"Back To Ordinary Time", December 26, 2021

Back To Ordinary Time

By Rev. Jamie Green Klopotoski

Based on Romans 15:5-13

December 26, 2021

First Baptist Church, Gloucester, MA

I cannot believe that Christmas is already over. The Christmas presents have been unwrapped (and I’m sure some of them are already discarded or broken). The Christmas Trees will soon be on the curb or put away in the attic. The ornaments will be carefully packed up in their boxes. The radio goes back to playing top 40 hits. Our shopping is completed, our traveling and cooking are done. After weeks of preparation, hanging all the lights, decorating the house, sending all the Christmas cards, after all the parties, eating way too much food, after the kids return to school, Christmas has come and gone. All the special Christmas traditions have been completed, all the doors of the Advent Calendar have been opened, all the candles on the Advent Wreath have been lit. 

One of the Christmas traditions that my husband and I love to do each year that we just finished is watching all of our favorite Christmas movies (for the record, yes we think that both “Die Hard” and “Gremlins” are Christmas movies, and we watched them both this year). We also watched a Christmas episode of “South Park” that featured a funny Christmas song parody with the lyrics “It's once a year, it's Christmas time! When we hear about how Christmas only comes, Once a year.”

There is a lot of truth to that sentiment. It feels like all that Christmas spirit, the generosity and kindness, the hope and love and peace and joy that we profess on Christmas, are only important for this one day. But then after Christmas, the spirit is gone. We go back to business as usual. We forget the Christmas feeling so quickly and easily, and we return to so-called ordinary time. On the Christian calendar, the Christmas season of Advent, and the Easter season of Lent, are separated by what it is literally called “Ordinary Time.” And that is exactly how life feels after Christmas. Ordinary. We have this huge build up of Christmas cheer and spirit that vanishes on December 26th. Life goes back to normal. We all go back to living our ordinary lives after this one special day. 

Another movie my husband and I watch every year is “The Muppets Christmas Carol”, Jim Hensen’s take on the classic Charles DIckens tale. Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, and realizes he has been living a life of greed, not generosity, a life of hate and anger, not love and joy, and he promises to change.  He says, “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”

I think Scrooge has the right idea. Christmas isn’t just one special day, it is a way of being. Why can’t the Christmas spirit be alive all year? Why can’t we show people the kindness and generosity that are demonstrated at Christmas, throughout the other 11 months of the year? Why can’t we celebrate Joy to the World every day?   

The shepherds who first saw the baby Jesus in the manger did not forget the joy they experienced once they returned to their fields, back to the tiring and unappreciated work of caring for sheep. The birth of Jesus didn’t immediately change their circumstances, but it changed them inside, deeply and profoundly. Yes, they still had to deal with cranky sheep and smelly manure, but that hardly mattered now. They had seen the Christ child. They experienced God’s grace and goodness; they witnessed the amazing miracle of the Incarnation, and they would never be the same. God the Creator took on flesh, our flesh, became one of us, and lived among us.  John wrote in his gospel, "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." What happened that first Christmas night changed the lives of the Shepherds. It changed the lives of everyone who gathered around the manger. Can it change our lives as well? 

Christmas marks the beginning of something new, a new understanding of the unconditional love of God. A new understanding of liberation and salvation for all people. A new understanding of peace, which comes not by way of the sword, but through nonviolence. These hopes and dreams and visions of peace and love were born on Christmas, but they did not end the day after Jesus was born; they didn’t even end after his death. The visions are still alive today, inspiring people to live lives of hope and peace and love and joy. 

The apostle Paul was so inspired by the visions of Jesus that he traveled thousands of miles to spread the good news, and kept in contact with the communities he met, trying to inspire their lives as well. In every letter that he wrote, he pleaded with people to change their ways and live lives worthy of Christ. In our scripture this morning, Paul prays that God will give the Romans patience and encouragement to help them live in complete harmony with each other, as is fitting for followers of Christ Jesus.

I have the same prayers for humanity. Recent news has been inundated with the bad behavior of full grown adults, many of whom call themselves Christians but are definitely not living lives fit for followers of Christ. It’s not just the increasing violence, shootings, and murders that concern me, it’s the anger and impatience of everyday people. It’s the managers making their employees work through a deadly tornado. It’s the nasty comments that people make to strangers online. Its the customers mistreating waitresses, store clerks, and flight attendants. I read in the New York Times that since January 1 2021, the Federal Aviation Administration has received 5700 reports of unruly passengers, making this year on track to produce a higher passenger misconduct incident count than the entire history of commercial aviation. It’s so bad that flight attendants are taking self defense classes. What is wrong with us? Clearly, much of humanity has lost its patience and encouragement and are no longer capable of living in complete harmony with each other. Maybe some people gave a little bit more this Christmas, acted a little bit nicer, did a good deed or two, but now that Christmas is over and life is going back to ordinary time, I fear that hope and love and peace and joy will be packed away with the manger scenes. 

