The Unsentimental Story of God With Us

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

January 4, 2026

The Second Sunday after Christmas (5:00 pm)

Jeremiah 31:7-14

Psalm 84

Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-19a

Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

The Unsentimental Story of God With Us

I know that I keep going on about how wonderful this Christmas has been here at St. Thomas’ – and that’s because it really has been wonderful!

The Christmas flowers and greenery looked great, and Jon has led the choir to make extraordinarily beautiful music.

For me, seeing and hearing the Junior Choir was one of the best Christmas gifts. The other day, I went on YouTube and pulled up the video of the 4:00 service. When the kids began to sing “Away in a Manger,” Sue, who was sitting across from me, said, “They sound so good!”

They sure did.

And, of course, there were lots of people in church, including many people we may only see once or twice a year.

But they were here, thank God!

Yes, thanks to the hard work of many, our Christmas celebrations were beautiful.

And let’s admit it, our Christmas celebrations were also sentimental – the carols, the Christmas Pageant, the candlelight singing of “Silent Night,” all of that and more is quite sentimental.

And there’s definitely a place for sentimentality. (I’m sure it’s one of the big attractions for all those people who came to church on Christmas Eve!) But, if we’re not careful, sentimentality can easily smooth the hard edges of the Christmas story.

The sentimentality can hide the great Christmas truth that God is now with us in a new and unexpected way.

        Emmanuel means “God with us.”

        And, in and through Jesus, God is with us, right here in our messed-up world.

        So, on this Second Sunday after Christmas, let’s strip away some of the sentimentality from the Christmas story:

Mary gives birth far from home. There aren’t any older and experienced women present to see her through her first birth. She’s on her own, with Joseph by her side, which I’m sure was comforting but I don’t know how much help, how much expertise, he could offer.

And, of course, the Son of God isn’t born in a grand palace – there’s not even room for him at the Bethlehem inn. Mary and Joseph are forced to place the swaddled child in a manger, a sentimental word for a feeding trough meant for animals.

In and through Jesus, God is with us.

        God is especially with the people struggling to provide for their families.

It’s still Christmas, but just until Tuesday!

By now, the crowds at church have thinned out…just a bit! 

That’s too bad for lots of reasons, but especially because they miss out on the rest of the Christmas story, the parts of the story we say little about on Christmas Eve, the parts of the story much harder to sentimentalize.

We all know about the Magi, the mysterious stargazers from the East, who go searching for the newborn king. Logically enough, they first go to the capital city where Herod expresses, let’s say, “keen interest” in meeting his young rival, the newborn king of the Jews.

        So, Herod tells the Magi to report back after they’ve found him.

And, of course, the Magi do find the king and present their symbolic gifts of gold for a king, frankincense for a god, and myrrh, which was used to anoint a corpse.

But, warned in a dream not to return to Herod, the Magi bravely become fugitives, and return home by a different route.

An enraged Herod went on the warpath, slaughtering the children of Bethlehem, desperately and ruthlessly trying to kill the young king.

        The murder of those children was both an incomprehensible and heart-shattering tragedy for the families of Bethlehem, and also a powerful sign that the tyrants of the world are after Jesus right from the start – and we know that they will eventually get Jesus and nail him to a cross.

In and through Jesus, God is with us.

        God is especially with victims of violence; God is with all those who suffer at the hands of tyrants.

Finally, we come to today’s gospel passage.

In yet another dream, Joseph is warned about Herod’s murderous intentions, and so he and Mary take Jesus and flee for safety in Egypt, saving the Son of God’s life.

There are obvious Old Testament echoes in this story.

Think of Joseph with his famous coat of many colors. Joseph was sold by his brothers into slavery in Egypt and then, years later, welcoming his people during a time of famine.

And then, as we heard today, eventually the Holy Family will make their way back out of Egypt, a reminder of Moses leading his people from slavery to the promised land.

Yes, there are biblical echoes but there’s also the stark fact in this story that we often forget, a truth that seems to surprise even regular churchgoers:

         Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were refugees.

         Like so many people before and since, like so many people today, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus had to flee from oppression and violence, journeying from home to a foreign land, seeking a place of welcome and safety, hoping to survive.

        In and through Jesus, God is with us.

        God is especially with refugees.

        So, later this week, we’ll take down the Christmas wreaths and flowers.

        We’ll remove the lights from the Christmas tree out in the circle.

        Next week, the church may look a little bare.

        This can be a real let-down, a depressing time of year, even without the many troubles of the world.

        But I hope we can hold onto our memories of a really wonderful St. Thomas’ Christmas: the flowers, the music, the children, the crowds.

        More important than that, though, I hope that we can remain encouraged and inspired by this great and most unsentimental truth:

        In and through Jesus, God is with us.

