"Fear and Courage in the Christmas Story" - Epiphany 2020

Saint Matthew 2:1-12

The highlight of almost every church Christmas pageant is the arrival of “the Three Kings.”  Children, boys and girls now, dressed in costumes that bear a striking resemblance to their parent’s bathrobes and crowns that look like they either came from Burger King or are so tattered and worn that they look like they could have belonged to the original owners. Because they are children, forced to play dress up at their parents wishes their rages as actors stretch from the uninterested to the uncomfortable.

They are probably not as uncomfortable as the mixed pairs who get assigned to play the camels.  In very creative churches, with big budgets to spend at Fantasy Costumes, the tallest child is usually teamed up with the shortest to make up a costumed camel.  The good news for them is that they usually don’t have any lines to memorize.  The bad news for the one bringing up the rear is that the scenery never changes.

They “traverse” down the center aisle to the strains of “We Three Kings.”  It’s beloved.  It’s traditional.  And as Owen Meany points out none to delicately in the John Irving novel, if you don’t want to rush into Easter and choose to end the song with the fourth stanza, the final line will be:  “Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying” Which Owen points out: “Doesn’t sound very Christmasy to me.”1
 

I am sorry to tell you this but as we reflect on the story it will appear less like the romantic tale that we have become used to but rather the stuff of high drama.  This is a story that brings with it all kinds of skirmishes between good and evil, between God and all those who would corrupt and destroy.   It is not only a story about gifts for a child but about “a madman who lived every moment of his life in fear of losing all that he had gained.”2
 

Fear is the darker part of the story that everybody wants to leave out.

T..S. Eliot caught this in his poem, The Journey of the Magi.

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.3

 Those voices may have begun before their journey even started.  They may have begun with members of their very own family. 
 

For you see there are many misconceptions about these travelers.  We only assume that there were three because of the three gifts.  There could have been three hundred or only one with a very large shopping bag.
 

And they were not kings at all.  No matter what the song that we will sing says they were not kings they were Magi.   Magi is the root of our word for magician but these folk were not even as well thought of as Wizzo the Wizard.  They were dream-interpreters, fortune-tellers, horoscope fanatics.  They were “no accounts,” the ultimate outsiders who in our day would be working out of storefronts and offering to tell our future by stars, tea leaves, and Tarot cards. 
 

Their families had to have howled with laughter and horror at the idea that they were going to close up shop for a few weeks, months, or even years, and chase after some star.  Their spouses must have been furious and their children bemused. 
 

“The parental units are going off somewhere to follow a star ‘no matter how hopeless, no matter how far.’” announces one of their children.  “That’s an impossible dream!” replies another.  “I told you they were crazy!” concludes the familial affirmation.
 

So off they go with the voices ringing in their ears that this was all folly.
 

The foolish looks like it might become fatal for them as they come closer to their journey’s end and they come face to face with one of history’s great villains. 
 

Herod was not the stuff of legend.  We know a lot about him and his kind and his cruelty was legendary.  “He not only murdered most of his good friends, but even his beloved wife, and three of his own sons.” He was such a threat to every one and so disliked that to ensure mourning at his funeral, “Herod wanted his soldiers to kill notable political prisoners upon the news of his death.  His goal was expressed thus: ‘So shall all Judea and every household weep for me, whether they wish it or not.”4
 

He was one evil man and when he became afraid all of Jerusalem did so too.
 

Can you imagine that?  Herod, with all the might of Imperial Rome behind him became afraid of a child not yet two years old. 

 Fear can do terrible things to you.  Even if you have a moral compass it can make you lash out at your enemies and try to destroy them by either word or deed.  That is exactly the kind of leader Herod was.  He ruled by fear because he was afraid that someone more powerful or even less powerful would come and take his power away from him.
 
Fear can cause one to lie outright which is exactly what Herod did.  He tells his visitors to “search for this little child with the utmost care. And when you have found him come back and tell me—so that I may go and worship him too.” 
 
Herod is a known liar.  He treats truth like a second home only living there occasionally.  His lie is so transparent, so insincere that even these storefront psychics can see through it.
 
It is here that courage enters in.  In one sentence Matthew tells of their courageous act.  “Then,” Saint Matthew tells us, “since they were warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they went back to their own country by a different route.”5
 
This was courage overcoming fear because if Herod caught them disobeying his orders he would have surely had them killed.  They were taking a chance going home a different way but after finding what they had been looking for it didn’t seem they had a choice.  It was either follow the way of  Christ or follow the ways of the world.
 
We know what the world brings.  
It brings an anti-Semitic attack at a Rabbi’s home just as he and his family were celebrating Hanukkah.  

 It brings yet another crazy person who has somehow obtained a firearm into a church to shoot the place up and kill innocent worshipers.  

It causes us to once again stand on the brink of another war in the Middle East where the answer to any problem seems to be only more violence, more guns, more bombs, more killing, more slaughters of innocents.
 
For the magi this child and their journey he calls them to undertake is a source of great courage rather than a cause of deep fear.
 
The magi may have begun their journey with the voices of folly ringing in their ears but they returned home with a fierce determination to never be fearful again.  They turned their back on Herod and his kind and faithfully walked on another way.  The magi risked their lives to protect this child.
 
Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father, would do the same when warned by an angel that Herod was out to kill his son, took Jesus and Mary off to Egypt.  Joseph risked his life to protect this child.
 
This child would grow up and show the fearful a way of courage.  Just as some risked their lives that he might live he gave his life that we might not ever have to be afraid again.

The image of the Three Kings, and really, who cares if there were three or not or whether their names were Casper, Balthazar and Melchior or something else entirely.  Who cares if they came from the Orient or more likely  Persia  the very region were so many conflicts rage today? 
 
