Category: Faith

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Mark 1:4-11

My sermon from Baptism of Our Lord Sunday (January 14, 2024) on Mark 1:4-11

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So on Thursday night, the Special Gifts committee met to review the various ministry projects that you think should be funded by our Special gifts fund. These projects included such diverse ideas as supporting a Lutheran mission amongst the Navajo, building affordable housing in New Orleans, and even replacing the parking lot outside our church doors. Over the last few years, we’ve been a bit cautious in how we use the Special Gifts fund since there was a slight disruption in how it was funded. But things had resolved enough that the Committee realized we have some money to spend. Our Special Gifts fund is supported primarily by the Anna and Dominick Ricci Foundation who were former members of CLC. When Dominick died, they created a foundation to support the organizations they cared about. For almost fifteen years, their ongoing support has impacted our personal understanding of what giving, generosity, and ministry should look like in this place. Prior to the Special Gifts fund, generosity was sometimes tied to something very physical especially when something like a new boiler needed to be installed. When you made a financial gift to your congregation, you would get a tangible return to the money you put in. If, for example, your gift went towards the heat pumps installed in the sanctuary, you would physically feel that gift heat up the back of your neck. But generosity can be harder when it goes towards something that feels a bit more ambiguous like my salary or for Sunday School supplies that you’ll never touch and feel. The Special Gifts fund has forced us to re-evaluate and re-engage with what faithful generosity looks like since it’s less about what we get and more a response to what we’ve received. And while that might be easy to say, it isn’t always something we experience first hand since our lives are filled to the brim with different kinds of joys, struggles, tragedies, worries, and fears. What we need, I think, is something to seep through all the stuff life brings so we can faithfully respond to what God has given to us. 

Now near the end of the Special Gifts’ meeting, our conversation turned towards water which, after two cold January rain storms, most of us would prefer to ignore. But if you’ve driven on our parking lot within the last few years, you know we’ve reached the limit of asking Brian to manually fill in the giant pot-holes that keep appearing. Our parking lot is at a low point on our property which means when the water flows down the hill behind the church, it pools on top of it. Yet that isn’t the only water issue impacting the pavement outside. Our property, as I understand it, also has a very high water table which means there’s a lot of ground water trying to break through our parking lot from below. That water is always present, moving and flowing, freezing and melting, seeping into every small crack and transforming them into large holes. The constant presence of this water impacts a lot of what we do since our ministry is built on how accessible this place is. We can, for a while, pretend as if that water isn’t there but there comes a point when that water will make it through. 

And that image of water seeping through might serve as an appropriate metaphor as we spend today pondering Jesus’ baptism. Now it will never not be weird that Jesus was baptized since, to us, baptism is all about a sinner being washed clean and brought deeper into the body of Christ. That, though, wasn’t something Jesus needed so it’s not always easy to find some spiritual fruit to nourish our souls. Whenever I run into a biblical story like this, that’s typically when I do my best to step into it – by joining Jesus as he waited in the water for John. We can imagine being there, in and along the banks of the Jordan River while surrounded by shepherds, fisherman, old, young, the sick, and the faithful. The large number of people there made what we might imagine as a very private spiritual moment into something very public. Standing there, waiting for John to call us forward, probably made the whole experience feel a bit like some kind of spiritual assembly line. I don’t say that as a way to discredit John’s work or to act as if our rituals are more faithful than his. Instead, when we pay attention to the entirety of Jesus’ baptism, we notice how it wasn’t only some cosmic event where the heavens opened and a divine voice spoke. There’s also a large part of it that was very human. When Jesus went to the water, he experienced it just like we do. He felt the top of his head get wet and the gentle trickle of water droplets as they fell down his cheek. The silt in the river caused his nose to twitch and the air in his lungs grew hot the longer he held his breath. And when John uttered his special words and prayers, Jesus only heard a bit of them since most of it was probably distorted by the water covering his ears. When the ritual was finally over, the words from heaven were quickly replaced with the need to go up the river bank and back into the life he was already living. Jesus’ baptism wasn’t about where he had come from or solely about who John declared him to be. Jesus’ baptism was a beginning to what comes next. The fullness of Jesus’ ministry, the healing, the relationship building, and his willingness to show what life looks like when God’s kingdom comes near, happened after he came up from the water. Jesus didn’t need to get baptized to experience the mercy, hope, and peace we want faith to bring into our lives. But his baptism does invite us to notice what life is supposed to look like once we are baptized. 

The waters of baptism, like the waters outside CLC’s front doors, do more than pool in puddles and flow down hills. These waters are meant to seep through us and into our world. These waters not only unite us with Christ but they make God’s words to Jesus, God’s words to us. God declared that you are beloved which, while amazing, isn’t necessarily something tangible we can grip onto, see, or even fully feel. But it is our beginning – an invitation to take the love that has claimed us and move it out into our parking lot and beyond. When we show, embody, and express that belovedness to others – that’s how we transform the intangible faith we hold into something true and real. And while we don’t always realize exactly how our baptism seeps through us, I’ve seen it move and flow in a place like our parking lot. It’s often out there where you check in with each other, asking about each other’s joys, hurts, and fears. It’s out there where you build each other up through the art of actually listening to what each other says. And when there are no words to describe the worry, anxiety, and sorrow someone feels – our parking lot is big enough to hold every tear. Our parking lot is a place where we want to do all we can to stop water from seeping through. Yet it is also one of the first places where the waters of baptism seep through you to make a real difference in our world. Those moments might not always be over the top or big or ones when we recognize what we’re actually doing. Yet it is often in these small interactions where the faith we are given grows into a love that always breaks through. 

Amen.

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.’” Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.”

