Christmas Eve - Skip Windsor

Luke 2:1-20

The Roman Soldier

My sermon this year is dedicated to our troops in thanksgiving for those service men and women returning home from Iraq this holiday season and to remember those still serving in Afghanistan and in far away lands. This Christmas sermon is called “The Roman Soldier.”

“My name used to be Marcus Regulus a centurion in Rome’s 10th Legion. Some of us are preparing to leave this foreign land after nine years of service. The men are tired and battle wearied. The insurrections in Jerusalem have taken their toll. They all want to go home – except me.

There is uneasiness in my heart ever since we crucified the man they call Jesus a fortnight ago. There was something strange and terrifying that day. Rarely do the condemned speak from the cross; but Jesus did. When he said, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do,” it was like an arrow pierced me. It was as if he was speaking to me. I was frightened. He seemed to know me better than I knew myself.

Never before have I weakened against an enemy with axe or sword. I gave commands and I took commands. But here in the shadow of the cross, I knelt down and began to tremble in front of this naked vulnerable man. Then I just blurted it out. It came from some place deep in me when I said, “This is the Son of God!”

Some wall within me crumbled. All that I knew of the world – power, riches, fame and fortune – turned to ashes. The man on the cross who I now believed was the Messiah altered whatever illusions I had about my life, whatever myths I believed about life. This understanding did not come at once. It was when I heard him speak earlier to an older woman and young man at the foot of the cross, “Woman, behold your son.” I recognized the woman from somewhere in my past.

She was older now. Her hair was streaked with gray and she was fuller and rounder; and her face was a cascade of tears. “I know this woman!” I thought to myself. As I beheld how she looked at Jesus as only a mother can, I remembered. I remembered a night a long time ago when in my youth I was witness to a great star over my childhood home of Bethlehem.

Few know that I am from Bethlehem. The Romans believe I am from Britannia but I was born in Bethlehem. My parents died after I was born and so I was raised with my mother’s family who were shepherds. My given name then was Mark and I was filled with an eleven year old’s sense of wonder and curiosity.

One clear cold night while watching my uncle’s sheep with my cousin Jacob, we noticed a strange movement in the sky. The stars quickened and began to twist and turn like a wheel on a cart. I know you may not believe this but a large group of stars began to fuse together to form one great bright shining star.

There came with the spinning star a humming sound like bees in summer. There were voices singing and the word BEHOLD filled my head and other words, I BRING YOU GOOD NEWS resounded and echoed in me and around me. Suddenly there was a line of light – more like a bridge of light – coming from the great star down into Bethlehem.

Curiosity got the best of us. Jacob and I forgot our flock of sheep and followed the light into the town. There was an inn that seemed to be at the light’s end so I knocked on the door to see if anyone knew what was happening. A frightened voice growled back, “It’s late. There are no rooms left!” Jacob tugged at my tunic and pointed to the back of the inn where the light ended at a stable. We heard animal noises – cattle, sheep, and horses, even a donkey.

Coming closer to the stable we could hear the humming again. It was as if people, scores of people were singing. And there in the center of everything was the baby cradled in the arms of his mother. It was her face. It was this woman who I would see thirty years later at the foot of the cross.

Then she was younger, thinner, paler, but held the same dignity, the same, if I may say it, majesty. All I could do at that moment was kneel. Jacob did too. And we beheld the child as the humming voices continued to singing, “GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST AND PEACE TO HIS PEOPLE ON EARTH.”

How long we remained in the stable I cannot say. At first light we left as the father of the baby beckoned the mother that they must soon be on their way. It was not long after that King Herod issued a terrible order to find the first born of each family.

I did not know what it all meant; but when Herod’s storm troopers took my uncle away for questioning and beat up my cousin Jacob, I fled. I ran as far away from Bethlehem as I could. I was a coward and it would take the rest of my life to prove that I wasn’t.

I joined a caravan that brought me to the port town of Caesarea. There, I stowed away on a merchant ship bound for Britannica. While on board I was caught stealing food from the table of a tin merchant named Joseph who was from the Judean town of Arithmathea. He was a kindly man, who took pity on me and forgave me. Giving me to food to eat, Joseph allowed me to work as his servant for the rest of the voyage

In Britannica, Joseph introduced me to his trading partner, Arrius Regulus, who eventually took me in and raised me among his own children. My name was changed from Mark to the more Roman name of Marcus Regulus. In the Regulus household I learned about the glory of Rome and how it ruled the world. As I matured I forgot my past and looked forward to a life as a Roman citizen of this powerful Empire.

