Today's Sermon - Out of Darkness - Hope 1/26/20

Out of the Darkness – Hope

(based on Isaiah 9:1-4, Matthew 4:12-23, 1 Corinthians 1:10-18)

          A professor once quoted a newspaper ad that read, "For Sale: Hot tub, plumbing included.  Will trade for pickup truck.  Call (and the telephone number was listed)".  It doesn't take a Ph.D. to determine that here is a life in major transition!  From one that was enjoying the life of leisure and a hot tub after work to a life that needs a pickup truck, even if it is sort of a hand-me-down.  Often these major transitions of life are caused by crises.  The disciples, in our New Testament reading, are in the midst of major transition.  Perhaps this transition is caused by the crisis of their decision to repent and follow Jesus.  Perhaps it is caused by the fact that John the Baptist has been put in prison.  Many of Jesus' disciples had first followed John.  It would have been easy for these disciples of John to succumb to disillusionment, retreat into fear, or just quit because they were tired.  But in Jesus' voice and the message they heard from him, they heard a new call and it was the time to respond.

Why did they respond to that voice?  Perhaps something was lacking in their lives.  Sensing in John a glimmer of hope, they realized a new opportunity in the dynamic preacher from Nazareth.  In Jesus, they found a place.  We all know that the church is people.  The Greek word we translate as "church" means "called-out ones."  But the church also is a place.  And having a place is important.  When they sinned, Adam and Eve were tossed out of their place.  Cain was doomed to wander without a place.  Abraham and Sarah were called to journey looking for a place.  The children of Israel were delivered from Egypt upon the promise of a place flowing with milk and honey.  Having a place to call your own is important.

In Christ, the disciples found a place where they could find mercy, purpose, stability, forgiveness, security, and a sameness that gave unity to their lives.  Out of darkness - hope.

Matthew also reports that they responded immediately, almost as if they left their father in the boat and just walked away.  "It is now time," Jesus says. "The kingdom is near".  

Have you heard about the Procrastinators' Club?  They boast five hundred thousand members. Actually, only thirty-five thousand members have joined.  The others intend to but they just keep putting it off!

Here in Matthew, Jesus is saying, "Don't put it off."

The Bible uses at least two Greek words we translate as "time."  One word is chronos, from which we get our word chronology.  This is the linear, day-to-day living of our lives.  We are really good with chronos time.  We get up and we are already onto our daily routines, we have our calendar of events to accomplish and our list of things to do.  We fill up our days ceaselessly with chronos time.   But another word used in Greek is kairos.  This is crisis time.  The moment is here.  Opportunity awaits.  Seize it.  It is the recognition of that penultimate moment for a decision to be made or an action to be taken.  "The kingdom is near," Jesus said.  Without delay, those whom Jesus called, followed him.  Out of darkness – hope.

In the play Becket, the king selected his old hunting buddy and fellow carouser to be the archbishop, expecting to control his pal and the church.  But in the role of archbishop, Becket changed.  "Something happened to me," he told the angry king.  "When you put this burden upon me in the empty cathedral, it was the first time in my life that I had ever been entrusted with anything.  I was literally a man without honor.  Now, I am a man with honor, the honor of God."  He had found his place because he recognized the time.  

For the disciples, they recognized in Christ, that a significant moment had arrived.  Out of their crisis of life, of searching for something more, out of their own fog of desperation they found purpose and a place.  Out of their own darkness, they found hope.  That found joy waiting for them in Jesus. 

One of the most pressing problems in our society is depression. Millions are affected by it; perhaps some of you today struggle with depression.  The prophet Isaiah ministered to an entire nation gripped by depression because of their circumstances.  Although to many, it seemed there was no hope, Isaiah proclaimed that even in the midst of despair, God is able to bring life and light.

The Darkness of despair feels overwhelming.  The reading of verse 1 in Isaiah is obscure but clear enough: gloom, anguish, and contempt are the daily bread of the people of Israel, who have borne the brunt of an Assyrian invasion of 733 B.C.  Verse 2 fills out the image: "The people who walked in darkness...." This darkness is what the people of Israel have lived with, day and night, week in and week out.  To walk in darkness, to live "in a land of deep darkness," is to lose one's sense of reality, of bearings, of memory or hope.       