        God is especially with people struggling to care for their families.

        God is especially with victims of violence, especially with victims of state-sponsored violence.

        God is especially with refugees.

        In and through Jesus, God is with us, all of us, right here, in our messed-up world.

        This is the unsentimental Christmas story, the story that should give us hope and courage.

        Amen.

God's Subtle Light

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

December 28, 2025

The First Sunday after Christmas

Isaiah 61:10-62:3

Psalm 147:13-21

Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7

John 1:1-18

God’s Subtle Light

Some of you know that Sue and I have three cats.

There’s Ria and Diego, who are 16 and 15 years old, pretty old for cats.

And there’s Simone, who’s a relative whippersnapper at about 4 years old.

And one thing we’ve discovered is that cats, both old and young, just can’t resist the little pinpoint of light created by a laser pointer!

If you have cats, have you tried it out?

I think dogs like it, too.

Well anyway, our cats go nuts, chasing that little dot of light, sliding across the floor, twitching with excitement just before they pounce, dizzying themselves when we spin the light in an ever-tighter circle.

Watching our cats run after that moving little light is certainly very entertaining for us, but I do wonder what it’s like for the cats.

First of all, the cats know that Sue and I control the light. When they hear the little click of the device – a sound that they realize comes from our hand – they know the light is about to appear.

In some kind of cat way, they know that we are manipulating them, but they just can’t help themselves.

And on some level the cats know that this light isn’t real the way, say, a mouse is real. I’m pretty sure the cats realize that they won’t be able to “catch” the light, but they just can’t resist, so they chase, and they pounce, and they spin.

It’s fun while it lasts but ultimately not very satisfying.

It’s easy for us to feel superior to the cats but I wonder if we’re not so different.

There are so many flashing lights all around us, manipulating us, drawing our attention. 

      Big business has gotten very good at distracting us, bombarding us with ads everywhere we look.

      The 24-hour news cycle is relentless.

      Some politicians and so-called influencers can’t seem to go more than an hour or two without a social media post or statement, hungry for our attention at all times.

      Our phones are constantly buzzing and pinging with the latest news, or alerting us about all the amazing “after-Christmas” sales.

      There are so many flashing lights all around us – the flashing lights of materialism and nonsense and fear and hate – so many flashing lights, it’s like Times Square or the Vegas Strip everywhere, all the time.

      And, yes, some of it is fun – at least for a while - but ultimately these lights are not very satisfying, and sometimes they are very destructive.

      Out in the world it’s already “after-Christmas,” with merchandise priced to sell, but here in church it’s still Christmas and it will go right on being Christmas until January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany.

      And today, on the First Sunday after Christmas, we always read the Prologue to the Gospel of John.

      I always think of the Prologue as John’s “cosmic Christmas.”

      John doesn’t give us any stories about Mary and Joseph making a trip to Bethlehem, nothing about the inn with no vacancy, nothing about the shepherds or the angels, nothing about the newborn Son of God placed in a manger, a pretty word for a feeding trough meant for animals, the newborn Jesus already food for the world.

      Instead, John takes us all the way back to… the beginning.

      Using beautifully mysterious and poetic language, John declares that, in and through Jesus, God’s Word, God’s Light, has now entered our very shadowy world.

      And John insists, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

      And throughout his gospel, John will continue to develop that theme of light and darkness – it’s a theme that speaks to every time and place – and there’s certainly plenty of shadow in our own time.

      But I think the flashing lights of our time – the many distractions of today – are especially challenging because God’s Light is different than all those other lights. 

God’s Light is subtle.

      It’s rare that God’s Light is so bright that it knocks us off our horse, like what happened to St. Paul on the road to Damascus.

      No, God’s Light is subtle, requiring our attention.

      But at the same time, God’s Light is way more powerful than all the other lights that we chase, the lights that can never really satisfy.

      In addition to today being the First Sunday after Christmas, it’s also the last Sunday of the year. And so, I thought I’d share with you just a few ways that I’ve recently seen God’s subtle Light shining.

      In the run up to Christmas, several parishioners asked me how I was holding up, they offered sympathy, recognizing that this is a busy and demanding time.

      And it’s true, that for clergy Christmas is a busier time but, honestly, I felt like I just sailed right through it. And that was thanks to so many of you who gave so much time and talent to make Christmas happen. And my smooth sailing was thanks to our dedicated and hard-working staff. They are such a great team.

      And this year, Christmas was especially breezy for me because of our wonderful Assistant Rector. Sharing this work with Rev. Amelia has been a joy, a privilege, and a lot of fun, too.

      And Rachel Waller’s leadership of the Junior Choir has been such a gift. What a joy to see and hear our children the 4:00 Christmas Eve service, singing our final prelude and then acting out the Christmas story.

