Advent 4 2024

Opening hymn is number nine, but we'll be singing verses four, five, and six.

Verses four, five, and six of hymn number nine.

Blessed be God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Blessed be God's kingdom now and forever.

Amen.

Let's pray together.

Almighty God, and whom all hearts are open, all desires, from whom spirits.

By the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that may be perfectly lovely worthy magnify thy holy Christ.

Even though her life was not easy, she heard God's voice and said, Yes.

Her song was a prayer that would uplift those who were downtrodden.

Her lyrics shattered the proud and called the world to change.

She would bear within her the promised child, Jesus, the light of the world.

This advent we respond to God's beckoning call to us as well.

Revealing God, visit us and fill us with your spirit.

Bring your good news to life within us.

Give us courage to carry your light into the injustices and shadows of this world.

Amen.

Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son, Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever.

Please be seated.

A reading from Exodus.

Now God declared all these declarations.

I am the holy one of your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slaves.

There shall be no other gods for you in my face.

You shall not make for yourself an idol of any form that is in the heavens on high, or that is on the earth below, or that is in the waters under the earth.

You shall not bow down to them or serve them.

I am the thunder of Sinai, your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of parents upon children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, and faithfully loving to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

You shall not lift up as a trifling thing the name of the majesty of the ages your God, for the judge of all flesh will not acquit anyone who lifts up as a trifling thing the name of the fire of Sinai.

Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.

Six days shall you labor and do all your work.

Now the seventh day is the Sabbath to the woman of creation your God.

You shall not do any work, you, your daughter, or your son, your female slave or your male slave, your livestock or your emigrant neighbors in your towns.

For in six days the Creator of all made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.

And God rested on the seventh day.

Therefore the ever living God blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.

Honor your mother and father, so that your days may be long in the land that the faithful one your God is giving you.

You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not testify your name against your neighbor as a lying witness.

You shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbor's woman, or female slave, or male slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.

When all the women, children, and men saw the thunder and the lightning, and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid, and they trembled, and they stood far off.

And the people said to Moses, You speak to us, and we will listen, yet do not let God speak to us, or we shall die.

Then Moses said to the people, Fear not, for it is only to test you that God has come, and for the sake that the fear of God would be upon you, all so that you do not sin.

Then the women, children, and men stood far off while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was, the word of the Lord.

She who settles in the shelter of the Most High, she will say to the sheltering God, for she will deliver you from the snare of the huntress.

She will cover you with her pinions, and under her wings you shall find refuge.

You shall not fear the terror of night, nor even the pestilence that stalks in darkness.

A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand.

Only glance with your eyes.

For you, the saving God is your refuge.

No evil shall befall you.

For her angels will command for you.

On their hand shall they carry you.

On the lion and the adder shall you tread.

For she who is bound to me, I will deliver her.

When she calls me, I will answer her.

I will be with her in trouble.

With long life shall I satisfy her.

Now, as many as are led by the Spirit of God are daughters and sons of God, for you all do not receive a spirit of slavery to fall again into fear.

But you have received a spirit of adoption through which require Allah, Father.

It is that same spirit who bears witness with our spirit that we are daughters and sons of God, and if daughters and sons and heirs, heirs of God and heirs with Christ, if it is true that we suffer with Christ, so that we may also be glorified with Christ.

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing it with the glory about to be revealed to us.

But the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the daughters and the sons of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning and labor pains until now.

And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have first fruits of the Spirit grown inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

For in hope we were saved.

Now hope that is seen is not hope.

For who hopes for what is seen?

But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Mary sang out, My soul magnifies the Holy One, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior.

For God has looked with favor on the lowliness of God's own womb slave.

Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed, for the mighty one has done great things for me, and holy is God's name.

God's loving kindness is for those who fear God from generation to generation.

God has shown the strength of God's own arms.

God has scattered the arrogant and the intent of their hearts.

God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.

God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.

God has helped God's own child, Israel, a memorial to God's mercy, just as God said to our mothers and fathers, to Hagar and Sarah and Abraham, to their descendants forever.

And Mary remained with Elizabeth about three months and then returned to her home.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Praise be to thee, O Christ.

And I'd like to invite up any children that want to come forward for the children's circle.

You don't have to come up.

But it's nice if you do.

Okay, no.

Looks like it's just me for the children's sermon.

And Ben, that'll work okay.

I got Zoe.

This is good.

Zoe's gonna speak for all the children.

Zoe and Teddy and Ben and maybe Sheridan.

Hey, don't be guilty, don't feel guilt to come up here.

This is supposed to be fun.

In which I'm gonna ask you a really easy question, maybe.

It's Advent 4.

We lit the candle today.

So we already lit hope and peace and joy, and today we lit the candle for well, Jesus we're gonna light on Tuesday.

That's a great guess because Jesus is usually the right answer.

