Old News

What word describes Jesus? Savior? Redeemer? Friend? How about Refugee? Matthew tells us that Jesus and his family fled to Egypt when Herod wanted to kill him. He joins millions of other refugees throughout history; and this sermon examines that fact.

The scripture reading this morning is a continuation of the Christmas story, not the suggested reading that tells the story of Jesus’ baptism. You may wonder why I’m preaching on Christmas yet again, when Epiphany was celebrated last Sunday and Christmas was over two weeks ago. At this point, Christmas is old news. And Lent is coming at us like a freight train! (Ash Wednesday is the 10^th of February.) Between now and then, Jesus has to not only get out of the manger, but also grow up, call disciples, and begin his ministry. According to the lectionary, the cycle of suggested scripture readings for each year, I need to leave Christmas behind and get on with it! But I have always felt that preaching about Christmas gets the short straw. For the four weeks before Christmas, Advent focuses on how much we need a savior; and then, after only one Sunday, Epiphany rolls around and we’re proclaiming that savior to the nations. It seems to me that Christmas deserves more than one Sunday, especially when we consider Matthew’s story of what happened after Christmas. So listen to this morning’s scripture reading. The story picks up after the Wise Men have left Bethlehem by a road that avoids Herod and his desire to find the child who has been born “King of the Jews.” (Scripture: Matthew 2:13-23.)

It sounds like a report that might appear on any edition of our evening news: families who have been forced out of their home by the bloodthirsty actions of a tyrant. And that is exactly how we remember Herod: as the king who should have been protecting the children in his kingdom, but who murdered them in cold blood instead. Nothing much has changed, has it? We hear this kind of story all the time; only the names and locations change from year to year. We heard it in the late 1970s when Pot Pol and his Khmer Rouge exterminated millions of Cambodians through forced relocation, forced labor, and mass executions. We heard it in the 1980s when Saddam Hussein tried to wipe out the Kurds living in northern Iraq. His army invaded their homes, put the men in front of firing squads, and then bombed their villages into oblivion. And we heard it again, not quite three years ago, when President Assad of Syria ordered poison gas attacks on over 500 defenseless men, women, and children. The flood of refugees who are streaming out of Syria seeking asylum are only the most recent victims of tyrants who care more about their own power than they do about the people they should protect.

Yes, we think “tyrant” when we hear Herod’s name. But we seldom think “refugee” when we hear the name “Jesus.” But that’s exactly how Jesus spent some of his childhood: as a refugee. Joseph and his family fled to Egypt after an angel warned him in a dream about Herod’s intentions. What happened to them there? Matthew doesn’t tell us; and neither do any of the other gospel writers. We can only imagine. Was Joseph able to pursue his trade as a carpenter, or was he forced to beg in order to feed his family? How long did it take for them to find a home; if, indeed, they found one at all? Was the holy family accepted by the Egyptians; or were they mistrusted and called “those people”? We can only imagine the answers.

I wonder, too, whether Jesus’ experience as a refugee made a permanent impression on him. Did he remember that he was forced out of the home where he was born? As Jesus was growing up, did he hear stories of the cozy little house in Bethlehem with the fig tree right outside the kitchen window? Did he long to return to his childhood home, and to his bedroom with his posters on the wall and the nightlight that looked like a lamb? Jesus never did go back to that little house in Bethlehem because after Herod died, his son was a threat to them, too, and Joseph moved to Galilee when their family returned to Israel. Did Jesus reassure the poor and oppressed that God loved them because he had been poor and oppressed himself? When we hear him say, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” I can’t help but wonder if he knows all too well what it means to be poor in spirit – to live at the whim of someone who only concern is his own power.

We live in a world where the atrocities committed by tyrants are old news. When we read a newspaper headline that announces “Europe Confronts Refugees,” we hardly give it a second glance. If that newspaper headline read, “Christ Born in Bethlehem,” we wouldn’t give that a second glance, either. It’s all old news. But maybe we shouldn’t ignore that old news; because the old news of Christmas makes a difference in our lives today, especially when we’re reading about refugees who have been affected by the actions of modern-day Herods.

Now, if you’re holding your breath waiting for me to offer a political solution to the question of how to deal with refugees around the world, you can exhale. I have my own opinion on that subject, but I can’t give you a solution from the pulpit. No one person has the answer to that dreadful situation. We all need to arrive at a solution together through reasoned conversations that consider both national security and human compassion. But I will tell you this. The baby who was born on Christmas, who became a refugee while he was still a child, and who grew up to give his life for us hanging on a Roman cross had a few things to say about the way that people in power should treat other people who have no power.