When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

Matthew 2:1-12

My sermon from Epiphany Sunday (January 7, 2024) on Matthew 2:1-12.

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Now I know the season of Christmas technically ended yesterday but since I moved the celebration of Epiphany to today – you have permission to keep listening to Christmas music. In fact, I sometimes feel the urge to listen to Christmas carols throughout the year which is why my computer is full of way too many of them. I’ve found, over time, that the number of unique Christmas songs isn’t very large but the number of different versions of each song is almost endless. And one of those many imitated Christmas carols is based slightly on our reading today from the gospel according to Matthew. In that song, we’re invited to imagine ourselves as a little child who saw all these people going in and out of a cattle shed in the town of Bethlehem. Among those people included folks from out of town who brought rich gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Rumors swirled throughout the community that this newborn might be royalty even though kings don’t usually have an animal’s food bowl as their first crib. The child who was watching and listening, wondered if they could bring a gift to the baby too. But they, like the new family, were not particularly wealthy. The child felt as if they had nothing to offer. But since this is a Christmas carol, they did have a small drum. They wonder if maybe, just maybe, the gift of a song was something a newborn and their mom might want to hear. So the child, with all the courage they could muster, entered their home, looked at Mary, and asked if it was okay to “pa rum pum pum pum.” A drum solo isn’t usually what parents want to experience once they’ve put their newborn down for a nap. But the Christmas carol – the Little Drummer Boy – does reveal an overlooked aspect of the magi’s story. The story at the heart of the celebration of the Epiphany – when magi/wisemen/kings met a baby born in Bethlehem – wasn’t only about what these strangers did. It’s also a story about who welcomed them once they got there. 

Now in our Bible, people are sometimes categorized as either Jewish or gentile with a gentile simply being someone who wasn’t Jewish. But another phrase often used in place of gentile was “the nations.” That phrase described more than people who were defined by the invisible lines that designate which territory belongs to which political entity. “The Nations” also included all the different ethnic, religious, and cultural groups that exist in our world. “The Nations” included those who were part of large, multicultural, and hard-to-define groups like the people who lived within the Roman Empire. And “the nations” also included those who were identified by the town, city, or even valley they called home. “The Nations” wasn’t used as a term to only distinguish between “them” and “us;” it also described just how diverse the world truly is. And while most people in the ancient world rarely left the area they grew up in, they loved hearing stories about those who live “out there.” Every war, trade route, and wandering preacher made the world a much smaller place. And it was expected that someone – maybe even a messenger from God – might soon visit with news, stories, and a point of view they hadn’t heard before. That expectation, along with living in a world that doesn’t always have much of a safety net, is why our Bible spends so much time talking about hospitality. And much of that hospitality is centered on welcoming the stranger who showed up at your door. 

But what exactly that welcome looks like wasn’t always set in stone. And when the magi arrived in King Herod’s territory, he welcomed them in a very self-serving way. Now these magi were, most likely, Zoroastrian astrologers living in the Parthian Empire who spent their lives looking at the night sky. It was widely believed throughout most of the ancient world that the movement of the planets and stars, especially when a person was born, defined what their entire life was going to be about. When the magi noticed a strange star stirring in the sky, they assumed an important person had been born. And so they set out to find said person who was born to their west. This journey, though, was dangerous since the Parthians and the Romans fought all the time. Both assumed they had a divine right to rule their world. The magi, though, didn’t seem to think important people could only be like them so they crossed the border into a strange land. However, unlike the GPS on our phones, the magi didn’t know exactly where this important person was. So they did what any rational person would do and went to the place they expected important people to be. When they arrived at the palace of the king, they were welcomed by Herod who listened to – and believed – their story. He took care of them while figuring out how to violently respond to this threat to his rule. He gathered his advisors to figure out where this king might be. And while he could have kept this information to himself, he shared it with these strangers as a way to use them for his own violent purposes. Hospitality, for Herod, included giving food, resources, and information to these strangers from somewhere else. But everything he did was rooted in what he would get. 

Herod, though, wasn’t the only person who offered the magi hospitality during their visit. They still had one more place to go. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the home they went to was so mundane they needed a star to bring them to its door. We could focus on what they did when they got there, celebrating with joy and walking straight in. But since hospitality mattered so much in their culture, I imagine they were primarily welcomed and embraced. This welcome didn’t come only from the Son of God but also from his mother, the adult in the room. In the words of Rev. Joann Post, “Mary does not hesitate to invite them into her home, to introduce them to her son, to receive their well-intentioned but wildly inappropriate gifts. Because…she knew they would come. Maybe not these particular strangers, but she knew the world would come to meet her son. And she knew that she would welcome them in his name.” Mary wasn’t simply letting random people like shepherds, angels, and kids who loved drum solos to do what they wanted at her expense. She, instead, offered hospitality by welcoming everything the magi represented. They were the nations, the world, and people who might never become the followers of God and Jesus we assume they would be. Instead, the magi were exactly who they were – and Mary showed them Jesus before he preached his first sermon, performed his first miracle, or even took his first step. Jesus had done nothing and Mary knew, through the grace of God, that Jesus wasn’t only for her, her family, or her corner of the world. Jesus was for all. The welcome she offered, unlike the welcome modeled by King Herod, wasn’t about her. She didn’t focus on what she would get or receive. The hospitality she showed was about helping the ones who showed up – to thrive. Sometimes that welcome looks like offering a person food, a place to rest, or even an invention for them to make this community their home. Yet this welcome can also be simply letting people – those who are here and those who are brand new – to simply be who they’re supposed to be. When we do that well, learning how to listen, care, and grow with people we do not know – something new comes into being. The magi came to see a newborn king and Mary, who opened the door, reaffirmed what the star had already revealed to them: that God’s love and God’s story even included folks who are never described as becoming followers of Christ. I wonder how we, who’ve been welcomed by Jesus through baptism and through faith not because of who we are but because of who Jesus is, may be a bit like Mary and reflect that same kind of welcome in this community and throughout our world. 

