Have you started watching Christmas movies? We have a tradition in our house of watching a series of Christmas movies throughout the month of December.
 
I’ll admit, though, we’re a bit late to it this year. You might think with quarantine that we might have jumped right into it, but, I guess, in a wonderful way, we’ve found ourselves outside a bit more, working, catching up with friends or family by phone or video chat, enjoying the last bits of sunlight, and sitting by the fire a bit more in the evenings.
 
Just the other night, though, we finally got around to watching one of our favorite Christmas movies – The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. It’s from the early 80s, if you’re not familiar with it, and was especially popular on the East Coast. The book, which the film is based on, was written by Barbara Robinson, who based the story on a little town that happened to be near to where I grew up in Pennsylvania, on the main line that comes out west of Philadelphia. These days, the movie can be found for free on Youtube, if you’re interested. It’s quaint, sweet, and funny – about a mid-sized main line church and how its annual Christmas tradition goes a bit haywire.
 
In it, there’s a girl named Alice, who always plays Mary in the Christmas Pageant. On the outside, Alice appears prim, proper, perfectly together, and serene. But, underneath, when things don’t go her way, it becomes clear that she also can be very stubborn, mean-spirited, gossipy, and legalistic. At one point, a gritty, tomgirl, named Imogen, bully’s Alice into stepping aside so that Imogen can play Mary. In response, Alice starts keeping a notebook full of every instance where Imogen or her siblings step out of line at church so that she can show them to the Rev. Hopkins and the Ladies’ Aid Society, with the hopes that Imogen and her siblings will be kept from ever participating in the pageant again. Alice is sure she knows what is right and best for the church.
 
Imogen and her siblings indeed are a force to reckon with, as the movie displays in many ways, and many people throughout the story make it clear that they are sure those kids will thoroughly ruin their beloved church tradition. Because there ends up being so much gossip about it, at one point, the Rev. Hopkins even recommends canceling the pageant all together.
 
I couldn’t help thinking about this lighthearted story as I prepared for my sermon today. As I considered our two passages for us this morning, one phrase in particular kept lingering with me.
 
What does the Apostle Paul mean when he exhorts us to not quench the Spirit? That is how our New Revised Standard Version translates it. Other translations have verse 19 reading, “Do not extinguish the Spirit” or “Do not try to stop what the Spirit is doing.” Do not try to stop what the Spirit is doing. That’s big. How could we possibly get in the way of God’s Holy Spirit? Do we… try… at times? It’s important for us to consider. Paul says, do not try to stop what the Spirit is doing.
 
But, as we all know, even if we don’t want to get in the way of the Spirit, it also can be hard to tell what the Spirit is doing, which way the Spirit is going. How do we know for sure, whether we are indeed abiding with the Spirit in the direction the Spirit is going? For example, is the Spirit leading Imogen, in the movie, or is the Spirit leading Alice? Right now, the Session is in the midst of a discernment process, prayerfully considering how and where the Spirit is leading First Pres in this season. In order to make sure we’re not getting in the way of Spirit – whether at church or in our own personal lives – especially when it seems that our own desires may feel thwarted, or our own sense of what is right or what is the best way forward when we may be encountering road blocks, the Apostle Paul lays out a map for us here to help us discern the best way to proceed.
 
Paul says here that it is God, the God of peace, who is in a continual long-term process of sanctifying us – of refining us – of helping us become holy, entirely, so that our whole selves, mind, body, and spirit, may be blameless before God. That is the work that God is about, that is what we join in when we claim our baptism, that is the path we are intended to be on. A path of sanctification, of renewal, of holiness with God.
 
Do you feel like you are in a refining or sanctifying process right now? Do you feel like God is not quite done with you yet, and is continuing to help you learn and grow and become more of what God intended you to be? Do you feel that the church is in a refining process? I have a colleague who likes to say that one sign of the sanctification process is that it does not feel good. It’s a process of recognizing where you have mistepped, how you have gone the wrong way at times, how you may have caused harm, seeking forgiveness and going in a different direction. It is not easy, but it is good. And Paul says, cling to that goodness.
 
God certainly takes the long-view when it comes to refining and sanctifying. An evolutionary process, over millions of years, centuries, through generations, and throughout a lifetime. Indeed, anyone who sets about a process of redemption by first becoming a baby is not in any rush.
 
At Christmas time, especially, we are reminded of the extraordinary and inconceivable act our Trinitarian God took to temper their own being to such an extent as to become a baby. God’s own tremendous wildness, as Creator and Spirit, who once brooded over the tumult of the sea and gave the earth its order – humbled God’s own self into the form of a baby boy, a baby boy in need, of food, shelter, love, warmth, and play. God humbled God’s own self to be born to a first-time mother and father who were poor and far from home. It is good for us to remember that just like every first-time parent or first-time babysitter, Mary and Joseph also barely knew what they were doing and had to figure it all out together and with the help of their family and neighbors.
 
I like to remember that when I think about church Christmas pageants or Tableaus. Some churches, like Alice’s, can spend so much time trying to a precise image right, of what they imagine a holy birth to be, trying to make it seem as if everyone had it all together, that there was nothing hard about it, and they knew what they were doing. But that is not what is described in the Bible. In fact, at one point, in the movie, another little girl comments with distain on how Imogen and her brother, who are playing Mary and Joseph, look so disheveled that she feels like they look like “refugees.” Her father stops her and reminds her of how Mary and Joseph were refugees, and that’s probably how they actually looked so many years ago – cold, hungry, and dirty.
 
This year, we’ll be celebrating our Christmas Eve differently. Though we won’t be in the Sanctuary this year, we can still recall fondly the orchestra or horns, the organ and choir, the sermon, and, of course, the children and youth playing their parts in the Tableau. Every year, such a beautiful mixture of beauty, art, Scripture, and playfulness. For those of us who have been a part of many of these, now, we likely could share countless stories of, shall we say, how untamable joy, has at times broken into our otherwise well-structured plans for the evening.
 
For instance, do you recall when the Martinich family, who lit the Advent candle for us this morning, played the Holy Family with Preslee as baby Jesus? It still stands out as one of my favorites. The congregation was invited to sing Silent Night, if I recall. And as we solemnly sang, darling Preslee became enamored with the choir. She wriggled her way up as high as she could onto Michelle’s shoulder, babbling away for all to hear at the crowd singing behind her. What a beautiful image of the baby Jesus, filled with joyful curiosity. Hardly silent at all. Instead, supremely delighted by a vibrant congregational host. 
 
And we allowed this sweet baby to lead us in making room within the confines of our lyrics for a joyous moment – the playfulness, the singing, the music, the worship. What a robust blessing!
 
Can you imagine, how it might have played out if Chris, Michelle, or any one of us, had tried to stop Preslee’s pleasure in the choir, or tried to stop our own pleasure in seeing her unbridled joy? Tried to extinguish that delightful spirit in our midst?
 
Over the years, as Erik and I have considered how best to test everything, as Paul says, how best to discern how the Spirit of God is leading, whether what we are seeing and hearing, whether the interruptions we are encountering, truly are of the Spirit, we have come to use the Fruit of the Holy Spirit as a guide, holding up the circumstances around us against the Fruit as a way of understanding where God is at work.
 
If you are not familiar with the Fruit of the Holy Spirit, you can find these described in Galatians 5. And you can use them to discern, is what is happening here loving, is it joyful, is it peaceful, is it patient, is it kind, is it good, is it gentle, is it faithful, is it tempered? If they are not happening, then the Bible says, this is an area for mission – this is a place where the Good News of Jesus Christ is needed. If the Fruit is there, then, as Paul says, cling to it! Lean into it. Encourage it. Embrace it. Cultivate it all the more.
 
In this season of Advent, especially now in this time of quarantine and COVID restrictions, what better time to learn and embrace the Fruit of the Spirit in our lives? In these last two weeks of waiting, might we consider what it would mean to wait in the Fruit – to wait in love, to wait in joy, to wait in peace, and so forth.
 
Have you ever considered how there are many different manners in which to spend time waiting? How you can wait, peacefully, or distractedly, for instance, or even anxiously, or depressed? How do you find yourself waiting these days?
 
I admit, before this season of Advent, I had not spent too much time considering the different ways in which one can wait. But we have been reading a new book for Advent that has been introducing me to the many forms of waiting that goes on in nature every year. The book is Gayle Boss’ All Creation Waits. In it, each day of December, Boss masterfully describes how an animal spends the winter months. Some hibernate, of course. Some, like a baby, are full of constant activity, as they maintain reserves, keep warm, and make it through the changing seasons.
 
And, then, Boss, tells us, there are others that do things entirely differently than either hibernating or keeping busy.
 
