Discontinued

This blog is discontinued. For more information on Ryon and the United Church of Colchester please see unitedchurchcolchester.org

Faith and Theology: It's a Boy! A Christmas eve homily

Faith and Theology: It's a Boy! A Christmas eve homily

Read this sermon by Kim Fabricius. I keep reading things by Kim over at Faith and Theology. He is a pastor over in Wales with a prophet's vision and a poet's sword. Just the thing to make your Christmas.

Here's the teaser. . .

Does this little one care about who you are, about your sex, sexuality, politics, or even whether you believe in God, or what God you believe in? No, he reaches out, unquestioningly, to you in your elemental humanity. He wants only your tenderness, moist like cattle breath, warm like straw.

Read the rest.

I'm Going to Walk: An Advent Meditation on Strong, Dark-Skinned Mothers-To-Be

When Irie gave birth to our daughter we showed up at the hospital, parked in the garage as practiced, and then rode up the elevator to the main floor. Irie's contractions were monster, so the walk was very slow, and very painful.

When we reached the main floor lobby a dozen plus wheelchairs sat in dereliction at the front door. I told Irie I was going to grab one, but she refused. "No, I'm going to walk," she said. We continued across the floor, each small step revealing just how far we had to go. We were caught in Zeno's paradox. How could we ever get to the maternity floor if an infinite number of lesser points stood in our way?

And - and this is what really peeved me - why was the maternity ward on the third floor anyway?

We had now come to tortoise speed. And not just any tortoise, but clawed-foot tortoise - chryogenically frozen - and stuck in L.A. traffic - speed. I felt people's eyes. They could not bear to look at Irie. So they were looking at me. I knew what they were thinking. I was thinking it too. "Why don't you get that woman a wheelchair you idiot first-time dad?"

But still, Irie protested. "No. I'm going to walk."

I tell all this because I've been thinking of why it was that Mary was in Bethlehem.

We know the story. "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. . ." And so Joseph went from Galilee to Judea to the city of David. And Mary, who was great with child, went with him.

I've always read the fact that Mary went with Joseph as a sign of the callousness of Caesar's census. And no doubt Caesar and his policies were indeed cruelly callous.

But my experience with Irie has me wondering if perhaps Mary went with her husband, not because she had to, but because she chose too.

I am wondering if maybe Mary decided to stand up and walk because she belonged to that long line of strong dark-skinned women who - the midwives stingingly told Pharaoh - "are not like the Egyptian women, but are vigorous in child birth."

And I wonder if she got up and walked to Bethlehem because she was about to have a boy born beneath the jackboot of empire. So she wanted to teach him a lesson about what it means to stay human in the face of oppression.

I'm wondering all these things. And if they are true then I have to draw one more conclusion.

That Jesus learned his lesson from his momma. And that's where he got his teaching. "If the Roman Empire asks you to go one mile, go also a second."

Go as far as it takes to show Caesar that he may take your name, your date, your tribe, your land, and even your time, but he cannot take your dignity.

Advent Proclamation

The water has broken
The midwife is awash in the virgin's womb
She can see the crown now
A human head adorning God's heart
This is the moment of terror
A race with time

Panic seizes the midwife
She shouts, she screams
But her cries make no difference
It is a gospel of straw
The child will be lost
Caught up with the multitudes
Only St. Matthew remembers
Rachel weeping for her children
She refused to be consoled
The midwife weeping for wisdom
They are no more

Silence

Three days in hell
Without hope and God in the world

And then the miracle
The Word breaks forth
It pieces the silence
In kicks and fits with groans too deep
The child is born

Hallelujah!

Annunciation

I'm in the thick of reading and re-reading the Annunciation and Nativity accounts. At this time of year a preacher pretty much feels like she or he is living in a perpetual Nativity drama. "In the days of the emporer Augustus. . ." keeps spinning around in my head.

