2014 Winter Youth Assembly sermon

Jeremiah 29:11-13
For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart.

1 Timothy 4:12-16
Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I arrive, give attention to the public reading of scripture, to exhorting, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you through prophecy with the laying on of hands by the council of elders. Put these things into practice, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress. Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; continue in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Matthew 5:13-16
“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled underfoot. “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and savior Jesus the Christ. Amen.

We’ve had and awesome Winter Youth Assembly 2014, haven’t we? We’ve done so much together – we’ve laid down our burdens together, we’ve sang with the awesome band together, eaten milkshakes together, eaten together, played games together, read the Bible together, talked about issues we are deeply passionate together, worshipped together, prayed together, learned about what the wider church is doing together, had too little sleep together – we’ve been the people of God together for the last thirty-six hours. And it’s been awesome. But now you have to leave.

 In just a couple hours, you’ll be on your way home or home already, back to your own house and your own family and your own bed, with homework waiting to be done before school starts tomorrow. In just a few hours, we’ll all be back to our regularly scheduled lives. You’ll be back in a world that we talked about in open space yesterday – a world full of stress and scary things and big issues and everyday obstacles. That world waiting for won’t be any different from the one you left. But maybe this time, upon reentering that world, you’ll know who you belong to and who is the one walking with you in the chaos.

Today, before we go, Jesus has some words to say to us. What we just heard a moment ago and what you read in your small groups is from a larger section in the Gospel of Matthew called the Sermon on the Mount. It’s pretty much what it says it is – its Jesus first sermon, and he preaches it on a mountain. Well done, Bible scholars. Last we you might have hard your pastor preach on the Beatitudes, the “blessed are the ‘fill-in-the-blanks’” section. And this week, we hear the next movement of the sermon, about who we are and what we are for in this world. Jesus knows that up here on the mountain, things can feel pretty safe. We may even want to stay up here forever, chillin’ with Jesus. But we have to go down the mountain sometime, and Jesus is getting us ready.

Jesus tells us, “You ARE the light of the world.” Jesus did NOT say, “you are the light if you do A, B, and C.” He didn’t say, “You’ll be the light when you get older.” He didn’t say, “You’ll be the light when you get confirmed.” Jesus said, “You ARE the light” as in RIGHT NOW, this very moment.

That light does not come from you. It doesn’t come from how awesome you are at sports, or how good you are in school, or how many friends you have, or if you are good at singing or video games or knitting. It doesn’t come from doing everything right, being the perfect son or daughter or student or athlete. If it did, not a single one of us, even the adults, would be able to generate even the tiniest spark.

Instead, your light comes from being a child of God. Last night we remembered that God created us and knows us each by name. We remembered our baptisms, where God claimed each of us as daughters and sons through water and the Holy Spirit, who keeps that light burning in us. Our light comes from the source of all light, from the one who we are called to follow, Jesus.

Right now we’re in that in-between season of the church year, between Christmas and Lent, with the funny name – Epiphany. It is a time that is all about light. How the light of Christ first dawned on us as he was born in a manger in Bethlehem, how his light shone out during his ministry in his preaching and teaching and feeding and healing, how that light could not be put out even by death. Jesus entered into our darkness, bringing God’s healing light to all the dark and broken places. And by being a child of God, you become a bearer of that light to all the world.

You are shining that light right now, even as we speak. That light might be a bright spot light, a flashlight, the light shining through the window, blinking colored Christmas lights, or a dimly burning candle flame flickering in the wind, but you are the light if the world, and you have the light of Christ in you.

Just a little light goes a long, long way. Think back when you last lost power – whether it was during Hurricane Sandy or even this last week during the snow and ice storms. When it got dark, just a little bit of light could give you enough to see by, even by just turning on the tiny light built into your phone.
But what is light for? It’s meant to shine. The light is not meant to stay in one place, to be hidden away – though it is really tempting to hide your light. God did not give you the light to put a basket over it, though that is what happens sometimes.

