Today's Sermon - Compassionate Joy - 12/29/19

Compassionate Joy

(based on Isaiah 63:7-9, Matthew 2:13-23)

It would be easy for me to concentrate this morning on the lectionary passage from Matthew which skips over a significant portion of the Christmas story and name all the “herods” of our own time and culture.  But we still need to remember that we’ve learned much about joy this season. We learned about Hopeful Joy as we began Advent, Loving Joy as we embraced the call of God, Unabashed Joy as we make no excuses for the joy we have in our lives, Peaceful Joy as it comes to us in difficult times, and Incarnate Joy as it manifests itself in our lives through the power of the gift of Jesus Christ.  Joy abides, it runs deep and wide, despite the “herods” that seek to destroy it.

In today’s Gospel reading we are still reminded, though, that threats abound even in the midst of joy.  However, we must be reminded that God will still carefully break into those moments and orchestrate our safety.  God's steady protection and Joseph's faithful obedience combine to ensure the baby’s safety in a world of danger.  Even as potential disaster threatens Jesus, ancient prophecies come to life and guarantee his future mission.

Herod's reputation for brutality was well known in antiquity.  Neither his spouses nor his children could escape the effects of his paranoia.  Herod had most of them killed believing that they were out to usurp his power.  For some reason the lectionary skips over the news of the wisemen this week in order to hold it until we celebrate Epiphany next Sunday.  So, we have a bit of a chronological disruption this morning. 

The message the wisemen brought to Herod about Jesus, the newborn king of the Jews, played into his paranoia.  So, an angel tells Joseph to flee his home and head into exile. For Matthew, this escape is not simply an expedient move or an accident of history.  Instead, scripture foresaw this geographical detour on the way to Jesus' true hometown.  For whatever reason, God chose this path in the distant past.  Citing Hosea 11:1, Matthew appeals to a prophecy originally focused on the people of Israel but it now refers to Jesus alone.  Matthew's claim then is that Jesus, in some significant sense, embodies the people of Israel.  He is the recipient, the bearer, and the fulfillment of the promises made to Israel by God.  Which was important for those who read Matthew’s account of the Good News because Matthew was writing for and to a Jewish audience.  In later years when the time is right, Joseph, Mary and Jesus “coming out of Egypt” also evokes the story of Moses and the liberation of Israel from the tyranny of slavery.

Herod’s instinct to preserve his power at all costs kicks in when he realizes that the magi have left the country by another way without coming to inform him about the new baby’s whereabouts.  And so he orders the extermination of all children born "in and around Bethlehem."  Herod will not take the chance that this child has slipped out of the city.  According to Matthew, Jeremiah 31:15 had already prophesied this event where the cries of anguish would arise in Israel over such grievous oppression.

The parallels to the execution of Jewish male infants at the hands of Pharaoh are striking.  Herod is a new Pharaoh.  Feeling his political power slipping away, he lashes out with great malice but also in vain.  Both Pharaoh and Herod order devastating losses of life yet ultimately fail to prevent the birth of a powerful leader of Israel.  Both Moses and Jesus are born under the threat of death; yet both are guided by God's protective hand. 

After an angel announces the death of Herod to Joseph, the coast is clear for the family to return home to Bethlehem of Judea.  However, after learning that Herod's son Archelaus now ruled Judea, the family makes a new home in Nazareth in Galilee.  And for the third time, another ancient prophetic promise is fulfilled: "He will be called a Nazarite or a Nazarene."

Although angels sang, shepherds gathered and wisemen traveled to see this joyful wonder, Jesus' welcome to the world is not a unanimous acclamation but rather fear from those in power that this child would subvert the order of the world, that a mere child would weaken the powerful.  The arbitrariness of Herod’s cruelty would have been entirely familiar to ancient people living under Roman rule.  Most of us in modern day America have a difficult time relating to this kind of behavior; most of us tend to trust that authorities are required to act in order to protect all human life.  No such trust existed in ancient Rome and its all-encompassing and unending power.

Therefore, Matthew's trust in the prophetic promises is the foundation of his faith.  Matthew's trust in God's providence emerges from a faith that expects God to reign in a world where the dominance of the powerful seems unchangeable.

Switching back to our Old Testament reading, oddly enough, it is this reading from Isaiah that invites us to consider the kindness, compassion and empathy of God.  This reminder from Isaiah is set against the story of Mary, Joseph and the baby fleeing to Egypt as Herod orders the slaughter of innocent children. 

The world is full of people and systems, driven by fear and vengeance, who will do all they can to extinguish joy, light, and love.  The world can be heartbreakingly cruel; the world desperately needs these elements of kindness, compassion, and empathy.

Rather than focusing solely on what cruelty Herod wrought on the world upon Jesus’ birth, we can instead focus on God’s and Humanity’s Compassionate Joy.  It might be helpful to define what compassion is.  Professor and psychologist Kristin Neff writes, “Compassion, then, involves the recognition and clear seeing of suffering.  It also involves feelings of kindness for people who are suffering, so that the desire to help—to (help alleviate) suffering—emerges.  Finally, compassion involves recognizing our shared human condition, flawed and fragile as it is.”

