December 24 -- Verticle Nativity (Christmas Eve 2020)

“How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given…”

Friends, grace to you and peace this Christmas Eve,

Grace is what we need right now, isn’t it?
And Peace...not peace that the world talks about, but when Christians say “grace and peace,” that’s God stuff.  That’s God’s deep and abiding peace, that resides far beneath the surface...

Some years ago I got to go to Rome in January to study and visit Early Christian sites.  It was thanks to Dad, who’s got a good friend Jim, who’s also a pastor and a passionate scholar on the 1st Century Early Church in Rome.  Jim is always leading trips to Rome, and Dad was always inviting me to join them.  And 5 years ago, I finally did!  The trip was amazing; I’d love to go back someday, I hope you all can go there someday too…(btw, ok to mourn even at Christmas time)  

Anyway, I bring my Rome adventure up again this good evening because Rome in January is absolutely filled with nativity scenes.  

The great Francis of Assisi is credited with the Christmas nativity, assembling manger scenes — whether it’s in-home or in-church, indoor or outdoor, realistic or creative, live or little figurines — any and all...so that children, in particular, could better learn and understand the Christmas story.  

And how true it is!  It’s the classic object lesson!  I wonder how many of you might have had/have a special nativity scene that you got to arrange or watch each year grow in the weeks of Advent.  I know that was formative for me growing up, and something I always looked forward to.  I remember on Christmas Eve the tradition at home of bringing out all the baby Jesus’ that had been hidden all through Advent.  And in church, on Christmas Eve, it was a special honor to begin the service each year with a child in the congregation carrying the precious figurine of the baby Jesus up the aisle and placing it ever so reverently into the manger.  I seem to remember this clink as the porcelain Jesus touched the porcelain manger.  After 4 weeks of joyful Advent waiting, the first true bell of Christmas!  

Anyway back to my trip to Rome in 2015:  There were nativities everywhere, called “presepe”, harkening me back to my childhood joys...and also offering new insights...  

One church that was actually physically connected to the “domus” where we were staying, had this wonderful, dimly lit room off of the sanctuary, and it was just filled with nativity sets, presepi, probably 2 dozen different displays spread around the room, with some choral Christmas music playing from a small speaker.  Open to the public around the clock to enjoy—great for those of us with jet-lag.

They were all such intricate arrangements, way more characters than just the stars of the Christmas pageant!  Figurines were camped out and hidden all through these complex landscapes and creative designs, like vast model train sets:  Grottos and tunnels and tiny lights and flowing water...just tickling the imagination.  

You had to walk around each display in order to see everything.  And often, it was a bit of a challenge to find Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus in the midst of it all.  I think that was intentional.

And some displays were multi-leveled.  

One I remember in particular, told a very clear story to me.  Three levels.  The top level had these armored Roman guards up above, on the top level, standing among white Roman columns; some Roman senator-types lounged on steps around a real fountain bubbling and trickling into a tiny opening…

Then your eye follows the trickle down to the middle level where regular folks are living, it’s a home scene, and a merchant with a cart, and a children playing in the street.  You explore the happy moments and then wonder, wait, where are they?  

The water keeps trickling down to the lowest level and finally you see a tiny baby, a humbly dressed Mary and Joseph, some young shepherds, both male and female, all huddled over the animal feed box.  You had to squint a little bit to see them because there wan’t much lighting down there.  I think had to turn on the flashlight on my phone, but there they were:  

God’s deep and abiding grace and peace, that resides far beneath the surface, levels below the power and glory of the day, even below the beauty and happiness of the neighborhood scenes.

I was so struck by this — clearly: years later...and this year 2020...I’m remembering it — I think in part, because I tend to imagine that holy night, this holy text in Luke 2 on a horizontal plain.  You know, the more characters there are, the wider the frame [nativity in the narthex that took up half the room].  But this was the opposite, it was vertical and narrow, multi-leveled.  Jesus, who the angels above sing about, is born down below:  God’s deep and abiding peace resides far beneath the levels of power and glory, even quaint happiness.  
Friends: that’s way more in line with the Gospel of Luke...the vertical nativity.

Who are the Roman soldiers pressing down on you?  Enforcing peace, more in a “shut up and take it” approach (Pax Romana) leagues away from that divine peace of God, found stories below.  What are the Roman columns in your life, in our world? — the structures that prop up and maintain the status quo, but leave so many buried...buried in debt, or sorrow, or fear?  Hidden at the bottom?  Who are the lounging senators in your life?  Comfortable and jovial, polite, eloquent and smart (in a way), but in their privileged comfort totally oblivious to what’s below, to where the water trickles?  

Jesus loves all of them too, by the way.  Maybe that’s you?  This is land of senators and soldiers, after all.  Jesus comes to be with all of them, with all of us...if we’re feeling pretty comfortable too.  But friends, in Luke’s vertical nativity story, this Jesus comes from the lowest places.  That’s where he sleeps, swaddled and silent.