What Isaiah describes is a kind of communal defeat and despair, an experience most of us have never known.  We have all, however, witnessed such events, such tragedies, or read of their occurrence in history.  Famine, genocide, plague, civil war, holocaust—all of these are instances where a crisis is so great it leaves the entire community or country in a chronic state of shock.  Since most of us have never lived that kind of communal despair we can only imagine it.  However, any of us who have experienced acute depression ourselves know the weight of such darkness.  Now multiply that by the weight of an entire people with everyone around you feeling that same depression.

Such was the existence of these oppressed people during this time period in history for the Jews.  They walked, but to where?  They lived, but for what purpose? 

Into the deep darkness comes a bold announcement from Isaiah, their prophet: the coming of "a great light".  Weeks and months and years in complete darkness, all at once dissipated by great light, shining light, as though they were given sight for the very first time.

The result of such an experience of coming into light is expressed in verse 3 with one predominant word: joy.  We spoke of this joy all through the Christmas Season as we celebrated the 300th anniversary of the hymn Joy to the World.  "You have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest."  The image is no longer of heaviness but the very opposite—lightness, levity, mirth.  The promise of Yahweh through the prophet Isaiah is that however heavy the darkness of national defeat, humiliation, and exile may be, the darkness is not the end.  Something better is coming.  Out of darkness – hope.  There is hope for joy to come again. 

And so it is with your own life, as well.  Whatever the cause of your despair, God can bring new light and new joy to you.  This joy comes with God’s love.  But leaving the darkness and coming into the light of hope and joy is a time of deep and difficult transition.  You must leave that darkness behind and go towards something unknown. 

The disciples did not know what they were getting themselves into when they chose to follow Christ.  They stepped out of the dark and into the light.  The people of Israel had no idea what Isaiah was talking about when he told them that a light was coming.  That joy would return to them.  But, out of faith, they followed.

It is difficult when we are in deep depression to know and believe that light and joy can come.  Sometimes we need a guiding hand to help us find the way.  For the entire community of Israel, it was Isaiah.  For the disciples, it was Christ.  For you, it could be a friend, a pastor, a trusted aunt or a counselor.  Reach out through the fog of despair and find the light that Isaiah talks about or the purpose that the disciples found in Christ.

Out of darkness – hope.

Today's Sermon - A Servant Soul - 1/12/20

A Servant Soul

(based on Isaiah 42:1-9, Matthew 3:13-17)

If you ask a child, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" it's unlikely you'll receive the answer, "I want to be a servant."  Being a "Servant" is not found on any of the lists of hot new careers.  Yet servanthood and being a good and faithful servant is at the essence of our faith and who we are as Christians.  In fact, God chose the very image of the servant to describe the One God would send to give his life on our behalf.

In our Old Testament reading this morning from Isaiah 42, the servant is linked closely with God: "Here is my servant, whom I uphold,/my chosen, in whom my soul delights".  Further, "I have put my spirit upon him”, someone whose very identity and purpose is derived from God who has chosen that person for service or a particular role.  But what is that role?  I think it’s pretty well defined in the first few verses of Isaiah 42: to bring justice to the nations and on earth.  But not justice that wields a sword, but rather one that does the work of justice with care, gentleness, and perseverance.  Justice will be brought about without the servant's voice having been raised, without a wick being snuffed out, and without the servant having been overcome by the size or difficulty of the mission. The images of restraint that Isaiah uses here like a bruised reed unbroken, or a dimly lit wick unquenched, give new meaning to the word grace.  If justice is the mission, it is not to be marched in by a lock-stepping holy army, but cupped in hand, cradled in arms, shielded by the body.

In Frederick Buechner's fictional account of Jacob, The Son of Laughter, God is sometimes called "the Shield," meaning that God "is always shielding us like a guttering wick...because the fire he is trying to start with us is a fire that the whole world will live to warm its hands at.  It is a fire in the dark that will light the whole world home."  It’s that image of cupping your hand against the breeze, protecting us or shielding us, so that the candle’s flame or our flame does not go out.  I love that image.

