Luke 2:1-20
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
When we hear this very familiar Christmas story, it’s easy to hear what we remember from childhood and from past Christmases. The challenge is to hear what this living Word is saying to us today, in our lives and our world, because the story of the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ, the wonder and mystery of the Word made flesh, isn’t just something that happened in history. The incarnation – God made human – matters today to all of us here and now.
As I was thinking about how we hear this story I remembered the scene near the beginning of Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” when the angel Clarence is summoned and begins to learn about George Bailey. From the heavens above, he and Gabriel look down on earth and, at first, it’s a little blurry and then Clarence can see the town of Bedford Falls where the story takes place. Reflecting on the gospel story tonight, we are zooming in from far above to pay closer attention to what is happening on the ground.
In tonight’s gospel the very first person Luke names is Emperor Caesar Augustus, immediately putting us in the Holy Roman Empire, and in any other story of the birth of a king, we’d expect to see a palace or castle. But Luke keeps moving and next he names the governor of Syria which then was a Roman province and we have a little better sense of where this story takes place. A place that looks different from here, a place where people lived thousands of years before the birth of Jesus. But Luke doesn’t stop there; he keeps going, on to Nazareth, and then to Bethlehem, where Joseph and Mary have traveled.
Those details may not seem important, but they are, because we are hearing the story of the Savior of the World, and at that time, that was the title given to Caesar Augustus. He was called the Savior and he was called the Son of God. So from its very beginning, the birth of Jesus turned the world as it was known on its head.
It’s also important to hear that this isn’t a story about Joseph and Mary traveling to be with family; if the governor ordered a census, it was required and they had to make the trip. Maybe Joseph couldn’t pay for someone to stay with Mary, maybe Mary didn’t want to be left in Nazareth when she was heavy with child; we don’t know. What we know is that when we meet them in the Gospel, they have traveled a long way to an unfamiliar place, and now the time has come for the baby to be born.
And that is when Luke tells us that there is no room in the inn.
Sometimes that is heard as Joseph, Mary and Jesus are on the street; other times, we hear the word “manger” and recall nativities we’ve seen and imagine a cow stall and a wooden trough. The finer points of Palestinian sociology and archaeology aren’t really the point.
Whatever their surroundings, it feels very cold and very lonely for Joseph and Mary, if it were not for the presence of this Child in whom so much has already been promised in the words of the angel who visited Mary: “the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.” (Luke 1:35)
Writing about the birth of Jesus, Martin Luther said there was nothing fearful or frightening about God coming to earth as vulnerable infant. Instead God who comes to us as a baby brings us comfort and consolation. [i] In her poem Amazing Peace, poet Maya Angelou wrote, “Hope spreads around the earth brightening all things.”[ii] This is the Child whose birth we celebrate tonight.
Presbyterian Ann Weems wrote in her poem, “In Search of our Kneeling Places” about being “Bethlehem-bound.” All Advent we have been Bethlehem-bound, and tonight we find ourselves alongside Joseph and Mary bearing witness to this wondrous miracle.
In his Christmas sermons, Luther scolded Bethlehem for being inhospitable to the Baby Jesus, and he didn’t give the rest of us much credit either. He said that we would have been happy today to help the Baby and wash His linen because we know Christ, but if we had been there in Bethlehem, we would have done no better. [iii]
Weems is gentler but her challenge is similar. She wrote, “In each heart lies a Bethlehem, an inn where we must ultimately answer whether there is room or not.” [iv]
That is the question we hear tonight as we listen again to the Christmas story: “Will we make room for Jesus?”
God has come and is offering us God’s own Son, who comes into this world to give us life eternal, to make us children of God, just as He is. God makes space in our hearts to receive Christ with all the wonder and mystery of the Incarnation. If anything has distracted us from Jesus before tonight, it is gone now. We are here this Christmas Eve to receive our King, our Savior and Messiah.
Will we make room?
Let us pray…
Holy God,
We give you thanks for coming to us as an infant,
God enfleshed, without titles above us or power over us.
We give thanks for the hopefulness, comfort and consolation that the birth of Jesus brings to us and to the world.
Help us make room in our hearts and lives that we may known your abundant love and grace.
We pray in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.
Amen.
[i] Martin Luther’s Christmas Book. 33
[ii] Maya Angelou, Amazing Peace.
[iii] Martin Luther’s Christmas Book. 31.