Amen.

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

Luke 2:1-20

My sermon from Christmas Eve (December 24, 2023) on Luke 2:1-20.

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So every year, once the leftover mashed potatoes are finally put away in the fridge and I’ve caught my cat for the twentieth time trying to eat an entire Thanksgiving turkey on his own, I then start to think about where to put all the Christmas that’s waiting to come out. The very first thing I do is compose a spirited motivational speech to inspire my three children to move their toys so that the tree can be put where it always goes. I then dig out said tree from the garage and engage in a modern day archeological dig to uncover which plastic tub under which piles holds all the supports I need. Once that’s done, I begin the many trips up and down a pull-down staircase into my attic to bring down the boxes upon boxes of ornaments that are either ancient family heirlooms or were on sale at Target in 2015. It’s not long until my entire house is overflowing with Advent calendars, nativity sets, fake garland, strands of electric lights, and dozens of school art projects that take over every room. When the inside is done, it’s time to move outdoors and figure out if the trees and shrubs have finally made it impossible for me to safely put out a 12 foot tall inflatable Reindeer and a giant Stegosaurus wearing Santa’s hat. By this point, most of that Christmas has a place where it’s supposed to go since I’ve had the chance to make several traditions while living my life. All the special ornaments and knick-nacks and dancing plastic trees that play the same song over and over again – all of that has become the background for the deep relationships and experiences that define our Christmas story. Yet there’s also a sense that this holiday never really stays the same. Sometimes the change might be small, like buying a new ornament to replace the one you loved after it was torn apart by a cat in the middle of the night. But there are other changes that the stuff of Christmas can’t really hide. There’s the smell of a Christmas cookie that reminds us of the last batch we made for a friend. And there’s that nutcracker that doesn’t seem to sit right since the person who always put it in its place is no longer here. The stuff of Christmas isn’t only the colorful accessories filling our homes, our yards, and our social media feeds. There’s also all that other stuff lurking within our minds, our hearts, and our souls. When it comes to Christmas, there’s always a lot of stuff – and we’re not always exactly sure where we can put it.

Now our story tonight began with Mary and Joseph being, in a sense, put into place. The Roman Emperor, according to Luke, organized a census to discover where all the people were. He wanted to know who he could tax and where he could find the soldiers needed to perpetuate a Roman peace won through violence and war. According to our story, the counting was a bit odd because it asked people to return to their ancestral homes. Joseph, a descendant of King David, was then forced to visit the town of Bethlehem where David had first been identified as Israel’s king nearly 1,000 years before Joseph was born. Joseph knew the importance of where his ancestors came from but it wasn’t his home. He and Mary had grown up 90 miles away in the town of Nazareth, which was located near the Sea of Galilee. That was the place where they had lived their lives while surrounded by parents, family members, and friends. But when the Emperor told them to move, a nearly 9 month pregnant Mary as well as her fiance left their home to travel by foot to a town they didn’t really know. And when they got there, they were surrounded by all the other people the Emperor had put there too. Most, I imagine, found shelter with family and friends while some ended up in the homes of strangers who had embraced the biblical call to offer hospitality to all. A handful of others tried their luck at the few hotels operating in the area while the rest pitched tents out in the cold. By the time Mary and Joseph arrived, their available housing options were limited. So they did what they could and found shelter with a few new roommates who were a bit harrier than we might expect. They, along with everyone else in Bethlehem, did the best they could to live their lives through such a disruptive event. Even though things were different now, life kept moving forward. And when Jesus came, these two expectant parents from somewhere else, swaddled him with cloth and held him close. In the very first moments of Jesus’ life, he was cherished by a teenager who had carried him through thick and thin. And around them both was a guardian who put himself into that family when others would have run away. That whole moment was challenging and exciting, filled with terror and joy all at the same time. But they were both soon exhausted, and it came time for even Jesus’ parents to put them down. They looked around in the space they were in and borrowed an animal’s food bowl to make Jesus a crib he could call his own.

On that first Christmas, over 2000 years ago, Mary and Joseph didn’t spend their time trying to figure out where to put Christmas. They, instead, simply lived through all the change Christmas brings. This wasn’t, I think, what Mary thought her birthing experience was going to be like when she consented to the message she heard from the angel Gabriel. If she could have planned out what Christmas might be, I imagine her close friends and parents would be among the very first people she’d invited to come over and see the new baby that was born. Yet when dawn drew near, her room wasn’t filled with family but with shepherds she was meeting for the very first time. Being there at that moment and at that specific time wasn’t exactly what she would have planned for. But it was the moment when God put Jesus with us. He wasn’t placed where we’d expect the Son of God to be but rather with the people who needed to know that God chose to put on our hurts, our joys, and everything else life brings. It wasn’t the stuff around Mary and Joseph that made their Christmas what it was supposed to be. Instead, it was about how Jesus chose to put himself into all the stuff that Christmas brings. God’s love for you and the world doesn’t depend on how jolly or merry or festive you feel right now. Christmas doesn’t happen because the tree is exactly where it’s supposed to be and you managed to mail out every Christmas card before you came to church tonight. Christmas doesn’t require you to push aside the grief and sorrow that makes this night harder than we’d like to admit. Christmas doesn’t depend on the stuff we bring because Jesus has already decided to put himself with you. The life you live has value; the experiences that made you who you are – matter; and the relationships that gave you so much joy but are also causing your hearts to ache right now – all of that is wrapped up in a love that will never end. We’ll never know exactly where to put all the stuff that comes with Christmas. The lights hanging outside might have their place but what we hold inside might swirl and swirl and swirl with no other place to go. Yet even during those incredibly disruptive and life-changing moments, Christmas comes – because God has already decided to never let you go. As we spend tonight and tomorrow singing and celebrating, let’s be brave enough to be who we are with all our joys, hurts, cares and needs. Let us, together, live the life we’re actually. Let us believe that even though our experience of Christmas might change, the reality of CHristmas itself never will. And that’s because God sees you, God knows you, and Jesus is right there beside you to carry you through.