Like the tree frog. Boss describes how the tree frog goes through a process in the winter of preparing itself to freeze. Not to die, but to freeze. “In late fall,” she says, “when temperatures after dark first dropped below freezing, [the tree frog] felt the chill seep in and snake through his body, every atom of him stunned. Whatever was moist tended toward ice… He took fewer and fewer breaths, and then… Woke, gulping, in the next day’s warmer daylight…” She explains how he would do this night and day routine for weeks, until one day he would not wake. He would stay ice, until the air eventually warmed again. Then, he would resume his day and night routine of warming and freezing, until a warm day comes “in spring when the ice goes out – of the ponds, [and] of his blood – and [it] does [not] return. Then with dozens of other wood frogs he’ll hop to the pond,” Boss says, “and send up a thrilling chorus: Death, we’ve robbed you of your ruin, we’ve taken you in.”
 
We have taken you in. What an extraordinary response to threat or fear. What a different kind of power than how the world so often characterizes power. Instead, the tree frog says, I will slow myself down, take you in, because I know I am not lost in you, death. The warmth will come again. Just like the author of Lamentations says, Great is Your Faithfulness oh God, who brings about new mercies every morning.
  
We know that the tree frog is only one example of the power of God in nature. God’s power in nature can be robust as well. We know that the mountains can quake. We know the seas can roar. We know the lands can be scorched. And whether in the face of death or the face of the tremendous wildness of God’s Spirit, God tells us, be still, like the tree frog, and know God.
 
How do we know God, in the midst of overwhelming uncertainty? Paul tells us, we can do so by talking with God continually. All the time. That’s how you will know God and know God’s Spirit. And, in all your circumstances, Paul say, find something for which to be thankful.
 
Holidays – Holy Days – both in the Church and in our Country – help us to do this. They help us, throughout each year, no matter what kind of year it has been – even if we’re in the middle of a pandemic – to, at the very least, go through the rhythms, the motions of reminding ourselves of what is important.
 
This past Thanksgiving, we spent the week before getting ready to express gratitude. We set this jar out in the kitchen and invited family members, including my sister who closed the bubble with us, to write messages of gratitude throughout the week that we would then read aloud on Thanksgiving. What is fun for us, too, is that, though this might not seem like much of a jar, over the years, this jar has been filled with a lot of forms of joy and gratitude for us. It has held prized fish. It has held prized corks from special bottles of wine shared with family and friends. During years we spent in England, in New Jersey, in Florida, and then in Illinois, if we enjoyed a bottle on a special occasion with friends or family, we would write the date of the occasion and a key word on the cork and save it in this jar. Then, at the end of our time in each of those places of serving different churches and working through grad school, we created cork boards. Every now and then, we pull them out, and look at the map on the back which describes the celebration that each cork represents. Weddings, ordinations, births, and so many other meaningful events.
 
This year, the jar held our expressions of gratitude, which we passed around and read to one another throughout our Thanksgiving meal.
 
The Bible says that we, each one of us, is like a jar of clay that God the Potter has made. What are you filling your jar with these days, and how is what you are filling yourself with helping you to wait? As we’ve learned this morning, the Apostle Paul encourages you to fill yourself with joy, with prayer, and with gratitude. And that this is God’s will for you. Not a specific job, or a specific place to live, or a specific relationship to have, or a specific charity to be a part of. But instead, you are called as a Christian to a certain way of being in the world that remains consistent through widely ranging circumstances. The will of God for you – in all of your circumstances – and the will of God for this church community in all its circumstances – is to rejoice, to talk with God constantly, and to be thankful in all times. We are to cling to God’s Spirit, as God goes about the redemptive work of sanctifying us and God’s Church for God’s own glory.
 
May it be so.
Amen.
 
 

Matthew 1:1-17

1This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:
2 Abraham was the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
3 Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,
Perez the father of Hezron,
Hezron the father of Ram,
4 Ram the father of Amminadab,
Amminadab the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon,
5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,
Obed the father of Jesse,
6 and Jesse the father of King David.
David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife,
7 Solomon the father of Rehoboam,
Rehoboam the father of Abijah,
Abijah the father of Asa,
8 Asa the father of Jehoshaphat,
Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram,
Jehoram the father of Uzziah,
9 Uzziah the father of Jotham,
Jotham the father of Ahaz,
Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,
10 Hezekiah the father of Manasseh,
Manasseh the father of Amon,
Amon the father of Josiah,
11 and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.
12 After the exile to Babylon:
Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel,
Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,
13 Zerubbabel the father of Abihud,
Abihud the father of Eliakim,
Eliakim the father of Azor,
14 Azor the father of Zadok,
Zadok the father of Akim,
Akim the father of Elihud,
15 Elihud the father of Eleazar,
Eleazar the father of Matthan,
Matthan the father of Jacob,
16 and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.
17 Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah.
 

This morning, as we’ve noted, is the Third Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of Joy in the Church calendar. In particular, this morning, we will be looking at the creation of humanity as an act of joy, at what it means to be created in the image of God, and the opportunities we have to move towards love and reconciliation.

It’s easy to pass over genealogies like this in the Bible. They can be long, tedious, and seemingly unnecessary. While they do honor people, still it can be exhausting to list them out.
 Maybe it is because of how tedious the listings can be that many preachers in approaching a passage like this mostly focus on the numbers.Here, focusing, on the couples of sevens, noting how perfect, numerically, it seems that Jesus falls within his family line. How important the number seven was in Jewish tradition, representing an element of perfection. But, if we only focus on the numbers, we miss key elements that Matthew is emphasizing here, beyond only the numbers, key elements that can be helpful for us in our lives today, especially as we each strive in discipleship with Christ. See, for Matthew, it seems his underscoring the numbers is an kind of final statement on who is included in the genealogy and the stories represented in this genealogy, that, in a way, the perfectness of those numbers demonstrates how essential these people and stories are to Jesus’ own story and this account of his life.
For example, Matthew includes a few mothers in his genealogy – and the fact that he includes any women is significant and different from other previous genealogies in the Bible. Mothers, despite their essential role in creating and bringing forth new life, nevertheless tend not to show up in genealogies in the Bible, at least not since Eve herself declared the births of her first sons Cain, Abel, and Seth.
Rather, genealogies in the Bible tend to emphasize the replacing of the father and no more. Some scholars suggest that these types of genealogies, which simply list which son came after a certain father, actually speak to a thread, or undercurrent, of fear – fear that the family lineage will somehow not go on, fear that the father’s line might actually end. Fear, even, that, after all, they might truly be abandoned by God, if their line does not progress. Thus, a son was not necessarily prized for himself, but rather for his role in carrying forward the male legacy. It ultimately was trust the forefathers appear to have had in the son as a symbol of ongoing life, more than trust in God for their eternal life.
 Why so much fear, you might wonder? Why, in the recounting of family life, does it seem there is a complete neglect of any joy in these genealogies? In any sense of blessing and awe at the incredible gift of new life each generation inherently brought? Instead, it seems the fear of death and abandonment were much more the driving forces, and emphasis of these family lines. Indeed, most of these genealogies appear to exist far from any sense of the original delight God took in bringing forth a good creation, a creation in God’s own image.
If we take just a moment, it is perhaps not too hard to think of a reason why our ancestors might have leaned so far toward their fear of death or the possibilities of their legacies ending, than toward the joyfulness that their own lives represented or that any new life that followed could signify.
Beyond the original creation of Adam and Eve, out of dust, new life did not come again until after Adam and Eve experienced the trauma of leaving the Garden and the drastic changes in their intimacy with God. They very much must have been in a state of great shock and grief when they first began having children, and we know today, those strong tensions of shock, grief, and the floods of emotions that come with them can actually pass down and shape the contours of family life.
Indeed, we perhaps know those experiences all too well ourselves. Here on the marker weekend of the shooting in Newtown, CT, seven years ago. Here, in the aftermath of fires and threats of flooding and powershut-offs. We know how fear and anxiety and hypervigilance can linger among us. How we can struggle to manage our stress, anger, and fatigue. The first family was not likely very different.
So, we, too, can resonate with that incredible paradox, how, at least on this side of heaven, any experiences of joy – such as new births – are most often shrouded in the awareness of how much is at stake, of how much could go wrong. In fact, some philosophers and philosophical Christians, like C.S. Lewis, for example, would say, we only know what joy is precisely because we know what is not joy. We know the absence of joy. Which, in part, is what makes the experience of joy, joyful, because we know the fullness of the gift and the tremendousness of having moments in our lives when it seems that, by some miracle, for even a moment, all the negativity can been cast away.
Yet, incredibly, even so, some people seem still to carry joy with them. Regardless of what they encounter. As if the circumstances around them, cannot possibly penetrate or rid them of some continual internal sense of contentment and blessing. We marvel at these people in our lives, in our work places, who, somehow, without denying what’s going on or having rose colored glasses, seem to manage really well.  
 The Jewish psychologist and Holocaust survivor, Victor Frankl, was so captivated by this phenomenon, he famously studied how it is that certain people can experience what he called an inner sense of quality of life – experiences of ongoing contentment, dignity, and joy– regardless of the circumstances they are in, and even, perhaps especially, when those circumstances include having their homes stolen and becoming imprisoned in concentration camps. Somehow, some people, even in the midst of what we would call hell on earth, somehow still have a sense of internal blessing.
Most likely, we might all agree, Jesus carried that same sense of internal quality of life. That the circumstances He encountered did not change His sense of value and joyfulness, about His own life and purpose. Yet so many people around Him struggled to find that same kind of fearlessness.