Still hungry for adventure and wanting to prove that I was not a coward I bid farewell to the Regulus family and when of age joined Rome’s famous 9th Legion. Over the next thirty years I proved a trusted and fearless warrior and rose easily through the ranks until I was promoted to centurion in charge of 100 Roman soldiers. There came a call for experienced centurions in Judea. Quick advancement was promised and I was more than glad to prove myself. Without hesitation, I joined the 10th Legion of Rome garrisoned in Jerusalem. There, I was promoted to primus, the first among equals.

Over the months I’ve been stationed in Jerusalem I heard stories of a promised messiah who came in the guise of a teacher from Nazareth who was doing deeds of power and teaching about another kingdom, a kingdom not of Rome but a Kingdom of God. The teacher spoke of the coming reign of God where all would be citizens of another kingdom whether they be slave or free, Jew or Gentile, male or female.

This kingdom, he preached about, would be one where the lion and the lamb would lie down together, where spears would be turned into pruning hooks. News of the carpenter’s son spread far and wide so that people from all over Judea followed him. That is when the authorities became frightened and thought he would start another insurrection; and so they arrested the teacher and sentenced him to death.

I do not like executions and leave that to more junior soldiers. But, I was asked by my superiors to have my men cover the perimeter of the hill called Golgotha. I thought it would be another routine punishment. But, listening to Jesus’ words of forgiveness and seeing his mother again, I realized that I was a witness at both his birth and his death. I kneeled for the second time in my life again near the mother and the son. By giving his life, he gave me my life. Now I know, it is not his death that lives within me now. It is his birth in Bethlehem.

At Jesus’ birth my name was Mark, a shepherd boy, filled with wonder and adventure. Here now in this place of unspeakable sorrow, I remembered the star, the humming and the singing, and I realized that I am more Mark now than I am Marcus. I remembered who I am and whose I was. Jesus’ birth changed everything. What was inside the stable was bigger than our whole world.

It is all so clear to me now. I believe a sure as I stand here that the Bethlehem we seek is around us and within us. The gift at Bethlehem is that the manger lies in every human heart.

Jesus is born again and again every time we give ourselves in compassion and mercy to others just as God gives us a life to live through his Son.

My troops are pulling out of Jerusalem now and heading west to Caesarea. I go north to Galilee. There are reports that Jesus did not die but rose from the dead and that he is alive appearing to his disciples in Galilee.

I must go and find him for he is my peace. And when I find him I will praise him for his goodness and mercy.

Go tell it on the mountain, over the fields and through the plain that one of God’s lost sheep returns to his fold all because of the child who became a king.”

Bless His Holy Name,

MARK of Bethlehem

Advent III - Skip Windsor

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

A Place to Stand

Time magazine recently asked several famous and well-known people to submit nominations for 2011’s Person of the Year. One of those asked was Jennifer Egan author of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad. She replied,

“I’ve been torn two ways and unable to choose between Occupy Wall Street and the democracy movements of the Middle East. So maybe the answer is even a broader idea: the year of the protest, fueled by individuals willing to risk personal safety to reject a status quo that is patently, brutally unfair. The final outcomes are in no way clear, but the fact that they’re happening in places as disparate as Wall Street and Libya is a defining moment in our history.”

As we close another year it is appropriate to look back on 2011 and remember those past global events that gave rise to the Arab Spring starting with a slap in the face of a pushcart vendor by a city official in Tunisia, the uprisings in Cairo’s Tahir Square, the fall of Libya’s long time dictator Gaddafi, to the Occupy Wall Street movement that stretched from Oakland to London. What they all have in common was the recognition by a large number of people, particularly by young people, who sought to have their voices heard and to have their dreams expressed. Perhaps, as Egan says what has occurred this past year may be a defining moment in our history.

I know for me that walking among the men and women at Occupy London this past October was a revelation. At one level, it seemed like something out of the 60’s when I went to protests partially out of curiosity and part out of being part of something bigger than myself. At another level, it was about sensing some societal tectonic plates shifting under my feet. Not sure what it all meant but I was positive that something powerful was moving beneath my feet or that the answer was blowing in the wind as the singing trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, would say.