[iv] Ann Weems. “In Search of Our Kneeling Places.” Kneeling in Bethlehem.
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
Sunday, December 22, 2019
Fourth Sunday of Advent
Matthew 1:18-25
In this morning’s gospel, Matthew tells us the birth story of Jesus, but he doesn’t include the shepherds, the manger or even Bethlehem. In fact, we don’t get any of the familiar details that are in the Lukan narrative we’ll hear on Christmas Eve or we might remember from Christmas pageants and plays. Instead Matthew just gives us the barest of facts:
But this in-breaking and changing didn’t happen without some chaos and upheaval first as Joseph wrestled with how he would respond, and as he listened for the Lord to speak and show him how to move forward.
Marrying her, Joseph saves Mary from disgrace, likely poverty and possible death, but Matthew doesn’t tell us
how Mary responded or what they weathered from the time they were married until Jesus was born.
Often our images of Mary and the baby Jesus show a serene and peaceful mother gazing at a quiet, content, cherubic infant, but this year on social media there’s been another image, one that shows Mary stretched out, sleeping, behind Joseph who holds the sleeping baby Jesus with arms flung up above his head. Perhaps this image better reflects the sleepless and exhausting reality of the early days of parenthood. It is a precious time, but it’s rarely peaceful and it’s often unpredictable.
And yet, while we cannot know what the Holy Family experienced, what we hear from Matthew is that God was there in the midst of their uncertainty and turmoil. There, God spoke the words, “Do not be afraid” and they listened. And the child was born and he was named Jesus and everything changed.
The gospel shows us that the people God uses here on earth are not perfect, even for something as important as bearing God’s Son into the world.
We don’t have to have everything together and our lives don’t have to always go according to our plans. Those aren’t pre-requisites for God to act or speak through us. In Joseph and Mary we see that God works through ordinary people, like you and me, who are living our everyday lives with our ups and downs and with our fears, questions and uncertainties.
I wonder though, when God breaks in, how do we respond?
Do we even recognize God is at work in those moments?
Joseph at least had a dream where the angel of the Lord appeared to him. Few of us today receive such visible and explicit signs of God’s presence and instruction.
Describing the hiddenness of God, Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann says God may be at work in us in ways we don’t even recognize.[i] He says, when it is positive we may call it a miracle, but we don’t often use that word when we see what is happening as negative.[ii] Imagine if Joseph had gone ahead with his plan and dismissed Mary quietly; Jesus would not have been in the line of David and his birth would not have fulfilled the prophecy from Isaiah that we hear in today’s text. Where would Jesus Emmanuel be found then?
As we wait with Joseph and Mary for the Messiah this Advent, may we be alert to the places where God is breaking into our lives, and instead of insisting on our original plan being the “right” one, may we listen and obey, and get out of the way so that God can act in miraculous ways for the sake of the world.
Amen.
[i] Walter Brueggemann. The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann, Volume 1. 60.
[ii] Walter Brueggemann. “The Prophetic Imagination.” https://onbeing.org/programs/walter-brueggemann-the-prophetic-imagination-dec2018/, accessed 12/21/2019
-Henri Nouwen
In this morning’s gospel, Matthew tells us the birth story of Jesus, but he doesn’t include the shepherds, the manger or even Bethlehem. In fact, we don’t get any of the familiar details that are in the Lukan narrative we’ll hear on Christmas Eve or we might remember from Christmas pageants and plays. Instead Matthew just gives us the barest of facts:
Some two thousand years ago, there was a girl engaged or contracted to be married to a man.There was a plan and then God broke in and everything changed.
And then the man learned that the girl was pregnant — a revelation that could bring shame upon him and could even cost the girl her life.
And then an angel appears to the man and tells him, “Do not be afraid.”
And the man follows the Lord’s instructions; he marries the girl and when the child is born, the man names him Jesus.
But this in-breaking and changing didn’t happen without some chaos and upheaval first as Joseph wrestled with how he would respond, and as he listened for the Lord to speak and show him how to move forward.
Marrying her, Joseph saves Mary from disgrace, likely poverty and possible death, but Matthew doesn’t tell us
how Mary responded or what they weathered from the time they were married until Jesus was born.
