Tag: The Rev. Beth Lind Foote
Good Friday check-in and Poetry with the Interim Rector, The Rev. Beth Lind Foote
A Sermon for Good Friday, April 10, 2020, preached by The Rev. Beth Lind Foote, Interim Rector
A Sermon for the Second Sunday of Lent, March 8, 2020
A Sermon preached by The Rev. Beth Lind Foote, Interim Rector, on the Second Sunday of Lent, March 8, 2020
Last week the Gospel of Matthew led us out into the wilderness with Jesus for Lent, and this week it feels like we really are in the wilderness. What a Lent it’s turning out to be! With the concern over the coronavirus, the tumbling stock market, the stress of the 2020 election cycle—all these things come together to mark this Lent as a strange time. Maybe, given the level of uncertainty we’re living with, it’s fortuitous that the rest of our Gospel readings for Lent all come from the Gospel of John, which is known for its mysticism and its beauty. We could use both right now.
Today we hear the story of Nicodemus, next week we meet the woman at the well, the fourth Sunday is the healing of the Blind Man, and the last Sunday of Lent we hear the raising of Lazarus. All of these stories are unique to the Gospel of John, and each one shows us an intimate encounter healing encounter with Jesus.
Compared to the other people Jesus encounters Nicodemus seems to have has his life together. He’s a Pharisee after all, and Pharisees were upstanding religious leaders.
But in today’s reading John presents us with another side of Nicodemus. What can we learn from this story today in the midst of our strange and anxious Lenten season?
Nicodemus seems to have a yearning for a deeper spirituality than what his tradition has taught him, and he seeks out Jesus. The fact that John says he came “by night,” symbolizes the mystical quality of Nicodemus’ spiritual yearning.
Jesus immediately sizes up Nicodemus and initiates a conversation about being “born.”
He says, “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above…no one can enter the kingdom of god without being born of water and the Spirit. The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it but you do not know where it come from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Poor Nicodemus is flummoxed by this talk about being “born” of the spirit. He takes Jesus literally and asks, “How can these things be?”
We don’t know what happened to Nicodemus after his dialogue by night with Jesus. Maybe he supported his movement financially. Maybe he followed Jesus’ ministry from the safety of his position as a Pharisee. And maybe something new was being born in him.
Because the story of Nicodemus continues. He reappears another two times in John’s Gospel. In both instances, John identifies Nicodemus as “Nicodemus who came to Jesus by night,” which reminds us of who Nicodemus is, and he came to Jesus.
About midway through John’s Gospel, Nicodemus, uses his influence as a member of the Sanhedrin to defend Jesus when the temple police want to arrest Jesus for teaching in the Temple. And after the crucifixion, Nicodemus comes out of the shadows to bring 75 pounds of myrrh and aloes to prepare Jesus’ body for burial, which makes it a burial on the scale of a king. Nicodemus along with Joseph of Arimethia break all sorts of religious and social traditions by personally attending to Jesus’ body. It was something never done by men, and it made them ritually unclean.
If we look at the whole arc of the story of Nicodemus, we see someone whose faith grows over time, and whose faith required a degree of sacrifice. We see someone who is being born of the Spirit.
It’s ironic that the story of Nicodemus, which shows us the process of spiritual growth over time, has become associated with the term “born again”. In evangelical American Christianity, “born again,” means that you’ve had a definitive one-time conversion experience. Nicodemus did not have a one time experience of being “born again”, his faith grew as a process.
What do I hear in this story as we travel through Lent in 2020? In this time of uncertainty, I recognize in myself a desire for more clarity and control, a very human sign of stress. But as I sat with this passage, I found new meaning in Jesus words about the wind. “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” I wonder what is being born in me by the Spirit this Lent? What is being born here at All Saints? What is being born in all of you?
Personally, I feel a new appreciation for the movement of the spirit. Sometimes we don’t understand where it’s blowing, and we need to trust, have faith, and listen for it. I hear Jesus saying God is still active in the world. The winds of the Spirit are still blowing. We need to raise our sails to catch the wind of the Spirit as we mature in faith, as we move forward in our time of transition, as we move forward as a society.