Many scholars say that the fear rooted in so much of our current troubles, especially in relationships – whether they be romantic, family, relationships with God – started all the way back at the beginning and was then passed down through the generations, accumulating impacts of stress as they went. A fear rooted in shame and guilt, betrayal and trauma. As researcher Brene Brown points out, when we are locked in shame, and the fear of being vulnerable to the heartache we feel, we too often take it out on our loved ones, neighbors, and coworkers, spreading the impact as we go. We struggle to own and take responsibility for what we feel.  
And while families can pass these destructive patterns down through generations, it is also, incredibly, within our families, households, our church family, that we have the opportunity to practice taking responsibility, reconciling, and spreading care and compassion rather than the impacts of stress and fear.
Interestingly, scholar Avivah Gottlieg Zornberg says it is precisely because Adam and Eve had not been parented – that they were not yet in community beyond with each other – that they had no relational context for how to go about these practices, to be aware of how to even begin to repair what had been broken. Instead, they were very under-developed, missing those conflicts that occur within family life and given us opportunities to practice doing better. Instead, when given the first opportunity, the first invitation by God to reconcile, to answer God’s question, where are you, they avoid God and blame everyone but themselves.
In this way, Zornberg suggests the creation of Adam and Eve only initiated the start of the image of God in human creation, and that it is not until they reproduce that the image of God within humanity fully takes shame and becomes embodied within their family life. A family, initially, riddled with heartache. After avoiding God, and being cast out of the Garden, the reader might wonder, will they ever be able to find their way forward again?
In fact, there does come glimmer of hope toward reconciliation and love again. It’s not magical, and it takes time, as it always does. It occurs after Adam and Eve’s first child, Cain grows up to murder their second son Abel. Incredibly, this time after this trauma and grief, rather than blaming everyone but themselves, they come together, and they have another son, Seth. We know that, after compounding stress and trauma, is not easy.
But, when they have Seth, they are very different parents than they were when they first had Cain. And this line, Seth’s line, is different too. Rather than being rooted only in shame, resentment, contempt, and destruction, this line appears to pass on this change in Adam and Eve – a family line filled with acts of reconciling, of returning to one another, of moving toward new life and love. Seth’s line gives us the first glimmers of the possibility of repair and restoration. This line is the one that leads to Abraham and Sarah, to Jacob and Leah, to Judah and Tamar, to David and Bathsheba, to Joseph and Mary, to Jesus.
It is a line filled with remarkable shifts, over and over, toward healing relationships, moments of tremendous counter-cultural change that seek to restore what has gone wrong or has been broken. Changes toward repairing what’s been fragmented.
Changes that remind us that circumstances need not define our sense of Joy.
Joy is a gift we receive within our relationships, and a gift, that we remind ourselves, does not have to be taken away – regardless of how much they hurt us or betray us. And this is not about ignoring or dismissing injustice or real harm that we experience. It’s actually about doing the hard work, within our relationships of righting harm and neglect that has gone on. And it’s reminding ourselves that, even in the midst of the real hardship we may experience, our dignity, our integrity, our value as Children of God, the heart of where we receive Joy, is not determined by the circumstances around us – whether people respond to our calls for goodness or not, or we respond to theirs. God, alone, determines our and our loved ones’ value, and God has declared we all are good creations, made in God’s own image. God delights in each of us, so much so that God humbled Himself to share in life with us and help us heal. 
Within the stories of Jesus’ genealogies, within the changes noted especially in Matthew’s passage, each time we can see how they are changes that seem almost impossible. They are the moments full of suspense. Is it going to happen? Will they connect? Or will the family fragment again? These match-point moments occur countless times throughout the Bible. We could not possibly discuss them all right now. But several of them are alluded to in our passage today. In these cases, it happens to be when women risked or bore the weight of presumed scandal. When in spite of abuse, misogyny, murder, and the possibility of abandonment and betrayal, nevertheless, with faithfulness and remarkable courage and strength, these women called their partners or family members to their best selves. It’s a kind of just compassion, that does not ignore the real harm that has occurred, and also calls people to be much better. And of course, not only women do this throughout the Bible. Both men and women do, especially throughout Jesus’ family line.
For Matthew, it appears critical to lay the foundation of Jesus’ birth within the context of these specific brave acts of compassion and striving for the fullness of life, enacted by women who never would have been counted for anything in society, who were the people ignored, dismissed, or abused. It is Matthew who is saying, they not only have personal worth or value, they are essential, essential, to this Grand Story of Love that we all find ourselves. If you are not familiar with these stories, I encourage you to go and find them in the Bible, and get to know them. Because it is in these stories, we see how these women responded to God’s invitation in their own lives, in ways that Adam and Eve were not ready or able to do as fully. They responded to the relationships they were in, to the wrongs they had experienced, and strived to right the wrongs within their families and culture to the best of their abilities.
The other night, Erik and I had the privilege of hearing relationship expert Esther Perel speak at the Granada. Perhaps some of you were there too. If you so, you may recall, a woman from the audience asked Esther if she had advice for how a partner or spouse might find a way through feeling deeply, entrenched contempt for her partner. Esther took a few beats with that question, before saying, the solution to contempt is compassion. Do you feel the shift? It’s not ignoring what’s happened, but it’s looking at what’s happened in a different way, that values you both partners. It’s a movement from the clenched fist [fist], around all those things the other person does that can get you so mad, so frustrated, so hurt, to an openness [open hand] to learning more and calling the other person to fuller life. This is the dynamic movement that lies at the heart of both romantic and family bonds, and church family bonds. It’s not a question of whether we will hurt one another, resent one another, or feel betrayed. We will. We are not perfect. It is a question of what we do with that. It is a question of whether the relationship can be reconciled. Can we respond in ways that call one another to our best selves?
This morning we are reminded of how the family line of Jesus is, like all of ours, … very complicated. It is not shiny, and far from perfect. Instead, it is full of downtrodden people, riddled with scandal and hardship. It is hard to repair – but not impossible. And for Matthew, Advent is about bearing witness to that fact, how in the very face of tremendous scandal and great threat, where we might least expect the possibility of healing, reconciliation, and repair, there is a way toward love and joy that we are all invited to participate.​

So, as we continue along in this Advent season, and we draw near to the Joy of new creation happening again, the birth of the new baby Jesus, we can recall how this baby was born despite so many odds. How this baby was ensconced in rumors, threats, and doubts enveloping his young, first time parents. We can have compassion for his parents, joining in their legacy of hurt and hardship, of shame and guilt. We can imagine what it must have been like for them to not blame each other or dump their stress or anxiety on one another, but instead to strive to trust in God and keep finding each other in the midst of the challenges, loving one another amid so much uncertainty. We know it could not have been easy. And yet, somehow, against all the odds, nevertheless, they both kept leaning toward God, and the pathway toward Joy that God provided them. They remained steadfast along that path, trusting that the circumstances around them did not determine their Joy, and embracing, together, the opportunities they had to respond to the invitation God has given to us all . . . to move toward love. Amen.  
 
 
 

Acts 9:36-43
 
36 Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas.[h] She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. 37 At that time she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs. 38 Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, “Please come to us without delay.” 39 So Peter got up and went with them; and when he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them. 40 Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up.” Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. 41 He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive. 42 This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. 43 Meanwhile he stayed in Joppa for some time with a certain Simon, a tanner.
 
John 10:22-30 
 
22 At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, 23 and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. 24 So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” 25 Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; 26 but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. 27 My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. 30 The Father and I are one.”
 
The Word of the Lord.
 
 
Good morning! Thank you for having me. It’s always such a gift to be able to share in worship with you. And, of course, Happy Mothers’ Day!
 
This is a day when we are reminded of and get to celebrate the precious gift of life that each one of us has received. As a friend of mine likes to say, every single life is a miracle, and we can all be grateful and honor the women who gave us that tremendous gift. Today we also get to celebrate the many ways we have received nurture throughout our lives and been mothered, even if not necessarily by our own biological mother. It’s a day to celebrate the guardians, the angels, and the aunties in our lives. And it’s a day to appreciate the opportunities that we have had to offer nurturing care to others, whether they are our biological children, children in our neighborhoods, classrooms, or communities.
 