This understanding of compassion is so consistent with an understanding of who God is and what God calls us to be.  God recognizes and sees our suffering.  As Isaiah writes, “In all their distress God too was distressed.”  And over and over again we see God’s desire to help us, to save us from our trials.  In Jesus Christ God comes to us, enters into our shared human condition.  We are called to do the same for others.  We respond to the cruelty in our world with kindness, compassion, and empathy.  We respond to the cruelty of our world with joy; that’s what this Advent and Christmas Season’s theme was all about.

Against the evils of the world we shout, we cry out, we overcome.  We join our voices with God’s voice, with the angels’ voices, and with the saint’s voices who have gone before us to usher in the kingdom of God.  It would be easy this week to only focus on the cruelty in the world given what Herod had done.

In the midst of the joys of the Christmas season, these passages are a ripe reminder that things might have taken a different course, that tragedy and disappointment are too often the orders of the day.  As the poet Jane Kenyon once wrote, "It might have been otherwise."  But God breaks through in Joy, even in the midst of tragedy, heartbreak, sorrow, and difficulty.

Christmas Eve Message 2019

Christmas Eve Message for 2019

          On the Saturday morning after Thanksgiving some of the Deacons and members of the Bethesda Church met there to decorate for Christmas.  As they were getting out the many Nativity Sets that are set out all over the church, they noticed that the one set we’ve used in the past for telling the Christmas Story during Advent, and the one in which the baby Jesus is placed every Christmas Eve, surprisingly had two baby Jesus’.  They joked about finding Jesus’ twin brother.  But it reminded me of an old, old story that I’d like to tell you tonight.

          The story is set in the northern part of our country in the early to mid- 1900’s, sometime after the Great Depression.

About a week before Christmas a family bought a new nativity scene. When they unpacked it they found 2 figures of the Baby Jesus. "Someone must have packed this wrong," the mother said, counting out the figures. "We have one Joseph, one Mary, three wise men, three shepherds, two lambs, a donkey, a cow, an angel and two babies. Oh, dear! I suppose some set down at the store is missing a Baby Jesus because we have 2."
"You two run back down to the store and tell the manager that we have an extra Jesus. Tell him to put a sign on the remaining boxes saying that if a set is missing a Baby Jesus, call 7126. Put on your warm coats, it's freezing cold out there."

The manager of the store copied down mother's message and the next time they were in the store they saw the cardboard sign that read, "If you're missing Baby Jesus, call 7126." All week long they waited for someone to call. Surely, they thought, someone was missing that important figurine. Each time the phone rang mother would say, "I'll bet that's about Jesus," but it never was.

Father tried to explain there are thousands of these scattered over the country and the figurine could be missing from a set in Florida or Texas or California. Those packing mistakes happen all the time. He suggested just put the extra Jesus back in the box and forget about it.

"Put Baby Jesus back in the box! What a terrible thing to do," said the children. "Surely someone will call," mother said. "We'll just keep the two of them together in the manger until someone calls.

When no call had come by 5:00 on Christmas Eve, mother insisted that father "just run down to the store" to see if there were any sets left. "You can see them right through the window, over on the counter," she said. "If they are all gone, I'll know someone is bound to call tonight."
"Run down to the store?" father thundered. "It's 15 below zero out there!

"Oh, Daddy, we'll go with you," Tommy and Mary began to put on their coats. Father gave a long sigh and headed for the front closet. "I can't believe I'm doing this," he muttered. Tommy and Mary ran ahead as father reluctantly walked out in the cold. Mary got to the store first and pressed her nose up to the store window. "They're all gone, Daddy," she shouted. "Every set must be sold."
"Hooray," Tommy said. "The mystery will now be solved tonight!"

Father heard the news still a half block away and immediately turned on his heel and headed back home. When they got back into the house they noticed that mother was gone and so was the extra Baby Jesus figurine. "Someone must have called and she went out to deliver the figurine," my father reasoned, pulling off his boots. "You kids get ready for bed while I wrap mother's present."

Then the phone rang. Father yelled "answer the phone and tell 'em we found a home for Jesus." But it was mother calling with instructions for us to come to 205 Chestnut Street immediately, and bring three blankets, a box of cookies and some milk. "Now what has she gotten us into?" my father groaned as we bundled up again. "205 Chestnut. Why that's across town. Wrap that milk up good in the blankets or it will turn to ice before we get there. Why can't we all just get on with Christmas? It's probably 20 below out there now. And the wind is picking up. Of all the crazy things to do on a night like this."

When they got to the house at 205 Chestnut Street it was the darkest one on the block. Only one tiny light burned in the living room and, the moment we set foot on the porch steps, my mother opened the door and shouted, "They're here, Oh thank God you got here, Ray! You kids take those blankets into the living room and wrap up the little ones on the couch. I'll take the milk and cookies."