What are the bushel baskets in your life? Think about that for a moment. Only you know what is in your life that can hold you back, that can make you want to hide. For Timothy, who gets a letter from his mentor Paul, it was his youth and inexperience. Fortunately Timothy had someone in his life to remind him of the gifts that God had given him, to remind him to let his light shine, no matter what, so that everyone might benefit.
You are the light OF THE WORLD. It’s for the sake of others. And it’s not about shining bigger and brighter than the next person. It’s about shining enough for what that person needs right now. Its stuff that you are already doing – like service projects in your church or youth group, or seemingly little things like welcoming those who are different from us or trying to get to know people we don’t understand.

And it is also stuff you were inspired to dig deeper while you were here – being involved in the continuing Hurricane Sandy relief effort, fighting human trafficking, or world hunger, or bullying.

You are the light of the world. And when you let your light shine, you are pointing to where that light comes from. And you are not shining your light alone. On our own, shining our light in the world may seem like a tall order, something totally overwhelming, especially after seeing this weekend that there is so much to talk about, so much darkness that is still out there. But my light, plus your light, plus your light, and yours and yours and yours adds up to something really bright and strong. And together, we are enough to shine into the dark world. A wise singer once said, “You’re beautiful, like diamonds in the sky. Shine bright like a diamond.”

We may not know what the future holds for us as we shine. But we do know that God intends our future to be for good, and not for harm. And we know that Jesus walks with us into the darkest places of our lives even as we leave this place. Like Timothy, don’t neglect the gift that is in you, and don’t forget to let yourself shine. Amen.

Fishin' With Jesus

Sermon from 1-26-14

Grace and peace to you from God our father and from our Lord and savior Jesus the Christ. Amen.
Are you ready to follow Jesus and fish for some people? Have you been practicing your casting technique? Are you using the right kind of rod or bait? Or are you finding that your boat won’t start, your lines are hopelessly tangled, and the juiciest worms seem nowhere to be found?

January really isn’t the ideal time to go regular, in-a-boat-on-a –lake kind of fishing like the disciples were doing… but January is perfect for ice fishing. If you’re in northern Minnesota, that is. There are people from where my husband is from who practically live on the Lake of the Woods during the winter. Over winter break one year we went up to see his family and his dad wanted us to take us… you guessed it… ice fishing.

So we bundled up, laced up our boots, and drove out onto the giant frozen lake where the ice shanty was set up. Beau very patiently baited my hook as his dad drilled holes in the ice under the very bright and very cold January sun. And then I caught a fish. And then I caught another fish. Then another and another. I think that day I caught around half a dozen fish… and I swear I had never been ice fishing before in my life.

But I couldn’t have caught all those fish without Beau to bait my line and his dad to drill the holes and build the fish house.  I would never even have gone if hadn’t visited his family in January. As much as I would like to claim that I am just so awesome at ice fishing, it wouldn’t really be true. I actually had a lot of help. And, to be honest ice fishing is not an activity I would really leap at the chance to do again. So I highly doubt that Jesus would ever say to ME, “Come and I’ll make you ice-fish for people.”

For me, and I’m guessing for many of you, Jesus would draw on other experiences and passions and expertise other than fishing. For me, my call from Jesus, put into words, might sound something like, “Follow me, and I will make you be like a camp counselor, not just in the summer, but all year long.”

Maybe you heard Jesus say, “Follow me” when you learned about him during Sunday school or vacation Bible school. Maybe you heard Jesus at confirmation camp too, as a camper or a counselor. Maybe you heard Jesus while at college, or while talking with a friend, or caring for an aging parent, or having your first child. You may even have heard Jesus’ voice here on a Sunday morning. Did it feel like a voice, nudge, a push, a feeling, a thought that grew on you and stuck with you, not unlike a fungus or that bit of a song you can’t get out of your head?

