January 25, 2009
The 3rd Sunday after the Epiphany
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor

In all 3 of our readings today, people sense that change is in the air, that God is doing something new, and they ask others to respond to this new reality. They call us, too, to wake up, to read the signs of the times, and then to change our ways and live more fully in the Spirit. Listen to what our readings say. 

From the Hebrew Scriptures, the city of Ninevah was warned that in only 40 days, they would be overthrown; they heeded the warning, repented and lived. St. Paul said the appointed time has grown short. So live as if you are unattached to possessions, unattached to both mourning and rejoicing, even to your own family. And Jesus, as he moved out from baptism into ministry: The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. So repent and believe. There is an immediacy to these words, an urgent call to wake up and change. 

Last week in his inaugural speech, our new president urged all of us to be a part of a national transformation. One of the commentators said that it was a “bracing” speech, as if he were grabbing the whole country by its shoulders and saying “Wake up! It’s time to change our ways!” On this day of our Annual Parish Meeting, I want to do the same. 

For we are at a tipping point, and we are starting to alter how we do church together. There is a movement of the Spirit among us, and it is catching on. It has been a long time coming, and much needed. Dozens of people have laid the foundation, and now things are beginning to shift. 

A year ago, your Vestry spent the better part of their annual retreat talking about parish “culture change.” They began by exploring how we have been functioning for years: as a very interesting collection of independent individuals and activities. 

Spirituality had been seen as a personal thing; we came here from our different lives to be inspired, and then we went back into them, renewed. There has always been plenty of space and support for people to find their own way into the life of the Spirit. The strength in this has been personal authenticity - each person going deeply within and finding their own unique connection to God. This doesn’t happen in too many churches. 

Ministries were individualized, too. They popped up wherever someone had the passion and vision to do something; it would grow and last as long as it had energy and kept attracting others. The strength in this has been a creative spirit, a freedom do just about anything here, if you want to. This, too, is unusual. 

But there was also a sense of disconnection from one another. New members might feel as if they couldn’t find a way “in” to the community, and they would drift away. Some need more guidance for spiritual growth than we offer. Ministries that were central and important to all of us would sometimes falter because we hadn’t built any depth of mature, committed leadership for it. Different groups of parishioners who did their own ministry often had blinders on, unaware of how they were part of an integrated whole. There was no clear set of ministries that we could point to and say “This is what we do as a parish.” Sure, most of us have some friends here, but is there really a sense of “us”? One sensed that if something happened to me and a few others, everyone might scatter.

This was the reality that the Vestry and clergy began facing into last year at their retreat, and our understanding of it was clarified when we did two different surveys among the members last spring. The objective data confirmed what the Vestry had already sensed. 

And so we began a process of parish culture change, working towards a new vision of where we believe God is calling us. We realized that the appointed time had come, that God’s kingdom had come near to us in a new way, that it was time to wake up and change, to open our eyes and perceive where God was leading us. 

This is what we envision: a community whose members look to one another and the programs they create for inspiration and support; where ministries have real “bench depth” of experienced leadership; where the gifts of every person, including new members, are recognized and utilized, and are missed if they are not here; where each activity is integrated into a cohesive whole; and where all of us are able to articulate our common mission. 

In other words, we envision ourselves not just as an interesting collection of spiritual individuals, but what St. Paul described as the Body of Christ: a fully integrated, healthy, strong community, united by the Spirit. Why does this matter? Why should you care? 

Because over a long period of time, we cannot survive if we stay the way we are. And because God has given us far more potential as a community than we have as yet lived into. We’ve been limiting ourselves, and it’s time to wake up and become even more than we have been. 

The culture change we envision is already well underway, and in the last year several initiatives have pushed us along. They will carry us through in 2009, and beyond. I want you to understand what is happening, so that you can talk about it with one another, join in the movement, and help us not only survive for the long haul, but live into our God-given potential. 

