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Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

July 22, 2018

11 Proper B

          When I was growing up, my grandmother lived in the same house she lived in when my mother was born in 1932.  My grandfather died when I was just two years old, so I never really knew him, other than through photographs and stories.  My sister and I loved going to the house where Mom grew up, looking through her old high school photo albums, and playing with the children of Mom’s childhood friends.  Mom grew up in the small town of Headland, Alabama where everyone knows everyone else and their business.  When we would go to visit in the summer, everyone from the tellers at the bank to the cashiers at the grocery store knew who we were.  We were Ann Slocomb’s children and Mildred Slocomb’s grandchildren.  Even though we did not live in Headland, the small community felt like home.  We felt connected there and loved by people we did not even know, simply because we were Ann’s daughters and Mildred’s granddaughters.  Between staying with our grandmother in the house where Mom was raised, to being known everywhere we went by people we did not know, the notion of “home” became much more than simply a dwelling place.  “Home” became an experience of belonging and of identity.  We felt at home in Headland, Alabama.

          This morning, we find David settled in at home, enjoying his house and taking a rest from all his enemies around him.  Sitting in his lovely house of cedar, David realizes that while he has a lovely home, God is living in a tent.  David should not have a nicer dwelling place than God has.  So, David decides to build God a house.  That is the way Scripture tells the story.  But personally, I think David is tired from all his work defeating his enemies and working to create a united Kingdom.  David remembers well all the times that God has moved among the people, led them in battle, and taken them to new places.  David is worn out, and figures that if he builds God a house to live in, God will have to stay put for a while, and David can take a break!  But that is just my version of the story.

Whatever David's motives, God is not flattered by David's generous offer.  God reminds David that God is a God on the go.  Rather than David building a house for God, God will build a house for David, on whose throne God will establish a kingdom forever.  This house will not be a made of cedar, but of the offspring of David.

David's offspring do rule Jerusalem for about 400 years. But even before that kingship ends with the Babylonian exile in 586 B.C., prophets believed that God's promise to David would be fulfilled through the gift of a Messiah.  As Christians, we believe that the promise made to David this morning is fulfilled in the person of Jesus.

When we catch up with Jesus today, we find him out among the people.  The Messiah, the anointed one of God, is not found in a house, but out in the villages, cities and farms, teaching and healing all those who came to him.  This is the same Messiah who, in Matthew and Luke's gospels, says "Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."  And in the same gospels, when told that his mother and brothers have arrived to see him, Jesus says "My mother and brother are those who hear the word of God and do it."  Whatever Jesus' idea of home might be, it does not seem to involve his family or a house.  As the one we believe to be the promised house of David, built by God, Jesus does not stay put any more than God does.  Jesus is clearly the Son of the God who is on the move!

So what might "home" mean for us as Christians?  The writer of Ephesians says "So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.  In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God."

Much in the same way that gospel logic proclaims that the last are first and the first are last, the rich are poor and the poor are rich, and the insiders are outsiders and the outsiders are insiders, I wonder if gospel logic tells us that for followers of Jesus, home is not about where we live, but where God lives.  As Christians, we believe that Jesus is Emmanuel-God with us.  Christians are no longer aliens or strangers, or in other words we are no longer not-at-home, because together we are a dwelling place for God. What makes home is God dwelling in us-God with us.  We come to this place, this wonderful, beautiful building, to be fed and nurtured, but not to live.  The number one vote getting hymn at Christ Church is “Lift High the Cross,” which I understand was the theme and the theme hymn of the campaign to build the beautiful church/this lovely space some 25 or so years ago.  We come to Christ Church, our spiritual home, to be fed and sent out into the villages, cities, and farms, or their equivalent in our own lives.  In September, we will have a unique opportunity to be sent out and experience God’s home in the world.  On September 9, we are invited to participate in First Serve with First Congregational Church as well as people of other denominations and faiths, along with the residents of two economically challenged neighborhoods in Akron, to help repair homes and revitalize neighborhoods.  We will not be outsiders coming in to fix something for someone else, but we will be fellow travelers coming in to connect with people we have not met yet, our brothers and sisters as God’s children, and to help.  My experience is that as we help people with their homes and neighborhoods, we will experience a sense of home and neighborhood with them.  Our home is where God is, and Scripture tells us that God is out among the people.  Home happens for us where ever we are because we are all members of the household of God and members of Jesus family. Home happens when we hear the word of God and do it.  Home happens when we go where God goes, and God is on the move.

