Sermon: God fills our emptiness (January 14, 2018)

Epiphany 2 NL4

January 15, 2018

John 2:1-11

Introduction to the story:

            Today we continue our journey through John’s Gospel. Until now there has been a lot of set-up: on Christmas Eve, we heard the prologue of the Gospel, where John identifies Jesus as “the word made flesh,” God incarnate, God here, concrete, among us. Then John the Baptist points him out, and people start following, and inviting others to “come and see” God among them. Today we will hear about Jesus’ first public act of ministry, which John will call his first “sign.” So before we get to that, let me ask you: why does John call it a “sign”? What is a sign? … Just like a sign on the road directs you or points you toward something, Jesus’ “signs” in John point us toward something. What is that something? … God! Today’s is the first of seven such signs. Some of the signs are miracles, like today’s, but the most important thing is that they point us toward some truth about God. They help us to see and understand something about God – which makes them perfect to think about during Epiphany, during a season when we talk about “God made visible.”

            We’ll read the story now. As you listen, think about what this story has to show us about who God is for us. Please rise now for the Gospel reading.

[READ]

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

            I learned this week about a book called, Let’s Kill Sunday School Before it Kills the Church. Dramatic title, certainly catches the attention! (Learn about a free webinar on the topic here.) In it, the author talks about how to put faith instruction back into the home, how to help families talk about faith around the dinner table, or before bed. The core of this effort is called FAITH5 – five steps to guide a multi-generational, faith-forming conversation. It’s pretty simple and straightforward: you begin by sharing your highs and lows from the day, the best and worst parts of your day. Then you read together a Bible story. Then you talk together about where God’s story, the Bible story you just read, might speak to your highs and lows. In other words, where was God during the course of your day? Then you pray together, thanking God for the highs, and asking God to be with you in the lows. And you finish with a blessing, even something as simple as, “God be with you.”

            I’m pretty excited about this way of engaging with scripture – and I warn you, this will not be the last you hear of it! And I think it is a really cool way to read scripture during the season of Epiphany, because Epiphany is a season during which we are always looking for ways that God is made visible, and this is a really down-to-earth way to watch for that. I was so taken with it, in fact, that I found myself applying it to my own week, which was a week with some very high highs, and some very low lows. And so this morning, I hoped you might come along with me, as we see together how you can apply this earthy way of engaging with God’s story to the story of your daily life. Wanna come? Okay, let’s go.

            First, highs and lows. I had a lot of highs – got to see a lot of people, had a lot of laughs – but by the end of the week, the lows were more heavily on my mind. The week started off with a funeral that was difficult because I really loved the woman, and ended with a funeral for someone I did not know but who died quite young and tragically. Both were emotionally draining, for different reasons. In between, I had several late nights out in a row, I barely saw my family, I had several things I had looked forward to doing that I couldn’t even start, and on top of that, 1-year-old Isaac decided it would be a good week to cut some new teeth, which caused loss of sleep for all of us. Although there were many moments of joy and laughter during the week, the overwhelming feeling when I got to the end of it was fatigue. I was exhausted. My heart and my body ached, I was irritable, impatient, sad and discouraged. Anyone else ever felt like that when you get to the end of a long week? Exhausted, irritable, and impatient? Yeah, I thought you might relate.

            Enter: the story of the wedding of Cana. To recap, Jesus goes to a wedding, and by the third day of the celebration, the wine has run out. At an event that

by Decani
accessed at WikiMedia

should be the picture of celebration and hospitality, the very symbol of those things has run dry. At the urging of his mother, Jesus has some folks fill up some empty jugs with water, 150 gallons, and miraculously this water turns into the finest wine!

            So there, you’ve heard the two stories – my story, and God’s story. Now: where do you see my story in God’s story, or God’s story in mine?  Any ideas?

            This is where I saw my story: in those empty jugs. I saw it in the lack of wine, the lack of blessing and celebration and grace. I saw it in the “not enough” where the story begins. I asked before if you’d ever felt at the end of the week like I did – exhausted, irritable, and impatient. Maybe you’re feeling that way today. Do you look at those empty jugs and think, “Yup, that’s about right”?

            Yes, that is where I see myself in God’s story.

But it isn’t where I see God.

Where I see God, is in the fact that those jugs didn’t stay empty. The wine situation did not remain. The jugs get filled up, and by Jesus’ power, what once was empty, what once was lack, suddenly becomes full of grace and blessing. God took the emptiness and filled it up with blessing.

