27 December 2009

"Adopted" - A Sermon for the First Sunday after Christmas

“Adopted”
The First Sunday after Christmas
27 December 2009

Trinity Episcopal Church
San Francisco, CA


Isaiah 61:10 – 62:3
Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7

St. John 1:1-8


INI

I.  A Theological Conversation


We had just come home from a friend’s on Christmas Day when I decided to quickly check my email.  In looking through the various FaceBook messages, and other oddities I noticed a message from a Trinity member, and opened it up.  There was a message which asked if we were “changing our theology at Trinity Church” due to a petition in the prayers of the people on Christmas Eve.  She had brought friends that weren’t Christian and was worried that they might have been offended by the prayer.  The offending petition read: “For the conversion of the whole human race to our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” 

So, first of all, as I responded to this individual so I respond to you.  My apologies are offered if our prayers on Christmas Eve offended you, or anyone, for that matter.   What ever we pray about or preach about is open to discussion and mutual edification, and sometimes we just get things wrong.  What did excite me, however, was the opportunity to talk some theology at Trinity – so I’ll be unapologetic about that.  It’s time we did some “God-Talk”, some theology, here.  In the years that I have been with you I have encountered more than once a great deal about what we aren’t.  I’ve heard, “Oh, we don’t do that”, or “we are well beyond that”, or “we really don’t believe that.”  There is precious little talk about what we do believe.  That, perhaps, will need to change, but right now, let’s wrestle with that petition, and the notion of what Jesus means to us.  I’m going to do that in two steps, based on the readings for this morning – so step one.

II: Step One: The Adoption


St. Paul gives us some direction when he writes in the Second Lesson for this morning: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.”  Paul is wrestling with an “us” – “them” problem, as he writes to the people of Galatia.  The question he addresses with them and indeed with the whole emerging church is about what role the Mosaic Law will play in the life of gentile Christians.  Paul’s strategy of basing his emerging churches on a core of Jewish believers was brilliant.  However, when gentiles began to hear the Good News, and began to be attracted by its message, a new question arose.  Did these people need to follow the dietary laws of Judaism, or the laws regarding circumcision, or work on the Sabbath?  When the early Christian authorities in Jerusalem said, “Yes, new Christians must follow these laws,” Paul replied with a resounding “No.”  It will do us well to understand Paul’s stance over against the Jews and Christianity.  If we read Romans and Galatians deeply, we will come to understand that Paul sees the Jews as having not been abrogated from their role as God’s chosen people.  They continue to enjoy that status and that righteousness. 

However, to underscore the argument about keeping the Jewish ritual law, Paul uses a very interesting word in his letter to the Galatians.  He says it quite succinctly in the reading for today: in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.”  Adoption!  We are the adopted ones, the “others” who are taken from the outside and brought in and included.  There is immense room in Paul’s theology for the other.  Third Isaiah has a similar notion in the first reading for this morning, when he uses these phrases in describing an Israel that returns to a devastated Jerusalem with its temple destroyed, and its people disenfranchised: “clothed with salvation,” “robed with righteousness,” “you shall be called by a new name.”  We might ask ourselves, “Who is the recipient of this grace, this ‘redemption of those under the law’”?  The answer is all of us – all who are welcomed in, or who want to come in, all who seek God, regardless of status or religion.

III.  The Pantocrator

Both Matthew and Luke have elaborate Birth Narratives, replete with angels, shepherds, wise men, evil kings, and gentle animals.  It is Matthew who bases his Birth Narrative, in part, on the story of Moses, but it is John who basis his “birth story” on something entirely different.  John’s prologue, which was just read as the Gospel, is a retelling of the Creation Story from the first chapter of Genesis. 


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


In this retelling of the creation story, John reminds us of the strong word that comes from the mouth of God - breathing over the tohu vobohu, the formless void.  John sees Jesus, present at the moment of creation, participating as the very Word and breath of God, bringing light and life, separating dark from light.


Some years ago, Arthur and I took the subway in Istanbul out as far as it would go to the ancient walls of Constantinople, and from there walked back into the city, visiting churches and ruins along the way.  The first church, Saint Savior in Chora (Saint Savior in the country) is in a marvelous state of preservation, with frescoes, mosaics, and sculpture fairly untouched from the cleansings done to other holy places by their Muslim captors.  As you walk through the first and second Narthex into the Nave and look up high into the central dome,  (much like the space here at Trinity) you see a powerful image of Jesus as Pantocrator.  It is this image:






In this image we see Jesus as John saw Jesus – the pantocrator, the creator of all.  It is this image of Jesus that might be most useful to us as we explore the quandary of our prayer and petition.  It is this Jesus who is in all, and who made all, who embraces all, that gives us a clue about our role as Christians among other believers. 

We live in a world without boundaries, and so did the Romans, and Greeks, and other peoples living at the time John and Paul wrote their words.  A thousand religions, and mysteries clamored for the hearts of those who would hear, and so it is today.  We do also live in a time of exclusive claims.  One only has to listen to fundamental Islam, Christianity, Judaism, or Hinduism to understand that.  “We’re right, and you are not!”  The response to such exclusive claims cannot be constructed of our own unbending exclusivism.  We must remember the Jesus who creates all and who embraces all. 

At the 9:00 mass, I spoke about this problem with an old friend who showed up here this morning, and he offered me a wonderful insight.  Remember the words of the petition?  “For the conversion of the whole human race to our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”  My friend Michael offered this interpretation, which I thought, was particularly fine, and I offer it to you.  The conversion we pray for, he said, is the conversion of ourselves so that in seeing the other (those not like us) we may see Christ instead.  That is profoundly at the core of what we need to be as a people following Christ.  We need to be ready to see him in anyone we encounter.  We also need to be ready to talk about our relationship with Jesus – the Jesus who makes sense of it all for us.  As we talk to others about faith, Jesus is our touchstone, our wellspring, our metaphor, our deep understanding of the world and its questions.  It is this that we commend to others.  It is this conversation that we of faith, need to have one with the other.  It is this dialogue that we need to have with others who have no faith.

The goal is to live in the world where the image and body of Christ (remember who that is) embraces all.  So thank you, member of Trinity, who brought this to my attention, and thank you to Ormande Platter, Deacon of the Diocese of Louisiana, who wrote the petition and engaged us all in God Talk – Theology.

SDG.



2 comments:

  1. From a shut in last Sunday, Thank you posting these sermons.

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  2. Excellent work, Michael. St. John's Prologue is a key text for relating the Logos/Christ to those of other persuasions, as Justin Martyr already recognized in the 2nd century. "The true Light that enlightens EVERYONE..." -- Your friend also has an excellent insight. Our conversion efforts must be directed to ourselves first of all.-- Our lectionary was different for yesterday -- Gospel was the Boy Jesus in the Temple -- a bit of a jolt in the C-cycle to encounter Jesus at age 12 -- and we haven't even celebrated Epiphany yet! My theme: "Seeking the Child."

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