Often our images of Mary and the baby Jesus show a serene and peaceful mother gazing at a quiet, content, cherubic infant, but this year on social media there’s been another image, one that shows Mary stretched out, sleeping, behind Joseph who holds the sleeping baby Jesus with arms flung up above his head. Perhaps this image better reflects the sleepless and exhausting reality of the early days of parenthood. It is a precious time, but it’s rarely peaceful and it’s often unpredictable.
And yet, while we cannot know what the Holy Family experienced, what we hear from Matthew is that God was there in the midst of their uncertainty and turmoil. There, God spoke the words, “Do not be afraid” and they listened. And the child was born and he was named Jesus and everything changed.
The gospel shows us that the people God uses here on earth are not perfect, even for something as important as bearing God’s Son into the world.
We don’t have to have everything together and our lives don’t have to always go according to our plans. Those aren’t pre-requisites for God to act or speak through us. In Joseph and Mary we see that God works through ordinary people, like you and me, who are living our everyday lives with our ups and downs and with our fears, questions and uncertainties.
I wonder though, when God breaks in, how do we respond?
Do we even recognize God is at work in those moments?
Joseph at least had a dream where the angel of the Lord appeared to him. Few of us today receive such visible and explicit signs of God’s presence and instruction.
Describing the hiddenness of God, Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann says God may be at work in us in ways we don’t even recognize.[i] He says, when it is positive we may call it a miracle, but we don’t often use that word when we see what is happening as negative.[ii] Imagine if Joseph had gone ahead with his plan and dismissed Mary quietly; Jesus would not have been in the line of David and his birth would not have fulfilled the prophecy from Isaiah that we hear in today’s text. Where would Jesus Emmanuel be found then?
As we wait with Joseph and Mary for the Messiah this Advent, may we be alert to the places where God is breaking into our lives, and instead of insisting on our original plan being the “right” one, may we listen and obey, and get out of the way so that God can act in miraculous ways for the sake of the world.
Amen.
[i] Walter Brueggemann. The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann, Volume 1. 60.
[ii] Walter Brueggemann. “The Prophetic Imagination.” https://onbeing.org/programs/walter-brueggemann-the-prophetic-imagination-dec2018/, accessed 12/21/2019
-Henri Nouwen
Sunday, December 15, 2019
Third Sunday of Advent
Matthew 11:2-11
We have jumped ahead again in Matthew’s gospel and now the son of Elizabeth and Zechariah, the cousin of Jesus called John, the same John who had baptized Jesus in the river Jordan is in prison. And Matthew tells us he has heard what the Messiah – the Christ, the Anointed One – has been doing and now he is sending his disciples to talk to Jesus.
Do you ever wonder what John heard? Had he caught snippets of conversations between the guards at the castle, like a game of telephone where the words become garbled and the message confused, or had friendly fishermen embellished the stories, so that they took on mythic proportions?
I like to imagine that faithful people found a way to get word to John that all he had foretold was now taking place. The crowds who had witnessed the sermon on the mount were now repeating it from memory. And others were rejoicing that Jesus not only healed a leper and the demoniac, but also a Roman centurion’s servant and a hemorrhaging woman. And, I can hear their excited whispers, had John heard that Jesus had opened the eyes of the blind?
We can’t know how John heard what was happening some ninety miles north of him in Galilee. But somehow word of what Jesus was saying and doing had reached his cousin and now he sends his own disciples to Jesus to talk with him.
Sometimes when we hear the question asked by John’s disciples, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” we hear doubt. Maybe they thought the expected Messiah would come with more fury, that Rome would be vanquished immediately, or the kings and emperors would be brought low. Maybe they though the least this supposed Savior could do was to get his cousin out of prison.
But in his sermon on this text, Martin Luther preached that John wasn’t in doubt; after all we know from all four gospels that he recognized Jesus as the Christ, he baptized him, saw the Spirit descend upon him in bodily form like a dove, and heard God say, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.”[i]
John is like Moses, standing on top of Pisgah, opposite Jericho. (Deut. 34:1) Standing in his prison cell, unable to go where Jesus is going, John points to Him as the One to follow.
John asked his question on behalf of his disciples who did not yet see Jesus as the Christ. Sending them to encounter Jesus face to face, he knows they will witness the transformation that is taking place as Jesus ministers and teaches, heals and saves.
During this season of Advent, we find ourselves traveling with these other disciples, waiting for the One who has already come. We catch glimpses of the Kingdom that is promised, and we hear stories of thanksgiving and praise, gratitude and joy. But we also see the suffering around us and in the world and we wonder where the balm is.
