Matthew 4:12-23
Location, location, location!
For nearly a century those three words have been the basis for successful real estate ventures. The idea, of course, is that the most important thing about a property is its location. We cannot underestimate its importance or its influence.
We don’t know who the four gospel authors were. At one time, it was believed that this gospel was written by the disciple Matthew who was a tax collector, but maybe, just maybe, the author was a realtor. Because in his gospel, place matters. Hes not just providing a travelogue when he references Nazareth and Capernaum, Zebulun and Naphtali and describes “the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles.” The places he names have meaning and are connected back through Jewish history to the prophecies about the Messiah.
We know that John was in Judea in the southern part of Israel when he was arrested, and Matthew tells us that Jesus then withdrew to Galilee, the region north of Samaria where “he made his home in Capernaum.”
He didn’t go to Jerusalem which was “the religious, political, cultural, and economic center of power.”[i]
He didn’t go home to his family’s village of Nazareth in southern Galilee where he might have found safety and security.
And he didn’t go to Sepphoris or Tiberias, the larger, wealthier cities sometimes called “the jewels of Galilee” where he could have met powerful or wealthy merchants.
Instead, Jesus went to Capernaum, a small fishing village on the northwestern edge of the Sea of Galilee in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali.
And for Matthew’s predominantly Jewish audience that choice matters. Zebulun and Naphtali were two Northern tribes of Israel that had fallen to the Assyrians more than seven hundred years before the time of Jesus.
“Whenever anyone invaded, they were the first and last to bear the brunt of it. When the Assyrians overran Israel, they annexed these two tribes. [Zebulun and Naphtali] were cut off from the rest of Israel, separated from their country and family.”[ii]
As preacher Karoline Lewis said, “[Their names] have not been on the lips of God’s people for a very, very long time….just a mention of these two names and Matthew’s audience knows that in Jesus, God is up to what God does best – making good on God’s promises to God’s people.”[iii]
And it is in that place and among those people that Jesus begins to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (v. 17) He repeats the exact same message that John had been proclaiming in the wilderness in Chapter 3 and it is the same message he will send the twelve out with in Chapter 10. “Although the place [changes], the message is the same.”[iv]
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
Christians often talk about why Jesus died but this is why Jesus lived: to announce the kingdom of God here on earth, and in his person to show us God enfleshed, who cares enough for God’s people to live among us.
This morning’s gospel reminds us that “God speaks in places [and in ways] that surprise us.” [v] Jesus defies all expectations about what a Jewish Messiah should look like, and he ushers in a kingdom that doesn’t have any of the trappings – the regalia, the money or the pageantry – of any kingdom that has been known. And he announces it, not to the priests in the temple or to the governors who served the Roman empire, but to fishermen and folks who live in the sticks.
So, perhaps we can believe that the kingdom of heaven is here in our corner of the world, too:
The kingdom of heaven is on the court square where a couple of weeks ago Eastside Baptist wrapped scarves on tree branches with tags that told people who needed them to take them.
The kingdom of heaven is in a house over here off Buffalo Street where a family has been living without electricity or running water even when the temperatures drop to 13˚ like they did this week. The Totally Free Clothes Store gave them some good heavy winter coats and we helped them get some food and kerosene.
The kingdom of heaven is at Pleasant City Church who is hosting a dental bus for neighbors in need of free dental care next Saturday. The bus, sponsored by the North Carolina Baptists on Mission, has been visiting communities for thirty years reaching uninsured people.
Jesus shows up in all of these places, and we meet him there, just as the disciples met Jesus in Capernaum and followed him.
Meeting Jesus, we cannot ignore his call to repentance.
Sometimes we want to skip over that part. It sounds hard. It makes us feel guilty. We know how often we fall short of God’s commandments for how we are to live with God and with each other.
But understanding repentance only as a moral choice between what is good and what is bad, or wrong or sinful, isn’t especially helpful, or accurate. Metanoia, the word translated as “repentance”, actually means “turning around”, so when we repent, we are changing direction, literally turning around and following God.
And of course, when we refuse to repent, we are actually choosing to continue to go in the direction we have already taken, away from God. We are choosing to separate ourselves from God in favor of our own desires and plans.
