The Land of the Living

Ephesians 5:8-10; Psalm 27

            When I was five years old, a certain family television show first appeared.   Forty-three episodes then aired over a two year span.   I was too young to watch it at that time, but I was glued to every one of these when the show began its life in re-runs on Saturday mornings back in 1985.   It’s was a science-fiction adventure about a human dad and his two teenagers who had mysteriously gotten trapped in an alternate universe.    This was quite a captivating and somewhat relatable premise to my sixteen year old self.    Maybe you remember it?  The now cult-classic T.V. series was called “Land of the Lost.”  

            You definitely remember it if the word “Sleestak” just popped into your head.    These characters were really creepy human shaped lizard creatures with a little horn ridge atop their head.    And if eyes are the windows to the soul, as I’ve often heard it said, then the oversized, glassy black orbs of the Sleestaks revealed them as absolutely soulless.   They were intriguing predators of the show protagonists -- Rick Marshall and his kids Will and Holly.   At the beginning of every episode, we are reminded that this family ended up exiled in the alien universe of Sleestaks and other hostile creatures after an earthquake opened up a space-time rift during a white water rafting trip.  

            The captivating goal of the whole series was for the Marshall family to survive being utterly lost … to return home to the world where they truly belonged.    And despite the very campy early 1970’s styled rubber Sleestak suits and other primitive special effects, I recall how real it felt relating to this family’s anxiety-filled adventures.    Their identity and unity and, on some level it seemed the whole human race, was under threat.   

            In all the ways it’s creatively interpreted, this epic theme of being dangerously lost but yearning for and fighting to get safely home is easy for every human to relate to.  Nobody ever wants to be in the land of the lost.  We all want to be in the land of the living.  We don’t want to be confused and anxious about our lives, constantly fleeing in fear from all sorts of emotional and physical enemies to our well-being.   We want to be where we and our families are fully able to live securely, growing and thriving in places inhabited by goodness, love and peace.   

            Yet we all live with the reality of human sin.   This is no science-fiction.  It’s biblical truth.  And it means we all inescapably have times of feeling lost – lost to ourselves, to those we most love, to our God who created and loves us uniquely and unconditionally. 

            Let’s be reminded that the origin of all such anxious times in the land of the lost is told to us in the Book of Genesis.  There we read about the first human beings, Adam and Eve, falling to the temptation of believing they could be just like God, then realizing their rebellion, experiencing their isolating shame, and establishing spiritual exile as our human norm.   Living in sin is like an alternate universe because it’s not what God planned for us and this world.  Instead of the perfect paradise of feeling secure, fully accepted, always willing to use our spiritual gifts to God’s glory and for the benefit of all God’s children and all of Creation … sin pushes us through a spiritual rift where we find ourselves dangerously confused about where and with whom our true home is.

            This epic struggle is held up before us like a big mirror in Psalm 27.    When we read it, we see ourselves feeling trapped by enemy forces all around us, feeling forsaken by family, coping with false witness against us, and living in a land where all human breathing leads to violence.    I’d rather live with the slow stalking Sleestaks!  

            Blessedly, through Psalm 27 we are also able to clearly and inspirationally see something else of ourselves.    We see ourselves returning to live securely in the house of the Lord every single day.   We see ourselves confidently lifting up our heads to sing praises to our Lord in the face of every manner of enemy.   We see ourselves glad to be taught God’s level way of living and exuberantly beholding divine beauty all around us.    In this mirror to our soul, we see salvation.   We see all darkness being completely dispelled by holy light.  We stand in the reflection as children of this light, believing we will see all that is good and right and true.    We see ourselves in the land of the living.   

            But life in the land of the living is not easy.   It’s usually not like we are crawling through pitch-black spaces one moment and then a sudden flood of radiant light shows us we are actually safe in our homes.     It’s more like what the ancient Israelites experienced.   When the sun went down in the days of Psalm 27, there weren’t any light switches to flick on.   Nor were there any street lamps, floodlights, super bright LED’s, rows of high intensity stadium bulbs.    To be in the land of the living at night meant trusting in the little bit of light provided by simple, single wick and flame pottery lamps.   To follow God’s path, God’s will, meant not knowing what the road right ahead looked like and trusting that God gives just enough light “to take a few more steps.”[i]     It’s always easier to see and trust the goodness of God when there is great illumination, like here in this sanctuary and when in the security of our homes.   It’s harder to experience this when you can only see a few feet ahead of you – literally and figuratively – out in the midst of dim and dark places and times.

              Psalm 27 invites us to keep seeking out and stepping into this little bit of divine light and welcoming it to guide us through the land of holy living.  It calls on us to find those places where we too can confidently declare, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”   Where are these places for you? 

            The way back home to them is always through the gracious power of Jesus Christ.  And there is a traditional Christian perspective that can help us better balance our days in the land of the lost and the land of the living.  We are reminded about this every time we pass by the stone cross on our way into this sanctuary.

            This perspective comes from people who lived long ago in Ireland and Scotland.   It’s a form of Christian living that they practiced known to us as Celtic spirituality.  That’s a Celtic Cross out front.  Central to this way of seeing God’s goodness in the land of the living is identifying what they called “thin places.”   Fortunately, this has nothing to do with our diet and where we choose to stand!  It has to do with both geographical locations and specific moments in time where what is holy becomes clearer to the eyes of the human spirit.   You are in a “thin place” when you experience a profound encounter with ancient and eternal reality within our present time.   It’s a place of homecoming, of reunion, where God seems particularly real and close by and all seems good with the world.    It’s a place of meeting where it seems the veil between heaven and earth is so sheer you can almost step through it.   In “thin places” you feel less lost in sin and more securely part of all that is sacred.[ii] 

            When I hear folks talk about feeling close to God when out in nature, I hear it as their being in “thin places.”   Can you take a moment and picture one these places for you?   Are you overlooking the ocean or some other body of water? Gazing at or from a mountain vista?  One place I like to go for this is by the Black River right behind Cooper Gristmill in Chester.  And, of course, there are so very many spots up at Camp Johnsonburg.    

