The Call we Walk

 

Sermon 1-24 – 21

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

I grew up on a dairy farm in rural Wisconsin, where my sibling and I learned from a very early age to pay attention to where we walked. In fact, on the door to the barn hung a funny sign that warned, “Don’t follow in my footsteps – I think I stepped in something!” You know exactly what I’m talking about. If you are walking around a farm for any length of time, most likely you will get SOMETHING on your shoes. It goes with the territory.

No unlike farm life, fishing life gets messy too. Jesus was not strolling along a pristine beach dotted with tiki bars. I imagine, fresh from his baptism, he strode along that beach with purpose – dodging some fish guts here and there, weaving his way through the bustle of business, on a mission: to confirm the members of his administration’s inner circle. The moment was at hand: John the Baptist had been arrested, and Jesus needed a “few good men.”

Simon, Andrew, James, and John were certainly not theologians, great communicators, knowledgeable, powerful, wealthy, or even literate. After all, where did Jesus find them?... At the wharf, slogging through a day’s work at the family business.

But if it were not for these ordinary, flawed, people, WE would not be here, listening to Mark tell the story of Jesus to us now. WE are here because of everyone who mentored us in the faith before us fished for people…. Who fished for people… who fished for people… who eventually caught US. … so that we may be CALLED by Jesus to follow him too, and fish for people ourselves. No bait and fishing pole required!

In the Jesus administration, it doesn't matter what school we attended or how much money we make or what our children amount to. We don’t have to fill out an application showing how many committees we've served, how many years we've faithfully taught Sunday school, been in youth group, or sang in the choir, though these are all worthwhile things. To be called by Jesus, to work in his administration, you only need one thing on your resume: being a child of God. Which, by the way, you already are, by virtue of your baptism.

Whether you are young like Samuel, stubborn like Jonah, eloquent like Paul, thoughtful like Mary, brave like Moses and Miriam, faithful like Mary Magdalene, eager like Peter, curious like Philip…. We are all ages, genders, backgrounds, abilities….  And Jesus has a place for you here…  among his students. And he has called you for a reason…. to follow him and learn how to fish for people.

Well, a more accurate translation of what Jesus says here is actually “I will make you BECOME fishers for people.” We aren’t instantly good at it. It’s still hard, especially at first, and we of course can’t get good at it unless we PRACTICE. This doesn’t mean get out the boat and the fishing tackle, obviously. But are there skills, interests, talents, relationships, motivations, and passions that we already possess that we can use, to share our faith and help connect people to the Kingdom of God?

If we are truly to follow in the footsteps of Jesus though, I think that we must walk exactly where Jesus walked, even it takes us to places and to people we perhaps would rather not go to, and step into thing we would rather not step in. Jesus walked with people who were on the margins, who were neck deep in dealing with the muck of the world… forging relationships…. Treating all people with dignity and respect. 

This will probably mean getting a little messy, stepping into places that might leave a mark on us, slogging through some muck with people, entering into the mess of what it means to be human with one another. After all, this is exactly what Jesus did – stepped into the mess with us.

Jesus walked where we walked, so that we may walk with others who are in desperate need of a companion right now. This is the walk which we are called to. We walk without stopping until we all get to Justice, Mercy, and Freedom. Even if we step in things like Fear, Misunderstanding, Rejection, and the Unknown. We follow in Jesus footsteps, and we have to be willing to go where that takes us, even if we don’t feel ready or prepared to go there. 

We aren’t sure what we may be facing. Poet Laurate Amanda Gorman shared this week, “…We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour, but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter…“

Much like the disciples could not have known what they would face as they dropped their nets to follow Jesus. It turns out they stepped into … some very big footprints. Theirs was a big job, and it wasn’t easy, and they failed many times. We face a difficult hour too, in more ways than we can even name.

We may not feel up to the task, but as we heed the call of Jesus, we pray. We pray along with the Reverend Dr. William Barber II as he preached Thursday – we ask our Lord to “Grant us wisdom for the facing of this hour until love and justice are never rejected” …  because we know that God will provide for us.

As we heed Jesus’ call, we pray for the wisdom and courage necessary to keep walking “until the poor are lifted, the sick are healed, children are protected, and civil rights and human rights never neglected” because with us, God abides with us.

As we heed the call of Jesus, we will keep walking in the light of God, and we aren’t going to stop, until we arrive at Justice.

The time is now. The kingdom is at hand. We are ready Get your boots on, let’s go. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Having Jesus-Vision

 Sermon 1-17-21 “Having Jesus-Vision”

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

In every place I have ever lived, one thing has remained the same: there are always “those places.”