Last Wednesday we had our first Wednesday evening Lenten program, “Signs of Life,” and we talked about the meaning of “Light” to our faith. One of the monks in our video talked about the comfort he felt seeing the light of the sanctuary lamp in the chapel. We also have a sanctuary lamp that is lit 24 hours a day, and it is comforting to see it when I come into the dark church.
The video talked about the play of light and dark in John’s Gospel, and how light was there before God created the earth, and how Jesus calls himself the light of the world. In the story of Nicodemus we see the interplay of the darkness of night and the light of the world, and Jesus draws him towards the light of new life.
In 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. used the Nicodemus story as a metaphor for the United States’ need to be “born again” to address social and economic inequality. Half a century later, we need that kind of rebirth more than ever. In his language about being “born” again, Jesus challenges us to let the new be born within us, as a society, as a church, and as individual followers of Jesus. Birth is hard work, and it leads to new beginnings, a new life.
In these challenging times, I also find comfort in the familiar verse from John that I’d like to reclaim as a touchstone for us this morning, “For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only begotten son that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” May new faith be born again in you this Lenten Season. Amen
A Sermon for Ash Wednesday, February 26, 2020
A Sermon preached by The Rev. Beth Lind Foote, Interim Rector, for Ash Wednesday, February 26, 2020.
On Ash Wednesday we step over a threshold into Lent, the season of self-examination, reflection, and preparation for Easter, the great Christian Mystery. Every year we encounter God’s generous love story with humanity in which Jesus lives, dies and is raised for us. If we take the opportunity to enter into this reflective season, our hearts can be opened more fully to God’s love.
As we make our way through the Ash Wednesday liturgy we will encounter language that focuses on our sinfulness. Since I firmly believe many of us are already overly critical of ourselves I always say that Ash Wednesday is not a day to pile on the guilt. However, sin is not something to be swept under the rug. On Ash Wednesday we acknowledge our individual human sinfulness and our corporate participation in the systemic sins of our society. And the later seems very real to me this particular Ash Wednesday.
Lent is a time when we can de-clutter our spiritual house, shift our daily habits, maybe let go of something that doesn’t work for us anymore. Lent is a time to exfoliate our souls, to let fall some of the armor that we’ve constructed around ourselves. Lent is also a time we can grow closer with others in our faith community. In this Interim period, it’s a time we can consider who we are now as a community of faith. Lent is a time when we can intentionally spend more time with God.
Years ago I was introduced to the idea of “horizontal” vs. “vertical” time. Horizontal time is what we are all compulsively aware of, what clocks and calendars are for. In horizontal time our lives unfold day by day on a continuum. The past is behind us, and we’re looking ahead to the future. And our perspective of horizontal time changes as we move through life. The point is, we’re riding along on the river of time.
In Vertical Time we momentarily step out of the river of time. We can experience Vertical time through prayer and meditation in all its forms. In Vertical Time we live INTO this moment and accept the NOW as a gift from God. There’s another term for vertical time called “Kairos”, which means God’s time.
Pausing to step into Vertical Time or Kairos opens space within our selves. It displaces our constant time-keeping, so that we can simply BE with God.
I think that Jesus invites us into Kairos time in the Gospel we heard today when he denounces the practices of the conspicuously religious elite, and dismisses a spirituality ruled by the ego.
Instead, Jesus models through his teaching and his life an intimate way of BEING with God that becomes second nature, an on-going dialogue, something that becomes an integral part of who you are; it beats in your heart. Jesus says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
As we sit together in this beautiful space, let us take a moment of Vertical time and consider, “where is our treasure? Where is our heart?”
What can we leave behind this Lent that is cluttering up our inner space? What needs to go so there’s more room for God? Resentments, wounds, expectations, grudges, habits of being, what gets in our way of being our true selves? What troublesome aspect of our lives can we ask Jesus to surround with love and dissolve, to heal?
The intersection of the horizontal and the vertical creates the shape of the Cross. In Franciscan theology, the Cross is seen as the intersection of the human and the divine, the instrument through which we are reconciled to God. This is part of the mystery that we contemplate in the Season of Lent.
In a few minutes we will come forward and receive the imposition of ashes as the sign of the cross on our foreheads with the words, “You are dust, and to dust you will return.” At our baptism we are sealed as Christ’s own forever and anointed on our forehead with the sign of the cross. Today these ashes will trace that same cross.
