The magic of Christmas

 In a recent post, I reflected on my kids' developing logic brains, in particular regarding Santa. The parent of one of Grace's friends texted us after Grace told her daughter she didn't believe in Santa - she was, in her words, "pissed." It wasn't clear to me whether she was pissed at Grace, or us, or the situation, or what, nor what she was hoping to accomplish by telling us about it (she ended the text, "Do with that what you will"). Maybe she was just venting.

I remember a workshop I attended with Kit Miller, director emeritus of the Gandhi Institute for NonViolence, in which she said that usually when we feel angry, there is another emotion beneath it, and she encouraged us, next time we feel angry, to get curious about what might be underneath it. If I were in this mom's position, I would probably feel... sad and disappointed. Because these times when we see bits of our kids' childhood start to slip away, always feel a bit like grief. When we give away the board books and baby clothes, when they no longer need to hold our hand all the time, when a hug and a kiss can no longer heal their broken heart, and yes, when they start to question whether Santa is real... "Losing" those things is appropriate, of course, and a sign that they are growing and developing as they should. But it is still really stinking hard as a parent to say goodbye to that era. And I absolutely understand why this mom who texted us was upset, and told her as much. "I'm so sorry that happened," I said. "That must be so disappointing."

Several things this mom said have continued to bother me. While I certainly don't want or need to get into all of them, I wanted to comment here on one. She said, "If you guys choose to eliminate Christmas magic from your house, fine." I have been wrestling over the last week with this, and trying to figure out why I have allowed it to bother me so much. Maybe I do have some guilt, because we never entered fully into Santa magic - as I described in my previous post, my husband felt strongly that we focus on "the story of Santa," but be honest from the start that Santa is a story, not a real person. "I won't lie to my children," he said. While I think this was the right choice for us, I do harbor some sadness that my kids missed out on that magical part of childhood. (Though I do think they believed at first, despite our honesty! It's hard not to get swept up in it!)

But I think the reason I'm feeling resentful about her comment is that we have not chosen to eliminate Christmas magic from our house. My kids have experienced no lack of richness of both magic and mystery around Christmas, and none of it has required us to compromise on our being fully honest with them.

Clara and her Nutcracker

1) Play is magical. And there has been plenty of play! We put out cookies and milk and wonder if they will be there in the morning (they aren't, but a thank you note is). I have been ridden like a reindeer. Grace loves to play with our little plush nativity, giving all the characters personalities and backstories. She talks to them. We read Christmas storybooks and then act them out. We joke about how Santa knew we all needed new toothbrushes. I have a picture of Grace pretending to sleep in a four-poster bed (the upside-down coffee table), wearing a tutu and clinging to her wooden Nutcracker, waiting for Isaac to come in and save her, Clara, from the Mouse King. Speaking of which...

2) The Nutcracker is magical. A cherished memory from when Grace was a ballerina-obsessed 3-year-old was when a friend gifted us tickets to the Nutcracker. Grace danced along with the Sugarplum Fairy in the aisle. The people in front of us were so charmed by her, they said, "Our daughter is one of the
ballerinas. Would you like to go and meet her?" While we were backstage, we also got to meet the Sugarplum Fairy herself. The picture we have of Grace's sweet little face is pure magic. 

3) Generosity is magical. We recently went on a post-Christmas outing, and when we saw someone in need, we gave her a couple of bucks and one of the winter kits I keep in my car. The smile lit up the woman's face, and she offered us a blessing and expression of gratitude for another day of life. It was magical and meaningful for all of us. Seeing the kids get excited about all the gifts they want to give to their friends and family is magical. Witnessing their pride when we gush over their presents to us is magical. 

4) Family time is magical. This week, after an exceptionally busy month for me (pastor!), we have hunkered down together, hardly leaving the house. We have played games, made crafts, and watched so many movies together, with no other agenda. We cuddle on the couch, a kid under each arm and a dog on my lap, and all the stress of the month has melted away. Isaac has come into our room each morning about 7:30 or 8, and climbs in to cuddle while I read my book. Eventually we make jokes and tickle and giggle and it is a magical way to start the day. 

Of course to me, Christmas is not really about creating what I would call artificial magic - that is, the magic that is manufactured and fleeting, around a fun but mythical story. Christmas is really about mystery - in particular, the mystery of the incarnation. I know, some of the very people who devote all kinds of energy to making Santa magic do not believe in the mystery of the incarnation (this same mom made sure to tell me she was one of them). 

But I will (and do) devote all the energy to celebrating this mystery, which is more lasting and soul-filling than Santa can ever provide. What is more "magical" than sharing candlelight with one another, gradually brightening a darkened sanctuary while a string quartet plays Silent Night, inviting us to join them? What is more "magical" than the grins and greetings of young adults home from college for the holiday, excited to be back at church with these friends? What is more "magical" than a normally stoic congregation so delighted by a rollicking rendition of Go Tell It On the Mountain, that they spontaneously burst into joyful applause? 

I love magic. It's fun. But give me the mystery of the incarnation over manufactured Santa magic any day!

When Santa stops being "real"

 

At 7 and 8 years old, my kids are working on developing their logic brains, discerning what is fantasy and what is real. It is both sad (who doesn't love the magical world of childhood?) and exciting to see them making really smart observations about their world. 

At this time of year, you can imagine a lot of this energy has gone toward figuring out Santa. Now, my husband was insistent from the beginning of our parenting adventure that he did NOT want to tell our kids that Santa was real. His family had taken Santa very seriously, and he loved it as a kid... until he realized it was all a lie, and he felt betrayed. "I won't do that to my kids," he said. I had no problem doing Santa with the kids - I have fond memories and no trauma around figuring out it was just a story - but he felt so strongly about it, that his view was where we landed. 

So we have definitely leaned into the story of Santa, learning about his origins, telling the story of the real St. Nicolas (and celebrating St. Nicolas Day on Dec. 6), visiting Santa and getting pictures, putting out cookies and milk and a carrot, reading books, filling stockings, and even signing some cards "from Santa." We "play" Santa, the way we play princesses or monsters or weddings with stuffies, and in that way Santa is incredibly real to them, just like their toys are. At the same time, our kids have known that the presents come from us, at least the big ones. We want them to know that we work hard in order to provide this for them, and that if their friends don't get as much, it is not because they were naughty, but because these kids either got non-material gifts, or they couldn't afford more than that. When they were little, if the kids asked if Santa was real, I would answer with things like, "Well, the stockings were filled, weren't they?" thus avoiding actually answering their questions in ways that would be a lie. Honesty is a core family value, and we have stood by it, while trying to maintain the playful aspect of Santa.

(Though this choice is not actually theologically motivated for me, I also have some concerns about the theology around Santa: that you get rewarded for good deeds, and punished for being bad. The theology of Christmas is exactly the opposite: that God so loved the world, despite its brokenness, that he sent his only son, came to dwell with us, to redeem us. Jesus didn't come because we were good, but because we needed help. I cringe when well-meaning adults say things to my kids like, "Don't do that or Santa won't bring you any presents!")

All this said, of course I don't want my kids ruining Santa for kids who do believe Santa is real. So I have told especially my outspoken daughter not to say anything to her friends. "If they believe in Santa, just let them. Don't ruin it for them." She asked why? Even at 8, she has a sense that honesty is kind, so why would it be a bad thing to tell her friends the truth? Hard to argue with that! But I have reiterated, "Just don't be that kid. Some kids find a lot of joy in believing in Santa, so let them, and play along. Trust me on this." 

But anyone who parents knows we cannot control our kids every word or action, and anyone who knows Grace knows that she is always hard at work trying to make sense of her world. So she has been trying to figure out which of her friends believes and which don't, willingly sharing her own opinions. In my view, this is appropriate conversation, developmentally, for kids this age. This is their Big Issue, right? Like adults might talk about politics or global climate change in their effort to make sense of the world, this is what 2nd graders talk about. Sorting it out with their peers is, in my opinion, awesome, especially the way Grace has been doing it, which is to ask, "Do you believe in Santa?" and then offering, "I don't, and here's why." She's not telling anyone else what to think, just sharing what she thinks with her good friends. Good on her. If this shakes her friends' belief, they probably already had some questions. Firm belief would not be troubled by someone else's lack of belief. As someone who works in the field of faith and belief, I know this to be true.