”Would you mind telling me what is going on, Ethel?" my father asked. "We have just walked through below zero weather with the wind in our faces all the way."

"Never mind all that now," my mother interrupted. "There isn't any heat in this house and this young mother is so upset she doesn't know what to do. Her husband walked out on her and those poor little children will have a very bleak Christmas, so don't you complain. I told her you could fix that oil furnace in a jiffy."

My mother strode off to the kitchen to warm the milk while my brother and I wrapped up the five little children who were huddled together on the couch. The children's mother explained to my father that her husband had run off, taking bedding, clothing, and almost every piece of furniture, but she had been doing all right until the furnace broke down.

"I been doin' washin' and ironin' for people and cleanin' the five and dime," she said. "I saw your number every day there, on those boxes on the counter. When the furnace went out, that number kept going' through my mind. 7162 7162. Said on the box that if a person was missin' Jesus, they should call you. That's how I knew you were good Christian people, willin' to help folks. I figured that maybe you would help me, too. So I stopped at the grocery store tonight and I called your misses. I'm not missin' Jesus, mister, because I sure love the Lord. But I am missin' heat. I have no money to fix that furnace."

"Okay, Okay," said father. "You've come to the right place. Now let's see. You've got a little oil burner over there in the dining room. Shouldn't be too hard to fix. Probably just a clogged flue. I'll look it over, see what it needs."

Mother came into the living room carrying a plate of cookies and warm milk. As she set the cups down on the coffee table, I noticed the figure of Baby Jesus lying in the center of the table. It was the only sign of Christmas in the house. The children stared wide-eyed with wonder at the plate of cookies my mother set before them.
Father finally got the oil burner working but said, "You need more oil. I'll make a few calls tonight and get some oil. Yes sir, you came to the right place", father grinned.

On the way home father did not complain about the cold weather and had barely set foot inside the door when he was on the phone. "Ed, hey, how are ya, Ed?"

"Yes, Merry Christmas to you, too. Say Ed, we have kind of an unusual situation here. I know you've got that pick-up truck. Do you still have some oil in that barrel on your truck? You do?"

By this time the rest of the family were pulling clothes out of their closets and toys off of their shelves. It was long after their bedtime when they were wrapping gifts. The pickup came. On it were chairs, lamps, blankets and gifts. The family loaded up the rest of the gifts and took them to 205 Chestnut Street.

No one ever did call about the missing figure in the nativity set, but as I grew older I realized that it wasn't a packing mistake at all.  What I came to realize is that sometimes Jesus is hidden, perhaps lost from view for a little while.  But Jesus most definitely comes in Joy and Jesus always saves, sometimes in the most remarkable way.

Merry Christmas!

Today's Sermon - 4th Sunday of Advent - Peaceful Joy - 12/22/19

Peaceful Joy

(based on Isaiah 7:13-15, Matthew 1:18-25)

In our reading from Isaiah this morning; after addressing King Ahaz, Isaiah addresses all of Israel.  “Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also?  Therefore, the Lord God will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.

They fretted over their enemies.  They worried that their enemies would come and overtake them.  They were fearful and shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind, so says Isaiah 7 verse 2.  They searched for a sign from God that God was still on their side and that God  would strike their enemies down.  But God wanted them to rest and be calm, to not worry, to not fear.   But God does not give them the sign that they are expecting.  This is the sign; a child.  Immanuel.  The people of Israel are waiting for the Warrior God to show up and destroy their enemies.  They were terrified that the gods of Syria were greater than their God.  And God wants to know: “Must I be like you, only bigger?  Must I be vengeful in a world obsessed with getting even?  I myself will give you a sign: “a young woman is with child and shall bear a son and shall call him Immanuel.”

Can we see this sign?  The stories of God’s movement in history invite each generation to enter the story.  African slaves in America heard stories of God delivering the Hebrew people from bondage in Egypt.  They heard themselves in that story in a way their slave masters did not.  The exodus became an African American story and Miriam’s song became a freedom song of deliverance from the auction block.  Every generation enters the pages of scripture with longing and need, expectation and hope.

Perhaps we find in this story a message for our generation, too.  That God is not part of culture.  That God is bigger than our politics.  That God is bigger than our reliance on Walmart and Amazon.  That God is bigger than the bullies that threaten Civil War if we don’t do what they want.  That our God is a God of peace and joy, hope and love.     

According to the prophet Isaiah in our Old Testament reading, Israel faced a significant threat.  However, the birth of a child demonstrated God’s intent to save the nation from Assyrian domination.  The name “Emmanuel” and the expression “God with us” signal both that a significant social transition is about to occur and that the community can live through the anxiety of transition because they believe that it comes from God.

The birth of Jesus, similarly, signals that the end-time transformation is underway and that the community can remain faithful even in the face of conflict and chaos because they can believe the transformation takes place under the protection of God.  What we do corporately and individually matter.  What we share with the world matter.  How we respond to the world matters.  What actions we make on a daily basis matter.  How we conduct our lives matter.  It is our responsibility to be the fruition of that baby Jesus in our world today.  It is our responsibility to manifest what it means to have “God with us” to have Immanuel in our lives.

