In this episode, I discuss asexuality, my history, and the history of it.
[00:00:00] Please be seated. Our second scripture reading for today comes from the Gospel of Luke chapter 2.
[00:00:12] And Mary said,
[00:00:14] My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
[00:00:20] For God has looked with favor on the lowliness of God's servant.
[00:00:26] Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed,
[00:00:30] for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is God's name.
[00:00:35] The mercy of the Lord is for those who fear God from generation to generation,
[00:00:40] God who has shown strength with their arm and scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
[00:00:47] God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.
[00:00:52] God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.
[00:00:58] God has helped the servant Israel in remembrance of divine mercy,
[00:01:03] according to the promise of our ancestors, to Abraham and his descendants forever.
[00:01:11] May God bless us with understanding, and would you join me in prayer?
[00:01:16] O God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight.
[00:01:24] O God, our strength and our Redeemer.
[00:01:28] Amen.
[00:01:30] Very exciting news.
[00:01:32] Very, very exciting news today.
[00:01:35] We light the pink one.
[00:01:40] Perhaps you are wondering, what is the deal with that pink one?
[00:01:44] Well, there are four Sundays in Advent, hence four candles,
[00:01:48] and each Sunday we light a candle as a prayer.
[00:01:51] And these prayers are for what the world that is to come will be like.
[00:01:57] These prayers are for hope, peace, joy, and love.
[00:02:02] Very basically, Advent is a time of preparation,
[00:02:05] specifically preparation of our spirits for the coming of Jesus.
[00:02:09] We tell the story of Jesus coming into the world the first time
[00:02:14] in order to prepare our spirits for Christ's return in the world again.
[00:02:20] That time when God's will shall be done on earth no less than it is in heaven.
[00:02:26] Advent is a time of preparing our hearts for that world,
[00:02:29] a world of hope, peace, joy, and love.
[00:02:34] That partially answers the question anyway.
[00:02:37] All four of those things, hope, peace, joy, and love,
[00:02:39] surely all of those are pretty great,
[00:02:41] but one and only one gets to be pink.
[00:02:45] And that is joy.
[00:02:48] Joy, then, is special, if not of higher importance,
[00:02:52] than at least distinct from hope, peace, and love.
[00:02:58] Because joy, joy is something that God is in need of too.
[00:03:08] Need a little bit of runway to get there though.
[00:03:09] The story of Jesus coming into the world the first time, I mean,
[00:03:14] that is a story about a host of angels from the courts of highest heaven,
[00:03:19] about lowly shepherds living outdoors,
[00:03:22] a story of young women yet to be married,
[00:03:25] of an aging married couple who had long since given up hope of children,
[00:03:30] the story of Jesus.
[00:03:33] It is actually full of singing more than anything.
[00:03:38] It's full of singing.
[00:03:40] In Luke's gospel, the first two chapters contain four songs.
[00:03:45] That's a lot of songs.
[00:03:47] A woman who is said to be unable to bear children delivers a healthy baby,
[00:03:52] one who is to pave the way for Jesus.
[00:03:54] And the song the child's parents sing is one of joy that God is ever faithful.
[00:03:59] The name of that song is Benedictus.
[00:04:04] An old man who has been faithful to God his entire life,
[00:04:07] holds the hope of the world in his hands.
[00:04:12] And his song is one of joy that in his own curled fingers,
[00:04:15] he holds a hope greater than he imagined.
[00:04:17] It is called the nunc dimitis.
[00:04:20] A young woman is told that her strong hips would bear the weight of the world's salvation.
[00:04:25] And her song is one of defiant joy that God would choose her for an honor greater than any worldly wealth.
[00:04:33] That song is called Magnificat.
[00:04:37] Each of these songs, they are expressions of joy.
[00:04:40] Because the Savior's coming into the world has swept the people up into the story of God.
[00:04:46] And their lives are forever changed.
[00:04:49] Forever altered at the essence of what it means to be humanity by their encounter with God in Jesus Christ.
[00:04:56] For them, their joy is so deep that it must be sung to give it adequate expression.
[00:05:05] Singing is an expression of joy too profound for the sterility of mere word to capture
[00:05:12] and which must necessarily overflow into music, adding tone and rhythm and interval and harmony
[00:05:19] to transform the intent to praise into the actual practice of praising.
[00:05:26] And what unites them, what unites these songs in joy,
[00:05:31] is that they are about humanity partnering with God.
[00:05:36] This is best seen in Mary.
[00:05:40] Mary who makes her own body the site and source of divine and human partnership.
[00:05:46] All that Jesus would do in his life had its origin in Mary's mothering.