Unfortunately, some of her friends' parents have been less than impressed by Grace's critical thinking, and in particular her expression of it. One posted a "friendly reminder" on Facebook, requesting that parents teach their kids to "be kind" and not ruin Santa for kids who still believe. Though Grace wasn't named, I learned later that this happened shortly after Grace had told this mom's daughter that she didn't believe in Santa. Another mom texted us directly, saying Grace had just told her daughter that she didn't believe Santa was real and she has proof. This parent was incredibly frustrated by this exchange, though it wasn't clear to me whether she wanted us to do something about it, or was just reporting. (More on that in a separate post.)

I told both of these parents that I have asked Grace not to ruin Santa magic for her friends, though neither seemed satisfied with this. I like Christmas magic as much as the next gal, but other people's kids' belief isn't really my responsibility. If these exchanges troubled their kids, then that's a great chance to have a conversation with them about it. For our part, we have taught our kids to be kind, and instilled a value of honesty. (When Grace recently asked me, "I need you to be honest with me: where do the gifts come from?" I told told her the truth, because if honesty is what I expect of her, I'd better model it.) We have applauded their ability to think critically about things, and celebrated their attempts to gather data. One piece of evidence they found was, "If Santa is supposed to visit all the little boys and girls, then why doesn't my Muslim friend get a visit from Santa?" The story didn't work in this instance, and therefore called other aspects of the story into question. Telling them, "Well your friend doesn't celebrate Christmas, that's why," sounds a bit too much like religious discrimination - Muslims are not included in Santa's generosity. Magic does not apply when you have a different faith.

Point is, I am proud of my little thinkers. I know it is hard to see the magic of childhood start to dissipate, but it is a sign that they are growing and developing right on track. This development is probably much harder on parents than it is on the kids themselves (with exceptions for people like my husband who felt betrayed when the truth came out). I think of giving away the last of the baby clothes, the board books they no longer read, the sippy cups... it is all a sort of grief. But it is also a joy: just look at the amazing little people our kids are becoming!

By the way, in the midst of these conversations with parents, we were accused of "eliminating all magic from our house," an accusation I still find myself resenting. In my next post, I will reflect a bit on the magic of childhood that has nothing to do with Santa.

Sermon: Is this story real? (Christmas Eve, 2023)

 Christmas Eve 2023

Full service can be viewed HERE.

My mom used to teach kindergarten, and each year, she did a unit about The Nutcracker. They learned the whole kindergarten curriculum using this beloved story, from literacy to math to art. They also learned about ballet, and about the beautiful music written by Tchaikovsky. Mom’s favorite day of the unit was the day they got to the part of the story where the tree grows. They had a large bulletin board with a paper Christmas tree on it, and the characters, made by the children, of course, were all dancing on stage around it. The night before “the magic happened,” she would add a few layers to the tree – enough that it went off the bulletin board and popped right up through the ceiling! And then she added Christmas lights all around the board. Now, none of the 5-year-olds noticed this when they came in the next day. When it came time to learn this part of the story, they’d turn off the lights, and the kids would sit in a circle with their eyes closed, and she’d play the wonderful music that makes the tree grow. (See it here.) You can practically see the tree growing in your mind’s eye, right? The teacher’s aid would sneak over and plug in the lights. When it was done, they would all open their eyes and look at the tree, and – lo and behold! – the tree had grown! They were flabbergasted. “Our tree grew!! How did that happen?!” It was magical! 

Of course, there were always some skeptics. Some kid would always say, “Oh, you did that while our eyes were closed.” She would remind them that she was sitting with them the whole time, so how could she have done it? They’d work through it, but eventually, even the skeptics would come around. Maybe they really did start to believe, or maybe they realized it was just more satisfying to believe that the impossible could happen.

I remembered this during a recent conversation with my own child, now a very mature 8 years old. She is astute, and does not miss much. And at 8, her logic brain is kicking in and she is very interested in figuring out what is real and what is fantasy. You can imagine, this has resulted in some important conversations about some beloved secular Christmas traditions, if you know what I mean. One day recently, she looked me in the eye and said, “I really want to believe this, but I also really want to know what is real. Can you just tell me honestly: what is happening here?” (More reflection on this exchange HERE.)

These sorts of conversations with my bright, inquisitive children always shed such light on the most essential human traits. I was so moved by her stating so plainly this tension: we want to believe in something, but we don’t want to be duped. We don’t want to be made a fool. We have well-developed logic brains, after all, and we put them to good use. So yes, we want to believe in something, but we want it to be something that is real. We want to understand what is really going on here.  

Well, hate to tell ya: the Christmas story blows this desire out of the water. Each year we are confronted with this mysterious story about a God who for some reason decides to become human. It’s an absurd prospect. What kind of all-powerful God would want to be viewed as vulnerable – and what is more vulnerable than a baby? Who could possibly take seriously such a God, who comes not with the might of a warrior, but with the clumsy, soft, and squishy body of a newborn babe, unable to feed himself, or wipe himself for goodness’ sake! 

We sometimes talk about “the mystery of the incarnation.” I love that word, “mystery.” It makes me think of candle-lit sanctuaries, and cozy novels I might read in front of the fire. But a mystery is also simply this: something that seems to have no reasonable explanation.

Now don’t get me wrong: the story we come here tonight to hear and share and celebrate is decidedly good news, and I believe it to be true. As absurd as it may be, the fact that God would become one of us, to walk among us, to feel our pain and ultimately to redeem us, is really loving and lovely. It is a story worth believing!

And, at the same time, I admit I sometimes feel like my daughter: I’m looking around this world, so broken and war-torn, and wondering, “Can we really believe this good news?” With war in Ukraine and the Holy Land; with poverty all too prevalent even in this, the richest country in the world; with fractures in our democracy filling the news cycle; with illness and addiction and fear and loss… It makes it pretty hard some days to believe in the good news of Jesus’ birth. We really want to believe, but we also want to know what is real. And sometimes all that pain that’s right in front of us is what feels far more real to us than a savior born some 2000 years ago, an almighty God mysteriously become human and laid in a manger. 

So, what is real? 

I heard a story this week of a pastor whose brother was not a Christian. So whenever this pastor would visit his young nephew, he would regale him with the fantastic stories of the Bible. Once he told him the story of Jonah and the Whale, the incredible story of a prophet getting swallowed up by a big fish after being thrown overboard, only to be spewed out on the beach after three days so he could deliver his prophecy. The pastor’s nephew relished in the story, but at the end he was, like those kids in my mom’s kindergarten class, skeptical. “Is that story real, Uncle?” And the pastor uncle said, “That story is so real, that even if it never was, it always is.” 

You see, mysterious as the Christmas story is, there is still so much of this incredible story that is undeniably real, as it has played out with different details many times throughout history. It is the story of a scared but courageous young women carrying out God’s will; of a man conflicted about what is the right and faithful thing to do when he is faced with impossible options; of these new parents, managing emotions and experiences they had never before imagined, even as God is undeniably with them. This is a story about a poor family being at the mercy of the government and abuse of power, but trusting God just the same. It’s about encountering the living God, like the shepherds, and being changed. It is a story about light shining hope into the darkest part of night. 

This story is so real, that it has been told and retold for 2000 years. The details and circumstances of its telling have changed in two millennia, yet it continues to resonate, continues to be real to people. 

And it is real to us this night, December 24, 2023, in Pittsford, NY. I don’t know what part of it feels the most real to you at this moment, but I can speak for myself. As I look around at the pain and fear in the world, and as I reflect on my own struggles, here is what is absolutely real to me about this mysterious night: that God loves us so much, that God chose to come down into the often dark hole of our broken humanity and be in solidarity with us in our pain, even going so far as to take on a vulnerable human body to do it. That God saw the pain and longing of the world – yes, then, and also now – and did not want us to be alone in it. 

This love feels real to me because I experience it even still: I never feel so loved and cared for as when someone is willing to sit with me in my pain, not to fix it immediately, but just to witness it with humility, compassion and authenticity. The fixing can come later – and it does with Jesus, that’s what Easter is for! But first, I long to be seen and known. 

