Proper III, Christmas Eve, 9:30pm (2006): "God Speaks His Word"

Proper III, Christmas Eve, 9:30pm (2006): "God Speaks His Word"
Isaiah 52:7-10; Psalm 98; Hebrews 1:1-4, (5-12); John 1:1-14
Preached on December 24th, 2006, by the Rev. Preston Parsons

It is very difficult to talk about God.

Words about God don't come easily for many of us, and when words about God come easily for others, many of us become deeply suspicious. Deep down something tells us that there is something about God, in His deepest being, that is indescribable, deeply mysterious, even unfathomable and untouchable.

When we open our mouths to speak about God, we can get the feeling that what we say is never quite right. Because when we speak about God it can feel a bit like we are limiting the limitless, describing the indescribable, and touching the untouchable.

***

There was a young man, quite a time ago, that wished to enter a monastery. He was a large man, and he didn't speak very much, so the monks thought he was dumb. They called him "the ox".

He had a hard time entering the order, because it was a preaching order, and preachers need to be able to speak.

But the ox was quiet.

The ox finally did become a monk, and as it turned out, when this humble, quiet man preached, everyone was surprised, Because the quiet man preached with wit and intelligence.

Eventually, we are told, a friend and fellow-monk said of him that "we call this young man a dumb ox, but his bellowing in doctrine will one day resound throughout the world." His friend was right. The dumb ox, St. Thomas Aquinas, turned out to be one of the most influential theologians of the middle ages. He continues to be influential, and the doctrine of the dumb ox still resounds throughout the world.

Our story doesn’t end there. There is something else to be told of the dumb ox of a monk (who wrote more than 40 books and preached all over Europe). Near the end of his life, and only partway through his great achievement, the Summa Theologica, Thomas was at Mass, where he had a vision. Immediately afterwards he told a friend that all he had written amounted to no more than a heap of straw. After that vision, the great theologian, doctor, and saint of the Church, didn't write another word.

***

Thomas was brilliant. He is one of the greatest intellects the church has ever produced. So I hesitate to say this, but if the story of Thomas’s vision is true, and that he did call his work a heap of straw, then he was wrong.

Life in Christ is far more complex than a simple choice between piles of books and utter silence. Both doctrine and silence are good. The option is not between meaningless words and meaningful quiet.

***

It is the incomprehensible God that St. John encounters when he begins his gospel, but thankfully St. John doesn't take either of Thomas's options. John neither writes 40 books, nor does he remain in silence. St. John is wiser than St. Thomas, and we are all better off because of it.

When John begins his gospel, he begins it with a hymn.

When words fail us in the face of God we can rest in silence, but to rest in silence is to fail in our response. When words fail us, we can rest in silence, or we can sing. When our understanding leaves us lacking the right words, sometimes it is only music that remains.

So St. John sings to us, he chants a hymn about God, and the Word who was with
that incomprehensible God. St. John sings to us about the Word who was himself God. St. John sings to us about the one who, with the creator, spoke all of creation into being. St. John sings to us about the indescribable, the mysterious, unfathomable, and untouchable God. And he tells us that this God is the one that comes to us, to dwell with us, to make his home among us, to live alongside us and with us as Jesus, the Word of God, both God and man, the one who is born in Bethlehem.

And the God we can hardly speak about, the one who renders us silent, is now Jesus the man who with a human voice speaks to us.

The indescribable describes himself, and he describes himself as a human person, a small child born of a woman, as human as you and I.

St. John sings to us that what was once mysterious and unfathomable, has now come into plain sight. The untouchable has become touchable.

The Word, the one who was with God and who is himself God has become flesh, and he has lived among us.

***

Thomas Aquinas, the dumb ox of a monk may have been right.

Perhaps silence is worth more than words.

But I’m not so sure. Utter silence is to remain unresponsive to the God who has spoken to us first.

The God who was born to us in Bethlehem has come to us, spoken to us, and has called us, like a light shining out of the darkness, calling us to receive him, to believe in his name, so that we may become children of God.

God, by his incarnation, has become a human person, and calls us out of the darkness.

The divine has become human, so we who are human might become children of God, so that we might become divine. God calls us, through Christ, into the divine life of God.

