The Rev. Noah Van Niel

Christ and St. Luke’s

December 24^th, 2022

Christmas: Isaiah 9:2-7; Psalm 96; Titus 3:4-7; Luke 2:1-20

To hear audio of this sermon click here.

A few weeks ago, Google released a short video about some of their notable search trends for 2022. It was more of a promotional gimmick than a scientific study, but occasionally these end-of-year search summaries can give an interesting, maybe even insightful window into what has been on people’s minds and hearts through the year. And interestingly, the video said that this year, people’s most notable search query, was, “Can I change….something,” the balance of that sentence varied—my life, myself, my career, my style—but this year more than ever before, it said, people were searching for a change.

Normally I don’t pay too much attention to commercials but this one caught my eye because after years of disruption and disconnection and discontent, one might have thought that what people wanted most this year would be stability, stasis, security…and yet that seems not to be the case. We’ve been a people walking in darkness and yet, even as the acuteness of the pandemic has receded, it seems we still have not yet seen the light we are looking for. So, we continue searching for it.

Perhaps this is because in the aftermath of such a profound societal rupture we have gained something: a new awareness, a longing to make life meaningful and fulfilling, now that we have been reminded just how precious and precarious it is. As we return to “normal” many of us are realizing that there remains an emptiness, a dissatisfaction with our lives which we are no longer willing to tolerate. To a certain extent, I find this encouraging. People are less willing to settle for “mildly miserable” as their status quo and they are looking to make positive changes in their lives. That’s good. But as powerful as it is, I don’t think Google will ultimately help us find what we are looking for. That so many people share this common quest for change denotes to me, more of an existential restlessness. Which means that to actually fill our empty souls or calm our restive hearts will require things far more profound than what show up in a search bar. We must look elsewhere.

It strikes me that the Shepherds were also searching for something more meaningful in their lives. They were Jews living in 1^st century Palestine under an economically oppressive Roman occupation. They were working in one of the lowest status jobs you could have, with long hours, sometimes sleeping in the fields for days at a time, at the mercy of the elements, fending off wild animals and wrangling tons of smelly sheep all day. And to top it off their taxes were about to go up. Caesar wants more money. So, he’s counting all his subjects to see how he can squeeze one more denarius out of their already empty pockets. This unhappy reality had been the story of their lives. In fact, it had been the story of their people for hundreds of years. They were all looking for a change, longing for it, praying for it… searching for it, for a Messiah, a Savior, who could restore them to lives of fullness and happiness. But so far, their search had yielded no results.

But then one night, one holy night, in the dark and cold, sleeping with their flock out in the hills, everything does change. That which they have been looking for, longing for, searching for, comes to them in the most magnificent, mysterious way. And from this encounter these shepherds glean three of the most essential gifts of this life. Gifts that, when received, fill their empty souls and calm their restless hearts. Gifts that could do the same for us.

The first gift is a profound sense of wonder—that feeling of “Wow” which both bows us down and draws us in. With the brilliance of the angels bursting into the darkness of the night something amazing, something awesome has broken through the humdrum haze of their daily existence and called them to attention and reverence. Their world is suddenly shown to be graced with the presence of the Holy and such a vision gives them a desire to see and to know more, to celebrate the wonders they have beheld. This is the first great gift of Christmas—the gift of wonder that comes from discovering the presence of God woven into the fabric of our earthly existence.

When the Shepherds then follow where there wonder leads them and arrive at the manger, they discover the next great gift. The gift of love. In search of God what they find is a mom and a dad and a newborn baby illuminating their humble surroundings with the love they radiate. This is the way God has chosen to enter the world. And that makes this the most precious scene they could imagine. For in that moment, they have an inkling that they just might be witnessing the most powerful force in the universe on display. A force that will blossom in the life of this child, as he grows and teaches, and serves, and leads, and gives, and dies and rises all by love. That is what the Shepherds find swaddled in that stable, love incarnate in this little baby boy. And it fills their hearts with its light.

