly humble program that snow-covered evening. Bob’s was the last.
As a 20-year-old he had gone to England, as part of a bomber crew in or about 1941. During our own national and international upheaval, pandemic 2021, we may want to recall stories and courage from his generation. He told us, simply, about being away from home for the first time. About having a photo of his girlfriend, Connie. About his mom and dad and sister. He said that his only thought was to hope that he would see them all once more. Connie. His Mom. His Dad. His sister. “I would like to get home alive”. This was his prayer, as it is for some in hospital today. Christmas came, but the service men were not allowed any decorations. No candles on land that might be lit and so shine and so guide enemy bombers. Bob noticed that their rations came in cardboard boxes with a coating of paraffin on them. So, when he had time, he would sit in front of Connie’s picture, that December, and using his scout knife he would peel off the paraffin, storing it in a number 10 can. By Christmas Eve Bob had enough for three candles, each with a short wick made of shoestring in the middle. That night as plane after the plane took off, he set up a little table in the rear fuselage. Flying home, as they leveled off, he and the crew, except for the pilot, gathered at the little table. He was afraid maybe the paraffin wouldn’t work. But after a while, all three candles were lit, burning now in the dark sky over the cliffs of Dover and over the English Channel. After a long silence, one of the men recited a psalm. Then they said the Lord’s prayer. Bob prayed his hope to get home. Then together, without much singing talent and without any practice, they quietly sang a carol, ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Glory to the Newborn King’. “I would like to get home alive”, Bob said, as the candles dimmed, flickered and went out.
From that personal Christmas remembrance, we all caught a glimpse of the origins of Bob’s matured humility, kindness, and integrity. His faith in flesh and bone.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
Faith is a Walk in the Dark
Before Jesus there was John, before the Christ there was the Baptist. Jesus was a contemporary of John. John prepared the way for Jesus. As we listen with word and music, perhaps we can ponder the power of faith in flesh and bone.
Before Christmas there is Advent, before the incarnation is the anticipation. The feast of Christmas, so this Lord’s day, comes after the penitence of Advent. The joy of birth comes after the anxiety of expectation. As we listen with word and music, today let us ponder the mystery of faith in flesh and bone.
Before tradition there is event, before understanding there is experience. The rolling voice of the Baptist is the event through which we each year pass in order to come to our understanding of Christmas, this Christmastide Sunday.
Before Matthew there was Mark, before teaching there was preaching, before catechesis there was kerygma. We will listen this year, 2021, mostly to Mark. Last year, Matthew, this year, Mark. Matthew is an interpreter of Mark. Mark is the model for Matthew. As we listen with word and music, perhaps we can ponder the power of change, especially for those living outside.
Before John the Gospel there was John the prologue to the Gospel, John 1, our reading today, wherein the Baptist gives way to the Christ:
Seasoned Religion said that the end was near. John says the beginning is here.
Earlier Religion saw the end of the world. John preached the light of the world.
Inherited spirituality waited for the future coming of the Lord. John celebrated the Word among us, full of grace and truth.
Earlier Religion feared death, judgment, heaven and hell, in the by and by. John faced them all in every day.
Seasoned Religion clung fiercely to an ancient untruth. John let go, and accepted a glorious new truth, and hugged grace and freedom.
Our inheritance, and Matthew and Mark and Luke and Paul and all looked toward the End, soon to come. But John. John looked up at the beginning, already here. They said with Shakespeare, “All’s well that ends well”. John replied, gut begonnen hap gebonnen, “well begun is half done”.
John alone had the full courage to face spiritual disappointment and move ahead. So, we memorize 8:32: You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free!
We face the need to change from inherited untruth to new insight and imagination. New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth; one must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.
Truth: faith in flesh and bone.