One of the things that he said was this: "When the Son of Man finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels with him, he will take his place on his glorious throne. Then all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left. Then he will say to those on his right, 'Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom. It's been ready for you since the world's foundation. And here's why: I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was homeless and you gave me a room, I was shivering and you gave me clothes, I was sick and you stopped to visit, I was in prison and you came to me.' Then those 'sheep' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? When did we see you homeless and give you a room, or shivering and give you clothes? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' Then the King will say, 'Here’s the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone who was overlooked or ignored, that was me – you did it to me.'’

Maybe those of us who are not refugees should take more thought to those who are refugees; and pay attention to the words of the One who began his life as a refugee.

Playing with Fire

We all know that God came to live with us as Jesus Christ on Christmas. But that wasn't the first time that God lived among the people! God first came to us after the Israelites began their Exodus from Egypt; and that appearance was a little bit more dramatic than Christmas Eve. This meditation explores how our relationship with God has changed since the birth of Jesus. It may make you think a little bit!

Admit it: we are fascinated with fire. We love to watch flames shimmer and leap in their dance. We can lose ourselves staring into a campfire on a summer evening and watching huge logs disintegrate into fine, grey ash. What else can explain our craving to keep fire near us: a fire pit in the backyard, a barbecue grill on the patio, a fireplace in the family room, to say nothing of candles and scented tea lights decorating the mantel? Even here, on the communion table in the front of our sanctuary, candles are burning brightly; and on Christmas Eve, we lit even more of them! Oh, yes, we’re drawn to fire like a moth to… well, you know. The relationship that we humans have with fire is as old as humanity itself. Every single civilization has used fire. We needed it to cook our food, to give us light, and to keep us warm. Why, until just about a hundred years ago, people handled fire every single day!  We contained it in oil lamps, wood stoves, coal furnaces, and lanterns; and fire was as close to us as the cat that curls up in our lap. And love it or hate it, fire still plays a part in our lives. Thomas Edison may have freed us from our reliance on fire in our homes; but our emotions and our imaginations are still firmly in its grip.

It is little wonder that the Bible associates God with fire over and over again. God does the very same things for us that fire does – God feeds us, God warms us, and God illuminates our path. We all know the story of how Moses was called to lead the Israelites: God called him out of a bush in the wilderness that was filled with divine fire. And almost 2,000 years later, the Holy Spirit appeared as tongues of fire dancing over the heads of the disciples on that very first Pentecost. But the biblical writers never forgot that fire is as dangerous as it is necessary. It’s one thing to sit around a campfire and meditate on the dancing flames; but it’s quite another to step into the middle of that blaze! The same fire that roasts our hot dogs will scorch us if we get too close to it. So, does that mean that God is dangerous, too? The writers of the Old Testament thought so! The text that you heard just a few minutes ago (Exodus 19:16-19) is a great example. I only read a small portion of that story, how God settled down on Mt. Sinai in a fire that looked like a volcano erupting. If I had read a little bit more of it, you would have heard what Moses told the people: don’t set even a toe on the mountain under any circumstances; because if you do, you will die! God is dangerous, says the Old Testament. Deuteronomy warns that “The Lord your God is a devouring fire” (4:24); and the prophet Zephaniah claims that “The whole world will be consumed by the fire of [God’s] jealous anger.” (1:18) Hmmm. It appears that God is more like a nuclear reaction than a cozy little campfire for toasting marshmallows!

But we don’t think that God is dangerous! We don’t wear Hazmat suits when we come to worship on Sunday morning. When we read these Old Testament stories and compare them to how we feel about God today, we realize that something fundamental has changed in the relationship between God and God’s people. We don’t have to be afraid of God’s power. How in the world could such a change come about?  It’s all because of Christmas Eve. On that night, the sun decided to come down out of the sky and live among us as the Son. The Star of Bethlehem became small enough to burn at the tip of a candle that a preschooler could hold in her hand. The creator of heaven and earth – the One who settled on Sinai with such power that the mountain itself trembled – that one came to us as a human baby with tiny fingers and tiny toes and a head of dark peach fuzz.

So… does that mean that God has given up his power? Of course not! The divine fire that called the universe into existence and set planets spinning in their orbits is as alive as it was on the top of Mt. Sinai. But this side of Christmas, it is channeled into very different activities. God has traded the power of a destructive blaze for the power of sustaining love. “In him was life,” says the Gospel of John, “and the life was the light of all people.” The child in the manger does what a distant, threatening God could never do. Loving nurture has replaced violence. God guides us not by threatening us, but by offering us divine wisdom. God feeds us not with manna, but with his own body, the Bread of Life. And most amazing of all: God doesn’t burn our sins out of us to make us acceptable! God uses the power that shook Mt. Sinai to transform us into new creations that reflect God’s own image! The last verse of the hymn “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” expresses this truth beautifully: “Finish then thy new creation; Pure and spotless let us be; Changed from glory into glory, till in heaven we take our place.” The divine fire that once burned on Sinai now burns in our own lives: in the eyes of parents caring for their children; in the hands of a volunteers working tirelessly to rebuild after a tornado; in the hearts of chaplains who minister to prisoners living on death row; in our own lives when we pray for peace and reconciliation.