This image reminds us that life is more than a moment from a Christmas pageant but is about people who looked evil in the eye and turned their backs to go another way.
 
It is about brave people doing brave things because they had met the Christ child. 
 
It is about people who stopped searching the stars for a better way to live but found a different meaning for their lives in this simple encounter.  In the end it is about you and me.
 
We tell this story during the “most wonderful time of year” to remind ourselves that God’s will  . . .  “is to change the world from the nightmare it often is into the dream that God intends.” 6

While it can warm our hearts in Christmas pageants it can also inspire our lives as it tells us that in the midst of our fears we can find courage to live the life as bravely as God intends.
 
 It happened for the magi as they really did become wise men and it can happen for us as touched by Christ we can set fear aside and move forward into this new year with courage.

__________

1.  John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany. London: Bloomsbury, 1989.

2. Steve Pankey,  “One Long Nightmare.” Modern Metanoia, December 16, 2019.

3.  “The Journey Of The Magi” by T S Eliot - Famous poems, famous poets. - All Poetry. Accessed January 4, 2020. https://allpoetry.com/The-Journey-Of-The-Magi.

4.  Brian Stoffregen, “Matthew 2.13-23 1st Sunday after Christmas- Year A.” Matthew 2.13-23. Accessed January 4, 2020. http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/matt2x13.htm.

5.  St.  Matthew 2:8.  (PHILLIPS) [PHILLIPS=J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English; Translated by J.B. Phillips.  (London: Bles, 1968.)


 
 
 

"How Silently, How Silently" - Christmas Eve 2019

Saint Luke 2:10

Whenever I drove home from the candlelight service at the downtown Chicago church I attended I have always been amazed at how many people have found something else to do, some other way, to celebrate Christmas.
 
People were always spilling out onto the streets in front of bars and restaurants.  The people at the Portellos were still busy making and selling hot dogs.  The McDonald’s has people in it who clearly are not just coming from church and the Walgreen’s parking lot is packed with last minute shoppers and people buying batteries for those toys and electronics that came without.
 
The same is probably true in Aurora even though the Taphouse closed its doors tonight at five stopping any revelers from wishing each other a Merry Christmas with one of the coldest beers in town.  I’m sure there are other places where strangers are patting each other on the back, hoisting a stein, and wishing each other the “very best” of whatever they day they think this is.
 
In that sense this Christmas is a great deal like that first Christmas with the overwhelming majority of the population of Bethlehem never noticing the young couple coming to town.
 
They had other things to think about and so do we.

The attention of most people on this night is elsewhere.  Yours may be a little divided with thoughts of Christmas dinner if there will be any grocery story open just incase you forgot something but you are here and for that you are to be congratulated.  You and I understand that we need to come to the place where we are reminded that God’s great love for us is personal.

That is a commonplace, but perhaps not an easy idea to grasp, because two thousand years after the incarnation, as thinking of God  . . .  as loving us from afar – loving us but not seeming urgently inclined to be bodily with us.1

 We need more than that.

The reason our churches have visitors at Christmas is that people have traveled to be with family, and they have done so because when you love someone, you want to do more than phone that person and say, “Merry Christmas” — you want to be with [him or her] in the flesh.2

That is just one of the myriads of things the Christmas story is about – people whose have been touched by the birth of the Christ child and have never been the same.

The power elites do not have their lives changed.  Caesar Augustus, the Roman emperor didn’t care. Quirinius the governor of Syria, didn’t care.  Luke only inserted their names in the story for historical context, they are not a part of this.  In fact, like many in power in their day and ours they are far apart from it.
 
One can only wonder at this time and place in our nations history how much better we would all be if people in power, especially at the national level, would allow themselves to be touched by the Christ child.  Maybe they would behave more kindly?  Maybe they would act more morally?  We can only hope!
 
Maybe that is why it was the shepherds who were the first to hear the song of the angels.  Did you ever think that they were the only ones in a quiet enough spot to listen far away from the commotion of the city with time on their hands?
 
They were available and their availability drives home the point that Jesus is for everyone.
 
We romanticize them but biblical scholar Father Raymond Brown reminds us, “far from being regarded as either gentle or noble, in Jesus’ time shepherds were often considered dishonest, outside of the law.”3  Being a shepherd was a lonely business.  They didn’t make much money and we’re always gone, away from their families, tending their flocks.
 
Instead of God waiting for them on their own to come to Bethlehem (Something they would have never thought of doing in a million years!)  God sends angels to go and get them.  That’s a sign!  God wants this to be personal and if some people are too busy God will find others who are not.
 
Maybe that is you?  Maybe that is me?  Maybe we’ve all come this night longing again for God’s great love to come to us in a very personal way.
 
This birth is for everybody!  No one is to be excluded!  Everyone is welcome!  The castoffs are part of the cast as the love of God reaches out to all people — the old and the young, the rich and the poor, gay and straight, married and unmarried, male and female (I think I’ve covered everybody.  You get the idea!)  no one is to be excluded.  The only condition is that we are willing to listen.
 Several years ago James F.  Garner, professional cynic and author of Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, and Politically Correct Holiday Stories stepped out of his role as a curmudgeon and wrote a wonderful Christmas story for his wife called, “Jerry’s Last Fare.”
It’s about a cab driver, working late on Christmas Eve, who decides to pick up one last passenger before calling it a night.
 
As luck would have it the guy wanted to go to the airport but he had a request but he had a request.  He wanted to pass through Lincoln Park Zoo first.  Jerry was not pleased for he had promised his wife that he would be home for midnight Mass and now he was going to miss it. 
 
