​Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Second Sunday after Epiphany (Year A)
January 19, 2020
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
Do not worry.  I do not have plans to install an electronic scrolling message board out on Rockfish Gap Turnpike, neither do I have plans for one of those old school signs with the slide on letters to change your message every so often, but I do love a good church sign.  And when you are me, you collect examples of the best ones.  Here are a few of my latest favorites: “Tweet others as you would like to be tweeted.”  “Seven days without prayer makes one weak.”  “Honk if you love Jesus. Text while driving if you want to meet him.”  And this week: “Had a clever sign planned for this space, but the Astros stole it.” (a reference to the latest baseball cheating scandal). 
 
These kinds of signs are a helpful antidote to some of then hellfire and brimstone messages I have also seen, like the one on I 65 in Alabama: “Go to Church or the devil will get you.”  You know, those sort of turn or burn threats made as if fear was going to bring us to the loving body of the faithful.  More contemporary church signs may be a bit like dad jokes, as in they are probably only funny to us.  Committed Christ followers do have encouraging words to offer.  If some may help us get the message out that we are welcoming and loving and that we are not a glum, guilt and fear wielding lot, so much the better.  A number of years ago, the Episcopal Church embarked on an advertising project and came up with some clever posters, one of which hangs in the Parish Hall kitchen right here at Emmanuel.  None of them tell the whole story.  At best, they are a reminder of who we hope to be.
 
If you are of a certain age, you may remember the old Campus Crusade for Christ marketing strategy.  For months, they put up billboards, printed t-shirts, and passed out buttons saying “I found it.”  There was no explanation, just a carpet bombing effort to get it out there and get people asking what in the world “it” was.  A few months later, they revealed that the “it” was salvation in Jesus Christ.  Later, they claimed to have brought more than 3 million people to Christ with a four-point plan conveniently fit into simple pamphlet.  I am not sure how one measures being brought to Christ completely, or its staying power.  For most of us, it is process requiring a constant reupping as we grow.
 
You cannot blame folks for trying, but I am always suspicious of secular sloganizing when it comes to engaging people fully and authentically in a life of Christian faith.  Living a life with and for God is not like buying a t-shirt, a soft drink, or a Tempur-pedic mattress.  The whole binary way of believing that one is either in our out, one of us or one of them, saved or depraved, presents a false dichotomy and seems to be part of what is driving the kind of divisiveness that plagues our culture and conversation of late.
 
When if comes to matters of faith, bumper stickers, pithy slogans, and, even, four-point pamphlets carry us only so far. Being Church goes beyond ascent to a single proposition as it offers the life-changing model of Jesus’ life and ministry, a community of love and care, and an insistent redemption narrative that upends division and despair. 
 
When we read the lessons each Sunday, we cover a number of bases in our narrative.  We harken back to the Hebrew traditions of poetics and prophecy.  We incorporate the Epistles, mostly letters from St. Paul to young churches, as a way of creating language to talk about matters of belief, and finally, we excerpt a piece of Gospel writing to go straight into the life and work of Jesus as then core source for meeting God in person.  Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell the story in order, but when we get to John, we get a much more symbolic telling, filled with nuance and loaded words and phrases.  If we are looking for slogans, John is our man.  He uses terms like “Lamb of God,” “Rabbi” and “Messiah” in reference to Jesus.  John assumes his hearers already know the story, so his words contain inference, layering, and foreshadowing.  The players on his stage are already well known characters.  Andrew was one of the first disciples.  Peter is known as the rock, as much because he is dense as he is solid.
 
To illuminate this one text alone would require hours of annotation and more sermon than you want to hear or I could ever preach, but suffice it to say John floods us with images and ideas of God that both fill our imaginations and stretch them to see deeper into eternity.  Toward the end of this passage, even John realizes that what drew people to Jesus, what caused them to drop everything and follow him, what led them to give their lives to the way of love is, ultimately, impossible to explain in clever prose or loaded slogans.  When he is out of language to express that experience, he has Jesus issue a simple invitation:  “Come and see.”  It is that simple and that complicated all at once.
 
