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Rev. Nancy Rockwell

Epiphany 3   24 January 2010

Here then is the third story of the revelations, the showings of Jesus and people, including us.    There are no stories in which Jesus alone is revealed, for the lightbeam is wider than that, and we are all caught in its shining.  All manner of things are exposed in this light.   

So far we've heard about Jesus coming up from the Jordan river at his baptism and words of  his belovedness -- his new name, Beloved -- fell upon  the ears of all the crowd at the river's edge, some of them wet themselves.   That day belovedness crept into the ears of everyone who longed to find God, and every day since then, and even now.  That name, Beloved,  pours like water over our heads.  Do you believe it?  About yourself I mean, now, not just Jesus?

Advent 4    20 December  2009

Open for Christmas

Outer storms - inner fruitfulness.  That's winter, withering the life that walks, swims, climbs, blooms, above the earth, and all the while preparing spring below, growing roots with dreams in them - roots must have dreams, how else can it be that they can make seeds,  trees, they must dream of sky, of celestial blue and a hundred shades of green.  To survive the storms of winter, every living thing seeks shelter, even dreams, and warmth enough to survive.

Outer storms, inner fruitfulness.  That's  Christmas, too.  Slogging through the storms of Advent -- John the Baptist's warnings of impending disasters and the many storms we are facing in this world -- we make our way toward the sheltering warmth where survival is possible.  We learn from the story of Christmas that God needs shelter in order to enter our human world, and that finding that shelter is step in God's coming among us.  The survival of the world begins with shelter, so we are told.  And Bethlehem, where Mary and Joseph lie down among the animals and find warmth, is one of the names we have for the survival of the world.  And another name for that survival is Mary.   It was she who first offered shelter to the presence of God, taking God inside herself, where God could rest and grow while hidden from the world, safe in her while she herself became unsafe in the storm....