And this produces in them that feeling of “great joy” which the Angel spoke of. No longer dissatisfied, discontented with their lot in life now they skip back up into the hills singing, glorifying God all the way. They have changed. They are still shepherds, and yet somehow not the same shepherds they were the day before because they have experienced the presence of God in this world, they have seen Emmanuel—God with us, and that is reason to rejoice. Joy is that final gift which this holy night gives to them, for now they know that they are not alone, their existences not meaningless or empty, for God is in the midst of them and this gives their lives the fullness they had been searching for.

Wonder, Love, and Joy. These are how we experience God to be with us. In this world. In our lives. For this trinity of transcendence brings us out of ourselves and into touch with that reality that exists beyond our immediate awareness. And this makes them the three most essential Christmas gifts you could ever ask for. You can search the entire internet for things to change your life to make it more fulfilling or meaningful, but if those things don’t make your jaw drop in wonder or your heart swell with love or your soul sing for joy, then your searching will inevitably continue. But if you can find those things, things that kindle in you a sense of wonder, love, and joy, then you will have met with the magnificence and mystery of the Divine, and that emptiness or dissatisfaction or restlessness that’s driving you will be driven away like darkness before a flame.

And that is why, tonight, on this Christmas night, we come to celebrate and generate, in all the ways that we know how, through prayer and song, story and sacrament, through stable door and floral décor, through candlelight and starlight, the gifts of wonder, love, and joy. Gifts which bring us into the very heart of the Almighty by bringing the Almighty into our very hearts. Gifts that, if we find them, can bring our searching to an end, and make not just our Christmas, but our whole lives, merry and bright. Amen.

The Rev. Noah Van Niel

Christ and St. Luke’s

December 18, 2022

Advent IV (A): Isaiah 7:10-16; Psalm 80: 1-7, 16-18; Roman 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25

To hear audio of this sermon click here.

            When the 1972 movie version of the hit Broadway musical Cabaret came out, a new song had been added that wasn’t in the original stage production, but it was a song that quickly became a sensation. A literal showstopper, “Maybe This Time,” made a superstar of the film’s leading lady, Liza Minelli, who went on to win an academy award for her performance.

            The song comes partway through the first act of the show. Minelli’s character, Sally Bowles, the lead singer at the seedy Kit Kat Club in 1930’s Berlin, has met, fallen in love with, and is likely pregnant with the child of an American writer named Cliff Bradshaw. Given her lifestyle, Sally decides a baby is not really something she could handle, but Cliff, convinced of their love for one another, talks her into keeping it. This moment throws Sally into reverie. And as the action on stage stops, she steps out to sing about how, against all odds, “maybe this time,” her love affair is going to last and she will have a chance to start a new life as a wife and mother, away from the poisonous atmosphere of pre-war Berlin. “Lady peaceful, Lady happy, that’s what I long to be,” she sings.

            As songs go, it’s actually not much of one. The melody is meager. And what the lyrics possess in directness they lack in poetry. But its compositional shortcomings are more than made up for in emotional impact. The song starts low, and smoky, and builds, verse by verse, into a belted climax that, when delivered in Minelli’s memorable mezzo, serves as an explosion of hopefulness and possibility right at center stage. And for a moment you believe what Sally believes, that “Maybe this time,” she’ll win.

            Except she won’t. And even as you cheer for her, you know it. Because in reality what she’s imagining is absurd. Even if you’re seeing the show for the first time, you have an inkling that circumstances will overcome this pair of lovers and these newborn hopes will die. This, more than the lyrics or melody or even the performance, are, what I think made this song such a hit. It’s the anthem for all those dreams you allow yourself to dream even when you know they’re impossible. And this infuses a twinge of heartbreak into an otherwise celebratory song.

            I have never been able to find the right word for this feeling—this feeling of genuine hopefulness mixed with sadness brought on by reality. Bittersweet isn’t quite right. Ambivalence is too clinical. It’s like wistfulness but for the future. A yearning tinged with melancholy. A longing that one cannot help but feel, even though they know that longing will never be satisfied. A hope you cannot help but give voice to, even though you know it will fail.