To make matters worse his passenger wanted to stop and get out for a moment or two at the entrance to the Zoo.  Jerry had never been robbed but he knew enough not to get out of his cab at the gate of a deserted zoo close to midnight.

“There is something I always wanted to try,” the man began with a sparkle in his eye.  “There is an old legend about what happens to the animals on Christmas Eve.  Have you heard it?”

 Way back in his memory Jerry thought he had so, before he realized what he was doing, he was out of his cab and standing in the snow.  His passenger reminded him of the legend that the only witnesses to Jesus’ birth were animals that gathered around the manger. What they saw was so miraculous that the animals were blessed with the power of speech.

“So on every Christmas Eve, [said Jerry’s passenger] if you listen very hard, you can hear the animals talk again. 

So they stood and they listened.  They listened for a very long time until Jerry finally said, “I don’t hear them.”

 “Listen very hard,” the man said quietly. 

Jerry did, and replied, “Nothing.” 

“No not nothing Jerry.  There’s the silence.  Listen to the silence.  You can’t hear the animals or any people, you can’t hear the cars.  Think of the thousands of people who live within a half-mile of where we are standing right now.  You can’t hear a single one.” 

Jerry paused to let his imagination take him around that half-mile, then further, around the city, across the black lake to the shores of Indiana and Michigan.  He smiled, “It sounds like the whole world is asleep.”

“Asleep?” asked the fare.

“No, not asleep.” [Said Jerry.] “You’re right.  It’s like everyone is wide awake and holding their breath.” 

“That’s the sound of hope, Jerry.  It’s Christmas Eve, when the Savior of the world was born, but no one is praying, not in the words they think of as prayer.  Just hoping with their hearts at ease and their eyes filled with wonder.” 

“So Christmas Eve is the time when animals talk and the people shut up.” Jerry said with a chuckle.  “It sure is a beautiful sound.”4

How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given.  So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven.”
 
Those blessings are waiting for us.  They are there just waiting in the silence.  Can you hear them?
 If you can, even for just a second, it will be a happy, merry Christmas, indeed.
 Merry Christmas.

__________

1. Lauren F. Winner, “Commentary 2: Connecting the Reading With the Word.” Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship.  vol 1; year A. (Louisville:Westminister/John Knox Press, 2019), p. 78–80. 

2. ibid.

3. Raymond E.  Brown, The Birth of the Messiah.  (New York: Doubleday, 1993), p.  420.

4. James F. Garner, "Jerry's Last Fare."   The Chicago Tribune Magazine.

"A Good Joe" - Advent 4A

Saint Matthew 1:18-25

When you walk into a Roman Catholic church you will notice two smaller altars on either side of the main altar. 
 

The one, always on the left, is often highly decorated with flowers, and candles, and other ornaments.  That is dedicated to Mary.  Brides make mini pilgrimages to her during the wedding ceremony that she might bless the newlyweds with a happy home and the gift of children. 
 If the church is open there is usually someone praying in front of her statue.  She’s been known to make appearances in places like  Fatima or Medugorje to inspire the faithful.
 

On the right side of the high altar is another altar.  It usually is quite barren.  There are no flowers, no decorations, no pilgrims.  Sometimes the lights above are not even on.  This is the altar dedicated to Joseph.  I always get the feeling that it was placed there under some sense of obligation rather than dedication.  Clearly the placement and lack of decor say in a big bold way that while he may be very important to round out the story of salvation he clearly is a minor character.
 

We non-Roman Catholics have not served him any better.
 

One of my favorite United Methodist preachers Dr.  James Howell noted:

Joseph has always been relegated to the background of Christmas pageants, looking on, doing nothing much besides gazing, peering over Mary’s shoulders, hanging onto the donkey’s reins, his face solemn, looking a little bit sheepish, even foolish, while attention is focused on the real “stars” of the drama, Jesus and his mother Mary. No dramatic skills required to play Joseph. He’s just there.1

 If that is all we know, or think we know about Joseph we do him a grave disservice.

The first thing that gospel writer wants us to know about him is that he was “a righteous man.”  This is a high compliment in his culture.  It could be translated into modern language as “a man of principal.”  We don’t find many of those around anymore, especially in politics.
 

The problem for Joseph is that he tries to adhere to those principals. Unlike the leaders of our day he tries to follow the rules  which  in this case are very clear.
 

We may think that Joseph and Mary met somewhere, fell in love, and decided to get married.  We may think their relationship was the stuff of a Hallmark Christmas movie.  It was not. It was more of a legal transaction.

“In the first century, marriages were still arranged. Their families may have determined that Joseph and Mary would be married when they were still young children. When Joseph finds out that Mary is pregnant, his "righteous" decision to divorce her is what the law and society expected him to do.”2
 

To make matters worse, because she was “with a child of an unknown father” the punishment for Mary would have been death by stoning.
 

So when Joseph went to bed on that fateful evening the questions that caused him to toss and turns were bigger than we could have ever imagined. 
 

Would he dishonor his family by marrying this woman who told him directly that the child was not  his?  Does he believe her story that not only that he was not the father but that nobody on earth was?  Should he really believe Mary when she tells him that the child she was carrying was of God, from God.  Should he believe her or just conclude that she was unstable and get on with the rest of his life?  He also goes to bed knowing that if he exposed her for being unfaithful to the marriage contract he would be condemning  her to death?
 

Einstein once said “God doesn’t play dice with the universe” but God is playing a high stakes game with our salvation at stake because, and don’t ever forget this men and woman, Joseph, like Mary, could have rejected God’s plan.  They could have rejected God’s plan outright.  They could have told the angel Gabriel to “take a hike and take his plan elsewhere” but they didn’t.
 