Today, we're gonna light, we lit the candle for love.

For love.

So here's a question that most adults like me don't even know the answer to.

What is love?

Teddy.

I often don't know either.

Ben, you were gonna say something.

There has to be peace to have love.

I think that's right.

I think that's right.

Do you like anything like to eat?

What do you like the most to eat?

Pizza?

Food in general.

Does anybody love pizza?

You love pizza?

Teddy, what if I put like artichokes and uh like olives on it and then I burned it?

Would you love it?

So you don't like it no matter what.

You like it when it tastes good.

If it doesn't taste good, you don't like it anymore?

Because that's your anybody have a younger brother or sister?

How about an older brother or sister?

Here's the tough one, you ready?

Does anybody always like their brother or sister?

Ben does, because he's a good one.

Okay, he said look.

This is kind of tough.

We all kind of know what the right answer is here.

Do you love your brother and sister even when you don't like it?

And what does that mean?

Jonathan doesn't know, and that's pretty fair.

I was a younger brother, too.

What you don't know too.

What do you think, Caroline?

So here's my thought.

Are you ready?

If you burn pizza, I don't want to eat it.

Sometimes my brother burned me, not with a match, but you know, did stuff I didn't like.

But I still wanted to be with him, and I still wanted us to get along, and maybe that's the difference between liking and loving.

Loving doesn't always feel good.

It doesn't always feel good, but we're committed.

What do you think?

Here's the tough one.

Anybody have a pet?

Do you always like what your pet does?

Yeah, I've got one who I couldn't live without.

She drives me nuts sometimes.

But I know I love her.

I know I love her because even when she drives me nuts, it's because I like her so much.

She's not doing what I want, but I wouldn't have any other dog than the one I have.

So maybe that's love.

And boy, what do you think it's harder to do?

To love somebody or to like somebody.

Somebody.

I think it's harder because it doesn't always feel good.

It doesn't always feel good.

Anybody like to change diapers?

Yeah, that's what it's odd.

Anyone ever have their diapers changed?

You may not even remember this.

Does anybody have their diapers changed?

Do you think your parents liked doing it, or do you think your parents loved you?

Yeah, that's what I think too.

Okay, you can go back to your seats.

Thanks for coming up.

Thanks, parents, for helping that out.

And look, uh, another spoiler here, uh, maybe you've heard this from a social worker and Catholic, theologian Dorothy Day, who wrote that love is a terrible thing to ask, but it is the only way.

Love is a terrible thing to ask of us, but it's the only way, because the truth is love is just pretty darn difficult sometimes.

You know that if you've been married more than two years.

You know that if you've got a child, you know that if it's ever not felt great being invested in somebody else's life, whether that's a human or an animal.

Terrible thing to ask of us to love, and it's the only way, because the alternative is what, according to C.S.

Lewis, that we lock our hearts up tight in a box and live in a prison of our own making.

And the only way out, of course, is to make ourselves vulnerable.

To let our hearts be hurt.

And for the next two and a half days, we're asked to cultivate that love so that when Christ comes, he'll find a ready welcome in us.

Of course, there's another a little bit of an elephant in the room that if you're new to us, maybe you don't know we're doing this, so I'll talk about the elephant.

The elephant is that normally we use something called the revised common lectionary.

It's a three-year cycle that takes us on a sort of a whirlwind tour of most of the Bible.

Now it leaves out some of the parts we'd rather not have, like those genealogies and those things you shouldn't do to get ready for temple worship that many of us find uh good to turn to when we can't sleep in the books of Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy and Exodus.

Uh, leaves those parts out.

Those are in the daily office.

What we get instead is a three-year tour that takes us through each of the Gospels, the Psalms once a year, and some of the narrative bits of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.

So the revised common lectionary is this group of readings that we share with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, with the Roman Catholics, with certain Methodists.

Three years.

We're not doing, we're doing a different lectionary called the Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church.

It was written by an Episcopal priest and scholar named Will Gaffney, who is a Texan as well.

Why are we making the change?

Well, to be honest, you've heard me preach the Revised Common Lectionary twice in the nine and a half years I've been here.

So this lectionary is a little different on purpose.

It does a couple of things.

It purposefully includes stories about women in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Gospels.

It also allows me to not give the same textual basis for a sermon.

I don't write them, so I don't read them, but uh I'm not given the same sermon twice because they're different.

And then, of course, there's this really interesting thing that happens in the Psalter, and maybe you noticed it today.

It uses female pronouns for God.

And it that may be exciting for you.

And that may rub you the wrong way because traditionally that's not what we're used to.

And of course, we all know that male and female are created in God's image, which means, of course, that God is no more male than God is female.

Which is this really important reminder that we get that, hey, the language we use, and language is of course all we've got, really, the language we use influences how we view the world and how we treat each other.