From what I have heard from others about the Occupy Boston encampment there is a sense of the same kind of message about jobs and economic justice, for accountability and transparency, and for democracy and equal opportunity. The criticisms of the occupation both here and everywhere these past two months are justified and well stated about security, health, property rights, and infringement on others. Mayor Menino of Boston orchestrated Friday night’s police evacuation of Occupy Boston with reasonableness, thoughtfulness, and patience. Unlike other cities, the police of Boston and the occupiers of Boston both handled a situation that could have had disastrous consequences.

The Mayor is to have said, “I’ve met a lot of these guys, and they are sincere. But in this sabbatical they’re about to have, I hope they come up with a strong leader and a strong agenda.” As I have reflected upon Friday night’s closing down of Occupy Boston I become more intrigued with the Mayor’s use of the word sabbatical. It is essentially a religious word meaning Sabbath or day of rest and is one of the Ten Commandments for keeping a Sabbath day holy. I wonder if the Mayor and the police had that in mind as they observed the remaining crowd disperse into the darkness early Saturday morning.

The occupiers are now on sabbatical according to the Mayor. Dewey Square is clear and cordoned off for a month. Like any of us who take sabbaticals they will take time off, reflect upon their experience, recharge their batteries, and look forward to returning to their work and witness. In a sense, it is appropriate that the OWS has time to reflect, plan and anticipate what happens next. For Advent is the precise time to reflect and prepare for what is coming next.

In our Hebrew lesson this morning the prophet Isaiah speaks about a sabbatical being the time of the Lord’s favor referencing Israel’s understanding of Jubilee when slaves were freed, debts cancelled and land redistributed. The year of Jubilee was the seventh – sabbatical - year to free those in bondage, those who were brokenhearted, and those who were oppressed. This coming of a sabbatical was rooted in their sacred texts:

“Remember you were a slave in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you: for this reason I lay my hand upon you” (Deut. 15:12-18). The coming of a sabbatical and the year of Jubilee commenced a time of God’s favor when human misfortune was reversed and a new beginning was proclaimed and realized.

The season of Advent for Christians is to prepare us for that time of Jubilee when God in Christ appears to redress injustice and inequity and to bring forth God’s reign of peace and dignity for all people. The discipline of Advent is to remember that God’s ways are not our ways and that God’s future will be very different from the present time.

I believe you and I are given an opportunity this Advent to reflect upon this year of protests and what it might mean for the world and for the Christian Church. At issue is not only addressing the major economic and political concerns of our generation, it is also about mending broken relationships and the breakdown of community into categories of them and us. The polarities between nations, the polarities between political parties, the polarity between the churches is the gathering darkness that must be faced and fought.

It seems to me that in the bleakness of such discord God comes among us to do something new and unexpected. I believe that the protesters of the Arab Spring and the OWS movement are telling us something that you and I need to pay attention to especially when it has to do with democracy, freedom, and justice.

And although I do not know or spent time with the Occupy Boston people others I know have; and it seems to me that when groups of people leave behind everything for a dream there is more at stake than ideology.

One person who was skeptical at first of OWS is the Episcopal priest and writer, Donna Schaper, whose church is in lower Manhattan near Zucotti Park, which is where the occupiers were encamped.

She writes in her blog that as a group of Episcopal clergy met with about a dozen occupiers she noticed “as they edged towards the theological they articulated a need for communal, inspirational, face-to-face contact in which they could ‘appear’ to one another.”

She concludes her blog by writing, “In the end, the occupiers’ argument for physical space is that they bother people by being together. ‘We are driving the mayors crazy they said.” Then Schaper writes, “Ah. What a good thing for a movement to do.”

When I walked among the women and men, boys and girls of Occupy London, the last week in October, I saw both the old and the young, rich and poor, homeless and propertied, British and foreign. All were welcomed. We were offered food to eat. Next to the tents the doors of St. Paul’s Cathedral were closed to the public. One door opened and one door closed. I thought to myself, “Right now, for the moment, I belong here among people I have never met before and will never see again more than over in that historic church.”

And as I stood there with my wife among a motley mix of people I realized how important it is that we are able to appear to one another in our common humanity. We not only need one another but we need a place to stand with one another. I think this is what this year of protest is all about. It is for people to have a place to stand.

