What is God Like?

What is God Like?

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

December 24, 2014; Christmas Eve

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

Luke 2:1-20 – And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.  (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.  And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.   And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.  And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

                  Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.  And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.

________________________

St. Francis used to say that you cannot love anything that you cannot get your arms around. Francis praised the humility of God who poured out the infinite life of the divine into a humble child so that we could embrace God and God could embrace us.

The God that Christians know is a humble God who gladly becomes one with us so that we might be one with God. In Jesus, God embraces everything that is human – including our evil and our death – so that God may take all of humanity into the divine heart. That is the story of the Incarnation that we celebrate on Christmas.

We look at the child in the manger. So meek and lowly. We let our imaginations move in time. Imagine yourself as a visitor to the manger. Mary offers the babe to you, inviting you to hold the child yourself, to take the baby within your own arms. Everyone who has ever held a child knows the thrill and wonder of holding such a mystery in your embrace. Whenever we hold a child, our hearts open instinctively. We wonder, who is this mystery? Who will this child become? Christmas invites us to hold the child of Mary imaginatively in our arms, emotionally in our hearts, and to imagine that we are putting our arms around God; we can embrace God, humble and close.

Who will this child become? We know that the child of Mary will also hold out his arms to us in the wide embrace of the cross. He will accept in his own body all of the evil and violence that we humans are capable of, and he will return to us only love. He will accept in his body the brokenness of the human condition – the extreme pain of torture, the hopelessness of certain death, and the inner experience of abandonment. He will experience willingly not only the betrayal and failure of trusted friends, but also the sense of utter abandonment of God. He will cry from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Human life can go no lower. Jesus embraces it all. God embraces everything.

From beginning to end, arms enfold everything. We hold in our arms the wondrous child in the joy and gladness of the Christmas birth. Jesus holds our human brokenness in suffering love unto death on the cross. The arms of God enfold us, and God comes to us so humbly we may also enfold God. God's life poured out into humanity, that we might experience divine, infinite love which overcomes all.

So whenever people wonder, "What is God like?" we point to Jesus.

God is like a child, born to humble folk in trying circumstances. Forced from home by the whim of an oppressive empire, a family with no place but an animal stable for a child's birth. In short order they will have to flee the threat of genocide. They will become refugees, immigrants, foreign strangers in need of welcome. This is what God embraces. This is what God looks like in human life.

Eventually the family will return to their modest home like the millions of humble peasants that have always filled the earth. The father will work with his hands and teach his son the family craft. God in ordinary life and work.

Eventually, Jesus will sense the call to do the work of his heavenly Father, our Father. He will proclaim the Kingdom of God, what life would be like if God ruled instead of our temporal governments. Jesus will show us what God's reign looks like. Jesus will spend his time healing. He will feed the hungry. He will tell his followers to do the same.

Jesus will break all of the boundaries that we human beings erect to separate us from one another. He will offer the same gifts of feeding and healing to foreigners as he does to his own people. He will offer the same gift of life and living water to those who follow different gods than his. He will cut off every attempt to narrow the definition of neighbor, and he will demand that those who follow him love their neighbor as themselves.

He will stop the stoning of sinners. He will throw out the moneychangers who cheat the humble with their sophisticated economics. He will make public friendships with the tax collectors and prostitutes, the most reviled people of his society. He will touch the unclean lepers.

He will bless the poor, the hungry, and those who mourn. He will encourage those who are hated and reviled. The only people he will scold are those who think themselves to be right while putting others whom they believe to be wrong in the shadow of their judgment. He will warn the rich and well fed.

In some of his hardest words, he will tell us to love our enemies, to bless those who curse us and to give to those who beg of us. At the end, he will tell the capital criminal executed with him that they will share paradise together that day.

To the nations and all of their glory – to governments and authorities – he will say that the only measure of their authenticity will be how they treat "the least of these." For the nations, he says, there is one standard of judgment – did you feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick and give kindness to the imprisoned?

The whole story of God in a human life is really simple. It comes down to one thing – love. What's most important? What does God expect? Only love. Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. Love one another. For God is love.

Note, however, what God is not like whenever we look at God through the revelation of Jesus. God is not angry. God is not going to send people to hell for not believing something or for believing the wrong thing. God is like Jesus. God loves.

So do not fear, be not afraid. Perfect love casts out fear, and God is perfect love. The life of Jesus shows us: the only thing God does is love. God's love is for everyone. There are no boundaries. God's love embraces all creation, all humanity. God's love embraces the ox and the donkey, the shepherds and foreigners who follow stars, the struggling family and the helpless baby. It's all love.