Repentance, especially in our Lutheran tradition of confessing our sins and receiving absolution or forgiveness, means drawing near to God. Martin Luther taught that the Law brings us to the cross where we receive forgiveness. Repentance means living in the light of God’s grace where we know God’s love for us. And when we know God’s love for us, we can share that love with others, just as we are commanded. (Matthew 22:39)
Place matters. Some forty years ago our congregation decided to stay inside the city and not sell this property. We decided we were going to be a visible sign of God’s presence in this neighborhood and community. Today’s gospel reminds us the Good News that the kingdom of heaven has come near to the corner of Lafayette and Marietta Streets, and Jesus is calling us to follow him.
Amen.
[i] Cynthia A. Jarvis and E. Elizabeth Johnson. Feasting on the Gospels--Matthew, Volume 1: A Feasting on the Word Commentary. Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.
[ii] Cynthia A. Jarvis and E. Elizabeth Johnson. Feasting on the Gospels--Matthew, Volume 1: A Feasting on the Word Commentary . Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.
[iii] Karoline Lewis. “Mapping God’s Promises.” Luther Seminary. https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=4796, accessed 1/25/2020.
[iv] Cynthia A. Jarvis and E. Elizabeth Johnson. Feasting on the Gospels--Matthew, Volume 1: A Feasting on the Word Commentary. Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.
[v] Cynthia A. Jarvis and E. Elizabeth Johnson. Feasting on the Gospels--Matthew, Volume 1: A Feasting on the Word Commentary. Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.
Sunday, January 26, 2020
Sunday, January 19, 2020
Second Sunday after Epiphany
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
So this weekend, our congregation council and I were on retreat at Lutheridge with a half-dozen other congregation councils from the Carolinas, to focus on congregation vitality. And as Pastor Mike Ward was facilitating the retreat and talking about how we inspire others to participate in our shared ministry he played a clip from the Tom Cruise and Renee Zellweger movie “Jerry Maguire” where Jerry has stayed up all night in his hotel room pouring his heart and his passion into a twenty-five page mission statement. You’ll be happy to hear that was an example of what not to do.
But I also remember another scene from that movie, where Jerry’s wife stops him in the middle of a speech, and says,
“You had me at hello.”
Well, today begins the first of five weeks in the revised common lectionary, the three-year cycle of readings that we follow in worship, when we are reading through the epistle, or letter, written by Paul to the church in Corinth.
Now, Paul can be verbose or wordy - he doesn’t get right to the point - so perhaps it isn’t a complete surprise that this letter is divided into sixteen chapters in the Bible. This year, the lectionary only takes us through the first three.
Today we begin at the very beginning, with the salutation, or where, essentially, Paul says, “Hello.”
We believe Paul began the church in Corinth around 50 CE, almost twenty years after the crucifixion. And now he’s writing from Ephesus, responding to letters he has received. It becomes clear in later parts of this epistle that there have been divisions within the Corinthian church and Paul wants to address those schisms.
But he doesn’t begin there. He first reminds the people in Corinth who they are:
They are the “church of God” (v.2);
They are “sanctified (or made holy) in Christ Jesus”;
and they are called to be saints. And here it becomes clear that saints are not just those who have died. (v.2)
Instead Paul reminds this church that they are called “with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 2)
This week in the Church, really beginning yesterday on the 18th, is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Remembering we are called with all who call on Jesus helps us recognize that
Paul uses this same greeting in many of his epistles and sometimes we reachers will echo him at the beginning of our sermons. But these words aren’t just a churchy way to say “hello.” These words help us remember everything we Christians need to know:
Jesus has come into this world,
Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed One, and
Jesus has come to offer grace and peace to you, and you, and you and everyone. [i]
And then Paul ends with thanksgiving, naming all the ways God is present for the church in Corinth. He writes:
The grace of God has been given to you, or as Eugene Peterson wrote in his paraphrase The Message: “you have free and open access to God.”
Your lives bear witness to Christ’s presence – you show forth Jesus.
And you are not lacking in any spiritual gift.
I have to stop there and wonder if people could hear Paul’s words…really hear them and believe them for themselves.
I think there were probably some skeptics who doubted. Maybe they snickered and said, “Huh, he must not have been talking about me!” or “he wouldn’t say that if he knew me!”