First, our new building project has brought dozens of people together who have been carefully examining our whole parish life – our physical plant, our values, our demographics, our finances, our history and our hopes for the future. We have been harmonized and strengthened as a result. This year, as we go forward with construction and expansion of our ministries, we will continue this unifying work of listening, clarifying, and planning. This process will help us be intentional about who we are and what we do. 

Second, a new Discernment Guild is just starting up, with 20 people who will learn how to identify and put to use the abundant gifts that our members possess. They will eventually offer workshops on discerning spiritual gifts for ministry, interview all new members about their passions, help call people into leadership, and meet with those who want to know where God is leading them next in their lives. Over time, this will knit us together at a deep and intimate level, as we listen carefully to the stirrings of the Spirit within our hearts. But more importantly, we will then give these stirrings a direction within the community, for the benefit of all. 

Third, our Vestry, clergy, and lay staff will begin to work together in a new way. They’ll be paired up to look after a general area of ministry, making sure they have the resources they need; helping them plan and manage their funds well; supporting them in being consistent and spiritually healthy; and integrating them into the overall structure and goals of our parish. Instead of growing and perishing randomly like weeds, our ministries will have focus, support, and staying power. 

Finally, our Fundraising Committee is morphing into a new function. They will now become a permanent Development Committee, finally institutionalizing the year-round work of education and fundraising for our Operating, Endowment, and Capital funds, including planned giving. They will help us build a secure financial future. 

It would be a mistake to say that all of this is just a matter of improving our administration. Because having a well-greased parish machine is not really the point. 
And neither are we losing our spiritual soul by becoming like some corporation. We will always be St. Michael’s; we will always provide plenty of in-depth opportunities for spiritual growth.

What we are adding to the qualities we’ve always had is a stronger group identity and mission, where spirituality and service are not only individual but also shared, where we experience ourselves as a vital part of an interconnected spiritual organism – the Body of Christ. 

This is no small thing. Because in these fragmented and challenging times, we need to be a part of a real community, a kind of village. We need a sense of extended family, of belonging. And we need this village to be healthy, stable, and functioning well, so that it will not only be here for us and for our children, but so that we will be even more effective as a force for good in this city and state. The world needs us as much as we need one another. 

The appointed time has come. The kingdom of God is near. Change is in the air, nationally and right here at St. Michael and All Angels. The Spirit is doing something new, and we are waking up and responding to this new reality. We are turning, changing our ways, and living into the promise that God sets before us. I’m ready to move with the Spirit in the year before us. I hope that you are, too. 

St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church 
Albuquerque, New Mexico 
Sunday January 18, 2009 2nd after Epiphany 
Preacher: Christopher McLaren 
Text:    I Samuel 3: 1-10 (11-20) 
John 1: 43-51 
Psalm 139 

It is night, near dawn and both Eli and Samuel are wrapped in their dreams.  In the Temple the silence of the night is broken for Samuel by a voice calling out to him. “Samuel, Samuel.” Roused from his slumber he answers, “Here I am.” And runs to Eli, his father in God. Puzzled and sleepy, Eli sends Samuel back to bed, “I did not call; lie down again. 

Once again it happens that Samuel is called out of sleep by the voice of the Lord, “Samuel.”  Baffled now himself and a little testy about being woken again the gentle Eli sends Samuel back to bed.  “Kids and their dreams, “ he mutters, “what did he eat for dinner?” 

We are told that Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.” Yet again a voice wakes Samuel and he runs faithfully to his mentor, “Here I am, for you called me.”  Eli is awake now, and insight breaks in.  This is a teachable moment for the boy Samuel, and Eli gives him the words to start a conversation with the Lord. “Go lie down and if you hear the voice calling you again say, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.” 

I wonder what it was like for Samuel to lie down again, knowing that the next words he would hear might be from God.  I’m not sure he fell asleep again, could you? 