Certainly, after a week like this past one, which can leave many of us feeling weary, we can be especially appreciative of the role that nurture and care play in shaping us, reviving us, and spurring us on. This week was hard for a lot of reasons. A week where we experienced, for example, a critical incident that resulted in shutting down our only freeway for several hours and occurring in an apartment complex where one of our families lives, along with many other families. This was happening just as another school shooting was unfolding in Colorado. This was also a week where our neighbors north and south of us marked six months since the Camp, Hill, and Woolsey Fires and the Borderline Bar shooting all occurred on November 8th. This also was a week when popular Christian author, Rachel Held Evans died, after thousands of people fervently prayed for her recovery, and then, sadly, rather than honoring the sacred space of the first hours and days of death, fellow Christians took to social media to begin critiquing her writings and stances, and in doing so deeply wounded some of Rachel’s closest family and friends in their thoughtlessness. And, of course, this was a week when we all went through our own personal, family, or work related stresses, too. It was quite a week, and one in which we could all use a good amount of care.
 
What are some of the ways that you get care, or extend care, during or after a hard week. How do you revive yourself, or help to encourage or inspire others who may be worn down by various stresses in life. What helps pick you and your neighbors back up? Perhaps, especially when you or the people around you are grieving?
 
Apparently, one of the ways that Tabitha, the disciple we heard about in our Acts passage today, inspired those around her were through various good deeds and acts of charity, including hand-making clothes for widows. Not just any garments, but robes they wanted to show off as a sign of the fact that this woman is needed in the world. This woman not only gets what we’re going through, but goes above and beyond to lift us up. Imagine what it must have been like for these widows, trying to help Peter understand what Tabitha meant to them. Women who, in their culture, were entirely dependent on the charity of others. And Tabitha, not only gave them hand-outs, but gave them dignity. And apparently, she did it with a spirit in which she was known for her faithfulness and dedication to goodness. Imagine Peter, a fisherman from a small town, listening to this gaggle of women and men, chattering away through their tears about the incredible, caring woman Tabitha was. A woman where in her wake people felt inspired and enriched by what she offered them.  
 
Thinking about the widely ranging events of this week, as I approached our passages for today, I appreciated with fresh eyes what it might have meant to Peter to come into Tabitha’s community, especially after the many weeks that he had been having. See, when we meet Peter in this passage, he’s been having very challenging days for a while. His entire worldview has been shifting, over and over. The ways he understood who he was, what he was called to, how he should operate in the world, and why. As you may recall from the past few weeks, he suffered the pain of having Jesus prophesy and then witness him deny Jesus three times just before Jesus’ crucifixion. He suffered the pain and haunting of that being their final exchange before Jesus’ death. He grieved along with his family and friends throughout Holy Saturday. Then, he experienced the tremendous joyful stress – and joy is its own kind of stress – of the resurrection and Jesus’ appearances in the following days. Then, he experienced Saul’s murderous zeal directed at him, his family, and his friends, forcing them to live in hiding and to regularly move – the fear for their lives, and the heartache of watching his wife, children, and friends suffer. He experienced all eyes turning to him – the proclaimed rock on which the church would be built – for leadership and direction. And, then, to top it all off, just before this passage, still in chapter 9, one of the disciples, Barnabas, strolls into the elders’ circle with none other than Saul-now-Paul, testifying to Saul’s sincere conversion. Barnabas made a solid case, and, as we know, Paul was welcomed into the fold, but I can imagine, it may have been all a little too much for Peter. I can imagine he welcomed the chance to get out of town, tasked with visiting and connecting with believers in towns throughout the region.

As he went, he eventually came to the port town of Joppa, which is modern-day Tel Aviv.
 
And as we heard earlier, when he arrives in Joppa, several believers come to get him to say that one of their lead disciples, Tabitha, has died. Now, Tabitha as we were discussing just a moment ago, is special for many reasons. Many scholars believe that her name, which means Gazelle, may have represented who she was, too. That she would have been energetic, artful, and delivering her skill and strength in beautiful ways that captivated people and enlivened their spirits. Scripture says she was a devoted disciple, expressing her faith continuously through her generous good works and acts of charity.
 
So, even as Peter, too, is dedicated in his mission, and has been learning patience and kindness, nevertheless, there’s every likelihood that not far under the surface is a man who is very tired, is trying to hang on, and could use some nurture and care himself. And he suddenly finds himself surrounded by aunties and uncles – all the women and men under Tabitha’s care, who are grieving the loss of their beloved leader and friend.
 
As I read this passage, I couldn’t help wondering whether God brought Peter to Joppa, and allowed Peter to bring Tabitha to life, not necessarily in response to the community’s pleas, but possibly for Peter. The passage says that Peter went on to stay in Joppa for awhile, where he no doubt got the chance to luxuriate in the culture of care and blessing that Tabitha had be growing there.
 
I like to imagine Peter then begins a kind of spontaneous sabbatical in Joppa, in which he is nurtured and has opportunity to grow and learn even more. In fact, we’ll be discussing next week another huge lesson Peter learns while he’s staying in Joppa.
 
As good as all that sounds, heavens, I also really wrestled with this passage this week. I myself could not help wondering, Why does Tabitha get to get up and others don’t? Why not Rachel Held Evans, for example, a burgeoning theologian who was barely getting started, and was a mother whose second child is just turning one right now. Why does Tabitha get to get up, and not every child murdered at school in our country? Why not any of our loved ones who we are grieving? The list of people we wish could get up again, of course, goes on and on. Sadly, poor biblical scholarship through the ages has not helped us answer these really heartfelt and challenging questions. For example, in 2016, author for the Biblical Archeological Society blog, wrote that
 
Tabitha is so beloved and so essential to the life of her believing community in Joppa… that others cannot imagine life without her. Tabitha simply cannot stay dead. Her faithful community will not permit it.
 
That, of course, is not helpful interpretation. That certainly does not square with so many others’ experiences. Because, of course, communities throughout the world and throughout history all have felt that way about their beloved. It is not only our desire for healing or life that brings those things about, and not only our earnest prayers either. The pain we feel by what God allows or does not allow, chooses or does not choose, has been around throughout all of human history, and expressed throughout the Bible, including from the very first biblical accounts of Adam and Eve in the garden, and of how Cain felt about God choosing between his and his brother Abel’s gifts.
 
I know that for some Christians – or even former Christians – its incredibly difficult to stomach passages like this one and interpretations like the one I just shared. It feels to many like a tease. Especially, when the interpretation of the passage presumes it is the earnestness of the prayers that result in Tabitha’s resurrected life. And so, it’s important to clarify, it is not about whether they loved her enough or they asked in the right way.
 
What the Bible also says, throughout its entirety, is that us expressing our honest hearts to God in all circumstances matters. Us bringing these kinds of painful questions to God’s feet is good and faithful practice. This passage represents the tremendous complexity in life. That miracles go on, even while others around Joppa, throughout the region of Israel during that same time, and throughout our world today, were not receiving miracles, and instead were grieving. Not everyone in Joppa was rising again the way Tabitha did. And it’s good for us to wrestle with that tension.
 
And, really, that’s why I think this is a very meaningful passage for Mothers’ Day– a day when we are keenly aware of how some people are celebrating so much goodness today while others also are experiencing grief, sadness, anger, or sorrow.
 
Lastly, I want to share how, in the end, I find great hope in this passage. Not necessarily for how it may speak to resurrection, but in the truth that while going about his work – and maybe trying to avoid some of the difficult conflicts in his life – Peter encountered the hands and feet of Jesus in Joppa, through the men who first called for him, through the widows who greeted him and attended to him in the days following, through Tabitha and her inevitably sharing with him the caring  and inspirational culture she was growing in Joppa, and through Simon the tanner who hosted him. God provided Peter with a community dedicated to goodness, in a time when he undoubtedly needed refreshment. May we trust that God will provide for each of us, with refreshment when we need it, and may we be inspired to continue joining in and creating a community that Tabitha modeled for us, one that is dedicated to goodness, generosity, and hospitality. Amen. 

Leviticus 19:9-18  (NRSV)
9 When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10 You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God.
11 You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; and you shall not lie to one another. 12 And you shall not swear falsely by my name, profaning the name of your God: I am the Lord.
13 You shall not defraud your neighbor; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning. 14 You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind; you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.
15 You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor. 16 You shall not go around as a slanderer[a] among your people, and you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbor: I am the Lord.
17 You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. 
Mark 10:2-16  (NRSV)2 Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” 3 He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” 4 They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” 5 But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. 6 But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 7 ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
10 Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11 He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
13 People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. 14 But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 15 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” 16 And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
 
The Word of our Lord.
 