But here’s the thing. He did know them and he was talking about them. And perhaps even more importantly, Paul knew first-hand what it is to be a sinner who encounters Christ and how Jesus changes our lives.
These same Christ-followers were trying to be church together in their corner of the world probably share more in common with our congregation today than we might guess.
But Paul looks at the church and sees abundance. Abundance of grace. Abundance of love. Abundance of giftedness.
And if doubts or fears linger, Paul’s last words are ones of promise and assurance that our faithful God will strengthen the church, not just for one day or one trial, but to the end. God has called us to be church and God gives us the gifts we need to respond to the holy calling on our lives.
Let us pray….
Good and gracious God,
We give you thanks for the saints before us like Paul and the saints around us who call on your name in neighboring churches and worshiping communities.
Thank you for the grace you have given all who call on you, that nothing separates us from You.
Teach us how to show your mercy and love in our words and actions that others may see Jesus through our lives.
Alert us to the gifts you have given us and give us courage to use them for ministry.
We pray in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
[i] Anna Madsen. “Know Your Home: If Necessary, Go Another Way to Get There.” OMG: Center for Theological Conversation. http://omgcenter.com/2020/01/06/know-your-home-if-necessary-go-another-way-to-get-there/, accessed 1/18/2020.
So this weekend, our congregation council and I were on retreat at Lutheridge with a half-dozen other congregation councils from the Carolinas, to focus on congregation vitality. And as Pastor Mike Ward was facilitating the retreat and talking about how we inspire others to participate in our shared ministry he played a clip from the Tom Cruise and Renee Zellweger movie “Jerry Maguire” where Jerry has stayed up all night in his hotel room pouring his heart and his passion into a twenty-five page mission statement. You’ll be happy to hear that was an example of what not to do.
But I also remember another scene from that movie, where Jerry’s wife stops him in the middle of a speech, and says,
“You had me at hello.”
Well, today begins the first of five weeks in the revised common lectionary, the three-year cycle of readings that we follow in worship, when we are reading through the epistle, or letter, written by Paul to the church in Corinth.
Now, Paul can be verbose or wordy - he doesn’t get right to the point - so perhaps it isn’t a complete surprise that this letter is divided into sixteen chapters in the Bible. This year, the lectionary only takes us through the first three.
Today we begin at the very beginning, with the salutation, or where, essentially, Paul says, “Hello.”
We believe Paul began the church in Corinth around 50 CE, almost twenty years after the crucifixion. And now he’s writing from Ephesus, responding to letters he has received. It becomes clear in later parts of this epistle that there have been divisions within the Corinthian church and Paul wants to address those schisms.
But he doesn’t begin there. He first reminds the people in Corinth who they are:
They are the “church of God” (v.2);
They are “sanctified (or made holy) in Christ Jesus”;
and they are called to be saints. And here it becomes clear that saints are not just those who have died. (v.2)
Instead Paul reminds this church that they are called “with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 2)
This week in the Church, really beginning yesterday on the 18th, is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Remembering we are called with all who call on Jesus helps us recognize that
- The Church is not ours at all, but Christ’s; and
- Christ’s Church isn't Lutheran or Episcopal, Baptist or Methodist, or whatever other tradition or denomination you may encounter. I converted to Lutheran theology and I treasure it, so I want to say both that the differences in our theology and our practices are meaningful and that what matters most is that we are following Christ.
Paul uses this same greeting in many of his epistles and sometimes we reachers will echo him at the beginning of our sermons. But these words aren’t just a churchy way to say “hello.” These words help us remember everything we Christians need to know:
Jesus has come into this world,
Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed One, and
Jesus has come to offer grace and peace to you, and you, and you and everyone. [i]
And then Paul ends with thanksgiving, naming all the ways God is present for the church in Corinth. He writes:
The grace of God has been given to you, or as Eugene Peterson wrote in his paraphrase The Message: “you have free and open access to God.”
Your lives bear witness to Christ’s presence – you show forth Jesus.
And you are not lacking in any spiritual gift.
I have to stop there and wonder if people could hear Paul’s words…really hear them and believe them for themselves.
I think there were probably some skeptics who doubted. Maybe they snickered and said, “Huh, he must not have been talking about me!” or “he wouldn’t say that if he knew me!”
