The 1st Sunday in a Season of Incarnation
A Meditation on John 1Sunday, October 6, 2024
1.
A couple of weeks ago, on a warm Sunday afternoon in Springfield, Ohio, a weekly class for English Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) gathered as they usually do at the First Evangelical Haitian Church. It’s an important opportunity, obviously, for Haitian refugees, new arrivals making a strange start in a strange city at a strange time. And very often, most weeks, organizers struggle to find enough English speakers to adequately serve as conversation partners for their new neighbors.
But life has changed in Springfield, Ohio.
And earlier that particular morning, in churches across the city, preachers had promoted that day’s class and urged English-speaking congregants to consider volunteering their time, presence and patience, at a moment when the Haitian community in Springfield—from very small children to their very old housemates—were being bombarded with threats, hatred and cruelty in their homes, neighborhoods and schools.
And because they did, because those preachers preached a gospel of love that morning, and because they made that gospel of love explicit (like “SHOW UP THIS AFTERNOON” explicit)—thirty new volunteers stepped up that Sunday, thirty new volunteers joined in conversation, pitched in, made new friends, and even learned some new words and phrases in Haitian Creole. And in the process, ESOL students, ESOL teachers, new volunteers; the whole lot of them imagined together a better and (I’d say) a more American kind of city. That kind of thing can happen when we simply and faithfully show up. Just show up. For one another.
That afternoon, at the First Evangelical Haitian Church, teachers started with just one sentence, in English. “I am with you in the difficulties.” Given the threats of the weeks prior, it seemed like the place to begin. So they invited the whole room to practice that one simple sentence: “I am with you in the difficulties.”
And then, just as importantly, and just as beautifully, they taught the same sentence to their English-speaking volunteers in Haitian Creole, the native language of so many new arrivals in Springfield: “Mwen avèk ou nan difikilte yo.” “Mwen avèk ou nan difikilte yo.” I am with you in the present difficulties. One teacher said later that, when they all repeated that one sentence in Creole, a second, a third, then a fourth time, she noticed two older volunteers putting their hands to their hearts. “It was as if,” she said, “the words themselves were rearranging the chambers and arteries of their own hearts.” “Mwen avèk ou nan difikilte yo.” I am with you in the difficulties. There are words sometimes, the right words, that can turn strangers into friends, gatherings into communities. Rearranging the chambers and arteries of our hearts. And that’s what happened at the First Evangelical Haitian Church on Sunday afternoon, just a couple of weeks ago.
And, you know, that’s what brotherhood, sisterhood; that’s what citizenship looks like in Springfield, Ohio these days. And with a grateful nod to Springfield’s preachers—who turned out their people for a ‘come-to-jesus’ moment in their city—that’s what it means to embrace the vocation of a ‘beloved community’ across our fractured American landscape. We call such moments ‘kairos’ moments—decisive moments in which the gospel is either embraced or rejected, transparent moments in which what we believe is almost literally laid bare for the world to see. Does the Jesus you love justify indifference? Or does the Jesus you love insist on compassion and solidarity? “Mwen avèk ou nan difikilte yo,” they said to one another. Several with hands pressed upon their hearts. “I am with you in the difficulties.” A kairos moment for sure.
In a sense, that whole room in Springfield was full of refugees: Haitians, to be sure, fleeing unimaginable violence and grinding poverty at home; but Springfield’s old-timers too, fleeing the madness of a political party that scapegoats immigrants and trades in racist and xenophobic tropes. They were refugees, one and all! Learning new languages of love and support, risking new words together, new relationships across cultures, new visions of America. “Mwen avèk ou nan difikilte yo.” I am with you in the difficulties.
2.
The language of John’s prologue—which we’ve read today—is not terribly tame; the poetry isn’t too modest. But it is beautiful, I think we can agree. And it is designed to provoke and inspire:
In Jesus, Christians have long seen both an ordinary human being, with ordinary limitations and ordinary dreams, and a Divine Light—“a light that thrives in the depths of darkness, blazes through murky bottoms, a light that cannot and will not be quenched.” Jesus: ordinary human being and savior of the cosmos.