Having recognized this, let’s look back over my story, through the lens of recognizing that God takes emptiness and lack, and fills it with grace and blessing. Here’s my week: I had the opportunity to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to aching people, to speak a word of love and grace into brokenness. I was blessed to visit with several other people going through various trials, and offer them the hope that is in Christ. I taught some teenagers about praying with the Psalms, and not only did we laugh a lot, but I also caught a glimpse of some of their hearts that I had not seen before. I heard people’s raw and real stories, and prayed with them. And in the middle of the night, I felt the soft breath of my son on my chest, and smelled his hair, while my daughter asked me to hold her – what gifts!

At the wedding at Cana, we usually say Jesus turned water into wine. But the story that I read this week, is that Jesus turned emptiness and lack into blessing and grace – just like I now see God turned my emptiness and fatigue into blessing and grace. God turned my exhaustion into opportunity. God turned my lack into abundance.

I asked you before you heard the reading to think about what this sign is pointing to, what it tells us about God. Well, this is it, at least part of it: It points to the abiding truth that God fills us up, taking our emptiness, our brokenness, our lack, even our endings and deaths, and turns them into fullness, wholeness, blessing, beginnings and life. Sometimes we don’t see that come to its full fruition in the course of a few days like I did this week. Sometimes we don’t even see it come to fruition in the course of a few years, maybe not even until we are at the gates of heaven. But eventually, it does happen, because that is the business of God: to fill up the emptiness with love, grace, and blessing.

You see how transformative this “FAITH5” process can be! I hope you will take it home and give it a try. Share highs and lows, read a Bible verse or story, talk about how God’s story can speak to your story, and then pray together and offer one another a blessing. See how God might be working to transform your life, as families, and as brothers and sisters in Christ. And now, let us pray together…

God of abundance, we give you thanks for being with us during the highest points of our days, and ask that you would be with us also in our lows. Help us to see how you are present and visible to us, and in all things, grant that our emptiness and lack would be filled up by your love and grace. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen

Sermon: Star Gifts 2018 (January 8, 2018)

Baptism of our Lord/Epiphany

January 7, 2018

John 1:35-51

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

This first Sunday of the year, we always have to decide whether to recognize the Baptism of our Lord (and with it, the gifts of our own baptism), or Epiphany (and with it, the gift of God being made known to us and to all). Either festival draws us to think about gifts of God – the gift of new life, and the gift of God-with-us. In both, we have the gift of seeing and experiencing how God works among us, bringing light, life and salvation.

And this strikes me as a good thing to talk about as a new year dawns. Even if you’re not one for making New Years resolutions, it is hard not to feel, at the turning of the year, a sense of potential. A new year, a new opportunity. What will this new year will bring, and what changes would you like to make in your life in order to see those new things come about?

Perhaps that is why, when I read our Gospel text for today, the question I was drawn to was Jesus’ question to the disciples who are following him: “What are you looking for?” he asks. For what are you searching? What longing fills your heart that you are trying to fulfill? It strikes me as a good question to ask at the beginning of a new year. What are you looking for in your life this year, and in particular, what are you looking for in your of life following Jesus? What in that relationship do you seek? What do you crave?

The disciples’ answer is just as telling: “Rabbi,” they say. “Teacher. Where are you staying?” Or better translated, where do you abide or dwell? Abiding, you see, is a really important theme in John’s Gospel – to abide with someone indicates a deep and intimate relationship, like Jesus’ relationship with his Father, and like the relationship Jesus wants to have with us. So for the disciples to ask, “Where do you abide?” is to say, “What we are looking for, is you. What we are looking for, is to be in a deep and meaningful relationship with you. What we are looking for, is to see you and know you.”

And just as Jesus issues his invitation to the disciples, he issues it to us: “Come and see.” Come and see what a relationship with Jesus looks like. Come into this year and this life of discipleship with your eyes and hearts open, ready to see God at work. And here I can’t help but think about our star gifts, because the whole point of that exercise is to help us keep our eyes open to how God is made visible in whatever one particular aspect of life we happened to draw last year. And the hope, is that in noticing God there, we might also be drawn into a deeper abiding relationship with God.