But here’s the thing. He did know them and he was talking about them. And perhaps even more importantly, Paul knew first-hand what it is to be a sinner who encounters Christ and how Jesus changes our lives.
These same Christ-followers were trying to be church together in their corner of the world probably share more in common with our congregation today than we might guess.
But Paul looks at the church and sees abundance. Abundance of grace. Abundance of love. Abundance of giftedness.
And if doubts or fears linger, Paul’s last words are ones of promise and assurance that our faithful God will strengthen the church, not just for one day or one trial, but to the end. God has called us to be church and God gives us the gifts we need to respond to the holy calling on our lives.
Let us pray….
Good and gracious God,
We give you thanks for the saints before us like Paul and the saints around us who call on your name in neighboring churches and worshiping communities.
Thank you for the grace you have given all who call on you, that nothing separates us from You.
Teach us how to show your mercy and love in our words and actions that others may see Jesus through our lives.
Alert us to the gifts you have given us and give us courage to use them for ministry.
We pray in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
[i] Anna Madsen. “Know Your Home: If Necessary, Go Another Way to Get There.” OMG: Center for Theological Conversation. http://omgcenter.com/2020/01/06/know-your-home-if-necessary-go-another-way-to-get-there/, accessed 1/18/2020.
Sunday, January 12, 2020
Baptism of our Lord
Matthew 3:13-17
Like many stories in the Bible, this morning’s gospel leaves us with a few questions and maybe the biggest one is, “Why?” Why is Jesus being baptized? We already know he’s the Son of God, the Messiah who has fulfilled the ancient prophecy and we’ve already called him Emmanuel, God with us. So, what is going on here?
Many of us have heard about believer’s baptism – an affirmation or acceptance of what God has done in a person’s life. We often think of it as a practice in Baptist traditions, but even within Lutheranism, if a person comes to know God’s love and hasn’t already been baptized, he or she is invited to come to the font, and the youth who were baptized in our congregations as infants or early in childhood often affirm their baptisms at confirmation.
But what Matthew describes isn’t a believer’s baptism.
In our Lutheran understanding, baptism is a sacrament where the earthly element of water is joined with the Word of God where the resurrected Jesus commands us to “go therefore and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28). And in baptism, our sins and evil desires are drowned and we are raised to new life as children of God.
But what Matthew describes isn’t a Christian baptism for the forgiveness of sins either.
Instead, what we witness in Matthew’s account is the Jewish Jesus humbling himself to be baptized “in order to fulfill all righteousness.” (v. 15) Jesus is
being obedient to God,
bringing to completion the will of God, and
upholding God’s own faithfulness to Israel.[i]
In one of his sermons on this text, Martin Luther says Jesus does not have to submit to baptism, but he does anyway. He does more than what is required. The gospel frees us from the law, but it always invites us to do more than what is required, not less.[ii]
Today during worship, together we will affirm our baptisms, renouncing the forces that draw us away from God and recalling that baptism is our inauguration into a new life in Christ. We are called to the same obedience and faithfulness that Jesus demonstrated, as we follow Him in our lives.
Living as God’s beloved sons and daughters, we respond to God’s activity in our lives, and we are called to share the good news of God’s love with the people we meet.
You may remember that since October I have been participating in clinical pastoral education at the hospital. Part of that work includes visiting patients as one of the hospital chaplains, and one of my chaplain colleagues recently shared the story of a young woman who was admitted. She wasn’t especially supported by family or friends, but during her stay, the nurses on her floor befriended her, and two of the other chaplains visited regularly also, and as this young woman experienced the unconditional love of these nurses and chaplains, she made a discovery. She discovered she was loved by God, too. And before she left the hospital she asked to be baptized.
“Everyone needs to hear that they are God’s beloved child, loved unconditionally, precious.”[iii] That is the work we are baptized into, and freed by the gospel to do.
Thankfully, we don’t do this work alone. It is always with God’s help, and it is always in community. So it makes sense that this morning, after our affirmation of baptism, we’ll also promise to pray for the leaders in our congregation who are beginning a new year as our congregation council. These six folks have agreed to serve on the council, but the work of the Church belongs to all of us.