This alone is a conundrum that bewilders believers and non-believers alike. I imagine a good many of us here have struggled with it. How is it that a solitary human being—who lived thousands of years ago in a remarkably unremarkable land—is invested with the breath that fills all things, animates all things, coheres in all things? How is it that his word, his teaching, his song shapes the entire cosmos, every emerging landscape, every evolving species, every generation, every particle and every people? In a sense, these are the questions John’s Gospel wants us to ask, insists that we ask and explore and ponder together. “We have seen Him,” we read here, “enveloped in undeniable splendor—the one true Son of the Great I Am.” Begs the question. Can we, should we invest that kind of reverence, that kind of honor, that kind of belief in a single Palestinian Jew from the Galilean hills in the first century? I’m quite sure John doesn’t intend that we swallow this bit whole—but seeks instead a community of curiosity and faith that wonders together, and suffers together, and leans into the presence and promise of Jesus together. Not as an end point—but as a lifelong journey.
And that’s why, when the two seekers in today’s text are hanging around, when they’re showing signs of interest and maybe even pangs of spiritual desire in his presence, Jesus doesn’t say: “Believe in me.” No. He says, “Come and see.” He says, “Come and see. Follow Me, and we will camp together.” I love this new translation—maybe it’s just a rephrasing—of the ancient Greek original. “Come and see,” Jesus says. “Follow Me, and we will camp together.” The faith he’s offering us, you see, isn’t doctrinal and bossy, as if he only need convince us of a few particular beliefs (virgin birth, substitutionary atonement, transubstantiation, maybe); as if we only need download what he thinks about God and the world onto our hard drives. And then the work is done.
No, the life Jesus is extending is communal; the faith, it’s shared. John’s Gospel is about a community of friends who go to weddings together, grieve deep losses together, and feed the hungry and forgotten together; John’s Gospel is about a community of friends who learn to speak honest, painful truths about their real and precious lives, who develop the kind of tenderness and forbearance needed to survive tremendous suffering and gruesome violence; John’s Gospel is about a community of friends who come to embrace faith through their daily practices of praying for one another, eating simply and gratefully together, seeking out the scapegoated and protecting the outcasts. Camping out together. With Jesus. And the willing.
3.
Yesterday, with some of you and a neighborhood of friends, Kate and I celebrated our friend and fellow member Hannah Earle with brownies for her 40th birthday. There were no prayers, no hymns, no liturgies—though I have to say brownies make for a mighty tasty communion. It was a beautiful, bright New England afternoon, and a bittersweet gathering of dear, dear friends. Cancer, mortality, death: on our minds and in our hearts. Tears in so many eyes. All of us aware of how fleeting these moments are right now, and how few may be left. For Hannah, dear, beloved Hannah. But there was also grace on the lawn, and there was love, and there was a spirit of persevering kindness—genuine and honest: one friend after another kneeling by Hannah’s side to hold her hand and look her in the eye and invoke the deepest, truest love there is. She’s exhausted by another week in the hospital—and glad to be home this weekend. And when we parted, she hoisted herself—with great effort—from her lawn chair to give me a hug. A hug that said: I know you are with me. I know my church is with me. Hugs like that go a long way toward making all the rest of this make sense to me.
No one called on Jesus’ name at the Earles' house yesterday. No one had to. When we choose to shelter one another in the midst of worry, in a season of illness or death; when we choose to hold on to one another and work through difficulties together; when we choose to stand strong for Haitian immigrants in Ohio or Cameroonian and Chinese immigrants here in New Hampshire; when we lean with love into communion and community, not cheap communion, but costly communion; when we bear these difficulties together, when we suffer in love together, the fullness of Jesus shows up. The gifts of grace beyond our imagination. The light that cannot be quenched. The peace, the holy peace, beyond our knowing. You can’t capture that peace in a creed, I don’t think. Or even a single name. You can’t limit that light to a single religion. It’s the light of all lights. It’s the source of all beginnings and the end of all endings. It’s the light that thrives in the depths of darkness, blazes through murky bottoms. That cannot, will not ever be quenched. That’s my faith, at least. There is a light that shines in and through our loving, and beneath and beyond our suffering, and can only be welcomed with gratitude, can only be tasted in tears, can only be fully known when we choose to camp out together—a family, a church, a neighborhood. Because we care. Because we know that when one of us suffers we all suffer together. That’s the grace, the gift, the fullness, the foreverness—of Jesus.
