Learning from Joseph

Matthew 1:18-25

Let's look at this sometimes too familiar story slowly to understand it in today's terms.


Joseph who knows nothing of God's Holy plan, discovers that his soon to be wife (considered his wife in the act of betrothal) went missing for three months and shows up pregnant. He does not know the back story. He doesn't know what is happening, but decides to handle the matter himself quietly (rather than a public shaming and stoning which was completely acceptable at the time). This alone is an act of compassion we should learn from.


We have all had days where we have met someone and could easily make judgments. You know the person who parked in your spot at work and should have known better. What about the girl who is wearing the way too short skirt, or the guy that is driving ridiculously fast. What about the person who is yelling and screaming at the driver in front of them, or their children....


The thing is you don't know their story. You don't know what their day, weak or life has been like. Joseph did not know what was going on with Mary, yet he chose to deal with her quietly. He didn't shame her. He didn't talk about her in a loud voice so that she knew he was belittling her. How do we deal with those who we think aren't living like they should? Who aren't doing what we think they should? Who aren't acting like they should?


Joseph does not act immediately. He sleeps on it. He takes time to digest what he sees, what he knows and what he should do.


Do we do that? Do you spout off to who ever will listen when someone does something you disapprove of? Do you complain to their parents? To your friends? Do you take time to think about it? Try and see it from a different perspective?


You see Mary being pregnant was not only a huge shame for her, but for her entire family and for Joseph. Honor was everything at the time and in this there was no honor. If he chose to accept her and her child as his own as the angel tells him to do by having Joseph name Jesus. Then Joseph was also accepting the shame and a very difficult path. It was not an easy thing for a man in a patriarchal society to accept another man's child as his own. Blood lines were important, lineage was important. Matthew spends the first part of the chapter reviewing those lines. Yet if we take a moment to take notice we will see they are not as pure as we thought. There are women and men in those lines who lied, cheated, were prostitutes, foreigners, and did not always make the best choices right down to David himself.


Isn't that the way it is though. When we stand in a position of power, a place where we are on the verge of being made to feel uncomfortable we begin to think the worse of the one making us uncomfortable. Our defenses go up, we act rashly protecting what we think we know, and our “values” even if we aren't acting on them.


Yet Joseph sets an example of what Jesus will teach to all the world that love needs to win out. That patience and compassion need to replace pride. Faith in God's will needs to trump embarrassment. Perhaps as we wait in anticipation of Jesus' coming we should not only learn from him but from Joseph how to take a moment and love someone who we do not understand, who makes us angry, who makes choices so different from ours they seem to be poor choices. Perhaps this Christmas season we need to consider what difficult situation God is leading us into so that we can share with the world his Good News and Saving Grace.

Wake Up!

Isaiah 2:1-5
Psalm 122
Romans 13:11-14
Matthew :36-44


Whenever I read anything that sounds apocalyptic I begin to sing “It is the end of the world as we know it.” by REM. I can't help it, but I do. As I began to look more closely at the readings though the theme of being on edge, or anticipation of waiting was there.


These were all communities who had experienced hardship. Isaiah took place during the Syria-Ephraim war (Syria and Israel attacked Judah). In the Roman's community there was a great deal of persecution by the Roman government, and in Matthew, that community had been recently rejected from the synagogues and forced out of the Jewish community. These were people who were tired, who understood hardship and needed hope. Hope for something new.


Do any of you need hope?


Do you have past wounds, hurts, injuries that you have tried to harden your heart to but they still remain tender and vulnerable? Do you need hope?


I do. I know there are many things that I struggle with. I think for many of us, me included having relationships with people is a struggle. It is easier and safer to isolate my emotional self. It is easier to hide and not get to know people than it is to risk being hurt again. It is hard to be vulnerable, especially if you have been hurt. Yet is this not what we are called to do?


We are called to be in community, to serve and to live out the Good News. WE are called to be in relationship with one another and that is risky business people. You have to risk being hurt. You have to be willing to forgive, you have to do some hard work and relaxing in the recliner in front of a tv show is not cutting it.


Matthew reminds us to be ready.


We are to be ready. Are you ready? Are you living in hope? Are you willing to take some risks? To reach out to someone new and get to know them? Are you willing to live out the Gospel? Really live it out? How are you doing it?


The gospel is not a prison sentence, it is new hope. It is realizing that we do not travel this world alone. That we have God helping us to navigate this broken world with all of its problems and short comings. We can stop living out the Gospel when we are reunited with Christ, until that point we need to be doing some living! That does not mean that we live life as usual, as those in Noah's time, but that we are constantly on God watch. We watch for God moments, we watch for opportunities to be a good person to someone else, we watch for moments of sharing love with another person. This does not mean you lecture someone on Christ, you simply love them where they are. You risk being hurt. You hope in Christ and you love another person.


This is the season of Advent. The season of Hope. The time to take a serious look at your life and see if you are truly living in hope.



Are you like the owner of the house, going about your business as usual, doing your day to day, letting

End Times

Luke 21:5-19
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13


After the horrible storm in the Philippines, and all the devastating storms in the last two years people tell us we are living in the end times. We see the terrible wars, the torture, human trafficking, enslavement and we stare in horror and say we must be living in the end times.


The thing is that it is not just our times right now, this has been a fear for all times. We hear today in Luke how Jesus is warning about how times will be hard for those who live in his way, but not to give up he is with us. We hear about the destruction of the temple (both his body and the building). We hear about the false profits and the war and if we are a careful study of scripture we see those paths as well.


In 2 Thessalonians we hear Paul warning people against laziness. The people living in these communities thought the end times was coming – like NOW! Why would they work so hard to do anything. It was time for those who believed to go home. Why bother, it was all over.


Think about this for a moment.


Why bother? Does it really matter? No one cares?


We hear this all the time. I hear, why should I try? No one cares? Why does it matter? We grow complacent. We hear horrible things and we harden our hearts. We see horrific images and we become as stiff necked as those in the Bible. We hear false profits, and we jump on board because it sounds better than what we are doing.


People expect there to be one catastrophic event that ruins the world. They expect things to end dramatically in an Armageddon manner. Yet God does not exist in linear time. God is out side of time viewing all at once. What if we are all living in the “end times now”. All of us are going to have an end time. Jesus tells us this. It is not the end time we have to fear, but wasting our time. Paul tells those in Thesolonica that.


We don't have to worry about dying, about the world ending, about it all being over if we truly believe that Christ came, lived and died for us and our salvation. That through Christ we have a new and everlasting life and can experience the presence of God now in the in-breaking kingdom. If we are truly living out this message than we need to be truly living!