Last week, we confirmed 12 and had one received one from another branch of the Christian faith.  For a number of weeks, on the door of the room where the confirmands met and prepared for that day was a simple sign that read “Confirmation is not a drive by event.”  I loved seeing that sign because, like any good sign, it pointed to a reality beyond itself.  Getting hands laid on your head, prayers from a bishop, and a lovely reception celebrating the occasion is not a one and done happening.  Confirmation and reception is a grown up redo of baptism.  It takes some courage and conviction to take the wheel and commit to driving one’s own part in following Jesus, and it is not over once the programs have all been recycled and the relatives have gone home.  This baptized life requires care and feeding.  That is what Church does. 
 
What we are, and what we do as Christian people is an abiding thing, an ongoing choice, and a lifelong wrestling match with self and ego and service and sacrifice.  It is about telling our story, living God’s story, and being in history.  Long after fads and fashions fade, clever slogans and marketing schemes come and go, the signs we follow open our lives to being made new again and again. 
 
I still see those bracelets and t-shirts from emblazoned with WWJD: “What Would Jesus Do?”  I like that because it is a question and not a declaration.  And honestly, a lively faith comes with lots more question marks than it does periods.  If we are to reach the world for God and welcome others into the faith, we do can go to school on WJD, What Jesus Did, and say “Come and see.”  When we do that, we are not about telling people what to believe or how to fit in, we are inviting others to join in helping God’s story live in this world.  Our world really needs this story: a story that turns on experience, a story that summons us to be the wild and wonderful people God has created us to be, a story that saves us from despair, and even, death.
 
Of course, we will not be installing an electronic scrolling message board out on Rockfish Gap Turnpike.  We would never have enough space or sufficient language to express what has to be experienced.  So it is on us to invite the world to see God’s abundant life in person here or wherever we are.  To help people to come to Jesus, how we live our lives is the best and most effective sign to point the way.  Amen.   

Look
Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
The Feast of the Epiphany
January 5, 2020
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
My daughter called a few days ago and asked what my word is.  She has this thing about New Year’s and the incipient tradition of making resolutions.  She has a better way to look forward, which is nice because the whole resolution thing is based on a reasonable urge to be more: healthier, kinder, structured, organized, or disciplined.  If we watch whatever is being advertised, we can use that as a bellwether for what the vast swath of humanity seeks.  This time of year, it is diet and exercise.  Somebody somewhere told me that 98 percent of all resolutions relate to that.  That sounds about right when I see Weight Watchers, Whole 30, Keto, Noom, Peleton, and gym membership promotion dominate the mass of marketing.  Does anyone else find that exercise mirror that sees into your home workout to be a little creepy?  The irony, of course, is that to be less, we are supposed to get and do more to be more.
 
Rather than all of that, my daughter asks me what my word is.  Just come up with one word, she urges, that encapsulates a need, a quest, and longing as reminder.  Write it down.  Post it at home to see daily.  Use it to frame prayers, thoughts, actions, and intentions.  Brilliant.  Simple.  Free. And freeing.
 
We begin the season of Epiphany today.  There’s a word.  It is a word of new light and new revelation.  An epiphany is an “aha” moment.  It is a sudden understanding brought on through an everyday observation, that somehow made makes deep truth clearer and more poignant.  This is completely apt and appropriate for a new year and all that is to come.  The Church’s observation of the season begins with the old story of the wise men, the magi, strangers from the far east, arriving at the court of King Herod.  They have seen a star rising and interpreted it as a sign for them to seek the child king who is to save the world. 
 