And that’s why the preachers in Springfield sent their flocks to that ESOL class that Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks ago. Jesus wants us to ‘come and see.’ Jesus wants us to ‘camp out together.’ Jesus wants us to wait out the high waters and destruction of Hurricane Helene—together. Jesus wants us to bear up against the hatred and bigotry of the Far Right—together. And when we do, when we ‘camp out together,’ when we ride out those difficulties and storms in community—the grace and truth of God, unseen perhaps, mysterious and beyond control (always), finds us. Not because we’re smarter, not because we’re better, but because Jesus is to be found where human beings suffer. And Jesus is to be found where suffering human beings suffer together. And Jesus is to be found where you and I build beloved communities capable of truth-telling and confession, forgiveness and reconciliation, sharing and sacrifice. That’s where Divine Light shines and illuminates, blazes through murky bottoms and makes possible our rebirth as children of God, friends of the poor and misunderstood. When we ‘camp out together.’ In the difficulties. “Mwen avèk ou nan difikilte yo.”
Thanks be to God!
 |
| Springfield, Ohio, 2024 |
But life has changed in Springfield, Ohio.
And earlier that particular morning, in churches across the city, preachers had promoted that day’s class and urged English-speaking congregants to consider volunteering their time, presence and patience, at a moment when the Haitian community in Springfield—from very small children to their very old housemates—were being bombarded with threats, hatred and cruelty in their homes, neighborhoods and schools.
And because they did, because those preachers preached a gospel of love that morning, and because they made that gospel of love explicit (like “SHOW UP THIS AFTERNOON” explicit)—thirty new volunteers stepped up that Sunday, thirty new volunteers joined in conversation, pitched in, made new friends, and even learned some new words and phrases in Haitian Creole. And in the process, ESOL students, ESOL teachers, new volunteers; the whole lot of them imagined together a better and (I’d say) a more American kind of city. That kind of thing can happen when we simply and faithfully show up. Just show up. For one another.
That afternoon, at the First Evangelical Haitian Church, teachers started with just one sentence, in English. “I am with you in the difficulties.” Given the threats of the weeks prior, it seemed like the place to begin. So they invited the whole room to practice that one simple sentence: “I am with you in the difficulties.”
And then, just as importantly, and just as beautifully, they taught the same sentence to their English-speaking volunteers in Haitian Creole, the native language of so many new arrivals in Springfield: “Mwen avèk ou nan difikilte yo.” “Mwen avèk ou nan difikilte yo.” I am with you in the present difficulties. One teacher said later that, when they all repeated that one sentence in Creole, a second, a third, then a fourth time, she noticed two older volunteers putting their hands to their hearts. “It was as if,” she said, “the words themselves were rearranging the chambers and arteries of their own hearts.” “Mwen avèk ou nan difikilte yo.” I am with you in the difficulties. There are words sometimes, the right words, that can turn strangers into friends, gatherings into communities. Rearranging the chambers and arteries of our hearts. And that’s what happened at the First Evangelical Haitian Church on Sunday afternoon, just a couple of weeks ago.
And, you know, that’s what brotherhood, sisterhood; that’s what citizenship looks like in Springfield, Ohio these days. And with a grateful nod to Springfield’s preachers—who turned out their people for a ‘come-to-jesus’ moment in their city—that’s what it means to embrace the vocation of a ‘beloved community’ across our fractured American landscape. We call such moments ‘kairos’ moments—decisive moments in which the gospel is either embraced or rejected, transparent moments in which what we believe is almost literally laid bare for the world to see. Does the Jesus you love justify indifference? Or does the Jesus you love insist on compassion and solidarity? “Mwen avèk ou nan difikilte yo,” they said to one another. Several with hands pressed upon their hearts. “I am with you in the difficulties.” A kairos moment for sure.
In a sense, that whole room in Springfield was full of refugees: Haitians, to be sure, fleeing unimaginable violence and grinding poverty at home; but Springfield’s old-timers too, fleeing the madness of a political party that scapegoats immigrants and trades in racist and xenophobic tropes. They were refugees, one and all! Learning new languages of love and support, risking new words together, new relationships across cultures, new visions of America. “Mwen avèk ou nan difikilte yo.” I am with you in the difficulties.
2.