And the everyday folks in the middle level?  Not rich, not poor, the neighborhoods, the children playing, the marketplace cranking on, the schools and shops and churches, the very real fears and illnesses of the middle level.  Addiction and abuse.  Adultery and anxiety.  Everywhere the water flows.  Jesus gets in there too:
Jesus sits in the homes, eats at the tables, kneels at the bedsides.  And always centers the children.  But comes from beneath.  Born below.  Sleeping on straw.

And made known first to shepherds.  The nightshift.

Friends, [silently] this is our God.  

So deeply imbedded in the underbelly, the gutters below.    Where there’s hardly a drop left.  See, that lower level, is  not just a romanticized Christmas poverty, beautiful in its simplicity: no, it’s dirty down there, it’s bars and brothels, it’s black lives that have endured bloody beatings and bully sticks.  It’s the edges, the places people go when they have no hope, or are where they never had a choice, born by a dumpster, in the stench of an alley, and trying to climb out.  Many of us might have to squint a bit to find this Jesus.  But follow the trickle down.

And be assured that he’s there, that he has arrived, that today is born in the city of David, the nowhere shepherd outpost of Bethlehem…
    That’s where the Shepherd of the World is born!  
The one who guides us to green pastures, and cool waters, where everyone has enough, where healing and redemption abound, where the crooked road is made accessible to all, and the sword of empire and brutality is bent into a gardening tool to plant and feed hungry people.  Where evil and death is conquered at the last, and where forgiveness of sin and new life grows like a tiny sprig from a stump.  This one from below changes everything.  

“Change shall he bring/chains shall he break...his law is love and his gospel is peace…”

This one from the scandalous under-belly spends his ministry in body on earth making level the scenes: turning the vertical into the horizontal!  Flipping the display on its head, rearranging the whole thing, molding a new landscape, where the mighty and glorious are brought down, and the downtrodden are lifted up.  (That was his mother’s song.)  And all may see it together!  (That was Isaiah’s song.)  Jesus sets the characters, even the planets in their places.  And everyone is gathered at the center, in the middle, and included — everyone fed, everyone housed, everyone clothed, and treated with dignity and inoculated with hope and new life.  Including you.

This is our God, from below, with us now.  Changing the entire scene, and offering anew that deep grace and peace...this holy night and always.

[sing] “And you, beneath life’s crushing load,
whose forms are bending low,
who toil along the climbing way
with painful steps and slow:
look now for glad and golden hours
come swiftly on the wing;
oh rest beside the weary road
and hear the angels sing.” 

Amen.

May 3 -- Fourth Sunday of Easter

December 24 -- Christmas Eve 2019

Henry Ward Beecher wrote: “Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength; and strength is not used rightly when it serves only to carry [one] above others for [their] own solitary glory. [One] is greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of [their] own.”  

I got that — not from being a student of Henry Ward Beecher — but from the book and the movie Wonder, which has enthusiastically made the rounds in our household, a few years ago, and watched it together again this past year.  And what a Christmas message it is!  (Check out Wonder in these Twelve Days of Christmas, if you haven’t already.  It’s a way to really get into the ‘incarnation celebration’ we have before us.)

“Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength; and strength is not used rightly when it serves only to carry [one] above others for [their] own solitary glory. [One] is greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of [their] own.”

Grace to you and peace from Jesus who comes to us this holy night in peace.  AMEN.

It is perhaps the hardest thing in the world, dealing with a bully.  I’m thinking more about bullies these days, have encountered the story Wonder...but also reflecting on our lives and our world...  

I’ve had a few experiences myself, one in high school that I’ll never forget.  The visceral feelings come back even now, just thinking about it: heart racing, sweat beading down, ready for anything and nothing at the same time — not sure if our stand-off was going to end in fists swinging, and blood dripping, or what.  He was way bigger and stronger than I was, had this threatening smirk, big ol’ biceps, veins sticking out…But he was making fun of a friend of mine in the weight room, and something in me kind of snapped.  And I couldn’t take it anymore and stay quiet.  I mouthed off back at him.    

And probably, fortunately it ended the way it should have, anti-climactically, with a coach breaking up our heated stare-down.  But I didn’t sleep well that night, and I fretted about that bully for a long time after, even while nothing ever happened again.  

Bullies are tough, on one hand:  They can really eat you up, physically for sure, but I think the other wounds they inflict can last even longer:  They can embarrass you, get others laughing at you too.  They can make you cry just with their quick words, or a mean picture that they draw.  And how bullies can go to town on social media...  Here’s probably the worst: bullies can even make you turn on yourself — start to cut yourself down, make you laugh along with everyone...at yourself.  

--

If you’ve never been bullied, praise God.  

But the Christmas story is for anyone who’s been bullied.  

I recently asked my kids once how they deal with bullies and bad dreams in these tough times...and one of the things Katie said was “stay calm and let an angel help you.”  (Maybe that coach was the angel, in my case: kept things from getting worse?)  This Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke is for anyone who’s been bullied, anyone who’s been haunted by cruelty. 