You know exactly what I’m talking about. No one in New Jersey goes to Trenton or Camden if they can help it. In Pennsylvania, I can’t tell you the number of people who would tell me “Oh yeah, I used to live in Philly…. Until it ‘changed’. It’s SO different now.” Growing up in Wisconsin even, Milwaukee was talked about in a similar way – one of those places that surely “nothing good happens.”

There were certainly “those places” in Jesus’s time as well. Like Trenton and Princeton, the town where Jesus is from – Nazareth – is so close to the town Nathaniel is from. And yet, they were obviously worlds apart. Nathaniel clearly sneers at the thought of anything good coming from Milwaukee, I mean… Trenton…. I mean… Nazareth. And yet somehow, his friend Phillip is undaunted: Come and See! He insists, even though he has only known Jesus for like 5 seconds. Miracle of miracles, Nathaniel puts aside his preconceived notions about Nazareth, and follows Phillip to Jesus. And boy was he surprised! 

We are currently in the season after Epiphany, at time in cycle of the church year where we focus on all the ways that God reveals Godself in our lives, in the past, in the present, and in the future. It’s when we usually hear the parts of the Bible that tell us how Jesus started his ministry and called the first disciples… like snarky Nathaniel.

Up until that moment, Nathaniel was a man who was SURE that he knew how God operates. He saw the world as many of us do – God uses some people but not others, God is present some places, but not others. But Jesus sees a different way. Jesus saw something in Nathaniel – Jesus saw him for who he truly is – beloved child of God.  

This might sound like a small thing – but is it revolutionary, then and now. The kind of love has the power to save us from the depths of shame and crippling despair, and the power to make us very, very angry. Just a few chapters later in the Gospel of John, Jesus says the line he is most famous for: “For God so loved the world that God gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.” To see the world through the vision of Jesus is to see a world where all people have value. And…. THIS is still an extremely controversial message. It was back THEN, it was during the Civil Rights movement… and it STILL makes people angry even now.

Back when I drove a lot more, occasionally I would get wrapped up listening to NPR shows, like “This American Life.” A man shared how when his daughter turned 4, she became very interested in WHY we celebrate Christmas. With some simple but exemplary evangelism, he got his daughter a children’s bible, and they began to read it together (well done!). They talked about how Jesus was a preacher, and he spread the message that God loves everyone.

Not long after, they drove past a church with a HUGE cross in their front yard… which the girl of course asked about. Her father admitted that they had not gotten to the ending, and to his credit, was both honest and age appropriate about telling her about how Jesus was executed by the oppressive Roman government because of his message.

Fast forward a few weeks later to MLK day weekend, and he took his daughter out to lunch on her day off from school. She saw a picture of MLK in a newspaper, and of course asked who it was. When he said Dr. King was a preacher, and she got excited and asked, “For Jesus”? Yes, he explained, and Dr. King also taught that you should treat everyone the same no matter what. For a moment, the girl was silent in thought. Then, she looked up at her dad, and asked him, “Did they kill him too?”

The ironic thing is that the show this aired on was called “Kid logic: Stories of kids … arriving at perfectly wrong conclusions” …. But this kid got it EXACTLY RIGHT! This 4-year-old totally SAW the way the world works in a way that most adults miss, or refuse to see.

The season of Epiphany is about seeing things in a new way. On this weekend we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we remember that he had Jesus Vision. And, like Jesus, he not only saw injustice, he also called it out. Dr. King went to “those places” like Birmingham and Montgomery, to name the sin of racism for what it is – evil. And he called out his fellow (white) pastor colleagues for their lukewarm support. They wondered why Dr. King would go to Birmingham, which prompted him to write in his famous letter while he sat in a jail cell: “I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

I have said at one time or another something to the effect of “I don’t see color” or “I’m colorblind.” This statement seems innocent enough. But I have since learned that this idea erases and dismisses the real experiences and struggles of people of color. This is also why saying things like “Just be kind to one another” is not enough, because no amount of “kind acts” on the part of individuals will answer for the 400+ years of racist history we must wrestle with if we are indeed serious about healing and unity. We must name the evil if we are to cast it out on Jesus’ name. And as we can see… we have our work cut out for us.

Can anything good come from …. Any of this? We don’t know it yet. We can’t see it yet… at least not with our own eyes. Nathaniel took a chance on what he did see, he took the risk of being wrong… and Jesus told him – you are going to see greater things than these. And he did. As a follower of Jesus, Nathaniel saw water turned into wine, people being healed of their illnesses, the hungry being fed, and the dead being raised.

