If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

1 Corinthians 13:1

Beloved of God,

What a gift these days of light at the beginning of 2016 have been!  After December’s record rains and weeks on end of gray skies the return of the Sun’s brilliant light has lifted my soul upwards.  Our family spend much of January 1st at Lincoln Park as Kai and Naomi tried out inline skates—gifts from the grandparents who know how important it is for young bodies to be in motion.  The sun’s light is a fitting accompaniment to this Season of Light, when we mark how the Starchild Jesus, now grown, begins in his public ministry to shine the light and love of God on our dark and weary world. The plea of a favorite hymn springs to mind:

Christ, be our light! Shine in our hearts!  Shine through the darkness.

Christ, be our light! Shine in your church gathered today!

This month a series of special worship services help to focus that light for us: The Baptism of our Lord (1/10); the annual commemoration of the life and witness of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1/17); Reconciling in Christ (RIC) Sunday (1/23); and our Annual Meeting Sunday (1/31). Each occasion focuses the light of Christ in specific ways, and we’ll be hearing some new voices as well as familiar ones.  (Read more about them under OUR WORSHIP LIFE below.)

In this season after Epiphany we’ll be hearing a series of readings from Paul’s first letter to the Christians at Corinth.  In his first letter to this troubled community—so gifted and yet so competitive that they’ve forgotten what their gifts are for—Paul moves point by point through each conflict they face, calling them to unity of purpose and commitment. By the time he reaches the 12th chapter, he’s ready to propose a powerful new analogy for who the people of God are—diverse members of the one body of Christ.  “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” (1 Cor. 12:12-13)

The whole letter leads up to chapter 13—the love chapter.  When couples choose a reading from chapter 13 for their wedding, I often remind them that while Paul says much about love in this chapter, never does he say “love is blind.”  God does not turn a blind eye to our faults and thus is able to love us.  No.  In Christ God sees us clearly—through and through—and in spite of all our faults and failings, loves us nonetheless. This is the heart of the gospel—unmerited grace!  We can’t do a single thing to earn it—it simply IS.  And because we are claimed by this love that “will not let us go” this assurance frees us to stop counting up points (it’s not a competition!) and instead to focus our response on practicing love. For no matter how gifted we are—as individuals or as a community—those gifts won’t mean anything if we fail to communicate the unconditional love of God.

Perhaps you know someone who is particularly gifted at loving.  Have you ever wondered how they do it?  How they show it?  What you can learn from them?  This is a season for turning our thoughts toward the light and toward those whom we recognize as light-bringers.  I’m reading a book right now that follows a family in Warsaw during World War 2.  The book, The Zookeeper’s Wife, by Diane Ackerman, is based on the journals of Antonina Zabinski who, with her husband Jan, was a caretaker of the world class Warsaw Zoo when the war began.  It follows their harrowing journey through the loss of the zoo’s rare animals during the initial German blitzkrieg, their care for surviving animals of the two-legged as well as four-legged kind, their efforts to feed and harbor friends and strangers, Jew and non-Jew alike, and their connection to the Polish Underground resistance—all while raising their young son Rys and bearing a second child, daughter Teresa.  It’s a remarkable story, and one in which, time and time again, I have been struck by how big Antonina’s heart is—how ripe to take risks for others in spite of her fear—how large her capacity to love.  In the end, around 300 people survived the Nazi occupation of Warsaw due to the Zabinski’s advocacy and provision of safe haven.

As we begin a new year, there’s plenty of evidence in the world that hate is alive and well.  But Paul’s testimony is that the love with which God loves us, “bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things,” will never end.  As we see such love bursting forth and refracting in Jesus’s life and ministry, how can we resist following?

Pastor Erik

“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel!”

To all who await God’s visitation,

We’re here once more crossing the threshold into Advent—the season of longing, waiting, and watching for signs of God’s presence among us.  It’s a favorite season in our household for a number of reasons; special sights, sounds, and smells, the candle ritual with devotions at the dinner table, and the built in countdown to Christmas, to name a few. This year a new marker was added—the Advent Service of Lessons and Carols hosted by St. Mark’s Cathedral.

We arrived with our friend early enough to procure front row seats for the packed service and we were not disappointed. Attending a worship service with my family where someone else is in charge is always special. We had many opportunities to do so during my sabbatical and the experience at St. Mark’s on November 29th reminded me of this. As the choir intoned the first notes of the liturgy, their voices rising with incense to envelop the cavernous space, I felt emotion rise within me. I was being transported to St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, where we had found refuge one sodden afternoon, arriving in time for the 5pm Eucharist.  Many times throughout our travels we found it was liturgies such as this—and evensong in particular—that anchored us, providing us with the sense that by touching the Sacred we were touching Home. Now that feeling, too rich and subtle for words, came over me once more.

The core of St. Mark’s Advent Service was built upon the O Antiphons, those ancient stanzas by which the church has invoked the Divine Presence for centuries in the weeks leading up to the Feast of the Incarnation.  Each of the seven stanzas addresses the Messiah by one of his titles; each praises the coming of the Savior by a different name:

O Wisdom, you came forth from the mouth of the Most High, and reach from one end of the Earth to the other,

mightily and sweetly ordering all things: Come teach us the way of prudence!

O Adonai, ruler of the house of Israel, you appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush,

on Mount Sinai you gave him your law: with outstretched arm, come and redeem us!

O Root of Jesse, you stand as an ensign to the people; before you kings shall keep silence,

all nations bow in worship: Come and save us , and do not delay!

O Key of David, and scepter of the house of Israel; you open and no one closes; you close and no one opens:

come and deliver us from the chains of prison, we who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death!

O Rising Dawn, brightness of the light eternal, sun of righteousness:

come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death!

O King of Nations, and their desire, you are the cornerstone that binds two into one:

come and save the creature whom you have fashioned from clay!

O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, the Desire of all nations and their Salvation:

come and save us, O Lord our God!

These antiphons date back at least to the reign of Charlemagne (771-814), and one source suggests they were in use in some form as early as the 6th century.  Through the wondrous and complex choral setting written by Peter Hallock and beautifully executed by the choirs of St. Marks, the Antiphons soared, carrying our spirits with them.

These antiphons of Advent remind me where I need to keep my attention focused this season.  The health, healing, safety, and wholeness I seek—the Bible’s word is salvation—cannot be ordered from Amazon or procured from any source but God alone.  The wonder of the season is that, when it finally does come, it’s in a form that neither I nor the world can recognize by the packaging.  Yet, it—or rather he— still comes, as a babe in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

Homeless families seek shelter where they can remain together; communities of color struggle for equal treatment under the law; refugees long for new places to call home; world leaders discuss scenarios for limiting climate breakdown; another enraged shooter claims the lives of innocent victims.  This is the world we live in; a world where shattered lives raise their voices in hope of deliverance.  We need a Savior!  The miracle of Christmas is that he is already “God with us.”  God grant us the eyes to recognize Emmanuel and the hearts to embrace him however, whenever, and wherever he comes among us.

Living in hope,

Pastor Erik