And that is precisely what happens on this Christmas night. On this night, the hopes and fears of all the years are met in this babe in the manger. On this night, God is “pleased as man with us to dwell,” laying aside his glory to abide with us, and witness our broken hearts. On this night, God enters into our lives in the most intimate and vulnerable way possible, to show us the great depth of his love.

If you really want to believe in something that is real… then that is about as real as it gets. 

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

Advent 4 Introductions

 I didn't preach on this morning because we performed Vivaldi's Magnificat, which can be viewed HERE.

Below are the introductions to the readings and the Magnificat.

The performance

Advent 4B

December 24, 2023

Magnificat (Vivaldi)

INTRODUCTION TO READINGS

This week’s readings are a ramp-up to the Big Moment that is about to occur (tonight!), reminding us of how we got here. Let’s walk through this, I’ll show you:

Back in Genesis, God made an everlasting covenant with Abraham, promising three things: 

1) Descendants, as numerous as the stars; 

2) Land, aka the Promised Land, aka Canaan; and,

3) that God would bring blessing and redemption to all people through Abraham’s descendants. 

So far, the first two had happened: land, and descendants. But Israel had yet to see this blessing and redemption come about. 

Around 1000 BC, David became king. One of his goals was to build a temple, a house for God. To this point, God (that is, the Torah, or the 10 Commandments) had been carried around in a big box called an ark, and housed in a tent, so God dwelt with Israel wherever they went. Now, David wanted to build a house of cedar in Jerusalem in which God could dwell. But God says, “No, this is not for you to do. BUT, how about instead, I will make YOU a house.” By this, God means he will make a dynasty for David, an everlasting throne. And from that house will come the promised messianic king who will bring blessing and redemption to the world, that third part of the Abrahamic covenant. (Remember tonight, we will meet Joseph, who was “descended from the house and family of David.”)

Israel clung to this promise through numerous bad kings, through exile and their return, through the 400-year gap between the end of the Old Testament and the birth of Christ. In other words, they had been waiting a really long time. 

So now, here we are, on Advent 4. Our first reading from Samuel reminds us of this promise God made to David. In Romans, Paul says, in case we missed it, “Jesus is the guy you’ve been waiting for!” Luke will tell us the remarkable story of the annunciation, when Gabriel came to Mary and said, “All this waiting is over: it’s happening, and you’re going to bring that promised messiah into the world!” 

Mary’s gorgeous response to this, which we’ll sing as our Psalm, is known to us as the Magnificat, and we’ll hear Vivaldi’s setting of her song performed and proclaimed in worship this morning. I’ll say more about that right before. 

As you listen to these readings, just enter into the excitement from the perspective of Abraham and David’s descendants. This is the moment they’ve been waiting for! God is good, and God makes good on his promises. Let’s listen.

INTRODUCTION TO MAGNIFICAT 

Though having the fourth Sunday of Advent fall on Christmas Eve makes for a long, exhausting day for church workers and musicians, I secretly love that we start off Christmas Eve this year by hearing Mary’s magnificent song, the Magnificat. We often portray Mary, the mother of Jesus, as meek and mild, but this song shows her as anything but! In fact, her words have been used by revolutionaries and the oppressed for generations – “Scatter the proud! Bring down the powerful and lift up the lowly! Fill the hungry! Send the rich away!” She sounds less like an obedient and devout teen, and more like a rebel intending to reorient the unjust systems of the world! In fact, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor and theologian, called this song “the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary hymn ever sung.” 

And all of this, Mary roots in God’s promise: “He has come to the aid of his servant Israel… according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and his descendants forever.” This is who God is, and always has been and will be, she declares: one who cares for the lowly, who desires a just and compassionate world, who makes good on promises.

Mary is a willing servant, yes, but she is also fiercely passionate and tough. And wouldn’t she have to be, to participate so intimately in God’s plan to completely change the world, even to turn it upside down by becoming one of us? After all, Jesus was no docile lamb himself – he also lived and preached a table-turning message about the poor being lifted up, and the powerful brought low.

I hope you will hear both Mary’s passion and her devotion in our performance today, on this Christmas Eve morning. Jon has put together some program notes about the music itself, including some things to listen for, some ways Vivaldi has tried to bring out Mary’s message through music. You can see that as well as the translation and performers on the insert in your bulletin. And now, enjoy this proclamation of Mary’s song, The Magnificat.

Sermon: Faithful stories of hope and resilience (Dec. 10, 2023)

 Advent 2B
December 10, 2023
Isaiah 40:1-11
Mark 1:1-8

INTRODUCTION

One of the things I love about the Advent readings each year is that it is often so clear how the witness of scripture hangs together over the centuries of its writing. Today it is especially so, as John the Baptist will quote our text from Isaiah. In quoting Isaiah’s prophecy, John reinterprets that proclamation to speak to his own time. So let me give you a bit of context here: 

Isaiah 40 offers a marvelous word of hope to the Israelites who are in exile in Babylon. Remember this part of the story? I talked a couple weeks ago about the history of bad kings in Israel, and how their idolatry and greed ultimately led to the split of Israel into Northern and Southern Kingdoms, and both kingdoms’ ultimate downfall. The Temple was destroyed, Jerusalem taken by the Babylonians, and the Israelites sent away into exile in Babylon. At the point Isaiah 40 was written, they have been in Babylonian captivity for two full generations, 40-50 years. And now, into this context, Isaiah speaks this word of hope. The voicing is kind of confusing; hopefully the way we read it today will help. You’ll hear God’s voice, the voice of someone in the divine council or heavenly host, then Isaiah, and then God again.

As for the Gospel, always on this second Sunday of Advent we hear from John the Baptist, calling out in the wilderness – and quoting today’s passage from Isaiah. As Mark is telling us this story, he is also speaking to a community living under oppression, Roman oppression. Mark was writing either right before or right after the second Temple was destroyed in the Jewish-Roman Wars. So, a similar situation to the Israelites! And so he starts off his Gospel by calling back to a previous story of how God showed up and delivered them in a time of oppression. 

Both Isaiah and Mark bring to mind the possibility of new beginnings, especially when we are suffering. As you listen, think about some of the beginnings you have experienced, and some of the emotions you’ve had around those beginnings. Let’s listen. 

[READ]

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

It wasn’t Jerusalem, but it was home. That’s how it had started to feel for the Israelites living in Babylon. After all, it had been nearly 50 years here. There was hardly anyone left who even remembered Jerusalem. A few of their elders remembered being deported as children, but for the most part that golden age of living in Canaan, the land God had promised to Abraham, had been reduced to spotty memories and stories told and passed down around the table. 

When they first arrived in Babylon, all anyone could talk about was having watched their beautiful Temple, the house King Solomon had built for God, burning to the ground as they left. The Temple was gone. The land was gone. They couldn’t imagine how they could possibly go on living as God’s chosen people as they endured this atrocity. The Babylonians would taunt them, asking them to sing songs in their Hebrew tongue, but how could they sing in this foreign land? When they remembered Zion, and all that they had lost, they could only weep. The worst part of all was that they knew it was their own fault. God had warned them, through the prophets, and they didn’t change their ways. They had gone too far off the path. This exile, they knew, was the natural consequence of their sin.

That was when God sent the prophet Jeremiah. “Build houses and live in them,” Jeremiah said. “Plant gardens, and eat the produce. Get married, have kids.” In other words, keep on living, and make the best of a bad situation. And they did. They had to – what other option was there? And so, in this new land, they told their old stories, and even started to write them down, lest they, too, be lost. They told their stories in ways that tried to make sense of their current reality. They found new ways to worship Yahweh, even without the Temple to serve as the center of their worship life. And they did their best to make Babylon their “home.” For two generations they had done this, and, well, they supposed it was working. 

But now came something truly shocking. The prophet Isaiah had begun to proclaim a word from God – indicating the possibility of returning to Zion, to Jerusalem! He spoke words of comfort, words about them having “served their term,” saying that their “penalty was paid.” 