So here is the hard bit – are you living or are you wasting time? Are you gossiping and doing nothing? Are you earning your keep for we all have an end time. We all have a short journey on this earth. What are you going to do with it? You can experience the peace and joy of Christ. You can live out his word and experience joy unmeasured. You can choose to help others, to live outside your comfort zone and make a difference, or you can coast and be a loafer. What is it going to be?



We live in the end times, so will our children, and grand children and great children, just as we follow those before us. What are you going to do with your end time?  

A Wee Little Man.

Luke 19:1-10


Today we hear the story of Jesus once more with a tax collector. This one seems to have a few twists and turns however. Jesus plans on going through Jericho. In the first line it says that he plans on passing through – yet he doesn't. He stays the evening with Zacchaeus and eats with him. What happens that changes Jesus' plans? Why?


We hear about Zacchaeus who is the chief tax collector. He knows about Jesus and is so excited that he completely abandons all of the natural social norms. He is so despised despite his great wealth in the Jewish society that they won't let him through the crowd to glimpse Jesus. They won't let him in. They won't even let him through. So he runs ahead – which a man would never do, a rich man especially as this opens up for all sorts of criticism. Not only does he embrace himself to run ahead of where Jesus was going to be but he also climbs a Sycamore tree! How much more humiliating do you want to get for a man of his wealth and stature. He humbles himself completely in order to see Jesus.


Jesus stops what he is doing and calls him down. He tells him that he is going to stay at his house. This enrages the people. The hated tax collector, the one that they think or think they know has cheated them and works for the horrid Romans. This man that just made a fool of himself before the entire town is the one Jesus is choosing to eat with. Jesus puts them in an uncomfortable place. They love and respect Jesus as a healer and teacher, yet they hate the Romans and the tax collectors. They have to forgive Zacchaeus or they have to reject Jesus. The grumbled.


Do you ever grumble? Do you complain? Moan? Do you get annoyed and say some harsh things under your breath? How about grumbling when things don’t' follow your time line? When you think things should get done? What about when someone hurts your feelings? Your pride? Your honor? What about people you just don't agree with? It is a very human thing, especially when we are being challenged by God. We grumble, we mumble, we complain.


Here is the deal though, we are called to try and be like Jesus, so that we can live out his love with others and share the good news of the Kingdom of God.



Notice Jesus does not shame Zacchaeus. He does not mention his job. He does not mention what he does not like. He rejoices in Zaccheaeus, he dines with him which means he accepted him just as he was. He forgave him. He forced the people around him to think about Zacchaeus differently. Jesus made a world of difference to Zacchaeus. Jesus opened up the gates of inclusion in this small Jewish community despite the grumbling. So how do you do the same? How do you forgive those whom you disagree with? How do you love those whom your community does not approve of? How do you rush to see Jesus even if it means losing your pride and doing the hard work of climbing a tree?

Faith in times of Trouble

Click on the  links below to read the text.
Luke 17:5-10
2 Timothy 1:1-14

Today we celebrate World Communion Sunday. This is a time when we celebrate communion with all of our brothers and sisters around the world. It is also a time for United Methodists to collect a free will denomination-wide offering to provide scholarships for U.S. (racial- and ethnic-minority) and international undergraduate and graduate scholarships.¹


It is also a day that we talk about faith. We hear in Luke that we need faith only the size of a mustard seed, but I counter we need to actually live in faith even if it is the size of a mustard seed. We can profess things with our lips, but it needs to be in our hearts. WE also hear in 2 Timothy 1:1-14 today a reminder “to keep alive the gift that God has given you.” (v.6).


These are not easy tasks to accomplish, especially in our community today. Today we come together to celebrate faith and communion, but also to pray for the two families in the community who have lost children – another one of our most precious gifts. How do you keep the faith we are supposed to have when such tragedy takes place?


We are reminded not only of the miracles faith can provide (telling the Mulberry to pull itsefl up and throw itself into the sea), but then we are provided immediately after with what seems to be a bit of harsh reality. We are reminded that the servant serves all day, comes in tired and hungry and has to serve his master again, before eating himself and he does all of this without the least thanks. Isn't that what faith feels like most days? It feels like just doing what you need to do. We don't usually celbrate it, we don't look on it as a big deal, we just do it.


2 Timothy cautions us in this though. If we continue about the business without taking the time to marvel in what Jesus has done for us then we can loose our faith. If we do not nurture our gifts through sharing what God has done with others, prayer, community, the Word, and Sacraments than what helps us to keep the faith we were blessed with?


2 Timothy also reminds us that there will be times when we suffer, but in our faith we can stand in confidence of God's grace. We can be assured of God's presence and guidance.


So faith is truly a two way street. We have to be willing to begin with the mustard seed to trust God with those things, God will in turn grow our faith to be bigger and more wild than the Mustard plant, yet at the same time we need to nurture these gifts. We need to respond. It is like any relationship we need to respond and interact with God in order to have a good relationship and faith that can stand up to these tough times.


Right now our community is spinning. Just stand in the halls of the schools, listen to the adults and the kids who can not grasp how innocent, good, kids could suddenly be gone. We have friends and neighbors who are not only holding their kids tight, but don't have the faith that maybe someone here does. Maybe that have not experienced it. I think this is where 2 Timothy calls us to stand up and share our faith. That does not mean we go about proclaiming all the troubles go away in Jesus, but we reach out and listen to their pain, we bring food, we comfort, and we pray. It means that we look for those reeling and hurting and offer compassion, assistance and truly live in our faith. It also means that our faith may need some nurture, we may need to seek community, someone to talk to, we may need to spend extra time in prayer, and maybe while we celebrate the sacrament of communion today we take some extra time to make sure we are anxiously anticipating the encounter with God who has promised to ALWAYS meet us at the table.

1http://www.gbod.org/lead-your-church/lectionary-planning-helps/twentieth-sunday-after-pentecost-world-communion-sunday

Freedom in Christ

Colossians 2:6-19

Have you ever felt inadequate? Have you ever had the experience with friends or even church people that you just didn't measure up to what they considered Holy. I have – quite regularly. I have found that there really are two parts to this. The first is listening to them in a way that you take it personally, and secondly allowing yourself to question what you know. I know Jesus came so that I can have a relationship with God. I know that I am loved just as I am, but somehow I am still trying to measure up. To what? Good question. My expectations, their expectations, what I think they are expecting, to the invisible and unspoken rules I seem to understand, or just what I think I should be doing - which usually includes a perfection I will never obtain here because it leaves no room for my humanity.

