Readings for the Second Sunday after Christmas
This sermon was preached at Christ Episcopal Church Eureka on Sunday January 3, 2021.
At the beginning of a new year, I like to look back on the Scripture readings and teachings of the previous year and condense the messages of sermons into short prayers and blessings. I sent these in an email to you all on New Year’s Eve and I want to pray them with you this morning. But before I do that, I want to make a brief comment about this morning’s psalm, psalm 84, which was a favorite of our founder Thomas Walsh. He often quoted verse 9: “One day in your courts is better than a thousand in my own room, and to stand at the threshold of the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of the wicked” (Ps. 84:9). Mr. Walsh abbreviated it by saying, “One day in the house of the Lord is better than a thousand in the palaces of the wicked.”
This was the same psalm assigned in the lectionary at our last Annual Meeting when I gave the rector’s report. I had no idea that we would be called to spend what has felt like thousands of days in our rooms and not be able to gather together in this house of God, called to do so for the sake of preserving the health and safety of the community. But thanks to technology and our tech crew, we have fortunately been able to bring this beautiful house of God to you in the safety of your rooms; and I hope you have been able to experience your own home as a sacred space, as a lovely dwelling place of the Lord during this time.
And we will gather again in this beautiful house of God, later in this new year. And that will be a glorious day indeed because, in the words of our offertory hymn (inspired by psalm 84), “one day within thy courts excels a thousand spent away,” and God will surely bless all those who gather here to pray.
I was rereading the prayers I offered last year at this time; and the first prayer I prayed was this: “May we make our plans for the new year but hold them lightly, always ready to discover our real ministry and the glory of God in life’s inevitable interruptions.” I certainly was not expecting the painful and tragic interruption that was and is COVID-19, but I offer that prayer again: may we continue to hold all of our plans lightly and discover our real ministry and God’s glory right now in the midst of this life-changing and world-changing pandemic, that has required sacrifice from so much of us. We may long for things to go back to normal this year and, in some ways, they hopefully will, but in other ways, I’m not sure they ever will. I think we have all been changed by this collective experience, and I hope for the better. I’m sure I’ve changed. I don’t exactly know how, but I imagine all of us have deepened our appreciation for those things which we may have previously taken for granted, including the enormous privilege to gather here in this house of God. I imagine all of us have grown in fuller and deeper agreement with the words of Psalm 84: “How dear to me is your dwelling, O Lord of hosts! My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord.”
I invite you right now to close your eyes and picture yourself in the House of God, in that place where you feel God’s presence most powerfully. Maybe it’s here or in your home or among the redwoods or at the beach. Don’t overthink it. Picture yourself in the courts of the Lord and let these blessings wash over you.
May we see the divine light shining like the sun all around us; so that we make ready for the Christ, whose smile, like lightning, sets free the song of everlasting glory that now sleeps, in our paper flesh, like dynamite.
May we learn to roll the stone away from the tomb rather than pile more stones on.
May this season of absence and isolation make our hearts grow fonder of Christ’s tangible presence in the Eucharist and in our gatherings, which we can so often take for granted.
May we not be afraid because Christ is Risen and is coming to us now in the sacrament of this present moment.
May we continue to walk together in the way of love, guided and empowered by our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Door to Heaven.
May we breathe in comfort and breathe out compassion.
May we be encouraged by the faith of our fathers and mothers as we face an unknown future, and may we be swept away by the strong tide of hope into the very depths of God
May the Psalms be a lantern to our feet and a light upon our path, leading us step by step through the darkness.
May we understand and experience God’s Name as Salvation, as “I AM WHO I AM”, as Mighty Victim, as YHWH (the sound of our very breath), as the Name above All Names, and ultimately as the intimate and personal Love that knows each of us by name.
May we cultivate the Beatitudes, those attitudes that help us be present to God and to all the saints who have come out of the great ordeal, attitudes of gratitude and generosity, with malice toward none, with charity for all, as fellow citizens of the Kin-dom of God.
May we slow down to hear God in the darkness and in the silence; and may we make room in our lives to receive the wondrous gift that is given, the Advent that was and is and is to come, the presence of God among us now, beating within our very hearts. Amen.
DANIEL DeFOREST LONDON 