      God’s subtle light.

      A week ago, on Saturday afternoon, our Afghan neighbor Kamal called me to say that he and his daughters were outside the rectory door.

      When I opened the door, sure enough, there they were. Kamal smiling broadly and the girls behind him, looking kind of shy. They had brought over for us an Afghan treat, a kind of pastry, that is served on the Winter Solstice. 

      I wonder if they think we have a lot of people living in the rectory because it was a really big plate of treats, way more than Sue and I would be able to eat, so I brought them over for Sunday fellowship.

      But I keep thinking about Kamal and his daughters standing at our door, having been through so much and yet offering such warm kindness and delicious generosity.

      God’s subtle light.

      And, finally, there was Nadine.

      Nadine first called here a couple of years ago, when her husband died. It turns out that they had been married here long ago and she wanted the Rector of St. Thomas’ to officiate at his funeral.

      Unfortunately, I had another commitment, but I arranged for another priest to lead the service in my place.

      Over the next couple of years, we had a little phone contact with Nadine. She clearly needed help and Jane Farnan our Parish Administrator tried her best to connect Nadine to social services.

      Anyway, in the fall I received a call from a hospital social worker telling me that Nadine was dying and that she wanted me to serve as her medical power of attorney.

      I was startled and uncertain. 

      And I was sad. Was there really no one else?

      I was also humbled. Nadine and I had never met in person, but she trusted me not because of me but because of the position I hold, a reminder of the sacred trust I’ve been given.

      And so began a very intense couple of months, as Nadine’s life drew to a close.

      As I got to know her, I discovered that she really was alone – the most alone person I’ve ever met.

      Yet, in the hospital and later in the hospice, a little community formed around this somewhat cantankerous woman. 

      Of course, I go to hospitals all the time, so I know that usually the staff does its best but they’re often shorthanded and pressed for time and patients don’t always get the attention that they need and deserve.

      Ideally, family and friends fill that gap, right?

      But in Nadine’s case, there was no one. So, the staff – the social worker, the nurses, the dietary aides, you name it – they all stepped up, giving her extra TLC. She was picky about food, so they even went out and bought the things that she liked.

      There was also a woman who initially was interested in buying Nadine’s house. I was wary when she showed up, but very quickly she came to care for Nadine, too. She bought her sweet pastries that this little bird-like woman ate with gusto. She and her partner brought a grandfather clock from Nadine’s house, the only object she asked to have with her in hospice. And she stuck with Nadine even after she was no longer capable of making decisions about her house or anything else.

      And in the end, on a cold and windy day, it was just the two of us and the funeral director at Nadine’s graveside service, bringing her to rest beside her husband.

      God’s subtle light.

      We live in a time of so much distraction.

      So many lights that draw our attention, so many lights that never really satisfy.

      But on Christmas, we’re reminded that in and through Jesus, God’s Light has entered the world – a Light as subtle as a child born to a couple of nobodies and placed in a manger – God’s subtle Light that can never be overcome, never, no matter what.

      Amen.

God Goes "All In"

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

December 24, 2025

Christmas Eve

Isaiah 9:2-7

Psalm 96

Titus 2:11-14

Luke 2:1-20

God Goes "All In"

Merry Christmas!

As most of you know, every year the church conducts a stewardship campaign, or sometimes we call it a stewardship season.

Every fall, we try to reflect a little more deeply on the many blessings we have received from God, and we think about how we should and can respond to those blessings by giving of ourselves more generously, by sharing our time, talent, and treasure, by being generous with the church and with others.

Every year, it’s customary to come up with a theme for the stewardship campaign. Ideally, it’s something catchy and memorable.

One of my favorites was “An Attitude of Gratitude.”

You just can’t go wrong with a rhyme.

But my most favorite was a theme we used one year at my previous church in Jersey City: 

      “All In.”

“All In” 

Now, “All In” had a double meaning.

First, we hoped that all our parishioners would fill out and submit their pledge cards.

But on a deeper and more meaningful level, “All In” was about commitment, calling all of us to be fully committed to Jesus, to be fully committed to our church, to be fully committed to love and mercy.

“All In.”

I don’t remember exactly how successful our stewardship campaign was that year, I think we did OK, but I do remember one particular parishioner who took our theme to heart.

I’ll call him Anthony.

He was a challenging guy. He had some mental health challenges, with wide mood swings, which often made him very difficult to deal with.

You always knew when he was in church.

Anthony was essentially homeless. He would tell me that he was “living off the land.” 

Some of us were able to help Anthony, at least a little, but it was tough.

Anyway, for whatever reason, “All In” really captured his imagination.