The Writer of Colossians is writing to a community of believers who are being told that they are not holy enough. They aren't doing the right things and that they will never be as Holy as them if they don't have certain experiences. This is the letter of response.

The writer of Colossians tells us to put the brakes on it. To stop trying to achieve human goals and remember who and whose we are. In verse 6 we hear “Since you have accepted Christ Jesus as Lord, live in union with him.” We are reminded that all we need to do is to accept Christ and then to allow him to work. How do we do that you ask? “Keep your roots deep in him, build your lives on him, and become stronger in your faith, as you were taught, and be filled with thanksgiving.” There is something about roots you need to know – they not only spread deep, but wide, they are bigger than the plant often and support it despite what it faces above ground. How do we do this, by building our lives after Jesus, by praying, fasting, listening, spending time in community with others, doing good to all, studying scriptures, worshiping and participating in Holy Communion as well as being Thankful.

Funny thing that thankfulness thing is. Sometimes I think that is in there not because we need to be polite and thank God, but because the very act reminds us of how blessed we are. By being thankful you give yourself time to recap the day not as what you missed, not as how inadequate you are, but completely focusing on God and his movements in our lives. Thankfulness is powerful and sometimes something we forget. When things are going well why do we need to think about it. The thing is if we practice it all the time, then we can find the blessings in our lives when things aren't going so well. This takes us out of the blame game and expectation picture and just reflects the glory of God. How often do you do this? I don't do it enough.

I love verse 8 where the author reminds us “See to it then that no one enslaves you by means of the worthless deceit of human wisdom, which comes from the teachings handed down by men and from the ruling spirits of the universe and not from Christ.” This is the moment when your best friend grabs you by the shoulders and gives you a reality check - “Dude don't let them tell you your worth, when you know that God finds you worthy of his love”. This is the moment when you get shaken awake from the entanglement. This is the death that is caused by the world, and how the world runs itself. Too often we forget just as the author tells us that we are baptized into Christ death and raised from that into new life. When we are baptized we no longer have to be held by those demands. We do not have to live up to anyone's expectations, just be a vessel for God to work in. We are a new being in that we no longer have to be trapped by anyone else's expectations. We are free, nothing separates us from God now but us. We are the only things that can stand between us and God. That is the beauty of Christ.

The author goes on to remind us that when someone is judging us in verse 18 then they have puffed themselves up and forgotten Christ. I think we do this when we judge ourselves at times as well. There is a difference between seeing our own flaws and asking God for help and holding ourselves up to expectations that we can't meet without Christ.

In verse 19 We hear, “Under Christ's control the whole body is nourished and held together by its joints and ligaments, and it grows as God wants it to grow.” Notice that it does not grow as the body thinks it should. It does not become with out God and so it can not evolve without God, yet this is clearly telling us that it does evolve and that God is in charge. If God is in charge do we really need to try to be in absolute control of things? What about when we forget to do those spiritual practices that give us roots? Then what - we forget to be the body and perhaps it is one of those pruning moments we face so often that has to happen.

We often sit in judgment of so many things, but in Colossians we are simply told to live into our baptism, to make space for God and watch what God can do. So how are you living into your baptism? How are you letting God help free you from the slavery of our human expectations, or the expectations the World places on you by media, social networks, and/or work? What are you doing to Grow space for God to work in your life? How do you see God growing the Body? Where are you on remembering the thanksgiving piece of this? How thankful are you?   

Need a Fill Up?

Luke 10:38-42

Colossians 1:15-28

Over the past few weeks I have been on over drive with church stuff to do. Have any of you felt like that, with some part of your life. You try to fit more and more in your day and feel like you are chasing your tail and still behind? If that pace lasts too long, and if you are anything like me, it will cue the frustration and feelings of inadequacy.

I think this is why I resonate with Martha so much and probably also why I have been confused by this passage for so long. Why is Jesus being hard on Martha? We were just told to take care of people last week with the Good Samaritan so why is Martha getting reprimanded? What does Jesus mean?

Then I hit upon the idea in one of the commentaries that perhaps it is the extreme service Jesus is warning us of. I looked up the passage in its original Greek with an English translation on a great website I have found (http://leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com/2013_07_01_archive.html ). When I looked at that, I realized that one of the words for what Martha was doing is business. I also found out that as a leader of the women in the early church, she was literally acting as one of the first deaconesses – connecting the world with the body of people and serving the people through her work and her hospitality. So she was busy with the business of hospitality. This is something that Jesus has praised before.

So what is different now? According to the Greek/English translation Martha is actually approaching Jesus in a state of near hysteria. She is so overwhelmed by the task at hand. She doesn't know where to start.....this sounds so much like my life at times!!!! Has anyone else felt this? So many things running down over you that you don't know where to or how to catch your breath. This was my month of June! We sold our house, found a new house, found an apartment, packed ten years of stuff, finished Kindergarten, finished youth soccer – which I was coaching, said good bye to our friends, our family and our home and headed to a whole new place. I was Martha about mid June – Jesus send me some help already. Don't you see I am drowning here? Get yourself moving and send me help!

Martha is there, panicking. There are so many needs around her and she is trying to fill them, both literally with food and figuratively with her gifts as a leader in the early church. This is when Jesus tells her to slow down. Martha, Martha is not a condescending pat on the back, it is an attention getting. He says it to slow her down. Then he tells her she is worried and troubled over so many things and only one thing is needed. When have you felt like that? So overwhelmed you can't even remember to do the one thing that is needed because it isn't a physical pressing need. Taking time to listen to someone when ten others are clamoring to you about their hunger is not easy. This is what we have to do everyday. What clamors for your attention? Smart phones, television, computers? What about meetings, groups, chores, and schedules? Appointments that seem to be more important than doing your devotions? What seems to sneak in and steal your time with God in prayer, devotion or meditation. It may be a good thing. It may be sharing your gifts and talents that God has given you, but if we never take time to refill with God like Mary then we will soon be empty. We will feel panicked like Martha because we can not fill those needs without God. We cannot use our gifts and talents without being replenished in Christ. We need to hold fast onto the center of our faith so that we may live, truly live out our faith.

Service and Word are required to live out true faith, but the service comes from the Word. We can not share with others what we do not have. We can not share the freedom from separation that God grants us if we do not take time to stay connected with God. The Word and the Spirit gives us strength to do the work in the world, without them we have no power do any lasting good.