 
Thank you for having me. It’s wonderful to be a part of worship with you again in this way, especially as we consider together God’s Word for us today.
 
I admit, I gave this sermon kind of a ridiculous title. “Making relationships sacred.” Of course, they are sacred. Our actions do not determine the essence of their sacredness. But our actions can attest to the sacredness of relationships. And, we seem to need to keep reminding ourselves of that fact. Partly, as the passages today show us, because it’s just so easy to dismiss the inherent value of our neighbors – even neighbors in our own homes. It’s just so easy to be thoughtless, careless, unkind, disrespectful, or unjust toward one another. We are called to continually return to being intentional about sharing love with one another. So, let’s consider together, some more of how we do this.
 
In Mark’s Gospel reading for us today, the Pharisees pose to Jesus a trick question. It’s a trick because the answer is both yes and no. Yes, human law does allow for divorce. No, God’s law does not allow for it. And that’s because God’s law is rooted in the value of the relational humanity God created.
 
Now, right off the bat, we can get into a whole bunch of questions. Questions, unlike what the Pharisees pose, are not meant to be trick questions necessarily but ones that come from genuine desires to understand God’s will amid the real circumstances we’re living in. What about this kind of situation? What about that one? What if there’s abuse? What if you’re constantly disrespected? What if you’ve been betrayed? What if you can’t stop fighting?
 
Exactly, there are cases where divorce is the healthiest step to take for the well-being of both spouses. That doesn’t mean that’s what God intended or hopes for us. And, this both yes and no answer, is a reminder to us that the creation of a covenant and the dissolution of a covenant should never be made lightly or rashly, but with great respect and care.

For those of us tracking the headlines over the last few weeks, we’ve all had visceral reactions to what’s been displayed related to the latest nomination and confirmation for the Supreme Court. One phrase in particular has really stuck with me – a wish that Renate Dolphin made when she said she hoped that the daughters of Brett Kavanaugh and a bunch of his high school classmates were never treated the way they treated her, and her reputation, in their yearbook.
 
I think this stuck with me most because I’ve known men and women who deeply wish they had made better choices in the past about how they treated other people, and the lasting harm they created in people’s lives. How it never occurred to them how they would have to show up a social or work events down the road, and have to look those people in the eye again – if they had the courage – or shake hands and look their family members in the eye.
 
See Ms. Dolphin says she had no idea about statements made about her before now. At one point she says,
 
“If this report is true, I am profoundly hurt. I did nothing to deserve this. There is nothing affectionate or respectful in [this] … It is heartbreaking if these guys who acted like my friends in high school were saying these nasty, false things about me behind my back.”
 
It’s the kind of revelation that forces a person to rethink every friendship, every date, every interaction. In response Judge Kavanaugh said those statements really were poor attempts at expressing inclusion of someone they cared about. But it does not feel caring to her. And to underscore this, Ms Dolphin simply said I hope their daughters are never treated this way.
 
That’s a thing for all of us, isn’t it? Most of us, in junior high and high school, rarely if ever image some day having to recount or account for our past experiences with children who we teach, coach, or are raising. Unless we have adult mentors in school or church or our neighborhoods, coming alongside us and encouraging us to treat our peers in ways we stand by with integrity down the road, we’re left to our own imaginations and hormones. Without a caring community around us in our adolescence, encouraging us toward healthy choices along the way, it’s far too easy to make a lot of mistakes and cause a lot of hurt.
 
In ancient times, the law for harming another person in any way, according to God’s standard for valuing human life, was life for life. For example, in Leviticus 24:20, the Bible says, 20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The one who has inflicted the injury must suffer the same injury. This is not about revenge, this is about value. The full godly value of what was taken needed to be honored. You take an eye, you better be prepared to give an eye. 
Goodness! Think about that for a moment. We’re so many years – millennia – from when these notions were first made, so far removed from the essence of what’s at stake here. It may take a moment to really take it in.

Imagine if every time you robbed yourself – in some way, you took away from the value of yourself – or your robbed someone else of their inherent value in any way, and you had to atone for it in equal measure of value. What would that mean? Could you truly account for every harm you’ve ever caused yourself or another person?
 
I’ll let you sit with that for a bit, and we’ll come back to it. First though, let’s look at the Book of Leviticus a little more. Essentially, is the book of the first priests or pastors of Israel. It’s a record of the ritual practices that assist a person in achieving forgiveness. So, for example, one of ways they tried to solve the challenge of how impossible it was to provide a tooth for a tooth, was to provide symbolic offerings of life to be sacrificed at the altar by the priests. So, birds, lambs, goats, were all given various levels of symbolic meaning. Then, depending on a trespass you committed, you could seek redemption by offering a measure of life in response to the trespass you made against yourself or others. So, instead of coming to the communion table today, you would be coming to the sacrificial altar to atone for any wrong you have made, or for any wrong you could possibly make, even by the germs you carry due to any number of types of activities you may have recently been involved.
 
Levi is the father of the Levite tribe, Moses’ tribe. Aaron, Moses’ brother, became the first priest and for many following generations, the Levites, particularly the Aaronites, served as the priests of the Temple.
 
It’s interesting that this is the family that becomes the priestly family. Levi knew well how hard it is to atone for the ways you have brought pain to others, especially to your family and your land. See, Levi is one of the twelve sons of Jacob. And he’s one of the three sons – he and two full brothers Reuben and Simeon – who Jacob did not bless before he died. Reuben had strongly offended his father, and Simeon and Levi had betrayed their father by massacring a town they had recently settled in. The brothers led a charge in killing all of the men of the town and taking the women and children and all of the livestock for their own. They did this in reaction, in a heat of passion, after hearing about a man who had slept with their sister Dinah. And, it’s noteworthy that the town they destroyed would go on to become part the future Samaritan community of the New Testament.
 
The Bible provides no details about how Levi went from being essentially cast out by Jacob to becoming the tribe of the priestly family. Some Rabbi scholars speculate that Levi, as opposed to Simeon, at some point recognized the great pain he had caused and worked to seek forgiveness, reconciliation, and repent. They believe that is how his family could become leaders in the activity of atonement.
 
We all know how difficult the work of reconciliation really is. In fact, I have a hunch that recognizing how difficult that work may be part of the epidemic rates of anxiety that permeate our society today. People are so fearful of failing, of somehow doing it wrong, or messing up – in their work and in their home, as a parent or as a caregiver of another person. Our society shares more publically about our fears of failure as well as our opinions of what ought to happen to anyone who fails in any way. We share these far more than we share examples and opinions about how to reconcile and repair brokenness. For example, what might Ms Dolphin’s peers do to atone for how they treated her in the past
 
In the pastoral counseling that I do, I often sit with people when they feel the worst has happened in their lives – their burnout caused significant problems at work or at home, there’s been an act of violence or abuse, there’s been an affair. I get brought in, in particular, when these events occur among the leadership of an organization. The work I do focuses on helping the remaining organizational leaders figure out what to do with all the brokenness and how to reconcile out of all the pain and hurt.
 
When I consider all the broken pieces that people I work with face, along with the standard the Old Testament holds for atoning for any wrong – life for life – it can feel impossible to meet that standard. Again and again I am so deeply grateful for Jesus’ saying, Enough. One more. There will be one more life, offered on behalf of every person who has caused destruction in this world.
 
The result? Not only our salvation, but this. We do not gather around a sacrificial altar today. We are not bringing symbolic life to be sacrificed on your behalf. It’s done.
 
We are called to live with this truth at the forefront of our lives. We have been forgiven. So repent. Go and sin no more. And if you sin, repent. Go and sin no more. Repent. Go in the other direction. If you were not about valuing yourself or the people around you, value yourself and the people around you.  
 
Keeping all this in mind, as we turn to our New Testament passage for today, you can almost feel Jesus’ exasperation talking to the Pharisees and the disciples, can’t you? You’re not getting it. It’s not about whether divorce is ok or not. It’s about, are you treating the human being in front of you with their God-given inherent value? Are you treating them that way, in your mind and in your heart, and not just with your words or actions? We might add, are you treating other people with value when they are not in front of you, when you’re in the locker room or with your girlfriends? When you’re on your computer.
 
Are you treating the children in front of you – whether they are your own or not – with their God-given inherent value?

See, receiving the Kingdom as a child is not just about taking on a childlike perspective of awe and wonder and belief. It’s also about actually receiving the Kingdom within the children in front of us. It’s recognizing that the Kingdom of God is at hand, right here among us. We are in the midst of creating it together. That’s the tremendous, incredible gift God has given us. That we get to co-create the Kingdom of God together, relationship by relationship.
 
