A Sermon for the First Sunday after Christmas Day
The Rev. Theo Park

Isaiah 61:10--62:3
Psalm 147
Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7
John 11-18

I've said it before, but I always find this morning's gospel passage an extremely difficult one to talk about, for two reasons. The first is that it is poetry. You don't pick this up from its layout in English, but the original Greek makes it quite clear. Scholars believe it was created as an early hymn of praise about Christ and was intended to be sung as part of the eucharistic liturgy. Only later was it attached to the written gospel. Listen to the verses again, without the author's parenthetical intrusions about John the Baptist (Raymond Brown version).

It certainly has the feel of poetry, doesn't it, sort of grand and majestic and slightly "other"? Its this quality of otherness, the knowing that it is poetry, that makes me nervous, because we all know how subjective poetry is. Poetry is the stuff of symbolism, of metaphor and allusion. It is rarely concrete and single-minded. It can mean vastly different things to different people, depending on their mood and how they hear it. I prefer to have my theological statements a little clearer. Which leads me to the other reason I find this text so challenging: it is full of profoundly complex theology, making statements about God and the Word and their relationship to one another that are highly original and found nowhere else in the New testament. So when I talk about it, I'm automatically talking about profound theological truths that are, at the same time, intensely personal in meaning. Can you see why I might think this is difficult to do?

I could, I suppose, simply allow the beauty of its images to wash over me--that's a perfectly acceptable response to poetry and people do it all the time. But knowing that there's this other theological dimension means I can't just stop here; as a scholar--or simply as a thinking Christian--I have to do more. So what is here that needs to be explored? Well, just about every verse in this passage makes some theological claim, but for Episcopalians the key issue is the doctrine of the Incarnation: the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. If anything might be said to sum up Anglican belief in a nut shell, it is this statement.

What do I mean? Well, let me say first that some scholars believe that the true subject of the fourth gospel is not really Jesus at all, but God, with Jesus as the primary metaphor for God. "No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son...who has made God known. If this is so, pay close attention to how this knowledge is made known: The Word, which had been with God "in the beginning" (note, by the way, this tip of the hat to the creation story in Genesis); the Word who is indeed, according to this account, responsible for the creation of all things; this Word, who is God, now becomes created matter, taking on flesh and being born as a human being. Wow! What an incredible statement. God, out of love for the world, for us, has chosen to join us, "to live and die as one of us." Looked at from this perspective, is it any wonder that more than any other Christian denomination, Anglicans affirm God present in the "stuff" of this world, right here, right now, all the time, God still creating, still revealing the divine self through what God has created.

In this one action, what had "in the beginning," been declared good--the stuff of created matter, all that exists, seen and unseen--is now made doubly good. In this one action, God enters creation not as its distant origin but as an integral part of it. Think of it! Rocks, mountains, water, trees, flowers, animals, men and women, stars and planets--everything is now holy in a new way, not just because God made it and therefore it should be respected, but because now God actually shares in our created being, shares our material nature...and God has chosen to do this out of love. Because of this ultimate act of compassion, of being with, all creation has been ennobled, raised to a new level and redeemed. Could anything be more amazing? Could any gift be more precious?

I say that we Anglicans have always recognized this as an essential truth in our statement of belief. Don't just take my word for it. Here is what the 17th-Century poet Thomas Traherne, one of the most creation-affirming writers of that age, says on the subject :

"The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." The Word continues to become flesh and dwells in us. As a theology, it doesn't get any deeper than this. As poetry, it doesn't get any more beautiful. And it isn't just subtle philosophy, to be appreciated at arm's length or intellectual distance: for each of us the two come together in an immediate way every day, although we don't always recognize it. I'll give you an example. In the past three months, I've held the hand and dried the tears of an elderly bipolar alcoholic whose double disease has left her feeling bewildered and lonely; I've given a body massage to a young man living with and dying of AIDS, the only loving touch he gets in these latter days of his illness; I've cuddled my nine-year old godson and read him to sleep, "quality time" for both of us; I've laid hands on and anointed a man on the point of death, a formal rite yet a very intimate one; I've hugged and been hugged, kissed and been kissed by friends and family. Each of these encounters, and the many others that happen daily, has been, as a mentor of mine once said, "God with skin on." Each time I reach out to touch someone or allowed myself to be touched is a little Incarnation, the Word become flesh and present in my life and in me. And each time I slow down enough to recognize that this mystery is at the heart of my interaction with another, I am left humbled and awe-struck.

As I experience the household of God that is St. Alban's, as I read the responses to the parish survey, I believe that this is one of the greatest challenges you face: to see and serve God in the world, in all people: in the man sleeping in the doorway in the cardboard box; in the woman struggling to find an apartment where her grandchildren can play without fear of being bitten by rats; in the joys and sorrows of your fellow members; in the beauty of the landscape; in the threat human beings pose to that same environment. Perhaps you do these things in your everyday lives, but if so it doesn't seem to affect your church life much. So I would encourage you to do more, to risk more for the sake of the gospel, to be more who God is calling you to be; I fully believe that we all can see the world aright, as "charged with the glory of God," and that this can be the basis for what we attempt to give back to God.

As you go forward in the next few months, strive for that identity. Think about what it would mean for this community to be "God with skin on" to the larger world; think about the power that comes from seeing ourselves co-creators with Christ, constantly incarnating God through our actions; think about how you might live that out. Greatly rejoice in the Lord, brothers and sisters; exult in our God with your whole being, for we have indeed been clothed with garments of salvation and covered with the robe of righteousness. In the Word become flesh we have each of us received power to become children of God, heirs of Abba-God's grace and truth. May we in all that we do, like Jesus the Word, who shows us the way, become metaphors for God.

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