In the beginning the stars were not yet shining.
In the beginning the silver wings of the Spirit
sliced through the mist
that hung over the face of the waters:
the vaporous breath of God, from which all things
came to be.
All the planets were contained
in a hazelnut, or less.
The mountains were collapsed
into a pebble, or less.
The seas were carefully hidden
beneath the surface of the waters,
themselves obscured
beneath the blurred horizon of the mist.
The rivers swirled in tiny vortices,
waiting to be unfurled,
that would fit in a demitasse, or less.
The trees of all the forests were packed tight,
in the space of a single seed, or less.
The birds’ wings were folded;
their feathers un-fluffed.
The fishes’ scales stacked away,
in poker chip piles too small to see, or less.
Every living creature waited
in the miniscule wings of creation;
in a minute green room,
or something less.
The first man, first woman
curled up in the so-far un-realized basinet
of God’s imagination.
And the Spirit’s silver wings beat silently,
and the waters rippled
beneath his glide,
in the long and ageless moments
before the beginning,
and the stars were not yet shining.
Into this silence a Word
was spoken,
breathed,
announced.
Before the “let there be”s,
before the Light;
in the beginning was the Word.
May I speak of the things that were
before I was, or any of us?
May I presume to know something
about what it sounded like,
emanating from the mind and mouth of God,
hanging in the mist,
and dropping into the waters
to stir them,
and loose the whole creation?
I may. Only because
I have been told, as you have been,
that it was so in the beginning.
And because, like you,
I have been allowed to imagine
what that Word sounds like,
what it looks like,
how it’s spelled.
I have, in fact, been invited
to try to spell it myself;
to live every day
perfecting my penmanship
so that I can write the Word
in my own life;
pronouncing it in the mirror,
so that I can master its vowels,
and include all its consonants.
And so have you.
To do this would mean to shape every day
of our lives by the contours of this Word:
faith, hope, love,
there may be others,
but these three abide,
enough for us to try to wrangle,
especially the greatest of them.
May I sing of this Word
in a long and melismatic melody,
worthy of the Word?
May I stretch out my song
as the Word reached out
the long arms of its letters
through every aeon of time?
May I delight to shout
the Good News
that I myself have encountered this Word
in the fold of my family,
around my own dinner table,
on a mountain in the northwest,
in disc of bread and a sip of wine,
and on the way to Santiago,
to name a few places?
I may. Only because
if I did not the stones themselves
would cry out,
as these carved ones have been trained to do.
And once you have trained a stone,
it is very, very good
at doing what you have trained it to do,
over and over.
But I rejoice
that though I am less steadfast
than the stones,
I have more modes to sing in
than they do.
And so do you.
I can sing of the stars,
I can sing of the angels,
I can sing of the shepherds,
I can sing of Mary and of Joseph,
I can sing of the inn-keeper, if I want,
and make them all syllables of the Word.
For they all help to spell out the Word,
and the mystery
of how the Word became flesh
and dwelt among us.
I can sing of the beginning
of all things,
and of what was
before the beginning,
wound tight in a tiny ball of string theory,
or less.
I can sing, because
in the beginning,
when the Word echoed across the waters,
the blessed Son of God held all things
in the space of his infant hand, or less;
even you and me.
And when the mist rang out
with the “let there be”s,
the Spirit’s mighty wings
towing them across the waters,
the Word flung open its tiny hand,
unleashing the forces of creation,
and lit the stars, so they could shine
with awesome candle-power.
And more amazing than the trick
of lighting up the sky with stars was this:
he made the likes of you and me.
And for a long time,
it was as though we were failed stars,
flung out, but crashed and burned,
on this one planet;
so much unrealized potential.
And sometimes it still feels this way:
like we are lumps of primordial carbon
that never bust into starlight.
There is still so much darkness,
that feels like the darkness that must have surrounded the un-lit stars,
like deep caverns
where they may have been stored
before being cast aloft.
In our deep caverns of darkness
there is the sound of gunfire,
there are slogans of ethnic hatred,
there is hunger in a land of plenty,
there are schools that could be built,
but no one who is willing to build them,
there are addictions
of the most exotic and mundane varieties,
there is a narrow pride
that would rather be self-righteous than sorry,
and a thousand other shades of black
that makes for such alluring darkness.
Have we lived long enough
in the darkness?
Have our eyes become so accustomed to it
that we did not notice the Light shining
in the darkness,
and that the darkness has not overcome it?
To us, in our darkness,
was sent the Word made flesh,
spoken with the soft gurgles of an infant,
written in the pinks and baby blues
of a nursery,
armored with nothing
but the soft skin,
as soft as any other baby’s bottom.
And all we have to do
is receive him;
is believe on his Name,
and in return we are given power
by the one who lit the un-lit stars in heaven:
power to become
the un-gendered sons of God.
In the beginning the stars were not yet shining.
And the Word had been spoken,
but was, as yet, un-born.
But now the stars are brightly shining,
and the Word is made flesh
and dwells among us.
And if we attend, if we listen, and pray
we can behold his glory,
we can know his grace, his truth;
from his fullness we can all receive
grace upon grace…
…and we can hardly know what that means,
until we open our mouths
with the stars of the morning,
and all the sons of heaven,
and sing!
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
27 December 2009
Saint Mark’s, Philadelphia