Could it be? Was it possible they were forgiven? Could God be about to restore Israel? Isaiah spoke about a new exodus, in which they would be led once again out of captivity – not slavery in Egypt this time, as their ancestors, but out of Babylonian captivity and back toward their beloved Zion. They would be led out of captivity and into the wilderness. But this time, Isaiah said, the wilderness would not be the place of hunger and fear that it had been for their ancestors, back during the infancy of their faith. This time, all obstacles would be removed. “Every valley shall be lifted up,” Isaiah declared, “and every mountain made low. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed – you’ll see it! The Lord has spoken!” In other words: God was indeed bringing them back to the Promised Land, and this time, rather than wandering around for 40 years, it would be a straight shot. 

It was a lot to take in. Surely, it was exciting – it was what they had longed for, all these years in Babylon! They had begun to think they would never get back! And yet, now that it was before them, a real possibility, even a promise… they had, well, a lot of feelings about it. After all, they had made Babylon their home. Most of them didn’t even remember Jerusalem; they knew it only through their elders’ stories. What would they find when they returned? Would it be a mere pile of rubble from a previously glorious city? What had the Babylonians done to it since they’d been deported? Maybe they would be better off just staying here in Babylon. It wasn’t great, no, but it was at least known to them. They had built lives here. On the other hand, here in Babylon, they were not living into God’s hope and promise for them. How were they supposed to feel about this?

Isaiah heard their concerns, and voiced them to God. “These people are feeling a bit withered and faded, God, after all these years of punishment. What am I supposed to say to them?” 

God told Isaiah to assure the people it would be okay: “I know they’re feeling exhausted from all this, that the grass withers and the flower fades. I know this has been hard. But the word of God stands forever. So stand up and say it loud and proud: Here is your God! He comes with the might of a warrior, and the tenderness of a shepherd. God has got you! You will be okay.” 

And they were. Many, though not all, did return to Jerusalem. They rebuilt the city and the Temple. Their new beginning was not an easy one, but God said he would be with them, and he was. Because God makes good on his promises.

…

Five hundred years later, when John the Baptist proclaims that the coming of the Lord is near, this is the story he calls upon. This story, of hope and resilience, against all odds. This story, in which the people were fearful of a change, a new beginning – that they wanted, yes, and yet, which scared them out of their wits. By calling back to this story, John is saying to the people, “I know life is rough right now. But life has been rough before, and God delivered.” It isn’t always according to our time, but according to God’s time. (After all, to God a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like a single day!) Restoration and deliverance may look different than we imagined. But God has always come through, and would this time, too.

I love how John reaches back to this story of hope to bring a similar hope to his contemporary audience, because it shows us how we can do the same. Maybe we aren’t living in occupied territory, like the first century Christians, but we are no strangers to complex and terrifying political realities. Maybe we aren’t longing to return to the land of our ancestors, like the Israelites in Babylon, but we know what it is like to long for change, even as that same change is terrifying in its uncertainty. Maybe we aren’t about to enter the literal wilderness for a long journey, but we know our own wildernesses, whether navigating difficult relationship dynamics, or seeking job satisfaction, or dealing with an addiction or a mental illness in ourselves or a loved one. When John reaches back to tell his current story through the historical story of faith, he gives meaning to the current struggle, and gives the people what they need in order to endure what lies before them with faith and hope. 

This is what I love about the biblical witness: it shows us how the story of God and God’s people repeats itself, in different times with different characters. But one character is constant: The word of the Lord stands forever. Here is our God. Here in our pain. Here, in this place of uncertainty. Here, in the darkness and fear. Here as we figure out this new way to walk in this new place we are entering. Here is our God.

Let us pray… Emmanuel, we give you thanks for the witness of your people across the ages. Help us to see our story in their story, and in that let us find the hope and resilience that we need to endure our own struggles. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

View full service HERE.

Sermon: A history of kingship (November 26, 2023)

Christ the King (A)
November 26, 2023
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24

INTRODUCTION

Today is the final Sunday of the liturgical year: Christ the King Sunday! Even as our hearts and minds have turned this weekend toward Advent and Christmas and Christ’s first coming, we take this day to remember also that Christ will come again, and reign over and judge all the earth. 

That judgment piece isn’t such a warm fuzzy image, but it is couched today in another, nicer image: that of Christ the King as a shepherd. We’ll see this especially in Ezekiel and Matthew. Matthew’s parable is the culmination of his end-times teaching, and in fact is the very last teaching of Jesus before his passion begins. This is a famous one, frequently quoted by those advocating for care of those in need, “the least of these” as Jesus calls them. In short, he tells` us to see Christ in the face of the one in need. 

Ezekiel has some lovely moments all by itself, but it much richer with a fuller context, so that is actually where my sermon will go today. Before you hear it though, a few things to know: First, Ezekiel offers this right after he has learned that the Jerusalem Temple has fallen, and everyone will be deported to Babylon (where he has already been sent, during the first wave of deportations). After losing everything, he assures them of God’s care, as a shepherd cares for their flock. Second, you should know that “shepherd” was a common way to refer to kings in the ancient Near East, and Israel had had quite a few bad shepherds over the past few centuries. Third, it will hopefully be clear that Jesus is pulling from the imagery in this passage in the parable about the sheep and goats: Ezekiel says that God will judge between the rich, fat sheep who bullied and butted the weaker sheep, and the weak sheep who were exploited. In Matthew, this becomes judgment between sheep and goats, but, same idea.

Calling Christ “the King” is a political statement. As you listen, consider how it looks when our leaders today act as shepherds, caring for the sheep, or when they don’t. Let’s listen.

[READ]

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

Israel had a, uh, complicated relationship with the idea of kingship. 

This week in our Bible Huddles, we got to read the beginning of that relationship, how they got started with kings. Israel was a fairly new nation, and at that point (around 1400 BC) they had no central government. God wanted it that way; they did not need a king, because God was their king! God was rightly concerned that if they had an earthly king, then their loyalties would be split, and they would start to trust that earthly ruler more than they trusted God. But the people really, really wanted a king. “All the other nations have one,” they whined. “We want a king like the other nations!” Finally, God gave in – but not before warning them that they would regret this.

Along came Saul, who went out one day to collect his father’s donkeys who had strayed and came back a king (pretty weird day for him). He really looked the part of a king – handsome, and quite tall, which was apparently reason enough to make him king! He won a lot of battles for Israel, but soon enough he got too big for his britches, and thought he knew better than God. Eventually David, a shepherd boy (who was decidedly not tall, especially compared to some!), was selected as the next king, and in response, Saul was basically driven into madness, and ended up dying a gruesome death. 

Now David – he was a pretty good king. As a plucky kid, he defeated a giant armed with only a slingshot and his trust in the Lord. And his trust seldom wavered. He was a strong leader, who united the tribes of Israel into one kingdom, and made Jerusalem the capital. Finally, they were a real kingdom! But even David was human, and famously found himself on a commandment-breaking spree that was spurred by catching sight from his roof of the beautiful Bathsheba bathing. He wanted her for himself, and… well, long story short, he committed adultery with her and had her husband killed to cover it up. (Whoopsies!) Still, sin and all, David was the gold standard, and God promised that from David’s house, his line, would come another messianic leader who would bring God’s blessing to the whole world. (Looking forward toward Christmas – remember how Joseph, Jesus’ earthly dad, is from the house of David, from David’s line? Eh? See what they did there?)

Now, David’s son Solomon started off okay. He was known for his wisdom and for building the Temple. But he was also known for his love of the foreign ladies, and for bringing their foreign gods into Israel’s religious life. Hello, 1st commandment! And, well, another long story short, he ran Israel into the ground. David’s united kingdom split into the northern kingdom of Israel, and the southern kingdom of Judah, where Jerusalem and the Temple were located. (By the way, if you want to know what happens in all these gaps I’m leaving, you can curl up in front of your Christmas tree this afternoon with some hot cocoa and the books of 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings. Enjoy! Or, watch these overview videos: 2 Samuel;  1&2 Kings)

What followed this split was a run of bad kings. Literally, the book of Kings is full of chapters that begin, “Then so-and-so began to reign, and did so for X number of years. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.” What that means is that these kings didn’t trust God, they were not faithful to the covenant (like, following the 10 commandments), and they didn’t rid Israel of idolatry. Instead, they treated the people with injustice, exploiting the poor for personal gain. 