Another way to understand Jesus’ baptism is to see it as God christening his public ministry in the world. In the same way, as we begin this new year, we too are christening the ministry that is ahead of us:
the very work where we will meet people who have never heard or believed that they are beloved by God;
the very work where we will give out of what we have first been given to meet the needs of the neighbor, the widow, the orphan and the stranger;
the very work where we will tend the sick, give rest to the weary, and comfort the afflicted.
And it is in this work where our faith is most active and alive, where we most clearly see the God who calls us beloved.
Let us pray….
Good and gracious God,
We give You thanks for Your Son Jesus who humbled himself to live among us.
We give you thanks for the promises of forgiveness and new life that You make to every one of us.
Most of all we give You thanks for the merciful love You give us, making us Your own children.
Show us how to use the gifts You have given us and encourage us to share Your abundant love with others that they, too, will know they are loved.
Help us hear Your voice in our lives and teach us to follow Your Son.
We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus.
Amen.
[i] Donald Senior. Matthew. 55.
[ii] Martin Luther. “This is My Son, the Beloved”: Sermon on the Baptism of Jesus. The Epiphany of Our Lord (January 6, 1534) Word & World, Luther Seminary, St.Paul, MN. https://wordandworld.luthersem.edu/content/pdfs/16-1_Edges_of_Life/16-1_Luther_Sermon.pdf, accessed 1/11/2020
[iii] Bishop Michael Rinehart. https://www.bishopmike.com
Like many stories in the Bible, this morning’s gospel leaves us with a few questions and maybe the biggest one is, “Why?” Why is Jesus being baptized? We already know he’s the Son of God, the Messiah who has fulfilled the ancient prophecy and we’ve already called him Emmanuel, God with us. So, what is going on here?
Many of us have heard about believer’s baptism – an affirmation or acceptance of what God has done in a person’s life. We often think of it as a practice in Baptist traditions, but even within Lutheranism, if a person comes to know God’s love and hasn’t already been baptized, he or she is invited to come to the font, and the youth who were baptized in our congregations as infants or early in childhood often affirm their baptisms at confirmation.
But what Matthew describes isn’t a believer’s baptism.
In our Lutheran understanding, baptism is a sacrament where the earthly element of water is joined with the Word of God where the resurrected Jesus commands us to “go therefore and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28). And in baptism, our sins and evil desires are drowned and we are raised to new life as children of God.
But what Matthew describes isn’t a Christian baptism for the forgiveness of sins either.
Instead, what we witness in Matthew’s account is the Jewish Jesus humbling himself to be baptized “in order to fulfill all righteousness.” (v. 15) Jesus is
being obedient to God,
bringing to completion the will of God, and
upholding God’s own faithfulness to Israel.[i]
In one of his sermons on this text, Martin Luther says Jesus does not have to submit to baptism, but he does anyway. He does more than what is required. The gospel frees us from the law, but it always invites us to do more than what is required, not less.[ii]
Today during worship, together we will affirm our baptisms, renouncing the forces that draw us away from God and recalling that baptism is our inauguration into a new life in Christ. We are called to the same obedience and faithfulness that Jesus demonstrated, as we follow Him in our lives.
Living as God’s beloved sons and daughters, we respond to God’s activity in our lives, and we are called to share the good news of God’s love with the people we meet.
You may remember that since October I have been participating in clinical pastoral education at the hospital. Part of that work includes visiting patients as one of the hospital chaplains, and one of my chaplain colleagues recently shared the story of a young woman who was admitted. She wasn’t especially supported by family or friends, but during her stay, the nurses on her floor befriended her, and two of the other chaplains visited regularly also, and as this young woman experienced the unconditional love of these nurses and chaplains, she made a discovery. She discovered she was loved by God, too. And before she left the hospital she asked to be baptized.
“Everyone needs to hear that they are God’s beloved child, loved unconditionally, precious.”[iii] That is the work we are baptized into, and freed by the gospel to do.
Thankfully, we don’t do this work alone. It is always with God’s help, and it is always in community. So it makes sense that this morning, after our affirmation of baptism, we’ll also promise to pray for the leaders in our congregation who are beginning a new year as our congregation council. These six folks have agreed to serve on the council, but the work of the Church belongs to all of us.