So how are you going to refill with God? How are you going to let your Martha and Mary sides work together? What are you going to do to fill up with Jesus and then go out and serve the world in all of its neediness?

Walk this way

Today we hear many stories about people doing God's will. In 2 Kings 5:1-4 we hear about Elisha who cured an enemies lead commander because he knew God wanted him to. In Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 we hear about 70 disciples of Christ who were sent out to do God's will and their amazing testimonials upon return of what they had seen done in Jesus' name. In Galatians 6:16 we are told in a bit more detail what we are being called to do.

Paul starts out with something that is familiar to all of us – messing up. I know that I mess up – frequently. Paul reminds us that if we are to live out Jesus' message and experience the kingdom of Christ here on Earth than we need to be able to give each other a little Grace. Think about all the Grace God gives us everyday! How many times a day do we thank God for our blessings? How many times do we do things that need Grace to recover from. Paul is telling us right at the beginning of the statement, that the only way to be people of Christ is to treat each other with Grace. Not only are we to do it with Grace but we are to be aware of our own limits so that we don't begin to think that we are better than we are – so that we don't begin to think that we don't need Grace, we only have to give it out.

Then we are told to bear one another's burdens. Think about this one for a moment.... I don't know about you but it is a lot easier for me to help someone than it is to ask for help. In moving here I learned this the hard way. I did not want to ask for help packing. I did not want to burden friends and family. I did not want to bother anyone, and well part of it was probably pride. I didn't want to have to ask. I didn't want to feel inadequate, like I couldn't handle it on my own. I didn't want to admit to how overwhelmed I fetlt at having to say goodbye to the world I have come to know, to help my children navigate leaving the only home they have ever known and taking a leap of faith. Here you should probably know that until two weeks before we moved we did not have a place to live. When we did find a place to live we also found a home to buy but again had to make a leap of faith and decide on the spot if we wanted to own it. So there were a lot of things happening. Yet, my pride was still larger than ...well anything. I finally broke down and asked for help the last week as I panicked and started randomly throwing various items in random boxes trying to figure out how we were going to get anything done. This is a time that I needed to heed Paul's words. It is not my job just to help other people with their problems, worries and life situations, but I am to allow others into that uncomfortable space of helping me. I am to make room to receive help carrying my burdens. Have any of you felt that difficulty?

Paul goes on to explain this some more. If we pretend we can handle things all on our own all the time then we are deceiving ourselves because we can't. We were never meant to live in this world completely independently – we need each other and God. I want you to think now about a time that you have have needed help. Did you ask for it?

Paul continues to tell us more about how we judge. He began by telling us that if someone is making a mistake we should correct them kindly and lovingly and move on, but he also tells us that we need to look at ourselves before we look at anyone else. We have to stop and ask ourselves if we can be proud of the work we have done, the way we live, how we have treated others? We have to ask ourselves have we helped others carry their burdens, have we allowed others to help us?

Then Paul does something tricky....he tells us everyone has to carry their own load....after he told us to help each other carry their loads. What? I think Paul is trying to remind the people that we have to deal with the consequences of our own actions. If we choose to do something that is what we have to deal with, so make sure it is something we can be proud of. Make sure we are attempting to live in a Christian way and then we will have help carrying our burdens. If you choose to go against God than that you are going to have to deal with the consequences.

Paul goes a step further yet. He reminds us that our intentions are never hidden from God. That no matter what we are doing and why we are doing it God knows. If we try to deceive ourselves, we are doing just that we may be able to pretend for a while but we can never trick God. God knows the intentions of our hearts and that is what we will reap when we harvest. What seeds are you sowing? Paul even encourages us in v.9 “So let us not become tired of doing good; for if we do not give up, the time will come when we will reap the harvest.” Sometimes it is so hard to keep working on this path towards God, but don't give up, because God is also working on us to keep us on the path towards God.

Suddenly Paul seems to switch tracks and talk about circumcision and writing in large hand writing. You see even in Paul's time if you wrote in all caps people knew you were yelling at them! He is reminding the people that there will always be someone telling you how to get to heaven, and what you should do, ought to do and what you are doing wrong. The thing is that often times they are the ones who have lost the way themselves. They have written a formula for actions when what is needed is a relationship with your heart. Paul tells us not to heed what they say and ignore them completely. What does matter “is becoming a new creature” in Christ. If you are not made new, if you nothing changes in your life because of your belief in Christ then you are not a Christian. We are made new in Christ for he is constantly perfecting us and pulling us toward him in deeper relationship so that we may live in his Kingdom, in his Glory NOW and FOREVER!!

So when we are tired, when our burdens are heavy and you are worn down. Remember it is not a formula that you need. There is no quick fix, but a relationship. You need a relationship with God and with the people God has put in your life to walk with you. We were not made to carry our burdens alone but to grow in love with one another and the community. This is Christ call for us.

Insight from a grass nest...

Children are closer to God because they can hear the Holy's heartbeat and know enough to stop and savor it.

A thought after joining my children in creating grass "nests" in our overgrown yard and savoring how the sun and clouds look from beneath the grass overhanging our heads.

Think about it for a moment. We rush all over the place, we have lists and agendas.  We have things to do. Even those of us trying to focus on a relationship with God schedule time to pray, and yet a child knows when they encounter God.  They listen to the heartbeat of the world around them, see God's miracles and stop long enough to savor them.  I completely believe that God has given us these small un-rushed people in our lives not to frustrate us as we try to get them ready for school, but to slow us down so that we remember the majesty, beauty and complete miracle that is our life and the world in which we live.

Seeing Jesus

Have you ever been praying about something and felt like God was trying to answer you but you just didn't get it? There have been many times, recently even, when I know God is at work, but I don't know what it is. I can feel it. I can feel the peace that passes all understanding soaking my soul to the point that my incessant worrying about housing for my family has gone – dissapaited. I know God is at work here. I know that I am on the right path, yet what should I do next? How do I understand Jesus here and now? I have learned that at the right time I will, but I have a very hard time waiting for it.