If you can get your arms around an infant, you can get your arms around God. For God is love. Love reaching into all of our human life, blessing, accepting, healing and feeding. Inviting all of us to receive blessing and acceptance, wholeness and satisfaction.

God loves you and accepts you with the simplicity of a child's happy response to your embrace. There is nothing you can do to stop the love. Jesus embraces all humanity; including all of our brokenness and evil. Jesus returns it all to the Father with forgiving love, and we are forgiven. Jesus takes our death, and raises it into life.

So, "Fear not! For, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day… a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." Hurry. Go there. Take the child. Hold it in your arms. Take it into your heart in love. God's life and love is poured into our humanity. Jesus shows us what God's heart is like. Humble and loving. Nurturing and healing. Forgiving and accepting. Love stronger than death.

God embraces us all with infinite love. We need do nothing more than embrace that gentle, humble love.

Connecting With Mary

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

December 21, 2014; 4 Advent, Year B

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

Luke 1:26-38 – In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God." Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.

_______________

I want to visit with you today about something I've never addressed from the pulpit, and I do so with some trepidation.

First, a little back story. Many years ago I was in a class or workshop – I forget the exact venue – where our leader asked us to try to articulate our calling. What is your mission? What is your purpose? Can you put words around why you do what you do? I can't remember what the process was, but I remember an insight that exploded, self-evident into my consciousness. "I want to connect people with God." Yes! My whole being responded to that realization. I do. I do want to connect people with the Divine. It is a desire that is so deep in me that it seems to have its own source and energy. From the moment of that insight, I've never lost a sense of that purpose. The knowledge of such a purpose has seemed to me like a great gift.

But it seems that all gifts also have their shadows. You see, I have a fear that goes along with that calling to connect people with the divine. I have a dread of ever being the cause of someone losing their sense of connection with God.

I'm not worried from God's end. I know God that God's connection with us is eternal and unbreakable. God loves every human being infinitely, and the God I have experienced is such boundless love that I have no anxiety about God's ultimate intention that every human being will be brought ultimately into loving union with the divine. I just have a dread that I could get in the way of someone's journey into that union.

And so, with that dread, I want to talk about something that is part of today's gospel reading. The angel Gabriel says to Mary, "You will conceive in your womb…", and Mary asks, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?"

If you are someone who finds it wonderful and satisfying to ponder the miracle of Jesus' birth to Mary the Virgin, please honor your faith and ignore whatever I have to say today. You are connected to the divine, and this story is a beloved part of your connection. Good. Hold on to that delight. It would break my heart to get in the way of your connection with God through this story.

But if you are someone like me – a natural doubter – who has found some of the supernatural stories of the scripture hard to accept in simple, literal terms, and who has sometimes found them to be barriers to a relationship and connection with God, then come with me on a brief journey.

The members of early church reflected on their experience of Jesus of Nazareth. As they remembered the effect of his presence with them, they knew that being with him was like being with God in a human life. He was God-with-us. The human face of God. Jesus was so filled with divine Spirit, that they experienced an intimate union with God through their human friend Jesus. Jesus connected them with the divine. They believed him to be the fulfillment of everything that God had promised God's people through the prophets. So, naturally, they looked to the prophets for words and images to give expression to what is ultimately ineffable.

There is a prophesy from the eighth century BCE prophet Isaiah. In chapter 7 Isaiah says that a child named Immanuel shall be born – the name means literally God is with us. Isaiah tells the faithless king Ahaz that before the child begins to take solid food, the military threat that the nation faces will have passed. The early Christians would have been drawn to this story about a child named Immanuel, God is with us, for in Jesus they experienced indeed that God is with us.

The Hebrew word that Isaiah used to describe the mother of Immanuel was almah – meaning a young woman of childbearing age who has not yet had a child. She may or may not be sexually active. But the authors of the Christian gospels probably weren't using the Hebrew texts. They wrote in Greek, and they knew their ancient scriptures through the Greek translation called the Septuagint. The Greek word that the Septuagint uses to translate almah is parthenos, a word that usually implies virginity. That implication is not in the original prophecy.

So, I think it is likely that Matthew and Luke let the Greek translation of Isaiah's prophecy about the virgin who bears a child named Immanuel inspire their narrative of Jesus' miraculous birth. Their hero would of course have a miraculous birth, not unlike the wonderful, miraculous births of Isaac, Moses, Samson, and others from Hebrew scripture and from other ancient sacred stories.

For me, the story of the virgin birth is a poetic way of speaking of the uniqueness of Jesus, God with us. But I take it as a metaphor and symbol, not as something literal and historical. In fact, I believe our most profound language for the mystery of the divine is best expressed in metaphor and symbol. Can there be anything richer in meaning and divine presence than the Eucharist – an experience of sacrament, an enacted symbol?