The Good News is that Jesus doesn’t respond with ridicule or contempt or send the questioning disciples away. Instead, Jesus invites them into the reign of God that is happening, asking them,
“What did you expect to see?”
Our expectations can keep us from seeing what is happening.
Our lives are laden with expectations. And in these weeks leading up to Christmas, it can feel like there isn’t any time to wait or any time to watch. It can feel like you are just hurtling from one event to the next and any kind of Advent practice of preparing for the Messiah can feel like one more thing that has to be done before you can rest. We hear and see these unrealistic expectations in commercials and stores and in tv, movies and songs, or we place them on ourselves to continue traditions and rituals that we remember from childhood. And the expectations conflict with one another. Be still but light the Advent wreath and open a new square on the Advent calendar every day. Remember Jesus is the reason for the season but also remember to buy presents for your favorite people. Jesus gives us permission to name the expectations we have put on ourselves or we have picked up from others and discard the ones that keep us from seeing Jesus transforming the world around us.
Christ calls us to open our eyes to see the world anew, alert to what God is doing. Who is being set free from burdens? Where is healing taking place? Where is good news being shared?
This past week the local paper ran a story on the Totally Free Clothes Store, which is over on Warren Street. A local attorney took space he had in his office and transformed it into a place where people can get donated clothing. He doesn’t ask them for ID or to prove they’re deserving. He is adamant that “people deserve clothes every day of the year.” The naked are clothed.
Last week several of our women went Christmas shopping for the holiday backpacks for Graham School students. They bought board games, make your own ornaments and Christmas candy to put together gift bags and included the cards you gave, too. The gifts went to all of the students who rely on the backpacks to have access to food when they’re not in school. The hungry are fed.
And on Wednesday another group from our congregation collected all the body wash and washcloths and razors we donated for Heritage Oaks and put them in packages. Those items will be delivered this week and the people will be reminded of the Good News that they are not alone in this world, but are loved by God and by their siblings in Christ.
This Advent, may we let go of expectations that keep us from seeing Jesus in the world around us, and meeting Jesus in our own lives, may we be transformed.
[i] Martin Luther. “Christ's Answer to John The Baptist.” http://web.archive.org/web/20021220115716/www.markers.com/ink/mljblg.htm, accessed 12/13/2019.
We have jumped ahead again in Matthew’s gospel and now the son of Elizabeth and Zechariah, the cousin of Jesus called John, the same John who had baptized Jesus in the river Jordan is in prison. And Matthew tells us he has heard what the Messiah – the Christ, the Anointed One – has been doing and now he is sending his disciples to talk to Jesus.
Do you ever wonder what John heard? Had he caught snippets of conversations between the guards at the castle, like a game of telephone where the words become garbled and the message confused, or had friendly fishermen embellished the stories, so that they took on mythic proportions?
I like to imagine that faithful people found a way to get word to John that all he had foretold was now taking place. The crowds who had witnessed the sermon on the mount were now repeating it from memory. And others were rejoicing that Jesus not only healed a leper and the demoniac, but also a Roman centurion’s servant and a hemorrhaging woman. And, I can hear their excited whispers, had John heard that Jesus had opened the eyes of the blind?
We can’t know how John heard what was happening some ninety miles north of him in Galilee. But somehow word of what Jesus was saying and doing had reached his cousin and now he sends his own disciples to Jesus to talk with him.
Sometimes when we hear the question asked by John’s disciples, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” we hear doubt. Maybe they thought the expected Messiah would come with more fury, that Rome would be vanquished immediately, or the kings and emperors would be brought low. Maybe they though the least this supposed Savior could do was to get his cousin out of prison.
But in his sermon on this text, Martin Luther preached that John wasn’t in doubt; after all we know from all four gospels that he recognized Jesus as the Christ, he baptized him, saw the Spirit descend upon him in bodily form like a dove, and heard God say, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.”[i]
John is like Moses, standing on top of Pisgah, opposite Jericho. (Deut. 34:1) Standing in his prison cell, unable to go where Jesus is going, John points to Him as the One to follow.
John asked his question on behalf of his disciples who did not yet see Jesus as the Christ. Sending them to encounter Jesus face to face, he knows they will witness the transformation that is taking place as Jesus ministers and teaches, heals and saves.
