"Who Do You Trust?" - Epiphany 3A

Saint Matthew 4:12-22

A strange confluence of events occurred as I sat in my television room last Monday night watching the Minnesota Wild/Florida Panthers game on my NHL Center Ice satellite package the cost of which I can now take off on my taxes because I mentioned it in a sermon.

Over the weekend I had begun reading Theodore Rex the massive biography of President Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris.
 

Earlier in the evening I had watched a television special on the life of Dr.  Martin Luther King, Jr.  on the day the nation set aside to honor the enormous contribution he made to our national life and when it was over I turned on the hockey game.
 

The game was good but the commercials were interesting.  Almost everyone was for a candidate running for president.  All of them making a pitch to hockey fans in front of the March 3rd primary vote in Minnesota.   I watched with interest at first but by the third period I was almost longing for obnoxious and ubiquitous Xfininity commercials with the  detestable character who supposedly was the personification of inefficient AT&T internet service.
 

All of the candidate’s commercials messages could be summed up in two words: trust me.  Trust me.  I’ve built a business.  Trust me.  I’ve been in the senate forever.  Trust me.  I can write all the wrongs of capitalism.  Trust me.  Trust me.  Trust me.
 

I hope you hear any claim by any candidate imploring you to trust him or her with  a one word question front and center in your head: “Why?” 
 

It’s a good question because in the beginning of his life not everybody trusted Dr.  King. 
 

In 1963 six leaders of  liberal churches in Birmingham and one rabbi wrote him a letter called “An Appeal to Law and Order and Common Sense” in which they acknowledged  the existence of “various problems that cause racial friction and unrest.” But they objected staunchly to the way in which Dr. King and the civil-rights movement had confronted Jim Crow laws, demanding change through nonviolent direct action. Such demands, these religious leaders insist, should be “pressed in the courts and in negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets.”1

I was only ten but I would guess that most of my neighbors and even the liberals in my family agreed with them because crowds, even well-intentioned crowds, could turn violent too quickly.
 

But none of us here, I hope, would now maintain that the laws Dr.  King and the marches were protesting against - Jim Crow laws that mandated the segregation of public schools, public places, and public transportation, and the segregation of restrooms, restaurants, and drinking fountains for whites and blacks - were morally acceptable.
 

The change is proof that for many Dr.  King was right: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” We honor him now but many wondered about him then.
 

So too they wondered about Theodore Roosevelt when he ascended to the presidency at 43 upon the assassination of President William McKinley.  Even though he was a voracious reader and Harvard graduate Washington insiders called him brash, bombastic, “the cowboy president.”  His opposition to discrimination was so great he invited Booker T. Washington to a White House state dinner.  He was the first African American ever to be extended such an invitation prompting and an outcry from newspapers north and south and death threats against Roosevelt's life. 2
 

Like Dr.  King, President Roosevelt was not trusted in the beginning but now his face stares out from Mount Rushmore with three other heroic presidents.  A place where every presidential candidate dreams of having their likeness enshrined if we would but “trust them.”
 

Most leaders who claim they are trustworthy by making promises at the beginning tend to be disappointments.  Few presidents upon leaving office are as popular as they were at the beginning of their term because eventually many of their campaign promises have to be broken.
 

That is what is so ingenious about Jesus’ call to the first disciples.  He didn’t promise them anything all he asked them to do was follow him.

One of the things that fascinates me about Saint Matthew’s account  . . .  is that there is no hint of any prior encounters, with Jesus.   He hasn’t been doing any advertizing.  He hasn’t been making any promises.  He hasn’t had any rallies in which he pandered to people’s lesser or better angels.
 

Neither were the disciples “searching for something.”  They were not on some sort of journey of self-discovery.  They weren’t traipsing across mountains and valleys in some far off land looking for a spiritual guru.  They were simply at work, as fisherman, doing what they had always done.

It was hard work but also a very good way to make a living.  This was a family business that allowed them to feed themselves and their clans but make a good profit as well.  We would have called them “middle-class” with houses and families making enough money to not thrive but more than survive. 
 
They also had job security.  As long as their health and strength held out living in the cosmopolitan area that they did with soldiers, pilgrims, and all kinds of people coming and going there would always be a market for what they were selling.  So great was their job security that there was little doubt that when the time came for him to hang up his nets their father Zebedee would pass the business along to them.
 
Then Jesus shows up and he calls them.  “Hey!  You!  You!  You!  Follow me and I will make you fishers of men and women.”  Sometimes in popular American Christianity we get this wrong.  We say, “Since I took Jesus into my heart . . . ”  or “Since I gave my life to Jesus . . . ” or “Since I decided to follow Christ . . . ”

That’s not the story.  The story is that you don’t take Jesus anywhere.  He’s the one who takes you and then takes you places.  You can’t “give your life to Christ.”  He takes it.