All because “an angel tells poor, confused Joseph that this scandalous situation is all part of God’s plan. Some plan.  Everyone in town must have been talking about the outrage of a young woman in a ‘family way,’ even though there had been, as yet, no marriage.”

 And don’t even think about the excuse she was trying to peddle on how she got pregnant in the first place!

 If Joseph goes along with God’s plan and Mary’s story there would be “nine months of awkward explanations, a village scandal – it was all very disconcerting to say the least.”3

Enter Gabriel, or I should say re-enter Gabriel because he has been back and forth, in and out of this story, trying to keep everything and everyone together, on the same page with God’s plan from the very beginning.  This time the overworked and probably by now frazzled angel appears in the middle of the night with yet another set of important messages.
 

The first is what angels have been telling humans from the beginning of time.  “Do not be afraid” Gabriel begins.  At this point, with his well-planned out, righteous life, crashing down around him Joseph has plenty to fear.  Gabriel continues, “do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”4
 

This, continued the angel, will fulfill the prophesy, ““The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God with us’).”5

 We aren’t told if Joseph tried to put up an argument or even asked for more information.  We do know that, unlike the others in the story -- Elizabeth, Zachariah, Mary – he doesn’t raise his voice in protest, wonder, or song.  He doesn’t even speak so much as a word.  We are only told that he silently, obediently, dutifully took Mary to be his wife and the child as his own and became responsible for him.

Thereby, just doing what he was told, stumbling along without knowing for sure where things were headed, Joseph the carpenter took his place in God’s story, wading through the confusion and the mess, being led by God into an uncertain future.  He just took his place in the story with no songs or speeches, stumbling along that road from Galilee to Bethlehem.6

So on this Sunday we have yet another image of what was going on before that first

Christmas.

It doesn’t feature the quiet, placid baby Jesus lying in a crib. Nor does it feature the adoring, serene Virgin Mary watching the babe in the manger. This Sunday, three days away from Christmas, we are greeted by the story of Joseph–silent Joseph bolting up in bed in the middle of the night, Joseph the carpenter having his life disrupted, pushed out on the stage of God’s grand pageant of redemption.7

 Maybe the next time we see a children’s Christmas pageant we’ll notice Joseph.

The fact that he’s just standing there is all we really need to know, all we really need to do. Confronted by the scandalous surprise of God becoming flesh, granting every good reason to flee for the exits and be the center of attention in our own dramas, maybe this Advent we can learn what it means just to stand nearby the manger, to look, to wait, to stay, to trust.8

And the next time you are in a Roman Catholic church you may want to join me in seeking out the statue of Joseph and saying a little prayer at his altar.  I never have any trouble getting near it and sometimes I even have to turn on the light to see him, but he too deserves a little prayer of thanks for the part he played in bringing Jesus into the world and paving the way for your redemption and mine.
 

This Christmas, it's high time we gave Joseph a little love too.  Don’t you think?

   

____________

1,  James C. Howell,  “Weekly Preaching: December 22, 2019 (Advent 4).” Weekly Preaching: December 22, 2019 (Advent 4). Ministry Matters™ | Christian Resources for Church Leaders, December 17, 2019. https://www.ministrymatters.com/preach/entry/9995/weekly-preaching-december-22-2019-advent-4.

2.  Brian  Stoffregen, “Matthew 1:18-25 4th Sunday of Advent - Year A.” 4 Advent A - Matthew 1.18-25. Crossmarks. Accessed December 21, 2019. http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/matt1x18.htm.

3,  William H. Willimon, “Disruption on Earth.” Pulpit Resource 38, no. 4 (n.d.): 49–52.

4.  St.  Matthew 1:20b.  (NIV) [NIV=The New International Version]

5.  St.  Matthew 1:23.  (NIV)

6.  William H. Willimon,  “Joseph and Us.” Pulpit Resource 35 (n.d.): 57–60.

7.  Willimon, William H. “Disrupted by Jesus.” Pulpit Resource 48, no. 4 (n.d.). https://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/9830/december-22-2019-disrupted-by-jesus.

8.  Howells, loc.  cit.

"Patience" - Advent 3A

Isaiah 35:1-10
Saint Matthew 11:2-11

One of my favorite scenes in my all time favorite musicals “The Music Man” is when the townsfolk first get sight of the Wells Fargo Wagon. 

In last summer’s production at The Goodman Theatre it was staged perfectly.  A little wagon could be seen moving from left to right at the back of the stage.  Then as the song continued the wagon got larger and larger as it moved back and forth closer and closer to the anxious crowd.  Finally a life-sized wagon appeared stage left with Professor Hill and the long anticipated band uniforms and instruments inside. 
 

The excitement is so much that little Winthrop, who has not spoken a word since his father died and has a lisp finally sings out: “O-ho the Wellth Fargo Wagon ith a-comin' now, I don't know how I can ever wait to thee. It could be thumpin' for thumone who is No relation but it could be thump'n thpethul.  Just for me!”
 

The uniforms come and the band instruments are there but still they wait for a band.  The remainder of the play is spent waiting for Professor Hill to produce something that even looks like a boy’s band let alone sounds like one.
 

Almost the entire play is devoted to the themes of waiting, anticipating, wondering, “Will I get what was promised.”
 

We are in that time of the church year.  We wait and wonder if this Christmas will be as good as last year?  Will it live up to all the hype be, like Professor Hills band,  something less than expected?
 Chief among those who wonder and wait is John the Baptist.

Last week he was all bluster and bravado with his “the judge is coming and I here to serve subpoenas.” You remember his message:

“And even now the ax of God’s judgment is poised to chop down every unproductive tree. They will be chopped and burned. [S]omeone else is coming  . . .  He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  He will separate the chaff from the grain, burning the chaff with never-ending fire and storing away the grain.”1

John the Baptist was all judgement all the time.  His Wells Fargo wagon would have been filled with explosives to destroy all that was evil.