During this season of Advent, we find ourselves traveling with these other disciples, waiting for the One who has already come. We catch glimpses of the Kingdom that is promised, and we hear stories of thanksgiving and praise, gratitude and joy. But we also see the suffering around us and in the world and we wonder where the balm is.
The Good News is that Jesus doesn’t respond with ridicule or contempt or send the questioning disciples away. Instead, Jesus invites them into the reign of God that is happening, asking them,
“What did you expect to see?”
Our expectations can keep us from seeing what is happening.
Our lives are laden with expectations. And in these weeks leading up to Christmas, it can feel like there isn’t any time to wait or any time to watch. It can feel like you are just hurtling from one event to the next and any kind of Advent practice of preparing for the Messiah can feel like one more thing that has to be done before you can rest. We hear and see these unrealistic expectations in commercials and stores and in tv, movies and songs, or we place them on ourselves to continue traditions and rituals that we remember from childhood. And the expectations conflict with one another. Be still but light the Advent wreath and open a new square on the Advent calendar every day. Remember Jesus is the reason for the season but also remember to buy presents for your favorite people. Jesus gives us permission to name the expectations we have put on ourselves or we have picked up from others and discard the ones that keep us from seeing Jesus transforming the world around us.
Christ calls us to open our eyes to see the world anew, alert to what God is doing. Who is being set free from burdens? Where is healing taking place? Where is good news being shared?
This past week the local paper ran a story on the Totally Free Clothes Store, which is over on Warren Street. A local attorney took space he had in his office and transformed it into a place where people can get donated clothing. He doesn’t ask them for ID or to prove they’re deserving. He is adamant that “people deserve clothes every day of the year.” The naked are clothed.
Last week several of our women went Christmas shopping for the holiday backpacks for Graham School students. They bought board games, make your own ornaments and Christmas candy to put together gift bags and included the cards you gave, too. The gifts went to all of the students who rely on the backpacks to have access to food when they’re not in school. The hungry are fed.
And on Wednesday another group from our congregation collected all the body wash and washcloths and razors we donated for Heritage Oaks and put them in packages. Those items will be delivered this week and the people will be reminded of the Good News that they are not alone in this world, but are loved by God and by their siblings in Christ.
This Advent, may we let go of expectations that keep us from seeing Jesus in the world around us, and meeting Jesus in our own lives, may we be transformed.
[i] Martin Luther. “Christ's Answer to John The Baptist.” http://web.archive.org/web/20021220115716/www.markers.com/ink/mljblg.htm, accessed 12/13/2019.
Sunday, December 8, 2019
Second Sunday of Advent
Matthew 3:1-12
Preparing to preach on today’s gospel, one pastor described John the Baptist’s appearance as crashing the Christmas party. Setting aside the anachronisms, it does feel a little like that. Hearing this text on the second Sunday of Advent, when we are celebrating hope, peace, joy and love, and especially here at Ascension when we are hanging the green in the sanctuary, John’s call to repentance hits us like a bucket of cold water.
Instead of appearing on the streets of Jerusalem or in the temple, John draws people out of their familiar surroundings to come and see him in the stark and barren wilderness of the desert.
The gospel writer tells us that “the people of Jerusalem and all of Judea” came to see him and while that was likely an exaggeration, the account of John’s appearance shows up in all four gospels, so there is no doubt that it was significant.
The gospel tells us that the people were confessing their sins to him and he was baptizing them in the river Jordan.
But it’s the words that the prophet Isaiah that describe John that caught my attention today. In Chapter 57 of the book of Isaiah it says, “And it shall be said, Build up, build up, prepare the way. Remove every obstacle out of the way of my people.” (v.14)
Prepare the way.
Eugene Peterson in his paraphrase of the Matthean text says, “Prepare for God’s arrival.”
So instead of a party crasher, I think John is actually the party planner.
As we adorn this sanctuary with the evergreens and bells, candles and ornaments, he invites us to prepare the way not only for our celebration of Christmas in a few weeks, but, as disciples, for God’s arrival, for the kingdom come on earth.
We are here to prepare the way, to remove the obstacles and repent of our sin, to clear the way that others may see God’s love, and to make space for God in our lives.
Repenting of our sin isn’t just about us naming our failures and trying to do better. It isn’t the result of earnest, self-directed soul searching. In Scripture God is always the actor, and we respond to what God is doing. Repentance, then, is “inviting God to do what we can’t do ourselves.”[i] It is inviting God to lead us in changing not only how we act and what we believe, but who we are.