Truth, at Christmas, outside, in the cold, at night, in a manger. Outside, as communities of color, needing but fearing some of their neighborhood police, both needing and fearing their own police, in the year of Taylor, Arbery, Floyd, Hill and others. Outside, as those along the borders, sometimes, without principle and without apology, stripped of their children. Outside, hunting for a meal, with children in tow. Outside, with employment lost, bereft of purpose or place or position or power. Outside, fearing, fearing pollution and pandemic and politics and prejudice and pain. Outside, and without, even, the indoor beauty of a church, or the indoor beauty of a choir, or the indoor beauty of a gathered and loving congregation, a truly addressable community. El Greco best painted the incarnation, worn fingers and bowed heads, and wrinkled brows, and outdoor clothing, shepherds abiding, abiding, abiding. All, and all, at a Christmas social distance. Incarnation comes, into a world of hurt. Faith in flesh and bone.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
The Holy Scripture assumes a multi-generational perspective, no more so than in the narratives of Christmas. Real change takes a long time, generations of time, when it comes at all. Do you remember what you were confronted with a generation ago? For some of us, another December in that same Syracuse neighborhood, 32years ago, it was the sudden announcement on a bitter snowy night, to a stunned basketball crowd in the Carrier Dome, that a plane with many of our own neighborhood students, our own Syracuse University students, and students from other regions including Boston, had crashed in Lockerbie Scotland. The portent of that moment in 1988 eluded us, eluded all, but it was a harbinger of the struggles of the next thirty years, in one limited, horror and tragedy. 182 passengers died; 270 in total died; 35 students from SU died, and some from other Universities, including one from Boston University. A few days ago, as this sermon was gestating, a newscast recast that moment, noting ongoing legal challenges, and retelling the story of Lockerbie. It brought back that night, and the silent 30,000 in the Dome, after the game, and the walk home. Over the hill and through the cemetery where now both my parents have since been buried, side by side. Through the dark and cold, wind and snow. The darkness of sin. The cold of death. The snowfall of the threat of meaninglessness. Sin, death, the threat of meaninglessness. To trod through these, again in 2021, we shall need some faith, faith in flesh and bone. Faith to face and face up to the mystery of death, the tenacity of sin, the bitter temptation of meaninglessness. Maybe the challenge of the year past, in manifold dimensions, has been just this.
Coda
All the theological poetics we can muster, all the poetical theology we can risk, all the words set to music and music made for words, all the musical words, all verbal music, all, and more, than we can find and more than all that we can shape, we shall need this Christmastide Sunday, to herald the gospel, the faith of flesh and bone, the physicality of faith. We shall need the flesh and bone of ordinary grace, to live the daily truth of faith.
And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
Speaking of such. A friend, Kerry Loughman, recently wrote: “Hope you and your family are well in this crazy, COVID time. I have a small poem for you… We live opposite a Brookline elementary school in Coolidge Corner and every day these children were my daily blessing. I watched from my third-floor window all last spring and into the summer. “
Every afternoon, around four,
a wheeled flock of boys
flies down my city street
on bikes, scooters, skateboards,
more skilled than scared, and
raucous with it. Contrapuntal
eurhythmic beats play concrete
sidewalk sections ’til they dare
to launch off curbs, catching air,
helmet plumage drafting down,
fledging into a new reality.
Masked avengers, they swoop
into games of capture and release;
capture the invisible flag,
release time’s arrested breath,
spread mojo on all our viral fears.
Circuitous flights around the school,
capture and release of joy.
They go round and round:
a circumlocution of boys.
‘Capture and Release’, by Kerry Loughman
10.08.2020
A circumlocution of boys.
In a moment we will hear again the ancient liturgy for eucharist. We are not together to receive together the bread and cup. But we are together in relationship, by memory, in hope, through prayer. And with a little imagination, with eyes closed and hearts open, we might allow the familiar, ancient prayers of communion, to bring us into communion.
So, travel with a little imagination…Imagine Eucharist at Marsh Chapel. Stand to sing… Pause to reflect… Step out into the aisle… Look at and look past Abraham Lincoln and Francis Willard…Receive cup and bread, bread and cup… Kneel at the altar to pray… Stand in communion with the communion of saints…Here is the bread and cup of friendship…Imagine, if you are willing, your own funeral, say right here, and a congregation reciting together a creed, a psalm, a hymn, a poem. Imagine, if you are willing, a congregation currently in diaspora, but just now, by the word spoken, a gathered and thus addressable community, you and I and all together.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel
