There are only two feast days for which the Prayer Book provides three collects. These feast days are considered as the Principal Feasts which take precedence over any other day or observance. Can anyone guess what those two feast days are? They are Christmas Day and Easter Day. I’m not sure which collect for Christmas Day St. Luke’s used last Sunday or this past Monday, but I would like to read the third collect to you. It’s on page 213 in the Prayer Book:
“Almighty God, you have given your only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and to be born [this day] of a pure virgin: Grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit; through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with you and the same Spirit be honor and glory, now and forever. Amen.” (BCP, p. 213) This collect was composed for the 1549 Prayer Book. Fr. Massey Shepherd who was a prominent liturgical scholar and one of the most influential voices for the development of the 1979 Prayer Book commented on this particular collect. He says, “...it is of all the Prayer Book collects the most notable for its theological content, for the whole of the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation are encased in it.” Then he goes on to say how three important themes are woven in this collect, “(1) the birth of the Only-Begotten Son of God in the substance of our human nature is linked with the idea of our rebirth in Baptism by ‘pure’ water and the Holy Spirit; (2) the eternal Sonship of Christ is contrasted with our adoption as sons [and daughters] by the free grace of God; and (3) the historic birth of our Lord at a specific time and place is spiritually renewed in the hearts of of his followers daily.” (Marion J. Hatchett, Commentary on the American Prayer Book, p. 168) Out of these three themes that Fr. Shepherd points out, I would like us to pay attention to the first theme which is the link between the birth of Jesus and the idea of our rebirth in baptism. It reminds us that the birth of Jesus is not just another miracle God does. The birth of Jesus is also about us, our own rebirth that we have been born again and made God’s children by adoption and grace. So during this 12-day season of Christmas, we celebrate not only the divine mystery of God becoming human in the person of Baby Jesus but also our rebirth in Jesus. Because Jesus is born, we are born again in him. In today’s gospel reading, this Christmas mystery, the mystery of the incarnation, as well as our own rebirth in Jesus, continues. Yet it seems there’s a certain condition for this rebirth in which we become children of God. St. John the Evangelist proclaims the Word of God became flesh, that God became human, living among us. And he keeps repeating himself that the world did not see him, that his own people did not accept him. It’s like the light shining in the darkness but the darkness doesn’t really recognize this divine light. So the condition to become children of God according to St. John is this: receive Jesus and believe in his name. Then we’re given the power to become children of God, who are born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. This conditional way of becoming God’s children might bother us in the way that it somehow imposes Christian triumphalism. This triumphalism believes that Christian teachings and beliefs are superior to any other religions or belief systems. Following this logic of winning over the other, some might abuse today’s gospel reading to claim that one has to receive Jesus and believe in his name in order to become children of God. Deep down in our hearts with our conscience, we know this is not true to the love of God shown in Jesus. All are children of God who are created in the image of God regardless of culture, faith, race, or class. What St. John essentially tells us is whether we ourselves truly recognize and believe that we are children of God. It is the message to Christians whether we truly accept that God came to the world as a human being, living among us, loving the unlovable, forgiving the unforgivable, and finally being executed as a criminal and a sinner to reveal God’s unconditional love for all. Do we see the light coming to the world? Or are our eyes blinded by temporal things or our selfish and self-serving desires that we neither see the light in the darkness nor forget that we’re given the power to become children of God or that we are indeed children of God? Former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams once said, “a vocation is...what’s left when all the games have stopped.” (Rowan Williams, A Ray of Darkness, pp. 152) Imagine your careers, titles, degrees, properties, riches, or honors are all gone. What’s left in you? That’s the true vocation and identity we have. For us Christians, when all the games stop, what’s left in us is that we are children of God, that we are God’s beloved. Being a child in our society, however, doesn’t seem to be considered as a positive thing. It might represent weakness, dependence, lack of knowledge or information, unproductiveness, uselessness in our money worshiping culture. So, our modern mind would respond to that calling of God to become children of God, “Thanks, but no thanks.” We might want to be at least adult children of God who are mature, independent, strong, productive, and useful. Simply because our society doesn’t see being a child as something useful and profitable, we as Christians may have to reconsider what it means to be God’s children in this world. Does being children of God mean that we’re called to be childish? No. We’re called to be childlike. Does living as children of God mean we’re called to be care less about how the world is going? No. We’re called to be innocent as doves and wise as serpents. St. Paul in his epistle to the Galatians we are no longer a slave but a child. In St. Paul’s context, he probably is using the word slave in relation to legalistic practice and interpretation of the law. In our context, we can think about what keeps us from living as children of God. What enslaves us from living freely as God’s children? What stops us from seeing and treating those who look different, speak differently, and think differently as God’s children? All these restraining forces that hinder us to fully see and accept ourselves as God’s children can be overcome when we first look at God who came as a vulnerable, powerless, and totally dependent infant and child in the person of Jesus. And we also ask the Holy Spirit to grant us the grace and desire to accept our true identity as God’s children. When we can finally see ourselves as God’s beloved, it is utterly impossible not to see others as God’s beloved. And as Church, we do this work of seeing the light of Christ in each one of us together as we partake the divine light becoming flesh in the Eucharist. I would like to conclude my homily with this story I read in Archbishop Williams’ book: “Rabbi Yehuda Loew ben Bezalel was the greatest rabbi of his age in Europe, the man who in his house in Prague created the Golem, the animated form of a man, to which he gave life by putting under its tong a slip of paper bearing the unutterable name of God. One night, Rabbi Yehuda had a dream: he dreamed that he had died and was brought before the throne. And the angel who stands before the throne said to him, “Who are you?” “I am Rabbi Yehuda of Prague, the maker of the Golem,” he replied. “Tell me, my lord, if my name is written in the book of the names of those who will have a share in the kingdom.” “Wait here,” said the angel. “I shall read the names of all those who have died today that are written in the book.” And he read the names, thousands of them, strange names to the ears of Rabbi Yehuda; as the angel read, the rabbi saw the spirits of those whose names had been called fly into the glory that sat above the throne. At last, he finished reading, and Rabbi Yehuda’s name had not been called, and he wept bitterly and cried out against the angle. The angel said, “I have called your name.” Rabbi Yehuda said, “I did not hear it.” And the angel said, “In the book are written the names of all men and women who have ever lived on the earth, for every soul is an inheritor of the kingdom. But many come here who have never heard their true names on the lips of man or angel. They do not recognize that it is for them that the gates of the kingdom are opened. So they must wait here until they hear their names and know them. Perhaps in their lifetime one man or woman has once called them by their right name: here they shall stay until they have remembered Perhaps no one has ever called by their right name: here they shall stay till they are silent enough to hear the King of the Universe himself calling them.” At this, Rabbi Yehuda woke and, rising from his bed with tears, he covered his head and lay prostrate on the ground, and prayed, “Master of the Universe! Grant me once before I die to hear my own true name on the lips of my brothers [and sisters].” (Ibid., pp. 152-3) As a fellow Christian brother, I might not know all your true names, but I know all of you are God’s beloved children whichever name you will be called. When we keep that identity and live that out, we’ll be able to know when somebody calls our true name and respond to live up that name in Christ. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
|