John 1:1-18

Christmas 2 - Years A, B, C

Once upon a time, for a Christmas Eve, we bundled up a mirror and placed it in a crib. When folks came by to gaze upon the Babe and reflect on the significance of the celebration, they found themselves gazing upon themselves.

12 - But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of GD.

How do you read Matthew’s and Luke’s birth stories into John? Is Christmas a self-revelation for you and a release of power into your life?

What power would it take to move you to live from your “child-of-God self”?

What are those two birth stories, with their competing details, trying to tell us and where do you fit into the story?

You may have seen yourself as Joseph or the donkey or a sheepherder or a wise-one or Mary. Have you visualized yourself as living out the consequences of truly being a child-of-GD?

While John tends toward the grandiose with his lofty creation-oriented language there is this little line of becoming children of GD that would have you and me reflect on our own creation. How interdependent have we grown? How dependent are we still? Have we claimed our inheritance? What changes in us when we catch a glimpse of ourself as GD’s babe? How have we lived out the mystery of our birth with growth of stature and wisdom?

- - - - - - -

“Word” was in the world.
The world came into being through “Word”.
The world didn’t know “Word”.

Wrap your heart and mind around that series and you can take the rest of the year off.

As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience

Once upon a time, for a Christmas Eve, we bundled up a mirror and placed it in a crib. When folks came by to gaze upon the Babe and reflect on the significance of the celebration they found themselves gazing upon themselves.

12 - But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.

How do you read Matthew and Luke's birth story into John? Is Christmas a self-revelation for you and a release of power into your life?

What power would it take to move you to live from your "child-of-God self"?

What are those two birth stories, with their competing details, trying to tell us and where do you fit into the story?

You may have seen yourself as Joseph or the donkey or a sheepherder or a wise-one or Mary. Have you visualized yourself as living out the consequences of truly being a child-of-God?

While John tends toward the grandiose with his lofty creation-oriented language there is this little line of becoming children of God that would have you and me reflect on our own creation. How interdependent have we grown? How dependent are we still? Have we claimed our inheritance? What changes in us when we catch a glimpse of ourself as GOD's babe? How have we lived out the mystery of our birth with growth of stature and wisdom?

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/january2003.html

Verse 1 & 18 - parallels Word/God with Son/Father. What other parallels would help us so we don't get trapped with the eternal or a particular incarnation? This is worth a year's work.

Verse 18 from The Message raises these questions:

Are you a one-of-a-kind GOD-expression?

Do you exist at the very heart of whatever parallel of GOD makes sense to you?

Do you make GOD as plain as day?

Again, these are worth a year's work. These are class questions to be asked daily and weekly of one another that we might draw near the wholeness of life intended from the beginning.

Ask away. Affirm away. Live it now.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/january2004.html

John sounds a lot like Karl Rove. Everything is over and done. Our candidate or savior trumps yours. There is nothing else to be done but have everyone capitulate. Things are not simply red and blue, but all-colored (us) and no-colored (you). We not only have the law on our side, but all moral values.

You who thought you had an important part to play, well it is only prelude to the game we are playing. Imagine Jesus W. Christ or Gesus.

Let's see how this affirmation is going to play itself out.

As we connect this with the rest of the scriptures for this week we need to ask about Wisdom, also at the beginning. Are "Word" and "Wisdom" interchangeable? In their male and female orientations? How do you respond to one reading or the other? Which does the world need at this point? Have we taken the Word end of the pendulum as far as it can go currently and now we are swinging back in the direction of Wisdom?

Good luck with those meta-something questions that call out for examples rather than position statements.

- - -

Justin (Reader)

I am curious how other people will approach the Gospel text in lieu of the tradegy of the Tsunami. I have recieved questions from many of friends who are not believers about where "my God" is at in that. How do we preach- the light that has no darkness- amidst a terrible dark moment? Thoughts?

- - -

Wesley (Blogger)

Here is one prayer possibility:

Tsunami Prayer (Further Revised)
by Rev'd Peter Armstrong
Redcliffe Uniting Church in Australia

THERE IS A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS

Let us pray for the people and nations affected by recent earthquakes and tsunamis in the Indian Ocean:

Over the chaos of the waters Lord you spoke and there was light.

God of creation, you acted to bring about this world
we ask you to continue to act to bring about a new creation and new hope
from the darkness of these disastrous sea waves.

Jesus, who grieved over lost ones,
be with those who grieve even now for their lost loved ones,
Come to them in their pain and loss with your healing and mercy.

Holy Spirit, giver of good gifts and consolation,
direct and be with those involved in ongoing aid and recovery.
Through their efforts, may your light be seen in the darkness.