As we reach the end of this season of light; as we take the Christmas tree down and remove the greenery with all the twinkling lights; as we put away the candles for another year; let the light of the sun that is slowly returning to our winter world remind you of the Son who has come among us, and of the Divine Fire that has invaded our world and will not let us return to the darkness. And when our world seems to be full of darkness, as it frequently does, look up to the heavens and count the stars. Let each one remind you that the divine light that called them into being is with us – today and forever.

A Song of Joy

The song of the angels in Luke 2 is one of the most joyful songs in all of scripture. But where is the joy in our world today? Oh, it's there -- but sometimes we have to search for it. This sermon might give you some ideas where to look.

It was a night like any other night. The sheep were calm, moving quietly through the pasture. Some were softly munching grass, while others were sleeping peacefully in the starlight. The shepherds were quiet, too. A few were keeping watch over their wooly charges, but the rest were enjoying some well-deserved sleep before dawn broke. Suddenly, without warning, the night became as bright as noontime, waking the shepherds, and paralyzing them with fear. An angel voice boomed from the heavens: “Don’t be afraid! I have good news for you! And not just for you – for everyone in the whole world. The Messiah has been born in Bethlehem! If you want to find him, look for a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” And then, there were millions of angel voices all singing together, their music surrounding the shepherds in a great cloud of harmony: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, God’s peace to everyone!”

The light disappeared as quickly as it had come, leaving the shepherds stunned and bewildered. It took them a few moments to realize what had just happened. The skies had split apart, and heaven had touched earth. They had seen the glory that surrounds God with their own eyes! They looked at one another in confusion. “What should we do?” one of them asked. “Should we go tell a priest?” “No,” answered another. “A priest would never believe us. Let’s go find that baby!” And, of course, that’s exactly what they did. They ran to Bethlehem as fast as they could and searched through stable after stable until they found a brand new baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. What do you suppose they thought when they saw him? He looked like a very ordinary baby, after all. Do you think that they were disappointed? Maybe they secretly wondered what all the fuss was about. I doubt if he was surrounded with the heavenly glow that we see in all the nativity pictures. He was just a baby. But in that baby, the veil between God and humanity split apart, and heaven touched earth. His birth was good news of great joy, indeed!

That is our joy, too, on each Christmas day and on every other day of the year. God is with us! But sometimes that reality is very hard to see in the darkness of our world. We have to search for it, just like the shepherds had to search through dark, crowded, smelly stables until they found what they were looking for. If the angel hadn’t told the shepherds where to look, you know, they might never have found that baby. We need some help, too, to find the Child that is living among us. We aren’t looking for a baby in a manger these days; but we are still looking for signs of Emmanuel, “God-with-us.”

What would the angel say to us today? Maybe the announcement would go something like this. “Listen, I bring you good news of a great joy that is for everyone in the world! God is among you! And this will be a sign for you. Look for a man who is helping his elderly neighbor by carrying in her groceries for her, by shoveling her snow, and by checking up on her every now and then.” We might have to search to find something like that. Oh, we know that there are many caring people in the world, but they don’t usually post a neon sign when they show that care to others. On the contrary, they are as secret as a baby born in a stable. God is among us.

Or maybe it would be an announcement like this. “Listen, I bring you good news of a great joy that is for everyone in the world! God is among you! And this will be a sign for you. Look for a woman who carries bags of toiletries and comfort items in her car, and gives them to the homeless people who stand on street corners begging for help.” That would be even more difficult to find! How many cars in the WalMart parking lot would we have to look through before we found something more than gift wrap, cheap trinkets, and bags of bows? But I assure you, there are folks in our midst who help the homeless on a regular basis. God is among us.

If we traveled to the Middle East, the angel’s announcement would sound a little bit different. “Listen, I bring you good news of a great joy that is for everyone in the world! God is among you! And this will be a sign for you. Look for a Jewish boy who is friends with a Muslim girl.” That might be the most difficult of all to find. But I guarantee that such children exist. And they are our hope for the future. God is among us.