Friends, this sermon, or the headlines, or any other way God may be prompting you, may be bringing up for you ways you have not valued yourself or others in the way that God calls us to, ways you need to seek forgiveness, participate in reconciling, or repenting. I encourage you, during our time for communion today, to take time to be in prayer. You may write some things down, or just quietly bow your head. And just to not call anyone out, if you’re not necessarily feeling prompted by anything in particular, you could go ahead and bow your head too if you wanted and just be in prayer for other things. If you are being prompted, go ahead and take time to confess, to acknowledge the hurt coming up that you may have participated in causing. Be grateful for the forgiveness that Jesus has already offered you. And ask God to show you how you can help to make things better or to go in a more healthy direction going forward. Above all, may you be blessed this morning. Knowing you are deeply loved by God. And the ways we trespass against ourselves and one another, thank God, are not the end of the story.  Amen.
 
 

Malachi - 3:1-6
 
See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. 2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?
For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; 3 he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. 4 Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.
5 Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.
6 For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, have not perished.
 
Luke 1:68-79
 
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
    for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them.
69 He has raised up a mighty savior for us
    in the house of his servant David,
70 as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
71     that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.
72 Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors,
    and has remembered his holy covenant,
73 the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham,
    to grant us 74 that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies,
might serve him without fear, 75 in holiness and righteousness
    before him all our days.
76 And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
    for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
77 to give knowledge of salvation to his people
    by the forgiveness of their sins.
78 By the tender mercy of our God,
    the dawn from on high will break upon us,
79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
    to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
 

Good morning! Thank you for having me again. It’s good to be together for worship, especially in this Advent season of waiting together.
 
As we continue to set ourselves to intentionally wait together, we call one another to be on the look out, while we’re waiting, for signs of what is coming. Signs, for example, of Peace. And signs of those calling out in the wilderness.
 
We, of course, have the benefit of the story. We’re not just waiting for the first time. Many of us have come to this time of Advent for years and years. It’s a story, that we have heard throughout all of our lives, and that our parents and grandparents heard throughout their lives. It’s ingrained in us and in our family lines. For others of us here, though, it’s a new story. Or a story that’s only been heard in bits and pieces, or at a distance. Whether it’s new or old, it’s helpful for all of us to see how we can hear it fresh again, and consider just what it might have been like to be waiting especially back in the time of our Scripture readings.
 
We find ourselves this morning, in particular, hearing the words of the prophet Malachi and the words of the priest Zechariah.
 
Now, you might think, at the first hearing of Malachi this morning that he may have been talking to the general public. Perhaps, one of those prophets who sat out in the public square or at the gate of the city, calling out to passersby. But really, when Malachi first spoke these words, Malachi was speaking directly to the priests of the Temple – kind of like the pastors of that day, so to people like me, or Erik, or Marvel, or Anne, or Gordy. To the clergy. He may also have been one of them. In this case, the clergy of that time, had watched how the people no longer really cared much about how to practice their faith. They no longer really watched or paid much attention to how things went during the services and sacrificial practices. So, since no one was really looking and no one really seemed to care any more, the priests started cutting corners. For example, instead of a healthy first born animal required for a proper sacrifice, they would use a lame animal. And nobody knew any wiser. Except, Malachi says, God. God knew. And God became fed up with the lies and cheating and cutting corners. And so, directly before the words for us this morning, Malachi says to the priests:

Know, then, that I [God] have sent this command to you [the priests] that my covenant with Levi [your ancestor, your founding father] may hold… My covenant with him was a covenant of life and well-being…. A covenant of life and well-being. Now, if you were here when I preached last time, a few weeks ago, you may recall me talking about Levi then and the book of Leviticus. And you may recall how the essence of the law of God in Leviticus is life for life. That’s why there were animal sacrifices in the beginning – because we could never fully atone for the all bits of life we rob from ourselves and one another every day through all manner of intentional or unintentional carelessness. So, [This covenant, God says, according to Malachi] I gave [to Levi]; [and] this [covenant] called for reverence, and he [Levi] revered me and stood in awe of my name. Now, you may recall me also saying last time, that this is the same Levi from Genesis. The same Levi who did not receive his father Jacob/Israel’s blessing because he and his brother murdered all the men in an entire town. It’s in Genesis 34, you can read it. [Pause, curious] The same Levi. God says, according to Malachi, 6 True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in integrity and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. Levi. If this is not an example of hope for all of us, I don’t know what is. Take a moment, and take it in. What was the process Levi went through to move from a young adult, probably barely 20, who could be so incited as to manipulate and destroy an entire group of people, and take the women and children captive, and to transform into the person Malachi describes as so closely connected to God. What is the repentance and healing work that goes on there to bring such a transformation about? Really consider this. Because it’s what’s a part of the whole line, from Genesis to the Gospels. That transformational process – early on with Levi, and then through Levi’s descendants, like in Malachi, and then in the Gospel of Luke. It’s a big part of this whole season of waiting. We might even ask here . . . what is it that God is calling you toward, how is God nudging you toward refinement? Nudging you inside, or providing signs all around you. How is God encouraging your refinement? And it may not be just about what you’ve been doing wrong. It may be how God wants you to grow more, or expand more of what you have the potential to do well.  
 
See, I’ve been trying to figure something important out . . . in our Gospel passage, we hear some of Zechariah’s first words after having been mute for nearly a year. And he’s mute because the Angel Gabriel says he doubted Gabriel’s words. Now, that has always seemed really harsh to me, especially since Scripture says before that moment Zechariah was blameless. I also had mostly heard this part of Scripture preached as kind of a cautionary tale about how you need to be so careful that you don’t doubt God. But I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. Whether it’s a chastisement for not believing and obeying Gabriel’s words, it’s clear that Zechariah benefited from pondering quite a bit while waiting for the birth of his son. Pondering, perhaps, what it has meant to him to be a priest, or for he and his wife, and now John, to all be descendants of Levi. He would have had time to review the Scriptures he had been given in silence, including Malachi, and to remind himself about how God, according to Malachi, says, 7 The lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. Perhaps he was reminded about how Malachi warns how you [priests] have turned aside from the way; you have caused many to stumble by your instruction; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi . . . you have wearied me with your words of where is God’s justice?
 
And this is the exact moment where we find our words in Malachi for us today: I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight [but have tarnished] —indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But can you endure it?
For he will purify you, clergy, Zechariah, the descendants of Levi, and refine you until you present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. I wonder, did it make Zechariah consider not only himself, but his fellow priests and Pharisees, and the whole community?
According to Malachi, God says, Then I will draw near… I will be swift to bear witness, to testify. 6 For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, have not perished.
 
If he did review these Scriptures, Zechariah would have heard the very sentiments of the Angel Gabriel echoed in them. He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God, Gabriel said, and With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
Then, the Gospel says, the time finally came for Elizabeth to give birth. And on the eighth day, the day of circumcision, many neighbors and relatives were rejoicing at the birth of the baby and in their joy assumed the baby’s name would be Zechariah after his father. But Elizabeth said, No, his name will be John. They didn’t believe her. After all, they said, you have no John’s in your family. Why would you pick a name that’s not in your family. So, they asked Zechariah, who still could not talk and who motioned for a slate and he wrote the name John. And at that moment, his mouth was freed and he immediately praised God. And people became afraid and felt that surely the hand of God was upon this child. And Zechariah began to sing!
 
Blessed be the Lord!
 
He has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors and has remembered his covenant!  
 
That we might serve without fear.
 
After all that time waiting and pondering, what flowed from Zechariah was the reminder that priests are messengers and guardians of the knowledge of the forgiveness of sins, and a blessing for John to fulfill that mission too. A mission to deliver the message to all those who have ears to hear, eyes to see, and hearts to recognize that, by God’s mercy, the dawn breaks into the dark night . . . that sin is not the end of the story, and that there is light coming to all of those who find themselves sitting in darkness or in the valley of the shadow of death. Light that leads us all in the way of peace.
 
And now, hear this last word, as Protestants, we do not believe that any ordained person goes to the feet of God on any other’s behalf, but that we ourselves – each and every one of us, can have our own direct relationship with God. We believe only one person has the power to atone for another, and that is Jesus Christ. So, with Christ’s death and resurrection, we believe Christ made the way complete for what we call the priesthood of all believers. That he made the way for all of us to have the kind of relationship he had with Levi. A transformational relationship of healing. A relationship that embodied a covenant of life and well-being. It is not magic and it is not easy. But it is a covenant for all of us to claim, both with reverence and joy, especially as we, just as Levi, Malachi, Zechariah, and Elizabeth did before us, take time to consider the fullness of all that is coming. Amen. 