This ancient Hebrew text tells us that “The word of the LORD was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.” I wonder how those words resonate for you.  When I here them I think to myself, “I’m not a mystic, I’m not a person who hears voices and sees signs” with any frequency.  But my own call was as mystical and uncanny as anything I’ve ever experienced.  Alone in a my room, reading the psalms one night I felt a compulsion to pick-up a reproduction of a painting by the Italian Master Duccio of Jesus calling Simon and Andrew.  From the shore, Jesus calls to the two disciples who are fishing in a boat, holding their nets in the Galilee. Staring into the scene I felt myself being drawn into it as if Jesus himself were on the shore speaking to me.  What I heard, and I still have to describe it that way, was clear, “Christopher, I want you to be my priest.” The voice was gentle but firm and had a kind of invitation in it. It was one of the clearest messages I’ve ever received and one of the few mystical experiences of my life.  I understood it immediately to be an answer to a question I had been asking for quite some time about discerning my life’s direction.

The next day by strange coincidence, a man I knew but a little mistakenly sat down with me at lunch and after talking about various things and catching up, he said to me, “Christopher I think that you should pursue the Episcopal priesthood, and it is strange thing say that since I’m not one to give anyone that kind of direct advice, but somehow I feel strongly about it which is also kind of weird especially since I’m not an Episcopalian.” 

A few days later, a beloved member of our congregation Johanna, shared a dream with me. She described a scene that mirrored the painting that I had been drawn to and placed me in the boat with Peter holding the nets and a told me than in her dream Jesus played by a friend of ours was telling me, “Christopher come follow me.” It was too much for me, too much to ignore.  I will never forget the brightness of her face the power of her smile as she said, “Christopher, I think that you are being called, does that make any sense to you.” I could hardly speak. 

From that moment on I did not doubt Christ’s claim on my life, there was something irresistible about the Love of Christ, and service to the Body of Christ that was compelling and kept me centered through the seven years it took to navigate the discernment process.  I have realized over time that a call is something much deeper than the external form it has takes.  The call is quite simply to God, grounded in a deep desire for God.  That is the one constant.  That is what holds me, wherever I find myself, whatever amazing changes take place in my life, in the midst of disaster and failures, the desire for God has been the golden thread, the continuity of the call.  It is always this that pulls me back, the desire for God, the God I know and continue to discover in the person of Jesus Christ, that has been the solid ground beneath my feet, the place of renewal, the energy of purpose, the reason to continue.  

The call has a mystery all its own.  There are, in all honesty, times of waxing and waning beyond my control.  But the call remains.  Even in times of great discouragement deep doubts, there is the sure knowledge of God’s love for me, and my desire to know that love more deeply.  What seems true about the call is that while it is an undeniable and strong claim on my life, it is at the same time a source of freedom. This is of course a kind of paradox, that accepting God’s call with its inherent sacrifice and overt limits and demands, is at the same time a place of freedom.  Over time I have begun to learn what that beautiful phrase from the prayer book, “in serving you there is perfect freedom,” actually means. 

So my call was a kind of mystical experience that shook my world three times in one week just as Samuel found himself shaking Eli awake three times before he knew it was God calling.  There is, in my experience, however, no “typical call.”  Others, less stubborn and more discerning than I, experience the calling process in more gentle ways.  It may be a gradual coming to terms with what one is called to do.  Many make ordered decisions, step-by-step choices that lead them to a clear understanding of who they are and what they are called to.  Often the process requires deep learning from our experiences, careful listening to the advice and council of mentors and of discerning spiritual friends.  In all of this there is an ongoing need to be attentive to the guiding of the Holy Spirit over time, without pressure or the need to decide on a schedule. The truth is that we also need others who share a similar call, who can encourage us in the shaping of our lives along similar lines.  At the very least we need others committed to listening and interpreting the call with us, helping us shape our lives around the call.  

The focus of one’s call can be as different and unique as the person.  Your call may be articulated in terms of healing, of justice, of mentoring youth, of deep concern for the poor, or as an educator shaping the souls and intellects.  Calls come in all shapes and sizes. Your call may require all of one’s life energies and commitment, or it might be of a more limited duration, a call to serve in a particular time and place for a season that is magnetic for you.  That a call may be temporary does not make it any less of a call.  