People like that kind of stuff.  They like to hear that some people and in and other people are out of the reign and rule of God.  They would like to separate the world into good guys and bad guys.  They want God to judge and judge harshly any with whom they would disagree.  And, most of all, they are sure that God was is their side.  And sometimes these people can draw big crowds.
 

I think it may have been the crowds that got John carried away.  He looked around and might have thought that with all those people flocking to him he could do anything, say anything, get away with anything he wanted.
 

But crowds can disappear as fast as they appeared and now he is in jail having been placed there by Herod, the personification of all that is wrong in the world. 
 

Herod’s problem with John was not so much his preaching or the crowds he was drawing out into the desert but when, as they say in the south, “he stopped preaching and got to meddling.”  John called King Herod’s adulterous affair with his sister-in-law into question. That he even spoke of it out loud wasn’t such a good idea.  Herod didn’t take kindly to John’s scandalizing his private life so he had him jailed and eventually sentenced to death.
 

Locked behind prison doors John had to be wondering what happened to the fire? What happened to the judgement? Herod was clearly chaff and John surely believed he was wheat. What happened to the vision?  Maybe this Jesus isn’t the guy we have been looking for after all.

“John was called to run ahead of Jesus, to prepare a way, to make room for the Messiah.  So it makes sense that John would be quite concerned that his work not be in vain.” 2
 

John had been hearing reports about Jesus and what he hears in not exactly what John expected. Jesus was not the fundamentalist prophet of certain doom and judgement that John had been talking about because instead of harsh words and deeds that separate one group from another John is hearing something else entirely.  John hears that Jesus is welcoming everybody!  With Jesus all were welcomed.  Period! While cooling his heals in his prison cell John wonders: “Is Jesus the one I was talking about or was I wrong? Should I be looking for another.”

Messengers are sent and Jesus tells them to look, and see, and listen and then report their findings to John.

“Go and tell John what you see and hear -—that blind  . . .  are recovering their sight, cripples are walking, lepers being healed, the deaf hearing, the dead being brought to life and the good news is being given to those in need. And happy is the man who never loses faith in me.”3

 That is a coded message that John’s captors would never understand but John and John’s followers would know by heart.  Dr. John Buchanan paraphrased it this way.

Remember, John, as you sit there, in that cell—- cold, hungry, thirsty, waiting for your inevitable execution - remember the promise that came to our people at the darkest, most frightening moments in their lives, the worst moment in our history, when a cruel and powerful enemy was about to attack and kill and defeat and imprison and exile. Remember:

They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. . . .
Strengthen the weak hands,
and make firm the feeble knees.
Say to those who are of a fearful heart,"Be strong, do not fear!"4

That is the word John needed to be reminded of in his prison cell and we need to be reminded this Advent especially as the life of our country has not been this divided since the Viet Nam war.  Then we fought on principal - war versus peace - now we fight on personality.  Facts are of no consequence only labels are and we wonder if we will ever hear the  message of Jesus again speaking over the din of divisiveness.  

 Dr. Mike Lindvall wondered: 

Does it work, Jesus’ way?  Does it work, his way of love and compassion?  Does it work, his way non-coercion and kindness?  Does it work, his way of service and sacrifice?  In the short run, sometimes.  In the long run (maybe the very long run) always.  That’s the promise of the gospel.5

Dr.  Fred Craddock, in his book of collected sermons described what was going on this way.

Every beautiful story they knew began not with ‘once upon a time’ but with the words ‘when the Messiah comes’ 

To every blind beggar, seated on the street, hallow eyes gazing over an empty cup, “I’m sorry, friend, but when the Messiah comes...”  To every cripple with twisted body folded beneath him, “I’m sorry, friend, but when the Messiah comes...”  To every prisoner, straining for that one little ray of light through the narrow window, “I’m sorry, friend, but when the Messiah comes...”6

 We believe the Messiah has come and what of it.  Is it just another Wells Fargo wagon full of instruments and band uniforms that no one will use.  We believe that the Messiah has come but the world is just as cruel, and mean, and unforgiving as it ever was.
 

We wait to celebrate his birth even as we are afraid that whoever is coming to Christmas dinner will have opinions so different from ours or another guest that the china will fly and there won’t be a safe place to stand in any room of the house.
 

The disciples and John the Baptist and the early Christians were faced with the same dilemma and here, says Dr.  Craddock, is what they concluded.  “It is not that when the Messiah came there would be no misery but rather that wherever there was misery there was the Messiah.”
 

Jesus, like John would not be found in a palace wearing robes of fine linen but rather in the streets bringing comfort where there was misery.
 

That’s the promise of the Gospel, it is the promise of all of Scripture, that there is another way “it shall be called the Holy Way and it shall be for God’s people; no travelers, not even fools, shall go astray.”
 

In Advent, at Christmas, in every season of the year Christ is calling us: “Hey follow me!  Down this Road!  It’s the Holy Way!  It’s a way where not even fools can get lost."
 

The Wells Fargo wagon is coming only the sign on the side reads Jesus who really is  something special, just for you and me.”

__________

1.  St.  Matthew 3:10-12.  (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible]

2.  Brian L. Cole,  “The Gift of Doubt”  Day 1. Accessed December 13, 2019. https://day1.org/weekly-broadcast/5de917456615fbba28000035/bishop-brian-cole-the-gift-of-doubt.

3.  St.  Matthew 3:4-6.  (PHILLIPS) [J. B. Phillips, New Testament in Modern English. London: Fount, 2000.

4.  John M. Buchanan,“Fear Not.” sermon.  The Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, Illinois. December 16, 2001. http://www.fourthchurch.org/sermons/2001/121601.html.