Jesus calls everyone differently, at different times and different speeds. But we have all been called, in one way or another. Like the fish, we have all been caught by Jesus. Just regular, ordinary people, scooped up together, caught up in following Jesus.

Jesus began his earthly ministry by gathering together other remarkably normal and exceptionally ordinary people. After he heard about John the Baptist’s arrest by King Herod, Jesus relocates to Capernaum, a fishing town on the edge of the Sea of Galilee, which is actually a giant lake. There, he begins preaching – “repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

And then… Jesus took a walk. But this was not just an idle stroll by the lakeside to watch the boats bring in their catch. No – Jesus was doing reconnaissance. He was out to do some fishing of his own.

When these two sets of brothers he calls, Peter and Andrew, then James and John, got up for work that morning, they had no idea that in the course of just one day, their entire lives would change. They had no idea that this local preacher would come out to them and call upon them to be his followers. Perhaps, until that moment, they did not even know for sure if they WOULD follow, until they found themselves dropping their nets and following after Jesus.

We’ll never know exactly why Jesus chose these four to be his first followers. But I think we can guess that he saw something in them that others did not. The truth is that Jesus did not choose the best and brightest of the seminary educated. Jesus did not choose the biggest and strongest. Jesus did not choose the wealthiest or the most powerful. Instead, Jesus choose some regular guys to do some rather extraordinary things, things that would stretch these guys out of their comfort zones pretty regularly.

This is indefinably not like following someone on twitter. We don’t get to choose to follow Jesus just to read his interesting and witty status updates. Jesus chooses US to follow him, in the flesh, with our hands and feet and hearts and minds, with our flaws and our mistakes, with our strengths and weaknesses.

Sometimes Jesus does call us for the things we are awesome at, but sometimes Jesus calls us for the very things we are NOT so awesome at. Sometimes Jesus calls us because we just didn’t know that we had it in us.

Take Billbo Biggins, of the Shire, beloved creation of writer J. R. R. Tolkien. Did you know that Tolkien was devoted Christian? If you haven’t noticed, his books are full of illustrations of the Christian journey, the Hobbit included. And even though right now Hollywood is cashing in on the magic of these books, the realities of faith still are able shine through.

Take Bilbo’s own call story. Bilbo is living the hobbit dream when his quiet life is upended by the arrival of the wizard Gandalf and a group of questing dwarves who need one more member of their party. They eat his food and sing and belch and break things, and he is beside himself and paralyzed with fear at the thought of leaving home. When he wakes up the next morning to find they have gone, he is at first incredibly relieved. The house is quiet and mostly back to normal. Then he sees a list of the company, oh so conveniently left on the table for him to see, like a calling card, with a space still left for his name. In the blink of an eye, Bilbo packs up his things and dashes out the door after them, yelling, “Wait for me!” When one of his neighbors call after him, “where are you going, Bilbo?” He yells back, “I’m going on an adventure!”

The disciples who dropped their nets and followed Jesus that day did not know how their adventure was going to turn out, and right now neither do we. Some days will be easier than others. Some days we’ll catch the fish and other days it will get away.

But Jesus is the one who chose us, caught us, and called us to a life of living in his footsteps. It may seem like these would be some big sandals to fill, but really, we doing this adventure along. We have one another as companions along the way, and we, at St. Paul Lutheran church are continuing this journey so long after these first disciples. As we prepare to look back as a congregation on 2013, let’s listen hard to what Jesus is calling us to be and do in 2014 too. Together, let’s look and listen for how Jesus is causing the kingdom to come near to us, right now, with us and among us. Then we too can take up our nets in our own different ways, and follow Jesus into a new and exciting future.

There is a prayer that can be found in the ELW that is perfect for venturing with Jesus into the unknown.