                                                  Amen.

The Word Made Flesh

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

July 15, 2018

Christmas in July

          Until I started seminary about 25 years ago, I was mostly stay-at-home mom to our two sons.   I had done a little teaching here and there, and a lot of volunteer work, but for the most part my life had revolved around Slocomb and Caldwell.  So, my entry into the world of commuting to school an hour away from home four days a week and taking a full load of courses was a rather jarring transition.   A friend of mine at church-who I considered to be an older woman at the time but she was probably all of 60-said this to me one day just before school started: “I am going to bring dinner to your house one night a week every week this year.”   She stated this as a fact, not a question, and I knew her well enough not to argue, because arguing would have been a waste of breath.  Every Thursday night for an entire year, Anita brought a home cooked meal to our house.  One week the meal might be meatloaf and mashed potatoes, made from scratch.  Another week, we might have homemade lasagna, or a casserole, or any number of hot nourishing meals.  Every week for 52 weeks until we moved to Chicago for me to finish school, Anita nourished our bodies and souls with her food, kindness, and outrageous generosity.

          What, you might reasonably ask, do Anita’s meals have to do with Christmas in July?  Christmas in July reminds us that the Christ Child is born in our midst, the Word becomes flesh, not just when we have cleared space on our calendar, purchased or made gifts and wrapped them, decorated our homes if we are so inclined, and have Christmas dinner ready to pop in the oven.  The Christmas story tells us that the Christ Child was born in a common stable, where a manger was used for his bed, to parents who were about the ordinary and probably annoying work of taking care of bureaucratic red tape, and the ordinary became holy.  The Christ child is born in our midst, the Word becomes flesh, in the midst of our ordinary lives, in surprising ways, when we least expect Jesus to show up.  Anita’s meals were, for me, a surprising and grace-filled expression of the Word made flesh, the ordinary made holy as she extended lavish kindness to my family and myself.

          I sometimes wonder if we hear the words of the angel to the shepherds differently in July than we do in December. The angel says to the shepherds "Do not be afraid." And the shepherds swallow their fear and leave their flocks to find the Christ Child lying in the manger. In December, when it is cold outside and not only the church but all of downtown Hudson is decorated, I hear those words and feel comfort and hope at coming to this place and greeting the Christ Child here. In December, we do offer gifts of baby food for the baby Jesus and hungry babies in Summit County.  So our focus is not entirely on greeting the Christ Child here, but on Christmas Eve, at least for me, the focus is on the Christ child being born in my own heart and greeting him in this place so that I can swallow my fear and go into the world to serve Christ there.

On Christmas in July, I hear the words of the angel to the shepherd differently. I hear the angel say to the shepherds-"Do not be afraid. The Christ Child is not here in the fields where you are comfortable and know what you are doing. The Christ Child is in Bethlehem, where you are not comfortable and you do not know what you are doing. Swallow your fear and go there."   The shepherds believe the angel, leave the sheep to their own devices, and venture into unknown territory without so much as a map much less a GPS to guide them as they look for a newborn baby in the midst of the city of Bethlehem.  The shepherds have certainly swallowed their fear!