Everyone is here because you got put here.  For some of you, it was a life-changing, for others it was a lifetime of leading and coaxing.  For every one of you, God reached in, grabbed you. 3

 And so we are here, called by Jesus, the same way those boys in the boat were. 

 And for most of us we didn’t know how it happened.  Maybe our parents or a neighbor invited us or dragged us and then something hooked us.  

 For me it wasn’t the scripture lessons in Sunday School and certainly not the sermons in church that got me, (They were often 30 minutes long!  Count yourselves lucky!) it was the booming sound of our the new pipe organ.  

 I’d come into church, look at the bulletin, look up the hymns and say to myself, “Great tunes today!” And then I would sit back and twiddle my thumbs and think about a million other things until we got to sing them.

 For all you know I may still be doing that! I may be doing it right now.  I may be the one who is waiting for me to “bring it home” and finish up so that we can get onto something important like singing the sermon hymn.

(That is also, by-the-way, why we almost always sing all the verses.  It’s one of the few personal prerogatives pastors have.  We usually get to pick the hymns and if I’m picking them we’re singing them all the way through from the first note of the first verse to the last note of the fifth!

 In our time together I’ve heard your stories.  

 Those who starting coming to this church when it was meeting down the street in the funeral parlor.  

 Those of you whose journey includes worship experiences that included tents, fire and brimstone preaching, and people “walking the sawdust trail” during an altar call.

 Those who somehow got exposed to “smooth jazz,” WLIT 95.5 kind of worship with projection screens and worship leaders singing the same words over and over again in close, perfect harmony, while the congregation stood and swayed gently or just sat in their seats and smiled.

 Don’t knock any of those, men and women, for those are the places were Jesus found you and grabbed you.  This place, those places are where Jesus called you, summoned you and asked you to follow.

 And over time you discovered you could trust him.  

 He didn’t try to convince you to trust him through a thirty-second commercial that interrupted your hockey game.  He didn’t try to promise you things that you knew he could never produce.  He didn’t even act like a candidate and promise that if you trusted him he would fight for you to have more money, pay fewer taxes, and have a more peaceful life.

 Jesus reached in and took you and me on an adventure.  

We make a mistake to make this into some sort of mystery. Jesus did not demand that we swallow a dozen philosophical absurdities in order to be with him. He asked us to follow him. Faith in Jesus is not first of all a matter of having felt something, or having had an experience; it is a simple willingness to stumble along behind Jesus, a willingness to be behind him. The faith is in the following

 We are to follow, to do what he did, to live in the world as he lived. It is more important to be a disciple, a follower of Jesus, even than to be a Christian. Christianity is not a set of beliefs, first principles, propositions. It is a matter of discipleship, following. Faith in Jesus is not belief about Jesus. It's a willingness to follow Jesus. The faith is in the following.

 We follow him because he is a faithful leader.

In our age to have a faithful leader is really something to proclaim.  

 We who have had potential leaders promise so much to us in order to gain our support only to drop us as soon as our ballots were dropped into the bottom of the ballot box.  

 We who have been promised so much, used, even lied to.  To proclaim that we have a leader who is faithful is really something to say.

 That is what we have and that is what the world needs.  

 We have a leader who cared enough to give his life for us.

 Now think about that: How many leaders do you know who would do that for you? No guilt here, just a thought, a question.  How many of those people on the campaign trail, begging to be your leaders, would give their life for you?

 Probably you can’t think of one.  Nothing.  Nadda.  No one. 

 We have one who did and that makes him a leader who is well worth following.  Don’t you think?

__________

1.  William J. Barber, and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. “MLK Warned Us of the Well-Intentioned Liberal.” The Nation, January 18, 2019. https://www.thenation.com/article/martin-luther-king-trump-wall-jim-crow/.

2.  Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex.  (New York: Random House, 2010.)

3.  William, Willimon. “Guess Where You're Going.” Pulpit Resource 36, no. 1.  January, February, March, 2008.

 u.3

"Come and See" - Epiphany 2A

Saint John 1:29-42

For $44.95 you can purchase a toaster on Amazon that brands the face of Jesus on every piece of bread you toast.  It is humorously and heretically called  “The Grilled Cheesus Sandwich Press.” 

What your bread will look like when it emerges from this is pictured above and if you are having a hard time making the figure of Jesus out in that image you are not alone. 