Lord God,
you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending,
by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.
Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go,
but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Let Your Light Shine

February Newsletter Article

“In the same way, Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and glorify you Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:16

I remember coming across this verse as a teenager and instantly loving it. For me, this verse told me that the light of God was in me, shining out. And yet, at the same time, this verse frightened me a little bit. For a shy, introverted teenager the thought of shining out and attracting attention scared the dickens out of me. But I still liked this verse, and even used it as my confirmation verse. Because it reminded me that the light does not come from being and doing good. It is through what I do that shows God’s light shining within me. And light is meant to be shone. It would not make any sense to turn on a lamp and then through a blanket over it.
And yet, that is what we so often do. In this extended season of Epiphany, the season of light, we are reminded that it is not darkness that we are really afraid of. It’s the light. Darkness is comfortable – it covers a multitude of sins. It gives us an excuse to NOT to live into who God is calling us to be. But, as Marianne Williamson wrote in her poem “Our Deepest Fear:”

We were born to make manifest 
The glory of God that is within us.

This year, in the New Jersey Synod’s yearly February retreat for high school youth at LBI, the theme is “Mine” – the fact that we belong to God enables us to navigate an often scary and unsafe world, knowing that our God walks with us. Each of our young people are lights shining out in the darkness every day, in the midst of bullying, drugs and alcohol, challenges at home or school, navigating social media, and growing into who God has created them to be. And they need our support and example now more than ever.

We too can let our light shine into the darkness that is in our own lives and in the lives of others. It does not have to be complicated or heroic. Just the normal, regular, everyday light-shining of love will do.

Here is the entire poem:

First sermon of the year - Epiphany

Grace and peace to you from God our father and from our Lord and savior Jesus the Christ. Amen.
Happy 2014! How is it going so far? Did you stay up to watch the ball drop? Or did you turn in early, confident that the New Year would arrive when you woke up?

Are you where you thought you would be one year ago? Five years ago? Ten years ago? Is your life in the shape that you expected it to be, or has the dawn of 2014 found you on a road that you did not expect to be traveling? Did you wake up one day and – bang! - find that the ball had dropped and a new day had dawned, and everything you thought you had planned went straight out the window?

Tomorrow is the twelfth day of Christmas, or the celebration of what Christians around the world call the day of Epiphany. The day of Epiphany is when the light of the star rested on the place where Jesus was, where the wise men were able to find him, which we are celebrating today. While the rest of the world has already finished up its after-Christmas sales and New Year’s parties, are cleaning up and putting away the Christmas lights and decorations, today we are observing the final element to the Christmas story.  Today we too pay homage to a God who so often comes into our world as a blazing light, surprising us in our darkness, and changing our lives forever.

I think God must have been like this from the very beginning, when God created light to shine out in the dark universe. Just one little sentence, “Let there be light,” changed the entire universe, revealing the mystery of creation for all time. Darkness would no longer reign. The world would never be the same again.

I sort of makes me think of the Big Bang theory. Actually, I don’t mean the scientific theory that states that the creation of the universe came from the explosion of everything pressed into one infinitely small space. I’m thinking of my husband’s favorite show, The Big Bang theory, about a group of super-intelligent but super-socially awkward guys whose lives are completely changed when a beautiful and blond actress-wannabe moves into the apartment next door. One minute, experimental physicist Leonard and theoretical scientist Sheldon are strolling up the stairs to the apartment they share and – bang! – they meet their new neighbor Penny. And from this one chance encounter, instead of a universe, a wildly successful seven season television sitcom is born.

Fortunately for CBS, sometimes unfortunately for us, big bangs seem to be how God works. One minute we are going along in life, traveling the path that we think we have mapped out for us, when we have our own personal Big Bang moments. It can happen to anyone, at any time.
Take King Herod, for example. He seemed to have everything going for him – the support of Rome, wealth from cruelly taxing his own people, political security from murdering members of his own family, a legacy in architectural grandeur, religious influence by following Judaism only when he felt like it.  This man Rome named “King of the Jews” had it pretty good.