            But again, it’s not just about certain locations.  “Thin places” happen when you locate yourself as being in a particularly holy moment too.   Since we all suffer inescapably anxious moments, of feeling as though we just surviving in a land of the lost, it takes constant practice to identify these and thus to focus on believing and seeing and thriving and truly living in the goodness of the Lord.    

            So I’m going to end today with telling you about an excellent suggestion by author Dorothy Bass.   She has written about how often we ask each other the question, “How was your day?”    This is a question that usually comes from someone who deeply cares, such as when we ask it of spouses and kids the moment they get home from work and school.    It’s often met, however, with kind of vague response like “Not bad.”    Or it opens up space for a litany of complaints.    She goes on to tell about a mother she knows of who therefore chooses to ask a much different question.  When tucking her children in at night, she asks, “Where did you meet God today?”    Then witness to thin places is shared … by the tree with beautiful blooming flowers, as my teacher was helping me, when my eyes met those of a homeless person.    So “before the children drop off to sleep, the stuff of their day has become the substance of prayer.  They enter a thin place and the presence of God is very near.”[iii]     

            Amen.

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[i] www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1872

[ii] http://day1.org/807-a_psalm_of_thin_places.print

[iii] ibid.

Stepping In to Make Things Right

Matthew 3:13-17

            Do you remember the “Hey, Mr. Cunningham” scene from the 1962 movie of Harper Lee’s book To Kill a Mockingbird?    Set in a small Alabama town in the 1930’s, it’s the scene when Scout steps in to make things right.  It’s when this feisty, intelligent, and deeply caring young girl manages to diffuse a lynch mob.  She does so in support of her attorney father Atticus Finch as he stands guard against injustice outside the jail cell of Tom Robinson.   After exiting a Ford Model A, a 1927 Studebaker, a 1928 Chevrolet National, and a 1930 Buick with shotguns in hand, the murder-minded mob demands the impeccably dressed Gregory Peck to step aside and let them get on with their execution.    

            That’s when Scout, along with brother Jem and best friend Dill, race in from the margins of the scene.   Scout shouts out “Hey, Atticus” as she parts the mob like the Red Sea.  I understand Atticus allowed children to call him by his first name as a sign of respect, as a further way to teach that all people are equal.   He responds by commanding the kids to go back home and be safe.  When they refuse, the mob waters start to fall in on them.  It’s amazing how Scout kicking some adult shins put a stop to that!   Then they join Atticus atop the jail steps.  

            After letting lo loose with a small defiant shout, Scout then suddenly spots Mr. Cunningham standing there in the blindly prejudiced posse.   She very sweetly reminds him who she is, that he’s the father of her classmate Walter, and how he’d been kind enough to visit her family with some food once and how that had led to a nice, neighborly conversation.   With genuine concern in her voice, she also supportively asks how he’s doing regarding a property settlement dispute he’d been having trouble with.   Having momentarily liberated him from the mob mentality, Mr. Cunningham replies by telling her he’ll say hey to Walter.   And then he orders the gang to disband.

            Scout stepped in to make things right, to stand against injustice by protecting the rights and dignity of Tom Robinson, Atticus Finch, and Mr. Cunningham all at the same time.   She did so not by responding to violence with violence, but by interceding with warm-hearted words of compassion and peace.  

            At the beginning of his ministry of compassion and peace, Jesus stepped into the Jordan to make things right.   He did so to receive ritual cleansing from the hand of his relative John, who, you’ll recall, had first acknowledged Jesus’ divine identity with a kick of hope while in his mother Elizabeth’s womb.  That kick was the first sign that his life was to be about preparing the way for the Messiah.   John grew into this calling with revolutionary zeal by standing and shouting at the edges of Roman Empire.   With a belly full of wild locusts and lots of dried honey drips on his beard, he bombastically barked for all people to come to the great river, repent of their sins and be ready to receive their Savior.   He did all this for Jesus.  

            So the very last thing he expected was for Jesus to show up to be baptized.  He wasn’t prepared for this and it made no sense to him.   John knew Jesus’ holy authority was infinitely greater than his own.  He knew that of the two of them, he alone was a sinner.   He was the one who needed to be forgiven and ritually cleansed as a marker of new life.  “I need to be baptized by you,” he pleaded to Jesus.      

            Jesus was not persuaded to step away.  John needed to baptize him.  Period.   Jesus insisted he needed to step into the Jordan in order to make things right, or in his words, “to fulfill all righteousness.”   

            Righteousness is a rather “heavy” word, isn’t it?   I think many of us hear it and quickly associate it with self-righteousness, with people sinfully speaking and acting in a smugly superior ways.    These same folks are very often discovered to be hypocrites.

            Well, Jesus certainly didn’t stand in the Jordan to fulfill self-righteousness.   The Son of God didn’t go there with any superiority complex.   He went there to humbly demonstrate his full solidarity with all humankind.  He went there to compassionately share in the common experiences of humanity.   What’s more common than needing to be physically and spiritually cleansed?   

             So our Lord joined the throng longing for a fresh start in the kingdom of God.   He stepped in and stood in the midst of their sinful suffering and all the injustices being carried out by both the governmental and religious powers of his day.  He did so to live into the prophecy of Isaiah 42.   Jesus stepped in and stood in the Jordan to show that he’d come to make things right between God and all God’s children.  And leading by example, Jesus modeled from the get-go that his holy mission wasn’t going to issue in violence and worldly power-plays … but through selfless, unexpected, humble, compassionate, and peaceful words and actions.     

            We should take notice of how public Jesus’ baptism was.   Of course, it had to be.   At that time there weren’t any church buildings with ordained ministers offering the actions and liturgy of a traditional sacrament.   To be baptized at that time happened in the wilderness, at the edges of society.   It was more about joining a holy revolution than building up an earthly institution.   Still, it’s not hard to imagine that Jesus could have made private arrangements.   He and John were family, after all.   He could have said, “Hey, John.  Listen, I actually don’t want to draw too much attention to myself.   I just want to quietly get my traditional religious duty done with and get on with things.   Think we can meet up at the water after the crowd’s gone home?”   We can suppose he then would have heard God the Father’s voice bestowing a personal blessing with the words “You are my Son.”      

