January 1: The Holy Name of Jesus

Numbers 6:22-27; Psalm 8: Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 2:15-21

What’s in a name?  A lot, actually.  The name fixes that identity and gives a shape to what has been fluid and vague.  The name enables people to point at one another and say, “she’s like that,” or “he’s just that way.”  Names make the world into things.

This is why the Israelites learned not to name the Holy One.   “God” is not only not a boy’s name, as Lyn Brakeman reminds us; it is not a name at all.   “The LORD” is a substitute name, a gesture rather than a proper name.  But over time gestures become names, until we think we know the one named.  Then we run the risk of idolatry, of making our image become a thing that we can control or invoke.

And yet, we humans need to be able to relate to this energy and source in human terms.  We need names and faces to approach and worship the divine.  And so we meet Jesus, the name that lets us approach and worship.  We meet the one whose name means “God saves,” and in that encounter we can approach `God.’  

At Coffee Table Communion we talked about this conundrum of needing names and knowing their limits.  We talked about Jesus’ emptying himself completely.  If Jesus did not empty himself and become like us, he would have fallen prey to the temptations represented in the desert: ego inflation, self-gratification, abuse of power.  It is safe for Jesus to be glorified precisely because he has emptied himself.  I don’t mean it’s safe for us to glorify him; I mean it’s safe for Jesus.  It’s not a danger to him, to his human self, to be exalted.  We need to see him, and we need to be able to see the glory of God shining through.  But only one who let go of self could do that without falling prey to idolatry.

This may sound abstract, but it’s important for us all.  As we go through our days we routinely name ourselves, and others, and our world.  We say “how it is” as though it’s fact, but often we miss the ways we shape others by our perceptions and names.  We lose the mystery and settle for certainty.  

Today I invite you, and myself, to notice the names you use and how you use them.  Yes, we need names; and yet everyone, every thing, exceeds its name.  Surprise yourself by encountering an object without relying on its name.  If you don’t name it, how does it show up for you?  You might then try a person.  Then, you might try “God.”  What shows up for you beyond the name?

December 31

1 John 2:18-21; Psalm 96:1-2, 11-13; John 1:1-18

"From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace."  This fullness, this glory, is grace and truth.  And there's so much of it, such a fullness, that it spills over to us.  As we live in it, we fill up and have to spill over in turn.  Like the loaves and fishes, this grace just keeps expanding the more we receive.  We inevitably end up sharing it, out of the fullness.

This is so contrary to what our culture knows of scarcity and abundance!  We applaud those who share, but we don't really believe that they gain from it.  They give from their "fullness," meaning excess.  But Jesus' fullness is not like that, not like excess.  Jesus' fullness is always full, part of an endless flow of grace and truth.  He's not a storehouse so much as a channel.

When I first entered religious life I had no ideas about ministry or service.  I wanted to pray, I wanted to help others pray, but that was all I knew.  As I prayed, I filled up.  Day after day I sat with Jesus, and I gradually filled up with love and joy until I had to go share it.  That was powerful, but I still had the old idea of scarcity in me.  I insisted on enough prayer time, or the right prayer time, to "get my tanks filled."  I hoarded my silence.  I stored up treasure, to dole out when I chose.

I'm gradually learning that I don't have to work so hard.   I don’t have to hoard in order to have something to share.  God's grace is grace, freely given if I will open to receiving it.  My place is not to "work for it," but to receive it, grace upon grace.  And when I trust that, I can open the channel and let grace flow through me to others.  I’m not a silo anymore, but a channel.  

Where are you hoarding grace?  Where can you open your heart and mind today to receive this amazing gift?

December 30

1 John 2:12-17; Psalm 96:7-10; Luke 2:36-40

Many people love the way that Luke includes women in his stories.  He often pairs a parable about a man with one about a woman, and he is the only one to tell the birth narrative through Mary and Elizabeth.  I don’t think this is a sign of his high estimation of women; I think he’s trying to share the message of Jesus with a wider audience, but also modeling how women should serve.  That’s a rant for another post.  

Today, let’s celebrate that Luke does include Anna as a prophet along with Simeon.  It’s no small thing, naming her a prophet.  She’s got her own God-given voice, she’s not just following Simeon’s lead.  True, we don’t get to hear her own words; but at least she’s here.

Give thanks today for all the prophets of all genders who announce God’s work in the world.  We need people who do good works, who are the hands and feet of Christ, but we also desperately need those who tell us what God is up to through and beyond us.  We need the voices of Christ.  Maybe that’s you.

A shout-out today to the Society of St. Anna the Prophet, a dispersed community with a minimum age requirement of 50.  I love their bold claiming of the wisdom of older women, the ministry of older women, in a world that treats older women (and often older men) as dispensable and burdensome.  When the Companions began we thought we needed an age maximum, to “build for the future” etc., but we have been learning that there is such need and desire for community among people over 50 that we are looking now at who God sends rather than at their birth certificate.  So if you think you’re too old . . . 

December 29

1 John 2:7-11; Psalm 96:1-9; Luke 2:22-35

Back to Luke’s very different infancy narrative.  No magi, no slaughtered infants, no flight.  Joseph’s home is in Nazareth, not Bethlehem.  From there they go to Jerusalem to offer a sacrifice.  There they meet Simeon, who has been waiting for years to see the “light for revelation” or, as the Episcopal Compline service has it, “a light to enlighten the nations.”  Sacramental vision is active in Simeon, letting him see the glory in this child.