So, there they are, in front of the literal King of the Jews, Herod, interpreting his own tradition for him, and telling him that there is one greater than he now born into the world.  This does not go well for the political King’s ego and aspirations.  Herod sends for the traveling party and asks them when exactly this sign appeared and tells them to go on a mission for him and send word when they find this child, so he may also go and pay him homage.  Of course, he does not want to do that.  He wants to root out any threat to his power and authority.  He tries to co-opt the wise men as stooges for his scheme.  Such is the way in the nefarious world of pretense and posturing.
 
Nevertheless, off they go, and when they find the child, they worship, celebrate, and give symbolic gifts:  Gold for kingship, frankincense for prayer and worship to God, and myrrh as an embalming spice to cover the stench of the death he will die.  That is a lot for a little kid, and hardly practical, but these guys are in the foreshadowing business as seers and seekers.
 
All of this is part the holy “aha” of Jesus’ birth.  Mary found out when Gabriel told her about her expectant condition.  Joseph found out in a dream.  The shepherds found out when the angels came to them in the fields.  And now, those who were nowhere near the same zip code at the time of the birth, those who are not of the Hebrew faith or tradition, those who do not have a stake in the politics of Herodian succession arrive and see for themselves.  And their delight and amazement come through this new look at power and authority.  Love in person is made personal.  This Jesus is not a local phenom, particular to one religious tradition.  He is the cosmic force of God.
 
Their story is a powerful nudge for us to look at our story.  We come to Church for all kinds of reasons.  We come here to anchor our lives in prayer and praise.  We come here to be together and life one another up to light and life.  We come to eat breakfast and/or nosh at coffee hour.  In all of this we touch something far greater and far more crucial.  We come to accept the power of a living Christ in our lives.  And as we do so, there are epiphanies aplenty to be found in living our lives differently. 
 
About now, we have looked back over a year of many challenges and changes.  We have contemplated the transition from one decade to the next, or for some, argued about whether the decade really changes this year or next.  No matter, the world has changed, is changing, and will continue to spin on its uneven axis of malformed priorities, outsized expectations, and false fronts of power and success.  And at this moment, this Epiphany, we have the opportunity to throw all of the useless calls for more on the trash heap of idolatry, and claim the One, the Source, the Christ as the center and ground of all our being and becoming.  God does not love if because we of what we do.  God loves us because that is what God does.
 
To get hung up on the world and its weary ways is to join in old Herod’s mania of scarcity, threats, and self-serving manipulation.  But in the words of a great James Taylor song:
 
Those magic men the Magi, some people call them wise or Oriental, even kings.
Well anyway, those guys, they visited with Jesus, they sure enjoyed their stay.
Then warned in a dream of King Herod's scheme, they went home by another way…
Maybe me and you can be wise guys too and go home by another way.
We can make it another way, safe home as they used to say.
Keep a weather eye to the chart on high and go home another way.
 
A word of encouragement I received this season really stuck with me through much of other noise of retrospectives and resolutions.  It is this: “Remember that you once dreamed of being where you are now.”  Certainly, my life and none of our lives are not perfect, but the life we have is what we have been given as gift, sign, and opportunity.  To be here among you is a gift.  Look at this place and at you all.  The sign of hope is our common and growing life as Jesus people.  Look at our mission and ministry, growing in joy.  The opportunity is to live that out with fierce love, dogged acceptance, and deep peace.  Look how different we can be without acquiring or doing more.

I have really thought about my word.  My word is look.  I have written it down.  It is on the bulletin board with the pictures of family and friends, the calendar, and the save the date cards for family weddings.  It is a good word that I need to see every day for faith, wellbeing, and wonder. There is much to see, and I will to look up, look out, and look alive in Christ.  My word is look.  What is yours?  

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Christmas Eve, 9:00PM
December 24, 2019
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
It was a large and diverse parish church with many, many children from overachieving families.  Long before I served there, the leadership had made the decision to have a no rehearsal, high participation pageant on Christmas Eve.  It was a brilliant theological happening.  We had a new, young family who had had an October baby play Mary, Joseph, and Jesus.  They took their places and as we told the story, we invited anyone who wanted to participate to come forward.  We advertised ahead of time for children to come as whoever they wanted to be in the Christmas story.  We had a big trash can full of shepherd’s staffs, boxes of halo head pieces, and, lots of glittery stars on long sticks to hold up and twinkle.  We had the acolytes prepared and placed strategically to heard and help as necessary.
 