            But God the Father instead made a booming public announcement up and down the shoreline – “THIS is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”    Being one with God the Father, Jesus didn’t need to have a holy word with himself.    This was a word for the world, a word of infinite authority summoning all around him to take notice and to pay full attention to his example.   It was a call to righteousness, to follow him from the waters and live with the faithful integrity acceptable to God.

            This Almighty word still echoes today.    We are a community of the baptized, called to demonstrate in words and actions that Jesus makes things right with God and between all God’s children.    The power of the Holy Spirit has engrafted us all into Christ’s body.   We have Christ’s compassionate, peaceful solidarity to share.   How and where have you stood up and stepped in for the sake of it?  

            In last week’s sermon, I shared my resolve about helping us find ways to facilitate more intergenerational conversations about life in Christ.   What a community strengthening it would be to make time to sit together and share our stories about faithfully stepping in to situations that helped our Lord Keep making things right in this world.    Parents and grandparents have these words of steadfastly faithful, compassionate intercession to share with children and grandchildren.  Children and grandchildren have them to share with parents and grandparents.  Harper Lee had one to share with us all, and I’m glad it continues to be required reading in our schools and its classic Hollywood version is always available to view.    And do you recall how she had Scout knowing the right thing to do in that “Mr. Cunningham” scene?    She tells us Scout learned this righteous behavior by intergenerational example.   She’d asked her father why he was defending Tom Robinson.    And Atticus replied, “Scout, I couldn’t go to church and worship God if I didn’t defend that man.”   Amen.  

Looking Forward

Luke 2:22-40

            In last week’s Christmas Eve sermon I talked about how both lowly, outcast shepherds and wise, wealthy strangers stood at the side of Mary, Joseph and Jesus to teach us about what it means to adore God and to really believe that God adores us.    This morning, let’s meet two other adorers who came to the side of the newborn Messiah.   There are a few likely reasons why Luke tells us their story.   A reason I invite us to consider is that Simeon and Anna are Luke’s way of calling on us to pay reverent attention to the faithful words and wisdom of the older, tradition bearing believers found in every congregation.

            Luke first tells us the context in which Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus meet this significant pair of very first believers.    It happened because Mary and Joseph devoutly chose to honor tradition.  They did so by going to the great Temple in Jerusalem to ritually dedicate the baby.  Luke doesn’t tell us this historical fact as a side note.  It’s there for the very important reason of reminding us that as Christians we are firmly connected with the sacred history of the Hebrews.  

            This Gospel writer insists that we remember how back in the days of Egypt, all Hebrew children born into that slavery belonged to a slave master.    But as we know God worked miraculously through Moses to liberate them into a free future.    So the religious practice of dedicating the firstborn male, found in Exodus 13:2, was then established to celebrate and confirm their identity as people belonging to God alone.    Every time we offer the sacrament of baptism, I follow suit by praying over the water being using with the words “We thank you, Almighty God, for the gift of water … through water You led the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land.”[i]     By telling us that Mary and Joseph obeyed the traditional ritual found in Exodus, Luke is reminding us that the rescuing God of Moses is the very same God active in the lives of Mary, Joseph and the infant Messiah.    And, of course, the same God of the two tradition-bearing first believers Luke calls on us to pay reverent attention to.

            As the holy family dutifully entered the great temple that day, the first of the elder duo, a righteous and devout man named Simeon, quickly came to their side and asked to hold the baby.    Many of us have done the same, haven’t we?  Asked to hold someone else’s baby at a church event?  I really think there is a something about cradling an infant in our arms that deeply comforts us and fills us with fresh hope.  

             But it was not a general comfort or hope for the future Simeon was cradling.    He’d been waiting his entire life for the fulfillment of a special promise given to his heart by the Holy Spirit.   This was the promise that he would not die before getting the chance to personally see the Savior of the World.    How he recognized and confirmed the Messiah in the cute little scrunched up face of baby Jesus we can only say was revelation of the Holy Spirit.   After all, unlike the shepherds and wise men who’d come to Mary and Joseph’s side for the same purpose, there isn’t any record of Simeon having been visited beforehand by a heavenly host of angels or being given a bright, guiding star.    

            So there stood Simeon, looking and cooing right into the face of everything his heart had most been looking forward to seeing before passing from this world.    Just try to imagine yourself in the same sacred place, feeling the immense elation of truly, deeply knowing that not only had God’s personal word come true for you, but even more so God’s word of salvation for all humanity.    So he joyfully praised the only God he and they all belonged to saying, “Master, you are now dismissing your servant in peace, according to Your Word, for my eyes have seen Your salvation.”    And then, being someone who had long lived a righteous and devout life, he added a few words of saintly and prophetic wisdom to his proclamation.    He turned to Mary and Joseph and spoke cautionary words about how Jesus was going to bring about the rising and falling of many people by bringing their innermost thoughts to light.    

            Once telling us about Simeon stepping out the shadows to offer blessing, Luke then immediately introduces us to a devout eighty-four year old woman named Anna.  Her beautiful name, at its biblical language root, means “grace.”[ii]   She’d long been a widow, and since economic status was strictly tied to marital status, this had left her socially and financially marginalized.   To survive, she had found safe sanctuary by spending night and day in the temple worshipping with fasting and prayer.  

            Since Luke likes to give us important contextual facts to connect us Christians with the sacred history of the Israelites, it’s good to wonder why he mentions Anna’s daily spiritual practices.    I found out the constant fasting was a sign of her being in a state of mourning.  But not just for her husband. It was mourning for all God’s people in suffering.[iii]     This does explain why Luke identifies her as a prophet.   But this life-long mourning turned to instant joy and praise upon seeing baby Jesus.    No longer did she need to live in intercessory sorrow, for she knew this child had been born to fully free all of humanity from enslavement to sin.    So bless her heart, she spoke right up and praised the arrival of the world’s Redeemer.