But his vision includes the whole scope of Jesus’ life.  He doesn’t leave Mary and Joseph with just the happy parts.  He names Jesus’ destiny, and Mary’s pain.  We don’t have any details yet, but the outline is clear.  The light of Jesus will reveal “the inner thoughts of many,” and some of those will not want their thoughts revealed.  

The light of Jesus does indeed throw our thoughts and lives into relief.  How much of your life would you rather people not know about?  How many of your thoughts belong to your “inside voice”?  Jesus doesn’t have to call us out or shame us; he just comes, bringing the message of peace and wholeness and return, and lets our response reveal who we are.  That is not always a welcome visit.

Invite the light of Christ in today.  Let the light shine in the cupboards of your thoughts and actions.  Some do this daily, whether in the Ignatian consciousness examen or in another form.  Don’t be afraid; there’s usually some good things in there along with the bad.  And even the bad show up only to be repented, forgiven, and released.  In their wake will come all the gifts of the incarnation, and of this season.  You can have them anytime.  Don’t wait a lifetime.  Do it now.

December 28: The Holy Innocents

Jeremiah 31:15-17; Psalm 124; Revelation 21:1-7; Matthew 2:13-18

This is one of the hardest days of the year.  We haven't even heard the story of the magi’s arrival yet, but we’re learning about the fallout from that.  We learn what happens when we don’t see with sacramental eyes, but with the eyes of fear and hatred.

I don’t know when or why the Church decided to remember the Holy Innocents right after Christmas, but it may actually be on to something.  Just as we remember Stephen, the first Christian martyr, right after the celebration of new birth, now we follow John’s vision of glory with the horrible reality of bloodshed and tyranny.  It’s a testimony to the truth: we have to see with all our eyes opened.

I have wanted to shut my eyes this fall.  I’ve had trouble even looking at the headlines, much less going deeper into the news.  50,000 children have died in Syria from this war, 90% of them at the hands of government forces.  Across the United States, as many as 40% of our children are living with food scarcity and dire poverty.  The land, the sacred ground beneath our feet, is being assaulted and exploited more and more fiercely; and human children and animals become sick and die as a result.  And it looks like things will get worse before they get better.  I don’t want to look.

But I have to.  A sacramental eye is an open eye.  Eyes that only open to bliss are open not to God, but to our own egos.  Sacramental vision means finding joy and glory without denying the horror and pain; and it means living in hope that tyrants will be converted, or pass into obscurity.  Herod does die, will die.  The light will continue to shine.  

December 27: St. John, Evangelist

Isaiah 52:7-10; Psalm 98; Hebrews 1:1-4 (5-12); John 1:1-14

(Again, not his readings, though we do read him.  These are the readings for the third service on Christmas.)

“And the Word was made flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14).

This sentence shines light in so many directions!  This is the sacramental vision that sees miracle in the everyday.  John doesn’t have a birth narrative, there are no angels or magi to attest to the unique glory of this birth.  He doesn’t need them.  This person came among us, and for those who saw him with sacramental eyes he manifested glory.  But notice how John describes this glory: “as of a father’s only son.”  OK, I’d like John and his culture to value daughters as highly as sons, but let’s take him as he is.  He’s describing a mystical perception of a cosmic Savior, but he needs human referents to do it.  In so doing, he shines a light on just how amazing all life is.  He reminds us that the only son, the only human son of a human father, is also a pinnacle of glory, grace, and truth.  

Today children are being born.  Imagine how different their world can be if we look at them and, turning this sentence around, describe them thus: “And s/he came into the world and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; and we have seen her glory, the glory as of the Word made flesh.”

Sacrament runs in two directions.  In one direction, we use everyday visible and tangible referents to gesture at a truth beyond sight and touch and sound.  Sacraments are “outward and visible signs of inward invisible grace.”  But in the other direction, sacrament points to the holy already present in the tangible.  When we look with sacramental eyes, every child, every adult, every animal and rock is holy.

During this season where the divine and the human (and all the rest of creation) come together, practice seeing with sacramental eyes.  Each day look for the signs of grace and truth creation, in those around you, and in yourself.  Where do you behold the glory?

December 26: St. Stephen

Isaiah 62:6-12; Psalm 96; Titus 3:4-7; Luke 2:1-20

(Note: I'm not using the readings for St. Stephen, appointed for the day.  We deserve to spend time in the Christmas story.)

Just as he did back at the beginning of his Gospel, Luke juxtaposes “secular” history and salvation history.  We’ve heard the simple recitation of the census, the journey, the birth.  (We don’t hear again about the miracle of this conception, so the first seven verses could be about any couple of the time.)  

Now we shift gears dramatically.  Angels!  Shepherds!  The heavenly host! Prophecy fulfilled!  “The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.”  

Do they give glory because the prophecy was fulfilled?  Do they give praise because they saw angels?  Why exactly are they so moved, and which part of the story amazed their neighbors?

I’m not trying to dismiss the miraculous elements of the story.  I want to deepen them, if anything; I want to notice the miraculous here and now, which means seeing the miracle in the simple story.  I want to multiply chances to give glory and praise, which means opening my eyes to the wonder that is present even when I don’t have such visitations or prophecies.  The world in which we live is a miracle.  Our consciousness, our ability to be aware of creation and of ourselves in it, is an amazing miracle.  The “facts” are as wondrous as any angelic visitation.  

So often we use explanation to demystify the world, and so we learn to take it for granted.  The process of spiritual growth is in part a reversal of that process.  We do not cease to explain, but explanation cannot be allowed to kill the wonder.  Scientists know this; people of religious faith often fail to get there.  Miracles surround us, messengers surround us, if we open our eyes and ears.

Take time to look for miracles today, and every day.