Over All the Earth

Over All the Earth

Isa. 43:1-7; Ps 29; Lk. 3:21-22[1]

If you’ve been around me any length of time, you’ve noticed that I open my sermons with the prayer, “Make us to know your ways.” I spent some time last year during Lent looking at what it means for us all to pray that prayer. You may have also noticed that I use another prayer in conjunction with my sermons. Like the opening prayer, the closing prayer I use is taken from the Psalms: “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth” (Ps. 57:5, 11). I use that prayer for a very specific reason, one that is closely related to the celebration of Epiphany.

Now, I realize the season of Epiphany is probably one of the most overlooked observances in the Christian calendar, so I’m aware that just by mentioning the word “Epiphany” I risk losing you for the rest of the sermon. But “Epiphany” is an important concept in our faith, even though our use of the word usually means a realization that dawns on us fairly dramatically, or a disclosure that is potentially embarrassing. Neither of those ideas really gets at the meaning of Epiphany for our faith. The essence of our observance of Epiphany is the idea that in Jesus God’s intention to make all things new had its “big debut.”

Epiphany is about the unveiling of what Advent promises: that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Lk. 3:6); that “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together” (Isaiah 40:5). Of course, that probably makes it about as clear as mud! To say that Epiphany is the season when we celebrate God’s glory revealed to all people runs a double risk of losing your attention. Talking about the “glory of God” with most people these days at best evokes a yawn and at worst a blank stare! So what in the world does it mean to celebrate God’s glory revealed over all the earth?

Let’s start with our lesson from the Psalms for today. Psalm 29 calls the “heavenly beings” to ascribe to God “glory and strength” (Ps. 29:1). I think this may point us toward our first clue. The idea that God’s glory is revealed over all the earth suggests that there will come a time when all people everywhere acknowledge God—as creator and sustainer, as redeemer and liberator, as the one who gives us all new life through God’s abiding presence.[2] It’s the vision that seems to have motivated St. Paul, who looked forward to the day when every tongue would confess “Jesus is Lord” to the glory of God (Phil. 2:10-11).

But that also points us to what I think may be our second clue as to what it means to celebrate God’s glory revealed over all the earth. There is a definite sense in which God’s glory is revealed when people experience and are transformed by God’s great redeeming works. Our lesson from Isaiah for today points us in this direction. The prophet Isaiah had warned the Jewish people that their arrogance and injustice would be their downfall. Into the devastation that engulfed the Jewish exiles in Babylon, the prophet of Isaiah 40-55 took up where his predecessor left off, and promised in the name of the Lord that after exile would come restoration. In our lesson for today, the prophet describes God’s redemptive work in terms of gathering the scattered Jewish people as a sign that their sins had been forgiven and they had been restored. In one verse, the prophet talks about God gathering “everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory” (Isa. 43:7). Now in one sense, the point of that is that God would gather and restore the chosen Jewish people. But in another sense, in the context of the book of Isaiah as a whole, it points toward the restoration of all humanity,[3] for there are none who are not “called by God’s name” and “created for God’s glory”!

So the second dimension to celebrating God’s glory revealed over all the earth is the Good news that God intends to gather the “people created for God’s glory,” to renew and restore and liberate all people and all creation. It is the good news that in Jesus God has begun to fulfill what was God’s intention from the very beginning—that all people and indeed all creation might be filled with God’s love, God’s freedom, God’s joy, God’s life.[4]

The glory of God is finally revealed “over all the earth” not in some religious setting but in God’s dwelling with all people in such a way as to enable them all to experience all the freedom and joy and love that define God’s very being.[5] The good news of Epiphany is that in Jesus God has already turned loose that “glory,” that power of liberation, that new life. We may only see glimmers of it now, but for the now the glimmers are enough. One day we will all walk, run, skip, and dance into the full light of God’s new day. Until then, we continue to look forward to it and bear witness to it in joyful faith, praying, “Let your glory be over all the earth.”

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[1] © 2010 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 1/10/10 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2]Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, 197, for this description of the “economic Trinity,” or God’s character as revealed by God’s works.

[3] Cf. Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah, 326: he says that this promise is focused on Israel, but it extends to a “covenant relationship with the nations.” Cf. further ibid., 332, 335. Cf. also Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology II:243: “Second Isaiah’s” message in a nutshell is that God is coming not only to reveal himself to Israel but also to reveal his glory to the whole world. Cf. also ibid., 248-49.