            Devout congregational elders Simeon and Anna.    No angelic chorus suddenly summoned them.   No sudden stunning starlight shone on them.   I don’t believe I know of any hymns that help us sing of them.   Yet they are both crucial witnesses in the Christmas story.  

            Who are the modern day Simeons and Annas in every church?  Right here at FPC?   Folks perhaps just waiting in the wings for an inspired, opportune moment to speak about the hope and vision for the future the Holy Spirit has long placed in their hearts?   To speak faithful words and wisdom to young families coming through the doors of historic churches seeking to fulfill traditional rituals?    To offer witness to the constant, daily Christmas truth that the Savior of the World is with us?  

            I can’t think of any better of the very first Christian believers to call our attention to on this first Sunday in 2014 than Simeon and Anna.   They further fuel my strong desire – and sure, let’s call it a resolution -- that we need to work together to find more ways of facilitating faithful conversations between generations here at FPC.   I know how blessed I am to be pastor for so many wise, long-standing tradition bearing believers.    And I know how greatly I value your voices.     So if you have an inspired idea or two about how we can get more relevant, intergenerational conversation about Jesus Christ going in our congregation, in our families and across our local communities, please reach out to me soon so we can spend some time together.   I’m hoping and planning on this being a year of strategic visioning for the future God is calling us as FPC to live into.   And this looking forward always begins by stopping and listening to all the ways God’s Word keeps stepping up and out to speak to us all.   Amen.    

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[i] from the baptism liturgy found in the Book of Common Worship

[ii] Greek and Latin form of the Hebrew name Hannah.  cf. http://www.behindthename.com/name/Hannah.

[iii] http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=207

Adoring God

Christmas Eve 2013

            O Come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him … Christ our Lord!   And we have!  We’ve come tonight.  We’ve humbly come for holy celebration here in this beautiful historic sanctuary.  We’ve come because Christmas just wouldn’t be complete without presence – the presence of being with one another and loved ones for this time of worship.   We’ve come to be reminded that holy light still flickers brightly amidst our darkest fears.  We’ve come to be gathered as family with those of blood and those we are bonded to through this faith community.

            Above all, we’ve come to experience the fantastic wonder of how God chose to fully come to us.   Not with thunder bolts and lightening (very, very frightening!) but in a meager, makeshift manger … embodied in a vulnerable, precious new baby named Jesus.   God fully came to us in this natural human way through the Holy Spirit blessed teenage mom Mary, whose fiancée, the carpenter Joseph, stood devoutly by.   Through our hearing of the sacred Scriptures we are here to again experience this one-time wondrous event for the whole world. We do so by the side of Mary and Joseph and Jesus, and well as   alongside some lowly local shepherds and some wise, wealthy strangers from a far off land.  In the company of this first congregation, we are here to adore Emmanuel, God with us.   O come, all ye faithful!

            We’ll return to these ancient adoring visitors in a moment, but I have a quick question – generally speaking, what first comes to mind when you consider adoration of Almighty God? 

            Perhaps like many folks, initial thoughts turn to times when you’ve gazed upon the great beauty of nature and lifted up praise.  We small spectators to so many stunning scenes and scientific curiosities across Creation are constantly reminded that we are connected to sacred handiwork we will never fully comprehend.   God has an endless array of environmental ways to grab our attention and inspire our adoration!   

            And it was through heavenly displays that God grabbed the attention of both the lowly local shepherds and the wise, wealthy strangers from a far off land.   These weren’t just big but fleeting inspirational moments.  These were a profoundly personal invitation to look up, then down, then within.   The shining star and the angelic chorus appeared to lead those shepherds and wise men home to the side of their Savior, the Savior of the whole world.  Both were stunning summons to go and pay reverent homage, to offer full-on faithful adoration.   The soul-stirring sights and sounds and peaceful stillness of God’s sanctuary beyond and within these doors call to us for the same purpose on this holy night.

            So what do we learn about adoring God from the locals, those shepherds who first came to the cradle of Christ?  

            We imagine it had probably been an average kind of night of keeping diligent watch, providing safety and provision for their assigned flocks.  They were just common folks doing their work, pushing through the sleepiness of a long, dark, lonely shift.   They likely grumbled about their lot in life, resenting how shepherds were the ones with such lowly, thankless jobs.   Despite it being the most ancient profession of the Israelite people, the calling that the great King David himself once had ... shepherding was regarded as a dirty and therefore undesirable task.   Not one of them had earned anything but the lowest rank in their society for doing good, solid work day in and day out.   

            But on that silent, holy night long ago occurred a totally unexpected spiritual awakening.  The wonderfully creative Christian author Frederick Buechner imagines they had just slumped down under a tree or against a rock, bone-tired, their glassy eyes gazing at nothing in particular.   You know the feeling?    And then all of a sudden, “the air wasn’t emptiness any more.  It was alive” with “brightness everywhere” and what they usually took for silence “stopped being silent and turned into a beating of wings, thousands and thousands of them.  Only not just wings … but voices – high, wild, like trumpets.”   And with holy glory shining and trumpeting all around them there came a conviction in their souls about good news of great joy for all people -- that in the city of the Shepherd-King David, was born the Messiah, wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.

            Though everything then just as suddenly returned to as it had previously seemed, they knew nothing would be the same in their lives or in the world again.  They got right up from their glassy-eyed slumping and hastily headed to the heart of Bethlehem, to the side of Mary, Joseph and Jesus.  Once there, they proclaimed all that had been told them while greatly adoring God.

            If you’ve ever found yourself lamenting something or everything about your life, or just feeling underappreciated, resentful and marginalized, or even just uninspired as you trudge through daily duties, perhaps also wondering at times if you are at all valued and valuable to God … then come to the side of the shepherds at the cradle of Christ.   Hear them tell you about unexpected spiritual awakenings and salvation happening in the most humbling, mundane of circumstances.   Look down through their eyes and adore the newborn and eternal shepherd-king.