For most of us that call has a particular container – a marriage or life-partner, a church community, a ministry or mission, a vocation enlivened by your faith, an office from which to serve.  No matter the container, embracing the call enables and frees us to see what really matters, to focus our love, to spend ourselves for something or Someone larger than ourselves.  This in tern is the dynamic that leads to growth, for in giving ourselves to something larger, we discover the mysterious process of losing ourselves over and over again only to once again by God’s grace to rediscover who God has created us to be anew.  In all of this, God is the consummate coach, shaping our calls to the very fiber of who we are and what we most need to become whole and holy. 

No matter what the call, if it came with force like a violent storm or gently like a breeze, the truth of the matter is that all callings must be worked out in daily life, in the mundane routines, the endless stream of small choices, the countless gestures of kindness and compassion, the dogged pursuit and surrender to God’s love that drew you into this calling in the first place.  

When it comes to one’s calling the one essential is being honest and faithful to the truth of one’s own life.  The Hasidic tale about Rabbi Zusya is instructive.  When he was an old man, he said, “In the coming world, they will not ask me: “Why were you not Moses? They will ask me: “Why were you not Zusya.’”  But this is harder than it seems in a society punch drunk on options and sure that a myriad of choices means freedom.  It is difficult to know when change is truly a response to the Spirit’s promptings and when it is quite simply running from growth.  It requires great effort and emerging maturity to keep our choices grounded in true freedom and continued willingness to love.  

There are a whole host of skills needed to discern and follow your call.  There are disciplines like journaling, spiritual direction, and dream work all tools for paying attention to our experience and the learnings that are present making us more aware of the path opening in front of us.  We  need to study the scriptures as guidance from the old ones who have followed God’s call.  We will need to settle deep into prayer, or deep enough to confront the real demands that the Jesus of the Gospels makes on each of our lives. 

But we will also need a community – a church or group of committed friends of Christ who are willing to ground themselves in the values of the Gospels, in the ways of Jesus even if it makes them eccentrics to the world around them. To talk about a community willing to help each other discern their gifts, pay attention to the urgings of the Spirit, is dangerous and intimate business. 

However, I believe that these biblical stories of calling are meant to challenge us to become a community of calling. We are here to help each other to discover that – who you are - is for something, that your life has a unique contribution to make in God’s economy of love and redemption in the world.  Each of us need spiritual friends willing to ask us hard questions, willing to help us name our gifts and walk with us as we discern a place of passionate service to God.   

We need each other, as spiritual friends to keep us honest about our life, to help steady us in a culture that is addicted to change and novelty.  We need support to claim the gifts that we have from God and put them to use.  The pull toward individualism in our culture is so strong we dare not travel this path alone.  However, creating, finding, shaping communities – churches, faith sharing groups, spiritual direction groups, discernment groups able to do this work is no easy task.  The challenges are obvious but the rewards of such communities are great.  Who is not hungry for a place of thoughtful discernment, of wise engagement about how to live out one’s Love for God, about how to listen to your life for the ways that will lead to deep freedom, about being faithful to the truth of your life?

Perhaps we are all a bit like Samuel, who awakened by God’s call repeatedly keeps running to a baffled Eli. Fortunately Eli was a spiritual friend to Samuel, and could say, "Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, `Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.'" Perhaps it is time to realize that God is calling us right where we are, if we will only stay put long enough to listen, long enough to discern the voice of love whispering into our lives, and long enough to help each other to follow the call as if our joy and our very lives depended on it.  

<em>I wish to acknowledge my debt to the wonderful writing of Elaine M. Prevallet, S.L. on the calling process which informed and enlivened this sermon, as well as, the work of Parker Palmer from which I learned of Zusya’s Hasidic tale.  </em>

January 11, 2009
Prayer 101
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor

In one week we’ve moved swiftly from Jesus’ birth to his baptism at the age of 30. Today’s gospel tells us that the sky was ripped open and the Spirit came upon him like a dove. A voice from heaven defined Jesus’ relationship with the Father, with Abba, as he called him. He was God’s Son, the Beloved, with whom God was well pleased. 