Ashes are a powerful reminder of both the horizontal and vertical relationship we have with time. They remind us of our death, and they remind us of our eternal life.
These ashes are made of the very dust of creation, the soil of the sacred earth. God brought us to life out of the dust. As part of our Lenten discipline, please imagine what God can do with the dust of our lives this Lent? Imagine.
May each one of you be blessed by a holy Lenten journey. Amen.
A Sermon for The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, February 9, 2020
A Sermon preached by The Rev. Beth Lind Foote, Interim Rector, on The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, February 9, 2020
Today we heard the famous gospel passage, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can saltiness be restored?” from the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew.
I had some hands on experience with salt this week. I’ve been doing some Spring Cleaning at home, and I found a box dated 2008 that my parents left in our garage when they downsized to senior living. It was filled with bottles of spices wrapped carefully in newspaper.
My Mom collected a lot of spices over the years but she really didn’t use them much in her meat and potatoes style of cooking, so there was a lot left in each bottle. All the herbs had lost their flavor, so I emptied out them out.
There was also a carton of Morton’s salt in the box. Of all the seasonings wrapped up the garage for ten years, the salt was the only one that still had flavor.
It made me think as I studied today’s text, can salt lose its flavor? What does it mean to be the “salt of the earth?”
It helps to examine salt for a few moments.
“Salt, A World History” by Mark Kurlansky, is one of my favorite non-fiction books. It looks at the history of civilization through the lens of salt.
Among many things, salt is a natural preservative. Salting fish, meat, and preserving vegetables by pickling them with salt was one of the only ways to preserve food before refrigeration or the canning process. The Latin word for salt is sal, and so common English words like salad and salary have their origins in salt. The Romans salted their vegetables, which gave us the word Salad. Roman soldiers were paid partly in salt, which brought us the word salary.
Salt is elemental to life. A human body contains about 250 grams of salt, which would fill about three or four salt shakers, but we are constantly losing it through bodily functions, so everyday we need to replace this lost salt in the right balance.
Salt shows up time and again in the Bible. Remember how Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back at the destruction of Sodom; Sodom was near the Dead Sea, famous for its black salt.
Salt is a symbol of the eternal nature of God’s covenant with Israel. In the Book of Numbers, it’s written, “It is a covenant of salt forever, before the Lord.” As a preservative, salt symbolizes the eternal agreement between God and God’s people. On Shabbat, Jews dip the bread in salt, which symbolizes the keeping of the covenant. We can see how Jesus’ uses salt as a symbol of constancy and covenant to teach faithful discipleship in our passage today.
Salt is constant, and at the same time, it’s capable of change. It can move from crystal to brine and back to crystal; and when it’s used to preserve food, it transforms the food into a self-stable product. Perhaps Jesus also sees salt as a transformational agent as well as a symbol of constancy.
Jesus pairs the image of salt with the image of light to talk about discipleship and how to share the knowledge and love of God.
Like salt, light also changes. It shines, it dims, it reveals. Like salt, light has an eternal quality.
Kurlansky writes in “Salt, A World History, that “from the beginning of civilization until about one hundred years ago, salt was one of the most sought after commodities in human history.” I think this is important to remember as we consider what Jesus says to us today.
In a world where we salt is just another kitchen staple we occasionally buy at Safeway, we can easily miss Jesus’ point that salt is valuable. If we are salt, and salt is precious, we are precious, we are valuable. We do not need to become a better person to be salt, to prove ourselves in some way. We ARE the salt of the earth.
Think of the people Jesus spoke to originally. They were downtrodden, they were poor, they were people who needed hope. And Jesus says that they are the salt of the earth, that God loves them. He sends them out as bearers of the Gospel, and bearers of God’s light in the world. He.’s speaking to us, too.
As I mentioned earlier, the carton of salt in the box of faded spices earlier this week was still salty after ten years. I ended up putting it on my kitchen shelf with my collection of spices because salt is salt, and doesn’t go bad. And I expect we’ll sprinkle it on food as we cook, and it will enhance and bring out the good flavor of whatever we make.
The old-fashioned label on Morton’s salt has the motto, “When it rains it pours,” which reminded me that salt needs to be poured out, it needs to be used to do its flavorful work.
By calling us salt, Jesus tells us that our saltiness is meant to be poured out in the world. Here’s our passage in the modern translation called “The Message”:
“Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavor of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness…You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept.