Can anything good come from… any of this? This weekend, our Bishop, Leila Ortiz shared this message: “This is not the first time that the church has been in the midst of utter chaos, destruction, and crisis. Through it all, and in every age….  God has not and will not abandon God’s beloved.” That means, God loves and will not abandon all the Nazareths, the Birminghams, the Milwaukees or the Trentons of the world. And God will not abandon US. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Special Delivery

 

Sermon 1-3-21

Grace and peace to you from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.

Hey it’s 2021! We made it! This year, more than most, we have we been looking forward to starting something new - though I think our “new years resolutions” might look a bit different than normal – like “move to the other side of the room,” “put on something besides sweatpants” and “less screen time.”

Beginnings give us hope. Maybe it’s the reason we return over an over again to hear our favorite stories, with their recognizable first lines: “Once upon a time” and “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” “It was a dark and stormy night.”

What about this one? “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.”

And so, began the greatest story of all time, a story could not be contained on just one book or just one lifetime. It is a story that starts at the very beginning and tells of a God who created a world that was good and full of life, and God wanted to share it with us. Even though we tend to mess things up. Again, and again and again. So God decided to begin a new chapter to the story. And this one also began with “in the beginning.”

In an example of divinely sanctioned plagiarism, this is how the gospel of John chooses to tell us the Christmas story. There are no angels or shepherds or censuses or managers or even Mary and Joseph, or even a birth. Instead, John takes us back to the dawn of time, to tell Jesus’ origin story like a dramatic crane shot that zooms out and out and out until you can see all of creation: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”

And so, God’s word became flesh and living among us. The Word made a home with us. The Word landed in your neighborhood and moved in next door. The Word arrived at a new address - A living, breathing, Christmas card – with a message of love from our maker, arriving just in time in just the right place.

Having just moved myself, I feel like learning a new address, navigating mail forwarding, and getting your mail right is always an adventure – especially this year! And then there is always having to deal with getting mail addressed to some of the previous inhabitants.

When I lived in NJ, I got Christmas cards two years in a row from one particular family I didn’t know. Both times, the card had my correct address, but the recipients were Moe, Marc, and Justin, with no last name. Did Moe, Marc, and Justin forget to update their friends and family about their new living situation? Or did they not want to be found? I’ll never know. I just felt sad that, for two years in a row, I returned the cards with my own personal, though not very Christmas-y, message added: return to sender.

Our address, when written correctly and kept up to date, tells others where we call home. It’s an amazing system we use to receive everything from Christmas cards to ads to Amazon packages safely in a timely manner – at least, most of the time. And when we move, we usually leave a forwarding address to point the way to where we can now be found, which is exactly what I did when I recently moved from Pennsylvania to Virginia.

Certainly, the words that I read a moment ago from the Gospel of John is more beautifully written than the loveliest hallmark card. It is the first line of the most amazing story ever told. But it seems to me that it is also an address - not only an address of a physical location, but also an address in the span of cosmic time. This is not an address you could punch into your GPS and find the most direct route. This is an address that takes you back to the very beginning, to the Source, to where everything started. 

It was through words that God spoke our world into being at the very beginning. “Let there be light,” were God’s first words into the darkness. And there was light. And it was good. Then God really got going: “Let there be water and land and plants and animals and the moon and the sun and people!” And God saw that the world that had been created was VERY good, very good indeed. And the Word of God has been on the move ever since. 

God didn’t stop speaking after the universe was formed. Through human history God has been communicating to us, through ordinary people called to speak extraordinary words: through Abraham, Moses, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Samuel, Elijah and Elisha, John the Baptist, and countless more, …. All like letters from God delivered through the mouths of so many who have gone before us. Though sometimes the message didn’t always get through as intended.

But in these days and in these times, God speaks to us by a Son, born in a particular place and in a particular time, giftwrapped for us in rags. We celebrate that the Word didn’t just pop in for a quick visit. The Word didn’t plan an overnight trip just to see how things are going. The Word didn’t have to be up early in the morning beat the traffic home.

On Christmas Day, over a week ago, we celebrate when God moved to a new permanent address. The Word became flesh and lived among us. The Word set up shop and decided to stay.