So God sent prophets to set these bad kings back on the right track, to call them back to faithfulness and justice and adherence to the Torah, the law. This is where our reading from Ezekiel comes in. Ezekiel was a prophet in Judah, the southern kingdom, at the time when Babylon attacked. He was in the first wave of deportations to Babylon, before the Temple that Solomon had built fell. Once he was in Babylon, he began warning the people to buck up or suffer the consequences, until one day he heard what he knew was coming: that the Temple had fallen, and all of Judah would be deported. 

You have to understand how devastating this is. They, God’s chosen people, had lost the land God had promised them. The Temple was the house they had built for God, where God lived – now where was God? They had lost everything, and the sheep, the people of Israel, had scattered, sent into exile. Talk about a reality check. 

This is a good place to talk about an important image used in scripture to talk about kings (so if I lost you in all that history, this is your cue to come back to me now!). In the ancient Near East (not just in Israel!), kings were often called shepherds. The image lifted up two important traits of a ruler: authority, and care and protection. So we have seen that many of the kings in Israel were good on the authority part, but not so good on the care! David had been a shepherd king, who cared for his people better than most, but they longed for another shepherd who would truly care for this flock. 

Back to our story. After Ezekiel learns of the Temple’s demise (in chapter 33), his tone shifts from one of judgment to one of hope. “These kings, these so-called shepherds you have had,” he says, “are anything but. They haven’t fed the sheep, but rather, have benefited off of them! They have eaten the sheep!” Listen to this accusation from just before our reading, which sounds remarkably like the parable we just heard in Matthew: “You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost.” But, Ezekiel goes on, this – this state of being scattered and wounded and sick and weak and uncared for – this is not where the story ends. “Thus says the Lord God: I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep… I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak….” 

This is what God wanted to do all along for his beloved people: God wanted to be the one and only Sovereign in their lives, a shepherd who would care for the flock, who would guide them in ways of righteousness. God gave them laws to follow, laws that would ensure loving and just treatment of one another. God showed them life-giving ways to live. And eventually, several hundred years later, God did give them a shepherd king from the house of David, who was both earthly and divine: his own son, who would declare himself “the good shepherd” who “came so that [we] may have life, and have it abundantly.” 

Today, on Christ the King Sunday, we celebrate that the ways of our shepherd king are unlike anything an earthly leader can give us, fulfilling God’s hope for a shepherd for His people. Even now, our shepherd comes among us, both in times of rejoicing and in times of suffering, our own and that of our neighbor. He does not come to flank and shoulder us, butting us around, like so many earthly leaders. No, he comes to seek us out and bring us home, to bind up our injuries, and to strengthen us when we are weak. He comes to save us. 

Let us pray… Good Shepherd, we long to be cared for. Help us to trust that you are a shepherd king who will show us the way, tend to our ailments, bring us home, and save us from our enemies. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Watch the full service HERE. 

Photo credit:

Cranach, Lucas, 1515-1586. Christ as the good shepherd, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57054 [retrieved November 27, 2023]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lucas_Cranach_d.J._-_Christus_als_guter_Hirte_(Angermuseum).jpg.

Sermon: God's Extravagant Generosity (Nov. 19, 2023)

Pentecost 25A
November 19, 2023
Matthew 25:14-30

INTRODUCTION

Today we continue our jaunt through the end of the world, and today is rough. Zephaniah offers us this terrifying description of how the last days will look – it’s the sort of text, full of judgment and destruction, that makes you wonder if you really want to say, “thanks be to God” at the end! Texts like this were often drawn upon by New Testament writers in describing the end of the world. 1st Thessalonians offers a bit more hope, saying that while the coming of the Lord will be a dark and terrible time, and one that comes just when we thought we were safe and secure, we need not worry because we are children of the light. Paul implores us to keep living faithfully, always ready for the day of the Lord.

The Gospel continues through chapter 25, which contains three parables about accountability and judgment. Remember that in the overall narrative this is like, Wednesday of Holy Week, just before Jesus will die, so we know that the underlying question in all these parables is, “What will you do and how will you respond when Jesus is no longer here in the flesh?” Last week’s parable, the 10 bridesmaids, told us to be prepared and ready, and this week’s parable of the talents will start describing what being ready might look like. One textual point to keep in mind as you hear this parable of the talents: a “talent” in this case is a sum of money equal to 15-20 years wages for a laborer, so in today’s money 5 talents is equal to, like, $5M. It is intentionally outrageous, hyperbolic, in order to hit home the points Jesus is trying to make. 

Today’s stewardship theme to wrap up our “God’s Extravagance” series is, “God’s extravagant generosity.” This is obvious in the hyperbolic parable, but watch for it in the other readings as well. Where do you see signs of God’s generosity? Let’s listen.

[READ]

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

What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

This is one of two questions I posed to our council this week as a part of our opening devotional. The other was, what would you like to see St. Paul’s do if you weren’t afraid – of running out of money, of losing members, of offending someone, or not having enough people, of having to close our doors. What would you do, if you weren’t afraid?

One person I asked that question to this week said, “That question itself scares me!” And that’s really true! We have a hard time putting aside our fear, practical people that we are. What’s the point of dreaming about something like that, because the reality is, we are afraid, or at least cautious, and for really good reason! We are, after all, animals, and our very nature dictates that self-preservation be at the forefront of our minds. Oh, we might go out on a limb now and then, and some of us are thrill-seekers, but for the most part, we are not going to do anything that we know will hurt us in the end. In fact, we might not even call that being “afraid.” It's simply smart, thoughtful, prudent. 

Maybe that third servant in the parable thought of himself as smart, thoughtful, and prudent. After all, he knew his master to be a “harsh man, reaping where [he] did not sow and gathering where [he] did not scatter.” If he was indeed afraid, as he says he was, I am not at all surprised that he chose not to risk his master’s money. Safest was to squirrel it away, bury it, where he knew nothing would happen to it and he could, finally, return it in full. Still, even if he was afraid, I’m sure he also believed himself to be acting prudently. Truth be told, I’d have probably done the same in this scenario. 

Now, this is just a story. It’s one about money, and money in exorbitant amounts (remember, each talent here is worth about $1 million). But it isn’t only about money. It’s about all the extravagant generosity God entrusts to us – including yes, our money, as well as the abilities and opportunities we have that allow us to earn that money, as well as our other various assets, and the people in our lives, and the experiences, and the food and drink, and the thoughts and feelings we have, and, and, and… All of this that we’ve been given, we can read into this story. But Jesus tells the story as one about money, because it is a language we all speak, and communicates clearly just how valuable all that we have really is. He uses the largest possible sum of money to hit home the point: we have been entrusted with a whole heck of a lot! 

And yet, with all that he has… that third servant remains scared. And again, I get it. Especially if he believes the master to be a harsh man, that is good reason to be extremely cautious. 

But… the first two servants were not scared. They took risks, and it paid off big time – literally! Not only did they double that with which they had been entrusted, but they were applauded and welcomed into the joy of the master. 

I wonder why they weren’t scared, like the third servant? Why they didn’t feel the need to conserve and hide away and stay safe? 

Maybe they just weren’t as prudent as the third servant. Maybe they lacked that animal instinct that warns us away from danger. Maybe they didn’t care if they lost the money – after all, it wasn’t theirs! 

Or maybe… where the third servant saw the master as harsh and greedy, they saw the master differently. Maybe they saw him as gracious and merciful, full of compassion and abounding in steadfast love. Maybe they saw him as extravagantly generous. And so they had no need to fear. Because instead, they trusted. 

The third servant expected a harsh and greedy master, and that is exactly what he got. “You knew, did you,” says the master, “that I was harsh and greedy. Well guess what? You were right.” You see, it isn’t only beauty that is in the eye of the beholder. 

Yet the first and second servants also saw what they expected to see: a generous master who trusted them with an abundant gift, who commended them and welcomed them into his joy. They trusted this master, trusted him enough to take a risk, to act boldly and fearlessly, and as a result, they were welcomed into the joy of their master.

Each year as we return our pledges, our commitments to giving our time, talents and treasures in the coming year, we have a chance to act fearlessly. We can act like the third servant – erring on the side of caution and prudence. Or we can act like the first two servants – responding to God’s extravagant generosity by stepping out in faith, knowing that when we do, we might just end up entering into a joy we had not previously known. Living a generous life does tend to go hand-in-hand with living a joyful life – everyone from Jesus to Oprah to Psychology Today can agree on that! 