But maybe we can do something different this year. Maybe we can make this ordinary time not so ordinary. We can fill our everyday lives with joy, praise, and celebration. We can live the extraordinary lives that God would have us live. The advent candles of Hope and Love and Peace and Joy may get stowed away in the closet, but the spirit of hope and love and peace and joy can be lived all year round. Love came down at Christmas. Love does not have to end at Christmas. Let us make the Christmas spirit last all year long. Let us go back to the office, back to the classroom, back to the factory, back to our neighborhoods, back to our families, back to our daily routines, full of life, full of hope, full of joy, living with love and justice and peace. We can make every day "the most wonderful time of the year."  

On Christmas, we celebrate the fact that God became flesh and blood and dwelt among us.  If we look and listen carefully, we will realize that God is here, in us, with us, everywhere, on Christmas and always, to end of time. May God be enfleshed in us, enfleshed in our hearts and minds and hands, enfleshed in our relationships and in our care for the stranger, for the jobless, for the homeless, for those in any need or trouble, enfleshed in our struggle for justice and peace among all people. Let us keep the Christmas spirit in our hearts not just once a year, but all year long. Amen.

"The Struggle for Peace", December 5, 2021

 The Struggle for Peace

By Rev. Jamie Green Klopotoski

Based on Isaiah 11:1-10

December 5, 2021

First Baptist Church, Gloucester, MA

Watch here: 

https://www.facebook.com/100000138252260/videos/696342228003974/

The sky was a crisp clear blue, without a single cloud. A light breeze brushed my skin, the warm 70 degree air was a welcomed change after being in the hot 100 degree desert all week. It was September 2008, and I was on a 12-day tour in Israel. On this particular day, I found myself in the middle of Jerusalem, and in front of me stood the only remains that belong to the Jews of the second temple built in the year 70 AD, the Western Wall of the platform where the temple originally stood. Tucked into every little nook and cranny of the wall were prayers written on scraps of paper in many different languages, Hebrew, English, Spanish, French. People swarmed left and right, praying and bowing, kissing and touching the wall, taking pictures, talking to their companions. Orthodox Jews in black top hats with little boxes tied around their foreheads with leather straps, old men in Yamacas, tour groups like mine wearing nametags. A group of young children on a school field trip, escorted not by parental chaperones, but by heavily armed soldiers. All have come to see this one wall, this one place that is more important than any other place in the world, the most holy of holy sites. I stood in awe at the wall, feeling connected to the multitudes of people over almost two millennia who have left their scribbled prayers, who have touched this wall, who have knelt and prayed at this wall, when suddenly, a sharp shrieking siren rang through the crowds, alerting us that something was very wrong. An announcement boomed over the loudspeakers in three languages. There was a bomb threat. We needed to evacuate from this most holy place, which had become a place of extreme unrest and violence. As we hurried back through the metal detectors, I took one last glance at the large majestic wall, and I couldn’t help but wonder, “Does it have to be this way? Can’t we all just get along?”

Later that day, we walked to the top of the platform where the temple used to stand. The platform now belongs to the Muslims, where they have built the most majestic golden-domed mosque called the Dome of the Rock. Israeli Jews never go to the top of this platform, unless they happen to be tour guides. The temple remains are clearly divided between Jew and Muslim; the Jews “own” the Western Wall and the Muslims “own” the temple mount, much like the City of Jerusalem itself is divided into four distinct, non-equal neighborhoods: Muslim, Jewish, Arab Christian, and Arminian Christian. As I walked the platform, atop Mount Moriah, where so many amazing religious events have taken place throughout history, where Abraham was sent to sacrifice Isaac, where Solomon built the first temple that housed the Arc of the Covenant, where the Prophet Muhammad ascended for a night-long journey to Heaven, I wondered, Does Jerusalem need to be divided like this? People of all Abrahamic faiths understand the very tremendous and powerful way God has been experienced in this place. Would it be possible for Jews to experience their understanding of God, known as Yahweh, at the Dome of the Rock, or for Muslims to experience their understanding of God, known as Allah, at the Western Wall? The real question behind these thoughts was persistent throughout my trip in Israel…. Is peace possible in the Middle East? Is peace possible in the world?