Compounding things is the fact that I checked out James Earl Jones Reads the King James Version of the Bible from my local library. Yes, Darth Vader reads the KJV. As I drive around I can't help but think I may actually hear him say, "And now a reading from the 1st chapter of the Book of Luke, I am your father."

Anyway, as I've been reading and listening to the Annuciation account, I noticed that after Mary asks how it might be that she could give birth without knowing a man the angel Gabriel replies by saying that nothing is impossible with God.

What is interesting is that this is the same thing Jesus says much later on when talking about a rich man getting into heaven. "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. . . For man it is impossible, but with God nothing is impossible."

The annunciation brings startling good news: If God canpush a child through the eye of a virgin's womb, then God can likewise push even the most unlikely of us through the gates of heaven.

Another Fold

I let someone go from the church the other day. Not an employee. A parishioner. And a friend.

We met in a coffee shop and she began asking about ways that she can get more involved in church.

But that wasn't what she really needed. What she really needed was permission to leave.

She lives downtown. She has intentionally chosen to live in the poorest neighborhood in Burlington so she can love on and serve the residents there. She lives there so she can be the presence of Christ there. In order to fully live out her calling she needs not only to live there, but she needs to - must - worship there as well. It is obvious that our bedroom community church wasn't right for her.

What amazes me though is how long it took for us to see the obvious. Or, more accurately, how long it took for us to say it. For me to say it.

I want our church to be able to meet the needs of everyone. In the end, however, trying to be all things to all people is a prescription both for schizophrenia in the short-term and heartbreak in the long.

A church must learn to be what it is. A pastor must learn to be what he or she is. We all must learn to be ourselves. If we try to be anything else ultimately it will destroy us. The wineskin will burst.

When I finally did say it - "Don't you think you should go to church downtown" - there was a sudden release for us both. The relationship suddenly seemed much more authentic. The pressure was off. The truth had set us both free.

After she left I sat in the coffee shop for a long while. I knew that what had just happened was for the best. I had given the best pastoral advice I could give and she had taken it. It was the right thing. Yet I was heavy of heart. Sorrowful even.

And then these words from Jesus came over me as a soothing balm, "I have other sheep that don't belong to this fold."

May the shepherd lead you to your rightful fold, my friend.

What We Can Learn From the Wal-Mart Death

Ethicsdaily is running an op-ed I wrote about last week's death of Wal-Mart employe Jdimytai Damour. I'm posting the piece here with their permission.


By now we have all heard about the Wal-Mart employee in Long Island who was trampled to death in last week's Black Friday shopping stampede.

That employee was Jdimytai Damour. He was a temporary worker and had been employed by Wal-Mart for only a week. He was 34.

Mr. Damour's death reveals an underside to not only Black Friday and the whole Christmas shopping season, but to the way we buy, barter, trade and live more generally. Mr. Damour's death is a single, shocking glance at the incalcuable cost of always low prices.

Incalcuable because we don't really know how many more Jdimytai Damours have been trampled by the force of a disconnected trade system. My farming friends here in Vermont have a saying: "Know your farmer, love your farmer."

But the truth is most of us don't know who milked the cows today that we will drink from tomorrow. Nor do we know who cuts the cane for our sugar or picks the bananas for our lunchboxes or sews the shoes for our feet. We have no idea whether they are making a fair wage or—like Mr. Damour—being left exposed to the cruel forces of consumption.

So, in reality, we're a lot like the folks at the back of that Wal-Mart line. We have no idea who's up there ahead of us. We can't see who's being crushed by the weight of our wants. All we know is that there's a sale and the doors are now open.

In Jesus' day a grand tower in Jerusalem fell, crushing 18 people to death. There was a lot of talk about what happened and what it meant. Jesus interpreted it as a warning. He said: "Do you think those 18 were worse sinners than all the others of Jerusalem? No. But I tell you, unless you repent you will all perish just the same."

What happened in Long Island should come as a warning to us all. None of us is guiltier than anyone else. We're all implicated in this myth of no-consequence consumption.

It is time we repent, lest we all be crushed in the stampede.