Actually, that angel could give us all kinds of signs that God is among us. This will be a sign for you: “Look for a woman living in Chicago who is caring for her three grandchildren because her daughter is in prison for dealing drugs. Even though she has already raised a family, she makes sure that those grandchildren are fed and clothed and educated.” “Look for a man in a small Pennsylvania town who helps to staff the volunteer fire department every single holiday. He wants the younger volunteers to be able to spend the holidays with their families.” “Look for a young girl in Phoenix who insists on giving away her own Christmas gifts to the family down the street who just lost everything they own in a fire. She doesn’t want anyone to be without at Christmas.” Those are the signs that Emmanuel is here; but we usually miss them because they are so ordinary. They don’t look special at all – but neither did the baby who was born in a barn and laid in a manger. They all show Emmanuel, God-with-us. The spirit of God that fills them is the source of our joy. They bring the good news that is for everyone in the world.

“Fear not! For behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be to all people. For to you is born this day in the city of David a savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and singing, “Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace, goodwill to all people.” That joyful song is our song, too! Sing it with everything you’ve got! Sing your lungs out! And as you are singing, give thanks that the signs of God-with-us are all around. We just have to look for them.

A Song of Victory

What do Rosie the Riveter and Mary, Jesus' mother, have in common? More than you might think! If this comparison intrigues you, you might want to read this sermon to find out more!

In our travels through Christmas music in the Bible, we have come to one of the most famous songs in the New Testament: Mary’s song (Luke 1:46-55). We Protestants don’t talk about Mary except at this time of the year. The rest of the time, we pretty much leave her to the Roman Catholic church, and she fades away into the wallpaper. When we talk about her at all, we call her “gentle Mary, meek and mild.” That’s the image of Mary that most of us have. She’s wearing a blue tunic over a white garment, and her head is encircled by a halo. Her hands are folded in her lap, her eyes are cast modestly aside, and her expression is quiet. Actually, she doesn’t have much of an expression at all. No wonder that “gentle Mary, meek and mild” fades into the wallpaper! But that image isn’t biblical. It actually comes from the Middle Ages, when many paintings depicted Mary in just that way. In the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church taught that Mary was the ideal woman. And what did an ideal woman look like? Why, she sat down and shut up, she folded her hands quietly in her lap, and she cast her eyes modestly aside – just like the pictures of Mary. Ideal women in the Middle Ages were gentle, meek, and mild. But in those pictures, Mary doesn’t look like she is capable of blowing her nose, much less giving birth to the Messiah!

That’s not the Mary of the gospels, though. The Mary of the gospels is strong and capable; able to deal whatever life throws at her. And Mary had to deal with a lot in her life! From the beginning, she was thrown every curve ball in the book. When the angel Gabriel showed up and asked her if she was willing to birth the Son of God, Mary was still a virgin. Any woman who was meek and mild would have run for the hills; because pregnancy outside of marriage was frowned upon in those days. In fact, women were stoned for it! But Mary, strong and capable, agreed to God’s plan! When she was 9 months pregnant, Mary made a difficult journey to Bethlehem, bouncing along on the backbone of a donkey; and then she gave birth in a barn, with no support from family or friends. Matthew tells us that the whole family had to become refugees in Egypt to escape King Herod, who was so terrified of Mary’s baby that he slaughtered all the young boys in an entire town in an effort to get rid of him. When Jesus became a man, she had to watch him walk away from her when he left his home to become an itinerant preacher. At the end, she watched him die on a cross. No, Mary wasn’t “meek and mild,” she was the original steel magnolia! Why, Mary is more like Rosie the Riveter, strong arm bared and face determined, proclaiming “We can do it!”

This song of Mary’s reflects her inner strength. It’s a song of victory – God’s victory over all the forces that would keep us oppressed: the proud, the rulers, the rich. Today she might sing about God’s victory over Wall Street, over Congress, and over clueless political candidates; but regardless of the details, it’s the same take-home message. The people who are in power are unjust and arrogant; but God has claimed victory over all of them! Mary stands in a long line of biblical women who sang victory songs of their own. Moses’ sister Miriam was the first one. She stood on the banks of the Red Sea after it had drowned the Egyptian army, and led the Hebrew women in a victory song: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, the horse and rider thrown into the sea!” (Exodus 15:21) The Hebrew judge Deborah sang a song of victory after the Israelites defeated the pagan general Sisera. “Hear this, you kings,” she sang. “Listen, you rulers! I will sing to the Lord! I will make music to the Lord, the God of Israel.” (Judges 5.) Hannah sang, too, when, after remaining barren for years, she gave birth to a son who would grow up to be the prophet Samuel. Her song is a lot like the one that Mary would sing many years later: “My heart rejoices in the Lord; in the Lord my strength is lifted high! My mouth boasts over my enemies, for I delight in your deliverance!” (I Samuel 2:1-10) Mary carries on that tradition of women’s victory songs that celebrate what God has done for them.

