John the Baptist and St. Nicholas (on the Feast of Nicholas of Myra).
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From Mark 1:1-8. A sermon given on the 2nd Sunday of Advent at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in Oklahoma City.
I wish it were possible to start sermons with a Major Motion Picture rating. Let me try it this way: (Play the 20th-century fox opening)
The following has been rated PG-13 by the Sermon Rating Association, some material may ruin Christmas for children under the age of 13 and might even ruin it for some over the age of 13.
You see, today is the Lesser Feast of St. Nicholas, December 6th, and it so happens to fall on the Principle Feast day of Sunday, which is always Jesus’ feast day. But Jesus likes it when the feast of a lesser saint falls on his feast day. He is generous that way.
Nichols was a 4th-century pastor for a group of believers in the southwest region of what is modern-day Turkey. So he, like a parade of pastors over the centuries, built relationships with everyday folks and together they strained at the mysteries of God’s work in their life, together tried to answer the questions of suffering, evil, and together, built little pockets of healing and redemption. That is the gritty work of Gospel that all of us involve ourselves in no matter what side of the equation you find yourself on. We’re not all pastors of churches, and yet, we are all pastoral. We’re all curating the communities in our lives and working to keep them healthy and life-giving.
Nicholas, as you might well imagine, accrued a lot of “mythos” to his story. Myth is one of those tricky words. Language is a living thing, and words have histories, and myth certainly does. Originally, it didn’t mean a story that is false. It has come to mean that, for certain, but I wish we could re-claim the word because it would be very useful. A myth is a story that conveys our values. It’s a carrier for the things we care about.
Did the childhood George Washington really chop down a cherry tree? Maybe, but when his father asked him if he did you can sure bet he told the truth, or so it goes in our imagination. It’s true in a different way.
And so goes with Nicholas.
That is where the PG-13 part comes in. There are some really cool stories associated with Nicholas, and I’m not even talking about the north pole stuff. I’m talking 4th century Pastor Nick. These are stories that most certainly were not true, at least in the chopping down the cherry tree sense of true. And I can’t even share them here, because many of them are truly dark and a little bit gory. Are your kids paying attention yet? Earmuffs.
Which as an aside, I will tell you that while I was convalescing from COVID-19 (and thank you to everyone for your prayers and notes) but it took me only three clicks on my laptop to start watching the new Mel Gibson Santa Clause movie, called “Fat Man.” In many respects, that film, which was rated R, captures the “atmosphere” of the mythological 4th century, St. Nicholas. And the film isn’t entirely a joke. It has poignant moments. Take my recommendation with a grain of salt.
For those of you who watch Rachel Maddow, you know that she is the champion of the “hard pivot.” I want to do one of those right now. Ready? Okay.
Jews don’t formally believe in reincarnation. Formally. Christianity, which emerged from Judaism doesn’t either. Which begs the question in the mind of my listener’s right now (that’s all of you) as to what YOU think about it. But even though those religious systems don’t have a straight-ahead understanding of it, we do flirt with ideas of eternity, the material realm, the spiritual realm, and the way those two worlds overlap.
For instance, for years I was sort of grouchy that people kept saying someone “passed on” instead of “died.” I thought we were all choosing our words so as to not fully accept the reality of what had happened. But I’ve changed my mind on that, I think part of why we say it that way is because instinctually we know there is more to existence than what we can measure.
The people who heard John the baptizer thought he was the prophet Elijah, who lived 800 years earlier. You see, even though Jews don’t believe in reincarnation, they had developed an idea of, let’s call it, the re-incorporation of a person. I can’t even say “soul” here because that is a greek conception of being human. The ancient Jewish tradition has a more holistic view, body and spirit are integrated and irrevocably connected. When someone dies, the whole person dies, or sleeps in Sheol, the ground. They return to the ground. From dust you came, and to dust you shall return. And I’m telling you, if you go home today and google: Do Jews believe in heaven? You’ll see that there isn’t one understanding, but many.
But somewhere in their “thought history”, they wondered if some of the people who died, who fell asleep in the ground, might just as easily be re-awoken, and as I like to say, be put back in the game. In Jewish mysticism, the Kabbalah, the idea is called Gilgul. The root of that word being “cycle” or “wheel” and captures the idea of a person being recycled, as needed.
In fact, as you read the Hebrew Bible you will periodically hear references to Gilgal. In context, it sounds like a city or a village. But Biblical archaeologists can’t determine that to be the case. What they think Gilgal may in fact be is some kind of stone circle, like you may have seen in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland.
All you fans of the Outlander Books need to calm down, you know what I’m talking about. Was Gilgal a thin-place between the material world and the divine world, where the two touch, each to the other?
You hear this idea in an exchange Jesus has with his disciples, he is checking in with them and asks, “Who do people say that I am?” And they tell him. “Some say, Elijah, others say John the Baptist raised from the dead.” And people had wondered the same thing about John the baptist.
Both he and Jesus shared a quality of the prophet Elijah: a brash honesty, an aggressiveness, a willingness to confront people with the ways they had abandoned what is good, and just, and reasonable.
Talking that way takes courage. And because so few people demonstrate that kind of assertiveness, a rare commodity in the pantheon of humanity, maybe when we see it there is a part of us that thinks it’s a gilgul...of Elijah.
So what’s the take-away? Well, maybe this. If Advent is a time to prepare for the coming of Jesus into your life, the Jesus that is assertive, who brings the kind of love that both comforts and disturbs, an Elijah like love, then maybe one way we can get ready for him is to identify those people in our lives who are more honest and assertive with us, the ones who tell us things we don’t want to hear, and let them work on us a little bit. A sign of a healthy spiritual life is seeking out the hard truth. At least maybe it is during Advent. I’m sure of it.
And St. Nicholas? Does he exist? Is he real? You bet he is. Gilgul; reawoken, extracted from the other side of the veil, and put back into play.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
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