Christmas in July, which I cheerfully admit is weird and uncomfortable, reminds us that the manger is not just here, where we greet the Christ Child and are comfortable and know what we are doing. The manger is equally in those places where we are less comfortable and less likely to know what we are doing, such as places where children do not have such basic items of clothing as socks and underwear, or where people live lives completely different from ours, or hold different values, or are marginalized because of race, or gender, or education or income or any number of other reasons and places where people face challenges we cannot begin to imagine. Christmas in July takes us out of our comfort zones, reminding us both that the Christ child is found in unexpected places and that we are called to be the Word made flesh for others at all times and in all places.  Christmas in July reminds us that Jesus often shows up where we least expect him, and that sometimes we have to swallow our fear to find him.

                                                                                     Amen.

Hometown

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

July 8, 2018

9 Proper B

          I met my husband's Aunt Joy when she was 95 years old.  Two of her six children had brought her to Springfield, Ohio where we lived at the time, for a mini family reunion.  Aunt Joy was fiercely independent, utterly delightful, deeply inquisitive about her faith, and I adored her instantly.  We corresponded off and on for the next few years, usually by phone.  I got to visit her once in Richmond, Virginia where she lived, which was a total blessing.

When Aunt Joy was 98 years old, she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.   She had emergency surgery after which she had to relearn how to make her arms and hands work, and how to stand again.  We talked on the phone a little more often then, and sometimes we were even able to Skype and see each other.  One day she told me with a real sense of accomplishment that she had been able to stand several times that day.  She marveled at the ability of the physical therapist to hoist her out of the chair, and she told me that she had to hang on to the therapist for dear life.  But she had stood up, even if briefly, and she felt like a new person.

Her problem, she told me, was that she was having trouble hanging on to Jesus.   In fact, she said, she was having trouble finding Jesus at all, much less hanging on to him.  We talked about this and then we wondered together about whether Jesus might be present in the physical therapist she had held on to so tightly so she could stand up.  Or perhaps Jesus was present in her children, at least one of whom was with her around the clock.  Or perhaps Jesus was present in the oncologist that Aunt Joy adored and was probably younger than some of Aunt Joy's grandchildren.  We said good-bye that night without any clear resolution to her concern about being able to hang on to Jesus, but her deeply inquisitive mind had engaged the question on a new level.

This morning, the folks in Jesus’ hometown are astonished that this carpenter, this son of Mary and Joseph, is able to teach in the synagogue much less do amazing deeds of power.  The people could not believe that the person before them, teaching with authority and power, and doing miraculous deeds, could possibly be the kid who grew up in their neighborhood, played with their children, and had a mom and dad and brothers and sisters who were their friends.  This guy should be a normal hometown human being just like them.  Jesus’ wisdom was taken for arrogance, and his ability to heal was likely seen as some kind of magic.  The people could not see Jesus for who he was and so nothing, or very little, happened, as we are told that Jesus was only able to lay his hands on a few people and cure them.

This morning, we also hear the story in which David is anointed king over Israel.   Several weeks ago, we heard God send Saul to see Jesse the Bethlehemite, because God had chosen a king for the Israelites from among Jesse’s sons.  Saul was introduced to all of Jesse’s sons, likely from the eldest and most eligible to be king, to the younger ones, and none was the one God had chosen as king.  God had chosen the youngest son, David.  God was acting in the lives of God’s people, right under their noses, in a way they could not see because who would think God would chose the youngest, smallest of all the sons?

We often talk about finding God at work in the world around us, and remind ourselves that God does not just work within our lives here at church.  We look for the places where God is at work in the neighborhood, or the community, or in the world.  We see God at work in rescue workers in times of disaster, in people willing to speak boldly on issues of justice and peace, in researchers finding cures for disease, and in so many other places.  Today, we are reminded to open our eyes to the places where Jesus is at work right under our noses, doing amazing and marvelous things in our lives and the lives of those we love.  We are called to see Jesus at work in such ordinary, every day places that he might be easy to miss.  Christmas in July is not until next Sunday, and I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but the truth of the incarnation is both that Jesus was born in an ordinary stable 2000 years ago, and Jesus is present in the ordinary stables of our lives now, working in ways we least expect and we most need.   When we can see Jesus at work in ordinary hometown people, what happens can be quite extraordinary.

                                                                             Amen.