Today’s passage also made me think about who we are as a parish in transition, and it made me thankful that we at All Saints’ are a salty, well-seasoned! We’re really flavorful, even spicy. That’s going to bode well for us as we move into the next faze of our interim period. That is Good News!
This morning I want to acknowledge that this has been a difficult week for those of us invested in the health and wholeness of our country. It is tempting to retreat and hide from the news; it’s understandably tempting to be weary and jaded, and to check out. But I think our passage about salt is timely in several ways.
For me this week, remembering my own God-given saltiness gives me courage to stay engaged, to mourn, and also to hope. With God’s help I will continue to live into my saltiness, my values as a liberal Christian. Our saltiness, our Gospel values and standards of behavior and ethics are needed more than ever. Please do not despair.
It’s Good News that our ancient story that we tell over and over is one of brokenness and healing, death and resurrection. In our passage from the Isaiah this morning we heard God calling God’s people to listen to the Lord, and promise that when they do, “they will be like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. You shall be called the repairer of the breach.” And in the reading from First Corinthians, we hear Paul speak of God’s wisdom which we have and the rulers of this world do not have. Paul ends profoundly with, “We have the mind of Christ.”
We’re called to be the salt, the light, the mind of Christ. The world needs us. Amen.
A Sermon for The Presentation of our Lord & Candlemas
A Sermon preached by The Rev. Beth Lind Foote, Interim Rector, on The Presentation of our Lord & Candlemas, February 2, 2020
My kids grew up in a tight group of neighborhood friends who were all about the same age. Now they’re all in their late 20’s, early 30’s. The girl who grew up across the street from us just had the first baby of the group. She lives in Denver, and when we were in Colorado a couple of weeks ago, we got together to meet their new son, Finn. Finn was a month old, very tiny, and in just a few minutes he wrapped us of us in the Foote family around his tiny little finger.
One thing I noticed that day was: when baby Finn came into the room, he rearranged the generations. Suddenly, our kids were no longer the kids. Finn was now the child, the 25-30 year olds were the adults, and Hale and I became…elders!
It made me remember how babies are change agents. They’re change agents in their families and their communities; the world is always being renewed because human life is continually being renewed with new little humans like Finn.
One of the mysteries of the Christian faith known as the Incarnation, is that God became one of us by being born as a baby into the human family.
In our gospel passage today we see the baby Jesus already making waves in the world. Mary and Joseph take him to be presented in the Temple. It was probably a perfunctory thing to do—buy your turtledoves and move on—but that day it turns out differently.
Simeon, an aged holy man, was guided by the Holy Spirit to come to the temple that day to meet the baby Jesus. He recognized the baby Jesus and took him into his arms. Simeon blessed the holy family and spoke to Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed –and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
Then Anna, a female prophet of great age, came up to them. “and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.”
Today on the Presentation of our Lord, we witness an Epiphany. Simeon and Anna recognize the Christ child for who he is, the Christ child who is destined to reveal truth, and God’s love in the world.
Whenever people encountered Jesus, they recognized him, and truth was revealed. We see this over and over in the Gospels. Last week we saw Jesus meet four fishermen, ordinary people, whom, like Simeon, recognized Jesus’ truth and power and they immediately follow Jesus.
Jesus emerges in the midst of Judaism of his time, and he comes to change the wider world by revealing truth, and love. He is a great teacher, and he is something more. He embodies the holy, as an infant, a youth, a man who gave his life for the love of all. As Christians, we believe that Christ lives in each one of us, the mystical body of God.
Here at All Saints’, we’ve been blessed to have two baptisms recently. At the end of the baptismal liturgy we give each person a baptismal candle and say, “Receive the light of Christ.”
Today with our tradition of Candlemas, we celebrate the light of Christ coming into the world, by blessing candles and holding them aloft during our procession. These candles remind us of our baptism, and of the light of Christ that we hold within us. Please take them home with you as a reminder of the light that you carry into the world.
The tradition of Candlemas began in medieval times, when candles were the only source of light, especially in the dark days of winter. Medieval symbolism saw in the Candle wax, wick and flame an analogy to Christ’s body, soul, and divinity.