Turning away from St. Paul’s I saw a group of men squatting on makeshift stools talking outside of one of tents. They could have been anywhere and everywhere from Tahir Square to Dewey Square. And as I looked at them and then beyond them to the vast and various multicolored tents and heard a cacophony of voices, all I could think about was the famous quote by John Donne, the famous Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, centuries ago:

“No one is an island entire to itself; everyone is a piece of the continent a part of the main… anyone’s death diminishes me, because I am involved with all; therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

Advent II - Myra Anderson

Come, Lord Jesus, quickly come.

Good Morning. This Second Sunday in Advent, in the 2011th year of our Lord, I have a confession to make:

I am not a good housekeeper.

My house isn’t dirty, it’s just messy. I admit it.

It is exactly one year’s worth of accumulated detritus.

Why one year? Because this is the time of year that I go on a mad frenzy to discard copious amounts of stuff and put everything back in order. My rule is, I must de-clutter before I can decorate for Christmas. Few things give me greater joy than preparing my home for the Christmas season. The reward for my efforts is great indeed.

In today’s Gospel, I’m fairly certain John the Baptist in his locust-infested hair shirt didn’t have 21st century housekeeping in mind.

The Gospel of Mark begins with a promising statement:

“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

Good news! Who couldn’t use some Good News these days?

But wait, there’s a pre-amble. Mark takes us back to the prophet Isaiah:

“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

‘Prepare the way of the Lord, MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT.’”

In other words: we have the promise of the Good News, but we have some work to do first.

We often think of the Season of Advent as one of patient anticipation. We encourage each other to find quiet moments in the chaos, to reflect on the wonder of the season, blah, blah…

Today’s Gospel and Epistle are anything but quiet. There is a sense of urgency. Mark, via John the Baptist, calls us to action, and Peter in his epistle tells us the day of the Lord will come like a thief. God is patient with us, but he’s still coming.

John the Baptist, as God’s advance man, is calling on God’s people to repent of their sins, and baptizing them in water to wash those sins away.

Repentance: THAT is our task for Advent. Clean your house. And not just once a year, unfortunately for some of us. Peter tells the early Christians they are to strive to lead lives of “holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God.” We have a role in bringing that day about, God expects us to get busy.

We revisit this story every year at Advent. So this is an on-going ritual, this practice of repentance. Our baptisms years ago didn’t cleanse us once and for all. Life intervenes, and often. Every day stresses or extraordinary events tend to pull us away from God.

And repentance is not about guilt, or at least, it’s more than that. The original Greek word is “metanoias” – meaning a change of mind or direction. It’s not just ritual confession and absolution every week. Mark and Peter are telling us that we have to change our behavior, change our way of thinking, change the world around us, if we are to make the Lord’s path straight and usher in His Kingdom.

As Christians we often look at our lives as a journey, one we take together to help each other find the way. We can look at this call to repentance as a sort of mid-course correction. And we will have many along the way.

It brings to mind the GPS system in my car. Let’s call her Siri. When you put in your destination, Siri finds the best way for you to reach your goal (in theory – let’s just go with it for now). But let’s be honest: if it’s a long trip, things are likely to go awry. You’re going to run into road blocks, traffic jams, and if you’re a man, you’re going to be sure you know a short cut.

So you deviate. And what does Siri do, in that slightly seductive voice that’s meant to be comforting, but is actually annoying?

“Recalculating…”

And have you ever noticed, she doesn’t always set a new route. She often leads you back to the original path. “Turn right, turn right, turn right…” and lo and behold, you’re on the highway again. Or she finds another route to get you to your destination, if you’ve strayed too far.

But ultimately, it’s about reaching your destination.

And our journey is ultimately about ushering in the Kingdom of God. That’s our destination as Christians.

John the Baptist tells us about Jesus, “I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” We celebrate the baby on the 25th of this month, we commemorate the beginning, but it’s really about the end. It’s the baptism by the fire of the Holy Spirit that prepares us for what Peter calls the “new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.”

We know from Mark’s opening proclamation something really good is happening. Peter’s epistle tells us to wait with penitence and hope. It’s not too late he says. God’s grace is there for all who seek it and accept it.

Good news already, I’d say.

May we all take this season to examine fully the course of our lives, and to seek those mid-course corrections that allow us to receive the fire of the Holy Spirit, reach out to the world around us, and make straight the path of our Lord.

Come, Lord Jesus, quickly come.