Sermon: Moving In (John 1)

I am a proud native son of California. Routinely for the first years of my time in Washington, Kentucky, and then from time to time still here in Ohio come winter I would be asked some variation of “why did you leave California?” If you remember that the question is a commentary on the winter here and not some passive aggressive jab, it makes sense. California, most years, is warm and sunny. The Southern California beaches are still populated even on Christmas Day in, but so Lake Tahoe’s many ski resorts. Growing up in Gilroy, Christmas Day was a day for shorts and polos, not layers as it is here. It was a day filled with friends and family, with great food and a bright shining sun, and here am I, a reverse Snow Bird, wearing two pairs of socks. “So why did you leave California?”

As much as I love California, I love Ohio, and Washington and Kentucky before it. I love Grandview, I love the Thurman Café, I love going to Ohio State & Bluejacket games, and I love my neighbors and friends Kate & I have. But some of you might remember that it didn’t start that way.

Not all of you know, but Kate and I lived in another house here in Columbus, before we landed here in Grandview. Moving from Louisville, Kentucky & only being in Columbus a handful of times in the run-up before the move, Kate & I did most of our house hunting online. Together we toured as much of Columbus as we could during the brief time we were here, and in the end we picked what we thought would be a fine house to rent at a price we could afford.

Three months later a different moving truck arrived and three broken car windows and a stolen car radio later, we left our first Columbus home and neighborhood in a cloud of dust. Every time we have friends or family visit we take them by the old house; the widows are rolled up, the doors are locked, we don’t get out of the car. I have a name to describe the house. I can’t use it here. Cursing from the pulpit is frowned upon. Well…usually

Not too long ago, my errands took me back to the old neighborhood. Driving down the street where I used to live, I drove slowly looking at the homes, noticing where the high-priced, granite countertops, and stainless steel appliance gentrification ended, and where the row apartments began. Creeping down the block in a different car than before we moved, I avoided eye contact and was grasped by two competing emotions: remorse & contentment. Remorse that I didn’t give the neighborhood a chance, that Kate & I didn’t look down the block and try to make friends, or at the least, avoid enemies. Maybe we should have embedded ourselves, showed them that we weren’t going anywhere, and maybe they would have respected us. Yet I was content.

Content that Kate & I got out of there before someone broke into the house. Content that our dog is going to be ok, and that if I accidentally leave my garage open all night there is a good chance that everything will be there when I awake the next morning. Content that I can walk down the street to the library or get a cup of coffee without fear. Moving was the best and easiest decision we ever made. I have no love for the old neighborhood.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'") From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.

Such icon scripture; John wrote the prologue to his Gospel likely not out of his own words but from the hymns and songs of his time. Piecing together this rich language, John surgically inserts his overarching theme of coming to know who Jesus is before you know what Jesus did. John wants his readers to know the Jesus who heals the blind and feeds the hungry so that the healings and feedings can mean something beyond sight to the blind. John wants us to know Jesus and what Jesus was about from the very start; John wants to show us God in the person of Jesus Christ.

Last Christmas, Christmas 2009, Merri Bame read John’s prologue at the 10:30 Christmas Eve service, and she made it come alive; it was inspired. Leaving the service, I found Merri and told her that I want to read Scripture like Merri Bame when I grew up. She captured the meaning of the poetry; her rhythm & cadence was perfect for the reading and I got lost in it.

Scripture can do that do you. You can get lost in the words, the construction, the poetry, and lose the forest for the trees. Every funeral I have ever lead since becoming a Pastor has included Psalm 23 in the King James Version. “He leedth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul”[1]; when I die and my remains are shot into space, I want the King James Version too. There is poetry there, just as there is a poetry in John 1, but the life and reality of Jesus Christ, the very thing John seeks to describe is not poetry, it is prose. It is the everyday reality of a God who takes on flesh and blood, and came down.

Hear now the Word of God as it comes to us this day in the Gospel of John, taken from an interpretation called The Message[2]

The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word. The Word was God, in readiness for God from day one. Everything was created through him; nothing—not one thing!— came into being without him. What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn't put it out. There once was a man, his name John, sent by God to point out the way to the Life-Light. He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in. John was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light.

The Life-Light was the real thing: Every person entering Life he brings into Light. He was in the world, the world was there through him, and yet the world didn't even notice. He came to his own people, but they didn't want him. But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed, and would do what he said, He made to be their true selves, their child-of-God selves. These are the God-begotten, not blood-begotten, not flesh-begotten, not sex-begotten.

The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish. John pointed him out and called, "This is the One! The One I told you was coming after me but in fact was ahead of me. He has always been ahead of me, has always had the first word."

We all live off his generous bounty, gift after gift after gift. We got the basics from Moses, and then this exuberant giving and receiving, This endless knowing and understanding— all this came through Jesus, the Messiah. No one has ever seen God, not so much as a glimpse. This one-of-a-kind God-Expression, who exists at the very heart of the Father, has made him plain as day.

The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. From the streets of Calcutta, to the mansions that border golf courses, Jesus moves into the neighborhood. From the slums of Nairobi, Kenya to Beverly Hills to communities that form under bridges to Park Avenue West, Jesus moves into the neighborhood. Jesus moved into my old neighborhood too. He came down and found us along the very streets where we live out our lives. This is the very great and wonderful news of the Christmas miracle, that Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son, lives in our neighborhood, and he lives in the ghetto. God came down & in Christ, finds us where we lie down and where we rise up and it is there that the Word Becomes Flesh.

So what does all this mean?

First, I would be remiss if I didn’t say something about how dangerous the Son of God is to our neighborhoods. Car Windows, car stereos, living with the house alarm constantly engaged set on no-delay, was enough for Kate and I but those seem insignificant compared to the danger that lies within our gates. $120 and a phone call repaired my car window; got me back to status quo. Imagine the danger to “the way it has always been” to business as usual, to the comfortable when the Love of God moves into the neighborhood. But then again, we don’t have to imagine.

Last week’s scripture, the story of Jesus’ and his family’s escape to Egypt gives us a clue as to exactly how threatening the Word Made Flesh truly is. “When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: "A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more."[3]

Second, it is important to understand even though Jesus moved into our neighborhoods there still will be darkness. The darkness cannot overcome the light but the darkness is still there. Crime on our streets, wars rage, little girls are sold into prostitution; the darkness is still there yet we know a light does shine and for many this is impossible to believe.

As I went to bed each night wondering if this would be the night someone would break into my house, I didn’t find a bit of light, only darkness. Light seemed foolish when the darkness was everywhere yet in every neighborhood, in every city and nation, in the darkest of places, there is a light shining & as people of Christ we can live knowing that in everything there is light. Foolish? Naïve? Ignorant of the sickness that plagues our society? Jesus has moved into the neighborhood.

My prayer for this new year is that we may come to understand that the Love of God, the Word Made Flesh, the Son of God Jesus Christ is found and walks along the intersections of every neighborhood reconciling the world to God, and as we have heard, whoever “believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said, He made to be their true selves, their child-of-God selves. These are the God-begotten, not blood-begotten, not flesh-begotten, not sex-begotten.”[4] Praise be to God

[1] King James Version, Psalm 23:2b-3a

[2] Peterson, Eugene, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language, “John 1:1-18”, NavPress 2002, Colorado Springs, Colorado

[3] New Revised Standard Version, Matthew 2:16-18

[4] The Message, John 1:12-13