The tracking number of this very special gift was first revealed to a poor, young, small-town girl in Nazareth. Gabriel informed her that a “shipping label has been created by the Holy Spirit; it is currently en route to womb.” Mary shared the good news with her cousin Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist, who confirmed that the package was on its way. Then, Mary and Joseph faced their own shipping challenges as they made their way to Bethlehem. When they rested with the animals, they thought they had been rerouted or even gone off course, but were exactly where they needed to be.

The shepherds found him first, at 100 Manger Way, Nowhere’s Ville. It was not very hard to find since they had gotten their directions from the finest heavenly host GPS: “to you is born this day in the city of David a savior, who is the messiah, the Lord.” These shepherds, poor and nomadic themselves, were surprised to see that the Word of God packs light. No carry-ons or checked luggage, no U-Hauls or moving vans for Jesus. They found just a wrinkled little baby resting in an animal feeding trough.

Some thirty years later, John the Baptist came on the scene, assuring the world that the Word of God had indeed moved into their very midst. Some people thought that John himself was the one who they were looking for, but John assured them he was just the delivery man. Any confusion was finally cleared up at Jesus’ baptism, when a voice came from heaven said – “you are my son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Quite the delivery confirmation.

And for three more years, the word of God walked and talked, taught and healed and fed, and proclaimed his message of the kingdom of God, until, like a gift we don’t understand, the world tossed him aside for something else they liked better. God gave us the greatest and most wondrous gift imaginable, a perfect reflection of Godself.

What we didn’t count on was that this love was going to mess up our ideas about God and love itself. So, after all this work on God’s part, and on the part of all the prophets, in delivering this gift, we often act as though we want to send the gift back. We would rather say search for the gift recipe and write on the box “Return to Sender. This is not really what we wanted. You must have the wrong address.” 

But God has already spoken. The delivery was already made, and there is no going back what that was before. A new beginning arrived, and it is very good indeed! In the year one AND in the year 2021. Thanks be to God, amen.

 

 

 

Searching for Jesus

 Wednesday 12-30-20

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Have you ever noticed that the rest of the world seems to forget about Christmas by about… 5 pm Christmas Day? All the decorations come down – and depressingly, the Valentine’s day candy is already out in the stores! Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the sheep, and even baby Jesus in the manger go back in the box to wait for next year… why we twiddle our thumbs and wonder how to pass this weird time between Christmas and New Year’s.

I mean, what IS time right now anyway? Jesus has gone from being a baby to 12 years old in a matter of days! Not quite a child but not yet grown up – and definitely too young to be wandering off by himself. Can you imagine what Mary and Joseph must have been feeling when they realized that they had left their son behind in Jerusalem? This is before text messaging, GPS, or the Amber Alert. To them, Jesus was truly lost, maybe even forever. 

Jerusalem is a huge city to get lost in – Mary and Joseph spent three whole days searching for him, probably panicking the whole time. When they found him in the temple, can you image the relief that flooded through them as they realized that he was safe? Joy and anger mixed together filled Mary as she admonished her son – “How dare you do that to us?!? We were so worried!” 

But Jesus’ answer blew them all away. “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know that I would be in my Father’s house?” 

Driving up and down the freeway back and forth between Pennsylvania and Virginia these last few months, one billboard in particular caught my eye – It says “Concerned? JESUS (in all caps) can be trusted.” This makes me want to ask – can he though? He sneaks away from his parents as a tween and he grows up to cause trouble as an adult. And, it seems as though we constantly have to “find” him! Has anyone ever asked you if you’ve “found Jesus?” This makes searching for Jesus seem like a world-wide game of “Where’s Waldo.” It doesn’t seem fair - Can Jesus be trusted when he seems to constantly wander off, and is always in need of being “found”?

Even worse, it seems like when we need Jesus the most, when we desperately need comfort and hope, that’s when he seems the farthest away. Where IS Jesus during a year like 2020, not to mention during all the regular times our hearts get broken, such as the death of a loved one or news of an illness or layoff or other trouble? Where IS Jesus when life gets tough?

A ball of light will drop 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. As my favorite evening prayer puts it – we are called to ventures we don’t know the ending to, paths yet to be trod, and we don’t know where we’re going.

But no matter where the dawning of 2021 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.

At Christmas we celebrate the arrival of Jesus, the of hope in our lives. He isn’t hiding, like in a game of hide-and-seek, behind the couch with the dust bunnies. He didn’t jump out the tomb that resurrection morning, never to be seen again. He wants us to find him. That is the exact reason why Jesus clothed himself in love so that we would recognize him, by becoming a human being – a tiny helpless baby – to live a life of love, finally ending in a loving act of sacrifice. 