            And now what of those wise, wealthy strangers from a far off land, the magi, the well-educated, greatly respected, socially high standing, politically powerful counselors to kings?  

            They were Persians and not Israelites. I consider them to have been more spiritual than religious given that they were students of stargazing science and its affiliated superstitions.  Despite their high social ranking, they too were outsiders.   But they kept their sharp eyes and keen minds and hungry hearts open for divine revelations.   So they took immediate notice when it dawned on them that the God of the universe was calling their attention to a specific, never before seen light shining in deep darkness.   They were eager to engage in a holy quest to personally find out what it meant for them, for the world.   Outsiders, yes, yet more deeply aware of and willing to follow what was happening to fulfill ancient Israelite prophecies than any of the supposed faithful insiders of the day.  

            And when they came to the heart of Bethlehem, to the side of Mary, Joseph and Jesus, they were so overwhelmed with joy they immediately opened their treasure chests to offer gifts of precious metal, ritual incense, and anointing oil.    They did so kneeling down to pay homage, to adore the God of the whole wide universe wriggling, crying out in common human form.      

            If you’ve ever felt like an outsider to your traditional faith, more spiritual, really, than religious, or if you’ve been searching for signs on a life-long quest to find sacred meaning … then come the side of the wise men kneeling at the cradle of Christ.  Trust and adore that all quests for what is sacred find their true home in Him.   Open your precious hearts as wide and joyously as they did theirs and their treasure chests.  

            O come let us adore Him, O come let us adore Him, and may we all continuously adore Christ our Lord!

            The heavens don’t ever stop announcing God’s glory in the Good News of Jesus Christ.  That soul-stirring starlight, those life-transforming trumpets of truth resounding through silence don’t ever cease reaching for us.  In faithful reply, our adoration should not be momentary or occasional, but ongoing.  

            Every moment we allow ourselves to be filled with faithful adoration, we fall in love with God again and are inspired to work hard to maintain a healthy relationship.   It’s the same with the human beings we most adore, right?    May Christmas inspire you every single day to honor and trust Almighty God’s intimate presence in all facets of your life, in the lives of all whom you love, by the side of every brother and sister in the human race.   Adoration is continuously coming home to Jesus Christ, who keeps coming to us all with His redeeming hope, peace, joy and love.  

            Let us adore our Lord through average kind of days.  Let us adore our Lord through the daily grind.  Let us adore our Lord while contemplating the heavens as well as our hearts. Let us adore our Lord through lonely, dark times and hours of high anxiety.   Let us adore our Lord in the midst of unexpected spiritual awakenings as well as through ongoing quests to experience holy truth.    

            And as you do, I pray you’ll come to know deeper in your heart the life-transforming truth that Mary, Joseph, those lowly, local shepherds and those wise, wealthy strangers from a far off land all came to know so intimately -- God absolutely adores you.   God has the utmost love and respect for you.  God came in person to be with you.  Nothing will ever change this.   No need to wonder why, to feel insecure and unworthy, to feel so lost in sin that there is no hope.   It’s just freely and wonderfully true that God is always with you and with us all in Jesus Christ.  Accepting this, may we all go and do as those first adoring attenders at the cradle of Christ did – let the whole world know this true meaning of Christmas.     

            I rejoice that you have come tonight, all you faithful.   Angel wings are fluttering and trumpeting Good News. Stars are shining and summoning.  Holy light and love are aglow and redeeming darkness.   Here we are, adoring God who adores us.    Amen.    

Labors of Love

Psalm 17:3-7; Matthew 1:18-25

Fourth Sunday in Advent 2013

This Advent and Christmas season is certainly a special time of year to recognize and celebrate labors of love.  Especially the quite extraordinary ones that start out small but then blossom to have a big, beautiful, blessed impact on world.

            One such small labor of love was started in 2003 by a man named Bob Carey for his wife, Linda.    Bob is a photographer.    He finds his work to be all about the reaction, getting people to think.    Linda gives a glowing report about how he isn’t afraid to be himself, to really put himself out there, and about how really knows how to make her laugh.     

            Being this way, Bob came up with a uniquely selfless labor of love to offer comfort and encouragement during Linda’s treatment for an aggressive form of breast cancer.  This kind-eyed, gentle-smiling man with a bit of bearish build decided … are you ready for this? … to put on a pink tutu and little else and then take several self-portraits in various locations.   The over-the-top photos had the desired effect of inspiring her laughter and of helping them both stay positive as she endured grueling rounds of radiation and chemo therapy.    

            What happened next was simply wonderful and I believe divinely blessed.   Linda freely shared these photos with her fellow patients.   It’s not hard to imagine the empowering buzz this created.  Inspired by Bob and referring to her treatment, one fellow patient I saw interviewed on the Today Show said, “I immediately felt like, ok, I can do this.”    

            Recognizing the broader positive impact of his labor of love, Bob decided to create more self-portraits.   And then a website, www.thetutuproject.com, to post them on.  It’s global popularity then led to his starting a non-profit foundation to raise funds in support of all kinds of cancer-related costs.   Countless people have been helped and inspired by this husband’s decision to offer a bold and beautiful labor of love. 

             And I have to say, for such a quirky concept, his artistic work is really quite well done.  I can see how his locations and posturing resonate even more deeply than his tutu wearing with the pink advocacy color.  I think the one of Bob standing mid-stage surrounded by white swan ballerinas at the Metropolitan Opera House is my favorite … or maybe it’s the one of him with his back towards us while standing at Lincoln’s feet in Washington, DC … or it could just be the one of him atop a crumpled stone wall just across the water way from a blue bridge at Roosevelt Lake in Arizona.   Truth is, they are all my favorites and I’m delighted to celebrate the work of this fellow human being.

            There are thousands of stories like this to be discovered and celebrated and, pray God, emulated in new ways.    I encourage you to find them as 2013 sets and 2014 dawns.  By being on the lookout for and identifying little labors of love, we can help them to grow into even greater blessings.   And significantly for today, this fourth Sunday in Advent, so close to Tuesday’s evening worship services … our doing so will honor the long ago loving labor of another very special husband.