This profile of identity in Isaiah for the servant leaves us with a picture that is both inspiring in its tenderness and exemplary for any life of faith. Not only does the image of such a strong yet gentle worker of justice give us pause to contemplate, it also becomes a model for how we should be living our own lives after Christ.

This passage from Isaiah coupled with the passage from Matthew regarding Jesus’s baptism works really well together to describe the meaning and purpose of the servant in whom God has put God’s own Spirit.  That spirit, Isaiah claims, leads the servant to bring forth justice on the earth—not through power and might, but through gentleness and a tireless pursuit of God’s redemption and liberation for all the peoples of the earth.  

So, once we get to Matthew and this idea of servanthood, "What did baptism mean to Jesus?"  I think it was an experience of blessing for him. God said, "You are on the right track. Continue with my blessing." The voice of blessing is one that many people take for granted. Many people wander through life, like Esau, searching for a blessing that is never pronounced.

But being blessed isn’t something that is simple given, it also involves responsibility.  Jesus lived in obedience after receiving the blessing.  He took the hand he had been dealt and he played it.  That's what we can do. That may be all we can do.  We must be like Jesus and let nothing deter us.  The crowds wanted to make him king.  He resisted.  His best friend wanted to talk him out of it.  He refused.  Judas tried to force another course.  Jesus chose to play the hand God had dealt.  We can do the same.  Parents and other significant adults will fail to bless us even under the best of circumstances.  Other times we will not feel worthy of blessing. That is true—we're not worthy.  As in Jesus' most famous story, the parent waits to bless whether or not we are worthy.  God's presence depends not on our faithfulness but on God's.  So we continue.

Keith Miller asked, "Who gives you your grade?"  Who is the audience to whom we play out the drama of our lives?  It can be an audience of the One who will never fail to be with us as we carry out God's will.  John Claypool quotes a rabbi who once said, "When I stand before God, He will not ask me why were you not Abraham, Jacob or David?"  He will ask, "Why were you not Bernie?"  In 1969, Bob Whelan, six two and two hundred pounds, departed for Vietnam.  Within a year this fine athlete returned weighing eighty-seven pounds.  A land mine had blown away both legs.  A long recovery followed.  Never did he bow to despair or see himself as unblessed.  "Before," he said, "I had one hundred options.  Now, only five, but I'll make the best of those five."

In 1990, Bob Whelan completed the Boston Marathon. He covered all twenty-six miles-plus running on his hands and arms—hopping much like a frog. When he crossed the finish line, few dry eyes were seen. He is a winner. He chose to look to God in gratitude for what he was, not what he was not. He played the hand he was dealt. So can we, for each of us already has the blessing. (Gary L. Carver)

Baptism is serious business.  A National Public Radio story a few years back told of a seventy-one-year-old Frenchman who was seeking to be de-baptized.  The man, Rene LeBouvier, formally petitioned French church officials to annul or invalidate his baptism.  He had been raised in a very religious family, and his mother dreamed that one day he might become a priest.  Yet, in the 1970s, like many of his counterparts, Rene dared to explore intellectually beyond the confines of his strict Catholic, religious community, and that was the beginning of the end as far as his faith was concerned.

After years of attempting to have his name removed from church rolls and baptismal records, Mr. LeBouvier learned that this simply was not possible.  He then decided to take the church to court.  A magistrate found in his favor, but the church appealed.  It was not possible to erase history, they argued, nor to deny that a sacred rite had taken place, vows and eternal declarations made.

Baptism is more than simply a rite of passage or a religious ceremony; it’s one of life’s defining, threshold-crossing moments.  It’s a destiny moment when, whether you chose it or not, you were declared God’s beloved “and marked as Christ’s own forever,” as the liturgy poetically states.  Nothing you can do, even renouncing your faith, can ever nullify that fact.  This is why baptism is serious business.

In baptism we claim that everything changes.  That’s what happened at Jesus’s own baptism.  It was literally a “heavens opening” moment. Imagine Jesus as Matthew depicts him—curious, searching, insightful, precocious.  Being spiritually adventurous, he decided to go down by the river, where so many others were flocking to hear his relative, John, preach a fiery message, and they were being baptized into a new relationship with God.  There is so much we cannot know about that day and what motivated Jesus to join John and the others, but what we do know is that at the moment of his baptism, everything changed.  He went down to the river that day searching, longing, open, and he came back a changed man. He discovered, or had confirmed, his true identity and the true nature of his relationship to God.  The church has always claimed that in baptism the same is true for each of us.