Another way to understand Jesus’ baptism is to see it as God christening his public ministry in the world. In the same way, as we begin this new year, we too are christening the ministry that is ahead of us:
the very work where we will meet people who have never heard or believed that they are beloved by God;
the very work where we will give out of what we have first been given to meet the needs of the neighbor, the widow, the orphan and the stranger;
the very work where we will tend the sick, give rest to the weary, and comfort the afflicted.
And it is in this work where our faith is most active and alive, where we most clearly see the God who calls us beloved.
Let us pray….
Good and gracious God,
We give You thanks for Your Son Jesus who humbled himself to live among us.
We give you thanks for the promises of forgiveness and new life that You make to every one of us.
Most of all we give You thanks for the merciful love You give us, making us Your own children.
Show us how to use the gifts You have given us and encourage us to share Your abundant love with others that they, too, will know they are loved.
Help us hear Your voice in our lives and teach us to follow Your Son.
We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus.
Amen.
[i] Donald Senior. Matthew. 55.
[ii] Martin Luther. “This is My Son, the Beloved”: Sermon on the Baptism of Jesus. The Epiphany of Our Lord (January 6, 1534) Word & World, Luther Seminary, St.Paul, MN. https://wordandworld.luthersem.edu/content/pdfs/16-1_Edges_of_Life/16-1_Luther_Sermon.pdf, accessed 1/11/2020
[iii] Bishop Michael Rinehart. https://www.bishopmike.com
Sunday, January 5, 2020
Second Sunday of Christmas
John 1:1-18
We don’t often hear this part of John’s gospel in our worship. The Revised Common Lectionary assigns the text to Christmas Day and to the Second Sunday of Christmas but, often by the second Sunday after Christmas, we have already entered Epiphany and moved on from the Christmas story.
This year the calendar fell differently and while at home, the Christmas lights and ornaments may be packed away, the presents opened and the feasts eaten, it is still Christmas in the Church. Tomorrow we will move on to the Feast of the Epiphany, but today, the Evangelist who wrote the fourth gospel has given us another Christmas story, one that comes without angels or shepherds, innkeepers or mangers. Instead, John tells us the story of how the Son of God came into the world this way:
“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth…”[ii]
Hearing the same words that we hear in the first book of the Torah and our Old Testament, we know that the Evangelist is not writing about something new, but about something very, very old.
In his Sermons on the Gospel of St. John (1537-40), Martin Luther wrote that this Word dwells in God’s divine heart from eternity and it was through Him that God resolved to create heaven and earth.[iii]
The wonder of the Word made flesh and the mystery of the incarnation is the foundation of our very creation: there is no life outside God.
As we begin this new year, can we resolve to live out this basic truth, and see where God indeed is with us?
Here in the Church we especially remember Christ is present with us in the sacraments. In these places the promise and command found in the Word are joined with an earthly element and we encounter Christ anew.
At the Font, we are given new life in Christ in the waters of baptism and receive the promises we are given, that we are made new and all the old has passed away. And Jesus tells us in Matthew 28, “… remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”[iv]
At the Table, Christ is present with us in bread and wine as he gives his body and blood for us, taking on all our sin and giving us all that is his, an inheritance that gives us the power to become children of God. St. Paul reminds us “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”[v]
This same Word enfleshed in Christ is with us in prayer, not only here in the sanctuary but also in our homes and workplaces, when we say, “Lord, teach us to pray.”[vi]
We say our prayers, trusting that God wipes away our tears when we cry out under the weight of sorrows and burdens that we carry,
rejoices with us when we praise God for the joys we have witnessed,
and accompanies us into the unknown when we name the mysteries that escape our understanding.
In First Peter, we hear, “Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God; whoever serves must do so with the strength that God supplies…”[vii] The Word appears in our lives when we meet Jesus in the people around us: in those who teach and share their own experiences of God’s love with us; in those who pick up the phone, write a card or send a text to tell us we are remembered; in those who share a meal and fellowship with us.
And finally the Word is present to us in the stranger. Jesus tells his disciples, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”[viii] We are called to love. The outcast, in the prisoner, in the refugee. The person who doesn’t look like us, speak our language or share our political bent. And even our enemy.
