Sermon
The Rev. Rebecca S. Myers, CSW
Priest-in-Charge, St. John’s Episcopal Church, Corbin, KY
Preached at the 8am Service, Washington National Cathedral
December 29, 2013
First Sunday After Christmas

In the beginning…. John 1:1

Please be seated.

Especially this Christmas season, I’ve been thinking about liminal space.  The word “liminal” comes from the Latin word limens, meaning literally, “threshold.”  A liminal space, the place of transition, waiting, and not knowing. 

Just eight days ago, we witnessed the shortest day of the year.  We witnessed the changing of the season from fall to winter.  Liminal space as the days grow longer. 

In two more days, 2013 will come to a close.  It is a time we look back and take stock of all that has occurred, like there is some strong line of demarcation between one year and the next.  Newspapers, news shows all look back over the year.  The top news stories…the top movies…the top books.  We look at the year to come.  Some of us make resolutions.  Some of us already have plans that we know will change how we live our lives.  Some of us know that unexpected things will happen in the year to come.  The liminal space of what was, what is and what is to come.

As some of you know, I am now a priest at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Corbin, Kentucky.  On Christmas Eve, a parishioner called me to say his 94-year-old mother was in the hospital and in a coma.  I awoke Christmas morning to a text from him saying his mother was dying.  The first thing I did Christmas morning was go to the hospital to say the prayers and service for people nearing death and anointed her with oil. 

We were in that liminal space between this world and the next.  I worked in hospice as a social worker, so that space is very familiar to me.  I am comfortable with it and in wonder and awe of that transition.  Christmas morning and I was celebrating the birth of a baby Jesus and praying for the transition of a human soul, Ruby.  Liminal space.

Often in our services we say,

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: * 
as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.

And in our Gospel reading today, what is called the prologue to the Gospel of John, in beautiful language we hear a description of liminal space.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

 Liminal space feels thin… the veil between here and now and eternity is thin.  The sense of time is different.  Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again

According to Richard Rohr, a liminal space, the place of transition, waiting, and not knowing is…

…a unique spiritual position where human beings hate to be but where the biblical God is always leading them. It is when you have left the tried and true, but have not yet been able to replace it with anything else. It is when you are finally out of the way. It is when you are between your old comfort zone and any possible new answer. If you are not trained in how to hold anxiety, how to live with ambiguity, how to entrust and wait, you will run…anything to flee this terrible cloud of unknowing. 

You see, this liminal space is useful and necessary…. Because we usually don’t like change nor eagerly seek it. We want to hold on to our life as we’ve known it, even if that life is killing us – think the Exodus where the people wanted to go back into bondage rather than be out in the wilderness.

Helen Keller said, “When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

A door opens into the liminal space, but all we can do is long for the closed door…the life we’ve left behind. Like Richard Rohr says, we are anxious, afraid of the ambiguity, want to be in control, and want the answer right now.

Instead, we find ourselves grieving over what was behind us. Even if it wasn’t perfect or caused us pain, there is still grief and even fear in leaving it behind.

In my own experience, I’ve come to know that all God ever gives me is the next step.  I don’t see the end point, only the next step.  That’s what God calls us to…. That liminal space…where we must hold our anxiety, live with ambiguity, entrust and wait… Not run.

Over the next few days, consider what closed doors are you longing for?  Where is God calling that you are refusing to go?

And rest assured in these words of John:

And the Word became 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. …From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

Amen

Sermon
The Rev. Rebecca S. Myers, CSW
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Corbin, KY
Christmas Day

In the beginning….  John 1:1

Please be seated.

I don’t remember my father’s sister, my Aunt Jean, but she was there at the beginning of my life.  I was Aunt Jean’s first niece or nephew.  In the late 1950’s Aunt Jean was a divorced, single mom with two of her own children and she was dying from Lupus.  In her letters to my parents, she was so excited about my impending birth.  My father was in the army and my parents were living in Ft. Smith, Arkansas.  Aunt Jean was in Hanover, Pennsylvania.  Six weeks after I was born, my father got out of the army and thus began the long trip to relocate to Pennsylvania.  The first stop was the hospital where Aunt Jean was.  My parents sneaked me up the stairs to my Aunt Jean’s room, so she could hold me.  Not long after that Aunt Jean died.

This morning we heard the prologue to John’s Gospel.  In the beginning….  Immediately we are reminded of the very first words of the Bible, In the beginning or bereshith in Hebrew.  Bereshith comes from a root that means, head, most important thing.  John, although writing in Greek, echoes Genesis.  In the beginning….  The head…the most important thing.  What was In the beginning?  

Love was in the beginning.  Jesus, love incarnate, was with God in the beginning.

This is not the love we usually hear in love songs.  This is not the love that has any expectation of return.  This is the love most of us can never fully realize.  Unconditional love.  Paul tried to write about it in 1 Cor. Chapter 13:

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

So much in our world and in our history tries to snuff out love.  Wars.  Hatred. Superiority.  Fear.  We do so much to cast out love.

But love, the kind of love that was there at the beginning, is never extinguished…never.  Unconditional regard, care, blessing is always with us from Christ.  We may ignore it, go against it, but we are continually called to live it out…to be guided by it.

Communion was in the beginning.  Jesus and God were in communion.  Different, yet one.  Diversity in relationship.  Communion in relationship.  The Holy Trinity – God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  Three persons in communion…in intimate relationship…in koinonia.