I think today's message in John14:18-29 (link to text) which sounds like a really complicated passage is Jesus trying to explain this very thing to us. This takes place just before Jesus goes to the Garden, just before he faces Pilot and his death. He is affirming to us that we are not orphans. While he has been here, he has been helping us to understand God, and God's kingdom. He has redefined how we live, and why we live here on Earth. He has helped us to focus on relationships within our communities, within our families, and with God. Now he is trying to prepare us for the horrible sadness that the people who are around him are going to face. They will feel completely abandoned, like orphans with no one to physically help them, no one to go to who understands and knows what is going on. Yet Jesus is trying to explain to them, something new is happening and it is not bad – although it is hard. It leads us to life, a life that is better than any we could live in this fallen world on our own, better than we knew before. He is introducing to us that even though we will not see him in body, that the Advocate or Holy Spirit will come to us in Jesus' name so that we will know it and it will help us. The Advocate will help us to do new things in Christ's name, will teach us beyond what Christ has taught and assist the generations in learning to live this new life with the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God. This is a new way of life that is totally different than the life we lead with other humans. This is not a competition. It is not a way of measuring, putting external value on lives. It is not a way to barter, or maneuver for power it is new. It is a way of living in the fallenness that is our world yet it gives us peace and shares that peace. God's peace was never meant for us to hold onto as individuals, but through individuals to reach communities, to share and love in community. The Kingdom of God.

When life is coming at us at 90 miles an hour Jesus leaves us with this

5. 27 “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your heart be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

Peace is something our world does not know enough of – what does it look like in a small scale? In our day today? In a moment? In a day? In a person? In a family? In a community? In a society?

Peace is our precious gift granted to us by Jesus and given daily to us through the Holy Spirit moving in our lives. What does that feel like? What does that look like?

What does the world give? What are the world expectations? What does the world think peace is? What about pride? What about our own biases and prejudice? What about expectations? What about what and how we are expected to use our finances? What about our time? Our busyness - is this from the world? What do you see those around you expecting, striving for, getting?

How do we not let our hearts be troubled? How do we know the Holy Spirit when we meet her? How do we stop our fear? How do we see Jesus? That is exactly what Judas asked. Jesus answered him that if you know Jesus, and his peace, you will be able to recognize it in others. Those who love God, God will make God's home in them. Even on their bad days, we will be able to recognize it through prayer, by asking the Holy Spirit for help, through discernment, and by reading our Bible where we hear God's Good News afresh everyday and in different ways. It is not easy, and you can't always spot it instantly, sometimes you have to get to know the person, but if you are trying to truly open yourself up to listen to God, then God will shine through you as well.

Extravagant Love

(I am sorry I have not posted in a bit, here are parts of this weeks sermon, it needs some smoothing out, but I thought I would post it for those who have missed it.)

In John 13:31-35(click for verses) Jesus is clear that he has come to glorify God, to show us what God's intention is for us, to love us like no other to the point of sacrificing his life. He patiently explains that where he is going the others are not to follow him. He was making sure that hey didn't kill themselves, or martyr themselves when the time came for the soldiers to take him. He must go through the next three days in order for his gift of ever lasting life to be left with us. We could not do that. We can not reconcile ourselves to God without his divine help. Jesus wants to help us to understand that it is not our place to do this.

He then leaves us a new commandment

“that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Let's divide this up because there is a lot here. First of all it is learning to love like Jesus, then it is telling us that by our love to others people will know we are his disciples.

Let's look at what Jesus' love looked like.

How does Jesus Love?

Jesus loved the woman a the well. He went to her and shared life everlasting with her. She faced rejection, pain, and hostility when she ran back to share the news with the village, yet she did share the news.

Jesus loved the lepers when he healed ten of them and they ran home to regain their lives, to see their families and were literally born again because they could come back to society. Only one came back to be healed...just one. Did Jesus take away the gifts of healing from the others? Did he change his mind or grumble in distaste that they were selfish. He comments on it, but only to then bless the man who came back to say thank you.

Jesus loved the adultor. In a society where the man was punished, but the woman killed, Jesus stood between her and the men holding the stones. He did not use violence, he did not use heroics. He simple wrote in the dirt and told them that he who has no sin cast the first stone. He then sends the woman home to sin no more – to be separated from God no more, to try and live closely with God.

Jesus loved Lazarus when he raised him from the dead. He healed him and broke the bonds of death, so that we would understand when he was raised from the dead that his rising was a breaking of all death not just a moments death. He cried with Mary and Martha, he knew the pain of separation from family and friends and yet the separation from God is that much worse.

Jesus healed the sick woman with the bleeding disease. This is a woman who was not allowed to interact with others and who was isolated. What did this change mean to her? She could have a life. She could collect water with the other women. She could interact with her husband and family. She had a new life.

Jesus loved through his actions. Jesus went to those that society said were bad and had no place in society. Jesus showed love by breaking bread with them, having a conversation, hearing their stories and listening to them. He showed love by working towards justice of the oppressed like the woman accused of adultery. He loved by feeding them physically and spiritually. Jesus loved the unlovable. He listed to the tax collector as he ate with him and in simple conversation brought him to God. Jesus loves us like this. He loves us all the time. He loves us in our quiet moments, in our difficulties. Jesus loves us when we travel the prideful path of sin and separation from God. Jesus loves us.

The without missing a beat Jesus calls us to live this love out to others, to do as he has done, and that I how we are known as Christians.

This is a tall order. Thankful we are not left to it on our own. Often we try to show our love by not talking – it is easier to show our love if we don't know where we disagree. We try to keep it to our selves. I challenge though that it was in those very conversations that Jesus changed hearts and minds, by listening, sharing and getting to know individuals.

We have difficulty with this part of the command for another reason, we don' t like to see the weaknesses in other Christians. What if we know they don't do what we think Jesus taught us? What happens when things happen and they blow their top in the grocery store and tell someone off? What if they get a divorce for no good reason we can think of? What if they interact with people who we think are a bad influence in the place that those bad influences are?

This is so incredibly uncomfortable for us. Our expectations aren't met. What we think love is does not look like that...What do we do?

I don't know, but I think that we are human. We are fallible. We mess up. Some days I lose it and yell at someone just because I am having a bad day and feel like misery. Some days I do check facebook instead of taking the full time I should on my devotionals. I am human. I am working on asking God to help make his will mine. Sometimes he does it in surprising ways. Sometimes I hang out with people other Christians may raise their eyebrows at – yet I can walk away from that encounter know God was at work. I listened to their story, engaged in the conversation. Nothing changed in their lives outwardly, yet they will never be the same.

I am still trying to figure out how to live out this Christian love. I think that is what Wesley might as he talked about living on into Christian Perfection. He was trying to explain that Christian maturity or perfection does not happen overnight. It happens slowly over a long period of time. It happens in moments and sometimes we fail. Sometimes we don't look like Christians, and sometimes we judge each other so harshly we don't know when we do look like Christians. I wonder what the world would like if we truly lived out this command. If we lived out love in such a way that from the witness of our lives and our willingness to act for and with the oppressed, the poor, the ones living on the edges of life that the world would know we are Christ's disciples.   