It was an intimate, connected relationship of complete love, and Jesus lived out of this reality all the time. That’s what gave him his power, his peace, his compassion and his clarity. He was one with Abba. 

Today we renew our relationship with God, using the Baptismal Covenant. Like Jesus, we are God’s own beloved children, God is well pleased with us, and the Spirit was given to us, too, in baptism.  We are already in a relationship with God that is intimate, connected, loving. We are already one with Abba. But do we live out of this reality? Does it give us power, peace, compassion, and clarity? 

Perhaps our relationship with God needs to be refreshed. In the Baptismal Covenant, we promise to do several things, as our part in renewing our relationship with God. We promise to continue to use the faith tradition as a spiritual tool – the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, and prayers. We say that we will repent, when necessary, that we will proclaim the Good News, love and serve others, and strive for justice and peace. Most of us know that our relationship with God includes these kinds of things. 

But strangely enough, the Baptismal Covenant skips lightly over the very thing that I believe is the most essential in maintaining and refreshing our relationship with God: a life of prayer. 

Reading and study is fine, because it brings intellectual understanding. Coming to church is good, because it links us to a community and the teachings and traditions of our faith. Serving others is essential, because it is an outward expression of our faith that we are all one as children of God. 

But when one of you tells me that don’t feel connected to God, I don’t recommend reading or more church attendance or service projects. I want to talk about prayer. For if we want to be in a close relationship with God, we must pray. 

Prayer is the intimate place where we make contact with the Spirit. Prayer is the time when everything but our relationship with God drops away. No one else is there, only the two of us. Prayer is like those moments with someone you love, when you get vulnerable and real, when time stops and there is only deep companionship. Without this connection from time to time, no relationship is intimate. So it is with God. 

There are, of course, many techniques that help us to connect with God: meditative reading of scripture, liturgical prayer, contemplative silence, small spirituality groups, chanting or speaking a repetitive mantra, walking or gardening outdoors, listening to music, using The Book of Common Prayer. 

But what I’d like to talk about today is Prayer 101: the most basic form of prayer, when we just bring ourselves into God’s presence, when we voice our needs, and we listen, the way a child might pray – nothing fancy or technical, just being together as friends.  

I’m going to state the obvious here and say that just as there are two sides to every human relationship, there are two movements in the relationship of prayer. There is a movement from us to God, and a movement from God to us.  

We begin with our movement towards God. You might try it now, as I speak. Start with an awareness that God is in you, around you, everywhere. You may not be able to see, hear, or feel God, but you can know – at a level that is deeper than feeling -  that God’s Spirit is in every particle of your being, in every corner of creation. 

God is already listening, waiting for you to open your mind and your heart, like when you open a window to the outside air that is always there. Feel your breath going in and out. It is the divine life force that has been given to you by the Creator. It is the physical form of your unity with Abba. Take a little time to settle in to this. 

Then bring to mind the things you are concerned about, or the things you are grateful for. But don’t just say it and move on. Feel what you already feel about it. Stay with this for a little while; slow down; soften your heart. Be as honest and as vulnerable as you can. Don’t worry about being articulate or repetitive or having the right attitude or asking for the right thing. Just express your concern or your thanks. Then remain quiet for a while, holding up your prayer in hope and expectation. 

This is the part of prayer that is a movement from us towards God. We bring our life and our experience, as it is in this moment, into the relationship with God, just as we would with anyone whom we love. We become real; we share ourselves as we are, right now. 

But if this is all we’re aware of in prayer, we miss out on much. Our prayer life may eventually dry up, because we start to feel as if we’re just shooting prayers up into the ether, with nothing coming back. 

The other part of prayer, the other part of the relationship, is a movement from God to us. This might be in the form of an insight that comes in the time of prayer, or later, sneaking up on us from behind. It might be a feeling after prayer that all is well. Unexpectedly, our fears are quelled and we find ourselves centered again. Our needs may not be immediately answered, but we have less anxiety around them. We move into our day with more trust and equanimity. 

But these feelings don’t always come, and we shouldn’t expect them to. For God is silent, hidden, subtle, beneath our conscious mind and beneath our emotions. Because of this, we might make the mistake of thinking that God is absent; but this is never true. 