Often when I’d see him around in the neighborhood, he’d yell out, “Father Tom, I’m all in!”

And believe it or not, Anthony was a pledging member of our church.

And that year, he wrote on his pledge card that his ministry was to “Seek the lost.”

And that’s exactly what he did.

He was always trying to convince people he encountered on the street to come to our church, and a few times he managed to get them there, people who were often in worse shape than he was – living on the streets, addicted, overwhelmed by life, bewildered to somehow find themselves in an Episcopal church on a Sunday morning.

Of course, Anthony’s ministry of seeking the lost made many of us church people, very much including me, uncomfortable and on edge.

      The good order of our service was sometimes disrupted when one of Anthony’s lost sheep would start wandering around.

And yet, although he was pretty messed up himself, or maybe because he was messed up himself, Anthony felt the urgency to share Something Good – to share the One who is Good – with those who were lost.

Anthony went “all in” – and, by his example, he challenged us to do the same.

On the first Christmas, God went “all in” with us, and for us.

The God who creates all that is – the God who is pure love and mercy – the God who transcends time and space – this God comes among us in a new and unique way, limiting God’s Self in a particular human being, born to a couple of nobodies in the humblest of circumstances.

In and through Jesus, God goes “all in” with us and for us.

God submits to the limitations of humanity, the limitations of infancy, unable to walk or speak or feed himself or clean himself, totally dependent on the care of Mary and Joseph, who, let’s face it, just barely manage to pull it off.

In and through Jesus, God goes “all in” with us and for us – all the way to the cross and the empty tomb.

Take that in for a moment.

All in. For us.

So, if we ever think that we don’t matter, that our life has little or no value, or that our mistakes are just too bad to be forgiven, remember that God goes “all in” for us.

And if we ever think that other people don’t matter, that their lives have little or no value, or that their mistakes are just too bad to be forgiven, remember that God goes “all in” for them, too.

Two thousand years ago, almost no one knew about the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem – just a no doubt exhausted Mary and a stunned Joseph, and maybe the innkeeper who sent them away.

And, of course, the shepherds, who encountered the angels singing their song of glory - they knew, too.

But that’s about it.

And yet, this obscure birth, both unique and ordinary, this birth changes everything.

In and through Jesus, God goes “all in” with us and for us.

And how should we respond to this greatest of all blessings?

Well, with an attitude of gratitude, of course!

This Christmas and always, let’s go “all in.”

Like Anthony, let’s seek the lost – and there are a lot of them – some have no homes and some have very nice houses.

      With God’s help, let’s live lives of love and mercy, reminding everybody, including ourselves, that we are all loved – that we all matter - because God goes “all in” with us and for us.

Amen.

Religion and Life

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

January 5, 2025

The Second Sunday after Christmas

Jeremiah 31:7-14

Psalm 84:1-8

Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-19a

Matthew 2:1-12

Religion and Life

If you were here last week, on the First Sunday after Christmas, you may remember that our gospel lesson was the Prologue to the Gospel of John.

        The Prologue is John’s poetic version of the Christmas story – a Cosmic Christmas.

Rather than giving us details about Jesus’ birth, John looks all the way back… 

        “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. 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.”

        So beautiful, right?

        And then, John declares that the Word that was with God, the Light that is God, became a flesh and blood human being in and through Jesus.

        “The Word became flesh and lived among us.”

        Christians have been hearing and reading and pondering those words for two thousand years.

        And maybe, over all that time, we’ve somehow gotten used to the idea of God becoming flesh, what’s called the Incarnation.

        Maybe we’ve gotten kind of ho-hum about God becoming one of us.

        Or, more likely, we still haven’t fully grasped what all this means for God and for us.

        God – the Creator and Source of all life – was uniquely present in Mary’s son, watched over by Joseph.

        God – the Creator and Source of all life – becomes flesh and blood, just like us.

        God plunges into our messed-up world - a world with brutal tyrants like Herod.

        God plunges into our still beautiful world, a world with people of wonder, curiosity, and courage – people like the Magi.

        We really don’t know who the Magi were – these wise visitors from the East - we don’t even know how many of them there were. We just assume that there were three because of their three gifts.

        But whoever they were, the Magi were willing to make a long trek to see for themselves the newborn king, eager to pay him homage and to present their gifts, and they were also brave enough to disobey Herod.

        Herod, of course, didn’t like this one bit.

        And in a grim part of the story that we didn’t hear today, Herod was so determined to kill this new king – this newborn rival – that he ordered the slaughter of all the young children in Bethlehem.

        But Herod’s plan to kill the new king was thwarted because, alerted by an angel, Joseph, Mary and the child Jesus fled to Egypt.

        For a time, the Holy Family was a refugee family.