We don’t very often sing victory songs at Christmas time – but we should. Christmas, after all, spells the doom of the forces of evil in this world. When God came to be with us human beings as a human being himself, the forces of evil didn’t stand a chance. Greed, pride, oppression, hate, misery – they’re all doomed! Just as D-Day was the beginning of the end for the Nazi forces during the Second World War; God’s incarnation was the beginning of the end of evil. God’s victory is already on the way, sweeping across our world like Allied tanks swept across Europe on their way to defeating Hitler. But, just as the Nazi forces fought the Allies even more fiercely after D-Day, evil is still fighting against God and against God’s people today. That means that we need to be like Rosie the Riveter, too, just as strong as Mary was. Like Mary, we need to be prepared to cope with all the difficult things that life throws at us. Christmas, after all, isn’t for meek and mild people who quietly fold their hands in their laps and modestly cast their eyes aside. Christmas is for those people who are sick and tired of evil always winning the jackpot in the lottery. Christmas is for the folks who see a homeless veteran begging on a street corner in tattered clothing and say, “I want to do something about that!” Christmas is for all the people who would say to an angel who has just suggested some crazy scheme that can’t possibly work, “Let it be to me as you have said.” Mary said just that when Gabriel announced her pregnancy; and we all need to say it, too!

UCC pastor and author Quinn Caldwell reminds his congregation every Christmas Eve:

“If you came to this place expecting a tame story, you came to the wrong place… If you came to hear of the coming of a God who only showed up so that you could have a nice day with your loved ones, then you came for a God whom we do not worship here. For even a regular baby is not a tame thing, and goodness that cannot threaten complacency and evil is not much good at all, and a God who would choose to give up power and invincibility to become an infant for you certainly didn’t do it just so you could have dinner. But. If you came to hear a story of tyrants trembling while heaven comes to peasants… If you came for a story of reversals that might end up reversing you… If you came for a tale of adventure and bravery, where strong and gentle people win, and the powerful and violent go down to dust, where the rich lose their money but find their lives, and the poor are raised up like kings… If you came for salvation and not for safety, then, ah, my friends, you are in precisely the right place.” (You can read the full text of his remarks in All I Really Want, Abingdon Press, 2014, pp.110-112. I cannot recommend his book too highly.)

As we move through the final days of Advent, I invite you to join in singing Mary’s victory song!

“My soul praises the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm. He has scattered those who are arrogant.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things."
Sing with courage! Sing with joy! Sing your lungs out – because this child changes everything!

A Song of Gratitude

You may not know that the Bible is full of songs. Last week, my sermon considered an Old Testament song from the Psalms -- a prayer that asked God to rescue the people from their troubles. Today, the song is "The Benedictus" from the Gospel of Luke. "Benedictus" is the Latin translation of the first word of the song: "Blessed." It is a song of gratitude for God's goodness. Could you use a little more gratitude in your life?

Gratitude abounds during this season of gift-giving, but we don’t usually offer in advance. It would sound a little nervy to say, “Thanks, Uncle Ezra, for the great Christmas gift that I know you’re going to give me this year!” That kind of gratitude is risky, because Uncle Ezra might well say, “How do you know that I’m going to give you something this year? I’m still waiting for a thank you note for last year’s present!” But gratitude in advance is perfectly appropriate when a promise is involved. If, during your senior year of high school, Grandma announces that she plans to buy you a car when you graduate, I’d say that some gratitude is not only appropriate but absolutely required! It is in that spirit that we read this morning’s scripture, the song of Zechariah from the gospel of Luke (Luke 1:68-79). When the old man sang this song of gratitude for a savior, the child Jesus hadn’t even been born yet! He was still being formed in his mother’s womb, several months away from the long trip to Bethlehem and his birth in a barn. But listen to Zechariah! He is singing his lungs out, as if the savior were already standing in front of him. He’s singing his thanks for what God has done in the past, all the way back to Abraham. He’s singing his thanks for what God is doing right now, especially for his new baby John that he is cradling in his arms. He’s singing his thanks for what God will do, for the “mighty savior” that is already on his way to being born. And to get the real impact of Zechariah’s song, you need to hear a little bit of the backstory that led up to this magnificent song of gratitude.

