Relentless - Blue Christmas

John 1:1-5, 10-14, 16-18

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.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

---

“Relentless” is the word that kept coming to mind – about these days and as I wondered about tonight. “Relentless” because the list and litany of things that I know are weighing on some of you … and on me … and that I thought might bring us here for worship, just kept piling up and piling on in recent days. Of course there’s the news – the wars and rumors of wars, the natural disasters and pending storms, the politics, the politics, and the politics. I’m going to let that all of that “news” stuff speak for itself.

Mostly it’s been the dying, though. So much dying. People losing parents and friends and family and children, even – sometimes after long, lingering sickness and disease. Sometimes quickly, though not unexpectedly. Sometimes in surprising, shocking, unsettling ways – surrounded by circumstances no one could have seen coming. Of course the grief of death shows up in particularly painful ways at this time of year, whether it happened last week or a lifetime ago.

But it’s not just that dying that’s relentless these days. There is the struggle of parenting that’s overwhelming for some, I know. There are kids struggling with what it means to be a kid – or to become an adult – in this world. There are people whose jobs have been on the line – and some who’ve lost what they were counting on in that regard. There are sick and aging parents and friends. There are failing marriages. There are broken relationships of all kinds that would, could, should be something so much more and better and different than they’ve turned out to be.

There are burdens of anxiety and mental illness too numerous and nebulous to name or itemize but that somehow have a very real weight and heft to them, nonetheless.

There are people carrying secrets too hard and too heavy to carry on their own or to say out loud from here.

And I’m sorry/not sorry for those of you with whom I’ve already shared this little video. It added something to our Bethel Bible Study class a couple of weeks ago where I used it to talk theology … and about the nature of God.

Then it came up again in our Stephen Ministry discussion last week where I used it, thinking clinically, about how we deal with each other in caring relationships.

And when something like this won’t leave my mind – or keeps popping up in relevant, meaningful, surprising ways – I feel like I’m supposed to take notice and pay more attention and maybe keep learning from whatever it might be.

So I want to share it with those of you who haven’t seen it – and again with those of you who have – and wonder about it, together, in light of whatever brings us here, for a service like this, at Christmas.

All you need to know about the video is that it’s Brene Brown’s voice you’re hearing. (If you’ve never heard of Brene Brown, she’s a professor, author, podcaster and social worker.) And someone has taken one of her lectures and turned it into a cartoon for some extra effect and added meaning.

So much of the truth about Christmas – which so often gets lost in the mix of everything we’ve done to the “most wonderful time of the year” – so much of the TRUTH about Christmas is acknowledgement of the fact that life in this world is relentless. And the story of our faith never suggests otherwise. God never suggests otherwise. In fact, a friend of mine once said that the Bible itself – the story of our faith in Scripture – reads like some kind of trauma response narrative when you think about it.

From Adam and Eve, to Cain and Abel, to the Tower of Babel, the Exodus from slavery in Egypt, the exile in Babylon, through to the life, crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus, our faith’s story is one tragedy after another tragedy after another, after another, after another when you think about it – some cosmic in scope and scale, some more personal and close to home.

Whatever the case, even Scripture is a reminder that life in this world is relentless – even for people of faith, maybe especially for people of faith – who have their hearts and minds and lives attuned to the music of someone and of something greater than ourselves.

But the other hard truth is, faith doesn’t and will not take away our grief in one fell swoop – nor should it. Faith can’t reverse our deepest darkest thoughts, all on its own, all of the time. Faith won’t fix your anxiety or ease your depression, if you can muster whatever “enough” of that sort of faith is supposed to look like. Faith won’t keep your problems at bay or make your life easier at every turn.

No matter what some preach, teach or post on social media – or have tried to make you believe in one way or another – loving God and having faith is not a prescription against suffering or struggle.