5.  Michael L. Lindvall, “Shall We Wait for Another” (sermon, Brick Presbyterian Church, New York, NY, December 13, 2013),  http://www.brickchurch.org/Customized/uploads/BrickChurch/Worship/Sermons/PDFs/2013/12152013.pdf

6.  Fred B. Craddock, The Collected Sermons of Fred B. Craddock.  (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011) p.  85.

"Out Of Touch" - Advent 2A

Isaiah 11:1-10
Saint Matthew 3:1-12 

Did you ever wonder what it would be like to celebrate Christmas in the southern hemisphere where it is summer instead of winter? 
 

In Sydney, Australia yesterday the high temperature was 76 and the low was 65 with partly sunny skies.  Tuesday the high temperature will be near 90!  The average temperature for Christmas day is around 80.
 

What kind of songs would one sing in weather like that?  “In the Bleak Midwinter” seems a little, well, bleak.  The Native American “‘Twas in the Moon of Wintertime” wouldn’t ring true because it was summer.  “Cold December Flies Away” would fall flat because the coldest it ever got in December was in the low 60's.
 

I looked at some web sites for the larger churches and they looked like ours.  Lesson and Carol’s were scheduled with freshly scrubbed choir members in neatly pressed choir robes that looked like they could be singing for a church in the north of England.  The church’s pictures from Christmases past show the sanctuaries decorated with garlands and evergreen boughs as if they were in the Bavarian Alps.  

One church’s Christmas page even had a graphic of the night sky complete with snow flakes.   I’m no Tom Skilling but I think that those snow flakes would melt in the temperatures they were enjoying.

The closest I ever came with such a seasonal disconnect was the Thanksgiving I spent in Palm Springs.  For a Chicagoan it was really strange to be sitting pool side one minute and then rushing off to a traditional piping hot  Thanksgiving dinner the next. 
 

That year in the church we worship at - Saint Margaret’s Episcopal in Palm Desert  the rector, Fr.  Lane Hensley, mentioned that his blue Advent vestments were a gift on his departure from his congregation in Illinois and that, beautiful as they were, he was roasting in them even in an air-conditioned building.
 

There must be a certain disconnect in celebrating what is seen by western Christendom as a winter holiday during the height of the summer.  Even the thought of  carols about cold and snow amid summer’s heat seems odd to me.   It would underscore how much the message was out of touch with the climate and the culture.
 

Today we might be feeling the same way as we endure our annual encounter with John the Baptist right as we are preparing to celebrate Christmas.  He doesn’t come to pour cold water but rather hot coals on this very special season.
 

The rest of the world and even some churches are singing carols.  Their pastors are skipping over these passages, bailing out on John the Baptist for the more peaceful vision presented by the prophet Isaiah, and here we are with John wanting to burn everything down and start anew.
 

John is the speed bump on our road to Christmas.

Frankly, John the Baptist is not the kind of preacher I would venture out of my house to hear.   His whole persona is off-putting. 
 
We like our leaders to, at least, be presentable.  John has this wild man look going on.    He looked like he had never cut his hair and was combing it with a balloon. His wardrobe is minimalist and his diet is appalling.  He probably was never asked to go home for lunch with any of his listeners.
   
His preaching is severe, to say the least. He seems to have only two points to his sermons which he repeats over and over again.  Threat, repentance, repeat.  Threat, repentance, repeat.  There is not one glimmer of grace in his preaching.  But still they came.
 
Dr.  Fred Craddock invites us to think about this:

He was no politician trying to make yes sound like no and no sound like yes. He said, ‘The judge is coming, and I’m here to serve subpoenas.’ He was no candle in the sanctuary, he was a prairie fire with a stump or rock as his pulpit. The sun and moon and stars as chandeliers. And the Jordan River, his baptistry.1 

John saves his best for the curious religious leaders who come out and have a look.  They want to hear and see this guy who is out in the desert drawing big crowds with a “hell-fire-and-brimstone” message that they haven’t preached in a thousand years.  

The Pharisees and Sadducees had played it safe abided by the rules and kept life, faith, and perhaps even the people’s understanding of God manageable, controllable, comfortable.  They had this God stuff all figured out – play it safe and nobody gets hurt.

John will have none of that.  He saves his best verbal volleys on these guys who have been trying to keep the faith as best they can for as long as they can. 

He calls them snakes in the grass. “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”2 he says.  “Hey John!” we might ask, “Is that any way to talk to potential baptismal candidates.”

Then he goes on to insult their heritage.  Saying, in one translation, “And don’t think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as father. Being a descendant of Abraham is neither here nor there. Descendants of Abraham are a dime a dozen. What counts is your life. Is it green and blossoming? Because if it’s deadwood, it goes on the fire.”3

Suddenly he is looking at us.  His words have drawn us in and we may not be happy with where we are standing.  Is my life in full flower or am I toast?

Will somebody pass John a note that Christmas is 17 days away.  Will someone tell him to chill.  Will someone please tell him to settle down and perhaps take up Yoga.  We have enough going on in our lives — both good and bad — without being yelled at or having our faith called into question.

Dr.  David Lose, amazing preacher and pastor of Mount Olivet Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, admits that he can’t figure out or warm up to the John in Saint Matthew’s gospel.

 But what if that’s Matthew’s point all along? What if  . . .  he wants us to be certain about who and what John is – the forerunner, the one who points to Christ, for sure, but also the one who not only calls our attention to Jesus but creates in us a hunger for him.4

John’s job is to point people to Jesus.  To call them to attention and you can’t get people’s attention by being subtle.  Something is about to happen that they need to see and be a part of.  And who better than a grumpy, poorly dressed guy who seems so out of touch with the world  around him to do that.  

