Christopher Thomas
Sermon for the Second Sunday after Christmas Day, Observing Epiphany, Year B – 1/3/21
Jeremiah 31:7-14
Psalm 84:1-8
Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-19a
Matthew 2:1-12
“Tell out my soul, the greatness of the Lord!
Unnumbered blessings give my spirit voice;
tender to me the promise of God’s word;
in God my Savior shall my heart rejoice!”
Most of you know that for many years I was the Parish Business Administrator, and many years before that, a member, of Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Houston, Texas. Christ Church Cathedral holds a lot of different, fascinating distinctions in its journey story, being the second oldest surviving congregation in Texas, and the only one of the original Houston congregations still worshiping on its original site some 180+ years. The parish currently worships in the third structure to stand at that location, a beautiful, turn-of-the-20th century Victorian-Gothic building that is loaded with signs and symbols and markers of all the people, and God’s great and mighty works that have happened along that journey.
You can ask most anyone who has been there any amount of time, and I would wager they can tell you about the great fire of 1937, and how a Roman Catholic firefighter dedicated himself to saving the beautiful, intricately carved rood screen which separates the Nave from the Chancel. They will most likely show you with pride the charring on the back side of the rood screen. They may know how the very next morning, while the building still smoked and smoldered, the bells in the tower rang out and Morning Prayer arose from out in the courtyard. By the very next Sunday, the next Sunday, the Chancel, which lay in ruins, was walled off, and Holy Eucharist was celebrated in that very same nave, glorious music straining forth by the Houston Symphony Orchestra!
I had the good fortune to know one person who actually witnessed that event, but for the most part, none of the tellers of that story, were there. They, we didn’t witness that night and the days and rebuilding first-hand. But we certainly saw the effects of the greatness of the Lord, and people to this day boast with pride over telling all of the stories that surround that event. They’re encapsulated within, and yet go far beyond those walls. They are part of the fabric of that community of faith’s journey, the place where heaven and earth line up.
I love all the symbolism that is incorporated into that room; you can make of it what you will. In the wainscoting that encircles the space, there are carved trefoils, representing the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and quatrafoils, representing the elements of Creation, earth, water, wind, and fire, interspersed, imaging this building as the place where heaven and earth come together, line up, as a veritable “axis mundi.”
The idea of “axis mundi” is nothing new; our ancestors searched for that spot across time, and space, and, interestingly enough, place, those places where God could be definitely found. Where, oh God, where, are you?
A lament that is as old as time…
Refugees and migrants and slaves and the oppressed and the hungry and the sick have cried out, “Where, oh God, where, are you?”
Like those 6th century Judeans of Jeremiah’s day, who watched their temple, their “axis mundi,” get smashed, along with their lives and livelihoods, while they are carted off into foreign lands, to live in the servitude of Babylonia, we find ourselves also wondering “Where, oh God, where, are you?” We watch as a plague ravages our nation and the world, while thousands upon thousands die, the richest nation in the world unable to provide food for nearly 50 million people, and glimmers of vaccine hope do nothing, at least yet, to stem the tide of pain and loss.
And, like those living in diaspora, shattered into the wind, we too cannot access our “axis mundi,” that place, at the corner of Inwood and Mockingbird, where we know that, for us, heaven and earth come together to provide solace, and healing, and hope for the future, as it has done so many times, through many pandemics and crises before.
It seems cruel to the Judeans; it seems cruel to us.
How could I possibly “Tell out the greatness of the Lord?” The temple is destroyed!
And then come three astrologers, with their gazes set to heaven, following a star, wherever it went, round and round and round, singing, “Noel, Noel, Noel! Born is the king of Israel!”
“Where is this king of the Jews,” they, the star-followers, ask, of the king, King Herod. Well, it’s difficult to have more than one king at a time, so this naturally causes Herod some consternation.
“We’ve heard this great good news, ‘Do not be afraid. Today, I bring you good news of great joy for ALL people,” that good news that we don’t want to hold on to; we are looking for this great good news!”
Stories, particularly stories of great goodness and justice and mercy can be frightening, some might even say threatening, to those whose foundations rest on powers and principalities of injustice and inequality. The stories these astrologers tell to Herod frighten him, for they sound as though they will expose him as not being the “axis-mundi” of his people. The story is not about him. He is not, in fact, the savior!
The savior is a baby born in the humblest of settings, a manger, a cow’s stall of all places, to migrant refugees. This is the king? Heaven and earth line up in this, the seemingly queerest of ways? It simply cannot be!
And yet, it is. THIS is the Gospel that we proclaim. THIS is the story that we tell, even though we were not there to witness it ourselves. We know this to be the truth.
And so, we tell, again and again and again, the story, of the Word (capital W) made flesh, and the star that hovers over and guides us to that spot, that “axis mundi,” that space, and place, and time, so that we can bear witness to others, the great glory and goodness of God!
Because, Gospel really isn’t Gospel, the great good news of Jesus Christ, until we tell it!
“Tell out my soul, the greatness of the Lord our God!
Unnumbered blessings give my spirit voice!”
Telling the stories. Telling your stories. Telling our stories. It’s what Jeremiah told the remnant in diaspora to do:
“Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob,
and raise shouts for the chief of the nations;
proclaim, give praise, and say,
Save, O Lord, your people, the remnant of Israel.”
Those stories are the guiding star, the “axis-mundi” that keep us connected to each other, and to God. They are the great gifts that shower us in our identity. They reaffirm for us who and whose we are, and where we have been, and even more importantly, where we are going.
In a couple of weeks, our Seminarian-in-Residence, Allen Junek, is going to offer us an Epiphany course on telling our stories. Oh, we label it evangelism, but it’s really about connecting your great faith journey story (we all have them, and they are all holy ground), to the faith journey story of St. Thomas the Apostle, and the greater faith journey story of Jesus Christ. I commend this class to you. It will be a time to listen, and to tell, the stories.
Telling is so important as a way not only to find our own way home, but to help others, everyone, find their way home as well!
“Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord to children’s children, keep telling that story, now, and for evermore!”
Amen.