How better to show us God’s love than to become one of us and to tell us in the flesh, to be born “in the usual way”? How better to show us that we are children of God than to meet us face to face, in all our smiles and tears, in our joys and sadness, in our hopes and fears. There was no better way to wrap us up in love than to come as a present, wrapped like one of us.  This love has been in front of us the whole time, wrapped in the form of a baby, almost completely unnoticed.

This gift of love that he has given us, in coming as one of us, surprised humanity so much that we didn’t see it for what it was. God gave to us everything– life and love and freedom and hope and peace - before we even knew that we needed it.

While we are searching so hard something to give us peace and hope in a troubled world, Jesus find us and holds us tight. We too become all wrapped up in the amazing and all-encompassing love of God, not just during the Christmas season, but on every day of our lives. So then let everything we do, be it singing carols or getting ready for a new year, be done in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus, who finds us when WE are lost.  Amen.

 

 

Xmas 2020: "When Love is Found"

 

Christmas Eve 2020

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

I have some very good friends who, during Advent, watch every single version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. That’s right, its’s Scrooge, Scrooge, Scrooge, all December long. However, there is only one version of “A Christmas Carol” that is in my person Christmas movie repertoire - “Jim Henson’s the Muppet Christmas Carol.”

Most of you probably know the basic details of the original story – three Christmas Ghosts visit greedy and selfish Ebenezer Scrooge and teach him how to find the love he has lost. In this version, Michael Kane plays human Ebenezer Scrooge, surrounded the rest of the Muppets perfectly filling the roles, with Kermit as Bob Cratchet, the Great Gonzo as Charles Dickens narrating the tale, helped by his sidekick, Rizzo the Rat, as Himself. 

As kids, my siblings and I practically wore out our VHS copy of this movie. Fast forward in both years and technology, and thanks to the magic of streaming services, new generations can enjoy what gave me so much happiness as a kid. With one caveat.

The first time I streamed this movie as an adult, something was missing. About halfway through the movie, the Ghost of Christmas Past shows Scrooge the Christmas party where he met Belle, and it was love at first sight. Dissolve to a snowy landscape, a few years later, with the young couple discussing Scrooge’s desire to delay their wedding for yet another year.

In the streaming version, the movie cuts to Belle walking away when she realizes that Scrooge no longer loves her as much as he loves the idea of running a successful business. But I pause the movie and play the missing song that I remember from my childhood, a song that later movie editors decided was “too adult” and “too boring” for kids. This is Belle’s song, “When Love is Gone.”

The movie still makes sense without it…. But when “When Love is Gone” is GONE, we miss the actual transformation from Ebenezer Scrooge - the man - to THE Ebenezer Scrooge. Belle turns to him, tears streaming down her face, to say, “be careful or you may regret the choice you make someday.” And in that moment, he DOES have a choice – he can acknowledge the weight of his mistakes and try to make amends… or he can let his heart shrivel up, so he doesn’t have to feel the pain anymore. We all know what Ebenezer chooses.

I know lots of kids used this song it as a snack break or bathroom break, or pressed the Fast Forward button - and was it my favorite song THEN when I was a kid? No way. But now that I am an adult, I know that this song was simply waiting for me, to be there I needed it. It was like it was waiting to be found. It’s the song for when you’re watching nostalgic movies in your apartment by yourself, that first Christmas alone – post break up, post-divorce, post death of a loved one, post coming out or post transitioning. This year too, it is the song we didn’t know we might need for 2020 – watching Belle break up with Ebenezer, and sing about how her dreams of their future life being dashed – on Christmas eve no less – we’re right there with you!

Tonight we recall how, all those many centuries ago, another young couple had their wedding plans up-ended – not by slow business growth, but instead by angels, and a surprise pregnancy, by compulsory travel, a census, and taxes, and by the lack of room at the inn. Not at all the circumstances in which any parent wants their first-born child to arrive. Their feet ached, they were dusty and tired, frustrated that no one would make way for a woman in in active labor, uncomfortable with straw poking Mary as she pushed, and despairing that they only had rags and a cow feeding trough to put baby Jesus in.

When Martin Luther preached about Christmas, he relished describing the real and gritty details to his shocked parishioners: to a crowd picturing a sanitized version of the Nativity story (even in the 1500s) Luther would say “Who showed the poor girl what to do? She had never had a baby before…. It must have gone straight to her heart that she was so abandoned. She was flesh and blood, and must have felt miserable – and Joseph too – that she was left in this way, all alone, with no one to help… her eyes were moist even though she was happy.” *(Martin Luther's Christmas Book p. 32)

Every year, Christmas arrives with the lights and food and the songs and the gifts… But Christmas also comes with labor pains, loneliness, and in tears – both joyful and sad. Everyone remembers that one year they had “that Christmas” – the Christmas where everything went wrong. Grandma in the hospital, the kids got the bad stomach bug, travel plans were cancelled because of a big snowstorm.