[4] This is a theme in Jürgen Moltmann’s theology. He says that when the glory of God is revealed over all the earth, all humankind and all creation will be drawn into “the life stream of the triune God,” where they experience “boundless freedom, exuberant joy, and inexhaustible love,” which is what God intended for creation in the first place. See Moltmann, Trinity, 124, 126, 161, 178, 212, 222. Cf. also Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation, 183-84; Jürgen Moltmann, In the End—The Beginning, 145.

[5] Walter Brueggemann, “Expository Article: Luke 3:1-4,” Interpretation 30 (Oct 1976): 409

Holding On for Life

Holding On for Life

Isa. 40:5; Ps 148; Lk. 3:6[1]

Over the course of the last few weeks we have learned that Advent is a time for waiting in anticipation. It is a time of looking for the fulfillment of the promised salvation. It is also a time to embrace the restoration and healing God has promised to the whole human family. During Advent, we have looked forward in hope to the day when “all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Lk. 3:6) and “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together” (Isaiah 40:5). We have joyfully anticipated the coming of the Lord.

And now that we are in the full swing of Christmastime, at least according to the ecclesial calendar, we’re all celebrating the joy of the coming of the Lord—right? Probably not. Christmas has come and gone for most of us, even though it is only the “Third day of Christmas.” For most of us, this is a time not for celebrating the fulfillment of God’s promises in the birth of the Christ child, but rather a time for recovering from all the ways we’ve avoided the waiting of Advent. For most of us, it’s a time to return gifts that either don’t fit, or aren’t quite right, or that we simply don’t want. Then there’s the rush to take down all our decorations so that our household can “get back to normal.” For many of us, these days are the beginning the long, gray, dreary experience of January. It’s a time for riding out the winter weather until springtime comes around. Truth be told, we are now entering what is for most of us the least favorite time of year.

I think part of the problem may be that many of us build up our expectations of “Christmastime” so high that it is inevitable that we will be disappointed. And when we return to the dull routines of January, it’s no wonder that the joy and anticipation and celebration of Advent and Christmas have vanished into thin air. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, focusing our attention on what we long for but do not yet have can be a cause for discouragement—and it frequently is for many of us who struggle with faith. And yet the Prophets and the Apostles who looked for the coming of the Lord did so with great eagerness and excitement (cf. Isa. 40:5; 52:7-10; Phil. 4:4-7). In one of our lessons for today, the Psalmist looks forward to the coming of God’s peace and justice with enthusiasm that can hardly be contained (Psalm 148).

So how do we turn that act of waiting from discouragement into enthusiasm? I think it’s a matter of how you frame it. If you frame the “Day of the Lord” in terms of having to frantically avoid being “Left Behind,” then I doubt that it will generate much enthusiasm for you. But I think it’s a different thing altogether if you frame the Lord’s coming in terms of looking forward to the time when “I will wipe away every tear,” and “they will beat their swords into ploughshares,” and “I am making the whole of creation new.” That’s something to look forward to! I think we could actually get excited about that. I think we could even find joy in looking forward to the day when God comes to give peace and freedom to “all the families of the earth”—and ultimately all creation.[2] That’s why we pray, “Thy kingdom Come”; another way to say it is to pray, “Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.”[3]

One of the lessons our observance of the waiting and anticipation of Advent has to teach us is that Advent is not the only season for waiting. In a very real sense, the waiting and looking of Advent is a preparation for the life of faith. As I said a couple of weeks ago, the waiting and stillness of Advent serves to focus our hopes on the heart of our faith—that God is in the process of creating for us all a future of justice, freedom, reconciliation and wholeness. But God’s work in this world is not obvious; that’s why the life of faith means waiting in anticipation. Faith means looking for the coming of the Lord. Faith means hoping for the peace that overcomes all violence and the love that makes all our hatreds evaporate.

That is both the burden of faith and the blessing. It is a burden because we’ve already determined how much we all like to wait—NOT! But it is also a blessing, because just as the waiting of Advent helps refocus our attention in the midst of all the distractions of the way we “celebrate Christmas,” so in a very real sense the waiting of the life of faith re-focuses our sight so that all we see isn’t just the death and destruction in the world around us, or the injustice of the wealthy and powerful who oppress the powerless, or the crass and mindless consumption of the few who take an inordinate share and leave many millions in want. Faith enables us to look beyond all the despair and the seeming futility of life to “a future of justice, freedom, reconciliation and wholeness.”[4] It is the revealing of the Glory of God, as the Psalmist puts it. But the glory to be revealed “is not some religious epiphany” but rather “it is the power of liberation” that God has “turned loose in history” in the person of Jesus.[5] In a very real sense, what one contemporary prophet said about Advent applies to the life of faith as a whole: it’s a matter of “holding on for dear life to the reassurance that God intends to make the world right again.”[6]