Amen.

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

Luke 1:26-38

My sermon from the 4th Sunday of Advent (December 24, 2023) on Luke 1:26-38.

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So there was a meme floating around the internet not too long ago based on a scene from the movie Return of the Jedi. Luke Skywalker had just returned to the planet of Dagobah to ask Yoda, a Jedi Master hiding from the Empire, a few questions. The last time they were together, Yoda was training Luke to become like him. But when Darth Vadar captured his friends in the cloud city of Bespin, Luke left Yoda to try and rescue them. After a brutal fight in the bowels of the city, Vader told Luke something he didn’t want to believe. So Luke headed back to Dagobah to discover what Yoda knew. While they talked, Yoda did his best to not answer the question. Yet after a little bit, he admitted that – spoiler alert – Darth Vader really was Luke’s biological father. Once that truth was shared, Yoda died and the meme used a picture from the film right before that happened. But instead of focusing on what Luke learned, the meme was a joke connecting it to an experience all parents and guardians can relate to. It said: “Once I became a parent I finally understood the scene where Yoda gets so tired of answering Luke’s questions he just dies.” Luke, in his own way, is the quintessential sci-fi version of the kid who always asks why. Now that kind of curiosity is a good thing but we don’t always have the energy to try and explain in 30 seconds why the sky is blue, why some dogs are brown, if ghosts are real, and what life would be like if we had no bones. Asking questions or being able to even answer them isn’t always easy to do. Yet while reading this morning passage from the gospel according to Luke, I couldn’t help but notice how Mary was brave enough to question God and Gabriel was smart enough to answer the real question at the heart of her words.

Now when we find ourselves listening to a story that is either new to us or one we’ve heard a million times before, I think it’s important to use our imagination to wonder what it might have been like. We can paint a picture in our heads using all the details the Bible gives while noticing the assumptions we use to fill in any gaps. It’s an exercise that holds us accountable for all the stuff we bring to our Bible while inviting it to surprise us in compelling ways. So let’s do that with our story about what happened when the angel Gabriel visited Mary. Imagine, for a moment, a divine being radiating with the overwhelming majesty and power of God – showing up in your home. We’d hope that such an experience would be peaceful but I think it would be pretty scary. Mary had every reason to be freaked out by this stranger showing up since she was anything but powerful. She was a young teenage girl, maybe only 13 or 14 years old at the time, who came from a poor family. In the eyes of those around her, she was nothing; and yet the God who created the universe came to see her.

It’s a bit hard to imagine the fullness of what that moment must have been like. But I personally can’t help but be in awe of Mary’s courage and bravery. She could have cowered in fear of the overwhelming presence of the divine or acted as if God couldn’t do what God wanted to do. Mary, though, chose to do something else. She asked a question – wondering how her story and God’s story would meet. It was, in a sense, a question of “how” since she knew how babies were made and the story of her life so far. But she was also well aware of the social costs that come with being a young unmarried woman with a child on the way. Mary had no desire to be prop in whatever God was up to since a pregnancy would change or possibly destroy the relationships she had with Joseph, her family, and everyone around her. Since Mary would be the one carrying this baby into the world, she wanted to know if her life would be as scary as she feared it could be.

Now if Gabriel had only answered the biological “how,” he probably would have found themselves in a situation like Yoda – being asked all kinds of questions over and over again. And yet when Mary had the guts to question this messenger from God, Gabriel actually listened. He heard her wanting to know how she was going to live in a world that doesn’t often accept women who do unexpected things. And so he answered by telling her about another woman who was living through the same thing. Mary’s cousin and friend Elizabeth, was entering the final trimester of her own pregnancy that no one thought was possible. She was living the kind of life Mary would live. And that was exactly what Mary needed to hear. It wasn’t the grand pronouncements stating how God was with her and she was favored and her child would be the Son of the Most High that fully addressed the anxiety she felt. But when she heard that a friend was already living her story, Mary consented to what God was about to do in the world.

In the words of Professor Raj Nadella, “For people at the margins facing difficult situations, what matters most is someone who will share in their experience, stand with them, and walk with them.” “In the end…it was the prospect of a shared experience that mattered to Mary more than any of those grand promises from Gabriel.” What Mary needed to know was that she wouldn’t go through this life alone. God wasn’t just going to be with her; God also gave her a person who she could talk to and who would believe every one of her stories. When others laughed at her, derided her, questioned her, and acted as if Mary could never be who God declared her to be – Elizabeth would be there to show her what God’s love actually looks like. God didn’t want Mary to be a prop in the Christmas story; she was, instead, going to live through it first hand. God would do what God has always done and bring grace, hope, mercy, and peace into the lives people lived. Mary, through the words of an angel, discovered that God would not let her live her life without people who would embrace her, love her, and be with her through every part of her story. And that same kind of promise, while maybe not delivered to you through the mouth of an angel, is given to you every time we worship, pray, sing, and gather in many different ways around Jesus’ table. When you were brought into the body of Christ, it wasn’t because God thought you’d never ask questions or that you would be a decent prop in God’s master plan. God, instead, included you in God’s story because God loves you and wants you to experience that love first hand. It isn’t always easy to notice that kind of love while living through everything that life brings. But that’s why God surrounds us with people, a community, and a church who are meant to show us what “God-with-us” actually means. There are days when we will be like Mary, asking questions and wondering why. And yet there will be even more when we get to be an Elizabeth to everyone God brings our way. On this fourth Sunday of Advent which also happens to be Christmas Eve, we gather together on this day not only to proclaim that Jesus – God-with-us – has been born but also to remind us how we, through God’s grace, can be with others in the exact same way.