New paths in our deserts

Click on the links below for the Bible passages.

Isaiah 43:16-21

Philippians 3b-14

Isaiah (rather his followers) are speaking to their people who have now been in exile for so long they do not see anyway out. They have very little hope that things will change and are feeling trapped in their current conditions.

Have you ever felt that way? Have you felt that way about parts of your life, your work, or even your church? Trapped, with no way out, with nothing discernible going on. Just struggling to survive.

I know I have and so did the people Isaiah is speaking to. Isaiah tells them in verse 18, "do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old," yet in v. 16 and 17 he reminds us of the magnificent things that God has already done – the major stories that all the faithful know and hold dear.

Is he telling us to forget our roots? To leave behind what has made us who we are? Are we to pretend that we don't view the world and the things that happen to us through the eyes of one who has traveled in these shoes for a very long time, through our experiences good and bad, our hopes, our fears, our traumas and our desires. Reality is a fragile thing – it wraps itself into our brain completely composed of what we see, feel, hear and know combined with what we have experienced. Just ask someone who has gone through an experience with you. It is so odd to talk with my brother about childhood events. Our realities are so different at times, yet we were both there at the same event at the same time - and our stories barely resemble each other.

Isaiah is reminding us that we can not get stuck in our realities.  We can not continue to look longingly at the past. Isaiah is talking not just to the Jewish people but even for us today. We can not allow our circumstances, our desserts, our wildernesses those spots that we feel lost in, to trap us. If we allow it they will. We will keep struggling for survival, our churches will continue to struggle for survival, our jobs will continue to make us miserable if we keep looking back at them and thinking of what we had and lost. If we look at them and compare them to what we want and don't have, if we look at them and think about the good old days without ever imagining our horizons there will never be a path through our wilderness.

Isaiah reminds us that God is making new things. New things spring forth and can be something that is completely unexpected like a river in the desert or a road in the wilderness. God is all about taking the least likely thing and bringing it into a life that it could have never known by itself.  Have you ever walked through an abandoned parking lot and caught site of the most beautiful flowers appearing out of broken pavement?  That is true for us too.

When we surrender to God in these difficult times, in the times when you see no way out. You never know what you are going to get. It will be unexpected, it will be ten fold more than you ever hoped for, and you may even be the one that is helping someone else out of their desert. You just never know.  That is the beauty of a new thing created by God.

We are reminded that we were formed in God's image. WE are beloved! We are made to praise God. We are being transformed if we accept the invitation God has given us to his grace. Look at the objects that I have passed out (sand stone, geodes, shells) If God can create something so beautiful from these, what more can he do with us who are formed in his image. What fruit can come from us if we allow these new things to spring forth and open ourselves up to them? If we continue being stuck in the way it was, what may have been, or how it should have been, we will only see the desert. If we can find a way to praise God in where we are in this moment we can begin to see a place for the new thing to start. What can we praise God for today? Where have you seen God in your desserts?

Paul saw this in Philippians 3:13 - “Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do; forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.”

What lies ahead of you?

The Covenant

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18

Have you ever had to wait for something? Wait a really long time? You begin to lose faith that it will happen, you doubt the person who said they were going to do it, you become frustrated and if you are anything like me anger is soon to follow frustration.

You know we are not that different in essences from our early patriarchs and matriarchs. Do you think Abram and Sari were any different? They had been promised descendents when the Lord had called Abram in Genesis 12. God had said “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12: 2-3) This happened when Abram was 75. He is now a hundred and has yet to have a child. He has a vision and a conversation with God in it. He is frustrated. Where is his great nation? Not a single child yet? Sarai was frustrated – remember honor for a woman was having children and she has none.

They are stuck. Then Abram has another vision. This time the Lord says “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” (Genesis 15:1) Abram probably was afraid. He is hearing from God now after 25 years. He does not have any children and really wants to ask God where is his nation now? (Of course I imagine it with a bit of sarcasm because after 25 years you start to doubt it will happen) Abram actually asks “O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” Abram is actually calling God out on this.

Notice that so often we are taught not to question God, not to doubt our promises, to accept with with faith alone. This is useful, but not always practical. We are human after all. We become frustrated, our sense of time is different than God's and lets face it living in limbo is not something humans do well. It is not something I do well. Waiting is excruciating for me. I am so frustrated when I have to wait for a long time. But you know what Abram is showing us it is okay to get frustrated, to ask God, to question God. God will answer, and sometimes we won't understand that answer either, but God is working in it.

God answers our Abram with a promise to make his descendents as numerous as the stars. I can just imagine Abram rolling his eyes, “yep I heard that one before.” God can hear his doubt. God knows him inside and out, just as he knows us inside and out.

God makes a covenant with Abram. This is not just in a vision. It is not just a little promise easily broken. This was a full out covenantal promise. It was messy, it was smelly. It required great sacrifice on Abram's part. I don't know how much you know about love stock, but at least with cows, they don't mature until three. So essentially God is asking for animals in their prime. Ones that would be prized and valuable. He does not just request one but five. God has Abram cut them in half and keep the flies from them all day so that the sacrifice can be made to seal the covenant.

Covenants with God are hard work. It requires something of you. It requires sacrifice and attention and time. I am pretty sure Abram had other things to do that day then chase flies from a pile of stinking meat for the day. It was not easy work. God responds though. He seals the covenant by walking between the animals which represented that if he should break the covenant then he too should be torn in half like this.

The thing is that even after that Abram and Sari are impatient. I have to wonder if they were thinking like we often do very literally – that the two of them would parent that many children. Perhaps they didn't understand the Lord, or perhaps they just thought they could move things along, because in the very next chapter Sari tries to get her heir through Hagar and we all know how that ended. The thing is God does not renege on his promises. His covenant is still firm. A great nation will come from Isaac. A few thousand years later if you look down on the world from space we do look as numerous as the stars. This did not happen in our time, it did not happen all at once, or like they thought it should. It did not happen because of Sari and Abram's ill thought out plan of using Hagar. It happened because God chose for it to happen. It happened because Abram did his part in the covenant. It happened because God promised it to happen.

We make covenants with God. We make a covenant when we are baptized – we make it as a church and as an individual to help the person and nurture the person in Christ's love. We make a covenant when we get married with the other person and God. We remember God's covenant with all Christians when we celebrate the Lord's supper each month.