February 2 is 40 days after Christmas and the winter solstice. Candlemas was the final feast of the Christmas season. By February 2, nature was stirring. It was the day bears were supposed to come out of hibernation. And by February 2, we recognize, like our ancestors, that the sun is setting a little later each day. In folk tradition, Candlemas was the day when people made predictions on the weather similar to our Groundhog day. “If Candlemas Day is clear and bright, / winter will have another bite. / If Candlemas Day brings cloud and rain, / winter is gone and will not come again.
Candlemas celebrates the kindling of the light, and the renewal of life come into the world.
Each one of us was once a baby, like Jesus, like tiny baby Finn I held in Colorado. And like Jesus, each of us is a kind of change agent, because God created us unique individuals called into the world to embody truth and love. Through our birth we brought renewal to our families and to humanity; through our baptism we are lit with the light of Christ, and we are called to rekindle it throughout our lives.
As a parish, we are a constellation of people and light that comes together on Sunday morning, and today our light was made visible in the light of the candles held high. One of our tasks in the coming months is “how can we shine our constellation of light more effectively as a parish, in our neighborhood?”
We know that the truth needs to be revealed in our world right now. Our country is in the midst of a great struggle for truth. We are thirsty for truth and for those who will stand up for it. As followers of Jesus, we are invited to embody what Jesus stands for: truth, and the power of love.
How can we embody the light of Christ? How do we open ourselves to renewal and new life? How do we shine our light of Christ in the wider world?
A Sermon for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany, January 26, 2020
A Sermon preached by The Rev. Beth Lind Foote, Interim Rector on the Third Sunday after the Epiphany. I finished my pilgrimage walking the Camino de Santiago on a rainy October day. When I reached the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, I paid my respect to the bones of St. James in a crypt beneath the altar. Like so many pilgrims before me, I was moved to be so close to the relics of St. James, who was so close to Jesus’ in his earthly life.
Who was St. James? Once he was simply James, the fisherman, one of the first people to follow Jesus.
In our Gospel today we hear the calling of James along with his brother John, and another set of brothers Peter and Andrew. What can we learn from this passage in the season of Epiphany, and in our season of Interim time?
In the Episcopal Church we call these weeks between Christmas and Lent the Season of Epiphany. Today, we heard a few lines of Isaiah read both in our Old Testament lesson and in the Gospel:
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined.”
These lines from Isaiah, also quoted in Matthew, give us our themes for Epiphany Season. A great light has come and illuminated our world. Christ has come in the person of Jesus and made everything new. We see Christ’s light manifest in the world around us, and we are called to share it.
The Roman Catholics call this season, “ordinary time,” rather than give it another name. And there’s something attractive about that, too. If Epiphany focuses on the light of Christ, ordinary time reminds us that we are ordinary people who Christ calls in love to share that light with the world around us in our time.
And ordinary people can do extraordinary things out of love.
These days, I admire Greta Thunberg, a teenager who speaks truth to power about climate change. She is not intimidated by the condemnation of certain world leaders. She’s an ordinary person doing extraordinary things out of love for the earth.
This past week we celebrated Martin Luther King Day. By mobilizing ordinary people to uphold the dignity of every human being, MLK did extraordinary things out of love for justice and human rights.
In our Gospel passage today we see Jesus call four ordinary people to be his first disciples: Peter and Andrew, James and John. We may be so used to the story that we don’t see how unusual it is. The Son of God does not call the powerful people of his day, rather, he calls ordinary people: fishermen.
Somehow in the middle of their workday by the Sea of Galilee those fishermen responded to Jesus’ powerful authentic love. They leave everything they know and follow him in faith. They end up traveling far outside their comfort zone; they go from Galilee to Golgotha with Jesus, and after Pentecost they receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, which transforms them into apostles and martyrs. You never know where love will take you. It always causes us to stretch and go deeper, to give of ourselves, to receive joy, and to share it.
As I experienced on my Camino, James traveled to Spain to preach the gospel, went back to Jerusalem where he was martyred, and his body was returned to Spain. Peter became the first bishop of Rome, was martyred there, and his bones reside beneath the Vatican. Andrew went to the eastern part of the empire, founded the church in Constantinople, and was martyred in Greece. Only John, the beloved disciple, and the youngest, lived into old age. Tradition says he wrote the Gospel of John.