And then one day, which dawned just like any other day, he receives some unexpected and unwanted visitors.

There were foreigners, wise men, wandering in Jerusalem, and they were asking for the King of the Jews. But they weren’t looking for Herod.

Take these wise men, as well. They had left positions of esteem and influence in their native countries to make a long and perilous journey, thousands of years before the ease of cars and airplanes. These well-educated and well-respected scholars, the experimental physicists and theoretical scientists of their age, left everything familiar to follow a star that would take them to worship a newborn king in a foreign land.
Jesus was a Big Bang moment for both King Herod and the wise men, but their reactions could not have been more different. Herod, and all Jerusalem, were terrified at the news of the birth of this new King. For them, darkness and preserving their own power were more desirable and convenient, so the news of the arrival of God’s light on earth struck fear into their hearts.

For the wise men, the announcement drew them far out of their comfort zones, but at the same time compelled them to follow a divine star to a land far away to worship this king of the Jews.

In T.S. Eliot’s famous poem called “The Journey of the Magi”, Eliot imagines one them recounting his harrowing trek many years later. This wise man wonders: “were we lead all that way for birth or death? There was a birth, certainly, we had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death, but had thought that they were different; this birth was hard and bitter agony for us, like death, our death.” We might easily imagine that for them, and for the whole world, life would never be the same.

A ball of light drops and the world calls it the New Year. We make resolutions and later break them. We make plans and have visions of the future that don’t always turn out as we expect them to. We, like the wise men of old, travel by a road different than the one we thought we would be traveling. Life changes after an encounter with the light of Christ.

Most of us I think can speak from experience about the big bangs and the little detours that God placed in our lives. I know I have a few from the last few years, both big bangs and small seeming detours. Just recently, before celebrating the New Year with some friends to watch the festivities in New York in the comfort of the indoors, my husband and I stopped for a vigil for peace at the Trenton Quaker house. He had read about the vigil in the information about Patriot Week in Trenton, hidden among the listings for battle reenactments and other festivities. As we walked into the dark, sparse meeting room at the Quaker house, each of us were given a small flameless LED candle to hold.

Quakers worship a little differently than most. At this peace vigil, there was no scripture read or hymns sung or sermon preached. Every once in a while, one of us would speak into the darkness – some spoke about seeking peace in the wider world, and some about seeking peach within ourselves. But most of time was spent in silence, in the small light of the flickering LED candles. In those times of silence, I prayed for the peace of the city right outside the door, which could be seen in the darkness outside the window of the Trenton Quaker house. A city that is shrouded in darkness, and can use all the light that it can get. A city that now my husband and I call home.

In 2011 as I finished up my seminary degree in St. Paul MN, I would never have guessed in a million years that the end of 2013 would find me in a three hundred year old Quaker meeting house in Trenton. Nor would I ever have imagined that in 2014 this Wisconsin girl would be looking forward to my second ordination anniversary while serving a fabulous church in central New Jersey. They may say that the devil is in the details, but I think I may safely saw that it is God that is in the detours.

But no matter where the dawning of 2014 finds you, whether on the main road you imagined, off the beaten path, seemingly lost on a detour, stuck in a rut or in the ditch, dawn will come and the light of risen Christ will shine upon you. For even the darkest night is dispelled with the rays of the rising sun.

At Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus, that light of hope in our lives. At Epiphany we rejoice that this light has exploded out to shine on all people, in all places and times. For in Jesus the light of God’s love has dawned upon us, to show us the way of peace. And in each of us that light burns brightly and will never be extinguished. And we will never be the same. Amen.

Christmas Eve Sermon

Grace and peace to you from God our father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ. Amen.

I've kind of always had a soft spot for the shepherds. I think I might be because I was one – not in real life, of course, but from first grade until fifth grade I was type-casted in my church’s Christmas play. Always a shepherd. Never an angel, who got to wear white robes and wings and cool halos and look pretty. Never a wise man or wise “person,” who brought nice gifts. Always a shepherd, wearing itchy brown robes and towels tied to your head, just sort of standing there awkwardly, like a group of misfits who showed up to the wrong party.