Now, many of you in the room may have had different spiritual heritage from my own, but in the church that it raised me, we used male pronouns for God exclusively, and what do you know?

Women couldn't be pastors because women couldn't have spiritual authority over men, because God was more male than female, and this was a product of our language.

The Episcopal Church has ordained women for ministry controversially since 1974, which is a little bit longer than I've been alive, but in the grand scheme of our history, not all that long, really, would you say?

So this is an opportunity for us to actually put our mouth where our money is.

That God is transcendent of male and female, and we'll prove it by referring to God as male and female.

You may not like it, and love's not always comfortable, is it?

Sometimes we do things for love of our neighbor, of our children, of our Uncle Steve, often the hardest one to love.

Sometimes we do things in love because love asks us to do what is better for us and for the world.

Beyond that, when you read your prayer book, it uses exclusively male pronouns.

So it's not like we've overhauled the whole liturgy.

We've just decided we're including women.

I don't edit what Will Gaffney put together.

So the readings are the readings unchanged by me.

And there is something rather, well, maybe stinging in the Magnetica today.

Perhaps you're used to Mary calling herself a handmaid or a servant.

And in Will Gaffney's translation, which I was very tempted to change, Mary calls herself God's womb slave.

Which seems kind of tough.

I'm not going to defend Will Gaffney, but I'm going to tell you what that word means to me today and how I think it reverberates with this idea of cultivating love in preparation for the coming of the Christ child.

You see, when we hear the word slave, we are very tempted to think about American slavery, which was about true ownership of chattels, African people, indigenous people, and to think about their maltreatment physically.

That happened and that's real, but it is important to know in the ancient world, 98% of people, they weren't quite servants, they were semi-owned by their patrons.

The world of the Bible was a patronage system in which you work to the satisfaction of not your owner, but without whom you wouldn't eat, in order to survive.

So the Bible never uses the word servant.

It always uses the word slave.

The Greek word is doulos.

Different kind of ownership than chattel slavery in the United States, but it is the language of the scriptures, slavery.

Dependent upon somebody else for your basic subsistence needs.

Now we spent some time last week talking about how Mary actually says yes to the angel instead of saying no.

Reminder, the angel says, Great news, you're going to have a baby.

And Mary doesn't say no, she says, how can that be?

Not a no, but tell me more.

The angel says, I will tell you more.

The child you're going to conceive is going to be from the Holy Spirit.

And Mary says, in Latin, fiat, let it be.

We don't normally think of slaves having agency, do we?

So again, we're pushing on the concept of America chattel slavery.

But Mary says, she has agency, let it be.

The presumption is if Mary says no, then Gabriel's going to move on and pick somebody else.

But Mary chooses to say, let it be.

We've talked about this for a few weeks already.

We get so excited about the beauty of Christmas and Mary and the beautiful blue fabric, and the baby Jesus didn't cry at all, and everything was sweet, and there were those rich three kings and they came.

How marvelous and wonderful when Jesus didn't have colic and Mary didn't have postpartum depression, because who would do that?

I mean, it's the Son of God, right?

We so sanitize the story that we make it easy for Mary to say heck yeah, but would you want your daughter saying heck yeah when she was under the age of 20 and not married?

I doubt it.

This is part of the practice of love.

Mary says something, yes, to something that is difficult, not just socially, but in her own body.

I don't know a woman whose body has not been irrevocably changed by having a child.

That actually sounds a lot like the love we're meant to cultivate to me.

Because I'll tell you, my mental health is not the same since I've had kids.

I mean, I say lovingly that all of this wife, I've trimmed this, so I know I look like I'm 15.

But if I grow this out, all of this is white.

My son gave me that.

All of these whites are coming from my other one, right?

I mean, irrevocably changed having children.

And I didn't give birth to them in my own body.

I didn't.

So when Mary says, I will be your womb slave, I think this translation's actually asking us to wrestle with something very earthy and difficult that it would be easier to ignore, which is frankly that loving other people costs us something.

And Mary has chosen to love God with her inmost physical parts.

That's what she's chosen.

Now, I'll say I'm a blood slave because I've donated so much blood I gave myself anemia.

I thought the blood bank was going to turn me away when it was time.

Turns out they don't do that.

I didn't have to donate my blood.

And an angel didn't show up and tell me to do it.

Didn't happen.

But I did choose to donate my blood again and again and again because of what I thought of God.

I'm a hair slave because I grew my hair for two years with the purpose of donating it to somebody who didn't have any.

Now, did they want my hair?

I don't know.

We'll find out.

I won't even get a better about it.

I didn't enjoy growing my hair for two years.

I'm really glad I don't have it anymore.

But I chose to do it because of what I think about God.

I don't mean I'm right, and you should do that.

I don't mean that.

What I mean is, without an angel showing up, I thought one day there are children who don't have hair, and I still can grow it.