Brigitte Kahl teaches New Testament at Union Theological Seminary. She grew up in the former East Germany.  Like many ordinary Germans, her father had served in Hitler’s army.  When that army invaded Russia the German soldiers wore belt buckles inscribed with the words “Gott mitt unz.” God with us.  Unless we see the sign of the child it is all too easy to turn “Immanuel, God-with-us” into a call to defeat our enemies.

God’s sign of a child surprised a king and an unwed father named Joseph.  This sign matters of a child matters a lot in a world that continues to worship a vengeful God who can crush its enemies.  But seeing a child as the of sign of God-with-us, I think, paints a different picture:

The Living Word of God comes to us as a child who is received, but cannot hurt us; a Word that does not make us afraid.  We should be prepared for the anger of God; I think God has a right to wrath for what we’ve done to one another, how we treat one another, what we’ve made of God’s creation.  What is so amazing is that when God does come among us, whatever God’s hurt or indignation, God comes not with violence, but as a child, vulnerable, that we might receive rather than fear God.

Gayle Boss wrote a fantastic book titled, All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings.  Each chapter describes the way an animal adapts to winter—with the loss of both heat and light.  One chapter describes the life cycle of a firefly.  Much like most insects, the common Eastern firefly dies off every year.  But, in a sense, their little lights never cease.  Because a firefly egg, buried deep in the ground, gives off a faint glow.  And after only two weeks it will hatch and the little red larvae will radiate a soft constant glow.  Far beneath our feet, they have spent the winter months crawling through the soil, eating and growing.

When the larva has grown to a specific size, it will construct a sort of mud cave for itself in the soil.  It will lie in the cave, glowing and still, while every part of its body melts and is remade.  It will have crawled through the dark earth for more than three hundred days to be made ready for a transformation that happens in ten or twelve.  A new creature, nothing like its original form, will push out of its cave, dig, and break above ground.  It will rest a moment and breathe, then rise on fresh wings, its light, long hidden, released to dance, sparkle, and shine through the nights of summertime.

This quiet and persistent light of the firefly is something like the peaceful joy we celebrate on this fourth Sunday of Advent.  We celebrate God’s light and love, soft and persistent, “radiating love to all the earth.” We celebrate God’s peace and we anticipate how it might be manifest in the world. 

It might be hard to believe that God would come to this world, to be with us.  Harder still to believe that God would come to us as a baby.  No wonder then, that an angel had to visit Joseph in his dreams to show him how the Messiah would be born into the world.  “Do not be afraid,” says the angel.  But, honestly, there is much to be afraid of!  The 9 months of pregnancy allows plenty of opportunity for feelings of fear and anxiety to take residence in hopeful parents.  In this time of transition, this time of waiting, God sends a messenger of peace.  And the peace God offers, peaceful joy is deep and wide, nudging its way through most of our lives and occasionally bursting forth in radiant light.

Peaceful joy brings balance to what feels out-of-sorts in the world.  In a world that so often feels scary, peaceful joy speaks words of comfort.  In a world that values strength and fortitude, peaceful joy portrays vulnerability.  In a world full of kings and rulers fighting for power, peaceful joy is born in the form of a warm, soft cry of a baby.

There isn’t much time left in our Advent waiting.  Only a few days remain before Immanuel arrives.  This Christmas will you receive the baby?  Will you receive the vulnerability of God?  And finally, will you respond to the threats of the world in peaceful joy?

Today's Sermon - Third Sunday of Advent: Unabashed Joy - 12/15/19

“Unabashed Joy”

(Isaiah 35: 1-10, Luke 1: 46-55)

One of the questions in last week’s newsletter was, “what will be our refrain?”

This week, I ask how we might multiply and magnify that refrain or our song.  The need for joy and love is necessary to our very survival, but to sing such a song in difficult times may seem daunting.  How do we lift our voices in praise and thanksgiving when so much of our lives seem worthy of lament and intercession?  The scripture readings for this morning, I think, show us the way.

Isaiah 35 speaks words of comfort and promise in the midst of war and desolation; the chapter prior offers a terrible and terrifying vision of God’s wrath against the nations, and the chapter following describes threats toward Jerusalem.  And yet in between wrath and threats, Isaiah writes about a refrain or a chorus of creation saying, “Be strong.  Do not be afraid.  Here is your God.”  As Barbara Lundblad (I mentioned her last week) puts it, “Isaiah dares to speak a word out of place.  A word that refused to wait until things improved.”  Some scholars say this hopeful promise belongs to what is known as Second Isaiah – or a later writing. Others argue that it comes even later -- sixth century BCE or perhaps even later still -- surely after the exile.  Our passage this morning seems out of place; it comes too early.  So, who moved it?  