That story started nine months ago, while Zechariah was in the Temple performing his priestly duties burning incense as an offering to God. All of a sudden, without any warning, an angel popped up at his elbow. And it wasn’t just any angel. It was Gabriel, God’s right hand angel! As Zechariah stood slack-jawed in amazement, Gabriel announced that Zechariah’s wife Elizabeth was going to give birth to a son, and that his name would be John. What’s more, John would be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he was born, and he would prepare the people to receive the coming of the Messiah. Now, this was all just a little bit too much for Zechariah. He and Elizabeth had no children, and they were way past the years when that was a consideration. Why, they’ve been on Medicare for 10 years now! A child? Get real! And Zechariah said as much. His response to Gabriel was something like, “Really? I’m an old man, and my wife is no spring chicken, either.” Now, telling an angel that you don’t believe his message is not a wise thing to do! Gabriel didn’t take too kindly to his lack of belief. In fact, the angel struck Zechariah silent, and announced that the old priest would stay that way until after baby John’s birth. And that’s just what happened. Not a peep was heard from Zechariah until after that baby was born and was named “John.” Then, the very first thing out of Zechariah’s mouth was this beautiful song of praise! His skepticism of God’s promise kept his mouth shut; but when he saw that God’s promise could be believed, his voice was freed for praise. Christians all over the world still sing Zechariah’s song. In fact, it’s traditionally sung during morning prayers by Christians who observe daily morning and evening worship. As they sing Zechariah’s song of praise, they pray that their voices will also be freed to sing God’s praises.

What we say – or what we don’t say – has a powerful effect not only on others, but on us as well. Talking about things makes them real to us. Once you tell someone that you love them, for example, you can’t really take it back. It makes that love permanently real, for better or for worse. Imagine the impact that statements like these have after they are spoken aloud:

• “I’m gay.”
• “I’m pregnant.”
• “I’m an alcoholic.”
• “I’m turning my life over to Jesus.”
• “My husband abuses me."
• “I forgive you.”

We can’t unsay these statements any more than we can unsee the images that we see on the evening news. Once we speak them, our feelings are real, both to us and to whoever is listening to us. Zechariah’s song of gratitude made that gratitude real – to himself, to the people who heard him, and to God. And it did something else, too. It made Zechariah one of the people who helped to prepare the way for God’s coming, just like his baby son John who would one day proclaim that God was on the way!

Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing, too? Aren’t we supposed to be preparing the way for the Lord? We can do that by expressing our gratitude to God a little more often than we usually do. Oh, we might say “Thank you” to God on Sunday morning in church; but do we dare to do it in public? Sitting on the sidelines and keeping our thoughts to ourselves may be safe, but it doesn’t help other people to see how God is working in our lives. Our society is full of people right now who spout doom and gloom like a pot boiling over. Just go on Facebook or Twitter and you can read all kinds of hate-filled messages. Does everyone feel that way? In the words of the late great singer Peggy Lee, “Is that all there is?” I, for one, believe that there is goodness in our world even though it might be hard to see at times. What if those of us who are getting ready for the Messiah would decide to point to that good? What if we, like Zechariah, decide to sing songs of praise instead? What if, during this Advent season, we make it our mission to express gratitude whenever we hear a negative thought? When the conversation turns to greedy politicians who seem to care only about themselves, what if we point to local people who are benefactors of the arts? Ben Schuster and Miriam Rosenthal are just two people here in Dayton who left beauty as their legacy; and there are many others who are still doing it. God is working through their hearts. Or what if, after acknowledging the suffering that is all around the world, we lift up all the people who participate in relief efforts to help relieve all that suffering? Doctors Without Borders, the Red Cross, and our own United Church of Christ all take great risks to help others who are in need. God is working through their hands. What if, instead of asking, “How can God possibly fix this?” we say, “I can’t wait to see what God is going to do next!” Could we change our skepticism into confidence that God will do what God has promised to do? I believe that it would make a real impact on a society that seems to have lost faith in anything good.

“Blessed be the God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them! By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace!” That was Zechariah’s song of gratitude. May it be our song, too, as we get ready for the coming of the Christ child!

A Song of Yearning

Advent is a time of waiting. So... what are we waiting for? Is it Santa who fills our stockings on Christmas Eve. or is it something else? This sermon might help you to think about that.

Advent is the time in the church year when we wait. For four long weeks, we wait. Oh, the stores might be playing “Joy to the World,” but we’re waiting, we Christians. And our waiting begs the question, “What are you waiting for?” Now, that question can be taken two ways. It might be a question asked of someone who isn’t taking action that he might take. If a young man who is attracted to a young lady, for example, but he hasn’t asked her out, his friend might ask him – probably somewhat impatiently – “What are you waiting for?” Go ahead! Take control of this situation! Ask her out! But there’s another way to ask that same question: “What are you waiting for?” If we ask it of a ragged woman who is standing by a bus stop holding a tattered suitcase and an old sleeping bag, we mean it another way. “What are you waiting for?” Are you waiting for the bus? A taxi? A ride from a friend? Or are you waiting for someone to offer you bus fare because you don’t have any money? And when we ask the question this way, we assume that the one who is waiting has no control of the situation whatsoever. Otherwise they wouldn’t be waiting!