I have never done well with these theological or historical Rorschach tests.  I can honestly say that I have never seen an image of anybody on anything, eatable or noneatable.  But others have!
  

The Guardian amassed a list.  People have reported seeing the image of Jesus: in a frying pan, on a tortilla, on a potato chip, on sidewalks, and even on a receipt from Wal-Mart.
 

One Irishman, John Keohane, claims to have seen an image appearing on the chipped facade of his pub in 2010.  Considering that Mr.  Keohane is pictured next to the image holding a Guinness in his hand and wearing a wry smile on his face leads me an entirely  different conclusion as to the reason he might be seeing things.1
 

These events are called “apparitions” which in a general sense is defined as the “appearance of anything remarkable or unexpected.”
 

The closest I ever came was when (and I am not making any of this up!)  an image of the Blessed Mother Mary appeared in a large yellow, blue and white stain on the wall of the Fullerton Avenue underpass of the Kennedy expressway. 
 

The thousands of people it attracted along with countless news trucks cause a massive traffic jam which I was stuck in every morning on my way to the health club.
 

Even though I was only moving at two miles-an-hour tops I never really got a good look so I conned my friend Scott into going with me to make a closer inspection with the promise I would buy him lunch afterward.  He agreed because to him, the sight of me picking up a check would be far more miraculous that anything he saw on an underpass wall.
 

We pressed our way through the crowds.  A Lutheran Pastor and a Medical Doctor who describes himself as a “low voltage Presbyterian.”  We looked and while we were impressed with the devotion exhibited by the faithful who gathered we had a hard time discerning in the figure any likeness to anything, let alone the Blessed Mother.
 

What was seen was clearly in the eyes of the seer.
 

One of my favorite preachers, Dr.  James C.  Howells, says this about this scene in today’s gospel: “I love it that Jesus, who really is ‘The One,’ isn’t a royal, mighty stud strutting about.”2  Yet people saw something in him

At this point, the very beginning of his ministry, the average person might not have been able to pick him out in a crowd but John the Baptist and his doing so produced some results more amazing than any apparition could.

John points to Jesus and says: “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”3
 

We know what this means but I wonder if it meant anything to John’s original listeners. 
 

The problem, says Dr.  William H.  Willimon, is that “Jesus is notoriously difficult to see.  Not because he is like the busy executive who does not have time for us but because we are hindered in our vision.  We look for him in our own presumptions that blind us.”4
 

John the Baptist introduces Jesus as “a lamb: humble, not fearful, ready to be shorn and slaughtered. God’s way is confronting the battalions of Caesar with a  . . .  lamb.”5
 

Now here is something you might have missed.
 

Those who heard John’s proclamation about Jesus were originally John’s disciples.  Andrew, Simon Peter, the two the turned and followed Jesus, were originally followers of John the Baptist.

Jesus first words to them, indeed his first words in St.  John’s Gospel are: “What are you looking for?”6
 

And there, says Dr.  James Sommerville, is the problem.

Most of us don't even know.  We know we’re looking for something.  We're fairly sure we haven't found it yet. These disciples say, “Rabbi, where are you [staying?]”  And that’s a clue, isn’t it?  I think these two have found what they are looking for, and they don’t want to lose it.  “Where can we find you next time we come looking for you?”  And Jesus said, “Come and see.”  And they did.7

Most people come to a service of Christian Worship not to count the snowflakes, or to hear a book review of the hottest title on the New York Times list, or even for meditation and self-reflection, but for an encounter.  To encounter the living God.8

 That is the only thing the church offers people that they can’t get elsewhere. 
 
If you want entertainment, go to a movie or to the Paramount Theater, you can’t get much better than that.
 
We try for good music, the choir, Andy and Eunice, work very hard on this but really we can’t compete with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.
 
What you get here that you can’t get anywhere else is an encounter with “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
If there is anything that toast, and potato chips, and tacos can tell us is that people are still looking for Jesus.   Sometimes we get all tongue-tied about why we get up on Sunday morning and come to places like this.  If today’s gospel tells us anything it tells us that we don’t have to be. 
 
Inviting people to “come and see” Jesus is as simple as telling them about a great movie, a great restaurant, a great play. 
 
We have no control whether they’ll like the place. We have no control over whether they’ll ever go back.  We don’t even have any control over whether they’ll ever listen to another word we say ever again.  But that doesn’t stop us!  We still tell people about things that we’re excited about.
 
John the Baptist was excited that he found Jesus so he told his disciples.  Andrew finds his brother and tells him.  And so it goes, through the ages until it came to us.
 