Some things even our best scholarship cannot explain.  Perhaps the Spirit hovered over the text and over the scribes: “Put it here,” breathed the Spirit, “before anyone is ready. Interrupt the narrative of despair.” So, here it is: a word that couldn’t wait until it might make more sense.  A bold sense of Joy, unapologetic - unabashed.

The Luke passage, the Song of Mary, strikes a similar tone.  Mary is in a world of trouble: she is pregnant, unmarried, only betrothed to a man named Joseph.  One could imagine that she felt fear, insecurity, uncertainty about her own future.  And yet, she sings out again with bold, unapologetic, unabashed joy: God is great. God has done and will do great things.  Holy is our God.

It takes courage and love to sing our songs of joy in the midst of great suffering.  Unabashed joy is different than being told in the midst of your suffering that, “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” In fact, I really despise that platitude.  I think we are given more than we can handle on our own.  I think suffering, heartache and pain come in waves of drowning intensity.  They come in crashing blows that destroy us, if we were to do it all alone.  For me, I think God breaks through and helps us handle those crushing waves of pain and sorrow. 

How do we speak joy into places of suffering so that it honors the depth of human feelings and, at the same time, the all-encompassing love of God?  Both Isaiah and Mary speak of a particular and embodied joy: seeing eyes, hearing ears, gushing waters, growing seeds, the hungry filled, the humble lifted.

They also speak of a particular and embodied suffering: feeble hands, fearful hearts, people scattered and brought down. We like to think if we could just get through the suffering – on the other side of that suffering – there will come joy: first comes suffering and then we progress to a joyful state of being.  But the truth is, these deep feelings get tangled up together.

We can go from one to another, back and forth, or feel them all at the same time.  And, I believe, that the good news for today is that we can feel all these things, including suffering, and still joyfully proclaim a day when, “Gladness and joy will overtake [us] and sorrow and sighing will flee away.”

          Amid rumors of war and desolation, Isaiah 35 surprises us.  A voice speaks without addressing anyone by name, removed from a specific time.  This poem in Isaiah follows one of destruction: “The streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into sulfur; her land shall become burning pitch…Thorns shall grow over its strongholds, nettles and thistles in its fortresses.”  Then, without a break and without explanation, Isaiah 35 interrupts that devastation and despair:

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad.  The desert shall rejoice and

blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing…

          I remember visiting Mount St Helens quite a while after the volcano eruption.  There was devastation everywhere.  The trees were burned and bare, the earth was scorched and black.  And yet, in the midst of that destruction, new shoots of greenery were visible, new buds were breaking through.

          Pain and sorrow mixed with unabashed joy; back and forth, in and out,

Years ago, I would worship periodically at a men’s shelter in Pittsburgh.  Many of them with mental challenges.   Quite a few of them still drunk or high from the night before.  These services were normally quite chaotic, people come and go at will.  In the middle of worship, people speaking out loud with one another, sometimes with very bold and nearly shouting voices.  As a pastor and leader of worship, it was always a challenge.  One Sunday afternoon I was leading worship for the third or fourth time there, a man who couldn’t hear or speak began waving frantically at me and kept pointing at himself.  I guess when he thought he’d gotten my attention, he suddenly got up and stepped into the middle of the circle, bowed his head in silence, and began to sign a hymn for us.  It was beautiful, like a dance… In that moment, everything and everyone got quiet.  No one spoke, all eyes were glued to the man in the middle, signing a hymn for us.  All of our notions, or at least all of my notions, of ‘leader’ and ‘led’, ‘abled’ and ‘disabled’ were turned upside down.  Our worship abruptly became a token of the resurrection in the midst of the powers of sorrow and pain, or struggle and even death, perhaps a glimpse of God’s beloved community.  Even Isaiah couldn’t have imagined the glory of that moment as the hands of the speechless were singing in unabashed joy!

Mary’s beautiful song of praise is commonly called the Magnificat, from the Latin for “magnify.”  Mary magnifies the Lord, proclaiming God’s greatness and rejoicing in God as Savior.  She begins with God’s actions in her own life, for in choosing her to be the mother of the messiah, the Mighty One has indeed “done great things for” her.  Elizabeth has just welcomed and honored her, saying, “blessed is she who believed.”  Now she recognizes with awe that not only Elizabeth but all generations will call her blessed.

The blessedness that Mary celebrates stands in stark contrast to our culture’s attitude.  By our standards she does not look at all blessed.  God has chosen her to be the mother of the messiah, but in practical terms what does that mean for her?  She is not from a family that can afford expensive food or clothing.  She is a nobody, a peasant girl from a small village.  Her friends and neighbors see her as a disgrace because she is unmarried and pregnant – after all Joseph had planned to divorce her quietly. 

Isaiah dares to speak a word out of place.  A deaf and mute homeless man dares to worship in the midst of chaos.  Mary sings in the midst of her own drama.  A poem, a hymn, a song that refused to wait until things improved, until people got quiet.  We see and hear disturbing news every night on TV every morning on the front page of the paper or in print.  Add to that the data of our own lives: waiting for the test results from the doctor, mourning the death of a loved one, wondering if we’ll make it through the next round of lay-offs.  We know the data of our days all too well and we long for a word that comes to us, maybe a little out of place.  But a word of unabashed joy, nonetheless.