The shepherds in the field were pretty beat up, bullied, haunted by a cruel world — hearts pounding with anxiety about how they’d get their next meal, paycheck, or rent paid.  Ready for anything and nothing at the same time.  Shepherding was not an easy life.  They were on the edges.  They were nobodies.  But an angel came, and they stayed calm, and they let that angel help.  

Micah — when I asked him once how he deals with bullies — said that both laughing and singing helps.  (few years ago)  He also said, “Remember and give thanks for your family.”  

Do you see all these components in our Christmas celebration here at church this evening...as we gather, and try to stay calm, even as stresses creep in all the time, even as bullies can haunt? As we pause to reflect on the multitude of angels who have come to our aid over the years?  Friends, family members, coaches, mentors, spiritual guides, rainbows, dogs, authors and actors, teachers, nurses — so many angels.  As we gather at the manger of the one “whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own”?  Jesus the Christ.   In this holy place, under perhaps stressful conditions, laughing and singing help, and we give thanks for our family of faith too.  

God’s strength is not made manifest in the big-bully muscles of world leaders or cool-kid group ringleaders, not in the mean words or the name-calling, not in threatening smirks or frightening stare-downs, and certainly not in fists flying.  No, God’s divine power is instead made manifest this holy night... in a baby.  In peace.  (I got to hold a little baby again on Sunday for a baptism!  Couldn’t imagine anything farther from a bully.)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer points out: “God is in the manger!”  

How do you feel about that?  In this season we also reflect on John’s Gospel, where we find and confess this Jesus is God, not just God’s son.  One God, three persons.  God is in the manger.  

The word becomes flesh and dwells among us!  This almighty God has humbled, shrunk, all the way down to become the child of a poor refugee couple, born in the middle of nowhere in the middle of nowhere!  A stable, a manger.  Revealed first to bullied and scared shepherds.  

This God in the manger is strength that “carries up hearts”.  Christ.  Is.  Born.  To you.  For you.  In you.

Let’s laugh, let’s sing, let’s let angels help us, let’s stay calm and kind, and let’s share this Good News with everyone:  God carries up, lifts up our hearts, for God is here today.  

Will you pray with me:

He came down

to earth from heaven

who is God and Lord of all.

And his shelter was a stable

and his cradle was a stall

with the poor and mean and lowly

lived on earth our Savior holy.

AMEN.

September 15 -- Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Friends in Christ — 

God’s love for you is real.  Know that this day.  

Whether your the one who’s lost like a sheep or grumbling like a Pharisee that it’s not fair, God’s love for you is real.  

We have a gospel text this morning that cuts through the static, gets back to the basics, and centers us on the most important thing:  that Christ always comes looking for you, with arms full of mercy and forgiveness for you.  Christ always makes the first move, and comes to find you.  

Imagine a literal, lost sheep just for a moment:  What is so unique about the lost sheep image is that she’s not this rebellious teenager (like the prodigal son).  She didn’t make this conscious effort to reject it all and head off on her own. Rather, she just got lost somewhere, somehow.  Maybe she got distracted by something momentarily and wandered off.  Maybe a sound or a storm prevented her from hearing and following the rest of the herd.  Or maybe she just couldn’t keep up.

And because that little sheep is lost and alone now, she is vulnerable.  Wolves, vultures, rocky terrain, shortage of food.  She is frightened, she is in danger.

Jesus plants this image deeply in the minds of both the tax collectors & sinners AND the pharisees & scribes.  I’m not sure who he’s talking to, actually — we’re all lost sheep.  

Somehow we just get off track.  We lose the faithful, beloved community.  We get distracted.  Or maybe a storm in our lives prevents us from hearing and sticking with the community.  Or maybe we just can’t keep up.  

But Jesus comes to find you this day, whether you identify more with the grumbling Pharisees, the depressed tax collectors or hopeless sinners [pause].  Christ comes to find you, leaving the 99 just to find you —  to lift you up and shoulder you, to bandage up your wounds and reconnect you to the community.

And just to drive the point home a little more —because sometimes we don’t believe or don’t hear that this God loves and seeks us out — Jesus gives another image.  The image of a sweeping woman.  How’s that for an image of God?  (Sweeping Woman Lutheran Church?  We have Good Shepherd.)  Sweating, frantically searching for that one lost coin, even while she has nine others.  

Franticness is something we know all too well, when we’ve lost something so very important.  Have you been there?  (cell phone)  Tap into that franticness, as you imagine these stories.

God searches with that same franticness for you and for me, and for all who are lost or confused...or grumbly.  (I’m not sure if Jesus was talking to the Pharisees or the tax collectors.)  God’s care and concern for you, God’s single-mindedness — you know how when you lose something it’s all you care about until it’s found again? — is that great, God will not stop until you’re found.  And when God finds you, there is forgiveness and mercy, and there’s something else.  