As I have been thinking about that question we started with – “what would you do if you weren’t afraid?” – I have started to dream a bit. What if this year, we had more pledges than ever before, that reflected a significant increase in giving? What would we do with that? What if our endowment fund grew dramatically this year, and we were able to give away a ton more money to make our community stronger – where would we give it? Whom could we help? What if our benevolence, the money we give away out of our budget, could increase this year – how could it make the world a better place? I threw out some ideas to the council this week: “What if we paid to refurbish apartments for homeless families in a building Family Promise is hoping to acquire soon? What if we contributed to building more affordable housing units in the city?” Or some more ideas: What if we paid for materials and labor to fix up all the houses used to house refugees through Rochester Refugee Resettlement Services – starting with the Mutombo Family’s home? What if we updated some of the out of date spaces in our building, so that we could invite more community groups to see our space as their space? What if we became a space to meet for a support groups for people living with mental illness or those who love them, or a group of LGBTQ folx who need a safe space, or a theater club, or English as a Second Language tutoring, or children’s birthday parties, or job training, or book clubs? What if… the opportunities are endless! 

So here’s what I want you to do. Take a moment right now, and on the green index card in your bulletin, I want you to dream for a moment. Write down your answer to this question: If you were not afraid – of running out of money, of losing members, of the gossip mill – if you were not afraid, what would you like to see St. Paul’s do? Think big! I’ll give you a minute to write, and then I’ll bring you back with a bell.

…

Our God practices extravagant generosity, giving us far more than 1, 2, or 5 talents. God has given us all of this, and then some. God gave his own self, his own son, precisely so that we need not be afraid anymore – of death, or the power of sin. God has given so extravagantly, so that we can act not out of fear, but out of trust and joy. 

Now… what are we going to do about it?

Let us pray… Extravagant God, you have been exceedingly generous to us, yet sometimes we find ourselves afraid to be generous in return. Grant us courage to step out in faith, to return your generosity with some of our own, so that we might be a part of your mission to share the good news, build a strong community and make the world a better place. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Full service can be viewed HERE.

Sermon: Extravagant Hope in God (November 12, 2023)

Pentecost 24A (Week 3 of stewardship campaign: God's Extravagance)
November 12, 2023
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

INTRODUCTION

Each year in November, as we prepare for Advent and Christ’s first coming, we hear texts that speak to the Second Coming, the Parousia, or the end-times, or the apocalypse – choose your eschatological language. It’s the time of year when we get to dwell in some of the questions that trouble us the most: what happens when we die? What happens to our loved ones? Does whatever tragedy is current mean that the end times are near? Is Jesus coming soon? Is the rapture real? Will I, or my loved ones, be welcomed into heaven when we die? How will any of this look, anyway? 

Today, two texts in particular speak to these questions: Thessalonians and Matthew. Both of these audiences are in this weird place where they had expected Christ’s return to be imminent… yet they are still waiting (and so are we, now 2000 years later!). This is cause for a lot of anxiety. 

The text from Thessalonians is the first of Paul’s letters that we have, making it the most ancient text in the New Testament, older even than the Gospels, written around the year 50. The particular concern of the Christians in Thessalonica is that their loved ones are dying, and they are afraid that means they will miss out on the glorious return of Christ. So in this letter, Paul speaks pastorally to them, inviting them to encourage one another with the promise of the resurrection. 

The parable from Matthew is… less pastoral. Chapter 25 of Matthew falls at the tail end of Jesus’ ministry; the next chapter will begin the Passion narrative. Chapter 25 delivers three end-times parables in a row, which we’ll hear over the next three weeks. Today’s parable, about the 10 young women, or bridesmaids, urges us to be always ready and prepared, because we don’t know when Jesus might return. I’ll be honest – the stewardship theme this week is hope, and I found a lot more hope in Thessalonians than Matthew, so that’s where I’m going in my sermon. But, troubling as this parable is, there is also much to be gleaned there, and I’d be happy to talk about it with you if you like!  

So yes, hope is the name of the game today. As you listen, listen for words and ideas that you find hopeful, and consider why they are so – and I would love to hear your thoughts (especially if the hope you find is in Matthew!). Let’s listen.

[READ]

The Sinking of the Ville du Havre

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

The year was 1873, and it had been rough couple of years for Horatio Spafford. Spafford had, two years prior, invested all his money in real estate in what is now Lincoln Park, Chicago – right before the Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed it all. Still, he carried on faithfully. Spafford was an active Presbyterian lay man. He taught Sunday School, worked at the YMCA, and served as a director and trustee for what is now McCormick Presbyterian Seminary. But then, his wife fell ill, and their family doctor advised him, his wife, and their four young daughters, to take a European holiday to help her heal. At the last minute, Spafford could not go, and sent his wife and daughters ahead, planning to join them shortly. On November 22, 1873, their ship, the Ville du Havre, was struck by another ship, and sank in 12 minutes. Upon arriving in Wales, Spafford’s wife sent him a message: “Saved alone.” All four of their daughters had been among the 226 souls lost in the wreck. 

Spafford traveled by boat to meet his wife in Paris. As his ship passed the location where the tragedy had happened, words came to him, and he wrote them down: [Listen here]

    When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,

    When sorrows like sea billows roll,

    Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say:

    It is well, it is well with my soul.

Spafford had endured unspeakable tragedy. After this horrific event, he had three more children, one of whom, his only son, died of scarlet fever. His church blamed these grief-stricken parents for their own tragedy, assuming they had done something to bring it about. Eventually, when Spafford refused to believe that babies, like his son, could be consigned to hell, the resulting controversy was so great that his church – which he had built, and of which he was elder, a church that he loved – kicked him out. Still, his faith remained. He and his family moved to Jerusalem in 1881, where they engaged in social services, education, and saving children from starvation and disease. Through this grief, they were carried by those words that came to Spafford as he passed the spot where his four daughters had perished: 

    Lord, hasten the day when our faith shall be sight

    The clouds be rolled back like a scroll,

    The trumpet shall sound and the Lord shall descend;