And as we begin this new year, “the Word with us” is very good news. The headlines are full of bad news: wildfires and evacuations in Australia, new deployments of soldiers to the Middle East, and attacks on both Christian and Jewish communities here in the U.S., but even, and maybe especially, against the shadows that those stories cast the Word comes to us assuring us that:
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
[i] John 1:1-3
[ii] Genesis 1:1
[iii] Sermons on the Gospel of St. John (1537-40), LW 22, 7-9.
[iv] Matthew 28:20
[v] 1 Corinthians 10:17
[vi] Luke 11:1
[vii] 1 Peter 4:10-11
[viii] Matthew 22:37-39
We don’t often hear this part of John’s gospel in our worship. The Revised Common Lectionary assigns the text to Christmas Day and to the Second Sunday of Christmas but, often by the second Sunday after Christmas, we have already entered Epiphany and moved on from the Christmas story.
This year the calendar fell differently and while at home, the Christmas lights and ornaments may be packed away, the presents opened and the feasts eaten, it is still Christmas in the Church. Tomorrow we will move on to the Feast of the Epiphany, but today, the Evangelist who wrote the fourth gospel has given us another Christmas story, one that comes without angels or shepherds, innkeepers or mangers. Instead, John tells us the story of how the Son of God came into the world this way:
“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. [i]Written some sixty or more years after Jesus’ ministry, John’s gospel begins with “In the beginning” and everyone who is listening hears the first words of Genesis echoing through time:
“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth…”[ii]
Hearing the same words that we hear in the first book of the Torah and our Old Testament, we know that the Evangelist is not writing about something new, but about something very, very old.
In his Sermons on the Gospel of St. John (1537-40), Martin Luther wrote that this Word dwells in God’s divine heart from eternity and it was through Him that God resolved to create heaven and earth.[iii]
The wonder of the Word made flesh and the mystery of the incarnation is the foundation of our very creation: there is no life outside God.
As we begin this new year, can we resolve to live out this basic truth, and see where God indeed is with us?
Here in the Church we especially remember Christ is present with us in the sacraments. In these places the promise and command found in the Word are joined with an earthly element and we encounter Christ anew.
At the Font, we are given new life in Christ in the waters of baptism and receive the promises we are given, that we are made new and all the old has passed away. And Jesus tells us in Matthew 28, “… remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”[iv]
At the Table, Christ is present with us in bread and wine as he gives his body and blood for us, taking on all our sin and giving us all that is his, an inheritance that gives us the power to become children of God. St. Paul reminds us “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”[v]
This same Word enfleshed in Christ is with us in prayer, not only here in the sanctuary but also in our homes and workplaces, when we say, “Lord, teach us to pray.”[vi]
We say our prayers, trusting that God wipes away our tears when we cry out under the weight of sorrows and burdens that we carry,
rejoices with us when we praise God for the joys we have witnessed,
and accompanies us into the unknown when we name the mysteries that escape our understanding.
In First Peter, we hear, “Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God; whoever serves must do so with the strength that God supplies…”[vii] The Word appears in our lives when we meet Jesus in the people around us: in those who teach and share their own experiences of God’s love with us; in those who pick up the phone, write a card or send a text to tell us we are remembered; in those who share a meal and fellowship with us.
And finally the Word is present to us in the stranger. Jesus tells his disciples, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”[viii] We are called to love. The outcast, in the prisoner, in the refugee. The person who doesn’t look like us, speak our language or share our political bent. And even our enemy.
And as we begin this new year, “the Word with us” is very good news. The headlines are full of bad news: wildfires and evacuations in Australia, new deployments of soldiers to the Middle East, and attacks on both Christian and Jewish communities here in the U.S., but even, and maybe especially, against the shadows that those stories cast the Word comes to us assuring us that:
All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.There is no place and no one outside of God’s reach, beyond God’s love.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
[i] John 1:1-3
[ii] Genesis 1:1
[iii] Sermons on the Gospel of St. John (1537-40), LW 22, 7-9.
[iv] Matthew 28:20
[v] 1 Corinthians 10:17
[vi] Luke 11:1
[vii] 1 Peter 4:10-11
[viii] Matthew 22:37-39
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
Nativity of Our Lord (Christmas Eve)
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.
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.
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.
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