        I appreciate the transition from John’s poetry that we heard last week and Matthew’s very earthy story that we heard today.

        It’s a vivid reminder that, in and through Jesus, God plunges into our messed-up but still beautiful world.

        And it’s also a reminder that for us Christians, there should be no gap between our religion and our life – no gap between the poetry that we say and sing in church each week and how we live our lives out there in the world.

        This is something that I think about pretty regularly: what difference does all of “this” make? 

        And I’m in good company because this was a main interest of our old friend Sam Shoemaker.

        It’s been a while since I’ve talked about Shoemaker, which means there are some newer parishioners who’ve never heard of him.

        Sam Shoemaker was born in Baltimore in 1893.

        He grew up here at St. Thomas’ and, to make a long story very short, he was ordained a priest in 1921. In fact, he presided at his first Holy Communion service right here.

        Shoemaker spent most of his ministry at Calvary Church in the Gramercy Park neighborhood of New York City.

        For decades he was incredibly active, writing over 20 books, speaking regularly on the radio, going on preaching tours, some of his sermons were even released on records – something which just amazes me.

        Today he’s best remembered for providing the spiritual foundations for the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous – just think about how many millions of lives he has touched and saved through that extraordinary program.

        But, as I said, Shoemaker was also especially passionate about connecting our religion with our entire life.

        Very early on, in 1926, Shoemaker started the “Faith at Work” movement.

        On Thursday evenings, lay people would meet at Calvary Church and talk about how they had lived as Christians out in the world.

        (A little commercial: nearly a century after Shoemaker started “Faith at Work,” this will be the topic for this year’s Shoemaker event on Saturday, February 1, which I very much hope you’ll attend.)

        It was the Incarnation, it was God plunging into our messed-up but still beautiful world that pushed Shoemaker to do this work. Here’s what he wrote:

        "We must utterly abolish the common distinction between religion and life. We have religion in a compartment - then there is life on the other side. Religion is praying, going to church, reading the Bible. Life is raising a family, making a living, enjoying company and recreation. In a religion that began with 'The Word was made flesh,' such thinking is heresy."

        Coincidentally or not, one of the things I’ve been thinking about for our new year together is to find new ways, or maybe rediscover some old ways, for us to get together and tell our stories – to learn more about each other – and maybe also to talk about the challenges of living as Christians out in the world.

        As Shoemaker said, we must abolish the distinction between religion and life.

        Stay tuned.

        So, on the morning of New Year’s Day, I went over to the office to work on today’s sermon, hoping for a couple of quiet, solitary hours before our noon service and Bible Study.

        I had just started writing at my desk when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man walk up to the office door. After finding it locked, he rang the bell.

        I confess that my first irritated thought was, “You’ve got to be kidding me. It’s 9:00 in the morning on New Year’s Day.”

        But I unlocked the door and greeted the man in the office hallway.

        He identified himself as detective with the Baltimore County Police Department.

        And then he told me there had been a homicide “just up the road.”

        My stomach dropped, thinking that maybe one of our parishioners – that maybe one of you - might have been killed.

        The detective explained that he was hoping that our security cameras might be helpful in the investigation.

        When I finally got back to my desk, I looked online for more information and saw that it was a 21-year-old man named Raheim Ali Esna Ashari who had been shot and killed on Garrison Forest Road. 

         Nobody I knew.

         But yet another tragedy, particularly unsettling because it was so close to us.

         And as I tried to work on my sermon, I thought, well, here it is - here is a painfully local and terribly sad example of what I wanted to say today.

        Two thousand years ago, God plunged into this world, shining light and love into our messed-up world.

        God plunged into a world seemingly ruled by tyrants like Herod, ruthless men willing to lie and kill to protect their power and wealth.

        God plunged into a world where life seemed to be cheap, a violent world, where lives could and would be taken for little or no cause.

        God plunged into a world where families are forced to flee their homelands, desperate to save the lives of their children.

        But God also plunged into a world that’s still beautiful, a world where the Magi travel far to worship the newborn King, to offer him their gifts.

        God plunged into a world that’s still beautiful, a world where so many of you offer your gifts to people who can never repay us, never even thank us.

        In and through Jesus, God plunged into our messed-up but still beautiful world.

        And, especially as we begin an uncertain and already bloodstained new year, we Christians are called to follow God’s lead.

        With God’s help, may we plunge into the world.

        May God continue to shine light and love, in and through us.

        May we bridge the gap between religion and life.

        Out there.

        Amen.

The Light, Shining Forth in Our Lives

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

December 29, 2024

The First Sunday after Christmas

Isaiah 61:1-10-62:3

Psalm 147:13-21

Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7

John 1:1-18

The Light, Shining Forth in Our Lives

Merry Christmas!