            I’m speaking, of course, about Joseph.  Now you may say, “Wait a minute, Pastor Rich, we just heard in Matthew 1:18 that he and Mary were only engaged.”    True enough, but understand that in the Jewish culture of their day, engagement was more than a social matter.  It was a legal contract.  So in the eyes of religious law, they were for all intents and purposes husband and wife.   This is important to understand because there were legal protocols in place for breaking off an engagement.   Especially, say, if a husband was to be given the utterly shocking news that his betrothed had become pregnant … knowing full well they had yet to live together or consummate their union.   

            We all know this is what happened, though Matthew doesn’t give the precise details about how Joseph was told.  But believing her to have been unfaithful, I understand he had two legal options – bringing her to public trial with the likely outcome of her being sentenced to death by stoning (study Deuteronomy 22:20 and Numbers 5:11-32) or avoiding this by more discreetly divorcing her.    

            Regarding that crucial, conflicted time of decision making, a popular fellow preacher writes that “We’re not used to this.  We’re accustomed to thinking about the beauty and wonder of the birth of Jesus, and that’s appropriate.   But let’s not forget the distress, sense of betrayal, disappointment, and a host of other emotions that Joseph must have experienced, or the fear and hurt that Mary would likely have also felt as they sorted out their divinely complex relationship.” 

            This fellow preacher asks this of us because by not forgetting this, we can more fully relate to Joseph and Mary, imagine ourselves in their sandals and really realize that like us, they were “people who go through all kinds of things, some quite damaging, and yet whom God uses nevertheless to accomplish God’s purposes.”[i]    

            Wouldn’t you say there is truly no better time to offer labors of love that have a chance to grow and glorify God then when life’s most messy?   The forgiveness, the healing, the reconciliation, the need to turn tears and fears into laughter and hope … it’s honestly got to start someplace.     

            So Joseph, we are reminded in Matthew’s Gospel, “planned to dismiss her quietly.”  (Matthew 1:19).   Being a “righteous” man, he chose this labor of love not just for Mary, but even more so as a labor of God’s love, of holy mercy.   He took the holy high road.  

            And he stayed on it, even in his restless sleep … for God’s will was even clearer to him when he next awoke.   Through divine revelation in the deep watches of the night, it came to him that his labor of love was for a magnificently more merciful purpose.    It was not just to save Mary from stoning or to help him socially save face.   His labor of love helped fulfill God’s purpose of bringing about the birth of the Savior of the whole world!   To be fully present to this, Joseph understood he was not to dismiss her after all.   He was to stand faithfully by her side come what may.  He was to humbly embrace the holy calling of being step-father to Emmanuel, God with us, to Jesus.    

            This was a choice, another colleague of ministry has written, that “he could never have expected to make and yet, it was also a dilemma which will parallel one we will probably all face at one time or another as we sort out how we are called to do the right thing in a situation that at first seems all wrong.  I’ve seen it happen,” she writes, “and so have you. This story of Joseph gets live out again and again and again.”[ii]

            Throughout this year of 2013 -- with its Lenten, Easter, Advent, and regular holy time seasons now come to pass -- what little labors of God’s love have you offered?    Gifted to those who were most in need of acceptance, bold support, holy mercy?  Gifts that by God’s grace then blossomed into big, beautiful blessings for many others?   

            This week and on into 2014, as we faithfully and continually celebrate God’s amazing labor of love who is Jesus Christ, know that I’m truly not expecting to see photos of any of you adults in pink tutus.    And I guarantee you won’t see any of me!    But I do fully hope to labor on in the Lord with you all by carrying healing laughter and profound hope and humbly righteous love to support people’s lives.   By grace and through faith, may we be sure to cultivate this caring, Christ-mass culture in our homes, here at FPC and through all of our relationships and communities.     Amen!

           

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[i] http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2961

[ii] http://words.dancingwiththeword.com/2013/12/just-what-dad-does

Joyful Christmas Presence

Psalm 16; Luke 1:39-56

Third Sunday in Advent 2013

            It had been about 2:30 in the morning when the joyful news was heralded to my heart.   In what had felt like forever, I’d been alone in a half-lit hospital room in Newark, OH very expectantly waiting for it.  For various reasons I’d been instructed by medical staff to stay put there.  I recall feeling overwhelmingly exhausted, fearful, hopeful, and excited all at the same time.   But then there was a truly tremendous burst of profound joy when a nurse finally appeared to offer the words, “Mr. Gelson, you have a daughter.”  That moment announcing Anna’s arrival happened fifteen years ago yesterday.   And the memory of it leads to me to also reflect on the equally amazing joy that arrived with the birth of Rebecca on a mid-summer evening two and half years later.

            The magnificent elation of those moments continues to fill my life right up to this very hour.  Experiences such as this, as well as many others that inspire the same intensity of positive, life-impacting emotion, are much deeper and more lasting than mere flare-ups of happiness.  Happy feelings are wonderful … but we all know that they can also be quite fleeting and sometimes seem downright elusive.   When truly deep joys happen, however, they move into a permanent home in our hearts.  They live on in a formative, foundational way through all of our changing life circumstances.   Faithfully speaking, they are holy gifts from the continuously good, creative, saving and sustaining presence of God.  

             I invite you take a moment right now to think on and thank God for the holy joys you’ve experienced in your lives.   Review your most precious relationships, those times when your life took powerfully blessed turns, when God made a way when it seemed there was no way, the instances when you felt most healed and hopeful.    Doing so now and every day is a way of profoundly thanking God for your past and present.  And I believe it also keeps you faithfully expecting, seeking and confirming God’s loving presence in your life and in this whole world.

            In this morning’s familiar lesson from Luke’s Gospel, we are told about the day two ecstatic relatives, Elizabeth and Mary, got together to celebrate and confirm the arrival of holy joy.   In their time together this faithful elation was magnified, so much so that they came to fully realize that the miraculous blessing they had each received was for the purpose of preparing the way for holy joy to fully enter the whole world.