Clearing the way for others to see God’s love means getting out of the way. Church hurt is real; there are congregations and people who cause harm in God’s name. Don’t do that! Clearing the way may mean welcoming people as they are, even when they don’t look or smell or talk like you. It’s recognizing that a church is a strange place on Sunday morning, with a lot of unfamiliar words and people up here in the chancel dressed oddly, and we don’t learn how to read a hymnal, say the creed or even pray anywhere else. It takes courage to be in this space, and be open to listening to God.
Making space for God in our own lives, in a time of year that is so full, may be the biggest challenge. But John invites us to get out of what is familiar, and go someplace, stripped of distractions and advertisements shouting at us, and listen for God’s Word.
That’s what we see happening at the river with John. The people make their way to the river where they hear God speaking through him and respond with repentance.
In our text in verse 11, John says, “I baptize you with water for repentance , but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me.” Peterson’s paraphrase is, “I'm baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. The real action comes next.”
The action that we anticipate is not ours, but God’s. God ignites the kingdom life within us and God changes us from the inside out. (v. 12)
Let us prepare the way. Amen.
[i] Brian Stoffregen, “Exegetical Notes for Epiphany 3B.”
Preparing to preach on today’s gospel, one pastor described John the Baptist’s appearance as crashing the Christmas party. Setting aside the anachronisms, it does feel a little like that. Hearing this text on the second Sunday of Advent, when we are celebrating hope, peace, joy and love, and especially here at Ascension when we are hanging the green in the sanctuary, John’s call to repentance hits us like a bucket of cold water.
Instead of appearing on the streets of Jerusalem or in the temple, John draws people out of their familiar surroundings to come and see him in the stark and barren wilderness of the desert.
The gospel writer tells us that “the people of Jerusalem and all of Judea” came to see him and while that was likely an exaggeration, the account of John’s appearance shows up in all four gospels, so there is no doubt that it was significant.
The gospel tells us that the people were confessing their sins to him and he was baptizing them in the river Jordan.
But it’s the words that the prophet Isaiah that describe John that caught my attention today. In Chapter 57 of the book of Isaiah it says, “And it shall be said, Build up, build up, prepare the way. Remove every obstacle out of the way of my people.” (v.14)
Prepare the way.
Eugene Peterson in his paraphrase of the Matthean text says, “Prepare for God’s arrival.”
So instead of a party crasher, I think John is actually the party planner.
As we adorn this sanctuary with the evergreens and bells, candles and ornaments, he invites us to prepare the way not only for our celebration of Christmas in a few weeks, but, as disciples, for God’s arrival, for the kingdom come on earth.
We are here to prepare the way, to remove the obstacles and repent of our sin, to clear the way that others may see God’s love, and to make space for God in our lives.
Repenting of our sin isn’t just about us naming our failures and trying to do better. It isn’t the result of earnest, self-directed soul searching. In Scripture God is always the actor, and we respond to what God is doing. Repentance, then, is “inviting God to do what we can’t do ourselves.”[i] It is inviting God to lead us in changing not only how we act and what we believe, but who we are.
Clearing the way for others to see God’s love means getting out of the way. Church hurt is real; there are congregations and people who cause harm in God’s name. Don’t do that! Clearing the way may mean welcoming people as they are, even when they don’t look or smell or talk like you. It’s recognizing that a church is a strange place on Sunday morning, with a lot of unfamiliar words and people up here in the chancel dressed oddly, and we don’t learn how to read a hymnal, say the creed or even pray anywhere else. It takes courage to be in this space, and be open to listening to God.
Making space for God in our own lives, in a time of year that is so full, may be the biggest challenge. But John invites us to get out of what is familiar, and go someplace, stripped of distractions and advertisements shouting at us, and listen for God’s Word.
That’s what we see happening at the river with John. The people make their way to the river where they hear God speaking through him and respond with repentance.
In our text in verse 11, John says, “I baptize you with water for repentance , but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me.” Peterson’s paraphrase is, “I'm baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. The real action comes next.”
The action that we anticipate is not ours, but God’s. God ignites the kingdom life within us and God changes us from the inside out. (v. 12)
Let us prepare the way. Amen.
[i] Brian Stoffregen, “Exegetical Notes for Epiphany 3B.”