Each year, I mention how Advent is the most countercultural season of the church year.

Out in the world, the so-called Christmas season now begins around Labor Day (I think that’s what we said, right?).

Meanwhile, here in church, we do our best to hold off on Christmas until December 24th. We take the holy season of Advent very seriously, preparing the way of the Lord with John the Baptist, and saying “yes” to God with the Virgin Mary.

And then, because we’ve stubbornly stuck with Advent, the transformation of our church to Christmas glory is even more spectacular.

Because we’ve stuck with Advent, the Christmas music sounds even more magnificent.

Because we’ve stuck with Advent, our Christmas joy is, well, even more joyful.

So, Advent is definitely countercultural.

But, you know, the Christmas Season is also countercultural.

I mean, out in the world, by now Christmas is pretty much over and done. Now is the time to get some great deals at all the “After Christmas” sales.

I haven’t seen this in Baltimore, but in New York City it’s common to see Christmas trees, stripped of their decorations, lying at the curb on December 26th, now just another piece of trash.

Out in the world, Christmas is over and it’s on to the next thing.

But, here in church, we’re celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas – a whole little season of joy.

It’s still Christmas.

And, maybe to make sure we get that message, today’s gospel lesson – the Prologue of the Gospel of John – is the same passage that we heard on Christmas morning.

It’s John’s Christmas story – a story much different from what we hear in Matthew and Luke.

John doesn’t include anything about there not being room at the inn, or the manger, or the angels singing “Glory to God in the highest.” 

        There’s nothing about shepherds amazed by the whole spectacle.

        Nothing even about Mary and Joseph

Instead, John gives us a cosmic Christmas, looking all the way back to the dawn of creation.

And, in his cosmic Christmas story, John reveals that the Light that was present with God in the first moment – the Light that is God - the Light that is life itself – this Light is now shining our shadowy world – and there is no shadow deep enough to extinguish the Light of Christ, never, no matter what.

You know, I love the Christmas stories in Matthew and Luke.

I love when our children reenact those stories, dressed up as Mary and Joseph, as angels and shepherds, as mysterious visitors from the East.

I love when we have a real live baby Jesus, like we did this year, though young Henry Brooks was so quiet and peaceful, maybe some people didn’t realize that he was real!

I love those wonderful stories that never lose their power, but John’s cosmic Christmas reminds us that the birth of Christ is not only an historical event.

The Light of Christ continues to shine into our shadowy world, continues to shine in our often-shadowy hearts.

And, with God’s help, the Light of Christ can shine forth in our lives.

And, if you’re wondering what the Light shining forth in our lives looks like, well, it just so happens that we have three baptisms coming up in just a couple of minutes.

The Light is already shining forth in their beautiful faces and in the love of their parents and grandparents and the rest of their families.

And, with God’s help and ours, the Light will continue to shine forth in the lives of Denison, Huck, and Gideon, as they grow in their faith, when they keep their baptismal promises.

The Light will continue to shine forth…

        When they gather with other Christians for prayer and Communion.

        When they resist evil and ask forgiveness when they mess up.

        When they proclaim the Good News by word and example.

        When they seek and serve Christ in all people.

        When they strive for justice and peace.

        That’s what the Light shining forth in our lives looks like.

        It’s not a history lesson. 

        The Light is available to us, here and now.

        And this Light never dies.

        So, this is my fourth Christmas here at St. Thomas’.

        (I know, I don’t believe it, either – I had to check my math to be sure.)

        And, by the time you get to your fourth Christmas at a church, when you have the services and the schedule all figured out, you pretty much know how it’s going to go.

        It’s nice. It sort of feels like a family Christmas.

        Something else about four Christmases:

        This year, as I reviewed the Christmas memorials, I reflected on how I’ve known an increasing number of people on that list – each year there are more people I had the chance to know and to love. 

        People I miss very much.

        Very much including our beloved Beaumont Martin. 

        So, I was already missing Beaumont and thinking about her family and friends, as they face this first hard Christmas without her.

        And then on Christmas Eve afternoon, when the church staff and I were scrambling to deal with all the last-minute details, a man came to the office door, someone I didn’t recognize.

        He introduced himself and said that each year at Christmas he came to our churchyard to place a wreath on the grave of his great-great-grandfather. 

        But this year, he was surprised to find that a wreath was already there.

        At first, he thought maybe some other relative had visited but he was pretty sure that no one else in his family kept this meaningful ritual.

        And then he noticed that the wreath on his great-great-grandfather’s grave was identical to the wreaths that were placed on many other graves around the churchyard.

        And that’s when he decided to come to the office and find out just what was going on.