So I’d like to move now to sharing star gift stories, sharing how we have seen God made visible in the past year. To get the ball rolling, I’ll share with you about my own star gift. I drew perseverance, and boy was it a year where I had my eye out for that! It was a year that delivered no slow-news days, where every week or every day seemed to be yet another outrageous something or other, where every day we were reminded of our divisiveness as a world, a country, and a community. It was a year where I dreaded checking the news each morning, fearing, “What now?” But in the midst of all of that, I also saw emerge people who actively sought peace. Whether in one-on-one ways in their local communities, or on a larger scale by community organizing, some worked very hard to bridge divides: to help create space for conversation, to learn about people who are “other,” to create space where people are heard and valued and where restoration, not division is sought. We believe in a God whose very being is relationship – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and so when I see people persevering against the dominant culture of divisiveness in their effort to build and restore relationships, I see God, beautifully manifest.

How about you? Where did you witness God at work this year? Where was God made manifest?

[Leave space for others to share…]

“Come and see,” Jesus says. He calls his disciples by name, just as he calls us by name in our baptism, and invites them and us to come and see. And they do. And they invite their friends to do the same. “Come and see.” Come and see how God has been made manifest in my life. Come and see how God is made manifest in my worshipping community. Come and hear the story of faith, my story, our stories, and see how God is working among us.

Thank you for thinking of your stories from last year. I hope you will share them also outside of this place, with others who might be looking for what Jesus has to offer. I’d like now for us to draw star gifts for next year. [Ushers…] As you pick your star – don’t look! – trust the Holy Spirit that this is indeed where God has in mind for you to see him this year. Hang our star on the fridge, or put it on your dashboard, or somewhere else where you will be reminded regularly to watch for God through that gift.

[Once everyone has one…] Hold onto your star, and let us pray…

God, we acknowledge that we are not always ready to receive your best gifts for us. You have given us an epiphany word in order that our searching will bring us to you. It is often our habit to turn aside, stumble over, or even reject experiences and encounters that we later understand to have been precious gifts. Help us to be open to the gift that you offer us now through our star words. We acknowledge that we do not fully understand what this word might mean for our faith, but we receive it from you with gratitude and pray that your Spirit will enable us to live into our word with intention and faithfulness. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Learning to love Jesus: A Christmas story of Grace

January 2, 2018

Dear Grace,

One of my greatest delights this season has been sharing the Christmas story with you. At 27 months (now almost 28), you are old enough to grasp at least parts of his beloved story about God becoming human, and coming to us as a baby on Christmas night. If you don’t yet understand the incarnation itself (and who does??), you at least are completely smitten with the story of baby Jesus.

Grace's nativity (sans wise men)

I bought a little nativity made of cloth for you to play with. It’s got all the major players: the holy family, of course, and a manger, plus a shepherd, a sheep, a donkey, a cow, and three wise men, all in a stable with a star and an angel attached. You immediately fell in love with it. Of course, you promptly lost Jesus, and asked about him for days. When I found him and returned him to you, you exclaimed, “Baby Jesus!” and then, “You found him!” You ran to fetch his little manger and placed him tenderly inside, announcing, “Jesus in the bed.” This was not only incredibly dear, but made for a great Christmas sermon illustration – thanks!

Monkey (Jesus) in the "manger" (aka diaper bin)

Now, you always have your eye out for baby Jesus. You notice him wherever you catch a glimpse of a nativity. And honestly, it doesn’t much matter if you can see a portrayal of this ancient and beloved story, because you will happily act it out yourself. “I’m baby Jesus,” you state matter-of-factly, and then point to each member of the family assigning parts: “Mommy is Mary, Daddy is Joseph, and Isaac is a shepherd.” Sometimes daddy and I are both shepherds, and you are Mary and Isaac is Joseph, and the part of Jesus is played by most often your blue monkey, but sometimes another friend. Whatever you have assigned, you get very indignant if we don’t call people by their proper role. When I am Mary, you call out to me, “Hey Mary!” and if I don’t respond with, “Yes, Jesus?” then you correct me. Tonight I put you to bed, after you had told me I was Mary and you were Jesus, and when I said, “Good night Grace Victoria,” you said, “I’m not Gracie. I’m Jesus.” So I said, “Good night, baby Jesus,” and you were very happy with that.

You received a beautiful children’s Bible for Christmas, and you beg for me to read stories to you about Jesus. You love all the ones with Jesus or Mary in them, and also the one about Jesus with the little children. Oh how I adore when I say, “Which story should I read?” and you say, “Jesus!”