    Even so, it is well with my soul!

~~~

The year was around A.D. 51, less than 20 years after a man named Jesus had lived, died, and rose again. Paul, Timothy, and Silvanus, teachers and preachers, had planted several church communities around belief in this Jesus, including this one in Thessalonica. The followers of The Way (who would later be called Christians) who lived in Thessalonica were Gentiles – that is, they were not Jewish, but Greek converts. Though they believed in the teachings of Jesus, they were also very formed by their Greek culture, and often persecuted because they did not believe, as was the custom, that Julius Caesar was god, and Tiberius the son of god. No, they believed that Jesus was the son of God. 

Though they persisted in faith, they had begun to grow worried, because they had been under the impression that Jesus would be returning any moment… and he still hadn’t come. Meanwhile, many of them were dying – whether at the hands of the state or of natural causes – and they were very concerned that their loved ones who had died would miss out on the glorious moment of Christ’s triumphant return. You see, the Greek understanding was that once you die, that’s it. You go to the Underworld, and no one ever returned from the Underworld. Oh, there were stories of those who had tried – Orpheus and Eurydice (yur-EE-dih-see), Sisyphus – but none had succeeded. Though they believed in Jesus’ resurrection, it was difficult, given their cultural milieu, to maintain hope.

After a trip to Thessalonica, Timothy reported this concern to Paul. Paul had a special affection for this Thessalonian community of believers, and promptly wrote to them, encouraging them. “I do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters,” he wrote, “about those who have died, so that you do not grieve as others do, who have no hope.” He knew that the Greek belief in an Underworld from which no one returns was indeed one without hope – for they would never again be with those they loved. But this was not the case, he said, for those who died in Christ. “For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again,” he wrote, “even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.” Paul goes on to describe what will happen when Jesus returns: that first those who have died will be raised and meet him in the air. Imagine hearing this, having been told all your life that the Underworld is forever, that nothing is more powerful than death. But now, this God is more powerful, powerful enough to raise all of their loved ones from the dead to meet him in the sky. 

And that’s not all. Paul goes on in words that would inspire a man named Horatio Spafford to write a hymn about peace in the midst of immense loss. Listen again to Paul’s words: “For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever.” 

    The trumpet shall sound and the Lord shall descend;

    Even so, it is well with my soul!

There is hope, after all. There is hope for an ancient community who had never before been exposed to the possibility that they might be not only be with their loved ones again, but that they would all be together with the God of love, forever. There is hope for a grieving man who has lost all his assets and all his children in two years’ time, to declare that even so, it was well with his soul. There is hope for you, and for me, as we face our own loss, and despair, and discouragement, and uncertainty. There is hope, because whether we live, or whether we die, we are Lord’s, and we will be with the Lord forever.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, encourage one another with these words.

Let us pray… God of hope, when peace like a river attends our way, or when sorrows roll like sea billows… whatever our lot, you have taught us to say: “it is well, it is with my soul.” Grant us the hope we need to endure the trials of this life, so that, even so, we might praise the Lord. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

View the full service HERE.

Sermon: God's Extravagant Promise - All Saints Day (Nov. 5, 2023)

All Saints Day (A)
November 5, 2023
Revelation 7:9-17
Matthew 5:1-12

INTRODUCTION

Happy All Saints Day! By way of introduction today, I want to explain briefly the Lutheran understanding of “saint.” We usually think of a saint as someone who is extra faithful, or a really good person, but Luther says something different. He says that we all become saints when we are baptized – even as we remain sinners. We spend the rest of our lives after baptism striving to live into our saintly nature, to live a life of faith. We never achieve that fully, of course, until we enter into God’s eternal glory in our death, which we celebrate for 15 specific saints today. On All Saints Day, we remember and lift up this tension of being already-and-not-yet saintly, which we will see in our texts today. 

First in Revelation we see what it looks like to be in a state of constantly praising God with all the saints. The Psalm echoes that sentiment, saying that God’s praise will always be on our lips. The epistle reading recalls that we are all children of God – you may recognize that first line because it is what I say after each baptism I’ve ever done – and it reflects on the hope of this children-of-God status. Finally, in Matthew, we will hear the beginning of Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount: the Beatitudes, outlining the various sorts of people who are “blessed” – though not all of their circumstances sound especially blessed!

Today’s stewardship theme is “God’s extravagant promise,” so as you listen today, listen for that promise. What hope or future is promised to God’s people, and how does that help us get through the present, whatever that present may be currently delivering? Let’s listen.

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from the one who is and who was and who is to come. Amen.

Yesterday, we had a large group gather here to talk about what we called the “long journey home.” That is, we talked about some of the many aspects of preparing to die: practical things, like medical directives, as well as some of the more spiritual and emotional aspects. The part of the workshop that I was in charge of leading was regarding funeral planning. Now, this may seem less important than things like, making sure your family is taken care of financially – after all, a funeral is one day, and seeing to the financial well-being of your most beloved people and organizations can last for generations to come. But the more I read and learned about funerals as I prepared for this, the more I came to love this occasion in the life of, well, everyone who dies, but in particular the life of the faithful. 

There is a wonderful book called The Good Funeral, which is written by pastor and professor Thomas Long, and funeral director and poet Thomas Lynch. I started off my part of the workshop asking people what they believe makes a funeral “good.” Perhaps it is good music, people you love being there, meaningful preaching – and yes, all of these are elements of a good funeral. In the book, the authors argue that there are four elements that are necessary for a funeral to be good: 

1) A body, if possible – after all, a significant purpose of the funeral is to accompany our loved one to their final resting place, and how can we do that if they aren’t there? 

2) Mourners – people to whom this person who died mattered. From the beginning of humanity, people have cared for their dead and accompanied them to the grave. Until fairly recently, mourners even dug the grave themselves! Though we outsource a lot of the job of caring for the dead now to funeral homes, it remains a deeply human thing to show up and accompany our loved ones all the way to the end.

3) A story – not only the story of the person’s life, but a larger story to which we can connect their story and ours, something to provide some meaning to the persistence of capital-D Death, this mythic force that is the enemy of all that God wills for life. 

4) Transport – getting the body from here to there, as well as getting the mourners hearts from here to there. As Tom Lynch, the funeral director, says, “A good funeral is when, by getting the dead where they need to go, the living get where they need to be.”

Now I find all of this very helpful, both as a pastor and as a fellow human, who also struggles with the reality of death. But the part I’m drawn to in particular on this All Saints’ Day is the third point: the importance of a story, a story to which we can connect our own story and that of the deceased. 

For Christians, of course, this story is that of Jesus Christ and his triumph over death, and on All Saints, we get a heavy dose of that story, in all of our readings, really, but I want to focus especially on this stunning reading from Revelation. A lot of the book of Revelation is pretty weird, sometimes violent, and full of complex symbolism and hidden meanings. But even with the weird imagery, it is hard to read this passage and not feel its power. John paints a picture for us of a diverse gathering of people, clothed in robes of white, who spend their days in continual worship and praise. We then come to find out that these are not people who praise God because their lives have been so good. No, these are people who have come out of “the great ordeal.” It’s not entirely clear what that ordeal is – most likely it refers to people who have kept their faith in the face of persecution – but it is easy enough, and I think still faithful, to imagine there whatever “great ordeal” we might be facing. There are any number of global ordeals (wars, climate change) as well as all of the personal ones (illness, job loss, divorce). Sometimes the ordeal is the one at the forefront of our minds today: grief over the death of a loved one. We are no strangers to great ordeals, or tribulations.

Yet whatever the ordeal these people in Revelation have faced, here they all are, these white-robed people, standing at the throne of the Lamb (that’s John’s favorite name for Jesus), and praising unceasingly. How is it that these who have suffered can be so full of praise?

That is where our Christian story comes in, the story that makes for a good funeral, and, I’d argue a hopeful life. It is a story that faces head on the “great ordeals” of this life, giving them meaning, purpose, and a future. Scripture and Church history are both full of stories of trial and tribulation. And repeatedly, we see that ours is a God of promise, and a God who makes good on that promise. Now that doesn’t always mean we get everything we asked for or wanted. Or, it may mean we get exactly what we wanted, but in a form we didn’t expect. But either way, God fulfills his promise to his people.

This is shown in numerous Bible stories. For example, our Bible Huddles recently read the story of Jacob, wrestling with God – in this story, Jacob, Abraham’s grandson, is renamed “Israel” which means “strives with God,” and he walks away from his wrestling match with the divine, with a blessing, yes, but also with a limp, a reminder (with every step) of both the ordeal he has endured, and the power and promise of God. This coming week our Huddle story is that of the Exodus out of Egypt, in which the Israelites, enslaved and oppressed by the Egyptian king, are led out of slavery, through the Red Sea, and toward the Promised Land, toward freedom – another great ordeal. And then there’s Jesus, of course, who “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried, and descended into hell” – all of that before, “on the third day, he rose again.” 

You see the theme here? God’s people have always endured “great ordeals,” of various types and flavors, and have always endured. Because ours is a God of promise, and that promise is this: that whatever ordeals or tribulations we face, be it physical or figurative wrestling, or captivity, or even death itself – the other side of that ordeal will be life, freedom, and salvation. We will come through it.