This whole process of inquiry leads me down several lines of thought.

If I consider the story of the virgin birth to be a composition of the gospel writers, then I have a sense of appreciation for what it is they are saying in the writing of their story. Mary's embracing "Yes!" has a compelling aspect of trust, abandoning herself to God in the presence of the impossible possibility. Her "Yes!" is an inspiring act of trust in God. She invites us to similar hope when we cannot see the way forward within our means.

I also know that it was customary among some at that time in history to make sure a potential wife would be fertile and able to bear a child before a marriage would be finalized. So it may be that the unmarried Mary and her espoused Joseph simply followed that custom, which might explain her single state, if that is the case or needs explaining.

More intriguing though, I wonder if there was some scandal around Jesus' birth that may have prompted the need for such a story of divine conception. In his version, Matthew omits any story about the angel Gabriel visiting Mary. Instead, he starts with the inconvenient pregnancy of Mary and turns the camera lens on Joseph. "Being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, [Joseph] planned to dismiss her quietly." (1:19) That sentence say a lot. Joseph acts with great compassion toward Mary. Similar circumstances more typically resulted in the woman's exile or in some cases death by stoning. Matthew concludes his version of the story saying that Joseph married her, "but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son."

I like that scandalous interpretation of the story particularly on behalf of all the women in the world who have ever found themselves inconveniently pregnant. May they find an understanding friend in Mary. May they find men like Joseph who will regard them with compassion and gentleness and who will not enforce harsh conventional judgments.

For me, Mary is a model of what we are called to be as the church. Open, willing containers for the mysterious work of God in the world. "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word."

I talk about all of these things today in hopes that my own doubts and wrestling with these texts may encourage you not to cut off your relationship to God or to the Bible if you ever find yourself in a state of discomfort or unbelief. I happen not to believe in the historicity of the virgin birth, yet I find that offers no impediment to my connection with God or my delight in the Bible. In fact, it seems to me that my discomfort has opened me to other creative ways to interpret and deepen the story's meaning for me.

Historically the faithful have always sought myriad ways of interpreting the sacred scriptures. In the old days Christians treasured interpretations that were mystical, symbolic, metaphoric, allegorical, and analogical in addition to the historical and literal. Only in recent centuries have some Christians insisted on the primacy of the literal and historical. When they do so, I find that they sometimes can destroy our connections with some of our beloved sacred texts. For many of us it's just too impossible to believe literally.

For me, the story of the virgin birth is poetry, wonder and beauty, inviting my imagination into a state where I might even find within me the capacity for heroic trust like Mary. Can I be an open womb to bear Christ in my body as well? Can I too say with virginal trust, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word"?

I hope you also can connect with Mary, so that you may be like her, a Christ-bearer, bold enough to say "Yes!" to the impossible possibilities in your life. May you be brave enough to say, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word."

_______________

The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate

God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and its life and mission, please contact us at

P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373

More sermon texts are posted on our web site: www.stpaulsfay.org

Click the “Video Online” button to watch full services and sermons live-streamed or archived.

Contemplative Vision or Conventional Vision?

Contemplative Vision or

Conventional Vision?

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

December 7, 2014; 2 Advent, Year B

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

Isaiah 40:1-11 –

Comfort, O comfort my people,

   says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

   and cry to her

that she has served her term,

   that her penalty is paid,

that she has received from the LORD's hand

   double for all her sins.

A voice cries out:

"In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD,

   make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be lifted up,

   and every mountain and hill be made low;

the uneven ground shall become level,

   and the rough places a plain.

Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,

   and all people shall see it together,

   for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

A voice says, "Cry out!"

   And I said, "What shall I cry?"

All people are grass,

   their constancy is like the flower of the   field.

The grass withers, the flower fades,

   when the breath of the LORD blows upon it;

   surely the people are grass.

The grass withers, the flower fades;

   but the word of our God will stand forever.

Get you up to a high mountain,

   O Zion, herald of good tidings;

lift up your voice with strength,

   O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,

   lift it up, do not fear;

say to the cities of Judah,

   "Here is your God!"

See, the Lord GOD comes with might,

   and his arm rules for him;

his reward is with him,

   and his recompense before him.

He will feed his flock like a shepherd;

   he will gather the lambs in his arms,

and carry them in his bosom,

   and gently lead the mother sheep.

_________________________

All people are grass.

The prophet Isaiah had begun with words of comfort, comfort, speaking tenderly of God's near approach. Look in that direction! he says. But his reverie is interrupted with a harsh voice: "Cry Out!" It seems to Isaiah that everyone is looking in the wrong direction; they are obsessed with the grass, which fades, not with the coming approach of divine comfort.