It is not a vision that makes much sense in terms of the way things actually are. Talking about peace and freedom for all people makes about as much sense as talking of soldiers taking a break from war to celebrate Christmas together. But that’s exactly what happened in 1914, among a group of soldiers from Scotland, France, and Germany, facing each other in trenches only yards apart. The story was dramatized in the 2005 film, Joyeux Nöel. On Christmas Eve, those three groups of soldiers who were taught from early childhood to hate each other started singing Christmas carols together across the trenches. The officers called a truce for Christmas Day, and these three groups of warriors joined together for 24 hours, trading stories of home and families. And in the course of that day they came face-to-face with the reality that they really weren’t different from each other at all. And after truce expired, the troops had to be withdrawn because they no longer had the heart to kill their newly made friends.

That’s what we’re looking forward to—a world where hatred is erased and replaced with the bonds of friendship. A world where all people and all creation can thrive. A world where there is no more violence or death or suffering or oppression. A world where all people can enjoy a life that is full of unimaginable joy. That’s something to look forward to! That’s something to hold on to for dear life. That’s something that can inspire a lifetime of faith.

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[1] © 2009 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 12/27/09 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 121; James L. Mays, Psalms, 311.

[3] From a version of the Lord’s Prayer in "Night Prayer" section of the New Zealand Prayer Book.

[4] John C. Morris, “Anticipation,” The Christian Century (Nov. 22, 2000):1214.

[5] Walter Brueggemann, “Expository Article: Luke 3:1-4,” Interpretation 30 (Oct 1976): 409

[6] Joanna M. Adams, “Light the Candles,” The Christian Century (Nov. 28, 2006): 18

Embracing Restoration

Embracing Restoration

Micah 5:2-5a; Luke 1:39-55[1]

After all my “confessions” this Advent season, some of you may be convinced that I am a cross between Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch! You may have wondered, “Is there anything about Christmas he does like?” Well, you’re in for a treat today, because that’s exactly what I want to talk about—what I do like about the way we celebrate Christmas. The one aspect of how we as a people “celebrate Christmas” that I like is the fact that we make it a time for family. We scheme with our families how to surprise other family members with just the right presents. We gather with families around the table and the Christmas tree. We worship with our families at the altars of our churches. It is a time for reunion and reconciliation, for embracing and entertaining, for sharing and supporting one another.

I guess I have to add another “confession”—I haven’t always enjoyed this dimension of Christmas. Truth be told, it’s one of the parts of the way we “celebrate Christmas” that many people dread! For many people, Christmas becomes a time when you have to endure your relatives, whether you want to or not. It becomes a time of fighting and re-opening old wounds, a time for throwing discretion to the wind and behaving in ways that are embarrassing and offensive—toward the members of our own family! Christmas is a time when the gaping holes in the fabric of our “family ties” become painfully apparent. It is a time when we desperately need restoration and healing in those most basic human relationships.

Advent is a time when we focus our attention on God’s work in this broken world. It is a time of waiting in silence, a time of looking for the salvation that God has promised, and a time of singing for joy over God’s presence among us. I think it’s tragic that in the midst of all this Gospel talk, many people in our society find themselves more depressed than at any other time of the year. I would venture to say that one of the main reasons for that is that it is a time when we become painfully aware how broken this world is—particularly our own families.

One of the themes in the lessons for this Fourth Sunday of Advent is that it is a time to celebrate the work of restoration God is carrying out in the human family—the whole human family. Take the lesson from Micah. At first glance, one might think that the prophet Micah was no different from many of his contemporaries. In virtually the same breath that he speaks about the coming of the Prince of Peace who will restore and reunite the people, it seems that he looks forward to the domination and oppression of their enemies! And yet, the prophet Micah may very well be an exception to the pattern of looking for restoration for Israel in terms of punishment for their enemies.[2] Like Isaiah, the future Micah envisions is one of “beating swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks” (Mic. 4:1-4). And in our lesson for today, that restoration includes the reunion of the divided Jewish family. Think of it—Micah looked forward to the coming one who would heal the bitter enmity between Judah and the tribes of Israel and bring them together in one family for the first time in 200 years!

We think of reunions as happy and joyful, but the reality is that sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren’t. In Mary’s Magnificat, we hear that one of the ways God’s work of restoration would come about is through the “Great Reversal”: the proud humbled, the powerful pulled down from their thrones, those who are stuffed will go away empty-handed, while those who are disempowered will be lifted up and those who are hungry will be filled with good things (Luke 1:51-53). [3] Mary describes the overturning of the current system of consumption and oppression and violence by the norms of God’s kingdom: mercy, justice, and love.[4] I think many of us saw a little of that in action yesterday as we distributed food to needy families.