Someone told us, someone invited us, someone welcomed us to place called church and here we are with our lives all intertwined with Jesus, the Messiah, the Lamb of God.
 
A friend of mine was “At some church event, [and he]  picked up a refrigerator magnet with two pictures on it -- actually it's the same drawing of two people, but presented twice. The first picture is called "Reality Evangelism Part 1". One person says to the other, "Yeah, I go to church." Reality Evangelism Part 2 shows the same person saying, "Wanna come?" 8
 
What could be more simple than that?
 
Invite people to “come and see” maybe they’ll find what they are looking for and “they’ll come and stay.”
 
Will it work?  Who knows?  But it’s worth a try, don’t you think?

___________

1.   “Jesus Sightings in Food (and Walls) - in Pictures.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, July 21, 2011. https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2011/jul/21/jesus-food-sightings.

2.   James C. Howell, “Weekly Preaching: January 19, 2020.” Ministry Matters: Preaching. Ministry Matters™ | Christian Resources for Church Leaders, January 13, 2020. https://www.ministrymatters.com/preach/entry/10050/weekly-preaching-january-19-2020.

3.  St.  John 1:29.  (NKJV) [NKJV=The New King James Version]
 
4. Willam H. Willimon,“The Real Jesus We Really Don't Know.” Pulpit Resource, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 13–16.

5.  Howells, loc.cit.

6.  St.  John 1:38.  (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]

7. James Somerville, “Have You Found It?” A Sermon for Every Sunday.  Www.sermonforeverySunday.com. https://asermonforeverysunday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Jim-Somerville-The-Lamb-of-God.pdf

8.  Willimon, loc.cit.

8.Brian Stoffregen,  “John 1.29-42 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany - Year A.” Crossmarks. Accessed January 17, 2020. http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/john1x29.htm.
 


__________

"Living as One of the Beloved" - Baptism of Our Lord A

Saint Matthew 3:13-17

On the corner of Irving Park Road and Cumberland Avenue (Route 19 and 176 to those who work in numbers not names) there is a hand-pump.  If you were to drive by this pump any hour of the day or even night you would see someone there, much like the guy on the front of your bulletin, with giant water jugs pumping away.

The area is unlit so those who want water after dark park their cars in such a way that the headlights illuminate the entire area.

The people come in all shapes and sizes.  There are older folks, and young folk, people bring their entire families along so that even the children can take turns pulling down on the heavy handle and squirting perhaps two cups of water per pull in whatever container they brought along.

What unites all of those pilgrims is that they believe the water in this pump is special.

This particular pump was installed in 1945 and is just one of 300 Forest Preserve District pumps in Cook County meant  to serve picnickers and others who might grow thirsty along the jogging trails or bike paths.  Only this pump has a following.

Ask those who swear by this pump to explain why this pump, and you hear a lot of things: You hear it tastes better than tap water, it keeps colder for longer, it contains holistic qualities, it’s good for heart and teeth, it’s unfiltered and therefore not chlorinated or fluoridated.

They’ve heard the water comes from a reservoir originating in Michigan, running beneath Lake Michigan, all the way ... a mile and a half from O’Hare. They’ve heard, no, the water actually comes from a spring in Wisconsin. They’ve heard no, no, no, the water comes from Lake Huron.

[Others believe]  that ... the water is really a mistake, an unintended tributary that connects to a vein of pure water secretly maintained by wealthy North Shore families.1

No matter what they’ve heard still they come.

They come because they believe that the water in the pump tastes better, is purer, and may even be a fountain of youth.  As one woman told Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune: “My father lived to be 91 and attributed his good health to this water.”2

While I am skeptical of the powers that flow from the water of a single pump in a forest preserve  I do believe in the power of self-fulfilling prophesies. 

If you believe that schlepping big jugs of water will be good for your general health it will be.

On a larger scale, two California researchers, Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson, found “that, if teachers were led to expect enhanced performance from children, then the children's performance was enhanced.”3

It’s the power of positive affirmation!  Expect water to be good for you and you’ll act like the water will be good for you.  Think that the children in your class room are the brightest and best and their performance will improve.”

So this day, I propose that we trudge down to the waters of the Jordan not so much to watch Jesus and John the Baptist but to listen.

The first thing we will hear is a debate between John and Jesus as to who should baptize who.  John wants Jesus to baptize him but Jesus knows that if that happens all of us will miss a very important message. 

That message comes when Jesus emerges soaking wet from his immersion and “just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”4

This is God not only telling us who Jesus is but proclaiming to us in our baptisms who we are.

Baptism gives us a new status!  In our baptism we become children of God.