Not bad for fishermen casting their nets in an obscure corner of the Roman Empire. They said yes to Jesus’ invitation, and spread the Gospel of love throughout the Mediterranean world. Ordinary people can do extraordinary things out of love.
I wonder what this means for us here in our Interim time?
We, too, are ordinary people. And we are living in extraordinary times. Christ invites us to share the gospel of love where we are in 2020.
We live in extraordinary times of economic change here in San Francisco, and the larger Bay Area. The tech boom has rewritten the economic landscape, and that affects each one of us, our neighborhood and our parish. This is our context for ministry now.
As we know, All Saints’ has met extraordinary times before. Father Harris opened our parish to a diverse population living in the Haight in the 1950’s and 1960’s, and ministered to the hippies of the late 1960’s and 1970’s. We were a haven of God’s love during the AIDS Crisis in the late 80’s and 90’s. We continue to feed hungry people every Saturday morning. We have a legacy of love that can offer us direction into the future. In the coming months, we’ll meet to talk about who we are as a parish today, and where we see Jesus calling us.
The good news is we have a jewel of a rectory next door that is a great investment in the future of our parish. Our Jr. Warden, Larry Rosenfeld has carefully stewarded the front end of the project with a lot of love. Please offer Larry your thanks for all he has done so far, and for what he will continue to do as the project unfolds in the next few months.
With the housing crisis, the renovation of our rectory has become more than a nice thing to do; it is essential to the health of our parish going forward. It’s difficult for Episcopal priests to live in San Francisco or most of the Bay Area on their salary and given the probable age of our new priest to come, someone in their 30’s-40’s, they will probably have debt from college and seminary to pay off. With our rectory in good working order, we can attract a wider pool of applicants to be our next priest.
At the end of the service, we will process directly out the front door to the rectory steps. Please follow the altar party and gather there with us. We will bless the beginning of the renovation project and our contractors.
In our Gospel today, Jesus invites the fishermen by saying, “follow me, and I will make you fish for people.”
Notice he’s not inviting them to become better, more prosperous fishermen. The invitation to “fish for people” is ambiguous and intriguing. It’s outward-facing.
Jesus uses what they know—fishing—to characterize the work of ministry that he will teach them over time.
He’s inviting them onto a path of change and growth in love. He invites us onto a path of change and growth, too.
What does it mean to “fish for people” in 2020, in San Francisco? You never know where love will lead you, usually places you would never imagine. But we know that Jesus will be there with us in love. Amen.
A Sermon for the First Sunday after Christmas, December 29, 2019
A Sermon preached on the First Sunday after Christmas, December 29, 2019 by The Rev. Beth Lind Foote, Interim Rector.
Sometime over the Christmas holiday, my son showed me something cool on the iphone. You can scroll and scroll and scroll the iPhone calendar app forward into the future, maybe out into infinity? We found out what day of the week our birthdays are going to be in 2050, when I will be 92 years old and he’ll be 60. Then I started scrolling backwards, backwards, through the 18th Century, and farther. It was mind-blowing to have an infinity machine in my hand.
On the last Sunday of the year we tend to look back on 2019 and look forward to the next year, essentially scrolling back and forth through the calendar of our lives. Today’s Gospel reading is known as The Prologue of the Gospel of John. Like the iPhone calendar app, the Prologue takes us on a time traveling trip. It invites us to scroll way back to the Beginning, and then into a new dimension altogether: the mystery of the eternal truth of the Christ.
John’s Gospel was the last Gospel to be written, around the year 100, in Ephesus, now part of Turkey. Ephesus was an important Roman port city, one of the largest slave markets of the Roman world where peoples from all parts of the Empire were brought together. Scholars believe The Gospel of John written by the followers of John, “the beloved disciple,” in this multi-cultural community of believers which tradition says included Mary, mother of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene.
John’s Gospel is different from the other three Gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are fairly linear narratives of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. John’s Gospel approaches the story from a more cosmic perspective right from our opening lines of the Prologue.
The Prologue echoes the familiar beginning of Genesis: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good: and God separated the light from the darkness.”
Compare that with what we just heard. Can you hear the similarities? Both Genesis and John begin with “In the Beginning”, but John begins the story of Jesus the Christ before The Beginning. Both talk about the light coming into the world. It is a new creation story for a new, redeemed world.