            But whatever the word for it is, this is the feeling I get every year as Advent closes, and we turn towards Christmas. Sure, there is happiness and joy and excitement and fun, but there is also, always, that yearning tinged with melancholy that Sally sings about. Not because I long to see Christ back in Christmas, but actually quite the opposite, because Christ is in Christmas, and I know what we’re going to do to him. And yet every year I can’t help but believe, “Maybe this time…we’ll be lucky…maybe this time he’ll stay…” which I know, is absurd, but I can’t help hoping it anyway.

            It’s absurd because of our track record when it comes to how we receive and respond to God showing up in our world, looking for a relationship with us. Starting all the way back in the Old Testament people are given endless opportunities to live in right relationship with God and with each other, and yet we find endless ways to go astray. No matter what God tries—The Garden, The Exodus, The Law, The Temple, The Judges, The Kings, The Prophets—we just can’t seem to get our part right. This cycle of rejection repeats so much that, if the results weren’t so tragic, it would be a farce. The Gospel of Matthew, which our Gospel passage comes from this morning, actually starts with the Old Testament—not with Jesus’s birth story. It opens with 17 verses of genealogy, tracing Joseph’s (and thus Jesus’s) lineage all the way back to Abraham. The purpose of this extended family tree is to establish Jesus’s Davidic and Abrahamic legacy, thus setting him up to be the fulfillment of the Messianic promise. But the effect is that it ends up recalling all those failures to live in right relationship with God that have persisted across the generations. It was into this history of failure that Jesus was born. Matthew is telling us that in this Jesus event, God was jamming the spokes of the wheel that had been turning for centuries on an endless loop of disobedience, in an attempt to break through to us in a different way; to stop the cycle of failure and give us a new chance to get it right. This time it’s Emmanuel—God with us. Not an intermediary, not a messenger, not a prophet, a priest, or a King, but God’s very self, come into this world of sin. It’s all very promising. The fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy seems to be taking shape in Joseph’s life and Mary’s womb— “Look, the young woman is with child,” and he will be the one to save us from our sins. And for those people in that time and in that place the point was this: maybe this time. Maybe this time it will work. Maybe this time we’ll figure out how to live in love with one another and with God.

            But did we? No! We took “God with us,” and threw him out! We took that light and we snuffed it. We took that goodness and we mocked it. We took that love and we whipped it. We took that child and we crucified him. And with him, another round of hopes and dreams for what humanity could be. The incarnation did not save us from ourselves. The powers of darkness still held sway over our world, and over our hearts and if we’re being honest, it still seems like they hold sway today. Cruelty, violence, selfishness, greed, corruption, anger, fear these are what we cling to and what we glorify. Not life and light and peace and goodwill. We were true to our pattern. We rejected God. Again. And we still do.

            My boys are coming to an age where they are starting to move more and more out of the safety and sanctuary of our home and into the world. More time in school. More activities. More playdates. This is all as it should be. There is much more to this world than what we can show them, and they should go forth and discover it. But as I rejoice at their growth, I must confess, my heart also trembles with fear. Because I know that as they step out into this broken world what awaits them is not just fun and fascination, but also pain, and sorrow, and sin. I yearn for them to go forth, and yet I know that somewhere along the line they will discover that people can be mean, and greedy, and cynical and it will pierce their heart and stain their soul. It’s a world where just to be good will be a triumph, and to be loving will be an endless challenge, and to be fair and just will be their life’s work. And it can feel like their life is ruined before it even begins because you see what is all around you. You know the odds. You know people. How fallen we are, how devastated the world is. You know what Joseph and Mary knew, as they held their little boy in their arms, full of hope for what his future could be and full of fear for what it would be.