Hope and Love and Peace and Joy are the themes of advent, represented by the four candles on our advent wreath. This Sunday’s theme is Peace, which is why I chose to read a scripture passage from Isaiah. The prophet Isaiah paints a picture for us of a golden age of peace. He writes that a man shall spring forth from the line of Jesse, the father of King David, who will have the spirit of the Lord upon him and will judge the poor, the meek and the wicked, with righteousness. And the fruit of this righteousness will be peace. There will be reconciliation in the world of nature, and the ancient hostility between man and beast will vanish. Predators will lie down next to their prey. Wild beasts and young children will play together absolutely unafraid. And the whole earth will no longer act in hurtful or destructive ways.

Isaiah wrote that once this man came to earth, this vision of peace in the animal kingdom and extended to the human world would become a reality. But as we know, that’s not exactly what happened, the world wasn’t miraculously peaceful the day Jesus was born. So now many Christians are waiting for Jesus to come back to earth again, for his second coming, for the apocalypse, and many believe that only then will there be a peace like this. In the meantime, for many Christians, while waiting for this day in the future when Jesus will return and finally usher in an era of peace, it is okay to be violent, to own guns, to kill, to not practice peace. 

My tour group leader in Israel was one of these Christians. His name was Michael. And Michael believed that peace and nonviolence were not possible in Israel. He said, "It doesn't make sense here in Israel... it won't work here. Why do we need to have peace here now? There hasn't been peace here in the last 5000 years, so why now?" Michael was waiting until the Messiah comes back to expect peace. And until the Second Coming, he believes it is right for Israelis to fight and to kill, and to ignore calls for peace.

But my friends, I offer you a new way to look at the second coming of Jesus. A way that I wish I could have explained to Michael that day, but I was too afraid to speak up. When Jesus first came 2000 years ago, he said, “the kingdom of God is within you. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He was trying to tell us that the Kingdom of God is not somewhere far away in some distant future. The Kingdom of God is here, right here on Earth as it is in Heaven. It’s in you! It’s in me! So many of us are waiting for Jesus to come back to make everything better. But Jesus has already come, this is what we celebrate on Christmas, the coming of Jesus. Jesus has come and has taught us how to live and how to love. That is what will result in Isaiah’s vision of peace. Jesus has called each and every one of us to do the work to bring about the kingdom of God here on earth. No more can we wait for someone else to do the work. Jesus wants US to seek peace now.

We’ve been waiting 2000 years for the second coming of Jesus, but the second coming has been here all along. The second coming of Jesus happens every day, when people clothe the naked, feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, forgive their enemies, and work for peace on earth. 

As Christmas approaches, I can’t help but think back to my trip to Israel, especially the day I spent in Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. As a kid, when I read the Christmas story in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, I always pictured Bethlehem as a cute, little village town, bustling with people and animals for the census, but small and quaint nonetheless. But as my tour bus approached Bethlehem, my vision disintegrated. We stopped at tall rod iron gates, at a checkpoint guarded by armed soldiers. Bethlehem is now technically part of Palestine, and Israelis are forbidden to enter the city. This included our tour guide, Michael, and our bus driver, Avnar, both Israeli citizens. We had to get off of our Israeli tour buses, with our passports in hand to prove that we were not Israelis, and board a new bus on the Palestinian side of the checkpoint, with a new driver and a new guide, both Palestinian citizens. As we drove through this foreign land, through tons of traffic and noise, through murky and smoky air, through streets littered with hecklers and street vendors, nothing like my idyllic visions of Bethlehem, our new guide told us an interesting story. 

Originally, the name “Bethlehem” in Hebrew literally meant House of Food (“bet” was the word for “house” and “lehem” was the word for “food”). When Jews lived in Bethlehem, they were mostly farmers and made bread from their crops as their main staple food, so the word “Lehem” transformed from meaning “food” in general to meaning more specifically “bread”, making “Bethlehem” mean “House of Bread”. However, when Arabs moved into Bethlehem, they were mostly shepherds and their main food was “meat”, so word “Lehem” in Arabic was translated more specifically as the word “meat”, making “Bethlehem” mean “House of Meat”. “House of Bread” vs “House of Meat”. Our guide commented, "There is always a struggle." This was my experience in Israel. A struggle between the different meanings of the word “Lehem”, a struggle between the ownership of the temple ruins, a struggle between Jews and Muslims and Christians and their holy sites. A struggle between Israelis and Palestinians which made my bus driver Avnar and his family live and sleep in a bomb shelter. But there won’t always have to be a struggle. There will be peace on earth when there is peace among nations; there will be peace among nations when there is peace within the nations; there will be peace within nations when there is peace among neighbors; there will be peace among neighbors when there is peace within families; and there will be peace within families when there is peace within our own hearts. Peace begins with you and me. Amen.