In both stories today — both the lost coin and the lost sheep — and by the way the third of these stories is the parable of the two lost sons (the bitter son, and the reckless, prodigal son) — in all three of these vivid and varying stories, there is something in common, right?  

Once the lost have been found, there is a party thrown in/for the community to celebrate.  The Good Shepherd calls together friends and neighbors and says, “Rejoice with me!”  The Sweeping Woman calls together her friends and neighbors and says, “Rejoice with me!”  And do you remember what that loving father says to his seething and bitter son, who didn’t understand why he had just slaughtered the fatted calf for his reckless, stupid, selfish younger brother?  “Come celebrate!”

“So it is with us,” Jesus says to us.  That’s the kind of party we have when the lost are found.  

And that’s actually what worship is, every Sunday!  [pause] 

It’s a mini-party for the lost being found.  That’s what we celebrate every single Sunday — lost found, dead come to life...in Christ!  It might not always feel or look like a party (sometimes not even a smile is cracked in a worship).  I always chuckle at the irony of droning, even dignified, but passionless Lutheran worshipers:  [non-emotive] “Alleluia, Lord to whom shall we go, you have the words of eternal life.  Alleluia.”  

Difference in serving at St. Marks in South Chicago…

Moving to Bethel in suburban St. Louis...

This is the Gospel of the Lord:  [un-phased] “Praise to you, O Christ.”  :)

And that’s OK; we don’t have to force/fake it; we don’t have to force the smile.  Sometimes life’s burdens are too great...or worship is too somber.  

But the reality is, friends in Christ, that worship this day and every Sunday is a party, even if the world is falling apart around us.  This is a place and a God who, no matter what, welcomes the lost, goes out to find hopeless, the frightened, the outsider, the lagger behind, the one who wandered of or slipped away — this is a place and a God who celebrates, and beckons us to do the same.  “Mine is the church, where everybody’s welcome,” we’ve sung before: this is what God says to us.  

We enact the story of God’s love come to find the lost, each time we worship, each time we gather around this holy book and this holy table, and this holy bath.  We are the community of friends and neighbors that gathers together and responds to the invitation of God, “Rejoice with me!”  This is a foretaste of the feast to come, where there is joy in all of heaven!  

Christ’s love for you is real, God’s forgiveness for you is real...and here...and now.  Let us rejoice together.  Let us rejoice with God, who throws the party.  Let us, sinner-saints, rejoice with each other...for We. Are. Found.  AMEN.

May 12 -- Fourth Sunday of Easter, Mothers' Day

It all comes down to love today.  Mothers' Day, the 10th Chapter of John, Tabitha the radical advocate for benevolence raised from the dead, in our first reading:  It all comes down to love.  “My sheep hear my voice,” Jesus says, “I know them and they follow me.”  What a motherly thing to say.   (Heather’s voice)

We follow after that voice and promise of God’s grace, friends in Christ.  We abide in that voice and promise of Jesus as our mothering shepherd.   It’s a close and warm image, right?

But there is a fierceness to that shepherding, mothering love too, one that gets dirt under your fingernails.  Despite the overtones of gentleness, there is a fierceness, a passion for peace imbedded in the warmth, a fiery commitment to holding us close.  More like a mother bear and her cubs: Don’t get between them.   (Kim and Mary)

I was reading again this week about the history of Mother’s Day.  And as you may or may not know – there are really two women whose names are associated with this day’s founding:

Julia Ward Howe, who started a medical clinic for both Union and Confederate soldiers during the Civil War.  She had a fiery commitment to holding everyone close – friend and foe alike!  And her work for peace was a fight.  She was anything but passive; she was a peacemaker (2x).  And her words ring out in her not-so-famous Mother’s Day Proclamation, which I’m afraid is not shared enough on this day.  But here it is, the Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870, by Julia Ward Howe:

Arise, then, women of this day!                 (Tabitha arising)
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:  "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
for a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.

And then the other woman who is credited with the founding of the day is Anna Jarvis.  She lived a few years later, early 1900’s. Anna Jarvis’ own mother set up a group of women called the Mother’s Day Work Club, a group of women that focused their efforts on clean sanitation systems and health care access for everyone in their communities.  Talk about motherly love that gets dirt, and who knows what else, under your fingernails.  Then Anna Jarvis herself, inspired by her mother’s life of service, petitioned Congress for years to make Mother’s Day a national day.  But almost as soon it was recognized, it became commercialized – flowers and greeting cards – and Anna Jarvis spent her final years campaigning against what the holiday had become.  She was even arrested at one point for “disturbing the peace.”

I mention all that today as I think about my own mother, who in her own way did a bit of disturbing the peace…in the name of peace.  When I was in elementary school in Texas, I was invited to go visit one of my school friends’ family ranch, with a group of other boys.  My mom apparently didn’t ask enough questions about what we were going to do, because I came home with stories about shooting a rifle for the first time.