We are called to live in this same communion with each other.  We don’t need to be the same.  We are called to our authentic “created by God” selves in communion with each other, in community with each other.

Unfortunately, our history and culture are riddled with voices that want us to be the same…that want to destroy anything that is different…anything labeled “other” … that insist on convincing us we must believe or act as they do. We find it so difficult to be in relationship with one another in our difference.

Yet, that is what we do each week when we come to a worship service, isn’t it?  We come from various places, different lives, different pasts, different political views.  Despite that, we pray the same prayers, say the same words, adopt similar postures and ultimately eat of the same bread and drink of the same cup.  Together we are the Body of Christ, each with our own necessary contribution.  The body of Christ is not complete without us and we are not complete without each other. 

In the beginning of my life was my Aunt Jean, a woman I don’t remember meeting.  I don’t recall her face.  I don’t remember her arms holding me.  Yet, this story of her love for me and the story of her joy in holding me have connected me to her my entire life.

Love and communion creating the light of the world for all people.  

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.  What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

Amen

Sermon
The Rev. Rebecca S. Myers, CSW
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Corbin, KY
The Eve of the Nativity of Our Lord
December 24, 2013

Bulletin 12-24-13

Titus 3:4-7  When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy…. Titus 3:4-5

 Please be seated

Are you familiar with Henri Nouwen?  He was a prolific writer on the spiritual life.  When I read this passage from Titus, I was reminded of a book by Nouwen, Life of the Beloved:  Spiritual Living in a Secular World.  When Nouwen was teaching at Yale Divinity School, he was interviewed by a young journalist.  The interview was nothing to speak of, but something prompted Nouwen to build a friendship with this man.  About ten years after they’d met, the friend asked Henri to write a book for he and his friends – those who have a spiritual hunger, but no real religious tradition.  No religious language or symbols.  The result was this book. 

In the first chapter, Nouwen makes the claim that each of us is the beloved of God.  Take that in.  How many of us truly live our lives as if we are the beloved of God?  Often we disparage ourselves.  Some of us puff ourselves up and are arrogant.

In the past week, the news has been full of a controversy over some comments by Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty fame.  In an interview for GQ magazine, when he was asked:

What, in your mind, is sinful?

His immediate response was, “Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there.”

Despite all of the scientific evidence to the contrary.  Despite the fact that Jesus Christ never said a word about sexual orientation, Mr. Robertson implies that some people are not the beloved of God…were not created as beloved of God.

I want to say tonight, that you are the beloved of God.  I interject this with fervor, because especially young people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning attempt and commit suicide about 4 times greater than teens as a whole.  Supportive environments make a difference.  So I speak out, because young people are dying and often from believing that they are not beloved of God.

When Bill Moyers asked Archbishop Desmond Tutu what was the worst thing about apartheid, Archbishop Tutu responded, “Ultimately, it’s actually the way it makes you doubt that you are a child of God.”  The worst thing you can do to someone…the worst thing you can do to yourself is to doubt that you are the beloved of God.

When we disparage ourselves, or are arrogant or disparage others, we deny we are the beloved of God…that God loves us…loves our authentic and true selves.  How often do we believe that if people really knew who we were, they wouldn’t like us?  But being the beloved of God means that our authentic and true selves are exactly what God loves.  We need to stop denying we are the beloved of God.

Nouwen says that when we listen to God’s voice telling us we are Beloved, what we hear in the center of our being is: 

“I have called you by name, from the very beginning.

You are mine and I am yours.

You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests.

I have molded you in the depth of the earth and knitted you together in your mother’s womb.

I have carved you in the palms of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace.

I look at you with infinite tenderness and care for you with a care more intimate than that of a mother for her child.

I have counted every hair on your head and guided you at every step.

Wherever you go, I go with you, and wherever you rest, I keep watch.

I will give you food that will satisfy all your hunger and drink that will quench all your thirst.

I will not hide my face from you.

You know me as your own as I know you as my own.

You belong to me.

I am your father, your mother, your brother, your sister, your lover, and your spouse…yes, even your child…wherever you are I will be.

Nothing will ever separate us.  We are one.” (Life of the Beloved, pg 36-37)

The writer of the letter to Titus was being given instructions about his mission work on the Island of Crete.  The passage we read tonight is believed to be a much older hymn of the church

God showed loving kindness to we humans.  God showed mercy to us and saved us.  We did not do anything to merit this love.  We did not do anything to deserve being saved.  It was merely the grace of God.

Tonight we celebrate God coming to us as the baby Jesus Christ…the beginning of God’s saving work among us.  Think about this.  When babies cry, do we ever ask whether they deserve to be fed?  No, we feed them, because we know they need food to live and thrive.  When babies cry, do we ever ask whether they deserve to be held?  No, because we know that babies MUST be touched to live and thrive.  When babies cry, do we ever ask whether they deserve to be loved?  No, because we know they MUST be loved to live and thrive.  Asking whether a baby deserves these things is absurd.  That’s what God thinks about our questioning whether we deserve to be loved by God.  To God, that is an absurd question.  God loves us because we are.

This beautiful night when we are together…when we sing songs of old that are familiar…when we say ancient words and prayers…some going back 2000 years… remember YOU ARE THE BELOVED OF GOD.  God who is goodness and loving kindness saved you not because of any works of righteousness that you had done, but because you are precious and beloved.  

Amen