Sunday, December 1, 2019
First Sunday of Advent
Matthew 24:36-44
For a very long time the only countdowns I ever heard were on space shuttle launches aired from the Kennedy Space Center or the countdown that happens when they drop the ball in New York City’s Times Square on New Year’s Eve. But now we have countdowns until movie and video game releases, countdowns to elections, and at this time of year, countdowns to Black Friday and Christmas as stores tell us how many shopping days remain. Even in the Church our Advent calendars numbered one to twenty-four or twenty-five create a countdown to the birth of the baby Jesus. But Advent didn’t begin as a countdown to Christmas; these four weeks anticipate the Second Coming of the Christ.
On this first Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the church year begins with the end in mind. The gospel of Matthew was written about fifty years after Christ’s ascension and the gospel writer was speaking to people who, like us, were in an in-between time. We have experienced salvation in Jesus Christ – God living among us in the flesh and taking on all that is ours so that we might have all that is his. But we are living in the “already but not yet” because the fullness of the Kingdom of God is not yet realized.
Living here and now in this world, this Word of God speaks to us.
Jesus is on the Mount of Olives near Jerusalem and he gives the disciples a description of what the coming of the Son of Man will be like, recalling what it was like when the earth was flooded in the days of Noah. Ironically, in the rapture theology promoted by popular fiction like the Left Behind books, these verses have been misused to turn God into a body snatcher. But if we can listen again to what Jesus says in Matthew’s gospel, it becomes clear that the layers of judgment about who is righteous and who isn’t is something we have added. It’s not in the text. Jesus does say that like those who were swept away in the floodwaters at the time of Noah, some will be taken and some will be left. But we don’t know the reason anymore than we know the day it will happen.
When Jesus says the Second Coming will be unexpected, I think we hear it as a sudden and unpredictable, an unwanted interruption and maybe even a threat. After all the people Jesus describes are “eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage.” They are living their everyday lives.
What if we could be more childlike in our anticipation of the unexpected? Could we delight with the thrill of being surprised by a loving parent who has been deployed appearing out of nowhere in the classroom? Could we prepare for the return of the Son of Man without trying to put it on a schedule? Could we ditch the “chronos” understanding of time and adopt more wonder and confidence in the “kairos” of God’s timing?
There is Good News in not knowing. It forces us to depend on God. We cannot know when God’s kingdom will come in fullness, but we can trust the grace we have been given by God that we are enough. God is not a body snatcher and God is not a caricature of a schoolmaster who is out to catch us out when we fall short. God knows each us wholly in all our brokenness and sin, and, in God’s abundant mercy, God loves us, forgives us and gives us eternal life.
But what does Jesus mean when he tells us to prepare or be ready, to stay alert or keep watch? Well, he doesn’t mean we should never rest. And he doesn’t call us all to live a cloistered life immersed in monastic prayer. Like the people Jesus describes, we must continue the work of everyday life: eating and drinking, working and living in community together and caring for our families and neighbors. The Good News is that God gives us opportunities to help accomplish God’s work here on earth in this in-between time.
Shunning complacency, we can be alert for the ways God is calling us to live our lives, be aware of the gifts we have been given that equip us to serve and be attentive to the needs that still exist in our community and in the world.
Just this past week we saw glimpses of the kingdom right here in Shelby. One was when we shared our gifts of space and hospitality and hosted the community Thanksgiving worship here on Tuesday night. Some 90 people were here with the Episcopal Church’s choir and other musicians from Eskridge Grove Missionary Baptist Church, Aldersgate United Methodist and Living Waters Ministry. People shared testimonies of gratitude and named people and situations to include in prayers, and it was holy ground that encompassed the fellowship hall where people gathered for dessert and conversation after worship.
Then on Wednesday we donated desserts and loaned tables and chairs, chafing dishes and cornhole to the Community Table Meal held at Graham School and shared a meal with people we didn’t know. I met a woman and her children from Boiling Springs who were there for the first time; it’s the third year Graham has hosted a meal but this family wouldn’t have known about it if Cleveland County Schools hadn’t sent out a phone message on their system. The whole meal was like the story of the loaves and fishes, and in addition to the others who ate at the school that day, we had enough food to send boxes home with that family for 13 people. Surely, we were on holy ground that day.
As we begin this Advent may we be alert and attentive and aware to what God is doing already and how we are invited to participate in God’s kingdom here on earth, even now. Amen.