This is why Mr. LeBouvier cannot be de-baptized.  What happened to him as a child in baptism had the essence of God in it, regardless of how broken the institution that celebrated this truth might be and regardless of Mr. LeBouvier’s later rejection of God’s eternal declaration about him.  His baptism cannot be undone because it was God’s doing in the first place. The good news about our God is that God’s choice to love us so fully, and to claim us eternally, cannot be undone.

-      Javier Viera

“In a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger, and hatred, we have the privileged vocation to be living signs of a love that bridges all divides and heals all wounds.” (Henri Nouwen)

That is the role of the servant soul.  Let us follow the example of Christ and be servants in this world of ours.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

Today's Sermon - Epiphany Sunday: A Star - 1/5/20

A Star

(based on Isaiah 60:1-6, Matthew 2:1-12)

There are so many amazing aspects of the events surrounding Christ’s birth, but one that has especially made its way into our decorations, cards, carols and nativity scenes is the Star of Bethlehem which was foretold in the ancient texts and followed by the wisemen.  The account of the star has fascinated biblical scholars and astronomers for centuries. Some claim it was a conjunction of planets, some say a comet, others a supernova in the sky.  So, what was this star, and why is it important? What was God’s purpose behind this Star of Bethlehem?

Have you ever gone outside on a clear night and looked up into the night sky?  Probably when you’ve been on vacation, away from all the city lights and other distractions of everyday life.  It’s beautiful, isn’t it?  About a thousand years before Jesus was born, King David (one of Jesus’ ancestors) sat out under the same night sky and wrote in Psalm 8:

“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?”

David was awestruck by the beauty and the majesty of God’s handiwork.  And yet he had no conception of the vast distances and sizes of the objects he observed.  We have so much more knowledge of the universe today.  And so, when we look at the heavens, we should be even more awestruck than David was when we consider the wonders of the universe in which we live.  It is vastly immense and actually growing larger every day.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.  God created the galaxies and the stars, and God set them spinning in space in astronomical precision.  As the ancients studied the night sky, they observed this beauty and order.  For the most part, they found the sky was predictable.  As the great star wheel turned above the earth, each of the stars stayed in relative position to each other.  But there were also some surprises.  Meteor showers, comets, sudden flare-ups in the sky – many of the ancients viewed these as signs or portents in the heavens.

It was that the Magi, written in our scriptures as men from the East, who noticed something unusual in the sky around the time of Christ’s birth. Something out of the ordinary caught their attention and spurred them on to make the long journey to Jerusalem.  If God had not first created a universe of such order and precision, this star would not have stood out to them.  

When the Magi got to Jerusalem, they began to ask the people: “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?  We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”  Somehow, they connected this star with the birth of an enormously important new king, and they came seeking to worship him.  You have to remember that for the most part the entire world was under the rule of Rome, and Caesar it’s Emperor.  If a star showed up to announce the birth of a new king, this king would be even more important than the Emperor, therefore someone worthy of praise and worship.  They searched the ancient scriptures of Israel as this trajectory of the star and found in it the mention of a Messiah, the Christ. 

Long before Christ came into the world, the Scriptures foretold his coming.  God chose the people of Israel to be his very own, and he gave them the law, the sacrifices, the temple and the promises – all of which pointed forward to Christ.  One of those early promises was recorded in the book of Numbers, where it was prophesied: “A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel.”  This promise was connected to an earlier prophecy about the scepter in Genesis which says: “The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his.” Another prophecy that may have influenced them would be today’s Old Testament reading from Isaiah 60:

“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.  See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you.  Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.”

Taken together, these prophecies speak of a ruler who will come out of Israel from the tribe of Judah and to whom the obedience of all the nations belongs and all nations will come to sit under his rule.  Reading these texts, it might be possible to see how the Magi related the image of the star in Genesis and Numbers to this mysterious star in the east arriving over Jerusalem as a sign that the King of the Jews was finally born into the world.  And if the obedience of the nations was his, then this Christ was not only King of the Jews but he was a king for all people.  Remember there’s an Emperor who rules over the whole world at this time, so this wasn’t really a big stretch even for these Magi that come from a distant land.