            Elizabeth’s miraculous blessing was the son, to be named John, whom she was carrying in her womb at what Luke’s Gospel informs us was an advanced age.  Her pregnancy was a joyfully unexpected reversal of her long-standing heartache and social disgrace.   She and her husband Zechariah, a priest of the great temple, had been unable to conceive.  This had led them to experience considerable social shame in the culture of their day.            

            The miraculous and joyful news of a way beyond this was first delivered to Zachariah while he was attending to his temple duties.   And it came by way of a person he understood to be the angel Gabriel.    He was not only informed that they were going to have a child, but that this son, to be named John, would have the power of the great prophet Elijah.  Through the Holy Spirit, his life was to become one of calling the people of Israel back to God in preparation for the arrival of their long-awaited Savior.  Though Zechariah initially found this announcement unbelievable, after a period of time in contemplation and continued faithful service he returned home and the holy news came true.

            Further confirmation and celebration of this divine blessing occurred when Elizabeth was a visible six months pregnant.   Her much younger relative, Mary, engaged to a carpenter named Joseph, traveled with “haste” to see her at that time.  She had her own remarkably joyful news to share, for the heavenly one known as Gabriel had also appeared to her, saying the words, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you!”   And Gabriel did not mean just spiritually, it was meant quite literally, declaring that she had been favored by God to bear a child by way of the Holy Spirit.  This child was to be named Jesus.   This son, it was explained, would grow to be called “great” and “the Son of the Most High” and would be given the faithful kingdom of his ancestor David.   

            Understandably, Mary couldn’t quite believe this was to happen to and through her.  After all, she was just a socially marginalized, poverty stricken young woman trying to start a new chapter in her life.  But those angelic words had also sounded so familiar … they were old words, special words that her people long cherished, words of promise of the One who was to come and redeem her people from sin.  And what an incredible joy to be chosen by God to bring God’s love into the world so intimately, so fully.   Her son was also the Son of God!  Further addressing this, Gabriel told her what was happening with Elizabeth and assured her that nothing is impossible with God.  

            Responding with tremendous faith, Mary then declared herself a humble servant, and proclaimed that all should be according to the holy words.   She then went with a whole lot of hurry up to Elizabeth’s house.  Upon arrival, the joyful holy truth of it all was fully confirmed when John jumped for joy, gave a solidly expectant kick in Elizabeth’s womb.   In that moment, “the future mother of the forerunner” recognized the “future mother of the Messiah.”[i]  

            Continuing to faithfully and humbly respond, Mary then gave voice to all the voiceless in the world by breaking out in a magnificently magnanimous praise song, one that was not a solo aria, but a full on chorus of God’s amazing, liberating love for all of humanity oppressed and marginalized by the power of sin.

            I hope you took good note of when holy joy entered Elizabeth and Mary’s lives most fully.  It wasn’t when their lives had a lot happening to nurture hope.  It wasn’t through moments particularly pregnant with joyful expectation.  Holy joy was instead announced right amidst hard life realities, truly humbling and uncertain circumstances, the deep sorrow of the lonely and oppressed.   God chose this unexpected way to birth the full presence of holy joy to the world -- our Savior’s reign.   It’s the holy joy of the cradle and the cross.   “Where is the divinity, where is the might of the child?” asked one fellow believer, before going on to answer, “in the divine love in which he became like us. His poverty in the manger is his might,” and “only the humble rejoice that God is so free and so marvelous that he does wonders where people despair.  God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in.”[ii]

            With humility, where in our lives and in this world do we trust God is marching in?  Where do we proclaim the most holy joy that God’s surprising, life-transforming, redeeming love is on the move?

            I feel compelled to share this in closing, given that yesterday was the one year anniversary of the horrific tragedy at Sandy Hook elementary.  First grader Emilie Parker was gunned down that day.  I recently watched a short video featuring her mother Allissa’s voice as narrator and many beautiful, joyful photo images of Emilie’s time on earth.   Allisa reported that for a while she “felt consumed by how evil can be so powerful, and that evil won.”  But then, she continued, “The letters started to pour in, and these letters over and over were accounts of the power of God’s love.  There was an overwhelming response from millions of people, well-wishers, people praying for us, people sending us things.”  Then, with what I hear as a note of holy joy in her voice, she further explained, “I truly started to feel this obvious strength and power that lifted me, lifted my family.”  

            The Parkers responded to this divine gift by faithfully seeking ways to keep alive the holy joy of their Emilie. This led to the birth of several new initiatives for positively transforming people’s lives.  These include supporting arts programs in schools via the Emilie Parker Art Connection website, co-founding a school safety advocacy group, and financially supporting emergency response medical care in Guatemala.  “The only way good can be in us,” Allisa faithfully proclaims, “is if we freely choose it over all else.  Evil didn’t win that day, we’ll carry on the love that Emilie had.  It’s quiet, it’s not on the news, it takes effort to find.  But what I’ve realized through all this is how strong and big God’s love really is.”    Amen.  

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[i] http://Presbyterianrecord.ca/2012/12/17/expectant kick

[ii] God Is In the Manger, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, p. 22

The Glorious Gift

Psalm 4:3-8; John 14:23-27

Second Sunday in Advent

            “I think we’re going to have an exceptionally good Christmas,” wrote the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer in a letter to his fiancée Maria on December 1, 1943.   He shared this hopeful sentiment despite the dire circumstance of his being in a Gestapo prison, having been arrested earlier that year for conspiring to put an end to Hitler.     It’s not hard to imagine what must have been heavy on his heart and mind at that time -- the horrors of the Third Reich’s “new order” and failed attempts to stop it; the fearfully honest thoughts about what was to be his earthly fate; the heavy weight of war in this world; the great and tender longing to be with and care for his beloved Maria and all of his family.   