It’s just that for 2020, we are ALL having THAT year….at the same time! And Christmas is right in the middle of the worst of it. Like Mary and Joseph on the night that Jesus was born - We too are tired, and worried, and making do with a bad situation.

In the year 2020, few good things DID happen, including one Christmas miracle. The original the lost song “When Love is Gone” WAS FOUND! When the song was cut, the original film was lost, and now, in my opinion at least, this movie gets another chance be whole again, not unlike our Ebenezer Scrooge.

When Scrooge wakes up in his own bed on Christmas morning, having been visited by those three spirits, he gets another chance to be whole again, as well. The ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future have been successful in their quest – Ebenezer has transformed back, from Scrooge to man, full of repentance and compassion and love.

For unknown reasons, he is no longer able to reconcile with Belle. But he wastes no time seeking forgiveness and reconciliation with other people in his life, – his cheery nephew Fred, and his dedicated employee, Bob Cratchit, who  he had spent so much time pushing away He gives Bob a raise, pledges a generous donation to a homeless charity, and hosts a grand Christmas dinner, involving a huge turkey bigger than Tiny Tim.

Scrooge celebrates because is no longer lost; he was found. Among the food and his friends, Scrooge begins to sing with the melody of “When Love is Gone,” but instead with new words, and is joined by a chorus of new-found family - “the Love we FOUND, the love we FOUND, we carry with us, so we’re never quite alone.”

We’re not alone in being alone right now, we’re not alone in feeling lost and numb and trying to survive until the new year arrives. Though we may feel quite lost at the moment, we haven’t lost love, or lost Jesus, or lost Christmas this year. Christmas is not gone just because we cannot gather together as we used to, and light candles and sing in a dark sanctuary or gather and eat with all of our loved ones, or even if your gifts have not even arrived, or have gotten lost in the mail.

Jesus was born into just such a moment. Jesus – Son of God, Prince of Peace - arrives to unprepared and scared parents, and by visited first by rag-tag shepherds to be found in a manger, and later, out-of-town foreign dignitaries. He grew up, and found himself to be Public Enemy Number one, because he dared to show the love of God to those who the rest of the world considered lost. And at another time when Evil seemed to reign, when death seem to win, and all seemed lost… three days later, love was found again in the darkness of an empty tomb, having defeated the power of death itself. THOSE angels on THAT day said the women at the empty tomb – “why do you search for the living among the dead? You won’t find him HERE.”

Christmas looks different this year. But it isn’t lost. It isn’t dead. We can find it in the very places it always already always lived. In you. In your heart. In your home. In your actions and words. In generosity and selflessness. In welcoming the stranger. In caring for the sick and reaching out to the lonely. In upending the expectations of the world.

Do not search for Christmas here… because you’ve already found it. It was never lost. It was never gone. Because Love has been with you the whole time. Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

 

A Good Beginning

 Sermon 12-6-20

Grace to you and peace from God our Creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

You gotta love the Gospel of Mark. Straight and to the point. The “No fuss, no muss” gospel. The OTHER gospels of Matthew and Luke begin with versions of Jesus’s birth story. John starts with a Big Cosmic Poem, Genesis style. Mark? BOOM - We’re off and running from the get-go at a breakneck speed, and we never really get a chance to catch our breath through the rest of this Mark year.

You might even say …. If Mark were a song from a Disney movie, it would be that song from the animated version of Mulan, the one that goes - “Let’s get down to business!”

Now, if you are a child of the 80s and 90s like me, I apologize for getting that song stuck in your head for the rest of the day. If you did NOT absolutely LOVE this movie as a kid – even seeing it the theatres, as I did - let me refresh your memory. 

Mulan is the only child of a wounded war hero living in retirement in rural China, when an enemy threatens to bring the country to war, thus one man from each family is conscripted into the army. Mulan disguises herself as a boy to take her father’s place and shows up for her first day of Boot Camp, tiny magic dragon sidekick in tow. As she interacts with other characters and begins to train… things are not going well. Out of frustration, the general of the army breaks into song, Disney-style, to start the epic training montage.