The most elaborate "manger"

As charming as is your ongoing drama featuring the Rehbaum Players, my favorite thing of all is seeing how in love you are with Jesus. You love to build him a manger with your blocks. You have built several elaborate mangers for him. You cradle your monkey, place her in a basket, the lid of a box, or the empty diaper bin, and sing her Away in a Manger, which I recognize by a few key lines: “No ‘frying’ Jesus… I love you, oh Jesus… head on the hay…” Each time you sing, you get a few more of the words, and my heart melts a little more. Then at bedtime, when I ask what you’d like me to sing, you request, “Jesus no fry,” and I sing you Away in a Manger while I cradle “Jesus.” Sometimes you just sit back and listen, perfectly content, and sometimes you try very hard to sing along with me, learning the words. Either way, I love it. 

Another of Jesus' mangers, which has
several moving parts you demonstrated.

I love all of this as your mom, of course. But I also love it so much as a pastor. Watching you fall in love with baby Jesus has made me fall in love with him and with the story of his birth all over again. I can’t think of any other story that has such mystery, excitement, and accessibility for children and adults alike, plus countless artistic, poetic, and musical portrayals. Divine love, Jesus, and the arts – all my favorite things! You hear songs with words you know and love from the story – angels, shepherds, stars – and delight in your discovery. (You came into the kitchen the other day grinning and singing, “Glo-o-o-o-ria!” from Angels We Have Heard On High. Be still my heart!) You recognize the characters even in very different portrayals, perhaps holding one piece beside another and announcing, “Same!” or, “That’s Mary, and that’s Mary!” There are so many connections to be made – it is the perfect story to draw in a two year old, who is relishing in discovering how the world works by making connections in it. Watching it happen with my own daughter makes me marvel once again this this is how our God would choose to come to us: in a way that enchants children and mystifies sages, that brings as much joy and splendor as it does fear and astonishment, that somehow draws into one amazing story animal sounds, angel songs, the lowly and the mighty, the powerless and the powerful, a refugee family, and above all, a new baby. Who doesn’t love a good birth story? And this one is the very best!

Thank you, Grace, for helping me fall in love with Jesus all over again!

                                                                                                Love,

                                                                                                Mom/Mary/Shepherd

Sermon: They found him! (Christmas Eve 2017)

Christmas Eve Sermon

December 24, 2017

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

A great joy for me this season has been sharing the Christmas story with my daughter Grace. At the mature age of 27 months, she is old enough to start to understand at least parts of it. Even though she refused to wear a sheep costume for the pageant (instead opting for a mismatched “outfit” that only a 2-year-old could love), she has had no lack of fascination with the Christmas story itself. After reading her stories, singing songs, and acquiring a cloth nativity set for her to play with, Grace has become quite enamored with the story, always keeping an eye out for what could be Baby Jesus and his family, and pointing him out when she does. Like so many throughout the generations, she is fascinated by the incredible story about a baby who was God being born to peasants in a stable, among animals and angels, with shepherds and kings among his first visitors.

Grace's Nativity

Grace loves her little nativity set. But I believe we owned it for all of two days before… we lost baby Jesus. And at church, of all places! We brought it one Sunday for the kids to play with quietly during worship, but when it came time to leave, though we looked high and low, we could not find Jesus. For two days afterward, Grace would occasionally ask, arms spread wide, “Where’d Baby Jesus go?” I couldn’t tell her. We had lost him.

Really, it’s not hard to do during this season of hustle and bustle, is it – to lose sight of Jesus. Cookies and decorations and parties and gift-giving and  -getting crowd out that part of the celebration – you know, the main part. I think a lot of us are so busy preparing a lovely Christmas for everyone else, not to mention making sure all the beloved traditions happen, that it can be difficult to prepare the way for Christ in our own hearts, let alone to find a place for him to stay there (though I’m told even Mary and Joseph had that problem). Yes, in the midst of all the wonderful activities of the season, losing Baby Jesus is a real risk.

Now, for Grace’s little nativity, it wouldn’t be too hard to replace the little figure of Baby Jesus. I contemplated calling the company and ordering a replacement, or even just whipping up a new one in my sewing room out of felt and a sharpie… Then I recognized, with chagrin, that this is all too often the solution to losing Jesus: we simply replace him with something else. We try to fill the lack, the emptiness, the Jesus-shaped hole in our lives with any number of other things – some not inherently bad, and some that we know are not good for us, yet we gravitate toward them anyway. We replace going to church with going to sporting events, or sleeping in, or brunch, telling ourselves that these activities are better for our developing a sense of community, or for our families, or for our own self-care. We replace prayer and a spiritual life with seeking advice on social media, or with self-medication, whether that “medicine” is alcohol or shopping or working more. We replace trusting in God with trusting in ourselves. All of our replacements seem much easier than continuing to look for Jesus who sometimes, if we’re being honest, can be a bit elusive.