Advent is this second kind of waiting. What are we waiting for? Why, we’re waiting for God to show up; and we have no idea when that is going to be, we just know that one of these days, it’s going to happen; and we want to be around when it does! We’re waiting because we’ve done all that we can, but our world is hurting and our lives are incomplete, and we have this deep yearning way down inside that we can’t explain and we certainly can’t fill. What are you waiting for? What is your deepest yearning that will be satisfied when God finally arrives? The details of that answer are different for each one of us; but I’ll bet that if we ask a few people that question, we’ll recognize ourselves somewhere in their answers. Let’s meet them.

Teresa is over there, sitting on the curb. She’s wearing a pair of ragged blue jeans and a green tee shirt that’s at least two sizes too big for her. Teresa ran away from home when she was 13, because she couldn’t stand the woman that her father married after her mother’s death. She left with only the clothes on her back and the fuzzy brown teddy bear that she’d had since she was 3 years old. After a year of sleeping on the street, this prodigal daughter decided that it was time to go home; but when she called her home phone number, the phone had been disconnected. She’s 15 now and has no idea how to locate her father. Teresa is making out OK. She sleeps in shelters and eats in food kitchens; and all those people are nice to her, but more than anything else, she wants a family, relationships with people who love her. Don’t we all want that?

Over there, on the other side is Keeshon. Right now he’s shooting hoops with a couple of his friends on a vacant lot surrounded by the shells of boarded-up buildings. Keeshon is 16 and lives in the projects of the inner city. His dad left when Keeshon’s little sister was only 2, and hasn’t showed his face since. His mother works a couple of low-wage jobs to support the family. Keeshon is looking for a meaning to his life. He’s not a bad student – he generally gets B- and C+ in school – but he knows that’s not good enough to get him into college. His mother loves and supports him, but she dropped out of high school herself. Keeshon doesn’t want to deal drugs or go on welfare, but he knows his options are limited. He believes that he will never get out of the projects. “Is this all there is?” he asks. Keeshon is yearning for a life of meaning! Can we argue with him?

Way over there, so far away that you can hardly see him, is Jamal. Right now he’s standing in line in the middle of a tangle of makeshift tents waiting to get a gallon of water. Jamal is in a refugee camp in Eastern Europe with his wife and young son. They used to live in Syria, but when he heard that ISIS was just a few miles away, they fled with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They are Christian, you see, and they knew that the thugs of ISIS would murder any Christians that they found. Jamal just wants a place to live in peace. He has heard rumors of resettlement, and that would be fine with him; but what he really wants is to go back home. Home: a place where Jamal can raise his son in security and peace. Is that too much to ask?

Finally, right over here is Emily, the older woman sitting in a wheelchair. Emily lives in an assisted living facility, and she is quite comfortable. Her children visit her frequently and make sure that she is well taken care of. Her life has been good, and she has been able to do many of the things that she values; but she’s tired. Emily’s husband died… oh, it must be over 10 years ago, now; and all her close friends have died, too. Even though Emily has made new friends in assisted living, she yearns for the people she used to know. Emily is waiting to be reunited with her late husband and with the friends who have all gone before her into glory. Emily is yearning for the joy of eternal life. Maybe we all are.

Did you recognize yourself in any of these folks and in what they yearn for? A family… a meaning to our life… security… peace… eternal joy. Aren’t these the things that we all want, in the end? And no one can buy them at Wal-Mart and stuff them into a stocking for us to pull out on Christmas morning. God’s grace alone can give them to us. That’s why the psalmist wrote, “Restore us, O Lord God almighty!” (Psalm 80) and why we sing, “O come, O come, Emmanuel!” We’re yearning for what God alone can give us. So we will wait, this Advent season, and the days will tick by until Christmas. As we wait, I invite you to ask yourself, “What am I waiting for?”

Forever Thankful

So, what are YOU thankful for this Thanksgiving? I ask the question in this sermon and suggest that maybe our typical responses aren't the best ones. Do you agree with me?

Thanksgiving is this Thursday already; and that’s no news to any of you. Have you bought your turkey yet? How about the cranberries? Sweet potatoes? Pumpkin pie? If you haven’t shopped yet, you’d better get cracking, because that big day of eating is right around the corner! But despite all the preparation that goes into that day’s dinner for many families, Thanksgiving isn’t a major holiday; it’s really only a “sandwich holiday.”