“Let’s get down to business!” the general shouts as Mulan and her friends continue to fail miserably, and it seems Mulan’s military career is going to end as quickly as it began. Just as she is about to give up, Mulan solves an apparently impossible task in surprising way… which foreshadows how she uses her determination and creativity to later save China at the end of the movie. But, no spoilers!

It doesn’t matter if we’re watching a movie, listening to a catchy song, or reading the Gospel of Mark – we know that beginnings are important. They set the tone, and give us clues for what is to come. Beginnings give us a heads up for what to expect. And for Mark – it is to expect the unexpected.

In THIS telling of Jesus’ beginning, there are no sheep or shepherds, no angels or manger, no Joseph and Mary… not even a baby Jesus in sight. Mark gets right down to business, to usher in adult Jesus…… but first…  we get John the Baptist! Our first unexpected nativity hero, that big hairy bug-eating character that mysteriously appears to prelude the already grown up Jesus… who won’t even show up … until NEXT week.

In a way, this is John the Baptist’s training montage. He’s out there in the wilderness, shouting at the crowds, hearing confessions, absolving sins, and baptizing people in the river. If Mark were a Disney musical, John’s song might go something like – “Let’s get down the business…. To prepare the way! Did they send me sinners, when I asked for saints? You're the crookedest bunch I ever met, but you can bet before we're through: People, I’ll … certainly… baptize you!” …Something like that.

And people came. They came in large crowds – imagine that! – not to the city square or palaces of power, but out to the desert, in the middle of a barren land, isolated from everything. They come out, to see a preacher in strange garments, who packed a bug lunch, and tell them all the bad things they ever did, and to be dunked in the churning, sandy water of the Jordan river. Not exactly where we would expect to find the beginning of the Jesus story.

In a way, it feels very 2020 to listen to Mark this year. Maybe not the crowd part, but the isolated, “in the wilderness part.” Much of 2020 has felt like wandering in a wilderness, lost and not knowing our way around, scraping up resources to survive, lonely and uncomfortable. Not at all what we are used to. Perhaps at times in our own lives, we have felt as though we were in our own personal wildernesses, but this year – we’re all here, and there is a crowd of us wandering and lost, wondering where God is.

There are plenty of wilderness experiences that show up in the Bible too, beside this one populated by John the Baptist. Hagar fled and nearly despaired here in the wilderness. The Israelites wander for 40 years here before entering the promised land. Elijah rested under a broom tree here. Jesus will later be tempted here. Every time, Wilderness is a place of testing and of struggle…

But it is also a place where God is sure to show up. It’s where stories begin, and lives are changed. It’s where hope is planted, and where it – eventually – blooms. It’s where crooked and difficult paths are made clear and put to rights.

And sure enough, Mark alerts us in his beginning, of what is to come – Get ready, because ready or not, God is going to show up right here in the wilderness. In the isolation and the suffering. Not in the well-worth paths, but in the uncharted, difficult terrain of life, where the only way to go is forward.

We can’t go back to the way things used to be, and yet, we’re still unsure of the way through the wilderness we find ourselves in, even now, all these months later. Right now, we’re still not quite sure exactly what God is getting us ready for. We’re probably not “ready” in the sense that we’re not what others’ might consider “successful” or “thriving” … especially in this hot mess that we have called the year of our Lord 2020.  Forget writing that novel or picking up a new hobby. Forget getting a live tree or even decorating at all. For some of us merely surviving this holiday season will be a huge accomplishment.

Reay or not, Jesus arrives anyway, without decorations or live Christmas trees. Jesus did not wait until the world was “ready” in order to arrive. Jesus worked with what he had – and began his ministry at just the right time, and used just the right people to make it happen – in this case, a loud hairy preacher man in the desert, and later on, men and women who were beautifully flawed and beloved.

Jesus will arrive, not when we’re ready, but when Jesus is needed, right here and now in our wilderness. He begins his work in us, not waiting to use us when we are finally “ready” - he’s going to use as we are, beautifully flawed and beloved.

A good beginning can happen any time…. in December, in the middle of Advent, in the middle of the pandemic. Things often get started in the wilderness. We are ready as we are, where we are, and any time is a good time to begin. Likewise, we, like John, are called and drawn into “getting down to business.” … the Advent business.

We CAN’T sit on our hands and wait until WE think we are “ready” to “Get down to business…. The Advent business begins with us now, where sin, death, and suffering are defeated…. We are about the business of defeating the inequality and injustice that oppress us. The business of leveling out the uneven paths, the business of confessing and repenting of sins, where forgiveness flows, where peace rules nations and families. And there is no time like the present to begin, even if we don’t know where exactly this journey will take us. It may even take us to places like Vienna, Virginia.