All these things require us to do something before our brothers and sisters in Christ. All these things require us to be present before God and God is present in them. They can be life changing events if we bring our hearts, minds and bodies in line with God for that moment and meet God in them.

So how do you come to the covenant? How have you gotten messy in upholding your covenant with God that was made in your baptism or confirmation? How have you waited for God's promises? We all make mistakes just as Abram and Sari did, but now is the time to begin anew to try and fulfill our end of the promises we made to God while trusting (even if we grumble) God will uphold God's end of the deal.

Do we need church?

Nehemiah8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

What is church? What is the purpose of the Church?

Why do people need a church?

I have met many people who tell me they don't need a church, they can do it on their own. They believe in God and that is enough. But is it?

Let's hear the story in Nehemiah this week.

All the people are gathered at the Water Gate – a place where all are welcome, and no one is excluded. The people ask Ezra to to bring the book of the law of Moses which the Lord had given. They were asking Ezra to be their representative in reading and interpreting the Torah. It wasn't that he did it because it was his job – technically his job was in the temple not on the street. His job was inside walls in areas that not everyone could access, yet they asked him to read it to them and he did. He read and read and read to all the men and the women and the children. In the temple only the men would hear. They stood much like we do when we listen to the gospel, they bent their heads to the ground in a humble way showing they were ready to listen. Ezra read, and interpreted what they read so people could understand it. Even then they found it helpful to read together, to be together and to listen with open hearts. Even then they needed help hearing a message from God in the readings that was meant for them right in that moment. I am willing to bet just like today that everyone who walked away from that reading and sermons got something a little different out of it!

The people responded. They didn't just hear the word and leave. They cried and I imagine there were prayers too. This is what we do as well. We listen to the word, we have someone interpret the word and then we respond with our prayers and offerings. This is the model for the church. Then Ezra dismissed them, telling them not to cry because they were so moved by the readings of the Law, but that this day is holy to the Lord our God. Rejoice in it. Go and eat and drink and share with those who do not have any. He tells them do not be grieved for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

I think that this story is the story of the church. The church is not a building, it is not a place that only a few can come, it is the wide open world. It is inviting all to come and hear and see God. What does it mean to you that you are a Christian? If we do not understand how different our lives our with God then how are we to share that with others. The people hearing the word knew that it was meant for them. That their lives were different from then on. They were in a hard time, they did not have much joy or strength left to go on, and yet Ezra reminds them that the Lord is your strength.

Isn't that true for us today. The Lord is our strength. Hearing, reading, and coming together as a church reminds us of that. It helps us to help one another when we stray from the path. It does not have to be in a building, it has to be together with all people welcome. Do you think that the people would have had the same response if they had read the scrolls by themselves. If they didn't read and just thought about God? It brings us back to those important questions that you have to answer.

What is church?

What is the purpose of the Church?

Why do people need a church?  

More than Water

Click on the verse to read the text.

Luke 3:15-22

God is always reaching for us, pulling toward him.

In baptism we outwardly and publicly accept that pull, but the act of Grace we receive and is confirmed in the act of baptism is purely God's.

When we pour water or submerge someone and bring them up we remind everyone that when we accept this gift we die to our own selfishness and sin (separation from God). We rise out of the water we are born a new and washed clean from our sin. This does not mean we don't sin anymore, but that we now have agreed to unleash the Holy Spirit in our lives. To let the Holy Spirit guide us and work within us. That we no longer have to be controlled by sin because Jesus conquered all sin.

Baptism does not mean that we no longer feel the pull of sin. It doesn't mean that we don't sin, or that we don't feel the pull, but the good news is that we don't have to be. We have help if we choose it and if we allow the Holy Spirit to do its work we are not alone. Not ever.

The act of putting water on someone's head does not complete our act of baptism. We all have a part in baptism, not just the person being baptized. It is a community event. We as the congregation have a part. The thing with this crazy journey with the Holy Spirit is you can't do it alone. You forget, you loose sight, you become frustrated, you succumb to your own sin (or separations from God) sometimes unconsciously. It is so easy to do. You can easily loose sight of your commitments in baptism. The thing is God doesn't. God does not loose sight of it at all. God loves us still and yearns to forgive us when we are side tracked and bring us back to him. God tugs at our consciousness, but we have to accept it. We have to repent, or turn away from that. This can be very difficult to do alone. This is why we are in community. We (as Christians) make a commitment to support one another on our journeys – not just at the high points, births, baptisms, weddings but at the low points when life is not easy. When one of us feels lost, alone, broken. This is when we need to follow our collective commitments to uphold one another, support each other and give freely of our gifts and talents (see UMH p.44).

Let's face it – life is a hard road. It is easy to become side tracked, to loose hope, to feel alone, and to become isolated. In our baptism though we are not only accepting God's grace, but by being blessed in the Holy spirit we are unleashing the Holy Spirit in our lives. There is nothing that is too big, too bad, too far, too horrible for God. There is nothing that is so dark that Christ's light can not shine through and help us with. This is the glory of our baptism. Every time you see water, drink water or experience rain remember your baptism. Remember you are not alone, you are part of a family of other Christians that you have promised to nurture and that have promised to nurture you. Remember your vows (UMH pg 40) to reject sin and commit yourself to Christ, accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustices and oppression in what ever forms they take. Remember that you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior and that you promised to put your whole trust in his grace, to serve the Lord with all the church which is open to all people, ages, nations and races. Remember your promise to nurture one another by your teaching and example so that all maybe guided to accept God's grace for themselves and profess their faith openly. These are our commitments and God's promise to us is to always pull us, guide us, love us and help us on this journey called life. God's promise is to help us to overcome our separation to rest in his peace. Remember that in the water.

Lorax and How Bad Can I be

This was NOT a sermon, just a reflection.  I did a little bit of it for the kid's service, but just felt like I needed to send it out there.  Click on the purple links to listen to the song or read the scripture from this week.  Please feel free to leave comments.
Missy

Luke 3:15-22

"How bad can I be"

We were watching the Lorax tonight...again... with the kids and the song "How bad can I be" came on.  Besides being incredibly catchy it has a lot to say to Christians let alone a five year old 

I am drawn to this song in particular because we are celebrating Jesus baptism this week.  I keep thinking about what we can end up like if we just continue to do what "comes naturally" as the song says.  We are a selfish people who seem to try and fill ourselves up with everything else in the world, but what is drawing us - God .  We don't always look at the long term consequences, nor do we know them.  We can't usually see around our selves and our own ideas and wants to see that there may be something better, not only for ourselves in the long run, but for everyone, for the collective community that we share this planet with.