My mother, who let’s just say is not a member of the NRA, was furious.  She called up my friend’s mother to “discuss” the situation.  And as she tells the story, they had a difference of opinion: The other mother, reportedly, said that she believed young boys ought to know how to handle a weapon so that they can one day defend themselves and their families and their country someday.  (See, a mother’s love is fierce and complicated.)  My mother fiercely responded to her, “Well, Lorraine, Daniel will not be attending any more trips to the ranch.  We are raising peacemakers in our home.”  And then she hung up the phone.  A little dirt under the fingernails?  Motherly love is not clean and simple.

I think about my mother, and all good mothers, as I read about Anna Jarvis and Julia Ward Howe.  And I believe that this motherly fierceness reflects that of God.  God’s love disturbs the peace for the sake of a much deeper peace, the peace that passes all understanding.

God’s love for you crosses boundaries, and dividing lines, makes uncomfortable phone calls, advocates and petitions, protests, proclaims, as Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation, “Let the great human family live in peace.  Let each bear the sacred imprint, not of Cesar, but of God.”  A mother knows of the divine imprint that God has made on God’s children.

Sisters and brothers in Christ, this Mother’s Day, no matter how you experience Mother’s Day (because for some it can be a very painful time for various reasons), sisters and brothers in Christ, God’s love for you is fierce, like a mother bear, with dirt in her claws.  Like a shepherd with wolves’s teethmarks on her staff.  And should anything come between God and you, should peril or sword, or temptations or disease, anxiety, depression or disbelief…should anything come between God and you, then God, like a mother bear, becomes fierce, fierce about keeping you close, fierce about keeping you warm, fierce about making sure that you can abide in that motherly embrace.

God topples the cruel oppressors rod and draws you in like a mother bear draws in her cubs, like Julia Ward Howe, or Anna Jarvis, or my mother.  Let the cry go up from our mothers and all: “We are raising peacemakers in our home!”  God draws us close, forgives us beyond our own ability to forgive, protects us, and teaches us with the fierceness of a mother.  Christ is raising up peacemakers (like Tabitha was raised up)…calling us this day to follow in this way of love, and to hold one another in fierceness and in peace.  To hold one another as friends.

Thanks be to our mothering God, for we abide in Her everlasting arms, this day, and we always will.  It all comes down to love, today.  With God, everyday.  AMEN.

Christmas Eve 2018

It’s hard to see in the driving rain.  

Why bother?  Giant drops fall from the sky and we can barely even open our eyes in the driving rain.  We duck our heads, pull our hoods, and look down at our wet-shoes-getting-wetter in the puddles.  And it’s tempting to just go back inside.  It’s hard to see in the driving rain.  

Hard to drive too:  Even when we’re covered and dry in the car, the roads are slick, the visibility is cut way down.  The wipers squeak irritatingly across the windshield, and we can’t even hear our own thoughts with the pounding of the driving rain all around.  “What if I get stranded, what if I start to slide?” we worry in the driving rain.  Then you have to get out when you get to wherever you’re going, and splash through a parking lot or down a sidewalk, risking a slip or a drop.  Who wants to drive in the driving rain?

I wonder if it was raining the night Jesus was born?  Maybe that’s why there was no room anywhere: everyone crammed into the inns.  Everyone in, except out in the stable.  I wonder if the stable creatures were wet, with that wet smell of animal smell?  I wonder if the shepherds had to duck for shelter from the driving rain while they watched their sheep.  We know it was a dry climate, but we also know that everything was different that night.  Maybe it was driving rain…

Rain has a way of getting us down.  Cloudy and cold.  Perhaps a good description of this whole season, this whole year, in many ways.  Even in our parties and songs and gifts and attempts at good cheer, the visibility can be pretty low.  We have no idea how things will turn out in 2019.  

The roads are slick.  

And the wipers of the raindrops—you know, all those people who just force the smile and positive thinking only—are like an irritating windshield wiper [eek, eek] helping for a moment, but almost in vain, as the huge drops come back as soon as the squeaking stops.  We duck our heads and look down at our wet-shoes-getting-wetter in the puddles of 2018.  And it’s tempting to just “go back in” — into ourselves, into our circles,  into our routines and habits, into our locked and familiar little worlds…because it’s hard to see in the driving rain.  

But if it was raining the night Mary and Joseph were sent out to the stable, the rain surely didn’t stop the Child from being born.  It didn’t stop the angels from singing, 

even if their wings were soaked, 

it didn’t stop the shepherds from hearing and going to the stable, even if their feet were freezing and their cloaks were heavy.  If it was raining, it didn’t even make the story!  [pause]

When it rains, you have to squint, you have to work to see.  And when you have to work you become stronger.  In the rain, your senses go on high alert so you don’t slip or slide or drop anything.  We hang onto our bags and our children extra tightly, we get off the phone and pay attention to the roads, we think ahead and wear extra layers.  When you have to work, you become stronger.

