Today's Scripture Readings
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16 (NRSV)
Romans 16: 26-38 (NRSV)
Luke 1:26-38 (NRSV)
Blog Reflection
Every human heart has one thing in common. Everyone wants to know where home is. Pumba in The Lion King said: 'Home is where your rump rests." Bugs Bunny often said: "The sanctity of the American home must be preserved." The song artist Michael Bublé sings a song called "Home." Of all the places he's been, he wants to go home.
The reading from the Hebrew Scriptures tells the story of a conversation between God and the prophet Nathan. God wants Nathan to deliver the message to David that God wants a house built where God can dwell. God calls upon David to recognize God's works among the People of Israel, but God is the one that has no house. The ark of the Covenant had been buried in a ground so that it would not be desecrated. God wants Nathan to tell David that it is time for God to have a place where all the people of Israel can come and worship God. God promises to make David's descendents a place in God's House by which God would bring salvation to God's people.
Christians over the centuries have understood from the Geneology leading up to the birth of Jesus in the very beginning of Matthew's Gospel, that Jesus was born of the line of David. Thought the intention of such is not meant to be anti-Semitic, it is very easy for this to be understood that somehow Christianity came along and replaced Judaism. I reiterate here that any religious or spiritual violence towards Judaism by Christians is offensive and non-conforming to the message of the Gospel. Our Christian Faith is as important to us, as Judaism is to those who practice the Jewish Faith or any other for that matter.
Christians believe that Jesus came as from among David's lineage to be the salvation of those who would come to God through God's beloved Son. So it is very interesting to find that it is Mary, a young, poor girl betrothed to a man named Joseph who was of the line of David. But, something mysterious and wonderful happens.
There has been the misleading and inaccurate understanding over the centuries to confuse the virginal conception of Jesus in the womb of Mary to be the act that shames all forms of sexuality. In particular any sexuality that does not produce children by the conjugal act of a man and woman. This misconception has been literally beaten to death past the death of the horse by Roman Catholic theologians and saints throughout the ages. However, such an interpretation and application misses entirely the purpose of Jesus being born through a virgin.
When Mary sings her beautiful Magnificat in Luke 1: 46-55 she sings: "He has shown the strength of his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty." Mary's song is one that knows that God's grace has indeed touched her life. God's grace has filled Mary with such an amazing experience of God's transforming love. The Rev. Dr. Titus Presler said this morning at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, God randomly chose Mary for this fullness of Grace at this most precious moment in time.
The exciting news that we find here, is that God wants to build a home to dwell in each of us. God's house of prayer in the Church and within all of us, has something that God loves so very much that God has made us all full of God's grace. In us is an opportunity to commune with God and be given that grace to experience God's transforming power. The transforming random fullness of grace from God calls us to participate in the establishment of justice, equality and inclusion for all people. "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28).
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and queer people and many others due to race, color, gender, religion, religious points of view, wealth status, immigration status etc have all been challenged by church communities who tell a nice tale of being inclusive and/or welcoming until it comes to them and/or their particular situation. Individuals with emotional and behavioral challenges also find themselves among the "exceptions" to the "opportunities for inclusion."
The message of the Angel Gabriel to Mary and all of us, is the God is with all of us. Each of us can be made to be a house for the indwelling of the almighty and graceful God of love. Our sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression and all the other "isms" or challenges are not obstacles for God to find a place with them. In the case of LGBTQ people, changing the essence of who we are and who we sleep with are not required to be a "more acceptable" home for God's fullness of grace. Just as God was able to randomly use a young woman who's heart was open to be used for a transformation so big that it changed human history, so God can use any one of us at random.
When people who were once opposed to including LGBT people and other marginalized persons into the Church and all of society, God is randomly using us to "give birth" to the Son of God once again through the fullness of God's grace through us. When prejudice that has been fed by ignorance and fear, suddenly gives way to being open to being educated about those who are different than ourselves and how we might make friends among those we once stigmatized, God's fullness of grace is at work in us, making history that changes our communities and ourselves.
The Occupy movement is just such a movement that is filled with God's fullness of grace as they are calling on the rich to give just a little more so that the middle class and low income people can have an opportunity to live better. Fr. Paul has a great blog post about how Mary's Magnificat can challenge the rich to pay a few more taxes. You can read that blog here.
We are all challenged to take these final days of Advent to prepare for the transition of God making a place for God's Self disclosure in Christ. What better way to prepare than to know that by making ourselves more inclusive and the world around us more inclusive, that Christ can be born and reborn through all of us. We can say together with Mary: "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word." (Luke 1:38).
Prayers
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16 (NRSV)
Now when the king was settled in his house, and the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies around him, the king said to the prophet Nathan, "See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent." Nathan said to the king, "Go, do all that you have in mind; for the LORD is with you."
But that same night the word of the LORD came to Nathan: Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the LORD: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, "Why have you not built me a house of cedar?" Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: Thus says the LORD of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel; and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover the LORD declares to you that the LORD will make you a house. Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever.
Romans 16: 26-38 (NRSV)
Now to God who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed, and through the prophetic writings is made known to all the Gentiles, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith-- to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever! Amen.
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God." Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.