Amen.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.

This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.” Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’” as the prophet Isaiah said. Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.

John 1:6-8, 19-28

My sermon from the Third Sunday of Advent (December 17, 2023) on John 1:6-8, 19-28.

Our text today from the gospel according to John might sound a bit familiar since we heard a version of this story last week. Mark, in the opening words to his version of Jesus’ life, introduced John the Baptist who was living out in the wilderness. The wilderness, according to the Bible, was more than simply a desert full of creepy, crawling things. The wilderness was always the place where our attempts at control broke down. John the Baptist, instead of living in a house, slept under the stars and relied on what he could find to fill his belly. We get the sense that if John was living today, he’d have a tiktok account showing him living completely off the grid. We’d watch as he collected rain water to wash his clothes and used an old solar panel array to provide all the electricity he needed. That kind of living might not be what we, personally, would want to do. But we’d be curious about the man who left so much behind. John, in a sense, was a kind of influencer who wanted people to see his story. But he wasn’t living in the wilderness as a way to disconnect himself from the world. Rather, there was something out there that he wanted to connect to the world. Scripture described the wilderness as the place where God lived. And John, I think, wanted to use that image as a way to expand the spiritual imagination of those around him. But he was a bit limited by the technology available to him. No one could simply open up their phones from the comfort of their beds and see what John was doing in the desert. They would need a different kind of invitation delivered to them in person. Yet by this point in the story, John had already figured out how to do that. Before he went into the wilderness, he developed his own status as a religious figure. He had his own group of disciples who followed his every word. Those disciples were, I imagine, sent by John to let people know he was doing. And as they told their story, others felt compelled to leave their villages and discover what God was up to in the wilderness. That began a movement of people constantly going in and out of the area. And when those people met John, their experience was exactly their own. Some decided to repent, to change how they lived their lives. While others might have wondered why they even went out to see John in the first place. The area was soon filled with people sharing their stories about a wildman preaching, teaching, and baptizing in the place God lived. And as those stories spread, a few religious leaders from the city of Jerusalem decided they wanted to hear this story for themselves. 

Now since John the Baptist kept drawing people to him, we sort of imagine him as a confident, over-the-top, and very charismatic person. In fact, he’s even described in other parts of our Bible as a firebrand with a bit of a temper. He was, I think, always himself. And yet, when the religious leaders asked who he was, his first response was to tell them what he wasn’t. I wonder, though, if that was his way of trying to reframe their experience of him since what the religious leaders knew was through the stories other people told. It was all those folks who defined who John was by sharing all they had seen and heard. And while we don’t know exactly what those people said, I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them turned to the stories and images found in their Bible as a way to describe what their experiences were all about. As they processed and shared their stories, they began to wonder if John really was the Messiah. He was, after all, developing a spiritual community that didn’t seem as if it would stay in the spiritual realm for very long. John actively pushed against Roman rule and he argued extensively against those who appeased them. Many felt as if he was laying the groundwork to try and re-establish the kind of kingdom David had ruled nearly 1000 years before. Their expectations for the Messiah and their experience of John in the wilderness swirled together in a way that made everyone wonder. And when the religious leaders who came to see him, those stories filled their heads. They didn’t know which ones to believe or push aside which is why their first question was so general. They wanted John to tell them who he was and he responded by letting them know that their expectations would not limit who he might be. John didn’t want them to simply hear the story; he wanted them to have their own story too. And so that, I think, is why he started his whole entire conversation with them with a lot of “nos.” He refused to fit into the stories they already carried because God’s story was already on the move. The people assumed that John was preparing the way for the Lord as if God God needed us to do something before God would show up. But John, I think, was doing something else. He wasn’t preparing the way for God; he was preparing us for the Jesus who was already here. 

And that, I think, is why telling our personal stories with our God is so central to John the Baptist’s ministry. It’s also why the gospel according to a different John made the sharing of our story a defining characteristic of what it means to follow Jesus. When we share our faith with others, we’re not only supposed to talk about Jesus himself. We don’t limit our words by only describing his divinity and what he did while walking the earthy nearly two thousand years ago. Instead, we talk about Jesus, we need to talk about the life we’ve actually lived. We need to talk in a way that sounds completely like us – naming our doubts, worries, fears, and joys. We need to admit what we got wrong and all the parts of our lives that have changed. We need to be honest about those moments when we felt God with us no matter how odd those stories might be. And we need to be willing to be vulnerable and reveal those times when God felt cold and distant. When we do this, we’re not doing it to brag or to pretend that all experiences of the divine are supposed to resemble our own. We are, instead, inviting others to discover the God who is already here. Our story, then, becomes the invitation into a wider story where grace, love, and hope transforms us all. As we move into this week before Christmas, let’s remember that there’s always more to God’s story. We don’t have to only focus on the joys, the miracles, and the parts of Christmas that feel angelic, peaceful, and pure. We can, instead, start with us and show others how Christmas is big enough to hold their story too. 

Amen. 

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.

Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!” See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.