Now, I’m not saying that because turkey sandwiches follow us around for days after Thanksgiving! No, Thanksgiving is a “sandwich holiday” because it is sandwiched in between two other holidays that have become big business. Halloween, the holiday just before Thanksgiving, now brings in the second most sales dollars in the whole year! Halloween used to mean a homemade hobo costume for your kids and pumpkin cupcakes at school; but now it is a major retail event with adults as its target. Those adults spend big bucks on costumes, decorations, and party supplies. And of course, following close on its heels is Christmas. If Christmas merchandise isn’t already in the stores at Halloween, it’s there in the next few days, enticing us to buy all kinds of gifts that will amaze our kids, our friends, our spouse, and even our in-laws with our creativity and our generosity.

And that’s exactly the problem. Because it is sandwiched in between buying stuff for Halloween and stuff for Christmas, even if Thanksgiving doesn’t get lost, its emphasis is twisted to focus on stuff that can be bought and sold. Quick, what comes to mind when I ask you what you are thankful for this Thanksgiving? Your house? Your car? Your comfortable recliner and your big screen TV that brings you your favorite football team in high definition? It’s fine to be thankful for those things. I know that I’m thankful for what I have. But let’s set all those things aside, for a few minutes at least, and let’s imagine what would happen if a tornado swept away all that stuff. What would we be thankful for then? Ah, that makes us think a little bit!

Many of us would be thankful for our health. I hear that a lot: “At least I’m healthy.” And that is a good thing to be thankful for! But some of us aren’t healthy. In fact, most of us at some time in our lives won’t be healthy at all. It’s just a fact of life that as we age, most of us deal with chronic diseases. Our bodies just don’t work as well as they once did. So I ask you again – if we don’t give thanks for our possessions or for our health, what are we thankful for? I have some suggestions that you might want to consider when you’re bowing your head, ready to say grace at the dinner table on Thursday.

You might want to say thanks for the people who love you. Some of those folks are probably people in your family. But there are many others – close friends, for example. These folks will pick up the phone and ask, “What can I do?” when you call them at 3:00 in the morning. They know you, and they care about you, and they put your welfare before their own convenience. And some of the people who love you don’t even know you personally! These are the people who put love into action by the way they live their lives. These folks donate food to soup kitchens because they know that people are hungry. If you were hungry and needed some help, they would be there for you. Other folks work on disaster assistance teams. Remember that tornado that blew away all your stuff earlier in the sermon? In the aftermath of that tornado, these folks would be helping you to sort out whatever was left from the storm, giving you a shoulder to cry on, and helping you rebuild. They work in offices that offer assistance to folks that are down and out, in day care centers, and in the corner grocery store. They volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, answer the phone for FISH, fight fires and protect our communities. The late Fred Rogers – the beloved Mr. Rogers – once said, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” His mother was right, and I hope that we all give thanks for them!

But there’s something else that we can be thankful for – whether we have lots of stuff or nothing at all; whether we are healthy or sick; whether we have lots of friends or just one or two. We can be thankful that God’s love – the love that we show to one another so imperfectly – that love is going to get the last word! In fact, this last Sunday before Advent is the day dedicated to celebrating just that certainty. You heard about love’s last word in the scripture reading just a few minutes ago (Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14). We saw a vision that imagined the end of time, with God seated on the throne, giving all authority to someone who was called “the Son of Man.” Jesus applied that title – the Son of Man – to himself. And that is something to celebrate, because it means that one day – although we don’t know exactly when – Jesus will get the last word. One day, God’s love will be so broad, so wide, and so deep that it will spread all throughout creation! One day, all fear and hate and greed and evil will be wiped away! One day, all relationships will be mended, and every creature will be the beautiful part of creation that God means for it to be! One day, “grace” will cover everything like a pure, white blanket of snow.

Don’t waste time trying to figure out when this is going to take place. Nobody knows but God. Jesus himself didn’t even know! And for heaven’s sake, don’t stop trying to make the world a better place, because God expects those of us who follow Jesus to do just that. But don’t lose hope. Don’t lose hope when all our efforts look like they’re in vain. Don’t lose hope when you read the morning paper or listen to drive-time radio or watch the evening news. Don’t lose hope when friends and neighbors think that there is no hope. Because we know better. We may not be able to fix what’s wrong with our world, but we know that God can. And God has given authority to Jesus, the Son of Man, the one who died for us on Calvary and rose again so that we might have new life!

So when someone asks you this week what you’re thankful for, go right ahead and say, “I’m thankful that I have lots of stuff that makes my life comfortable.” That’s OK. I’m thankful for those things, too. Say, “I’m thankful for all the people who love me, and for all the helpers in this world.” I’m going to say that. And I hope that, even if you don’t say it, deep down in your heart, you will give thanks to God that love will get the last word. Because, in the end, God’s love that gives us hope is the one thing that we can be forever thankful for.