And that is why those white-robed people, those saints, are praising God, shouting, “Salvation belongs to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” Because they have lived to see this promise come about, perhaps many times. And they know, just like those saints we remember and celebrate today, that even what the Apostle Paul called “the final enemy” – that is, capital-D Death itself – has been defeated by the Lamb, by Jesus. These, robed in white, have come through the great ordeal, and know that God will always win. And “for this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple.” They believe the promise of God, that the Lamb “will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” 

That story – told at “good” funerals, on All Saints Day, and I hope every time I climb into this pulpit – is a story that says, “Death cannot and does not have the final word. Death thinks he can win, that he can destroy hope and tear apart loving relationships, but we know better. We know that God wins, every time.” This story is the reason we come here week after week, to hear it proclaimed, to join with the saints who know this story so well themselves, and even to join with them at the table – a table that serves as a bridge between this life and the next, a table where no one hungers or thirsts, and tears are wiped away. Christ’s is a table where we are fed by God’s promise and assured that we are blessed: that we will be comforted, we will be filled, we will receive mercy, we will see God and be called the children of God, for that is what we are.

Thanks be to God for all the saints who have come through great ordeals to remind us that God’s promises are true. 

Let us pray… God of promise, your story of salvation is the best story ever told. When we face our own ordeals, keep our gaze upon your promise: that you will bless us and comfort us and save us. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Full service can be viewed HERE.

Sermon: God's extravagant grace (Oct. 29, 2023)

Reformation Day
October 29, 2023
Stewardship Kickoff: “God’s Extravagant Grace”

INTRODUCTION

Happy Reformation Day! In case you’re not up on your Lutheran history, we always celebrate Reformation Day on this last Sunday of October, the day closest to Oct 31, when, 506 years ago, Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses on the church door and started a conversation that would dramatically change the Church and Western civilization. I say “celebrate,” even though it wasn’t much of a celebration at the time! In fact, Luther was a hunted man for his teachings. But now, centuries later, we do celebrate – not the pain and division that was also a part of this movement, but the Gospel itself, because Luther’s teachings helped Christians to set their sight once again on the essence of the Gospel. 

And the texts we hear today, the same ones that are always assigned for Reformation Day, help us to focus on that gospel message. Jeremiah, normally a book full of doom and gloom, offers the remarkable promise that despite our many mistakes, God will forgive us and “remember our sin no more.” Our Psalm tells of the strength of our God – it is the Psalm on which Luther based his famous hymn, A Mighty Fortress. Our reading from Romans is the one Luther was reading when he came to the world-changing realization that we can do nothing to earn our own salvation, but that we are saved by grace. And our Gospel will claim that the Son makes us “free” – free from the sin that would hold us captive, and inhibit our ability to live joyfully in the world. 

Today we are kicking off our stewardship campaign, focusing on “God’s Extravagance.” Today’s focus is on “God’s extravagant grace.” These texts are all loaded with signs of God’s grace! So as you listen, watch for the ways that God’s grace shows itself in these passages. Let’s listen.

[READ]

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

The book, Sensible Shoes, tells the story of four very different women who all find themselves together at a spiritual retreat center. One of the women, Charissa, is a young, beautiful grad student pursuing a PhD. She is driven, a perfectionist, and she has never had a teacher who didn’t love her. She is at the retreat center at a professor’s suggestion, to enhance one of her classes, but she is appalled to discover on the first day of the retreat that there is no syllabus: no objectives, no intended outcome to the retreat. How is she supposed to measure her success? How will the instructor know how well she is doing? From day one, she is frustrated by the experience. 

She brings her discouragement to her professor. She asks him what she is supposed to be learning from this unfocused “spiritual journey” thing he’d recommended. He tells her plainly that her desire to learn has become an idol for her. He says, “If your desire to learn is keeping you from encountering Christ, then the right place to begin is with confession and repentance. You begin by acknowledging the truth about yourself: you’re a sinner who needs grace.”

Tough words for a perfectionist – and indeed, it sends poor Charissa reeling. All she has ever tried to be in her life is Good. She is a model Christian, a good student, she is focused and responsible and always follows the rules. How dare her professor call her a sinner! She has done everything right! How could God not be pleased with that?

Charissa’s story resonates with me, and I suspect it may with some of you. In so many areas of our life, we do have near complete control over our fate… or at least we’ve convinced ourselves that we do. The American dream says as much: you work hard, you do well, you follow the rules, or at least know the appropriate time and way to break them, then you’ll get ahead. And if you don’t, well, that must just mean you have done something wrong, and need to work harder.

This is the message society tries to teach us. And yet then we come here to church and the very first thing we do is speak aloud those words, “We confess that we are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves.” How counter-cultural is that! 

Because it is so counter-cultural… I wonder how many of us really believe those words when we say them, more than we believe what society teaches? Or, how many of us instead think, “I’m a pretty good person, I always try to do the right thing, I’m kind and generous with my time and resources. Yes, I know I’m a ‘sinner,’ but really I don’t sin that much.” I admit that when we get to that part of the service where there is some silence for self-examination right before we pray the prayer of confession together, I sometimes struggle to think of specific sins because, like many of you, I believe I am, for the most part, a pretty good person. 

But this view of sin misses the point. It makes us sound like the crowd in today’s Gospel lesson. When Jesus tells them the Truth will set them free, their response is, “What do you mean free? Free from what? We’ve never been slaves to anyone!” Like Charissa in Sensible Shoes, they are aghast at the mere suggestion that they could be held captive by anything. Well, first of all, this is, for this Jewish audience, entirely untrue – they had been literal slaves. That was kind of the whole premise of the Exodus story, that they were delivered out of slavery in Egypt. But more importantly humans from across the ages have been held captive by any number of emotional, mental, and spiritual threats, by “hordes of devils filling the land,” as Luther calls them. We are held captive by our guilt about the past, our anxiety about the future, and our resentment about our inability to control our situation. We are slaves to our work, to a need to stay busy, to achieving at least the façade of success. We are bound by disease and health limitations, both mental and physical, and by a general sense of apathy. We are trapped in the heartbreak surrounding so many broken relationships – with our partners, our siblings, our parents or kids, our neighbors. 

It turns out, we are slaves. We do long for freedom. 

Now, those things are not necessarily inherently sinful. It is not a sin, for example, to be sick. But they are a part of the broader understanding of the condition of sin, because any or all of those things has the potential to threaten our relationship with Christ. They drive us away from trust in God and toward trust in our own abilities. Or, they convince us that we are somehow less than a beloved child of God who is made in God’s image. Or, they cause us to turn in on ourselves, to focus on our own navels, rather than look up and out to see God and neighbor. And when we do any of those things, the cycle of captivity to sin just continues.

But on this Reformation Day (and every day!), we celebrate that this captivity to sin does not define us. Today we celebrate God’s extravagant grace. Now, I want to be realistic here – those things I mentioned do exist, because we are human, we are captive to sin, and we do experience the brokenness that goes along with all that. But this brokenness does not define us. What defines us first of all is that we are beloved by our gracious Creator. We are loved. What defines us further, and what offers us hope in the midst of brokenness, is the very thing that society might try to tell us is a failure: We are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves. But God can, and does, free us. It is by pure, extravagant grace that we are freed from, forgiven for, this brokenness. Even though we are sinners, God still does this for us. It is God’s promise that we are not responsible for achieving our own salvation: God through Christ does that for us. As Paul writes, “All of us have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. But God treats us much better than we deserve, and because of Christ Jesus, he freely accepts us and sets us free from our sins.” (CEV) He forgives us, as Jeremiah says, and “remembers our sin no more.”

It is, truly, extravagant. For God just to forget our sin! To freely accept us, though we don’t deserve it! Wow! When we recognize that for the extravagant gift that it is, how do you feel compelled to respond? Personally, I’m overjoyed. That is so much more gracious than I have ever received from any human, and to know that even with all my mistakes, and small-mindedness, and participation in broken systems, and judgement of things I deem somehow not enough… God still loves, accepts, and forgives me… Whew. It is so liberating. It frees me to love and to be gracious to others with less fear. 

And, it frees me to be generous. That is what we are talking about during this stewardship season: that God’s grace, marvelous and extravagant as it is, frees and compels us to respond with generosity, both of spirit and of resources. Because of God’s extravagance, we have the freedom to say, “I know God’s got my back, that nothing can defeat me since Christ defeated death, that my God is trustworthy and good, and so I want to thank and praise, serve and obey him. I want to love and serve my neighbor. I want to be generous with my time, talents and treasures for the sake of God’s mission in the world, of which I am blessed to be a part. I am free to give of myself and my assets, just as God so freely gave of His.” 

This week, you should receive in the mail some information about planning your giving for next year. These next weeks are a chance for you to pray and discuss about how God’s extravagance compels you to respond, and then to make a commitment to God to do that thing. Maybe you will feel moved to pledge for the first time, or maybe you will commit to increasing last year’s giving by 10%, or maybe you will commit to give more regularly and intentionally and not just when you happen to think of it. 

Whatever your commitment is, whatever you, your family, and God have decided, know that God’s extravagant grace for you is unfaltering. You are God’s beloved, and nothing can ever change that. 

Let us pray… Extravagant God of grace, we find ourselves bound by so many forces, both internal and external. Thank you for freeing us by your grace, so that we would be free to love and serve you and the world with generosity. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.  

Full service HERE. (Some wonderful music this week!)