John is reminding us what we are waiting for.  

We are not waiting for gifts under the tree, or a Christmas dinner, or winter to be over, or summer to come, we are waiting for Jesus, the Christ.  

For John the matter is terribly straightforward,  “it’s Jesus, always and only Jesus, the one who judges in order to forgive, accuses in order to justify, gives law in order to show grace, and dies that we might have life.”

That is the Christmas message and while it may seem really, really out of touch with all the other messages that bombard us every day it is the only message worth sharing. 

Our job in the Christmas season and every season is to point to Christ. 

This doesn’t mean you have to get all wild-eyed and fanatic about it.  You don’t have to emulate John and call attention to yourself like one man on my recent cruise through the Panama Canal did.  

 Every time, everywhere I saw him, he was wearing a “Jesus First” T-shirt and carrying a big bible.  That was fine and it probably was a whole lot more tasteful than the mismatched outfit I was wearing.

But he also had a sofar wrapped around his arm.  A sofar is an ancient musical horn typically made of a ram's horn, used for Jewish religious purposes.  If the horn wasn’t on his arm, it was on the table in front of him.  I never ventured close enough to find out whether the horn was real or a replica. 

I am sure he was walking around just waiting for someone to come up to him and ask: “Hey buddy!  What’s with the horn?”  At which point I am sure he told them in great detail.

I don’t doubt the guy’s faith but I have my doubts about his method.  

Most of the people I was traveling with had left the church because of bad experiences and were put off by the guy’s in your face — John the Baptist-like — approach.  It was heavy-handed, over the top and, most of all, easy to spot.  

We could avoid him, like we could avoid guys like John the Baptist because they made us feel judged, uncomfortable.  We were afraid that if we approached it would be all judgement and no grace.

What we are to do is reflect the grace we found in Jesus by pointing people to him not in judgement but in love.  

Nineteenth century author Edith Wharton said: “There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

Jesus is the light that comes into the world.  He’s the candle and all we are called to be is the mirror that reflects his love.

That’s something that will work no matter what the temperature, no matter the climate, no matter the hemisphere.  

If we reflect God’s love not matter where we are it will be Christmas somewhere.  Don’t you think?   
__________

1.  Thoughts, Scattered. “Fred Craddock and John the Baptist.” hermeneuts, October 2, 2015. https://hermeneuts.wordpress.com/2015/10/02/fred-craddock-and-john-the-baptist/.

2.  St.  Matthew 3:7b.  (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]

3.  St.  Matthew 3:7-10.  (MSG) [MSG=The Message]

4.  David Lose,  “A Really Nice Guy.” A Sermon for Every Sunday. Accessed December 6, 2019. https://asermonforeverysunday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/David-Lose-Matthew-3.pdf.

"What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" - Advent 1A

Isaiah 2:1-5
 Saint Matthew 24:36-44 

May I be the first to wish you a “Happy New Year!”
 

You may think I have really put a rush on the season but the first Sunday of Advent is New Year’s Day for the church.  It is just another one of those things that makes the church such a counter-cultural movement.  

We start a new year before anybody else does and wait to start celebrating Christmas until we are almost on top of the appointed date.  It’s like we programmed Dick Clark’s “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” before the Hallmark Channel Christmas movie marathon.  And, to make matters worse, instead of thinking about a pregnant Mary and a puzzled Joseph today’s New Year’s Day text places us right in the middle of Armageddon.
 

To add to the confusion we didn’t start reading Matthew’s gospel at chapter 1 but toward the end at chapter 24?  Who does that?  Certainly none of us who like mysteries would deprive ourselves of the plot development by reading the “who done it” part before we even found out what was done.
 

It’s New Year’s before Christmas and destruction before redemption. 
 

And to make matters even worse today’s gospel is the conclusion of the gospel we had before us two Sunday’s ago except that was Saint  Luke’s and this is Saint Matthew’s.  (For some of us two weeks ago seems like a very long time!)
 

You might remember that we talked about Jack Van Impe and that he was faithfully predicting that Christ was coming soon for the better part of forty years.  You need not remember the whole sermon (even I can’t do that) but you might want to remember what  his website said about his mission.
 Van Impe’s goal as being to alert  “Millions  . . .  to the fact that Jesus is coming soon-perhaps today! We all need to be ready.” Further it points out that he has been at this “since 1948 and continues to be a leading voice in declaring the soon return of the Savior.”

Strangely enough the late comedian John Pinette was spot-on theologically when he was talking about spending Thanksgiving with some members of his family who were always preparing for the end of the world.  “Doomsday preppers” he called them.
 

“As far as the end of the world goes, I believe you’re prepped.  There is nothing you can do.”
 

“If I wake up, look out my window and say, ‘Oh, it’s doomsday.’  I turn off the light and I go back to bed.  There is nothing to be done.”
 

“But my relatives, they say things like ‘We got about six months of water, some ramen noodles, and we got a lot of firearms.’
 

And I think to myself, ‘It’s a good thing you got those guns because after six months of nothing but ramen noodles and water, you’re going to want to use them.”

 “And, they think their cellar is in a different universe.
 

They say, ‘You know we got a two foot thick door.’  And I look at them and think, ‘Well, I’m sure that  will stop the 30 megaton nuclear blast.  I’m sure nothing will happen to you.  You’ll be safe.  You won’t be doomed like the rest of us poor suckers  . . .  scraping for a tomato.’”
 

The sad part Pinette’s comedy is that I have read about and maybe even know people who are anxious preparing for the end of the world.  
 