        Jane our Parish Administrator and I explained how over the last couple of years our parishioners – you – have made special donations so we can buy additional wreaths to place on some of our oldest graves, the graves of people who are probably no longer remembered by anyone who is alive, the graves of people remembered now only by God.

        This man was dumbstruck by this news, stunned by your generosity, awed by your willingness to let our shine out for people long gone, people who can’t thank us, at least not yet.

        And, as many of you know, this wreath project – this shining light - was Beaumont’s idea, her joy, just one of her gifts to us.

        So, Merry Christmas.

        It’s still Christmas.

        The Light of Christ is still shining our shadowy world – and there is no shadow deep enough to extinguish the Light, never, no matter what.

        The Light continues to shine in our often-shadowy hearts.

And, with God’s help, the Light can and will shine forth in our lives.

        Forever.

Amen.

God's Quiet Power

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

December 24, 2024

Christmas Eve

Isaiah 9:2-7

Psalm 96

Titus 2:11-14

Luke 2:1-20

God’s Quiet Power

Merry Christmas!

Each year when I stand up here on this holy night, I think of all the countless hours of preparation that went into getting us ready for Christmas at St. Thomas’.

Our church staff worked many extra hours designing, editing, and printing bulletins, checking the names of our deceased loved ones on our Christmas Memorial List, choosing music and rehearsing our magnificent choir, preparing our children for their “Tableau Plus,” cleaning our buildings and sprucing up our grounds, doing so much to make tonight perfect for all of us.

And then there are our parishioners – the people who “greened” the church on Sunday afternoon – and doesn’t it look beautiful?

        There are the altar guild members who polished our silver and ironed our our linens – the ushers and our acolytes who volunteered to serve tonight – the choir members who gave up so many Thursday nights to rehearse all the gorgeous music we’re singing and hearing tonight.

And I also think of our Christmas Extravaganza a couple of weeks ago, when so many parishioners and friends gave gifts – wrapped them and delivered them – gifts for people at the Community Crisis Center, Paul’s Place, Owings Mills Elementary School– people we may never meet, people who will never be able to thank us.

And so, as I stand up here on this holy night, I feel deep gratitude for the privilege of serving this church.

And I also feel awe – awe at God’s power flowing through this place and its people – a quiet power that’s very different from the loud power of the world.

Tonight, Deacon Amelia read for us Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth. 

        This is a story that always touches our hearts, no matter how many times we’ve heard it.

Luke begins by identifying the loud power of the world – the loud power of the Emperor Augustus who could demand a count of all the people in the vast and cruel Roman Empire.

        That loud power uprooted ordinary people – or seemingly ordinary people – like Joseph and Mary, forcing them to travel far from home – loud power that doesn’t care that Mary’s pregnant – loud power that doesn’t care about – and maybe even enjoys – the suffering of others.

Luke acknowledges the loud power of emperors and governors but, of course, Luke knows - and we know - that the true power – the ultimate power - God’s quiet power – was at work not in the glory of Rome but in humble Bethlehem.

God’s quiet power was at work, not among emperors and governors, but with Mary who said “yes” to God, and Joseph, who couldn’t really provide a suitable place for the holy child to be born, but, no matter what, he stayed by Mary’s side and that was enough.

And, most of all, God’s quiet power was at work in and through this newborn child. 

        Jesus was an infant.

        The Son of God was totally dependent on the love and care of others, totally vulnerable to all the very real dangers of the world.

        And yet this is how God’s Light enters the shadowy world, not with thunder and lightning, not with commands and cruelty, but through dependence and vulnerability, through tenderness and smallness.

        God’s quiet power.

        And God’s quiet power that was born in Bethlehem two thousand years ago is still at work in and through us.

        God’s quiet power flows through the people who worked so hard and, yes, mostly quietly, to give all of us a beautiful Christmas celebration.

        God’s quiet power flows through the people who gave gifts, not only to family and friends, but to total strangers in need.

        God’s quiet power flows through us, each time we really listen to one another, each time we reject selfishness and choose generosity, each time we reject hate and choose love.

        On this night, we remember and celebrate that the real power, the ultimate power, God’s quiet power, has entered the world in and through Jesus.

        And God’s quiet power continues to flow in and through us.

        On Christmas, and always.

        Amen.

Christmas Lights, All Year Long

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

December 31, 2023

The First Sunday after Christmas

Isaiah 61:10-62:3

Psalm 147

Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7

John 1:1-18

Christmas Lights, All Year Long

So, as I’m sure you remember, last Sunday we had a kind of holy mash-up: it was both the Fourth Sunday of Advent and also Christmas Eve.

And now this Sunday we have yet another unusual blend of the calendar: it’s the First Sunday after Christmas and it’s also New Year’s Eve.

I will come back to that in a minute. 