All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower in the field. The grass withers, the flower fades; …surely the people are grass.

What is it that catches your attention moment by moment? Is it fading and inconstant or is it grounded and trusting. Surely whatever news source you access implies that the people are grass – there is no true constancy – it's mostly stories of withering and fading. Surely the people are grass.

What have you failed to do this week? What's pressuring you from the "to do list"? What nags you and awakens insecurity in the back of your mind. The withering stuff. Let's call that the Conventional Vision. Letting your attention be toward looking at the withering grass of our contemporary time.

Get you up to a high mountain, says the prophet. On the mountain you can gain some perspective and distance from the withering grass. Coming here to church this morning is an act of getting up to a high mountain. We leave the withering world for a while and ground ourselves trustingly in the holy and the eternal. We are fed with the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation.

The act of prayer or meditation or contemplation is a way of going to the mountain – acts of intentionally moving your attention from the threat of the withering grass all around you, and instead looking toward a Contemplative Vision. A contemplative looks simply – allowing, observing – grounded in the presence of the divine.

Do not fear! says the prophet. I'm told the scriptures say "Fear not" or "Do not fear" or "Be not afraid" 365 times, a verse for every day of the year. The consistent message of the saints and mystics is "Fear not! Trust."

Ultimately, the contemplatives tell us, "All shall be well and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well." Dame Julian said that in the middle of the Great Plague. A Contemplative Vision.

Conventional Vision – becoming anxious or fearful because of the inconstancy and withering threats all around us. Contemplative Vision – watching with peace and fearlessness, trusting God that all shall be well.

A Conventional Vision is all about fear. If you leave your attention on the contemporary situation and its cacophony of commentators, they will try to fill you with fear. Their constancy is like the grass. They wither and fade.

The Contemplative Vision turns away from fear and lifts up the voice with strength, trusting not in the fading grass but in the might and presence of God. Listen to Isaiah one more time: Get you up to a high mountain, …herald of good tidings, …say to the cities…"Here is your God!" …He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep. The contemplative rests in God's arms, in trust and peace. Do that, here and now in worship. We have centuries of witnesses telling us that resting in God's arms is where we belong and where we may dwell, if we choose. It is a choice, moment to moment. But we have to turn away from our self-centered, fearful tendencies. As John the Baptist says, "Repent." Which means simply, turn around; go the other way.

Science tells us we didn't evolve to be peaceful and trusting; we evolved as fearful, defensive creatures. The cortex of the brain evolved mostly to analyze the past and imagine the future in a fearful and defensive way, which can leave us radically unaware in the present.

Our ancestors could make two possible mistakes: "Thinking that there was a lion behind the bushes when it was actually a beige rock and thinking that there was a beige rock behind the bushes when it was actually a lion. The cost of the first mistake was needless anxiety, while the cost of the second was death. So, we evolved to make the first mistake a thousand times to avoid making the second mistake even once. Our ancestors remembered every bad thing that happened and spent much of their lives anticipating more trouble. And this is the mind they bequeathed to us." [i] We are wired to pay more attention and to give more weight to the negative than to the positive stimuli.

Someone told me last week of an online news service that ran an experiment. For one day they published only good news. No killings, no outrage, no scandal. Online traffic dropped 80%. They went back to publishing the bad news the next day.

Political operatives know this. People vote against much more easily than they vote for. Fear motivates. It is in our DNA. We are fearful and stressed animals. Some studies estimate that over 80 percent of visits to the doctor's office in the developed world are for stress-related disorders. We are hardwired to be stressed.

Much of what we teach and practice in the church seeks to help us be free from our evolutionary fears. There really aren't many lions anymore, and our constant stressful anxiety over the imagined lions in our lives is much more dangerous to us now than any exterior threats we may need to flee. There are a lot more beige rocks than lions these days.

So breathe. Relax. Practice relaxing. Let go of the hurts and threats of the past. Let go of the anxieties and fears for the future. Be in the present. Let it be. Here. Now. Simply accept reality as it is, and trust God for guidance in the present moment. Simply do whatever you need to do – right now. Now is all you have. The past is gone; the future is not here.

God is with us. Love heals and overcomes all. Ultimately, it's all grace. Even the crosses and crucifixions end up being the impetus for resurrection.

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. …Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together. Get you up to a high mountain…, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, …lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities..., "Here is your God!" …He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.

---

[i] Ronald D. Siegel, The Science of Mindfulness, Lecture 2: Our Troublesome Brains; The Great Courses, Course Guidebook, p. 12

___________________________

The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate

God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and its life and mission, please contact us at

P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373

More sermon texts are posted on our web site: www.stpaulsfay.org

Click the “Video Online” button to watch full services and sermons live-streamed or archived.