I began my time with you as one of your pastors earlier this week. Perhaps this is not the beginning we expected when God began this work with all of us many months ago, not getting to meet all of you in the way we all thought. In a way, not unlike in Mark, I’m appearing in the wilderness with you, midstream, with my midwestern accent and my Philly habits, 9 months into a pandemic, weeks before a Christmas like we’ve never had before, and all ways this season has made us feel lost and afraid.

But, as the Holy Spirit is at work in Mark - ready or not, here we are. Together, we can continue to figure out what it means to forging a new path through this wilderness, side by side. Together, we can, and we WILL, get down do business, the business of pointing to where Jesus is showing up… and now is a GREAT time to begin. Thanks be to God. Amen.  

With Good Courage

 11-15-20 

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

There is probably only one thing as challenging as having a tough text to preach on as your first sermon – having a tough text to preach on for the last one.

Way back at the beginning of Matthew, Jesus gives his inaugural address, which we also call “The sermon on the mount.” I don’t know if you all remember, when I started here at Family of God, we had just entered into the year of Matthew, with all those “fun” – meaning hard – texts from this Sermon on the Mount, about being salt and light, about murder and divorce, and turning the other cheek – getting into the deep end of our faith which is hard enough when you are jumping into a brand new pool.

Fast forward to the end of Jesus’ ministry – this parable comes days before the Last Supper and the crucifixion - and Jesus’s tone has changed a bit.  He might sound a little on edge here because Jesus knows where he’s headed – in just a few more chapters, Jesus will be leaving them. Jesus felt a strong sense of urgency, knowing he was running out of time.

This story we just heard comes directly on the heels of last week’s tale of the kingdom of heaven being like 10 bridesmaids waiting in the dark for the groom to arrive for the wedding reception with oil lamps. This too is another story that both makes us uncomfortable, but perhaps also confuses us by referencing things we don’t encounter in our everyday lives –  things like slaves and slave owners, and gigantic coins called Talents that were worth about 15-20 years’ salary at minimum wage – so… a good chunk of money.  

But there are plenty of things about this parable that ARE familiar – absentee landlords or managers, the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer, unfair division of resources, the fear of being at the whims of those in power, and the misery of being alone in the outer darkness.

In a year where many of us feel like we have nothing left to give, and even what little security we do have feels on the brink of being taken away, I believe that God is less like the absentee master than thousands of years of theologians may want us to think. THIS year… THIS parable makes me wonder… perhaps God is actually present with slave in the outer darkness. After all, not long after Jesus told this parable, he was cast out, rejected by those who held power, had everything taken away from him, nailed to a cross, and mourned by the faithful women who never left his side. The third slave made an impossible and controversial choice, a choice that we still don’t fully understand. This year espe3cially it feels as though there is no right choices, and at any moment we may face the “outer darkness,” if we are not already there.

We do know one thing - Jesus had the courage to make the hard choices, trusting that God is in control of the outcome. Therefore, as we navigate the challenging future we have before us, we know that we are doing the best we can, and God is with us no matter what.

A favorite prayer I have prayed often, which is found in our hymnal, is known as “The Servant’s Prayer." It goes: “O 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.”

Hopefully we do travel the journey of this life “with good courage” knowing that the hand of God is leading the way, and the love of God keeps us going, like an ever present companion. The path twists and turns, it goes through scary and beautiful places. But no matter where it may take us, we are going to be ok.

I have been taking down the wall art I’d hung up to get ready for moving to the next venture that God has called me to. One is a picture that hung in my office, a gift from another goodbye, of baby Moses in his basket of reeds, rescued by the princess of Egypt. Another is a cross made out of broken ceramics put together with wise women, as we embraced our brokenness together and made something new and beautiful out of the broken pieces.

Another is a quote from C. S. Lewis, painted on wood reclaimed from the scrap pile, which says, “Courage, dear heart.” It’s a quote from one of the Narnia books, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The crew of the ship “The Dawn Treader” are lost in a magical cloud of darkness, and all despair of ever finding the way out. Then a white albatross flies overhead, whispers a message of hope – “Courage dear heart, and then flies away, leads the way out.

Take courage, dear heart, on all the paths the God takes you. Courage, dear heart, when you are tempted to bury your wonderful gifts of generosity and kindness. Courage, dear heart, as we all go forth into these ventures with unknown endings, knowing that God holds us. Thanks be to God. Amen.