Sermon for Saint Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church
San Francisco, California
December 29, 2013
Text: John 1:1-18
Audio:
Last weekend my siblings and I flew and drove in from all over the country, to gather on Guemes Island in Washington State, at our childhood home. We gathered to surround our mother as she said goodbye to her home of 30+ years, the home which my parents built, the gardens she’s worked, the field that housed various cows, pigs, and even a few goats over the years, the property where all seven of us, her children, were raised.
“Momentous,” is the word a friend used to expressed this move. Momentous to be saying goodbye to the place and space that has held so much for my mother for so long and has been what she has known as stable, something to count on, the place to come home to for over 30 years.
I, on the other hand, have lived in six different states and 13 homes since I left this childhood homestead and my statistics are more in line with the transient population we find here in the Bay Area. Many of us in this room can identify with the pause and faraway look when someone asks us, “Where’s home?” and we try to decide which way to answer that question today. “Home” being a concept that can be a little shaky.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And God came and dwelt among us… God came and made a home among us. What is this Word that makes itself at home? The Word, the Logos, is a Greek term that is a struggle to even begin to capture in the English language. It can refer to any part of communication, or the total act of communication…the speaking, the proclaiming, or the connecting conversation between. We can read this as wisdom showing up to communicate and be present with us, God’s self-revelation to humanity.
The Logos was God and God came and made His home among us. Or a translation that has caught my imagination, God came and pitched Her tent with us, beside us, among us. In this poetic telling of the gospel story that starts off the Book of John, God established a residence that moves, that is transient, that accompanies, that’s every changing. Invoking the way of God with the ancient mothers and fathers, who wandered in the wilderness, following signs and pillars of cloud and fire, setting up the Tabernacle wherever they made camp. God Incarnate followed in this ancient tradition and came and pitched a tent among us, born through a woman who was far from home, away from all she knew as stable and known. And this God, is audaciously indiscriminant about who She pitches her tent beside, who She loves, reminding us in the very location of Christ’s birth, in a shed, behind the inn, with the animals, visited by shepherds.
As the season of advent is still lingering in the smell of Christmas trees, and the twinkling lights, the audacious message of incarnation is fresh in our minds. God showing up on earth in fleshy, ordinary, extraordinary form, as a baby. An infant. God didn’t show up fully-grown, clothed in armor, or sleek and strong with black-belt karate moves. God came to this earth and slipped into the skin of baby Jesus. And this incarnate God did not come and built a palace, or a mansion, not even a humble cabin to spend all his days. Just as Incarnate God does not come to establish surety in a religious club, or create exclusive spaces where certain people can access Divinity. God came in the intimacy of a breath between a mother and infant, in the vulnerable nature of flesh and straw, in the immediate presence of Emmanuel, God with us.
Because that’s the thing about Incarnate Divinity: It’s not just in one sacred place, and it doesn’t just show up at Christmas as we call out, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” Incarnate Divinity is in the flesh and bones of the world. Dwelling with us. Accompanying us. Moving with us. Incarnate Divinity in the Bread and Wine, in the compassionate acts in unexpected places, in the intimate safety between two who know each other’s hearts, in the ache of loss when we remember those we love and miss. Incarnate Divinity, is what accompanies us through each movement of our days and lives, it is this Audacious Love, the Word made flesh, the Wisdom-in-person. The Gospel of John takes the Christmas story right down to its essence. God. Light. Love. Coming and being with us, among us, in the flesh and breath of the human story.
And this God who incarnated love through flesh of a baby boy two thousand years ago, is the God who pitches Her tent with us. Who walks through each day with us. The God who moves homes with us and promises that there is a world beyond the life we’ve come to know.
On Sunday afternoon we packed a few cars worth of boxes and headed over to the bright little apartment that my Mom will be moving into in a few weeks. We oohed and ahhed at the nice big windows, the cozy kitchen, and the wooded view out the back window. As we unloaded boxes we gave our suggestions as Mom mentally rearranged the furniture that was yet to be moved in.
And as we pictured how it could be, she began to relax and feel the possibilities that this could be home and that her children could gather here, and be family. That life and traditions, love and connection can carry on beyond space and time and be present in this new place.
She got teary as she said, “So you all will come here and visit and we can continue our family traditions here?” We all assured her yes and then one of my sisters in an inspired moment, recognized that the layout of the little apartment mimicked the circular track of our childhood home where we had spent hours running around with various games. She took off with a grin and quickly a stream of grown adults were running in a big circle, squealing and laughing like the toddlers and six and eight and ten year olds we used to be.
After the crowd had piled down the stairs, my mother grabbed my hand and asked, “Will you pray?” We prayed and blessed that home as a place where family gathers, where love and connection is felt, where traditions are enacted and new memories made. We named God’s presence, incarnate in that home as we stood at the top of the stairs. I felt the brush of the Spirit. I could almost hear the click of bamboo tent polls being assembled and feel the brush of a silk tarp on my cheek. God moving in. Dwelling with us. Setting up Her tent.
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