But Panetta was right, and strangely enough Jesus seems to be in complete agreement with this 21st century stand-up comedian.
 

Jesus could not have been clearer on the subject.  “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”1
 

We don’t like the idea of not knowing. It makes us anxious.  We want to know what is going to happen to us.  We want to know not only what tomorrow may bring but the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that. 
 

We want our lives to be neatly planned out so that we will know what to do.  We want to know how many bags of ramen noodles we should buy thinking that if we have a six months supply of those things in our cupboard we will be less anxious.  But we won’t be. 
 

Even if we somehow knew with absolute certainty that the end of the world would come three weeks from next Thursday we wouldn’t be less anxious.  If anything, we would be more anxious. 
 “Should I make the rounds of visiting my relatives or take the trip to New Zealand I always wanted to take?  Gee, I feel guilty if I didn’t go see the relatives one last time but, gosh, I always wanted to see New Zealand.”  What to do?  Anxiety.
 

Listen! You know the exact day when Christmas day and New Year’s Day is coming, don’t you?  Are you any less anxious about all the stuff you have to do between now and then?
 

Continue reading the words of Jesus, not those who want to add to those words with their predictions, and you’ll discover what you need to be doing. 
 

He describes some pretty mundane stuff.  People who are eating dinner and perhaps having a glass of wine afterwards. Couples  preparing to get married. Men and women working at home or in their business.  Jesus is talking about people who wait for his coming not by building bomb shelters but living out their lives.
 

And here is where the next images Jesus uses which seem scary and cause even greater anxiety.   
 Two men in the field and suddenly one is gone and the other is left behind.  Two women grinding at the mill, one is gone and the other is left.  And we think this is some kind of disappearing act.  One moment one person is there. The next moment, poof! Gone!
 

A friend of mine was raised in a fine, faithful family Whose pastor often spoke about the rapture.  It is believed to be that moment when Christ came back to take all the faithful home to be with him while the unfaithful would be left behind.
 

He remembers coming home from first grade, walking up the driveway of his family’s farm and not finding anyone, anywhere. 
 

His mother was always home in the afternoon making dinner for the family but today she was gone. 

His dad could usually be seen somewhere within eye sight working on the farm but it appeared to the young man’s eyes that he was missing too.  None of his sisters or brothers were there either and so - believing that God had come and taken them while he was left behind - he plopped himself on the front stoop and sobbed.  He was crying his eyes out wondering why Jesus took his entire family but not him when his mother’s car roared up the driveway. 
 

She had just gone to the store and it had taken her longer than usual.  His dad had merely been in a far off field.  He didn’t much care where his brothers and sisters were because he knew that Jesus’ didn’t love them more than he loved him. 
 

The word rapture isn’t in Scripture but as it sure can cause anxiety in the mind of children and adults.
 I almost never do this to you but I have to share with you the original Greek word that appears in this text.  That word for “taken” is paralambanomai  and it doesn’t mean “to go up” or “to meet” but “to go along with.”  Same root as our word perambulate which simply means “to walk.”
 

The people who are with Jesus in the end are those who have decided to follow him now.  They are the ones who, like his disciples, decided to “go along with” him.  They are the ones who are walking with him.

Here is a message that serves to engender hope rather than fear among the faithful. We can work and strive in hope because we know that our actions are not the only actions, that God is faithful, and that God will bring all things to completion. Therein is our hope. Though we are not given a timeline for the future, we are given the ultimate end, the purpose, the goal of the future. Our future is with God who comes to us, in God’s own good time, even though we don’t have the means to come to God.

God is coming. Though time again we have shown our incompetence in moving toward God, don’t worry. God is moving toward us.2

 Christ is breaking into our lives repeatedly.  Not just at some unexpected moment but repeatedly, every hour, every minute, every second, every nanosecond, and our job is only to keep watching for those moments so we don’t miss them.

In his collection of Advent and Christmas Sermons called, Shepherds in Bathrobes, Dr. Tom Long tells the story of a Christmas pageant that took place when his was the interim Pastor at the First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta.
 
You know how those combination pageants and worship services go. 
 
The place was packed with parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, neighbors and friends and when whatever age group had finished their presentation there was a mad dash back to their parents and families in the pews.  Like puppies they crawled over strangers to get back to their relatives.
 
The Session (read: Church Council) decided at their November meeting that the commotion in that worship was getting out of hand and so, being good Presbyterians, they devised a plan.  The children would wait on the front stairs of the chancel until one designated parent would come forth to get them.
 
As luck would have it one little girl’s father was the head usher that day and was way in the back of the huge church when her part of the program ended. 
 
He looked around discovered  he was stuck.  Hundreds of people separated him from his daughter. 
 
As he was trying to make his way to the front the other parents had retrieved their children and were already back at their seats.  Soon his daughter was there alone.
 
And as Dr.  Long reported, “Just as her lower lip was beginning to quiver and tears where welling up in her eyes her dad appeared.  It was then she preached the greatest Advent sermon ever.  She threw herself at her dad, wrapped her arms around his legs, looked up in his face and said, ‘I just knew you’d come.”3

When we rest secure in the knowledge that Christ will come its Advent, Christmas and New Year’s wrapped all in one.  So, Happy New Year!  
__________

1.  Jvim.com

2.  William H. Willimon,“What's God Up to Now.” Pulpit Resource. Ministry Matters™ | Christian Resources for Church Leaders. Accessed December 1, 2019. https://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/9827/december-1-2019-whats-god-up-to-now.

3.  Thomas G. Long, Shepherds and Bathrobes: Sermons for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. (Sundays in Ordinary Time): Cycle B Gospel Texts. Lima, OH: C.S.S. Pub. Co., 1987.