Finally, in fifth grade, I knew that my typecasting days were over. The fifth graders always got the lead parts, like Mary and Joseph and the speaking angel. I was going to be Mary, because MY hand would be the first one up when our teacher asked for volunteers. I was ready.

Unfortunately for me, the hand of my best friend was also ready. And unfortunately for me, it was her name that was taken down to play Mary and wear the pretty blue robe. The worst part was, a moment later she turned around and whispered to me: “hey, what did I just volunteer for?”

 So it was itchy robes and towels for me again that year. But I got my chance a few years later, when I was asked to be Mary in the adult Christmas play, where Mary had actual lines and got to hold a real baby. Now, I wonder at this baby’s mother, letting a strange teenager hold her baby for an hour. And I wonder that the she, the baby (there was a girl baby Jesus that year) didn’t cry at all while being held by this strange person in a blue robe, though she did fuss for a minute right before Mary’s big monologue.

But really, Mary doesn’t have a monologue, though she must have been thinking about an awful lot that night. And we don’t hear what’s on Joseph’s mind either, what he must be thinking about all this. We do have an angel of the Lord with a birth announcement, and a great angel gathering praising God. But as far as we know, the only witnesses to this grand announcement … were the shepherds.

Not the itchy robe-wearing, towel-headed variety. These shepherds were the living-in-the fields with the sheep variety –dirty, smelly, tough, night-shift workers doing a thankless job for little pay. These shepherds were on the fringes of polite society, unclean, unwanted, untrustworthy.

They knew what life was like on the outside looking in. They knew what it was like to sit in the dark and cold night of exclusion and isolation. They were last on anyone’s list, no matter what time of the year it was.
But we don’t really have shepherds around anymore. And for that matter, we don’t have emperors or traveling census, and when was the last time you saw a manger? My dad, as a dairy farmer, might be the closest thing we have to what a shepherd is like, and the kind of manger that he and my brothers clean out every night are not the kind you would ever want to put a newborn – full of bits of hay and silage and cow drool.

And yet, here we are again, Christmas 2013, listening to the same story we heard last year, and they year before, and the year before that. A story that is about shepherds, and emperors, and censuses, and angels, and mangers. But it is also a story that is about God, and what God has done. A story that is actually about us.

The shepherds are not the only ones who know what it’s like to be on the outside, to know what it’s like to walk in darkness and live in a land of deep darkness. Life is full of darkness. And this year may have seemed darker than most. On the world stage, this year has been full of violence, pain, and destruction – war in Syria, death in bombings in Boston and Kenya, natural disaster in the Philippines.  And closer to home, so many people I know have lost someone close to them in the last year, and for them this first Christmas without them will have an aftertaste of loss. The land of loss we travel is one not just of darkness, but of deep darkness, so dark you can’t see your hand in front of your face, so dark that you might imagine the dawn might never come.

In the night, just like any other night of the year, the shepherds sat in the darkness, tending their flock and protecting it from the danger of the night. The last thing they were expecting was to come face to face with the bright and shining glory of the Lord. The last thing they were expecting that night was to see their Lord face to face.

We who have walked in darkness have seen a great light. On those of us who live in a land of deep darkness, on us light has shined. But no one expect it the light to shine from the face of a helpless baby, born into poverty, whose parents’ were considered second-class citizens in their own country, in during a period of history that was fraught with violence and unrest.

But this is how our God chooses to work in our lives. Taking on power by becoming powerless. By showing exaltation in ultimate vulnerability. By exposing true peace and wholeness by entering into a broken and messy world. By first illuminating the arrival of the truest, mightiest, most powerful love in the universe to the very least of us. By revealing light in the midst of darkness in the gift of a tiny baby.