But the promise of Christmas – and the point of that little video about empathy, for my money – is a reminder about the kind of God we’re dealing with, in Jesus. It’s not a God like so many other false gods (drugs, alcohol, self-reliance, our own boot-straps, our own best intentions, our own busy schedules, or whatever else we use to fix ourselves);

The promise of Christmas is not about a god or gods who stand up there and out there, far and away from what hurts us most…offering us a sandwich or a simple solution or a sweet supplication to fix whatever is the matter…

The promise of Christmas is not of a God who doesn’t – who has not – lived and experienced and felt just exactly what we live and experience and feel as a people…

Ours is a God who shows up in the midst of whatever mess we find ourselves and sits with us there and shows us that it is endurable, doable, and able to be overcome…

Ours is a God who shows up in ways as tangible as one of these prayer shawls you are invited to take and wrap yourself in when you leave here tonight…

Ours is a God who comes down as surely as this bread and wine that we’ll eat, drink, taste, smell and share in a moment…

Ours is a God who is sitting next to you now, in this worship, in the presence of someone who has struggled and suffered, too; who is struggling and suffering, beside you even now…

Ours is a God who is even more relentless – more patient and persistent and vulnerable – than whatever brings us here and that we’ll carry with us even after we leave.

Our is a God who comes down, in Jesus, to remind us that there is grace and love and mercy and hope, embodied and emboldened in the world around us, by faithful, loving, kind people and pastors and parents; friends and family and strangers, even.

So, I hope some of you came here tonight selfishly looking and longing for something … even if you aren’t sure what it could be.

I hope others of you came here tonight – whether you knew it or not – looking and longing to enter into this sacred space, to simply sit with and be alongside the others …

I hope each of us sees our potential to be both of these things at any given moment in the days to come…

And I hope we see it all as a picture of the promise and great hope of Christmas – that wild, miraculous notion of the Word and ways of God, making the vulnerable, loving choice to become flesh and to live among us;

…the love of God putting on skin and bones – not just in the person of Jesus, born in a manger long, long ago – but alive and well in God’s children, people just like you and me;

…the love of God born to give and to receive the kind of grace, mercy and peace that is ours because we are God’s – for each other and for the sake of the world into which he comes...

…sharing love, hope and connection that promises the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting – on this side of heaven and the next.

Amen. Merry Christmas.

Sabbath Stillness and Solitude

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Genessaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized Jesus and rushed about that region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard that he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

---

It didn’t used to be this way, but when I read this bit of Scripture nowadays, I’m not so impressed by the crowds. I’m not drawn to the way they recognized Jesus or how they chased him around Galilee, like a rock star. I’m not even moved by his compassion for those crowds or for the sick people he healed or even for the great faith it takes to believe touching his cloak would work a miracle, let alone that those sorts of miracles apparently happened. For good or ill, we’ve come to expect that from Jesus, right?

So, what gets my attention these days is how it seems like, maybe, Jesus was trying to avoid all of that some of the time.

See, the disciples show up – sometime after he’s sent them out to share the good news and heal diseases and cast out demons and whatnot – and they start to tell Jesus all about their exploits. And I imagine they’re more than a little proud and excited about all they’ve been up to. I wouldn’t be surprised if these former fishermen had traded one sort of “big fish” story for another, if you know what I mean. Like, what used to be a competition about who caught and sold more or bigger fish out on the lake, now had likely become a chance to one-up each other about who’d converted the greatest number of new believers; or who had cast out the most demons; or who had forgiven the most sinful sinner; or who had healed the grossest case of leprosy, or whatever.

Now, I’m sure Jesus was proud of his protégés. I imagine he was pleased with their progress, if their reports were true. I suspect he was impressed with their enthusiasm and their faith and all of their hard work. But – again – what gets my attention these days is that Jesus tells the disciples to stop; to step away from all of that; to go to a deserted place, by themselves, and rest for awhile. And I think maybe Jesus does this because he has as much compassion for his closest friends and followers, as he does for all of those crowds, who were like sheep without a shepherd, looking to be healed.

And the truth is, Jesus’ disciples weren’t any different, or better, or worse, than the crowds who followed them around. They needed healing, too. And the same is true for you and me. We are no different, or better, or worse, than those with whom we live our lives of faith out there in the world.

