Beloved Members of St. Martin’s,
This Sunday we will change things up a bit. We will have Morning Prayer with Eucharist. We will also have inserted in the bulletin some short prayers in both English and Spanish, as we have had some visitors, both in person and online, for whom English is not their first language. We also have some members who have family members for whom that is true as well. This is done in an effort of hospitality and in the spirit of the welcome for which St. Martin’s is so well-known.
In our gospel for this first Sunday after Christmas, we will hear the Prologue to the Gospel of John (John 1:1-18). At first glance, it may seem strange to veer off from the birth narratives we have been hearing for the last few weeks to hear an entirely different take on Jesus—a spiritual take, one that hearkens all the way back to the opening words of Genesis and moves across the span of time. John’s gospel doesn’t open with a story, really. It opens instead with a panoramic depiction of God’s presence and creative energy throughout creation THROUGH Jesus as God’s Word.
And yet, at the same time, there is a humble, intimate, particular image that John uses in the 4 paragraph: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us….” What gets lost in our translation is the word used for “lived” in that phrase. In the original Greek, the word used there actually means “pitched his tent” among us. In the incarnation, Jesus takes on humble human flesh and demonstrates what true human life is meant to be like. And he does it not by demanding privileges and power, but by meeting people at their level. Although John’s gospel doesn’t say anything about Jesus’s birth or childhood, the author takes for granted that we know from the earlier accounts in scripture that he was born in a small town into a humble human family. He didn’t come to live like a prince. He came to live alongside us, as one of us, as even one of the least of us. All he asks is that we also be willing to pitch our spiritual tents alongside him.
“Pitching a tent among us” also has special poignancy right now, as the number of homeless Americans has risen sharply in the last few years as wages stagnate and housing costs skyrocket and available housing is in critical shortfall. Can thinking of Jesus “pitching a tent among us” make us more outraged at the plague of homelessness that exists (somehow mostly invisibly) and yet all around us? As the story of our patron saint reminds us, Jesus IS found all around us—especially in people who could be easily overlooked, or worse, targeted and denigrated for their situations in life.
As we turn toward a new year, perhaps we can take heed of Jesus’s example, and seek to be mindful of the miracle of a God who can create a universe and yet who seeks to dwell among us, who desires to share with us in all our trials as well as our triumphs. Perhaps we can consider how we might seek to spend more time in companionship with Christ, and open our hearts and minds to be more fully present to Jesus’s love acting within us, and allow that awe and wonder to draw us closer to God in our everyday lives. It is through this rededication to following Jesus that we too can be reborn in the coming year.
In Christ,
Mother Leslie+