God is closer to us than we are to ourselves, at all times. A life of prayer teaches us to trust in this presence that is deeper than thought or feeling. A life of prayer teaches us that God is at work in us, hidden beneath our consciousness, even when we don’t sense this in any way. If this weren’t true, God would be as small as our consciousness. But God is far more than we can ever understand or feel, and God’s ways of working in us are, too. 

Sometimes we do sense God’s presence in prayer, but mostly we can only see the effects of prayer, in hindsight, over a long period of time. God’s movement towards us, God’s part in the relationship of prayer is like the wind. We can’t see the wind itself. All we can see is its effects. 

Over time, if we take the time to be in companionship with our Source, we will be affected. One day we will turn around and notice that we are more patient, more accepting of others, more ready to speak the truth in love, more generous and free. 

What I am describing are the gifts of the Spirit. Our scripture and the experience of the saints over thousands of years have clearly identified these gifts. There’s no big mystery or controversy about what they are. As St. Paul says, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22). Or as Jesus himself promised: meekness, mercy, purity of heart, and a hunger and thirst for righteousness and peace (Matthew 5, Luke 6). 

Anyone who regularly opens their heart to God with humility, honesty and love will be given these gifts over time. They come not because we craft them in ourselves. They come because God crafts them in us, in the intimate relationship of prayer. 

So this day, if you are looking to renew your friendship with God, pay attention to the promises you make in the Baptismal Covenant we are about to say together. But also pray as often as you can. Make a movement towards God by offering your needs and your gratitude, every day. Also know that God is also moving towards you. And over the course of your life of prayer, you will look back and see the good work that God has been doing in you. 

The Second Sunday of Christmas
January 4, 2009
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor

On this 10th day of Christmas, as we come near to the end of this season, our nativity story expands outward from the little manger in Bethlehem. Suddenly there appears on the scene wise men, exotic foreigners, and the story open up to the whole world. 

Who were they? Well, they weren’t kings, the biblical story doesn’t tell us that there were three of them, and who knows how wise they were. What we are told is that they were Magi, from the east. Magi is a term that was used for the priestly caste of Zoroastrianism. They were elite astrologers to the royal courts of Persia or Babylon.
 
So they were Arabs and aristocratic clergy. They followed the astrological guidance of the heavens, not Yahweh’s law. The Jews considered these Gentiles unclean, and couldn’t touch them or allow them into their homes. Furthermore, they were very possibly from the very country that had dragged them off into exile 600 years before. And as we know, grudges live long in the Middle East. What was a poor little Jewish boy from Nazareth doing with these guys? 

This story is the most richly symbolic part of the Christmas narrative. It was intended to deliver a highly unusual message, a completely new teaching that was at the heart of the gospel. Until now, the chosen people of Israel were in relationship with God because they wre set apart by their obedience to a covenant. Their mission was to draw others into this same covenant, so that they, too, would be set apart from the unrighteous. 

Early Christians believed, however, that as of this night in the manger, everything changed. This was the revelation: God has initiated an intervention upon all humankind. God broke in and took on a human life. And in that life God attempted to show everyone that there is no need to be afraid, no need to measure up through scrupulous obedience, no need to separate ourselves into mutually exclusive religions. There is no clean and unclean. There is only God’s passion that we be reconciled as children of God, all brothers and sisters of a common Creator. 

Look at the Magi. They didn’t convert to Judaism; they weren’t circumcised in Bethlehem; they didn’t take upon themselves Moses’ covenant. They came as Zoroastrians, worshiped the Christ child, and left as Zoroastrians, back to their way of life in the east. By the way, they didn’t become Christians, either – no baptism, no creed, no acceptance of Christ as their savior, no preaching of the gospel when they got back home. 

These were strangers, aliens, from a completely different social class than Joseph and Mary’s family. They were perhaps even enemies. And yet the story tells us that they were drawn by a magnetic force - a light in the sky - that brought them to Jesus. So the very first thing that this incarnate God did was to bring the covenanted people of Israel together with the religious leaders of another kingdom, so that together they would bathe in the light of their common Creator. 