So why not?

There are people who don't have sufficient blood, and I do.

So I can give it.

And it cost me something.

It cost me something.

Because love always costs us something.

Liking didn't cost us nothing, if you don't mind me saying.

When I don't like you, I don't have to do anything with you.

I can dispose of you and get another pizza.

And when I love you, I might be paying for that love in my blood, in my hair, with my lack of sleep.

You ever had a child?

I'm a sleep slave to the Lord.

Because I was called to have children.

An angel didn't tell me to do it.

Nope, I didn't have that vision.

I had my greatest joy doing it.

And I lost a lot of sleep.

I hope you know what I'm talking about.

Yeah, we choose to love.

We do.

We choose to love.

We choose to do it not even knowing what it's going to cost us, because if we knew, we probably wouldn't do it.

If you knew what your marriage was going to cost you, you might not have done it.

But you chose to do this, so come what may, and that's what we say in the vows, come what may, in sickness and health and well, in rich poor, right?

I'm going to do this.

I'm going to be your husband's slave.

It's a mutual giving.

It's mutual.

And I'm enslaved by my vows because I think they're right.

Not because I have to be, because I'm enslaved by virtue.

This is what I hear Mary saying.

And I think she offers us a corrective to love.

I think actually this lectionary is offering us a corrective to love with the ten words.

So we read the ten words.

Maybe you've heard them before.

You usually call them the ten commandments.

In the Bible, they're called the ten words.

I don't know if you're aware of this.

There isn't a Jewish person I know that wants the ten words posted in a courthouse.

Are you aware of this?

You know who wants the ten words posted in courthouses?

Conservative evangelical Christians, because they want to control you through the law.

And look what happens at the end of Exodus.

Look what happens at the end of the ten words.

By the way, what do Jewish people want posted in the courthouse?

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Which comes out of the book of Leviticus.

Look what happens at the end of the ten words.

The people say, Moses, we're scared of God.

We don't want to see God, and we don't want to hear God, so you tell us what to do, and we'll do it because we're afraid of God, and you've given us these minimums that we'll do because we're scared.

And our New Testament epistle reading, in the first line, says, something to the effect of love drives out fear.

So in the next two and a half days, I'd like to encourage you that if you are afraid of God, you got something to give up, which is your fear.

The epistle continues.

We've been adopted.

Now that may sound like second-class citizens, but in the ancient world, an adoption is irrevocable.

A naturally birthed child can be disinherited, an adopted child cannot.

This does not mean you're sons of the devil and you get saved, and now God, well, loves you even though God didn't.

That's not what it means.

This is an image from Paul saying, God's love for you is irrevocable, so you have nothing to be afraid of.

What if I break the Ten Commandments?

God still loves you.

By the way, you have already broken this, just so you know.

What if I like people instead of loving them?

Does that mean God will only like me instead of loving me?

The answer is no.

Which is why I actually love what this women's lectionary is doing.

In all of these readings in which we talk about something in church we'd rather not.

Women have bodies.

Pregnancy is natural.

We get nursed in breasts.

It's true.

Are we afraid to apply that image to God?

Because I'll tell you, that's what we do every week at the Eucharist.

That's where God says, Come here, little one.

I will nourish you with my own life force.

With my life force.

Not with something that costs me nothing, not with something that I like to do, but because I love you, I chose to become embodied, and I will nourish you like a mother nourishes its own child, not with a bottle with myself.

Having done this twice, I have to be honest, and maybe you don't want to hear the priest say this, I've got a little bit of maternal envy because I was not able to actate.

And I feel like I missed out.

Because to this day, my emory has a special relationship with their mom.

I don't think that either one of them would say, oh, it's because we nursed.

I would tell you it's because they did.

And we know that there is something about literally sharing yourself with a child, with a spouse, with a student.

Sharing yourself in love is an intimacy unlike any other.

That's what happens at the rail every week.

This is not a nourishment that costs God nothing.

It's not a nourishment that is meant to be distance.

God is not bottle feeding us.

The nourishment of the body and the blood, the life force of Christ, is like a woman pouring her energy into a child to grow it for its health, for its benefit, to give it antibodies against things like narcissism, antibodies against prejudice and hard-heartedness.

This is what happens at the Eucharist.

And who's invited to the Eucharist?

You are.

What if you haven't been to confession with your priest?

You are.

What if you're Hindu?

You are.

What if you're nothing?

You are.

What if you hate God?

You are invited to be nourished by God's own life force here at the rail because God created you and loves you enough to hurt for you.

Not only are we asked to reflect on that, but at least for two and a half days, we're asked to embody that.

So, at least for two and a half days, where is God calling you to open up your heart?

To open up your resources, to open up the love you choose to give, so that when Christ comes, He will find a ready welcome.

A welcome that looks a lot like the one God gives to us.