But first I want to say, want to celebrate, that we had a most joyful Christmas Eve and Christmas Day here at St. Thomas’.

A few highlights:

Thanks to careful preparation and some skillful work, on Sunday between around 11:00 and noon, the church was quickly transformed from Advent simplicity to Christmas lavishness.

At the 4:00 service, the children did a great job reenacting the Christmas story.

Throughout our Advent / Christmas mash-up, the choir sang as beautifully as ever, of course.

And, thankfully, lots of people came to church – folks we see all the time, others we see less often but we’re always glad when they’re here, and some newcomers who picked a particularly good weekend to go church shopping.

On Sunday evening and Monday morning, a number of people asked if I was tired but the truth is that I was energized by the whole experience. In fact, on Christmas afternoon – which, you may remember, was unseasonably warm – I took a wonderful long walk on the NCR Trail, reflecting on it all and thanking God for my many blessings.

In most ways, this year’s Christmas was similar to the last couple of Christmases here.

But there were a couple of differences.

One was the schedule change. Not having a late service on Christmas Eve was a big change – one that I definitely worried about – but it seems to have worked out OK.

And another difference is our Christmas tree that stands right outside in the circle.

Thanks to the generosity of a couple of our parishioners, this year our Christmas tree is firmly planted in the earth – a wise environmental choice, for sure, but that firmly planted tree also sends an important symbolic or even spiritual message.

Just like today, on Christmas morning our gospel lesson was from the Prologue of the Gospel of John.

Rather than starting with Mary and Joseph and the angels and shepherds, John takes us all the way back to “in the beginning.”

And John also introduces one of the key themes of his gospel: that in and through Jesus, God’s light has entered the world in a new way – and it’s a light that simply can’t be overcome by the shadows of the world.

So, in my homily on Christmas morning, I talked about how dark it gets around here at night – much darker than this almost life-long city dweller is used to – so dark that I avoid driving at night as much as possible.

But when I am out at night, when I approach the tricky intersection of Garrison Forest Road and St. Thomas Lane, I love seeing the light shining out from our cupola – the light shining out from our bell tower into the darkness – a sign of Christ’s Light shining into our shadowy world – reassuring me, and I hope others, that this holy light will never, ever be extinguished, no matter what.

And in the days leading up to Christmas, there was even more light shining into the shadows.

For the past few weeks, after I’ve survived that tricky intersection, as I pass the church driveway on my way back to the rectory, I’ve tried to cast a quick glance into our campus where all the lights that cover our firmly-planted Christmas tree have been shining with a surprising and beautiful brightness.

It’s so beautiful, in fact, that the thought crossed my mind that maybe we should just leave the lights on all year long.

Which is probably a bad idea, I know. 

So, we’re not going to do that. 

In fact, the lights have already been removed from the tree, earlier than I would have liked.

So, you know, now it’s up to us.

Maybe, together and individually, we can be those Christmas lights.

Maybe this can be our New Year’s Resolution – to stay firmly planted here at St. Thomas’ and shine the Light of Christ into our shadowy world.

To be Christmas lights, all year long.

And what might that look like?

Well, in addition to celebrating the First Sunday after Christmas and New Year’s Eve, we are also overjoyed to have one last Baptism of the old year.

In just a few moments, I’ll have the privilege of baptizing beautiful little Aitana. 

Right here in front of all of us – with all of us - she will begin her life in Christ.

And as we always do before every Baptism, we will renew our Baptismal Covenant – promising once again to gather here as often as we can, staying firmly rooted in this holy soil – vowing to turn away from evil and, when we mess up, repent and ask forgiveness.

We’ll pledge to proclaim the Good News by what we say and do – and affirm that we’ll seek and serve Christ in absolutely everyone and strive for justice and peace, respecting the dignity of all.

As always, only with God’s help.

And at the conclusion of the Baptism, I’ll present Aitana with her candle – which she will probably reach for because we are naturally drawn to the light – and I’ll tell her the great truth that she is the light of the world and that she should let her light shine so the world – our often shadowy world – will see her good works and give glory to God. 

An old year is drawing to a close.

I think we can all agree that, while many of us have had joyful experiences – look at Aitana here – overall, it has been a hard year.

We’ve had a joyful Christmas at St. Thomas’, but there are some among us who are mourning heartbreaking losses and lots of us are fearful about the future – our own futures and also what the new year may hold for our country and the world.

But, just like the light from our cupola, the light of Christ shines into the shadows.

Just like the lights from our firmly planted Christmas tree, lots of little lights, together, make a great light.

And so, as we begin a new year together, with God’s help, let’s resolve to shine our little lights into the shadows.

Let’s be Christmas lights, all year long.

Amen.