We’ll never know if the first Christmas came in the rain, but we know that Christmas 2018 comes in the rain.  Even if it stopped literally raining this week, the rain keeps falling, if we’re honest.  Even as we find peace in this place for a moment, the conflicts pour on around us.  Many homes are unsafe, many spouses are angry, many children are afraid.  Innocent blood washes down the gutters of our world, even this holy night.  Some of our own members and loved ones sit in lonely beds, wondering if they’ll live to see another Christmas on this earth.  Many families have wrung out the last of their savings on this “joyous” occasion, and are wondering how they’ll get through then next month.  The road is slippery, as the storms rage on, and it is hard to see in the driving rain.

--

But the hearers and the sharers of God’s unstoppable Good News are not deterred by their impaired sight in the driving rain:

We sing on, even if we can’t see so well, even if our wings are soaked.  We strain our ears to hear through all the noise, all the drip-drops of false advertising and merchandising and empty promises of “happiness”.  

“No,” we confess, “those things won’t weather the storm.”  

So we trudge, having heard the angel chorus.  We trudge.  through the muck and the mire, like the shepherds, from one strange, soppy spot to another: from a cold, dark pasture outside the fence, to the unseemly feeding trough of an ox.  Our garments, heavy with storm water and smelly with history.  This has not been an easy road.  We can barely find the stable, and can hardly believe what we’ve just heard, 

but we still go.  

--

So here we are in Bethlehem, the House of Bread, its meaning in Hebrew.  To think that we would find ourselves in this damp stable of Jesus, leaks in the roof, spots on the floor…the feeding trough of an ox. 

[pause] And still it is beautiful.  Still there is joy.  Still the flicker of a light shines in the darkness.  

For wrapped in scratchy bands, held close to his mother’s breast, is a child.  A new born child peaks through the pain!  

The cry of new birth, the glimpse of hope.  For from this child comes—not armed forces or smooth, political persuasions—but the redemption of our fallen world, the healing of our selfish hearts, the forgiveness or our broken deeds.  From this child comes the very peace of God.  From this little child, that we inch closer to see in a dripping stable, squinting through the darkness of our lives, comes the light of life...who calms every storm, who heals every ill, who releases every sin-locked captive, who breaths every peace, and grants every grace.  [pause]  Christ.  Is.  Here.

And when the storms finally pass and the sun finally stretches out across the piedmont to warm the earth and dry our tears, we will see – maybe not even in this life, but – we will see a glorious new growth.  The light green shoots across the fertile ground, the colorful blossoms, the rivers that flow, the trees that wave in the wind, the jagged edges smoothed, the friend and foe alike, gathered for stew over a common fire.  Weapons melted, condolences offered, laughter and wine, apologies accepted, songs and dances shared.  We shall see that the angels’ song is true: “Peace upon the earth, good will to all!”

It’s hard to see in the driving rain, but the storms will pass, for Christ has come.  For Christ is here.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.    

        

November 25 -- Christ the King Sunday

Grace to you and peace, from GOD who creates us from the good stuff, from Jesus who redeems us from the bad stuff, and from the Holy Spirit who accompanies us, challenging and comforting us, along the way, through all the good and the bad stuff.  AMEN.

Today on this Christ the King Sunday, we have an interesting picture: Jesus is not crowned in our readings with glory and gold—as much of our art and our music would have us believe.  Jesus is standing before Pilate, “a prisoner” in the Empire’s terms.  

Now why would we focus on this picture on such a regal Sunday, on such a celebratory day?  Jesus is about to be sentenced to death…and that’s our reading for Christ the King?  Other years, the assigned reading on Christ the King is actually the story of Jesus on the cross.  That’s a little strange, a little depressing, don’t you think...especially in this festive, holiday time?  

But sometimes we need to be confronted with the starkest of contrasts in order to hear and understand the Truth of Jesus’ way.  Sometimes we need to see him, face to face with the powers of this world.  [pause] The Roman Empire was the most powerful nation on earth, the greatest country in the world—the mightiest, most sophisticated, most majestic.  It had the most advanced and well-trained military, the best technology in its cities, an order and system of governing that was proven to be most effective, the promise of freedom and peace for all citizens of Rome.  Pax Romana, the Peace of Rome.  It’s a little scary to think about comparing the Roman Empire to the United States of America.  Often we imagine ourselves as the underdog, I mean we Americans love the underdog stories, as we should—it’s written into the fabric of our history, with our humble beginnings and all the underdogs who worked and suffered to get us where we are today.  But we mustn’t kid ourselves now, we are one of the wealthiest, most powerful nations in the world, even in these days.  I like to imagine Christ on our side, but at the beginning of this text today, Jesus is opposite us.  The USA looks a lot more like Pontius Pilate.  Jesus is standing face to face with the power of this world—military might, brute force, Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea, ambassador of ROME.  Pilate represents us.

It’s kind of a classic build-up we’ve got here, at first glance.  ESPN and Fox Sports have mastered the building up of classic rivals before the great match.  Virginia Tech vs. UVA.  The Red Sox vs. the Yankees, the Cowboys vs. Redskins.  Other rivalries?  Help me out… You can almost hear the music and see the helmets clashing and exploding.  “Jesus vs. Pilate!  TODAY ON FOX!  Let’s get ready to...!!”