Who will speak this unabashed joy, this a word out of place in our time?  Will you?

Today's Sermon - Second Sunday of Advent - Loving Joy - 12/8/19

Loving Joy

(based on Isaiah 11:1-10)

There are so many things to see in this text that we hardly know where to begin.

A shoot growing from the stump of Jesse, a branch growing from the roots, and in the end it shall bear fruit; the gifts of the spirit.  From this tiny shoot emerging from a dead stump, the peaceable kingdom will emerge, one where predators and their prey live side by side, and babies play unharmed near poisonous snakes.  Woody Allen once gave his own interpretation of this vision: “The wolf shall lie down with the lamb. But the lamb won’t get much sleep!”

Just before this chapter, God declares punishment on the people: “the tallest trees will be cut down and the lofty will be brought low.” The trees, the people -- both will be clean cut off.  And yet, another word comes from this very same prophet in this morning’s text: “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse . . .”

The stump is dead.  God had said it would be so.  And yet, somehow, new life, a new start emerges.  Through hope of something new, comes joy.  And joy does not disappoint, it brings with it something that the world needs more of.  It brings with it; love.

It reminds me of an old song from the 60’s – What the World Needs Now is Love Sweet Love by Jackie DeShannon.  How many of you remember that song?

What the world needs now is love, sweet love

It's the only thing that there's just too little of

What the world needs now is love, sweet love,

No not just for some but for everyone.

Lord, we don't need another mountain,

There are mountains and hillsides enough to climb

There are oceans and rivers enough to cross,

Enough to last till the end of time.

What the world needs now is love, sweet love

It's the only thing that there's just too little of

What the world needs now is love, sweet love,

No, not just for some but for everyone.

Lord, we don't need another meadow

There are cornfields and wheat fields enough to grow

There are sunbeams and moonbeams enough to shine

Oh listen, lord, if you want to know.

What the world needs now is love, sweet love

It's the only thing that there's just too little of

What the world needs now is love, sweet love,

No, not just for some but for everyone.

No, not just for some, oh, but just for everyone.

I remember years ago, going up to our hunting camp in Lock Haven, PA.  Out in the woods, I found a tree that had fallen over many years ago.  It was old and rotten, moss grew over the bark that was holding on by shear will of the damp earth, the slightest touch would send large chunks of it crumbling to the ground.  Who knows what had happened to that old tree?  Perhaps disease had attacked it and hollowed out a good section of its core.  Perhaps, over time, too many wild animals had treasured its security, calling it home and making too many holes and nests within its heart.  Perhaps a large storm had come and knocked it over.  As I walked around the large trunk of the tree, I came to where it once stood firmly planted in the ground.  The stump was still intact.  It was pocked with rotten sections, too and jagged remains of the trunk stuck up here and there, but near the center of the trunk, was a tiny green shoot growing out of it.  A seed had taken root within the decomposing nutrients of the rotting stump.  There in the midst of the forest one tiny new tree was forming.

Lord, we don’t need another mountain.  We don’t need another cornfield or wheat field.  We don’t need another ocean or rivers.  We need love.  Just a little shoot of love, growing out of past.  We need just a start of something, a tiny piece of love for the world and its inhabitants growing from the struggle of pain and sorrow.

          Rev. Barbara Lundblad, Professor of Homiletics at Union Theological Seminary in New York tells the story of a man on her street that she’s known for years.  She says, “We often met in the morning at the newsstand.  Then, his wife died -- forty-two years together changed to loneliness.  I watched him walking, his head bowed, his shoulders drooping lower each day.  His whole body seemed in mourning, cut off from everyone.

I grew accustomed to saying, “Good morning” without any response. Until a week ago.  I saw him coming and before I could get any words out, he tipped his hat, “Good morning, Reverend. Going for your paper?”  He walked beside me, eager to talk.  I could not know what brought the change that seemed so sudden.  Perhaps, for him, it wasn't sudden at all, but painfully slow.  Like a seedling pushing through rock toward the sunlight. There must have been an explanation, yet he appeared to me, a miracle.”

As she says, she doesn’t know what it was and it wasn’t sudden.  It was painfully slow, but a tiny shoot of hope, a renewed sense of joy in the world around him even in the face of his great loss, and out of that loss came love of life again.

There was another story on the internet recently, it was told about a young woman by the name of Madeline Stuart who had down syndrome.  Like most children with Down Syndrome, her young life was spent being made fun of, hearing the taunts, and name-calling from her fellow classmates.  Her family rallied around her and made her feel loved.  Out of that love, she was made to feel that she had worth, that her life had meaning.  In 2014, she attended a fashion show with her mother and said, “Mum, me model.”  Her mom knew it would take a lot of work and dedication.  She told Madeline if she wanted to commit to the journey, she would fully support her.  Madeline lost over 70 lbs, began to take dance lessons and her mom posted before and after shots of the incredible transformation.