            And yet somehow, every Christmas, as happens every time I hold a newborn child, every time I step back and watch my boys grab hands and walk off into school together, I cannot help but pray….maybe this time. Maybe this time they will escape the troubles of this world. Maybe this time the world won’t be so troubled. And that, to me, is the power of Christmas. Because even despite our best efforts to stomp out the light of Christ, Christmas keeps coming. Year, after year, after year, God keeps coming. That’s what it means for God to be “with us.” Not that he came once and we wasted our chance. It means that every day, every month, every year, he calls on us and says, “let’s try this again.” And again. And again. “Purify our conscience, Lord, by your daily visitation,” our collect prays this morning. And what that means, is that to the extent that we can, though the powers of this world be arrayed against us, we choose to live by light and love and goodness and peace because when Jesus came to dwell among us we didn’t just learn more about God, we learned more about ourselves: what we could be, what we should be if we were to live into the fullness of our potential as Children of God. And though it seems absurd by the standards of this world, we persevere in that hope and live by love because we believe that one morning we will wake up, and like presents that appear as if by magic under the tree, we will run downstairs to find that the Kingdom of God has arrived; that Jesus has come and he shall reign forever and ever.

            But until that blessed day, that everlasting Christmas morning, we gather, year after year we gather, in numbers we don’t gather in at any other time, to tell the story—the glorious, impossible story. To be reminded of that moment, when the brilliant radiance of God’s light was so bright that all our fears were scattered and all that was not holy and honorable and just was burned away. We tell the story so that we can continue to believe that if it happened then, it can happen now. For as we bask in the light of that star above the stable, we can believe, if just for a moment, that the world is good, that people are kind, that it is possible to live by love and not selfishness or hatred or greed. And at least once a year we allow ourselves to believe that maybe, just maybe, maybe this time, we’ll be lucky, maybe this time, he’ll stay, maybe this time we won’t cast him out of our world. Maybe this time we’ll have peace on earth. Maybe this time, goodwill will finally catch on. Maybe this time we’ll get it right.

            So as you go about your tasks this week—the parties and the preparations, the decorating and the baking, the singing and the shopping, let that yearning that sits in the seat of your soul, that longing you cannot shake, be born in you again. That thrill of hope for that new and glorious morn when the beautiful promises held within that baby boy will reign over all the earth, and this weary, weary world will finally rejoice. Because even though everything around us says it won’t happen, we cannot help but hope…maybe this time…

The Rev. Noah Van Niel

Christ and St. Luke’s

December 4^th, 2022

Advent II (A): Isaiah 11:1-10; Ps. 72:1-7, 18-19; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12

To hear audio of this sermon click here.

            Back in October, we took our family to the Perry Glass Studio over next to the Chrysler Museum for what was called “Pumpkin Palooza.” This was an opportunity for our kids (with expert oversight!) to mold and shape their very own pumpkin out of glass and then bring it home as a decoration for the fall season. If you haven’t been over to the glass blowing studio or seen that process, it is incredible—a mixture of hot, fast, difficult, physical labor and delicate, gentle, sensitive artistic technique. You start by taking a metal pole and plunging it into this glowing, fiery furnace, like you are lancing the belly of the sun. You take on the end of the pole this molten goo that can then be rolled in different colors and carefully shaped and molded before being plunged back into the furnace. And this process of molding and melting and molding happens over and over. While working the glass outside the furnace the pole must be constantly rolled because if it isn’t gravity starts to pull on this little ball of lava and drag it out of shape. And in the meantime, to get the glass to expand, little puffs of air need to be sent through the open end of the rod to give form and shape to this new creation. If you don’t roll it consistently enough, or if you puff too hard or at the wrong time with the air, the glass becomes mishappen. This was the hard lesson my youngest son, Arthur, learned. When he was instructed to send the air through the pipe he held on a little too long and a bubble started to form at the end. Whoops! The attendant was quick to stop him, but the damage had been done. And as he stood there looking at his misshapen pumpkin, his eyes started to well with tears. You could tell he was thinking, “It’s ruined.” Ah, but not so. For the attendant merely took the glowing bulb at the end of the stick and plunged it back into the fire to be melted down and reshaped again. All the imperfections and mistakes burned away, ready for another try. And on this second attempt, all went well, and Arthur ended up with his very own, beautifully shaped colorful glass pumpkin, which now adorns the bookshelf in his bedroom.