Isaiah 40:1-11

My sermon from the Second Sunday of Advent (December 10, 2023) on Isaiah 40:1-11.

So this weekend, we’re wrapping up the annual Christmas gift drive organized by CLC’s women’s group. Today is the day when gift cards for those supported by Westwood Social Services are due and tomorrow is when all the physical gifts for kids served by the Tri-Boro Food Pantry need to be dropped off here at church. Now my family participates in the gift giving every year and we like to vary the age range of the kids we choose. This year, we went with someone who was very young and their parents said they needed some clothes, a few learning games, and a bike. Kate, within seconds of signing up for that kid, went online and immediately ordered a balance bike to help the 2 year old develop the skills they’ll eventually need to ride. After a few short days, that bike showed up at my home. I picked it up, brought it inside, and placed it right inside my front door. That bike, though, sat there for several days because it needed to be put together. Opening the box, seeing what’s inside, and reading through an instruction booklet written in three different languages wasn’t something I wanted to do right away. Kate and I were both very busy so we started doing a kind of dance where we kept volunteering each other to put the bike together. That went on for quite a while until my final excuse, that I needed to sit down and write today’s sermon, meant Kate put the whole thing together herself. She opened the box, read the instructions, and did exactly what she was supposed to do to bring a little Christmas joy to a kid and their family who needed some comfort this holiday season. 

Now our first reading today from the book of Isaiah is full of what feels like instructions. We’re told to “Comfort, O comfort …” (40:1). “Speak … cry …” (40:2). “… prepare … make straight …” (40:3). “… Cry out!” (40:6). “… Get you up … lift up your voice … lift it up, do not fear;” and “say …” (40:9). These words feel as if they’re part of a conversation where orders and directions were being given and shared. It’s a bit hard to see what exactly is going on here but when we put this passage back into its context, the whole thing sort of comes into view. So the first thing we need to do is remember what happened at the end of chapter 39 in the book of Isaiah. The prophet went to Hezekiah, the king of Judah, and said that a day was surely coming when the city of Jerusalem would be destroyed and most of its people forced to live in exile. That word, though, wasn’t an immediate prediction because it took nearly 100 years after it was said before Jerusalem fell. There is, within the space between the end of chapter 39 and the beginning of chapter 40, a long silence that the book of Isaiah doesn’t really describe. And when the Babylonian empire finally came to take the community away, the only thing they could do was lament. It felt as if their future had been taken away and they no longer had anyone or anything who would comfort them. The community, wrapped up in their sorrow and grief, waited and waited and waited until, almost 170 years later, the silence was broken and a new future grew. They, in essence, were waiting for God to make a move and when God did, the word to describe what God was doing was simply “comfort.” That word, though, was more than simply offering a gentle pat on the shoulder for those who have lived through so much. It was, instead, a promise that those who had no one to comfort them, now did. And to showcase exactly how decisive that declaration actually was, the book of Isaiah imagines God speaking these words to those among the divine assembly – the angels and messengers who would then go out to make that promise real. These commands, then, are really part of a conversation – trying to articulate what this new decree from God might look like. One voice among those many voices proposed building a kind of superhighway across the desert as a way to make the journey back to Jerusalem safe and easy. Yet that highway was about more than simply creating a safe passage for people to travel. Highways in the ancient world, according to Professor Walter Bruggemann, “were built…primarily for processional events, when rulers and gods could parade in victory…[as they returned] home.” The community, dislocated and forced to live far away, was now going to be brought home by the One who promises they will never be alone. These words, filled with all kinds of urgency, excitement, and energy, were not meant to be a list of what we’re supposed to do to earn this kind of declaration from our God. Rather, it was meant to be a promise of what God would do for the people – and the world – God loves. 

Yet what that comfort might look like is a bit hard to describe. Isaiah is, I think, imagining this comfort to be more than sitting by a cozy fire with a hot cup of tea on a cold snowy day. The comfort God gives often transforms us into something more. It’s a comfort that is often uncomfortable since it requires us to change our minds and our perspectives while undoing all our expectations of what God would do. It’s the kind of work that often leaves us uncomfortable by pushing us to form connections with people and places we don’t easily relate to. It’s the type of work we need to practice which is why we do that kind of work every Sunday morning. When we gather around the Lord’s table, what we’re doing is taking a seat at a meal we didn’t prepare ourselves. The food we’re given isn’t something we ordered off a menu nor do we get to pick where exactly we get to sit. Instead, we are surrounded by people that we know and those we don’t. Some of those people at the table with us are folks we’ve seen for years but, somehow, never learned their names. Others are folks who speak a language we don’t know and whose taste in music, movies, and vacation spots leave us asking the question: why? At Jesus’ table, the people we find ourselves next to are folks who don’t look like us, sound like us, think like us, raise their children like us, vote like us, or even have the same age, nationality, background, gender, career, or even the same abilities. Yet it’s there, while gathered together in the sanctuary, online, at home, and via conference call – when we each discover how the church cannot be what it’s supposed to be without all the other people worshiping with you. Now I’ll admit this isn’t always easy to see since there are times when we feel or make others feel as if they don’t really belong. Yet in the midst of our conflicts, struggles, trials, and tribulations – the spot we have at Jesus’ table is still there and we are fed by the One who will never let us go. This, I think, serves as a model for what God’s comfort is all about. It’s not about being comfortable; it’s about knowing, trusting, and believing that we, no matter what, belong to God. And if God’s comfort means we already have a place at Jesus’ table, then that shows the kind of comfort we get to offer others. We might not always be comfortable together but Jesus’ table can, and will, be the comfort that transforms us all. 

Amen.

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence— as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil— to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence! When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him. You meet those who gladly do right, those who remember you in your ways. But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed.