The language of John’s prologue—which we’ve read today—is not terribly tame; the poetry isn’t too modest. But it is beautiful, I think we can agree. And it is designed to provoke and inspire:
Before time itself was measured, the Voice was speaking.“Immersed in the practice of creating / All things that exist were birthed in Him.” To take seriously this one life—Jesus’ life—is to experience the connectivity, the interdependence of all things, all lives. And the love, the grace that makes us whole.
The Voice was and is God.
This celestial Word remained ever present with the Creator;
His speech shaped the entire cosmos.
Immersed in the practice of creating,
All things that exist were birthed in Him.
His breath filled all things
With a living, breathing light—
A light that thrives in the depths of darkness,
Blazes through murky bottoms.
It cannot and will not be quenched.
In Jesus, Christians have long seen both an ordinary human being, with ordinary limitations and ordinary dreams, and a Divine Light—“a light that thrives in the depths of darkness, blazes through murky bottoms, a light that cannot and will not be quenched.” Jesus: ordinary human being and savior of the cosmos.
And that’s why, when the two seekers in today’s text are hanging around, when they’re showing signs of interest and maybe even pangs of spiritual desire in his presence, Jesus doesn’t say: “Believe in me.” No. He says, “Come and see.” He says, “Come and see. Follow Me, and we will camp together.” I love this new translation—maybe it’s just a rephrasing—of the ancient Greek original. “Come and see,” Jesus says. “Follow Me, and we will camp together.” The faith he’s offering us, you see, isn’t doctrinal and bossy, as if he only need convince us of a few particular beliefs (virgin birth, substitutionary atonement, transubstantiation, maybe); as if we only need download what he thinks about God and the world onto our hard drives. And then the work is done.
No, the life Jesus is extending is communal; the faith, it’s shared. John’s Gospel is about a community of friends who go to weddings together, grieve deep losses together, and feed the hungry and forgotten together; John’s Gospel is about a community of friends who learn to speak honest, painful truths about their real and precious lives, who develop the kind of tenderness and forbearance needed to survive tremendous suffering and gruesome violence; John’s Gospel is about a community of friends who come to embrace faith through their daily practices of praying for one another, eating simply and gratefully together, seeking out the scapegoated and protecting the outcasts. Camping out together. With Jesus. And the willing.
3.
Yesterday, with some of you and a neighborhood of friends, Kate and I celebrated our friend and fellow member Hannah Earle with brownies for her 40th birthday. There were no prayers, no hymns, no liturgies—though I have to say brownies make for a mighty tasty communion. It was a beautiful, bright New England afternoon, and a bittersweet gathering of dear, dear friends. Cancer, mortality, death: on our minds and in our hearts. Tears in so many eyes. All of us aware of how fleeting these moments are right now, and how few may be left. For Hannah, dear, beloved Hannah. But there was also grace on the lawn, and there was love, and there was a spirit of persevering kindness—genuine and honest: one friend after another kneeling by Hannah’s side to hold her hand and look her in the eye and invoke the deepest, truest love there is. She’s exhausted by another week in the hospital—and glad to be home this weekend. And when we parted, she hoisted herself—with great effort—from her lawn chair to give me a hug. A hug that said: I know you are with me. I know my church is with me. Hugs like that go a long way toward making all the rest of this make sense to me.
No one called on Jesus’ name at the Earles' house yesterday. No one had to. When we choose to shelter one another in the midst of worry, in a season of illness or death; when we choose to hold on to one another and work through difficulties together; when we choose to stand strong for Haitian immigrants in Ohio or Cameroonian and Chinese immigrants here in New Hampshire; when we lean with love into communion and community, not cheap communion, but costly communion; when we bear these difficulties together, when we suffer in love together, the fullness of Jesus shows up. The gifts of grace beyond our imagination. The light that cannot be quenched. The peace, the holy peace, beyond our knowing. You can’t capture that peace in a creed, I don’t think. Or even a single name. You can’t limit that light to a single religion. It’s the light of all lights. It’s the source of all beginnings and the end of all endings. It’s the light that thrives in the depths of darkness, blazes through murky bottoms. That cannot, will not ever be quenched. That’s my faith, at least. There is a light that shines in and through our loving, and beneath and beyond our suffering, and can only be welcomed with gratitude, can only be tasted in tears, can only be fully known when we choose to camp out together—a family, a church, a neighborhood. Because we care. Because we know that when one of us suffers we all suffer together. That’s the grace, the gift, the fullness, the foreverness—of Jesus.
Thanks be to God!