There’s just no way to avoid the fact that there is a barb in the good news that God is working to restore the human family. That barb is this—those among us who flourish on the backs of others, those who get rich by the poverty of the many, those who wield power through violence of any kind will be impoverished, overthrown, and overturned.[5] And yet, even here there is good news—the restoration that God promises is one in which some of us will suffer loss, but in the end we will all gain immeasurably more than we lose. The future Micah and Mary looked forward to is a vision of the restoration of the whole human family. They saw in the birth of the coming one the establishment of the justice that makes it possible for all people to thrive, to reach their God-given potential, to experience the joy and the vibrancy that God intends for all creation.

Advent is a time for waiting in anticipation. It is a time of looking for the fulfillment that promised salvation, and a time of singing for joy over God’s presence in our midst. It is also a time to embrace the restoration and healing God has promised to the whole human family in our families. Tread lightly this year, instead of taking up the challenge to engage in bickering. Do whatever you need to show a little extra consideration to your family—after all, we’re all stressed out during this time of the year. And after all we’ve been doing, many of us are frankly exhausted. Try to say the kind word, do the kind thing; extend your arms to the one who aggravates you and embrace the restoration that God is bringing to us all! Now that’s the way to celebrate Christmas!

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[1] © 2009 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 12/20/09 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] Randall J. Pannell, in “The Politics of the Messiah,” Perspectives in Religious Studies (1988): 131-143 argues that it’s possible that Micah actually contrasts the Prince of Peace who will bring restoration to the people with the way in which Israel would seek it’s own restoration—through violent means. For a broader look at the issue in Hebrew Scripture, see Hans Walter Wolff, “Swords into Ploughshares: Misuse of a Word of Prophecy?,” Currents in Theology and Mission 12 (June, 1985): 133-147. He states plainly (p. 137), “Biblical faith decisively rejects all that has to do with war.”

[3] Cf. the article by my friend and fellow seminarian Ruth Ann Foster, “Mary’s Hymn of Praise in Luke 1:46-55,” Review and Expositor 100 (2003):451-463. She says (p. 458), “Mary acknowledges God's mercy and love for the lowly and a radical reversal of normal human values in the coming messianic kingdom.”

[4] Cf. Hans Küng, The Christian Challenge: A Shortened Version of On Being A Christian, 89: in the light of the Kingdom of God, “all existing systems, all ordinances, institutions, structures and indeed all differences between the mighty and the powerless, between rich and poor, appear from the very beginning to be relatively unimportant: the norms of this kingdom must be applied even now.”

[5] Cf. Foster, “Mary’s Hymn,” 458: “even though Mary has been often ‘regarded as the comforter of the disturbed .. . she [or at least her song] is far more accurately the disturber of the comfortable’” (quoting Doris Donnelly). Cf. similarly Letty M. Russell, “God’s Great Reversal,” The Christian Century (Nov. 20, 1991): 1089. She says, “God's great reversal may come too close to home as we hear that Christmas is about lifting up the ‘lowly,’ filling ‘the hungry with good things’ and ‘sending the rich away empty.’ Yet it is by joining in the their desire and work for deliverance that we find out the meaning of the good news of great joy.”

Singing For Joy

Singing For Joy

Zeph 3:14-20; Isa 12:2-6; Phil 4:4-7[1]

I must confess that I approach this sermon with some degree of “fear and trembling.” With all my “confessions” about how I’m not a big fan of the way we “celebrate Christmas,” I’m afraid that one more might get me tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail! After all, who doesn’t like Christmas?!? But then, of course, I do have my tongue firmly implanted in my cheek with all these “confessions.” So I’ll risk just one more “confession”—I’m not a big fan of the whole decorating thing at Christmas.

You know the routine: you climb into the attic or rummage through the garage to find all those dusty boxes you packed away last January. And since it’s been a while since you packed them away, you have to really rummage around to find them all—which means you get covered in dust and cobwebs. Then there’s the fear—the nagging fear that you may have misplaced Grandpa’s antique Christmas tree ornaments with the colored water that bubbles or Great-Grandma’s hand-made Christmas stockings. Once you find everything, then you have to go through all the lights to find the one bulb that’s keeping the whole string from not lighting. Then you have to climb up and down the ladder to get them hung on your house. Of course, you have to make at least 2 trips to the local hardware store to replace missing items. And when you finish, you stand back to admire your work and notice that once again this year your neighbor has managed to outdo you!

