{"id":1219,"date":"2020-12-13T07:59:14","date_gmt":"2020-12-13T12:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/?p=1219"},"modified":"2020-12-13T07:59:20","modified_gmt":"2020-12-13T12:59:20","slug":"this-is-the-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/2020\/12\/13\/this-is-the-day\/","title":{"rendered":"This Is The Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor \u2022 \u00a9 2020 All Rights Reserved<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Third Sunday in Advent\/B \u2022 December 13, 2020<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11<\/a> \u2022 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24<\/a> \u2022 John 1:6-8, 19-28<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

“There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John.” I wonder how often we consider the wonder of this simple phrase. We sit down to hear the gospel story; we anticipate with eagerness the whole great song of celebration in which God is recreating the world and us right along with it. This is God at work, the God Archibald MacLeish describes as\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God the Creator of the Universe!
God who hung the world in time!…
God the maker: God Himself!
Remember what he says? \u2014
the hawk Flies by his Wisdom!\u00a0<\/p>Archibald MacLeish, JB<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

We come like anyone comes to a familiar comedy: for the Greeks defined a comedy: a play where everything turns out happily. God the Creator the protagonist and then: a person\u2014a man named John. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What a wonder!\u2014 over and over again, the same beginning. If fairy tales start, \u201conce upon a time\u201d, Gospel begins: \u201cthere was a person sent from God\u201d. Always someone, always some one person, always some individual endowed with God\u2019s spirit, who cannot contain the laughter of God\u2019s love. So it was then; so it is today: there was a man sent from God, there was a person sent whose heart quickened, whose spirit soared because they could truly say, \u201cThe Spirit of the Lord is upon me.\u201d Say it with me: \u201cThe Spirit of the Lord is upon me\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the heart of Christmas, and it\u2019s why the details of the creche are so important. Long ago, Pogo said, \u201cWe have met the enemy and he is us\u201d\u2014 at the manger, we meet the shepherds and Mary and Joseph and they are us, they are ordinary people who bear an extraordinary grace because the Spirit of the Lord is upon them. I\u2019m not jumping ahead, but see, look: it\u2019s always the same, it\u2019s ordinary people, shepherds, teachers, young women, old men, a man sent to baptize, you and I and Isaiah over and over: the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Say it with me: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. It\u2019s what our baptism means; it\u2019s what our presence here means. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the result? What is the hope? What is the reason for God\u2019s spirit to come and wash over us like a wave rolling off the Sound when we\u2019re wading? Isaiah says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor….
…to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the LORD\u2019s favor\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Good news to the poor, healing for the brokenhearted, freedom for captives, release for prisoners, these are the reasons God anoints people like us with the Spirit. Isn\u2019t that where joy lives, in doing just these things?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One evangelist described his mother as love personified. He said that once he found her sitting at a table with a poor man, a homeless man, She\u2019d seen him when she was out shopping and invited him home for a meal. He said, \u201cI wish there were more people like you in the world\u201d, and she replied, \u201cOh there are, but you must look for them\u201d. And he shook his head and said, \u201cLady, I didn\u2019t need to look for you, you were looking for me.\u201d We spend hours looking for presents; God calls us to look for the lost, as God looked for us, and to be gospel to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is how Gospel begins: there was a person sent from God. Isaiah says, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion \u2014
to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe oil of gladness\u201d: that phrase captured me this week. Ancient sailors learned that in a choppy, confused sea, pouring out oil would sometimes calm the sea. Later, in a land like Israel where water was scarce, perfumed oil was rubbed on the skin as preparation for celebration. This passage is imagining a complete transformation of a life. It\u2019s picturing someone wrapped in the black cloths of mourning, taking them off, taking t he black headdress off, and being washed clean with the oil of gladness, ready for a crown, ready for a garment of praise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do we learn to do such things? We begin by choosing which Jesus we will follow. It\u2019s Advent season, it\u2019s almost Christmas and we are entranced with the baby Jesus. We sing songs about him; we display an image of him, we talk about him. We are comfortable with babies: they lay in our arms and most of us have figured out some things to do that comfort them. We like baby Jesus; we enjoy his smile, we sing about his laugh and one song even says he doesn\u2019t cry. If the song is wrong, of course, we know we can always stick a pacifier in his mouth and shut him up. Baby Jesus is safe; baby Jesus demands only that we cuddle him before we get on with the real business of life. Like doting aunts and uncles, we can visit baby Jesus at this time of year, ooh and ahh over him, get him something nice and then leave. Baby Jesus is the end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the gospel is not about baby Jesus;. The gospel is about God entering the world and inviting us, anointing us, calling us, through the man Jesus. The man Jesus is the visible symbol of that call and he has this to say: \u201cFollow me\u201d. Baby Jesus lies there waiting for us to come; the man Jesus marches on and hopes we will trail after. We come to baby Jesus at the end of a long journey, like the three kings of the orient in the song; the man Jesus is always starting us over, first as disciples, then as apostles and evangelists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baby Jesus is a visit to a stable; the man Jesus is a life in the world, challenged by all the darkness, endlessly lighting the candles of love. Baby Jesus is a moment; the man Jesus is a lifetime, a life lived from the simple word Isaiah said, \u201cThe Spirit of the Lord is on me.