I wonder if that is how the shepherds felt in the fields that night? I wonder if they had grown weary of searching for something they could never seem to find? As a child and even into adulthood, I always imagined the shepherds as faithful, gentle-spirited men, who were doing hard but important work. In pageants each year, shepherds were always played by the coolest boys, so I assumed the real shepherds must also be pretty cool. Turns out: not so much. Turns out, shepherds were the opposite of cool. They were in fact among the most despised in society, physically and socially on the fringes. In some ways their reputation was earned, as some shepherds were careless and irresponsible. But many were victim to a stereotype, that shepherds were untrustworthy scoundrels, dirty, lowly, and a menace to society. Because of their reputation, they were often denied charity or even civil rights. One written Jewish law even went so far as to say that if you found a shepherd who had fallen into a pit, you are not obligated to help them.

Being a shepherd was a tough life, physically, socially, and emotionally. And so I can’t help but wonder if they ever questioned whether God might be absent from their lives? Did they ever feel like they had lost God, and that it was too taxing to keep looking… so they either sought some insufficient replacement, or abandoned entirely the hope of God’s love in their lives?

How remarkable – and how appropriate – that it was to these lowly, despised shepherds, that the angels first announced the entrance of God into the world. Generations have asked, “Why the shepherds? Why not the powerful? Why not the faithful? Why not the clergy?” But the answer, I think, is obvious: the angels came to the shepherds because it was they who most needed to find God. The angels came to the most in need of love, the most in need grace, the most in need of a savior, to announce that on that night, that which they craved and sought had arrived, and he was called God-with-us.

And so it should also be no surprise to us that the shepherds would abandon everything they were doing to see it for themselves. Let us go now and see!” they say. They rush into town, running through the dark streets of Bethlehem, until they find the even darker cave where the holy family was staying – and find that its darkness has been filled with the light of love. “They went with haste,” Luke tells us, “and found … the child lying in a manger.” They found him. They found love. They found grace, and peace, and hope. They found their hearts’ deepest desire. They found Jesus.

I don’t want to leave you hanging about the saga of our little nativity. Last week, I was walking through the sanctuary… and there, sitting in the pew, was Baby Jesus: unassuming, quiet, just waiting to be found. “Baby Jesus!” I exclaimed, with what perhaps seemed disproportionate enthusiasm for those standing nearby. My heart filled with joy and relief. I eagerly returned him to Grace when I got home, and she, too, excitedly exclaimed, “Baby Jesus!” and then, “You found him!” She immediately ran to find his manger and place him tenderly inside. “Jesus in the bed,” she said, contentedly. She knew right where he should go.

The next day, I caught Grace eyeing another nativity we have in the house. This one looks much different from hers – it’s made of wood, and does not have movable characters. I asked if she knew who it was, and she correctly identified the people. Then suddenly she gasped and ran out of the room, and came back with Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus from her own nativity. She held Jesus up and exclaimed, “Same!” She recognized Jesus, even in a place she did not previously know to look for him.

And announcing her recognition of Jesus in that place was just the right thing to do – for once we have found Jesus, we must look at everything else with the intention of finding Jesus there, too, and then telling others about it. That way, we will never lose him; he will always be found.

So, where should we start looking? Well, the angels announced God’s birth first to the shepherds because they were the most in need of hearing the good news. So now we know to look for Jesus among the lowly and despised, or among those who sometimes feel that way. Jesus was born to peasants who were not welcomed in a place far from home, and who were pushed aside and dismissed. Now we know to look for Jesus among the poor, the stranger, and the refugee. God came to earth during a particular moment in history in which the government was oppressive and the poor were heavily taxed. Now we know to look for Jesus among the oppressed, among those who, due to forces outside of themselves, lack what they need to thrive.

This old and loved story has much to teach us about where to look for – and where to find – the God of love, who came to bring peace on earth, goodwill among people, and the knowledge of God’s abiding presence.

And so my hope and prayer for us this Christmas, is that we might take a cue from a toddler hearing this story for the first time: to react with enthusiasm, genuine joy and delight, whenever we find Jesus in the world; to rush to find a place for him in our hearts, and place him tenderly there, and continually to search for him in those places we might not have thought to look, to hold him up to what we see in the world around us, and to announce it when we do, marveling at the ways God continues to come among us, at Christmas and every day. May it be so.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.