We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity. Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.

Isaiah 64:1-9

My sermon from the First Sunday of Advent (December 3, 2023) on Isaiah 64:1-9.

So on Monday morning, I pulled into the main parking lot here at church and noticed a plastic cup from Wendys sitting next to a parking spot. It looked as if someone put it down while getting out of their car and forgot to pick it up. A piece of litter sitting in our lot isn’t that surprising since folks often use our lot to eat their lunch in their car, make a phone call, or take a nap. Our lot is, technically, private property but it serves as a kind of refuge for people busy living their lives. I told myself I’d take care of the cup later on but, when later finally came,  I didn’t.  I thought that the wind, weather, and some random car doing donuts in the lot would, by the next morning, move the cup somewhere new. But when I drove up, it was still there – in the exact same spot. When Wednesday morning rolled around, the cup seemed to become more than simply garbage; it had become a part of our parking lot’s future. I now expected the cup to always be there – a testament to the immovable things that show up in our lives. I haven’t checked to see if the cup is out there this morning and I’ll admit it’s a bit silly to talk about a piece of garbage whose future should really be a trip to the recycling center. But it does invite us to wonder about those deeper things that somehow just show up and become those immovable and permanent parts of the futures we want to live. This wondering has been something God’s faithful people have done for a very long time. And in today’s first reading from the book of Isaiah, the community tries to find those immovable characteristics of God that hold us through all our sorrows and joys. 

Now to sit faithfully with this reading, we need to recall how it came to be during a specific part of Israel’s history. 70 years before it was recorded, the Babylonian empire had invaded the kingdom of Judah and laid siege to the city of Jerusalem. After a year-long siege, the Babylonians breached the city’s wall and decided that most – but not all – of surviving residents would have to leave. The civic and religious leaders, as well as the rich, the poor, workers, artisans, merchants, teachers, and more were sent on a 1700 mile journey into the heart of the Babylonian empire itself. For the next seventy years, that specific Jewish community built new lives for themselves along the banks of the Euphrates river. And part of that work involved trying to figure out what they were now supposed to be. They could have focused on their successes – only sharing the stories of their past when kings, queens, priests, and everyday people made God’s love real in their world. But they also chose to do the very odd thing of  remembering those bits where everything went wrong. Their identity as God’s people wasn’t merely defined by all the ways they “won.” They made sure to remain authentically themselves by remembering the conflicts that brought prophets into their midst. A prophet was an individual appointed by God to bring to the people a word about who God is and how their faithfulness was lived out in the ways they treated the most vulnerable among them. One of those prophets was Isaiah and near the end of the book attributed to him, we learn about what happened when some of the exiled community finally came home. The Babylonian Empire, at that point, had been overthrown by the Persians who then invited those whose ancestors were exiled from Jerusalem to go back. Not everyone wanted to go but those who did found the city to be a shell of what it once was. As they tried to rebuild God’s Temple and restore the city into something new, those who returned from Babylon and those who had remained in the city, were wondering what their God was up to. It seemed as if the future that some of them wanted had finally come. But strife, conflict, and all kinds of arguments showed that their future wasn’t going to be what they expected. As the grumbling grew, some within the community decided to do something different. They prayed one of the most brash and bold prayers they could do. 

And it began by acting as if God is an immovable force but one that they could still try to move. They demand God to break through what kept them apart and to make real in their own lives the same kinds of stories they heard in their Bible. It was a prayer that asked God to be God by creating the kind of space where life could be lived. We often describe God as all-knowing, all-powerful, an immovable force with a plan for us all. And yet we heard Isaiah share a prayer implying that what the community was going through was caused by God’s neglect. This isn’t the kind of thing we assume we’re allowed to say since we know we’re not perfect ourselves. But when we pray in an incredibly faithful way, being honest is what we’re called to be. It’s why, I think, Isaiah matched that bold assertion with an even bolder acknowledgement that their current trouble was deserved. They confessed that what they were living through wasn’t merely caused by their moral failing but rather how we often make ourselves into an immovable object with no need for God. We live as if grace and love isn’t enough and that we don’t need to be part of something bigger than ourselves. It’s unwilling to hold the fullness and complexity of life together since everything is defined by success or winning. Isaiah was brash enough to admit before God and before the entire community that when we make something other than God the foundation of who we are – there’s no demand we can actually make on God. But it’s then, at that moment, when faith makes its move since what matters isn’t trying to make us, an immovable object of wonder, worry, sin, and imperfection, to somehow come up to God; what matters is that our God chooses to not be an immovable force at all. 

The opening word of verse  8 – the word “yet” – might be the best word to describe what a life of faith is all about. It’s a kind of life that doesn’t pretend to be perfect because it knows how often that “yet” is the only thing we have. Pain, sorrow, grief, and tears make it so that we live in way too many futures we didn’t expect. But it’s the “yet” that carries us through since we know that the only thing we can do, in the words of Professor Walter Bruggemann, is to cede the initiative of our life “over to God, [who is] the only one who can give futures.” Living that way isn’t easy since it requires us to admit that there’s only so much we can do. Yet we have a God who broke down the distance between us by living a life that shows us what love will do. It’s in Jesus where we discover a future that extends beyond the limits of what this life will bring. Jesus does not ask us to create our own future but gives us a new one where grace and hope grows. In just a little bit we will use a little water, some prayers, and a community full of people whose futures have turned out quite different than they expected – to publicly welcome baby Kennedy into what God is already up to. She will be made a part of something bigger than herself because that’s what God’s love always does. Kennedy will be invited to not just become a part of God’s story but to actively participate in it through her own bold and brash prayers. She will be invited to be authentically and faithfully herself as Jesus guides her on the way. And when she finds herself living through a future she didn’t plan for or expect, Jesus will be right there beside her – showing how the only immovable thing in God’s creation is always moving, always flowing, and always stirring – eternal love of God. 