Psalm 148
 
Praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
    praise him in the heights above.
2 Praise him, all his angels;
    praise him, all his heavenly hosts.
3 Praise him, sun and moon;
    praise him, all you shining stars.
4 Praise him, you highest heavens
    and you waters above the skies.
5 Let them praise the name of the Lord,
    for at his command they were created,
6 and he established them for ever and ever--
    he issued a decree that will never pass away.
 7 Praise the Lord from the earth,
    you great sea creatures and all ocean depths,
8 lightning and hail, snow and clouds,
    stormy winds that do his bidding,
9 you mountains and all hills,
    fruit trees and all cedars,
10 wild animals and all cattle,
    small creatures and flying birds,
11 kings of the earth and all nations,
    you princes and all rulers on earth,
12 young men and women,
    old men and children.
Let them praise the name of the Lord,
    for his name alone is exalted;
    his splendor is above the earth and the heavens.
14 And he has raised up for his people a horn,
    the praise of all his faithful servants,
    of Israel, the people close to his heart.
Praise the Lord.

Colossians 3:12-17
 
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.


What a great time to consider again what’s most meaningful to us, to consider in what ways we want to be well, and where are the best sources for goodness. Perhaps, not entirely unlike our Colossian siblings in our passage this morning. The passage comes from a letter to one of the earliest churches in Colossae, a community about 100 miles from Ephesus, along the Mediterranean. Paul is writing to a church with whom he has a relationship and also has been hearing concerns about how they have been influenced by common practices of their day. They had come to incorporate rituals in their worship services and in their teachings that focused also on other types of gods than only on the Living God.

Paul is reminding them of what is true and good, and advising them on what practices will help them keep focused on their individual and community health and well-being. And these words continue to be helpful for us today, especially as we too can find ourselves distracted by many influences around us. Moreover, the passage that immediately follows the one for us this morning can sometimes cause people concern today, particularly when Paul says for wives to submit to their husbands. This one phrase too often has been taken out of context, used as a weapon to shame wives or husbands, or used as evidence of how unrealistic and harmful the Bible can be. I encourage you, especially after this morning, to consider the passage that follows about Christian households to be read within the context it was written. It not only was written to a church filled with people struggling to find order and goodness in their lives, but also within a chapter focused on cultivating Love within and all around us.

So, now, let us turn to our Word for us today. And, if you were looking for motivation to get New Years’ started off on the right foot, I’m not sure you could find a better encouragement than this one. I’m tempted to simply repeat it and end with an “Amen.” So tempted, that I think in fact, this nudging I feel to repeat these words a few times would be good for all us.

There is a beautiful form of Scriptural meditation, which some of you may be familiar with, called Lectio Divina. Lectio Divina is a Latin phrase which means Divine Reading. The Order of the Carmelites, a Christian brother and sisterhood founded many centuries ago in the ancient community of Carmel and still very active today, describes Lectio Divina as “a way of reading the Scriptures [in stages] whereby we gradually let go of our own agenda and open ourselves to what God wants to say to us.” It’s an intentional process of letting our internal stirrings, and the wide range of distractions all around us, fall away, so we can focus as best we can on God’s Word alone.  
 
The first stage is Reading, which we have done already. If you were to conduct this practice on your own, you might consider reading a small passage aloud once to yourself.  The second stage is Reflection. In this stage, we read or listen to the passage again, and this time “we think about the text we have chosen and ruminate upon it so that we take from it what God wants to give us.” In essence, you wait to see if a word, phrase, or sentence in particular stand out to you for any reason. Then, the third stage is Response, where we read or listen to the passage a third time and this time commit to leaving our thinking aside. We focus in this stage on letting our hearts, more than our minds, speak to God. What do we feel or sense from our Reflection? What is we want to share with God in Response to our Reflection?
 
The final stage of Lectio Divina is Rest. In this stage, we read or listen to the passage one last time and commit to let go not only of our own ideas, plans and meditations but also of what we think we should be thinking or saying from our religious teachings, upbringings, or assumptions. We allow the Word of God to wash over us and rest there. From the deepest level of our being, we listen to God-with-us, Emmanuel, who speaks within us in a still, small voice. Those who practice Lectio Divina regularly say that as we listen, we gradually become transformed from within and we then are encouraged to take what we read in the Word of God into our daily lives.

Those in the Order of the Carmelites remind us how these “stages of Lectio Divina are not fixed rules of procedure but simply guidelines” as to how this prayerful form of reading Scripture tends to develop. “Its natural movement is towards greater simplicity, with less and less talking and more listening.”
I wonder if, especially as we approach this New Year, or even as we consider the journey of the heart and soul the Wise Men took to enable them then to physically travel across many lands in search of what the Star might reveal, if we might conduct a version of Lectio Divina here this morning together. As we consider the New Year, the Wise Men’s journey, might we consider our passage today in a way that allows us to listen carefully to the Word of God together?
 
As we have already read the passage once, let us now reflect. I will read the passage once more, and as I do listen for what God draws your attention toward – perhaps a particular word, a phrase, or a sentence. Consider jotting it down or just letting it linger in your heart.
 
Hear the Word of God for you this morning:
Colossians 3:12-17
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
 
What has God brought to your attention this morning? Sit with it for a bit. Wonder about it. Does it seem fitting? Is it strange? Is it comforting? Or a challenge? How does it make you think of yourself, your relationship with God, or your relationship with others? In what way is the still, small voice of God speak tenderly to your soul this morning?
 
Now, even as you may still be reflecting on our passage today, and the word, phrase, or sentence that God has brought to your attention, hear this passage again. And this time, in a time of silence following this third reading, take time to prayerfully respond to God. You can do so quietly in your heart or by writing your response down. You are invited in this time of silence to allow your heart to speak to God based on your reflection. What did you feel or sense? Share that with God following this next reading. Hear now the word of God for you this morning from the Letter to the Colossians:
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
 
[Silence]
 
Hmmm . . . you feel your heart continuing to want to converse with God, I encourage you to continue the conversation throughout today and into this week. And I hope, whether you are familiar with Lectio Divina or this is a new practice for you, that you are reminded this morning of how we Christians believe that the Bible is not only the Inspired Word of God, not only a sacred text passed down through the faithful across the ages, but also is what we call the Living Word – in other words, God speaks to each of us, directly, through the Bible, and we are invited to listen, reflect, respond, and rest in God’s word for us now, today. We recognize, along with our forefathers and foremothers, how we do not need to simply accept the Word given, but that we, too, are invited to engage with God through this Word.
 
So, let us now come to the end of this practice this morning. Let us now allow distractions to fall away, put aside the pressures we feel or put on ourselves, and relieve ourselves of whatever expectations or assumption we may make for what it means to be Christian, and let us focus just on God’s Word of us this morning. Let us rest in this Word. Hear the Word of God for you:
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
 
This is the Word of the Lord. [Thanks be to God.]
Mmm, yes, thanks be to God. The God who loves you, as a dear child, the God who loves you and your household, the God who loves your church community.  With gratitude, consider what changes you experienced in attending to God’s Word this morning: what you thought about, how your spirit moved, what you felt, what was evoked in you, and the ways you sensed being called to respond and to rest. May you be blessed as you continue to encounter the Living God through God’s Word. Amen. 

John 3:1-17
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I say to you, ‘You all must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you all do not receive our testimony. If I have told you all about earthly things and you all do not believe, how can you all believe if I tell you all about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

This is the Word of our Lord.


Can you recall a time when you caused a royal mess of things? Really botched things up? Maybe you didn’t intend for things to fall apart – a business deal that never came to be, maybe you hurt someone you loved and didn’t mean to, maybe it was something more complicated, where it was not your fault, per se, but you also knew you had a role to play in how things turned out . . . with maybe a troubled child or sibling, a broken relationship with a former lover, an ongoing strain with a coworker or neighbor.
 
Or, maybe you did mean to. Maybe you were angry, hurt, or selfish. Just wanted it to go your way. We’ve all had these moments. Times where – intentionally or not – harm or disarray got the better of us. Where we hurt ourselves, our neighbors, or people we love. It’s the kind of stuff that can keep any one of us up at night, looking and hoping for a way through. Preferably, not the slow, hard, confrontational way.
 
In trainings I lead, I sometimes ask, what keeps you up at night? What leads you to Jesus in the middle of the night? Hear are some of the answers I get back:

• Finances
• Children who are suffering in some way
• Illness
• Addiction
• Unrequited love
• Desire for things to be better

We meet Nicodemus in a state like this . . . concerned and up in the night. We don’t know exactly why, but we know he’s concerned enough to seek Jesus out. Amid his heartache, he makes a great statement of faith: We know you are a teacher who has come from God.
 