Heavenly Father, bless the many endeavours happening
across nations, peoples, and faiths:
for the sake of the poor and the lost.

We ask this in Jesus name. AMEN.

(Revisions by Rev'd Dennis Webster, Vicar,
Parish of Pascoe Vale with Oak Park
and Rev'd John Maynard,
St. John's Uniting Church, Phillip Island)

- - -

Wesley (Blogger)

Here is another response from a report from the area that will be preached somewhere and our task is to bring light rather than this darkness. Amazing, isn't it, how Jesus can be used in the service of the Dark Force.

- - -

Also, apparently one of the largest Christian congregations in Colombo, Sri Lanka has started a poster campaign in all three languages saying something like: "Don't mess with Jesus; you have seen his wrath unleashed for what you tried to do to him." Please pray for the church and wisdom for leaders so that such tragically wrong moves would not be made at a time like this.

- - -

Justin (Reader)

Wow- great prayer idea. That is very helpful. Yet, I still am struggling with how to preach on light in the midst of such darkness- what can we say to those that are skeptics, to those with questions as to how can a "light filled" God be present in this darkness, as John assures us? I am unsure why it is so difficult this time for me as I prepare this sermon- I mean we are always in a dark world... yet this time it seems more difficult.....

Wesley (Blogger)

It is so hard to keep the joy of Christmas going for long. Friday Christmas Eve Candlelight, Saturday Christmas Day, Sunday Tsunami. Part of our struggle is with the counterpoint of Joy of the season and Death from the sea. Our discernment is not very discerning and so we experience "GOD is with us" one moment and absent the next. We struggle with gifts of gold and frankincense, on the one hand, and myrrh, on the other.

My difficulty lies not with GOD's light, but our darkness and resistance to seeing such. In the USofA we started out with a pittance of governmental support. Ask your congregation how generous they think Americans are with their "foreign aid" and most would peg it very high, up to a quarter (.25) of our national budget. In reality it is a quarter of 1% (.0025) of our expenses. Not even a low-expectation church could get by on that. Over time we raised our commitment a bit to some $35 million. Wow, that's only $5 million short of what the Republicans are expecting to spend for the inaugural activities in a couple of days. How dare we be called stingy! I just received an invitation to a "Inaugural Bawl" and think that an appropriate image - bawling for our lack of political will to be involved in the world around us in a positive way. We would rather cut our taxes than do something really significant to bind us to one another and to creation. And this doesn't even begin to compare our military related budgets to our own schools, much less helping where tsunamis rise or vaccines are needed.

I do believe GOD's light shines and we won't put it out, but we sure will turn our back to it and live in our own shadow. A part of me knows how unpopular revealing hypocrisy is. When we budget for AIDS help in Africa and never spend a penny why should we have any confidence that our pledges today will go any further than they are forced by public political opinion. We will cover things with false promises and well-crafted speeches, but always come up short of any stated intention. To reveal this puts preachers at risk in a religious setting that is at least as culturally bound as it is discerning of GOD's desires. We know better and in that knowing the difficulty of speaking out and not letting go keeps rising and rising against our speaking out. It is as if the cultural baggage and ignorance of our actual actions acts as a tsunami against a prophetic preacher. Not wanting to be among those run over, we run from making a far-away event as significant as a near-to-home one is. We run from having too large a heart when our own church building needs repair. In judging both claims as equal we lose both.

This huge loss of life that has been predicted, we know the mechanism and it was just a matter of time before it occurred, throws us into a tizzy. Other large losses of life that are caused by human decisions never come to light. Anyone know how many Iraqis have died in the current war? If we can get at the discrepancy between our responses to natural and human caused misery we will begin to move to a spot where GOD's light might again be turned toward and draw us toward health.

- - -

Dave (Reader)

Justin,

I have thought of your question all week, and all the texts grab me with an "AHA", an Epiphany and light theme.

I suggest you circle the word needy in the Psalm 72. Now, the wise men are non Jews. All the texts are speaking about sharing with non-christians.

As we look at the tragedy that has happened, we are not once saying, we will only send money and aid to the Christians. This is forcing us to be what God has always called us to be, caring for the needy, who ever they might be.

The message for me this Sunday seems to be for us and not those who are suffering. It is for us to respond. It is for us to find the AHA in how to live anytime and anywhere. It is for us, who see the stupidity of war.

We need to find stories of Muslims and Jews, who are also caring for these in need. We have not all arrived at the truth from the same perspective, but we are all showing compassion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hope these give you a couple of ideas to play with?