            Still, it had been Advent, the time of true preparation for Christmas.  Sharing his perspective on this tension, he further wrote to his beloved saying, “The very fact that every outward circumstance precluded our making provision for [Christmas] will show whether we can be content with what is truly essential.  I used to be very fond of thinking up and buying presents, but now that we have nothing to give, the gift God gave us in the birth of Christ will seem all the more glorious.”[i]   

            By grace and through faith, he set his heart on celebrating the gift of God with us, of Emmanuel, of God enfleshed to directly be with this world of sin and sorrow and to show the Way through and beyond it.   In that time of tremendous tension and turmoil, of anxiety about what was coming next for him and so very many others, he rejoiced in God’s strengthening and redeeming presence coming to us that first Christmas.   Focusing on this glorious gift filled his heart and mind with holy, abiding peace.  

            On this December day, the second Sunday in the season of Advent, we too focus on opening our hearts to the deep peace of Christ.   The peace that fully and forever reconciles us with God, with ourselves, and with all humanity.   The peace proclaimed in traditional Christmas carols, experienced so beautifully with every candle-holding singing of “Silent Night.”  The peace sung about as well as in newer Christmas songs, such as a favorite of mine called “Peace, Peace” by singer-songwriter Sara Groves.  She sings these honest words –

            “Peace, peace, it’s hard to find.  Trouble comes like a wrecking ball, to your peace of mind and all that worry you can’t leave behind you.  Peace, peace, it’s hard to find, doubt comes like a tiny voice that’s so unkind.  And all your fears, they conspire to unwind you.”    Then her faithful, familiar chorus reminds us of the glorious gift, proclaiming, “And in your dark street shines an everlasting light, and all your hopes and fears, are met in Him tonight.”         

            This peace is “more than mere peace of mind or a cease-fire between enemies”[ii] … it is shalom, which means “universal flourishing, wholeness and delight … a state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder” in this world.[iii]   It is, as bible scholar William Barclay explains, “conquering peace,” because it is “independent of outward circumstances,” and “no experience of life can ever take it from us and no sorrow, no danger, no suffering can ever make it less.”   This is in contrast to what Barclay calls the worldly peace of escape, which “comes from the avoidance of trouble and from refusing to face facts.”[iv]

            There wasn’t room in Bonhoeffer’s cell to avoid trouble or refuse to face facts.   There was only space to faithfully prepare his heart to again celebrate the birth of God’s conquering peace in Christ.

            This is always a beautiful, inspiring time of year full of color and light and festive sounds. It’s a time for celebrating joys, blessings, family, and fullness of life.   But I believe we all know it can also be filled with tension and turmoil.  In can be very difficult to experience peace for ourselves and others in the midst of it …

            We know there are many living in confining emotional and physical cells and circumstances, many facing manifold threats to their well-being.  For people near to us and unknown to us, this season can trigger suffocating grief about all sorts of sudden and ongoing losses.   It can let loose bullets of despair and anxiety through the hearts of folks trying to cope with life interruptions, changes and tragedies.   And 24-7 streaming news sources keep us all ever alert to the ever-present foot and handprints of sin.  

            To every worldly woe, Jesus, God with us, our Emmanuel, insists we not let our hearts be troubled.  He keeps reminding us through Scripture, prayer, encounters with faithful brothers and sisters, and through many mysterious ways that His conquering peace is with us.  The promise of it is never broken.   Holy wholeness is always happening.   We don’t experience it all at once, or on demand, and our Lord knows we all can and do sinfully resist it in many ways.  Not to mention we’re all pretty much culturally wired to be impatient about waiting for anything.   But truly, hear the Good News that there is never a human moment Christ’s conquering peace is not abiding with us.   It began in a meager manger, moved on to teach its radically loving and inclusive ways to humankind, and then stumbled with humility to the Cross before marching victoriously out of a tomb.  Through the intimate power of the Holy Spirit it keeps coming and going on earth as it is in heaven.   For us.

            May we help ourselves, one another and others in our lives and across the globe to focus of receiving this glorious gift.  While waiting for new and needed experiences of God with us, it’s a sure strengthening to open our hearts and minds to folks who’ve experienced and gladly shared stories of it blessing their lives and this world.   Voices past and present bear witness to its abiding power.    This is the reason one way I’m preparing for Christmas this year is by turning each day to an Advent devotional based on the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer called GOD IS IN THE MANGER.    Who do you know and where do you turn to be reminded of Christ’s conquering peace?    

            There’s someone else we can all turn to this time of year.   St. Nick!   By this I mean the man named Nicolas, who was born 1, 733 years ago in a village in what is now Turkey.    He was born to wealthy, devoutly Christian parents.    Sadly, he was orphaned at the age of nine when they died of a plague.   He, whose name means, “Victorious,” did not go on, as author Max Lucado whimsically puts it, to major in toy making and minor in marketing.  This historical figure who is the seed of all Santa legends, instead studied Greek philosophy and Christian doctrine.    

            Nicolas’ upbringing in our faith and his subsequent studies inspired to him to use all of his sizeable inheritance to assist the needy, sick and suffering.    He dedicated his life to serving the Lord and was appointed the Bishop of Myra.   He  knew tension and turmoil, for he suffered imprisonment and exile during the Roman Empire’s most severe persecution of Christians under Emperor Diocletian.   This did not break his faith in God’s glorious gift.   Upon release he went on to be widely known for his great generosity and abiding love of children.  Many countries in Europe celebrated his faithful legacy this past Friday, St. Nicolas Day.   So, yes, we can also turn to St. Nick, for this historic figure experienced and extended the glorious gift of Christ’s peace, of shalom, of God with us.

            Inspired by Jesus’ personal promise to abide with us and by generations of faithful witness to this holy happening, may these Advent days be spent preparing our hearts anew to receive and to share true peace.    By doing so, I am confident this will be an exceptionally good Christmas!  Amen.

                       

           

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[i] Letter to fiancée Maria von Wedemeyer, Dec. 1, 1943

[ii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shalom#As_a_Jewish_religious_principle

[iii] ibid.

[iv] Daily Bible Commentary on John 14