In 2015 she got her first modelling job and within a year has modelled at some of the globe’s biggest venues for models, like New York Fashion Week.  One year later, she received the Model of the Year Award and is considered a Supermodel.

“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse…” Who could imagine anything growing as they sat on the stump of utter despair? I’ve sat there myself, perhaps you have, too.  You may be there now -- at that place where hope is cut off, where loss and despair have deadened your heart.

God’s Advent word comes to sit with us.  This word will not ask us to get up and dance.  The prophet’s vision is surprising, but small.  The nation would never rise again.  The shoot would not become a mighty cedar.  The shoot that was growing would be different from what the people expected, for later in Isaiah chapter 53, he would explain this tiny shoot:

For he grew up before them like a young plant,

and like a root out of dry ground;

he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse… fragile yet tenacious and stubborn.  It would grow like a plant out of dry ground.  It would even push back the stone from the rock-hard tomb out of love for you and me.

It would grow in the decomposing earth out of the center of the rings of ages.

It will grow in the heart of a man cut off by sorrow until one morning he can look up again.

It will grow in the hearts of people told over and over again that they are nothing.  The plant will grow.  It will break through the places where the past becomes the future, where sorrow breaks forth into joy, and where people who feel worthless are told that they are loved.  

What if we believe this fragile sign is God’s beginning?  Perhaps then we will tend the seedling in our hearts, the place where faith longs to break through the hardness of our disbelief.  God comes to us in this Advent time and invites us to move beyond counting the rings of the past.  We may still want to sit on the stump for a while, that’s okay because God will sit there with us.  But God will also keep nudging us: “Look! Look -- there on the stump – see that tiny green shoot.  That is love.  Look around you and see the joy.”

Today's Sermon - Hopeful Joy - 12/1/19

Hopeful Joy

(based on Isaiah 2: 1-5 and Romans 13: 11-14)

Today is the first Sunday of Advent.  Advent is a time set aside for waiting and watching; a time of anticipation.  Advent is a time of hope for good and gracious things to come, but it isn’t a time of passive waiting.  We live in the time between the “already”, for Christ has already come and the “not yet”, for the Kingdom of God has not yet been fulfilled.  In this time between the darkness of night and the light of what Christ brings, the writer of Romans admonishes us to basically, “wake up and get dressed!”  Advent is a time of hopeful, active waiting; waking up and preparing for the Kingdom of God.   

This year, the beloved Christmas hymn, “Joy to the World” celebrates its 300^th anniversary.  And in celebration of those 300 years, I’ll being using the theme of Joy during this Advent/Christmas season.  Each week during Advent we will close our service with the benediction by singing one verse of this hymn.  This morning we will sing the first verse which reminds us that there is joy. 

Joy to the world! 

The Lord has come,

Let earth receive her king. 

Let every heart prepare him room;

(Concluding with the chorus, which reminds us repeatedly that:)

heaven and nature sing!

Did you know that beneath the forest floor among the tangle of all the roots of the plants and trees there is a fungus called mycorrhiza?  The popular podcast Radiolab has a great episode on mycorrhiza and in the synopsis they describe this unbelievable organism by saying that it is “a strange creature that burrows beneath forests, building an underground network where deals are made and lives are saved (and lost) in a complex web of friendships, rivalries, and business relations.  It’s a network that scientists are only just beginning to untangle and map, and it’s not only turning our understanding of forests upside down, it’s leading some researchers to rethink what it means to be intelligent.”  

Mycorrhiza is also known as “the wood wide web.”  Why? Because this extraordinary network of tiny tubes in the form of a fungus allows for species to share information and resources.  In fact, it truly sustains and nurtures the life of the forest.  The discoveries in Science are finally catching up to what we have always known by Faith.  And Faith is being enriched and empowered and made even more joyful through the discoveries of Science!  We live in amazing times!  This connectivity is at the heart of the first verse of Joy to the World – And heaven and nature sing!  Mycorrhiza is a fitting image for today, a way in which the earth pulses with connection and with unmatched joy, regardless of our attention to it.

Isaiah tried to tell the people of Judea about this great joy that would one day come.  In describing that joy, he said that he saw a temple high in the mountains where disputes are settled peacefully, swords were turned into plowshares, and spears were made into pruning hooks.  The weapons associated with darkness and destruction became tools for cultivation and nurture.  Through imagery, Isaiah offers the people of Jerusalem a new perspective, one that offered hope during dark times of war and despair.  Isn’t that a powerful image for us today?  That there will one day be a time when our disputes are handled peaceably.  That there will one day be a time when there will not be any reason or need of guns or swords to hurt or kill others.  But we still live in dark times.  We still live in the midst of pain and struggle when it comes to these things across the nations, even in our own communities.  What do we do with this “in between time”?