That’s the way of this world.  Two contenders, someone’s going to win and someone’s going to loose.  And that makes sense to us, doesn’t it?  And in retrospect, every time we read the story, we’re rooting for Jesus.  We’re rooting for Jesus’ might to make everything right.   We’re rooting for our idea of power to be expressed and made known in the ONE TRUE GOD dominating and even destroying the opposition.  “Yeah, show ‘em Jesus!”  It’s so easy to want what the disciples and the Jewish people wanted—an underdog but powerful leader, eloquent and brilliant like a star quarterback to spearhead the underdogs from oppression to freedom, freedom in the world’s terms.  That would make sense!  (& be awesome, right?)

But that’s not what we get.  

First of all, what we get is someone we can’t relate to.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus is ice cool.  He is what he says he is—not of this world.  I don’t know about you but I like a Jesus who I can relate to.  I like Mark’s portrait of Jesus: a guy who gets angry and impatient at times, who gets scared at times, but still manages to overcome death and the grave.  

But not here in the Gospel of John—oh, he overcomes death and the grave alright—but totally unflinchingly.   Jesus has always been portrayed as weak, wracked with pain, humiliated during the Passion, in movies and probably in our imaginations.  Sometimes we try to recreate that on Good Friday.  But in John’s Gospel you’ll notice that he never shows fear.  He never cowers, sweats like blood, praying in the garden that he doesn’t have to go through with this.  Always remember that in John’s Gospel, Jesus is ice cool, calm, almost inhuman.  He practically climbs up onto the cross himself!  In fact what we see here is Pilate getting more and more upset at Jesus’ lack of fear in the face of all the power that ROME represents.  In those classic head-to-head battles that we can relate to so well, we know that both sides have to have a healthy dose of fear in order to take on their opponent.  But Jesus has no fear, never did.  Certainly the most courageous leaders in history tell us that they had to overcome their fear in order to succeed.  But Jesus never overcame fear because he never had it.  Jesus is all God, all divine.  It’s hard for any of us to relate to that kind of Jesus—we kind of draw a blank.  So we imagine other models.  We draw from other Gospels.  We want so badly to relate to Jesus.  We write hymns about “what a friend we have in Jesus,” and we cling to them.  We need those ideas of Jesus to which we can relate...but that’s not what we get today.  [pause]

WE GET A MONARCH, A SOVEREIGN.  You can’t be friends with a heavenly king, no earthly underdog can.  Now how is that Good News?  

[slowly] It’s good news because what we get this day—on this New Year’s Eve Day of our church year, on this day of turning a page in our congregation, on this day of looking both back on this past year and forward into the next—is the all encompassing love of God for this world.  What we get this day is not simply another clash between good guys vs. bad guys, to put it simply, but an embrace…an all encompassing embrace.  In the Gospel of John, LOVE just pours out of Jesus like an ever-flowing stream.  It’s inhuman, that is, beyond this world.  Jesus is LOVE.  There is no clash because Jesus’ reign covers the entire cosmos.  All the world.  Pilate can’t see it, his view is so narrow.  (His love covers the cosmos like light fills a room.  It’s everywhere.)  

It’s like the children’s song, “He really does have the whole world in his hands.”  No one is conquered when they are conquered with love.  That’s what we have today.  Forgiveness of sins, the promise of eternal life, freedom from fear ourselves, confidence to walk in grace led only by the voice of the one true Shepherd King who guides our feet into the way of peace, who is our only true protection.  How quickly we forget and seek other forms of comfort and protection (like Pilate, the disciples, the Jews all did), but Christ is our King—not King in the way the world understands it, but King [pause] over the way the world understands it.  [pause] Jesus’ love pours out all over us and this world today, saturating us with joy, pouring over us comfort and security, flooding us with forgiveness, drenching us with eternal salvation.  It’s overwhelming really.  There’s no contest—a classic duel between good guys and bad doesn’t even make sense.  

It’s all God, all Love, all Jesus.  That’s the cross of Christ, around which we gather here again, before a new year begins.  In this cross is healing, peace, love, life and joy.  Happy New Year.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN. 

July 22 -- Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

How is Jesus guiding us in these days?  How is Jesus hooking  us and pushing us along?  How are we resistant and scared?  How are we eager and excited?  

How Christ is looking compassionately at us too, walking around at times like “sheep without a shepherd”!  Yes?

Of course, Christ is our shepherd, we just wander around sometimes like he’s not.  Like we don’t have one.  Or like we’re our own shepherds...

--

I want to tell you a bit about how I got here to BLC, Fairfax.

For the last 10 years I served Shepherd of the Valley in La Mesa, about 20 minutes outside of downtown San Diego.  