In the Gospel of John, we see Jesus from the divine perspective. John shows us Christ rather than Jesus, the 1st century man. There’s no guessing here about what Jesus is up to. He’s coming into the world as The Christ, The Word, directly from God.
Let’s take a minute to unpack what John means by The Word. The Word is a translation of a Greek philosophical term LOGOS, that refers to the principle of reason that governs the universe. The Greek philosopher Philo spoke of LOGOS as the source of creative power in the universe. Rabbis related LOGOS to Torah, wisdom from God.
With that understanding of Logos, we see how The Prologue says Christ was always there, before the beginning, with God the Creator, who came into the world as Jesus. The Prologue is a foreshadowing of the language in the Nicene Creed, which dates from the Fourth Century. See if you can hear the similarities when we recite the creed in a few minutes.
So what meaning might the Prologue have for us this particular morning on the last Sunday of 2019? Here are a couple of my thoughts.
When I scrolled the iPhone calendar back and forth I realized that my life inhabits a particular space on the continuum of time, I’m was born mid-century 20th century and hope to live to the mid-century 21st century. We live in the dimension of the particular. The Prologue shows us that Christ has always existed and also entered time in the 1st century, as Jesus. He is the cosmic link between eternal divinity and time-bound humanity, who inhabits the whole of time. As mortals, we live our lives as Christians in that tension between the particular and the eternal.
Then there’s the metaphor of light in both our passage today and in the beginning of Genesis.
John’s Gospel says, “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.”
The Biblical scholar Alexander Shaia writes that the light vs. darkness theme in this passage has been misinterpreted for centuries and has led to a duality of thought in western civilization. Either/or.
Shaia says that the original meaning of the relationship between light and darkness in this passage came from Aramaic, Jesus’ native language. Aramaic had a more nuanced vocabulary around light conditions during all times of the day. No segment of the day or night was wholly dark or wholly light. Alexander Shaia writes, “Light and dark coexist. John’s line is not about light banishing darkness; rather, it acknowledges and honors the reality that light and dark always play together in infinite variations.”
Today on the last Sunday of 2019, our world is locked in dualistic patterns: our society has split into factions speaking past each other. This year we’ve seen how this kind of dualistic either/or thinking feeds nationalism, sexism, racism, and Anti-Semitism, all the destructive patterns that diminish our humanity.
How do we follow Christ in such a world?
Perhaps Alexander Shaia is on to something: light and darkness are both elements in our world, and they play together. It feels lately like the darkness has grown. But maybe we’re just more aware of it. And perhaps that is something to take on in 2020, that we must acknowledge the darkness in order to open ourselves more fully to the light of Christ. And, in 2020 we can let the light of Christ shine more brightly through us.
My hope for all of us this coming year is that we can take in the joy expressed in the Prologue of the Gospel of John, and meditate on the creative power of the Christ, who is not only the historical figure of Jesus, but who is a living presence in our faith, in our parish, and in our lives. Sometimes that simple truth amazes me and then opens my heart to accept the light of Christ.
By gathering here at the altar this morning, we offer ourselves to accept the fullness of Christ and his grace into our lives. As the Gospel of John says, “Christ is the fullness through which we receive grace upon grace.” This gives me hope for 2020.
May the mystical, beautiful, vision of John’s Gospel wrap your year in love and joy. Amen.
A Sermon for Christmas Day, December 25, 2019
A Sermon preached on Christmas Day, December 25, 2019 by The Rev. Beth Lind Foote, Interim Rector.
A little over 50 years ago, A Peanuts Christmas aired for the first time and 15,490,000, people watched it, placing it at number two in the ratings, behind Bonanza. In those days way before streaming and even before the VCR, a Peanuts Christmas was one of those shows, like the Wizard of Oz that I only saw once a year, and it became iconic in my memory. There was a long franchise of Peanuts holiday specials that followed, but they were more generic cartoons with laugh tracks. The Peanuts Christmas is special, because it contains something special: the Gospel of Luke.
At the beginning of the show Charlie Brown says to Linus, “I don’t understand Christmas. I feel depressed,” while The Peanuts gang ice-skates on a frozen lake to the cascading jazz piano of Vince Guaraldi, The combination of sadness and celebration is familiar; many of us can identify with Charlie Brown’s holiday funk. We want to feel merry but the high expectations of the season, in the midst of the troubles of our world, and the concerns of our own lives, can leave us alienated, and sad.