In 2015, two spiritual leaders who knew a lifetime of struggle and despair, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of the South African Anglican Church and the Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama met for a week.  During their time together they spoke about the answer to one single burning question; How do we find joy in the face of life’s inevitable suffering?

While people long for joy and hope, sometimes it can be hard to see or find.  Desmond Tutu had this to say, “Discovering more joy does not, I’m sorry to say, save us from the inevitability of hardship and heartbreak.  In fact, we may cry more easily, but we will laugh more easily, too.  Perhaps we are just more alive.  Yet as we discover more joy, we can face suffering in a way that ennobles rather than embitters.  We have hardship without becoming hard.  We have heartbreak without being broken.”

The Dalai Lama said that our purpose in life is to find happiness.  He said that, “It does not matter whether one is a Buddhist like me, or a Christian like the Archbishop, or any other religion, or no religion at all.  From the moment of birth, every human being wants to discover happiness and avoid suffering.  From the very core of our being, we simply desire joy and contentment.  But so often these feelings are fleeting and hard to find, like a butterfly that lands on us and then flutters away.

The ultimate source of happiness is within us.  Not money, not power, not status.   Outward attainment will not bring real inner joyfulness.  We must look inside.”

He went on to say that, “we create most of our own suffering, so it should be logical that we also have the ability to create more joy.  It simply depends on the attitudes, the perspectives, and the reactions we bring to situations and to our relationship with other people.”

Archbishop Tutu responded back to this statement by the Dalai Lama by saying that he believes that joy is actually bigger than happiness.  Happiness is often dependent on external circumstances, like when we get that job or when we fall in love, then we’ll be happy.  It is a reaction to the world around us and how we respond to what is given to us, but joy, he says, is available to us right now, from within.  It is not externally given by internally found.  Joy comes to us as a gift from God.

The fourth line in the 300 year old hymn, Joy to the World, says; “Let every heart prepare Him room.”

Have you come to this Advent season with hope?

Hope for a better today?  Hope for a better tomorrow?  Hope for a better fulfillment of joy in your life?

Then prepare your heart – for JOY is coming!  In fact, it is already here.  Just look within and see it.  The earth courses with it.  The heavens and earth shout it from above and below.  Joy is all around us.  Look and see.  Wake and Get Dressed!

Today's Sermon - The Days are Surely Coming - 11/24/19 Christ the King Sunday

This morning's sermon is really just a short meditation.  We'll be worshiping with three congregations joining in a Christ the King/Thanksgiving Service and the pastors sharing a short message on the lectionary passages.  Mine is the OT passage from Jeremiah.

The Days are Surely Coming

(based on Jeremiah 23:1-6)

“The days are surely coming” says the Lord when God will raise up a king who will execute justice and righteousness in the land.  This king will be called, "The Lord is our righteousness."  Both the Old and New Testaments make it clear that we can live in a right relationship with God.  Not because of who we are but because of who God is.  Not because we are good but because God is loving toward us.  When we are in a right relationship with God, we know and experience the true meaning of salvation.  Israel knew God primarily as a God who acts in human life and history to save his people from real troubles, like bondage in Egypt, like the exiled in Babylon.

Jeremiah's promise to a people who were defeated and scattered because of the unfaithfulness of their leaders, was that the same God who had saved their ancestors from bondage in Egypt would save them from exile in Babylon.  According to Jeremiah, the job of a king (or any leader) is to take care of the people, just as a shepherd takes care of the sheep. 

Jeremiah promises the coming of a new and good king in the line of David.  From this passage in Jeremiah it is not exactly clear whom he meant.  But Christians know that the promise was ultimately fulfilled in the coming of another whose name means, "God's salvation."  In the event of the life of Jesus, God again acted to show us what God is always doing. God is always reaching out to us in life and in history to bring us to a new and right relationship with God and to promise us salvation.

Today, we, too can discover a new dimension of the meaning of righteousness and salvation when we learn to expect God to save us from the real problems of our lives, problems like career frustrations, conflicts in our relationships, addictions, and the loss of integrity resulting from life in a sometimes very hostile world.  We can discover even more when we learn to expect God to save our world from injustice, from racial strife, and from the constant presence of conflict and war in the world.

But God does not save just by "fixing" our circumstances.  God saves by reordering our lives as a new king reorders life in a kingdom.  We are led into a new and right relationship with God, the Lord is our Righteousness.  Then, and only then, people and communities who are renewed from within move out to change the world.  

We often implore God to fix the problems in the world; to make a way for peace, to make sure that no one goes hungry, that the poor are lifted up, that widows and orphans are taken care of, etc…but, that’s not how God works.  The Lord is our Righteousness works by working in the hearts of God’s own people.  And then through the faith and life of the new king, whom we find in Jesus Christ on this Christ the King Sunday, reorders our priorities and renews our heart’s desires so that WE, God’s people, do the work of God. 

“The days are surely coming”, says the Lord.  Have they come?  Are they here?  Will you do the work of God in this world of ours?