As the whole thing unfolded, we had numbers of young people in bathrobes, some with painted on sheep noses, and some good cow costumes complete with utters.  But because we invited all comers, we had many princesses, three Power Rangers, one Spiderman, two Supermen, a Ninja Turtle, and a lobster.  That night stands out as unforgettable for this veteran priest and pageant director.  And in the end, I do not believe that experience was as far from the heart of the Christmas story as we might think.
 
Our pictures of the manger scene are particular, traditional, and artfully arranged.  Renaissance artists depict a decidedly European looking holy family, a fat cherubic Christ Child, and a cleaned up bunch of shepherds.  Our crèche scenes depict a lonely and isolated couple in the manger, with reclining bovines and a few fluffy white sheep.  For sure, Joseph and Mary bore the hardship of traveling just before the delivery, and they were far from home when the time came.  Adding to that, their encounters with dreams and angels, telling them of the miracle of this child’s conception left them amazed and wondering, while their friends and relatives were, more likely, skeptical.  So their solitude in carrying this part of the story is poignant for sure.
 
There is another line of sight into the crèche, though.  In first century Bethlehem, homes were two to three rooms at most.  There was the family room where everyone sheltered and slept.  And there was the other room, where the animals were housed and fed.  If there was a third room, it was a luxury for visitors and extended family that did not fit in the main lodging.  Some homes had that additional space on the roof.  The inns of the day were more like air b and bs. For travelers in a culture noted for its hospitality, a few spare rooms were let out, but mostly, there were just provided gratis for guests or travelers.
 
As the story goes, Joseph and Mary went down to Bethlehem to be enrolled.  We know they were not orphans, and as they made the trip to be counted with their family, it is likely that they had a large and extended one, as almost all people did back in their day.  Quirinius’ census was really just a big, bureaucratic invite to a family reunion.  No wonder there were no rooms in the inn, or the guest room, or spare room or wherever.  The stable where Joseph and Mary lodged was overflow shelter before the days of air mattresses.  And it makes sense that this stable where Jesus was born was part of the extended family’s home.  And if Jesus birth was like any other first century birth there would have been village midwives helping out, uncles and aunties listening from the other room, and lots of squealing children awaiting an new cousin.
 
While the script focuses on the main characters, the part we might consider here is that there were lots of extras on the scene.  Births were then as they are now, occasions for concern and celebration all at once.  The addition to new life in a family is always life changing and more than a little miraculous.  And birth is one of the most faith-affirming moments, assuring us that our Creator God is not done with humanity, but still working miracles among us.
 
This birth of Jesus, the child of the Holy Spirit, God made human, Emmanuel, God with us, is a particular and unique event that changes human and history so much -- that we mark all of time around its happening.  Jesus’ otherness is what we will see and experience as we tell and live with the rest of his story.  It is a matter of theological mystery a lifetime of faithful wonderment.  The greatness of Jesus is also his us-ness: his birth and belonging in an extended family, his vulnerability in being delivered through skilled and compassionate hands, and the fact that from day one, he is surrounded by those who help him thrive and care for him as one of us.
 
So this Christmas, why not add to the crèche scene. Add an extended family, a few health care providers, and excited children, dressed as whoever they want to be.  And while we are at it, we might include our own likeness in there was well.  For this child Jesus to grow and thrive in this world, God needs us too.
 
If you come this evening as a regular or a guest, welcome to your family of God.  We all play a part in this pageant.  No role in bringing Jesus to life in this world is ever insignificant.  And if we ever think that God has given up on the world, we tell God’s birth story and affirm that hope is still being born, awe and wonder are very much alive, and God is still delivering love in person.  Amen.