And sometimes we need to step away from all we’re up to in order to remember and to recognize and to receive the rest we need and that God longs for us to experience. Sometimes we need to stop looking outside of ourselves at the needs surrounding us and start looking in the mirror for the needs that are ours. Sometimes we need to be quiet and still long enough to hear something other than our own voices or the noise of the world. Sometimes we need to listen for what God has to say about what we need most, rather than what the world out there is trying to convince us is so important.

And that’s hard, right – the stillness and the solitude and the listening, I mean? I was reminded about it at our last “Wild, Wacky, Wonderful Wednesday,” with the kids. I did my best to talk with them about prayer and meditation. And we talked about the difference between praying – where we do all the talking and ask God for all the things we’d like God’s help with – and meditation – where we sit still and be quiet and listen for what God might be trying to tell us. Some of the kids got it and played along – or at least pretended to. But several others hated it. I know because they told me so … out loud … in front of the group! They couldn’t do it. They couldn’t stand it. Wouldn’t do it. And it made them want to go home.

Which is as funny as it is frustrating. And it’s not unique to kids. I’ve had adults tell me the same thing – that it’s hard, frustrating, impossible, even, to be still and quiet in prayer and meditation for too long. And I struggle to make time for it, too, to be honest.

So, I think this Gospel is a perfectly-timed message for us – not just because it’s still summer and those of us governed by the school calendar have a couple of weeks left before another school year – and all that that means. But this is good timing for all of us as we continue to wonder about what Fall will look like post-pandemic – out there in the world and in our lives together at Cross of Grace.

I thought of something I’ve seen Social Worker and Professor, Brene Brown, get credit for saying – that we shouldn’t long so much for a return to whatever “normal” was just for the sake of it. She says, “Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than [that] we normalized greed, inequality, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate, and lack. We should not long to return, my friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature.”

Now all of that doesn’t apply to all of us. But it begs the question for me. “What will ‘normal’ be for us?”

Will we fill our schedules, calendars, and agendas with all of the things that were there before – just because? Have we already started to do that – and why? Or will we be thoughtful and deliberate and faithful about engaging what matters? Will we say “yes” to what does matter? And might we practice saying “no” to what doesn’t? Might we schedule more time away – to stop – in deserted places, by ourselves to pray and listen and plan to live more deliberately? And will we be kind and gracious, forgiving and compassionate toward those who have the courage and faith to say no – or to do differently – in the days to come?

I hope so. Because I think this is what Jesus is calling his disciples to this morning. And by extension, of course, this is our call as followers of Jesus, just the same.

What time apart and time away, in deserted places, means to do for us is to give us rest and refreshment, yes. It allows us to stop and relax. It replenishes our energy and restores our enthusiasm and builds our strength and increases our stamina. Personally, it has a knack for getting my creative juices flowing in new ways. All of this is called Sabbath, remember, and it’s one of God’s Top Ten commandments. And when we get it right, it forces us to stop relying on ourselves and on our own accomplishments, and reminds us to rely on God more often, instead.

And this takes faith, because we have to let God be God in those moments when we dare to stop doing, producing, accomplishing, proving and distracting ourselves with all we have on our respective agendas. And it takes humility because it reminds us that our value, as far as God is concerned, comes from simply being, merely existing – nothing more and nothing less – and that is a lesson in grace, for sure.

And when we practice that kind of Sabbath well… when we put away our busy schedules and our big fish stories (unless they actually involve some fishing, I suppose) and the pride that goes along with them… when we stop filling our calendars and our schedules and our lists of things to do… we will start to see that value and that worth and that kind of grace in the mirror, for ourselves, apart from our ability to “do” anything about it.

And when we learn to see it in the mirror, we’ll begin to see it in the world – in friends, family, neighbors and more. And then we might normalize – and prioritize – things like grace and patience, humility and each other, instead of what was “normal” before. And when that happens, our compassion will be stirred, like Jesus’ was way back when. And we will begin to live and move and breathe and serve in the world, with joy, more meaningfully, beside still waters, perhaps, and mindful of our place in the midst of what all belongs to God, and resting assured in God’s grace to care for every bit of it – and even for us, in the end.

Amen