Amen. 

Jesus said to the disciples: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Matthew 25:31-46

My sermon from Christ the King Sunday (November 26, 2023) on Matthew 25:31-46.

So about a month ago, a new fuzzball joined my family. She’s about 8 months old, weighs approximately 40 lbs, and barks whenever someone knocks on the door. We named her Pepper and our two cats are finally willing to sit in the same room as her.  I haven’t lived with a dog for awhile so I wasn’t 100% sure what to expect when Pepper showed up. But I was honestly amazed by all the things she chose not to do. She wasn’t really interested in toys; she didn’t chase the cats; and when I accidentally left her alone at home for an entire day, nothing was chewed up. Pepper also surprised me because whenever I accidentally dropped food onto the floor, she simply ignored it. I initially hoped I would never need to sweep under my dining room table again now that Pepper was a part of my home. But in this joint process of integrating one another into our lives, I saw how embracing who she was rather than who I expected her to be, would make our relationship thrive. Working through our expectations into something new is, I think, one of the most faithful things we can do. And as we heard today in our reading from the gospel according to Matthew, Jesus knows just how hard that work will be. 

Now this reading is, if we’re honest, a bit difficult to integrate into who we imagine Jesus is. Outside these church walls, many of us are already gearing up for the story of a little baby born in Bethlehem. We’ve already decorated our homes with twinkling lights and we’re watching every Hallmark holiday movie we can find. We’re ready for a wholesome holiday full of eggnog, gifts, and a Jesus that warms us up like a cozy electric blanket. However the Jesus we just listened to is a bit terrifying. He talked about the Son of Man returning to Earth with every one of God’s angels. This Son was decked out in all his glory and when the entire world was brought before him, he immediately separated everyone into two groups. On his right hand he placed those who he’ll bless by fully welcoming them into the kingdom of God. But those he placed on his left will be sent somewhere else. This is the kind of Jesus we’re fine with as long as he’s focused on someone else. But when this Jesus turns his eyes towards us, a lump grows in our throat. We often use an unbiblical theological shorthand to describe who our experience of Jesus is. We pretend that the God we meet in the first half of our Bible is one who is full of judgment and wrath while the God we discover in Jesus is like a puppy dog wagging their tails. Jesus, though, chose his last sermon to his friends before his arrest, trial, and death, to end with a very complete and fiery judgment. And our struggle to integrate this Jesus with the one we expect even appears within the translation itself. We often choose to lessen Jesus’ impact by picking words that don’t impact us very much. For example, the word for “stranger” in our text is not really about the neighbor down the street who we often wave to but haven’t actually met. This stranger is the foreigner, the migrant, or the immigrant who finds themselves to be a stranger in a strange land – which was an experience Abraham, Moses, Ruth, Mary, and Jesus knew very well. In that same vein, the word for “welcome” is all about integrating people into a new kind of community where everyone is changed. And even the word we translate as “care” really means “to serve” which is something we don’t want to do when we feel like those around us deserve the state they’re in. The Jesus we can’t wait to meet on Christmas isn’t like the Jesus we meet today. And trying to integrate those two Jesuses together is a faithful task everyone of us needs to endure. 

So maybe instead of ignoring that task or choosing one Jesus at the expense of the other, I wonder if there’s a more authentic way to integrate Jesus’ words into our own. We can trust that Jesus really means what he says but we can also pay attention to what Jesus chose to talk about the most. The actual separation of people into two groups happened before Jesus explained any of his actions. He didn’t send people into a kind of courtroom where everyone saw what they had done or left undone before he shared his judgment on them. Instead, Jesus only used a handful of words to describe that judgment while putting most of his emphasis on the life that people actually lived. Both the sheep and the goats were surprised to learn that this wasn’t the first time they had experienced Jesus. They had already met him through the ones Jesus chose to be with. He was with the foreigner who lived among them and alongside those who were hungry, thirsty, sick, and in prison. Jesus was always there, right out in the open, with the people we often choose to ignore. And while we personally might be a bit nervous imagining Jesus to be a kind of judge, he knows we have no problem being the judge ourselves deciding who is worthy of our welcome, love, and service. 

So, in one sense, the judgment Jesus embodies is a reflection of the judgment we’ve already given. And while I personally lean towards the Jesus who chose to grow up and experience the kind of love we are called to bring into the world, I’m also grateful that he won’t let us be the final word on what love will do. Jesus came to integrate us into a holy way of life that breaks through every one of our expectations. That work, though, isn’t always easy since it’s a work we never really stop doing. And it’s often when we’re in a rhythm that feels holy and true when everything changes. That change might be small like discovering after your Thanksgiving dinner that the dog you thought wasn’t food motivated had licked clean every single dessert bowl and plate on the dining room table. But this work can also upend our entire lives when the life we’ve built with other people comes completely undone. Yet through it all we have a Jesus who, no matter what, chooses to be with us. And during those moments when love is hard, trust that you are God’s beloved and Jesus will never let you go. The life of faith is a life that is always trying to integrate Jesus’ love into our own. And while we don’t always know what that looks like, it does, I think, resemble to a small degree what happened when the last runner of the most recent NYC Marathon crossed the finish line. When we wait for each other, support one another, cheer for each other, and include those we don’t even know, we are using all we have been given to serve our God. And while that isn’t an easy thing to do, it is something we can do because the Jesus who has claimed us as his own will be alongside us – forever. 

Amen.