            I’ve thought about this trip to the glass studio a lot since we took it. I found the whole thing deeply spiritual for reasons I couldn’t quite articulate to myself until recently when we turned the church calendar over to Advent and started getting stories of fire and destruction in the service of some new creation coming forth. And even though we’ve moved beyond the season for pumpkins, the last couple weeks that little glass gourd has come once again into my mind’s eye. For what are our souls if not glowing orbs of molten glass drawn forth from the blazing heart of God which are easily mishappen by the forces of this world that drag them down, or overinflate them, unless we attend sensitively and constantly to their care and construction.

            That trip to the glass studio has given me a new way of thinking about this season of Advent and its none too subtle notes of repentance and refinement, penitence and purification, themes which are even more present in our readings than the happy notes of Love, Joy, Hope and Peace, we often to choose to focus on this time of year. Advent is a penitential season. John the Baptist makes that crystal clear in our Gospel passage this morning, crying out in the wilderness, ‘Repent!” It is a time for us to realize that we have, all of us, been somewhat misshapen by our lives. Certain experiences, or choices, or forces, or unchecked desires have pulled us into forms that sometimes we can hardly recognize. Advent asks us to prepare the way for the birth of Christ by waking up to that reality: how bent out of shape our souls have become. This is, you might say, the reason for the season. The encouragement to slow down, take stock, simplify is not just protection against the busy-ness of holiday preparations distracting us from what’s really important, it is to force us to stop and take an honest look at who we are and how we live so that we might be made aware of the good, the bad, and the ugly bits of ourselves.

To hear John talk about it, this repentance is a prerequisite to the coming of Christ. But we are not always very good at it. The older I get the more I think that the hardest knowledge to come by is self-knowledge. We are often the worst ones at understanding ourselves; why we do what we do, why we think what we think. Usually, it must be pointed out to us from the outside, which was, after all the role of Prophets like John—to point out what parts of ourselves and our society we had allowed, consciously or unconsciously to get warped. This is often hard, unwelcome news to hear and the fate of most of the prophets, John included, makes clear we would rather not hear it at all.

But Advent tells us hard news so that it can tell us good news. For while it does ask us to wake up to our shortcomings, our failures, our imperfections, our sins; those things which have turned our souls into mishappen pumpkins, it also says that while we need to be aware of these things, we need not despair of them. Because we can always, always, be made new. Even fragments of shattered glass, can be re-formed. With God we are never beyond repentance, re-formation, re-creation. So long as we are willing to be plunged back into the fire.

This was John’s message to the Pharisees and the Sadducees who snuck out to him at the river Jordan. These two religious sects were rivals with one another but united in their opposition to anyone who threatened their power and authority. Their hypocrisy, their hatred, their blatant manipulation of their position made them the enemies of the movement John was foretelling and Jesus would foster. And yet, while John does curse them out, calling them a “brood of vipers!” he doesn’t refuse to baptize them. But he makes clear that his baptism is only a first step in their repentance. They must bear fruit worthy of the change they claim to have made, must be willing to be re-formed in their attitudes and behavior. Because the water is just the start, John says. The one coming after him will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. And at that point the repentance will require much more of us than a simple washing, it will melt us down, burning off the chaff, and reshaping us with the breath of the Spirit, in the hopes of making us new.

This new creation is what Advent is preparing us for. But like the tortures of labor which bring new life into this world, it comes about through difficulty and struggle.  And it requires an honest confrontation with and confession of the things in us and in our lives which must be burnt away. This is a destructive process with constructive ends. For the hope is not that we will be shattered, but that we will be made re-made. The birth of Jesus Christ was an act of new creation when it came about those many years ago, and it came with a profundity that shook the world to its foundations. If that new creation, which we will celebrate so sweetly in a few weeks, is to retain any of that power for us today, we must be ready to receive it. Preparing for its coming is the hard work of this season and why I never wish anyone a “happy Advent” but a “holy” one instead. For as Arthur will tell you, sometimes it takes a plunge back into the fire for something new, something beautiful, something precious to be born.