Blog Reflection
Every human heart has one thing in common. Everyone wants to know where home is. Pumba in The Lion King said: 'Home is where your rump rests." Bugs Bunny often said: "The sanctity of the American home must be preserved." The song artist Michael Bublé sings a song called "Home." Of all the places he's been, he wants to go home.
The reading from the Hebrew Scriptures tells the story of a conversation between God and the prophet Nathan. God wants Nathan to deliver the message to David that God wants a house built where God can dwell. God calls upon David to recognize God's works among the People of Israel, but God is the one that has no house. The ark of the Covenant had been buried in a ground so that it would not be desecrated. God wants Nathan to tell David that it is time for God to have a place where all the people of Israel can come and worship God. God promises to make David's descendents a place in God's House by which God would bring salvation to God's people.
Christians over the centuries have understood from the Geneology leading up to the birth of Jesus in the very beginning of Matthew's Gospel, that Jesus was born of the line of David. Thought the intention of such is not meant to be anti-Semitic, it is very easy for this to be understood that somehow Christianity came along and replaced Judaism. I reiterate here that any religious or spiritual violence towards Judaism by Christians is offensive and non-conforming to the message of the Gospel. Our Christian Faith is as important to us, as Judaism is to those who practice the Jewish Faith or any other for that matter.
Christians believe that Jesus came as from among David's lineage to be the salvation of those who would come to God through God's beloved Son. So it is very interesting to find that it is Mary, a young, poor girl betrothed to a man named Joseph who was of the line of David. But, something mysterious and wonderful happens.
"What the first and third Gospels want us to know is that Jesus--and eventually his movement--represent the destabilization of that gender construction--because at the very level of his very tissues, Jesus has no part in it. And to the extent that we allow Jesus' life to be our own paradigm, you and I in our spiritual rebirths are ourselves virginally conceived. The Prologue to the Gospel of John says as much:
But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12-13).
The notion of the virgin birth is not countersexual. It is the beginning of God's healing the world's sexuality in Christ. It is a revolutionary, radical notion; reclaim it from reactionaries." (Gay Unions in Light of Scripture, Tradition and Reason, by Gray Temple, pages 92-93).
When Mary sings her beautiful Magnificat in Luke 1: 46-55 she sings: "He has shown the strength of his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty." Mary's song is one that knows that God's grace has indeed touched her life. God's grace has filled Mary with such an amazing experience of God's transforming love. The Rev. Dr. Titus Presler said this morning at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, God randomly chose Mary for this fullness of Grace at this most precious moment in time.
The exciting news that we find here, is that God wants to build a home to dwell in each of us. God's house of prayer in the Church and within all of us, has something that God loves so very much that God has made us all full of God's grace. In us is an opportunity to commune with God and be given that grace to experience God's transforming power. The transforming random fullness of grace from God calls us to participate in the establishment of justice, equality and inclusion for all people. "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28).
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and queer people and many others due to race, color, gender, religion, religious points of view, wealth status, immigration status etc have all been challenged by church communities who tell a nice tale of being inclusive and/or welcoming until it comes to them and/or their particular situation. Individuals with emotional and behavioral challenges also find themselves among the "exceptions" to the "opportunities for inclusion."
The message of the Angel Gabriel to Mary and all of us, is the God is with all of us. Each of us can be made to be a house for the indwelling of the almighty and graceful God of love. Our sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression and all the other "isms" or challenges are not obstacles for God to find a place with them. In the case of LGBTQ people, changing the essence of who we are and who we sleep with are not required to be a "more acceptable" home for God's fullness of grace. Just as God was able to randomly use a young woman who's heart was open to be used for a transformation so big that it changed human history, so God can use any one of us at random.
When people who were once opposed to including LGBT people and other marginalized persons into the Church and all of society, God is randomly using us to "give birth" to the Son of God once again through the fullness of God's grace through us. When prejudice that has been fed by ignorance and fear, suddenly gives way to being open to being educated about those who are different than ourselves and how we might make friends among those we once stigmatized, God's fullness of grace is at work in us, making history that changes our communities and ourselves.
The Occupy movement is just such a movement that is filled with God's fullness of grace as they are calling on the rich to give just a little more so that the middle class and low income people can have an opportunity to live better. Fr. Paul has a great blog post about how Mary's Magnificat can challenge the rich to pay a few more taxes. You can read that blog here.
We are all challenged to take these final days of Advent to prepare for the transition of God making a place for God's Self disclosure in Christ. What better way to prepare than to know that by making ourselves more inclusive and the world around us more inclusive, that Christ can be born and reborn through all of us. We can say together with Mary: "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word." (Luke 1:38).
Prayers
Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation,
that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a
mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, page 212).
O God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior,
the Prince of Peace: Give us grace seriously to lay to heart the
great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions; take away
all hatred and prejudice, and whatever else may hinder us
from godly union and concord; that, as there is but one Body
and one Spirit, one hope of our calling, one Lord, one Faith,
one Baptism, one God and Father of us all, so we may be all
of one heart and of one soul, united in one holy bond of truth
and peace, of faith and charity, and may with one mind and
one mouth glorify thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, page 818).
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is
hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where
there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where
there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where
there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to
be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is
in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we
are born to eternal life. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, page 833).
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