\u201d Jesus is a summons to go out and pour the oil of gladness on the troubled waters of a dark world. Jesus is an invitation to take seriously God\u2019s purpose for you; to live understanding that you are not your own, that you have a Lord and a Creator who made you for something, some purpose that you and only you can fulfill.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There it is again: the same theme over and over, one person, you, me, anyone, prayerfully living, anointed with God Spirit, becomes the means of comfort, becomes the seed that grows into a great and fierce joy. Here is where Christmas starts; here is where Christ comes in. It is when we realize Christmas is the beginning of the story of the man Jesus. It is  when we prayerfully live day to day, looking for ways to share God\u2019s love, hoping for ways to share God\u2019s grace. It is when we take seriously the single, stunning, surprise that it is not someone else, prophet, priest, or king, not pastor or deacon, not neighbor or stranger alone but ourselves who are anointed, ourselves who are the bearers of God\u2019s spirit. It is when our lives say, \u201cThe Spirit of the Lord is upon me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do we find that voice? How do we hear it? It comes from the fierce joy of the coming Christmas. It\u2019s the voice with which Paul says in his letter to the Thessalonians, \u201cRejoice always.\u201d This is a hard time to rejoice. We all I\u2019ve in the shadow of a great threat. Many have friends who are sick, family members who have died. We constantly calculate safety: can I have lunch with a friend? What do we do about gathering for Christmas? The key is what he says next:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rejoice always,
pray without ceasing,
give thanks in all circumstances<\/p>1 Thessalonians 5:17ff<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Gratitude gives God a way into our heart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For weeks, we\u2019ve been hearing Jesus say in one way or another, \u201cWatch!\u201d Now many are suggesting a sort of generalized gratitude as a way of finding peace. But Paul doesn\u2019t have something general in mind, he understands that gratitude needs a recipient. When we give thanks to God, our hearts open to the Spirit of God. Some do this in words; some write a gratitude journal. Sometimes simply being honest when you don\u2019t feel grateful can be liberating. A friend wrote in a memoir about how his father always offered a prayer at beginning\u00a0 \u201cThis is the day that the Lord has made.\u201d One day when he was a boy, he said he looked at dinner, didn\u2019t like it and said out loud, \u201cThis is the day that the skunks have made!\u201d This may be the day that the skunks have made but when we look within it, we can find little joys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anne Sexton\u2019s poem, \u201cWelcome Morning\u201d expresses this perfectly. She says,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is joy
in all:
in the hair I brush each morning,
in the Cannon towel, newly washed,
that I rub my body with each morning,
in the chapel of eggs I cook
each morning,
in the outcry from the kettle
that heats my coffee
each morning,
in the spoon and the chair
that cry “hello there, Anne”
each morning,
in the godhead of the table
that I set my silver, plate, cup upon
each morning.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0All this is God,
right here in my pea-green house
each morning
and I mean,
though often forget,
to give thanks,
to faint down by the kitchen table
in a prayer of rejoicing
as the holy birds at the kitchen window
peck into their marriage of seeds.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

So while I think of it,
let me paint a thank-you on my palm
for this God, this laughter of the morning,
lest it go unspoken.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Joy that isn’t shared, I’ve heard,
dies young.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the day: the day for us to say thanks, the day for us to watch for God moving toward us, the day to say, \u201cThe Spirit of the Lord is upon me.\u201d Let us rejoice and give thanks. Let us follow the man Jesus, God\u2019s gift, God\u2019s sign, God\u2019s invitation to live new lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor \u2022 \u00a9 2020 All Rights Reserved Third Sunday in Advent\/B \u2022 December 13, 2020 Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 \u2022 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 \u2022 John 1:6-8, 19-28 “There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John.” I wonder […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Gratitude opens our heart to God's Spirit, the source of joy.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[68,146,3,2,130],"tags":[291,289,290,9],"class_list":["post-1219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advent","category-mark","category-sermon","category-worship","category-year-b","tag-anne-sexton","tag-baby-jesus","tag-isaiah","tag-joy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1219"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1220,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1219\/revisions\/1220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}