For a very long time the only countdowns I ever heard were on space shuttle launches aired from the Kennedy Space Center or the countdown that happens when they drop the ball in New York City’s Times Square on New Year’s Eve. But now we have countdowns until movie and video game releases, countdowns to elections, and at this time of year, countdowns to Black Friday and Christmas as stores tell us how many shopping days remain. Even in the Church our Advent calendars numbered one to twenty-four or twenty-five create a countdown to the birth of the baby Jesus. But Advent didn’t begin as a countdown to Christmas; these four weeks anticipate the Second Coming of the Christ.
On this first Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the church year begins with the end in mind. The gospel of Matthew was written about fifty years after Christ’s ascension and the gospel writer was speaking to people who, like us, were in an in-between time. We have experienced salvation in Jesus Christ – God living among us in the flesh and taking on all that is ours so that we might have all that is his. But we are living in the “already but not yet” because the fullness of the Kingdom of God is not yet realized.
Living here and now in this world, this Word of God speaks to us.
Jesus is on the Mount of Olives near Jerusalem and he gives the disciples a description of what the coming of the Son of Man will be like, recalling what it was like when the earth was flooded in the days of Noah. Ironically, in the rapture theology promoted by popular fiction like the Left Behind books, these verses have been misused to turn God into a body snatcher. But if we can listen again to what Jesus says in Matthew’s gospel, it becomes clear that the layers of judgment about who is righteous and who isn’t is something we have added. It’s not in the text. Jesus does say that like those who were swept away in the floodwaters at the time of Noah, some will be taken and some will be left. But we don’t know the reason anymore than we know the day it will happen.
When Jesus says the Second Coming will be unexpected, I think we hear it as a sudden and unpredictable, an unwanted interruption and maybe even a threat. After all the people Jesus describes are “eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage.” They are living their everyday lives.
What if we could be more childlike in our anticipation of the unexpected? Could we delight with the thrill of being surprised by a loving parent who has been deployed appearing out of nowhere in the classroom? Could we prepare for the return of the Son of Man without trying to put it on a schedule? Could we ditch the “chronos” understanding of time and adopt more wonder and confidence in the “kairos” of God’s timing?
There is Good News in not knowing. It forces us to depend on God. We cannot know when God’s kingdom will come in fullness, but we can trust the grace we have been given by God that we are enough. God is not a body snatcher and God is not a caricature of a schoolmaster who is out to catch us out when we fall short. God knows each us wholly in all our brokenness and sin, and, in God’s abundant mercy, God loves us, forgives us and gives us eternal life.
But what does Jesus mean when he tells us to prepare or be ready, to stay alert or keep watch? Well, he doesn’t mean we should never rest. And he doesn’t call us all to live a cloistered life immersed in monastic prayer. Like the people Jesus describes, we must continue the work of everyday life: eating and drinking, working and living in community together and caring for our families and neighbors. The Good News is that God gives us opportunities to help accomplish God’s work here on earth in this in-between time.
Shunning complacency, we can be alert for the ways God is calling us to live our lives, be aware of the gifts we have been given that equip us to serve and be attentive to the needs that still exist in our community and in the world.
Just this past week we saw glimpses of the kingdom right here in Shelby. One was when we shared our gifts of space and hospitality and hosted the community Thanksgiving worship here on Tuesday night. Some 90 people were here with the Episcopal Church’s choir and other musicians from Eskridge Grove Missionary Baptist Church, Aldersgate United Methodist and Living Waters Ministry. People shared testimonies of gratitude and named people and situations to include in prayers, and it was holy ground that encompassed the fellowship hall where people gathered for dessert and conversation after worship.
Then on Wednesday we donated desserts and loaned tables and chairs, chafing dishes and cornhole to the Community Table Meal held at Graham School and shared a meal with people we didn’t know. I met a woman and her children from Boiling Springs who were there for the first time; it’s the third year Graham has hosted a meal but this family wouldn’t have known about it if Cleveland County Schools hadn’t sent out a phone message on their system. The whole meal was like the story of the loaves and fishes, and in addition to the others who ate at the school that day, we had enough food to send boxes home with that family for 13 people. Surely, we were on holy ground that day.
As we begin this Advent may we be alert and attentive and aware to what God is doing already and how we are invited to participate in God’s kingdom here on earth, even now. Amen.
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