The best gift ever given was not expensive or fancy or impressive or grand. It was not covered in ribbons and wrapping paper. It could never be found in a store. The best gift every given arrived through the blood, sweat, and tears of a young women and her anxious husband, wrapped in rags and rough wood, visited by shepherds smelling of sheep. The best gift ever given was made possible by the deepest love we could never fully conceive or imagine.

This gift was named Jesus. And he was born so that we could know God. That the God in the highest heaven wants us to know – in person – who God is and how much God loves us. This God found a way to break into our world to reveal just how far this love goes.

This baby grows up, as all babies do. But Jesus grows up to face the powers of darkness head-on. The shepherds were just the beginning – during his ministry Jesus hung out with all sorts of unsavory characters: tax collectors, sinners, fishermen, lepers, women, children, and all kinds of people at the bottom rungs of the ladder. He showed them love and told them about what God’s kingdom is really like. Good news of great joy for all the people. During his life Jesus showed us that God is in the business of healing and peace and love and making broken people whole again.

Not everyone is pleased with this gift. There were those who wanted to return it. The darkness wanted it to stay dark, the deeper the darkness the better – a darkness as deep as death itself, and for three days, it seemed to be winning.

But our God is also in the business of life, and not even death can win against the love God has for his people, us. On that day another angel stood before the darkness of an empty tomb and announced, “Do not be afraid… he is not here, for he has been raised. Come, see the place where he lay.” And those who heard left with great joy and ran to tell the good news.

Perhaps instead of feeling honored to play Mary in the adult Christmas play, I should instead have felt privileged for all those years I spent as a “lowly” shepherd.  They were the ones who dropped everything, and ran into town, and checked every baby before seeing for themselves where the baby Jesus lay. They celebrated the very first Christmas service, out in that dark field with the sheep. We could probably do worse than have a little shepherd rub off on us.  They didn’t just SEE the God’s gift face to face, they shared that gift with everyone around them. And here we are, all these years later, celebrating the arrival of that gift this night.

But all gifts are meant to be shared, and this one is no exception. For it belongs to all of us, every single one of us. And the more we share this gift the brighter the light becomes, until that day when all the darkness will be extinguished forever, and we shall all see God face to face. Amen.

End of the Year Book List

My top 10 favorite books that I read in 2013, in no particular order:

1. The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery. This is a novel for literature nerds, no doubt about it, and I loved every minute of this book. It's like Roald Dahl's Matilda, only in an apartment building in France.

2. Who is This Man?The Unpredictable Impact of the Inescapable Jesus, John Ortberg. This guy does good work, and this book was no exception. I haven't read Bill O'Reilly's book about Jesus, but I would say to read this book instead.

3. What We Talk About When We Talk About God, Rob Bell. Again, another book that did not disappoint. I have used this book in at least one sermon this year.

4. Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, Nicholas Kristof. Not at easy read, but one of those eye opening books I'll never forget.

5. Pastrix, Nadia Bolz-Weber. Saw her speak just over the river in PA. My only complaint was that the book was not longer!

6. Buck: A Memoir., MK Asante. A young black man finds his way in out of drugs and violence through education. A must-read if you are a human being.

7.  The Light Between Oceans, M.L. Stedman. How a no-win situation tears everyone's lives apart. Couldn't put it down.

8. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy. I actually started this one last year just after the movie came out. It takes awhile, but it's ok to skim some of the philosophical bits

9. State of Wonder: Ann Patchett. Sort of weird, in a really interesting way. A scientist living in MN finds herself in the Amazon searching for the female version of Dr. House.

10. A Year of Biblical Womanhood, Rachel Held Evans. A great blend of humor and sound Biblical scholarship.


And one that disappointed:

Flight Behavior, Barbara Kingsolver. The premise of this book was interesting, and she has some lovely characters with a couple of great scenes. But the rest of the book is pretty unfocused and feels like a paper that I once had to write for history class my Junior year - the assignment was to write a narrative that incorporated five world cities and important historical and geographical information important to each. Sometimes it felt like a bunch of important facts about climate change that just so happened to be coming out of a character's mouth. It had almost no plot and the ending was such a let down.