How bad can it be when we do what comes naturally?  Well in many places you can't drink the water. In our own dear Hudson River you don't want to eat the fish, and please do not fall off your kayak into it.  Our planet wastes 1/3 to 1/2 of the food it produces and we have millions starving to death.  We have places where our search for precious metals to create faster cell phones and computers have caused the land, the air and the water to be not only unusable but to be poisonous   We cut down our trees without replacing them, dump poisons into the environment and produce so much carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels that our global temperature keeps rising.  And then we have the audacity to complain when the weather is all messed up or we are hit by floods and storms we have never seen the likes of. I think sometimes the question should be "How bad does it have to get?"  How bad are we willing to let things get before we take a stand, before we shake ourselves out of our sugar induced stupors to respond?  I am not sure.

We could also look at it like this as well - how bad can it be when we do what comes naturally in our own lives? More people are dying of strokes, heart attacks and stress related issues than ever before.  We no longer take a Sabbath and no one has time to spend with family or friends.  The computer has replaced conversations and although we are connected to at least two or three devices for extended periods of time constantly communicating with one another more people are depressed then ever before. We are fixated by machines, novelty and new things and that seems to trap many people into constantly upgrading and playing and becoming ever more isolated.   How bad can it be to do what comes naturally?

I do know however that God is letting us have our free will.  We have the free will to destroy ourselves if we so choose.  Yet God is calling us, pulling us towards God.  We have a God sized hole in the middle of our souls and God pulls us toward him.  Do we fight it or do we accept it?  That truly is the question.  As a Christian who accepts that pull we accept it by becoming baptized.  We publicly give God free reign over our beings.  This is not a private act in most cases.  It is not supposed to be a private act.  Jesus didn't get baptized by himself so no one could see.  There were witnesses.  People heard God.  It was big! God claimed him publicly - just as he does for each of us who gets baptized. It is not a private act because we are a communal people.  We are agreeing to let the Holy Spirit in to our lives and our hearts.

This is also not just a safe little routine.  Have you ever experienced a severe rain storm?  Have you felt wind that could blow off a roof?  Have you watched flames consume anything?  These are the elements used in a baptism. It isn't a small thing, it is a big thing.  These are all things that mean the difference between life and death for us and we can not control them.

We need water.  This is our main symbol in baptism.  We use it daily.  We wash in water, we drink it, we clean with it, we spray it on our gardens, we watch it fall from the sky.  Yet this life sustaining water is dangerous.  Just as easily we can drown in it, it can destroy entire towns, it can create slippery roads on a winters evening.   This tension in the gift of water is supposed to be there.  God is bigger than we know.  God can control these elements when we can not.  God can harness a flood, and yet provide water in the desert for his people to drink.  This tension is important because when ever we see water we are supposed to remember our baptism and God.

We are to remember that God is bigger than we know and more powerful than we can imagine.  When we are submerged or sprinkled with water we are told that in baptism we share in Christ's life and death and resurrection   With this act we die to our selves, to our own selfish ways and are given freedom from doing "what comes naturally".  We can choose life, we can choose to do something else, and if we don't we know it, we feel it, the pull is there.  When we are baptized we are born anew in Christ.  We are not trying to fight the pull of sin or separation from God on our own any longer, we are teaming up with a God who is bigger and more powerful than any sin can be who loves us and accepts us as we are.  God who walks with us even when we make poor choices, gives us strength and courage and continually pulls us towards him and his path.  This is baptism.  This is freedom.  This is a whole new life.  This is our journey.

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Time to soak up some light

Isaiah 60:1-6
Matthew 2:1-12

Epiphany! - “Sudden, surprising happening that changes everything completely!”¹

I love the definition of Epiphany that I found above from the GBOD worship planning web site this past week. Usually the only reference many of us have to Epiphany is the Scare-a-crow in the Wizard of Oz declaring he has an Epiphany, or if we have been in church for a while perhaps the idea that it has something to do with wise men. We use the word Epiphany to describe the 12^th day after Christmas. Often times the idea that Epiphany changes everything completely gets drowned out by the three wise men and the gold, frankinsense and myrrh. We think of the traditions and forget that this Sunday marks the beginning for us in the church to start to grapple with what Jesus' birth really means for us. It is time to seek our own Epiphanies – our own realizations about Christ that are surprising and changes everything completely! It is time to begin anew, to seek, to listen to God and to pray.

It is also a time of healing. Isaiah 60:1-2 especially reminds us that it is time to “soak up” some God no matter where we are in life. For the people of Israel this was the time period when they were returning to home. The people felt lost, broken, isolated. They had been forced into exile and were finally allowed to return home. When they did they found it destroyed, and what was standing had either gentiles living in it, or those Jews who were too poor for the government to bother to move them to exile. There were power struggles between those who stayed and those who left and everyone else. Not to mention just pure misery. (Isaiah 59:8-10). Yet God breaks in. God gives them hope about what is to come and God heals.

God does not break into the scene because anyone deserved it. God does not bring light into the darkness of this situation because anyone repented. God does not come because of anything they did or anything we do. God comes because God comes. God comes because we are his people and he pulls us to him. He calls us and beckons us and we get to bask in the light. God is the one that heals, that gives them the strength to rebuild and figure out how to be a nation once more. God comes and then they repent, and then they change, and then they become a collective people again.

This is an important lesson in this season of Epiphany. It is time for us as a hurting people, as a hurting church to just allow God to come. To stop struggling for power, for authority for control and allow ourselves to see the light, to turn our faces towards the light and away from the darkness that surrounds us. It is time for us to “Lift up your eyes and look about you.” As we begin this new time, as we experience the life changing good news of God let us pray for the light. Let us pray for each other and for our own Epiphanies. Let us bask in the light and glory of the Lord before we do anything else. Maybe, just maybe then we truly will be able to share the Good news of Christ. If we do not take the time to truly see what a difference following Christ makes in our lives, how are we to be a light for anyone else? If it does not make our communities any different than the rest of the darkness how is anyone else going to believe us?

So let us stop our hectic races to see who can be the first to fill up their calendar. Let us not even begin to think about what the church needs to do. Let us just listen. Let us just soak up some light and listen to what God is whispering for us to do next. Then we can repent – change the direction of what we are doing and be the light that calls out to the rest of the world.

1 http://www.gbod.org/site/c.nhLRJ2PMKsG/b.3879973/k.9C35/Lectionary_Planning_Helps_for_Sundays.htm accessed 1/5/2013