And these words of the God-man who invites us into the divine life, these words are worth speaking about. These words, the words of Jesus, fully God and fully human, the one who invites us into salvation in him:

these are words worth singing about.

Proper I, Christmas Eve, 7pm (2006): "Words Worth Treasuring"

Proper I, Christmas Eve, 7pm (2006): "Words Worth Treasuring"
Isaiah 9:2-7; Psalm 96; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14, (15-20)
Preached December 24th, 2006, by the Rev. Preston Parsons

I'd like for us to take a moment together to meditate upon what Luke meant when he said that "Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart." I would like for us to meditate upon these words because these words, above all other words in our passage, make me wonder. What kinds of words are worth pondering? What kinds of words are worth treasuring?

Christmas reveals a lot to us about what we treasure, and I'll be honest up front. Some of what Christmas reveals about us is good. Some of what it reveals about us is not so good.

Many of us will spend time this Christmas with family and friends. The family is a big part of the Christmas story. The story is, after all, about a mother, a father, and a child. Families and friends are a treasured part of Christmas. Karen and I are blessed to be back in Winnipeg and among family. Many of you blessed to be among family and friends. This is something to be treasured.

Christmas is also a time of good deeds, and we find examples of good deeds in our story tonight. The shepherds do good, for all their glorifying and praising God, and telling others the good news of the birth of the Messiah. Joseph also does good. He is willing to marry Mary, covering the strange happening of her pregnancy by keeping his vow to marry her. Many of us find Christmas to be a time when we help others in a special way, offering time, or money, or food to those less fortunate. These are to be treasured too.

But Christmas also reveals to us some other things that we treasure, and if we looked closely, the season is not only about family, friends, and good deeds. If we looked honestly at the season, we would find that we find a great deal of value, and we spend a whole lot of time, rushing around consuming, buying and exchanging. This is a season with such a high pressure and expectation of consumption that the poorest among us, and probably some of us of greater means, will rack up debts that will take months to pay off. All for the sake of participating in a holiday celebrating conspicuous consumption.

At least the Magi offered gifts out of reverence to Jesus. But we are covetous and greedy, concerned more with the virtues of the marketplace, than on any particularly Christian virtue.

The holiday season tells us a lot about what we treasure. We treasure 20 billion dollars worth of toys and consumer electronics.

But I won't spend all our time tonight chiding anyone for indulging this kind of false treasure, even if it might be worthwhile for the sake of our souls, and our planet.

Rather, I would like for us to continue our meditation on Mary. Mary, that night, didn’t treasure time with family, or good deeds, nor was she spending her time coveting the gifts given to her son. Mary treasured words. And the words that Mary treasured were the ones spoken by an angel to the shepherds, words of "good news of great joy for all people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord." These are the words Mary thought to be a treasure, the words she thought were worth pondering: words telling her that salvation has visited, that the chosen one of Israel has come, that the Lord who once spoke by prophets has now arrived in the flesh.

Now I don't imagine that many of you came here tonight as a way to spend time with family and friends. There are better ways to do that. And I don't imagine you came here to do a good deed for others, either, even if it might please your mother that you came to Church. I'm also sure that none of you came here this evening to find that last minute Christmas present.

I think that if we dug far enough into your heart we would find that you came here tonight looking for something else. You came here tonight because you know that there is far greater treasure than family, or good deeds, or material success. I think you came tonight because part of you knows that Mary got it right, that the greatest treasure of all is in the words she heard that night, the word that says that the time of salvation has come, and it has been made known to us in a child wrapped in linen in Bethlehem; the truest treasure is the word that tells us that the chosen one of Israel has come, and lies in the arms of his mother; the greatest treasure is the word that speaks the good news that the great God of the heavens has found it agreeable to descend and to dwell among us. God has entered our world in weakness, in the weakness of our own humanity, entering the world just as we did, as a child, coming among us in order to save us from sin and death.

These are words worth treasuring worth taking home with you and pondering: the great God of the heavens has seen it fit to walk among us, divinity has visited us, becoming human, calling our humanity into the divine life, in order to save us.

It is this word that is the greatest treasure of all: the word of salvation in Jesus, the word of the salvation who is born to us as a child in Bethlehem.