Then you move indoors to—the tree. And of course, once again this year you have to revisit the debate about a live tree versus a fake one. And then there’s the debate about size—five feet, seven feet, or nine feet. And then you have to search through your (still mostly dusty) boxes to find all the tree ornaments that didn’t get lost or broken last year. And when you’re done, you stand back to admire your work, and you notice out of the corner of your eye—yep, you got it: once again this year your neighbor has a taller, fuller, more handsomely decorated tree in the middle of the huge picture window right out front. So yeah, I’m not a big fan of the whole decorating thing at Christmas. Now, again, I realize that for many of you decorating is one of things you like best about Christmastime. There’s just something about all the color and the light of decorations that brings a little happiness to us all! But there is a difference between happiness and joy. I know, it’s become a cliché to say it, but I think it may be a useful cliché. Happiness lasts as long as whatever it is that makes you happy lasts. Maybe a little longer, but not indefinitely. Joy, on the other hand, is something that lasts no matter what the circumstances may be.[2]

I’ve already made it clear that I am a big fan of Advent. One of the things I like about Advent is that it’s the season of joy. As I’ve already said, it is a time for waiting in stillness, and it is a time of looking for the fulfillment of the promised salvation. But it’s also a time of “singing for joy”! The prophets looked forward to the day of the Lord’s coming as a time of great joy. Yes, many of them, like Zephaniah, also envisioned it as a time of widespread devastation and judgment. But even Zephaniah, who has been called the “gloomiest” of the prophets, did not give devastation and judgment the last word.[3] Even Zephaniah kept the last word for joy—joy over the Lord’s presence, joy over renewal and restoration, joy over coming home (Zeph. 3:14-20).[4] That’s one of the things I love about the message of the prophet Isaiah. While Isaiah does have some “gloom and doom,” as a whole he looks forward to the Lord’s advent as a time for joyfully shouting, “Surely God is my salvation” (Isa. 12:2)! Isaiah looks forward to the Lord’s coming as a day when the people would drink their fill of salvation like someone drawing fresh water from a well. It would be a day of great rejoicing.

I think it was this very hope that made it possible for the Apostle Paul to write the words we heard from his letter to the Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice!” (Phil. 4:4). If you knew something of Paul’s circumstances when he wrote that letter, you would probably be surprised that he could express such joy. To say that he was not in a place that you would think conducive to happiness would be an understatement. At best, he was confined under house arrest. I’m not sure we’re capable of imagining what the worst case may have been for someone like him sitting in a Roman jail.[5] And yet, St. Paul could say, “Rejoice!” You may wonder what he had to rejoice about in that situation. Well, he tells us—he rejoiced over the assurance that “the Lord is near.” I think there’s a dual meaning in that: Paul rejoiced because he looked forward to the Lord’s coming, but he also rejoiced because the Lord is always “near.” [6] And I think Paul had experienced the Lord’s constant presence in his imprisonment. And so he could say, “Rejoice!” I think in a very real sense, the Apostle Paul carried the joy of Advent with him wherever he went—even in a Roman jail.

Advent is the season of joy. It is a time for waiting in anticipation. It is a time of looking for the coming of the Lord, for the fulfillment of God’s promised restoration, for the peace that overcomes all violence and the love that makes all our hatreds evaporate like the morning mist. You might think that focusing our attention on what we long for but do not yet have might be a cause for discouragement rather than joy. But in my opinion it is that very act of watching and waiting and looking for the coming of God that inspires great joy. It inspires us to “Shout aloud and sing for joy, … for great in your midst is the Holy One” (Isa. 12:6).

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[1] © 2009 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 12/13/09 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] Barbara Brown Taylor, “Surprised by Joy,” The Living Pulpit (Oct-Dec 1995):17. She says it is in the “wilderness, in that empty-handed I-give-up surrender that joy is most likely to occur.”

[3] Joanna M. Adams, “Toward Home,” The Christian Century (Dec 12, 2006): 18.

[4] Taylor, 17, says, “Joy happens when God is present and people know it.”

[5] Cf. L. Gregory Bloomquist, “Subverted by Joy: Suffering and Joy in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians,” Interpretation 61 (July, 2007):274-75.

[6] Cf. Huston Smith, “Reasons for Joy,” The Christian Century (Oct. 4, 2005):10-11. He says, “As Kierkegaard noted, if at every moment both present and future I were certain that nothing has happened or can ever happen that would separate me from the infinite love of the Infinite, that would be clearest reason there is for joy.”