#Patience

Advent Meditation 12-4-13

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

How are you keeping track of Advent? Are you counting the time with one of those chocolate-filled countdown calendars? I remember having one of those one year. Each day I’d get to pop one of those babies open and eat the little chocolate piece in the shape of a sheep or a star. My brothers were not as patient.

This year, I’m not rationing chocolate for Advent. I’m participating in a sort of interactive Advent calendar, one of many that are floating around on the internet right now. It’s called Advent Photo-a-day, and you share a picture of something related to the word of the day. And wouldn’t you know it: today’s word is patience. Which is fitting, because tonight we heard the first of three ancient songs sung by people who have been waiting patiently to for God.

The first song in our Advent midweek series is sung by a priest named Zechariah. Both he and his wife Elizabeth were descended from priests, so you could say they were continuing the family business. And their deepest wish would have been for that family tradition to continue. But though they were righteous before God, and waited patiently, no child came, and they starting to get on in years.

But one day, as Zechariah was doing his normal duties in the temple, he was interrupted by an angel, who told him that he and his wife would have a son. And he would not grow up to be just any man, but he would be the one to prepare the way of the Lord. Upon hearing this awesome news, that the patience of he and his wife had been rewarded handsomely, did Zechariah jump for joy? Shout it at the top of his lungs? Phone a friend to tell them the good news?

No, he did none of those things. He didn’t believe the messenger, and so he was struck mute until the day Elizabeth would give birth. With was kind of a problem for him in his line of work.

Nine months later, Elizabeth gave birth to a little boy. And after decades of childlessness and nine months of silence, the first words out of Zechariah’s mouth were words of praise. Their patience had been rewarded. They had been given a son, who was to prepare the way for the coming dawn of the Lord.

This Advent, what are you waiting for? Are you sitting in the darkness of strained relationships, of loss and grief, of loneliness and depression?  Do you feel overshadowed by overwhelming schedules and demands, by illness or sadness, by the violence and woes of a turbulent world?

Are you waiting with patience? Or are you perhaps a little more like Zechariah, who missed seeing the very fulfilment of his hopes because he had accepted the darkness as the way things always would be.

We shouldn’t really be so hard on Zechariah, though. He at least got to witness the answer of his prayers. But as he sings this song of praise, his son John is still just a baby. He still has to grow into the important role he was born into, as John the Baptist, the preparer of the way. So for them, even though their deepest longing has been fulfilled, more patience is still required.

It’s hard to be patient, when we are so used to getting what we want or need right away. But if we really believe, as Zechariah believed, that the dawn from on high will break upon us, that God who has promised to be faithful really will be faithful to us, then I think it might be worth it. Because the dawn has already broken on those of us who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. So in a sense we wait for what we already have – the presence of the Lord in our midst. Sometimes that presences is easy to miss, sometimes we don’t believe it because it’s too good to be true, and sometimes we miss it because darkness is more comfortable and familiar than light. And sometimes, God even uses us in order to shine the light for others.

In my photo for my Advent Picture-a-day, today I included this candle. You see it’s not an actual wax candle. It’s one of the “pretend” ones. I bought it last year for Holden evening prayer, when it was dropped and broken, and then I broke it more in trying to make it not look funny. I could have gotten another one, a new one that was whole, but I decided to keep it. I’ve used it in a few things – like this summer when nineteen youth from across the state met in Brick for the hottest week ever in order to help people still suffering the effects of Sandy. It shone for us as we shone line for others. I keep it because it reminds me that even though it’s not perfect, it’s kind of chipped and even, it still does what it’s supposed to. It still gives light to those who are in darkness.

And you child, shall be called the prophet of the most high, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways. Amen.