We did a lot of ministry together over those years.   When I came there, they promised me that they’d never build, and yet about 5 years later, we were dreaming about a modest expansion, that led to a $1.3M project, including a big capital campaign.  All a lot of fun, actually!

Through it all, ministry continued, and growth continued, people were generous, others continued to join the church, and yet, I continued to feel a nudge of the Holy Spirit, that my time may have been coming to an end, and I might be being called somewhere else.  I do think that was God nudging me. 

I decided (did you catch that “I” decided) that if I was going to leave this wonderful congregation for a new call, it would be something very different, and to make a long story short, after interviewing and getting very close to accepting calls in both Boston and Seattle — 2 very different calls from where I was currently serving (urban, diverse, ultra-liberal, tons of kids at one, tons of street ministry in the other) — one thing led to another and I started to think, you know, maybe God is calling me to stay put here at SVLC.  And then Bethlehem called.

Bethlehem looked a lot like where I was in San Diego.  Not exactly the same, but...suburban, bedroom community, just outside of a major metropolis, upper-middle class families, smaller but solid core.

I wanted something vastly different.  But through the process, I learned, that’s not where my gifts are, and maybe God needed something different from what I wanted.  Maybe a place like where I’ve been is “in my wheelhouse,” maybe Bethlehem is a perfect fit, because a place like Bethlehem is what God has created me to serve...(Time will tell, right?)  Well — you know the story from there — things just kept falling into place with you all here.  Heather and I felt very good about this congregation—very familiar, despite the great distance from what was familiar—the opportunities that were before all of us here felt very exciting.  One thing led to another, and now, here we are!  

I don’t like to talk this much about myself in sermons, but we’re still getting to know each other, so hopefully it’s helpful to hear a little more about me...AND I couldn’t help but think of this most recent chapter in my life as an illustration, as we consider the Gospel text today, and the way the people are described wandering around like sheep without a shepherd...  

There were certainly moments in my own discernment these last few years...as there are for all of us at times, I imagine:

We too, like the people in Mark’s gospel get sick, anxious, angry, nervous, scared, even just bored and uninspired, wondering if there’s something more that God needs.  

The text says they ran out to meet Jesus — some because they wanted something from him, others, I think, because there just wasn’t a whole lot going on in their lives...I mean, they had jobs and lives and those things were rolling along ho-hum, but in terms of ministry that was meaningful, faithful, risky, radical even, life (vocation) was pretty empty.  Just going through the motions.  Ever feel like that?  

So they were coming out from the hill country and small villages to meet this Jesus, who had big things in store for them, things they had never imagined, things across the country and across the globe, new partnerships and new challenges, new bridges to build, new people to welcome and care fore, new love to share—radical, mercy-drenched love.  

Friends, Christ has things in store for us that we might not have ever considered or even wanted.  But God needs us.  

And I’ve come to believe that it’s in the caring and reaching out, that we are cared for and ministered to.  Do you know what I mean?  It’s as we pick up a hammer (or a paintbrush) and work together that we connect and even receive.  In our giving we ironically receive even more.  Anyone involved in charity work knows this amazing dynamic!  My dad likes to say, when it comes to church financial stewardship, “Ever known a grumpy tither?”  In other words, the ones who give faithfully and generously are also the most joyful and most excited about life and Gospel ministry!  How is that?  

It’s because we’ve been touched by Christ.  In the divine contact that we receive — at this holy table, through this holy book, around this holy bath and in this holy community (“I see the face of Christ in you”) — it fills us with new life!  New hope, new breath, new challenges, and hew energy.

Christ’s healing is alive here.  Something is starting, as I claimed this week, as all these beautiful and diverse coverings for our pews started pouring in from the outside community!  

Christ’s healing is alive here.  Something is starting, as we explore new relationships, perhaps with LSS, perhaps with other communities, as we pray about what God is calling us to do with God’s church, down in the basement. 

Christ’s healing is alive here.  Something is starting, as we renew partnerships that may have gone awry.  Perhaps more profound than striking up new friendships is mending old ones.  Who are people in your own life and family, maybe here at church where Christ’s healing can enter and transform?

Christ’s healing is alive here.  Something is starting, as (you) — every single one of us — is met, forgiven, fed at the manger that is the Bible, fed at the table of mercy, filled with new wine and now sent out.  Something is starting.  Christ is alive and we emerge strengthened, unified.  (Ephesians — to sum up — shines a laser beam on Christian unity, on tying the old guard Jewish-Christians, who had been around for years and years to the new Christians who were just arriving.  Conflict brewing, and yet Paul’s letter to them drew everyone back to the center, which was Christ — who draws us all together.  Peace to those far off and near.)  Christ is alive here, he unifies our mission and gives us vision to see, not what we want (as I had to learn), but rather, what God needs.

God needs us to rise up and be the church for this world.  And sisters and brothers in Christ, God hooks us now, slows us down, calms us down, gives us new breath and heals us today so that we can indeed go out, rise up and be the church for this world.  Thanks be to God, who is our peace.  AMEN.