I can think of no better example of what this is like than a scene from a Michigan courtroom.

Five-year-old Michael Clark Jr sat facing a judge  ... with his entire kindergarten class in the pews behind him in solidarity. Each one of them held up a pink or red paper heart, some of them barely able to see above the wooden barrier dividing the courtroom.

A year earlier Michael had become a foster child to  Andrea Melvin and Dave Eaton who had decided to adopt him.  Michael wanted his kindergarten class to be there with him because “he wanted what he called his ‘other family’, his classmates and teacher, to be there, too, on his big day.”

To show their support when the time came for the judge to sign the papers his classmates voiced their approval by waiving their hearts wildly.

Even the judge’s eyes were said to be moist.3

 In baptism we are adopted into the family of God.  This carries with it a responsibility: to act like we are one of God’s beloved children.  This means we should always be searching out the best in each other although often we don’t. 

I have always thought that we don’t see the best in other people when we don’t leave things go and the slightest negative thing they do in the present reminds us of something they have done in the past and becomes a negative self-fulfilling prophesy.

We say to ourselves and, worse yet, others: “I can’t get over what she did way back in 2002.  Or was it 2000? I’ll never forget what he said to me that night when he was ‘three sheets to the wind in a gale.”

In my last congregation a wonderful Korean congregation was looking for a church home and asked if they could rent Saint John’s. 

They had outgrown and sold their landlocked building and were looking for a beautiful place to worship that, most of all, had plenty of parking.  We fit the bill!  They were also flush with cash and were offering us far more that we had even dared to ask for in rent.

It was a win/win situation but one man was adamantly against it.  

When asked he said, “I have a hard time forgetting what they did to us during the war.”  A war, I should point out, in which he never served.

As luck would have it I had just finished reading Stephen Ambrose’s biography of President Eisenhower and remembered that the armistice with Korea was signed in the first months of his presidency.  I guessed at July and, never one to suffer fools gladly, I shot back: “The Korean War ended six months before I was born and I’m old!  You might want to get over this!”

He never did and as the congregations grew closer – worshiping together, studying together and, most of all, eating together he never joined us in finding out what we had in common.  

Across cultural and language barriers we discovered that we were all baptized believers in Christ and therefore we had a new relationship with each other.  We were all part of God’s family.

The reason Jesus had to be baptized by John is so that we could all hear the words that were spoken by the Spirit to him.  “This is my beloved Son, and I am wonderfully pleased with him.”6

This is what Jesus says to us in our own baptism: “This is my son, my daughter, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life.”7

What if we lived like that?  What if we believed that about ourselves and about others?

What if we let Michael and his kindergarten friends remind us that we have all, by our baptisms, been adopted into the family of God?

What if we really believed that God’s really does, in Peter’s words, “show no partiality” and that in God’s eyes Korean Presbyterians are mostly Nordic looking Lutherans are the same in God’s eyes?

What if God didn’t care if you got your water from a tap, a pump, or an overpriced bottle of water?

What if we saw each other and ourselves the way God sees us?

Then, it seems to me, that we would be finally free to live our lives as Jesus wanted.

We would be free to live as one of God’s beloved, given new names, new families, new relationships in Jesus Christ our Lord.

That would be refreshing indeed and, unlike those people laboring at that pump near my house, we wouldn’t have to work so hard, lift a finger, drive a mile, to get it because it would be God’s gift to us in our Baptism!

Let us give thanks to God for this gift by seeing each other as daughters and sons of God, marked by God’s love in our baptism, in whom God takes delight.

____________

1.  Christopher Borrelli, “There’s Magic in a Schiller Woods Water Pump, or so Many Chicagoans, for Generations, Have Wanted to Believe.” Chicago Tribune, October 4, 2019. https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-ent-schiller-woods-water-pump-1006-20191004-ogw6bjtetfdnxho5wpletjubr4-story.html.

2.  Eric Zorn, “Not Even Scientific Studies Can Quench Underground Mystique.” Chicago Tribune, October 24, 1986. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1986-10-24-8603200029-story.html.

3.  Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson, (1992). Pygmalion in the classroom : teacher expectation and pupils' intellectual development. (Bancyfelin, Carmarthen, Wales: Crown House Pub. 

4.  St.  Matthew 5:16-17.  (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]

5.  Khushbu Shah, “'Not a Dry Eye': Entire Kindergarten Class Shows up to Witness Boy's Adoption.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, December 6, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/06/michigan-adoption-boy-kindergarten-class.

6. St. Matthew 3:17.  (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible]

7. St.  Matthew 3:17 (MESSAGE) [MESSAGE=The Message]

"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.