[00:05:54] Every healing came from the body that Mary's womb had nurtured.
[00:05:59] Every teaching came from the mind that found its first teacher in Mary's voice and shepherding.
[00:06:06] The salvation of humanity, it is not from God acting alone.
[00:06:11] The salvation of humanity comes from human partnership with God
[00:06:15] seen first in Mary's joyful yes to God.
[00:06:20] A yes so joyful that it becomes a song of praise.
[00:06:25] The Magnificat, which means my soul magnifies the Lord.
[00:06:32] That is what joy is.
[00:06:36] Joy is when what has transpired, it is beyond my control and more wonderful than I could have achieved on my own.
[00:06:45] That is what joy is.
[00:06:46] When what has transpired is more wonderful than I could have achieved on my own.
[00:06:54] There are four songs that accompany the birth of Jesus.
[00:06:59] Three of these songs are expressions of human joy.
[00:07:01] We've just covered those.
[00:07:03] That's understandable.
[00:07:04] Why?
[00:07:05] The Savior's coming into the world has swept the people up into the story of God.
[00:07:10] But remember the fourth song.
[00:07:14] The fourth song is about God's joy.
[00:07:19] It is sung by the hosts of heaven.
[00:07:23] It is sung by the hosts of heaven because the Savior's coming into the world has swept God into the story of humanity.
[00:07:30] And God was forever changed at the essence.
[00:07:33] And in such a way that for all the rest of time creation was finally complete in the light of God's partnering with humanity.
[00:07:42] Joy.
[00:07:43] I said that of hope, peace, joy, and love.
[00:07:49] Joy is unique because God is in need of that too.
[00:07:55] Because as wonderful as hope, peace, and love are, surely we have deep need of them.
[00:08:01] As wonderful as these are, God has no need of them.
[00:08:04] God already has these.
[00:08:07] Hope.
[00:08:07] God has this already.
[00:08:09] God the eternal for whom yesterday and tomorrow are just the same.
[00:08:13] God has all the hope she needs.
[00:08:18] She promises a better world.
[00:08:21] Because God can see it as easily as you or I can see the sunrise or sunset.
[00:08:28] Peace.
[00:08:30] God has not a single enemy.
[00:08:32] In all of creation, God has peace.
[00:08:34] Even if I were to hate God to the very soles of my shoes, God would not count me as an enemy.
[00:08:41] And love.
[00:08:43] God has this.
[00:08:44] God is this, friends.
[00:08:46] God is love.
[00:08:48] Hope, peace, and love.
[00:08:49] These are gifts from God to us for which we can be thankful.
[00:08:57] But joy is different.
[00:09:01] God is in need of joy just as we are.
[00:09:05] Joy is when the world is more wonderful than I could make with my own power.
[00:09:13] For God the Almighty then.
[00:09:16] What joy joy must be.
[00:09:21] When humanity chooses to partner with God, that is a joy that is longer than eternity.
[00:09:28] God's joy is because humanity has chosen to love God.
[00:09:31] And this is joy because God cannot demand love.
[00:09:36] Love that is extracted by demand.
[00:09:39] This is no love.
[00:09:42] Love must be freely given.
[00:09:45] That is what makes it love.
[00:09:47] Love.
[00:09:49] In the birth of Jesus Christ.
[00:09:51] Finally, finally.
[00:09:54] Humanity loves God just as God is.
[00:09:58] We love God unconditionally because God had ten perfect little toes to count over and over and over.
[00:10:08] We love God because of how God's hair smelled in the afternoon.
[00:10:13] We love God because of the rise and fall of God's chest and sleep breath.
[00:10:18] We love God because the weakness of God's neck called out for tender hands to form a cradle beneath God's head.
[00:10:26] We love God deeply, completely, fiercely, and finally God was who God had always dreamed of being God with us.
[00:10:36] Joy.
[00:10:42] Almighty God comes to humanity as a tiny infant.
[00:10:46] No longer almighty and untouchable in highest heaven, but weak and vulnerable in a lowly manger, but beloved for that.
[00:10:55] Beloved by humanity at last and for God and all her angels.
[00:11:00] It was glory in the highest heaven.
[00:11:04] Joyous beyond the capacity of speech's sterility.
[00:11:08] A song of delirious joy bursting from heaven, calling out to embrace the whole world in goodwill.
[00:11:16] Overflowing into canticles of praise by rank upon rank of angelic host.
[00:11:21] A song that God's voice joined in to.
[00:11:27] God's own small voice.
[00:11:30] Joining in the song of joy.
[00:11:34] In a voice that sounded just like an infant's cry.
[00:11:41] Amen.