- - -

Wesley (Blogger)

Here is a link to a sermon from Australia regarding the Christmas 2 scriptures and the tsunami.

It is this kind of disastrous grounding that brings these scriptures beyond simple, rote praise.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/january2005.html

From idea to action, word to implementation, Word to Incarnation, light to life, and Light to Life — so we travel into our lives with the many details, exhaustions, obliviousness, and habits. We go along and go along. It is as if just getting this far has taken all we have. Enfleshment keeps us grounded in that very flesh, doing what we do and always have done and may yet do.

Then come events, horrendous events, and we catch a glimpse of how fragile such an accomplishments as word to flesh is, any word to flesh.

And so we begin to travel in the other direction, from our specifics to our ideals. We look for exactly this expressive language (note the number of translational footnotes to get a feel for how connotative it is). In returning to the preciousness of enfleshment we are energized to care for life in one precarious position (Lord, have mercy on us if we stop with immediate aid and give in to tsunami fatigue).

This reawakened awareness is one of many grace upon graces experienced. In the midst of our every darkness there is more blessed darkness and light interacting with one another to keep us from that danger of eternally Wording or persistently Fleshing. In the midst of dark we catch a glimpse of light; in the midst of light we reappreciate it with a glimpse of dark.

Who knows what this has to do with anything and so we drop balls to put another year into depository of time, we mourn for a moment and learn or not, we find meaning where was is none and travel on.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/january2005.html

From the Girardian Lectionary site James Allison is quoted:
"In the light of the resurrection it gradually becomes possible to see that it was not that God was previously violent, now blessing now cursing (see Deut. 32:39), but had now brought all that ambivalence to an end. Rather, it became possible to see that that was all a human violence, with various degrees of projection onto God. God had been from the beginning, always, immutably, love, and that this love was made manifest in sending his Son into the midst of the violent humans, even into the midst of their persecutory projections of God, so that they might treat him as a human victim, and thus reveal the depth of the love of God, who was prepared to be a human victim simultaneously to show the depth of his love for humanity, and to reveal humanity as having been locked into the realm of the Father of lies."

John's version of a Song of Songs lifts love out of a competition with violence or Platonic philosophy to an exclusive view of life. There is no wrestling between paradigms here, there is only the action of giving light to life and the lie to separation and lording it over. A test for ourselves is to ask what song we find ourselves singing these days? Is it fear of not having enough? Is it joy at being able to share what we do have? What lyric do you hear when your routine is interrupted?

Resolution 1: To anticipate a new light, a new path, by gratefully receiving a glimpse of graceful resurrection in this present situation.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html

Are you enlightened yet? Surely you must be for "the true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world" (verse 9) and the implication of the scripture is that such a true light not only was coming, but has come into the world. So surely you must be enlightened.

Have you stumbled over your own feet again? What happened to that enlightenment?

The world around you gone awry? What happened to that enlightenment?

Again and again our G*D-begottenness has bumped into our blood-begottenness, flesh-begottenness, sex-begottenness (as The Message puts it) and been forgotten in the melee of begottennesses.

Welcome back to a new beginning spot with darkness hovering. As you go about your cultural business of planning a resolution or two, it will be helpful to choose one that realistically takes in all these different aspects of begottenness. If you are simply choosing a resolution on a meta-Word level, disappointment will come quickly enough. The more aspects of yourself you take into account the longer that disappointment will be put off (but not entirely, remember John's question after awhile - are you really who we once thought you were?).

Are you enlightened enough, yet, to question your enlightenment? If not all this high christology will catch you again having thought all was cared for rather than all still growing, falling and rising, evening and morning.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_12_01_archive.html

"Word" was in the world.
The world came into being through "Word".
The world didn't know "Word".

Wrap your heart and mind around that series and you can take the rest of the year off.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/12/john-11-9-10-18.html

When a Word becomes Flesh we need to pay attention to fleshy things like human experience.

Our temptation is to rank Word before Flesh, but without a full partnership it makes no sense to speak of either. Here is whatever “glory” is: “Among”. No “among”; no “glory”.

Interested in grace and truth? They are found in lived experience. It is this fullness of grace and truth, word and flesh, that continues to call us beyond our current limitations. All of this is made known in our experience.

Note: this is not to elevate experience above word and flesh, but to indicate that they cannot have meaning separated from experience. We dilute our meaning when we fail to let this trinity play together—experience, flesh, and word.

- - - - - - -

Here is an article you may appreciate to remember, "And the Word became flesh, and moved into the neighborhood."

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/12/john-11-9-10-18.html