Whatever Scriptures they knew, somehow, they were able to make the connection between the star they saw rising in the east and this ruler who was prophesied in the Old Testament.  And so, they came to worship him.

We know the Magi initially saw the star in the east, they made the connection to Christ, and then they came to Jerusalem, for some unknown and miraculous reason, the star moved across the sky and then stopped over Jerusalem and ultimately over Bethlehem.  There is some question as to whether the star led the Magi all the way from their home to Jerusalem, or whether it reappeared once they reached Jerusalem and then led them to Bethlehem.  But either way, as they traveled from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, “the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.”

So, what was the Star of Bethlehem?  There have been many attempts over the years to identify this star and I’ve written previous sermons about that, but in a quick review here are the four most common explanations:

A comet: The early church father Origen was the first to suggest that the star may actually have been a comet.  Halley’s Comet made an appearance in 12 B.C., but that is much too early for Christ’s birth.  Another comet appeared for about seventy days in March and April of 5 B.C.  That is closer to the time frame of Christ’s birth, but it does not explain the miraculous movement of the star toward Bethlehem.  Also, comets were generally considered omens of evil rather than bearers of good news.

A conjunction of planets: Others have suggested that the star was really a conjunction of planets.  Johannes Kepler, one of the fathers of modern astronomy, pointed to the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 7 B.C. (later joined by Mars in February of 6 B.C.).  However, once again it does not explain the movement of the star.  Also, planetary conjunctions are fairly brief events, lasting at the most for several nights and in their most compact configurations only for a few hours.

A supernova: Kepler actually preferred a different explanation himself – the possibility that the Magi saw a star that had gone supernova.  A supernova is basically an exploding star.  It is a spectacular event as the star suddenly flares up in brilliance and maintains that brilliance over a period of time due to a series of internal explosions.  The last supernova that occurred in our own Milky Way galaxy took place in 1604.  It is reported that the star was so bright you could actually see it in the daytime. Now the ancients sometimes got comets and novas confused; they often called novas “comets without a tail.”  There are reports of a tailless comet in the year 4 B.C. which may actually have been a supernova.  The timing is close, but once again it does not account for the movement of the star.

Given what knowledge we have today, we still cannot fully explain the Star of Bethlehem yet.  Perhaps God did something that we still do not understand – imagine that.  When all is said and done, we have something much better than an explanation, though.  We have a mystery.  We have a miracle.  And the miracle of the Star of Bethlehem is one of the many wonders of the Christmas story that draws our hearts to worship the Lord each Christmas season.

But even if we cannot explain the Star of Bethlehem, we aren’t left in the dark as to its purpose.  God’s purpose for the Star of Bethlehem was simply to point the Magi to Christ.  God used the star to catch the Magi’s attention and bring them to Jerusalem.  It was there that they received a fuller revelation of Christ from God’s Word, when the teachers of the law, under the direction of Herod, opened the Scriptures and pointed them to Bethlehem as to the place of Christ’s birth.

And then, somehow, the star went on ahead of them to Bethlehem until it stopped over the place where Christ was.  Matthew 2:10 says: “When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.”  Why were they overjoyed? Not so much because they saw the star, but because the star had led them to their goal.  It had pointed them to Christ.

I would say that this is still God’s purpose for the Star of Bethlehem today.  It points us to Christ.  Just as the purpose of a reading lamp is to shed light on the book you are reading, or the purpose of a spotlight is to highlight the person on the stage, so the purpose of the star is to point us to Christ.

It’s interesting that the gospel of Matthew begins with foreigners from a distant nation coming to worship Christ.  And the gospel of Matthew ends with Jesus’ commission to the church to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  So, the Star of Bethlehem has a missionary thrust.  It’s a reminder to us that we are to share the good news of Christ with everyone, everywhere we can.  We are to make disciples of all nations as we point them to Christ, for He IS the true Star of Bethlehem.

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?