Here we are at the end of year, poised for the beginning of a new year.
So this is going to be a sort of New Year’s sermon.
In this new year you will be working on calling a new priest,
and a year from now it just may very well be
that your new priest may be standing here preaching to you,
like I am now.
As we come to the end of one year and are about to begin another,
this is a good way to think about it.
And, as an aside, I am all for just yanking the 2020 calendar off the wall
and tossing it in the trash bin!
But in spite of it all, you have hung in there faithfully.
Your generosity in giving does not go without notice.
Pledging is coming along,
and for those who haven’t sent in your pledge card for 2021 yet,
or an end of the year donation,
there are still a couple of days remaining in which to make a difference.
In the whole Body of Christ you are a shining light.
You may not think of yourselves that way, but it is so.
I hope you hear that as good news, a reassuring word
in the face of concern or anxiety about the future.
But I should also tell you that
there is responsibility that goes along with being a light.
It is about continuing steadfastly in being faithful to our Lord,
and in being willing to go deeper in our understanding of the calling
that each of us has received in our baptism
being active in shining that light for each other
and in a world of need.
Because, you see, the calling process is not just for the next clergy person,
but also for each of us in living out the baptismal covenant
that outlines for us what we are called to do in ministry.
And while I’m at it, this is a good time to tell you
that the annual meeting is not that far off.
It will be different this year, so watch for all the details.
You will be electing vestry members
who will be working with the Profile Committee,
and appointing the Discernment and Transition Committees.
Just that thought ought to stir a number of you up
to want to serve on vestry, right?
But let me also put all this about the new year for Nativity into a faith context.
Unless our Profile and Discernment Committees’ choices
are based within a faith context,
unless our budget planning is based within a faith context,
unless our deliberations at the annual meeting are based within a faith context,
we are ignoring our biggest and best resource of help.
Indeed unless we face all this as a faith issue,
we will be frustrating the Holy Spirit,
and we will have abandoned our very reason for being and our Source for being.
We need to faithfully follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.
The church, after all, does not belong to you or me.
The church does not belong to the diocese or this denomination.
The church belongs to Jesus, as his bride, as his very body.
And as his body, that is how we are then able to claim to be heirs
of all that the Father entrusted to the Son,
heirs of the Kingdom of God.
From the Epistle reading for today, Galatians 4, we read:
4 But when the fullness of time had come,
God sent his Son, born of a woman, …
5 in order to redeem those who were under the law,
so that we might receive adoption as children.
6 And because you are children,
God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,
crying, "Abba! Father!"
7 So you are no longer a slave but a child,
and if a child then also an heir, through God.
And this brings me to the Gospel reading for today.
The first Sunday after Christmas Day,
the Gospel is always what is called the Prologue of John,
the first 18 verses of John’s Gospel.
It is also the Gospel from the third set of readings
that can be read on Christmas Day,
as well as showing up 6 times
as the assigned reading in the Daily Office lectionary!
So you can get the idea of its significance just from the frequency of its use.
In this profound passage is the heart of the mystery of our faith
in regards to creation, incarnation, death, resurrection,
salvation, and life in Christ.
We are told in this passage how everything has been taken care of.
In the beginning…
in the words of Genesis 1:1…
in the beginning, the origin, the source…at the source of it all
there is always God, the Divine Self,
and this Divine Self is continually expressing, continually creating.
The beginning or origin point, the source is always present here and now.
You see, God did not just create at some temporal beginning point
and then leave it all to evolve on its own.
Creation is continuing to happen moment by moment,
continuous Divine Self-expression.
Is it not self-evident?
The whole passage then becomes more and more rhapsodic
about the LOGOS, the Word, becoming flesh,
that is, entering into the created order,
a one-time begetting by the Father,
so that all living beings, all of us can see for ourselves
the glory, the richness,
the fullness of one grace after another
showered upon us,
revealing to us the very essence of God.
In the whole passage the only thing we have to attend to
is receiving, owning for ourselves,
what has been provided for us –
our adoption as children of God.
The adoption done for us is what brings us into union with God through Jesus.
The Resurrection Spirit of Jesus fills us,
envelopes us,
swallows us up,
and we live and breath and have our being within the Heart of Christ.
All we have to do is receive, take the Word, lay our hands on
the LOGOS, the Life, the Light,
by having faith in his Name.
Verse 12: “As many as received him, who believe in his name,
to them he gives power to become children of God.”
Quoting from a commentary on the Prologue of John,
written by my meditation teacher:
“…faith is not belief in doctrines,
is not about ideas held with conviction,
is not even fundamentally a self-generated trust in God
for the sake of one’s own ultimate well being.
No. Faith is the wakeful potency of the Word in us and as us.
Faith is the power of our being as divine life.”
Faith is a participation in the creative power of God,
the ability of God’s creativity in us.
Faith is fundamental and essential to our being human;
we are beings of faith.
But it is God who empowers faith in us;
there is a huge potency of faith in us.
And Jesus is the One who lived that potency of faith as light for us all.
Verse 12 again:
“As many as received him, who believe in his name,
to them he gives power to become children of God.”
You see, adoption into the family of God is only the beginning.
There are the benefits of adoption
– salvation, resurrection life, union with God –
but there is also the rest of what goes with
belonging to a family when one is adopted:
the obligations and the way of life and the work of the family.
And – note this –
the work is the same work that Jesus had to do – the will of the Father.
The way of life is the same as the way Jesus walked – the way of the Cross.
Discipleship is the way of life in this family for those adopted into it.
So the context for our life together at Nativity
is faith awakening and ever burgeoning within us,
as light shining in the darkness
as ever increasing awareness of who and what we are.
Coming to see this,
coming to greater understanding of this,
coming to grips with this
is the spiritual work before each of us
now at the end of 2020
and as we enter a new year and a new chapter
in our life together as the faith community of Nativity.
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