A half century later, Paul would write a letter to the church in Ephesus, trying to explain the implications of this powerful little story. He said to the Gentiles there that they were once “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise...But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near…For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us” (Ephesians 2:12-14).  

And Paul wrote to the church in Galatia that 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). If the baby Jesus in the manger could have talked, he would have said “there is no Jew or Zoroastrian, clean or unclean, rich or poor, peasant or aristocrat.” 

And this is how Jesus continued to live. He drew all kinds of people to himself, with no regard for their beliefs, nationality, gender, moral standing, or station in life. He initiated a relationship, talked to them about life, about God, and he invited them to be transformed, so that they could live in harmony with one another and with God. 

When some of you say to me that you’re not sure if you’re a legitimate Christian, I give you some homework. I ask you to quickly read through one of the earliest gospels, Matthew, Mark or Luke. I ask you to read with new eyes and get a kind of first impression, a broad view that comes from looking for a general pattern, not getting stuck on the details, asking one simple question: what did Jesus ask of those who were attracted to him? 

It turns out that he was not a prudish disciplinarian who demanded moral perfection. He didn’t really ask people to believe things about him. He invited them to examine their lives, their fear, their faith, their attitudes towards people that are different from them. He asked them to consider seriously those things that were an obstacle to love, to faith, and to be willing to be healed of them. His message was about living more harmoniously and generously with one another and our Creator. Everyone was included in his humanistic, spiritual vision. 

But then the church, before too long, found ways of limiting the vision. Once again, it became about obedience, being set apart from the heathen, and right belief. Paul was the first to correct this all-too-human tendency, traveling to Jerusalem to explain to Jesus’ own brother James how they were missing the point. “There is no Jew or Greek, the dividing walls have all fallen, and it is only faith, hope, and love that matter in the end.” The leaders in Jerusalem realized that Paul had reconnected them with the essential spirit of Jesus, and Christianity was released from its narrow sectarian constraints, exploding upon the continent of Europe. But of course, others have constricted the message again and again, in different ways. We still do. 

In November of last year, Armenian and Greek monks got into a brawl in the Church of the Holy Selpulchre, the supposed site of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Something about who was supposed to be in a procession. Sadly, this is not uncommon there. God knows how many religions teach that heaven is a very small place. Today, Jewish and Muslim bombs kill and maim scores of innocent people, and humanitarian aid is cruelly cut off – to each, the others are expendable people, infidels, unclean, “animals.” We sometimes have the same view, using torture on our enemies – how can one torture another human being unless one thinks of them as subhuman? Or when we kill innocent civilians and call it “collateral damage.” 

And of course, each of us must ask the question that really hits home: who is unclean to me? Who is someone I’d just as soon get rid of? Who do I not want to even try to understand? Who do I believe to be outside of God’s love, and therefore unworthy of my respect and love? 

In the face of this, this continues to be the radical new message of the Incarnation: God took the initiative, uninvited, breaking down the dividing wall between human and divine, and lived as one of us, offering everyone unearned love “while we were yet sinners.” It was a unilateral disarmament. And God did this in the hope that we might learn from his example and do the same. This is, of course, the hardest thing we can ever do, for it requires of us a spiritual conversion, and that takes a lifetime. 

In this spiritual conversion we let go of our sense of fairness. We love with no concern about whether that love is deserved or appreciated, whether it will be returned to us, or whether our love will accomplish the results we want in the other person. 

In this spiritual conversion we then love just because love wants to come out of us, even if the cost to us for doing so is great. For God did this in Christ. 

There is no longer Zoroastrian or Jew; clean or unclean; liberal or conservative; rich or poor; evildoers or champions of liberty. We are no longer aliens and strangers. The dividing wall of hostility has been broken down in Christ. God has shown us the way. It is our spiritual work in this life to be converted to this life-giving way of reconciliation. And as we are, the Word will become flesh and dwell among us anew.