The conflict between Charlie Brown and the rest of the characters continues to build. He goes to see Lucy in her psychiatrist booth for help with his holiday blues, and she makes a joke about how she loves the sound of “cold, hard cash,” when Charlie Brown’s nickel echoes in her cash box. Charlie Brown transcribes Sally’s letter to Santa, including her comment that, “if it’s too much trouble to get the right sizes and colors, Santa, just send cash,” and Charlie Brown says, “Good Grief!”
When Charlie Brown gets ready to direct the Christmas Play, Snoopy and the dancing kids ignore him. So Charlie Brown and Linus go out to buy a Christmas Tree. Lucy yells, “Get the biggest aluminum tree you can find. Yeah, we’ll paint it pink!”
Charlie Brown is seeking something deeper than commercial Christmas. He finds the smallest, homeliest little tree on the lot. The needles fall off every time he touches it. He says, “This little green one seems to need a home. I think it needs me.”
Of course, the cool kids hate the little tree, and Charlie Brown cries out, “Everything I do turns into a disaster. I guess I really don’t know what Christmas is all about. Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?”
Linus, of all people, steps up and says, “I know what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.” Linus walks out onto the stage, calls for the lighting tech to lower the house lights and turn on a spotlight. There on the empty stage he recites our Christmas story from the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke.
Linus’ blanket was a defining part of his character. He carried it everywhere, including out onto the stage and into the spotlight. They next time you watch A Peanuts Christmas, I invite you to watch Linus closely as he recites the Christmas story, and you may notice something.
Linus really gets into telling the story. His face lights up especially when the says, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”
At that moment, Linus holds both his hands together in an expression of joy, and he drops his blanket on the floor of the stage.
Linus dropping his blanket is a little thing, but it’s unprecedented in Peanuts. Remember how in the comic strip, Snoopy would dash around pulling Linus at top speed, and Charles Schultz drew Linus as an almost horizontal blur, clutching his blanket? And if you have ever known a small child with a security blanket you know how tightly they clutch it around themselves. Don’t even try to pry it away from them.
Ever year since I watch a Peanuts Christmas and it’s always marked a moment when Christmas arrives in some genuine way for me. But until recently I never really noticed how Linus drops his blanket in that moment of joy. I think it’s profound. It’s the moment when Linus receives the Good News of Jesus’ birth, and it overcomes his insecurities. For a moment, he sees the world with joy, and his fears drop away with his blanket.
This morning, I stand here longing to enter 2020 with an attitude of joy, like Linus. I want to drop my security blanket and see the world without fear; I want to hear the angels’ message of “Fear not!” and believe it. I wonder what fears you can let go of this Christmas?
That is why we gather today: to experience something more powerful than Santa Claus and presents. We gather to celebrate God’s presence with us. We gather to celebrate Jesus coming into our hearts.
After Linus recites the Gospel, Charlie Brown takes the vulnerable little tree, so much like the baby Jesus, out into the starry night. He’s filled with wonder. And yet when he tries to decorate the tree, it falls over under the weight of the ornament, and he thinks he’s killed it.
I think that our understanding of the God’s love for us is as fragile as the Little Tree. God’s love can be as overwhelming in its beauty as that heavy ornament. The gift of Jesus is all grace. It is a lot to take in. We need to ponder it in our own hearts, under the starry night, like Charlie Brown, and like him, we can feel unequal to the task of responding to that kind of love on our own.
That’s where a faith community helps us unwrap the gift of Christ and share it with the world, throughout the year.
In the final scene, we see how the Gospel message changes the kids, and it can change us. Instead of bullying Charlie Brown, they quietly work together to decorate his delicate little tree so that it glows with lights. Once again, Linus loosens his grip on his precious blanket and wraps it around the base of the little tree to keep it warm. Ministering to Charlie Brown is something they do in community, together.
May the unexpected joy of Christ’s birth enter your heart today and show you God’s love. May the power of the Gospel move you to drop your blanket, and experience a world without fear and be filled with grace. May you grow to love others as God loves us. Merry Christmas! Amen.
All Saints' Episcopal Church in the Haight 
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