And Jesus, as usual, immediately goes to the personal heart of the matter. Nicodemus, you think you’re in the presence of God, and yet you don’t see the kingdom. [pause] You don’t see the kingdom. And the only way to see the kingdom is to become born again.
 
Nicodemus is confused, and misses the point. How can anyone become born again, he wonders aloud.
 
A counselor whom Erik and I greatly respect, once said, “There’s no such thing as confusion. Confusion is just a moment when you either don’t want to or aren’t ready to take in the information before you."
 
I’m confused, Nicodemus says and, as so many of us do when we’d really rather not face what’s at the heart of the problem, instead he stalls a little more. How could I possibly be born again at this age? Maybe he’s even confessing part of what he’s wrestling with – how maybe he’s not sure could actually help fix things after all.
 
Jesus takes another tact. Here, look at the effect of the kingdom. It’s like the wind. Though you can’t see it, you can see what it does all around you.
 
Still, Nicodemus struggles to bring it home.
 
So Jesus moves the conversation back towards the heart of whatever is keeping Nicodemus up in the night.
 
You are a teacher of the law of Israel, Nicodemus. You have studied these things extensively. Remember, just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness – remember what you’ve studied – so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
 
Now, not everyone has studied the law – or the Old Testament – like Nicodemus. So you might not recall right off what Jesus referring to here. When did Moses lift up the serpent in the wilderness, you might be asking. Why did he do that?
 
Let’s go ahead and take a look at the passage Jesus is referring to – Numbers 21:4-9. At this point, the people of Israel have been brought out of slavery in Egypt and are making their way through the wilderness. Starting with verse 4, we read:
 
They set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom, but the people became impatient on the way. [In their impatience,] the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt [only] to die in the wilderness? There’s no food and no water, and we detest [the miserable food that is here.]” [In immediate response to this proclamation] the Lord sends poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.
 
So, that’s the passage Jesus is referring to when he’s talking to Nicodemus. You may recall a couple months ago when this passage came up in the liturgical calendar and was preached here. That Sunday, your Christian Education Director used a staff that she had made to talk with the kids and help them envision the staff Moses created. She also talked about how there are times, like at recess, when you might bump into someone else and that person gets hurt. Sometimes, you bump into them on purpose. Maybe in your playing, you become frustrated and you mean to hurt them. Sometimes, you’re just racing and its accident. Either way, when you’ve hurt someone, she encouraged the kids, you apologize – whether you meant to do it or not.
 
The staff and the serpent – which you may also recall seeing in other settings as a sign of medicine and healing – reminds us that mending wounds is not just a physical activity, but a mental, emotional, and spiritual activity. In other words, we don’t just say we’re sorry only when we really intend to be mean or only when someone is physically hurt. We say sorry, or seek to restore a relationship, when someone may be hurt mentally, emotionally, or spiritually and we had some role in that. It’s one of those important lessons we learn in kindergarten that makes a difference our whole life long. Our relationships matter.

Now, we’re still not quite at the heart of what’s going on here with Nicodemus – and the word for us today. We’re almost there. See, there’s an important piece – it’s what links the Numbers, Isaiah, and John passages all together – something that can too easily be missed.
 
See, Moses doesn’t raise just any serpent. “Poisonous” really is not a helpful English interpretation of the Hebrew here. In fact, it’s really the wrong word. What’s happening with them in this passage has nothing to do with poison. Because the word in Hebrew here says these are seraphim serpents. The same seraphs that Isaiah says he saw in attendance to God, and that John speaks of in his book Revelation. The same seraphs that praise the Lord without ceasing, saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is filled with God’s glory.”
 
It’s seraphim serpents – the very attendants of God’s realm – that came in instant response to the Israelites’ careless, ruthless, thoughtless complaints. And it’s worth pausing and taking that in. The attendants of God’s realm burst onto the scene at a moment when the Israelites are willing to cast it all away without a second glance. In their grievance, they have clearly missed something key. What were they not seeing? What were they missing? Maybe, how fragile life is? How precious, how valuable? How it can be gone in an instant? Might they have been missing the respect and honor of their lives and their relationships with one another and with God? How they could have quality of life, a sense of well-being, even in the wilderness where they found themselves?
 
Renowned psychologist and survivor of the European Holocaust, Victor Frankl famously demonstrated in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, how some people can have a sense of personal well-being – a sense of the value of life and relationships – no matter the circumstances and even being in a concentration camp. In fact, his book was originally titled: Nevertheless Say Yes to Life.
 
At one point Frankl recalls an especially grueling time he had in the concentration camp, and he describes how:
 
A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth—that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment . . . In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way—an honorable way—in such a position man can, through loving contemplation . . . achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory…”

(Man's Search for Meaning, Part One, "Experiences in a Concentration Camp", Viktor Frankl, Pocket Books, ISBN 978-0-671-02337-9 pp. 56–57)

It is this, this angel, this messenger lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory, it is that very being that reminds the Israelites they crossed a a critical line of value and honor – of themselves and their relationship with God in all circumstances. It is this being that is lifted up on the rod as a sign and symbol of healing and restoration. No matter what – never the less – you are called to say Yes to Love.
 
So, Jesus referencing these beings – the seraphim serpents on the rod – with Nicodemus begs the question . . . what’s keeping Nicodemus up at night? What’s keeping him from seeing the kingdom all around him and in him? What about seeing the kingdom will help him with what’s keeping him up at night? Has he, possibly, crossed a line in his heart or with his relationships or with God? Or, might he be standing at that delicate threshold? Are the seraphim right there, just beyond the veil, with bated breath, cheering him on, as they continue to proclaim holy, holy, holy? You can do it Nicodemus! You can move toward love and not away from it. You can do it, beloved siblings. Repent, and become born again, filled and renewed by the Spirit. Amen.
 
 
 
 
 
 

A sermon preached with a congregation that has experienced multiple disasters – both natural and human-caused  – over several years. 

Lamentations 3:22-33 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
    his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
    “therefore I will hope in him.”
The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
    to the soul that seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly
    for the salvation of the Lord.
It is good for one to bear
    the yoke in youth,
to sit alone in silence
    when the Lord has imposed it,
to put one’s mouth to the dust
    (there may yet be hope),
to give one’s cheek to the smiter,
    and be filled with insults.
For the Lord will not
    reject forever.
Although he causes grief, he will have compassion
    according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
for he does not willingly afflict
    or grieve anyone.


Mark 5:21-43 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
 
When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.” So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’” He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.
 
This is the Word of the Lord.
 
Good morning! What a blessing to be with you. Thanks very much for having me.
 
I remember once, after a rash of troubling headlines when I was a teenager, admitting to my dad that I didn’t think I would have kids. I say this as we celebrate my son's fifteenth birthday today. At the time, the world seemed too dangerous to bring kids into it. My dad's response? Well, if all you do is look at the destruction, then there’s never been a good time to bring kids into the world. That was just one of countless ways my parents strived to teach my siblings and I the importance of adding good back into a troubled world. And gracious! Is the world ever troubled today. It can be quite a challenge to figure out how best to add good back in. In today’s passages, we are given three examples of people in heartbreaking circumstances – a city in ruin, a woman experiencing untreatable hemorrhaging, and a man fearing for his daughter’s life – where each person, in his or her own way, seeks to acknowledge the pain they are experiencing and recognizing Good at work in the midst of it. Let’s consider these examples some more together.
 
I wonder, have you ever pleaded with the Lord? Begged God repeatedly, like the little girl’s father does with Jesus? Or, maybe pleaded with God quietly in your heart, as we may presume the woman who suffered from years hemorrhaging may have been doing following treatment after treatment after treatment that did not heal her. How did she keep hope alive through all that suffering? Or, perhaps have you lamented to God, as the author Lamentations does in the first two and a half chapters of the book, sighing great heavy sighs for a community facing devastation? In your own pleading, or searching, do you experience glimmers of hope? Do you experience a sense of trust that, even as great tragedy has occurred, in some way things are going to work out? That tragedy, trauma, devastation are not the end of the story?

As I have prepared to be with you this morning, and spent time with these passages, in each of the three accounts we’ve heard today, I was impressed with what seems like a common element – even amid such very different circumstances – of each person moving toward hopefulness from places of great discouragement and overwhelm. In each case, with the author of Lamentations, the hemorrhaging woman, and the little girl’s father, I note how all of them seem to move toward holding two truths at the same time – the truth of what’s happened and the truth that Good is still at work in the world. This practice seems to be important for not getting lost in despair and being able to move toward new life after tragedy. And it’s important for us to remember, there’s no versions of good, there’s only good. And God alone is purely good. So, when we see and participate in goodness in the world, we are connected with the Holy Spirit.
 
For example, in the case of the author of Lamentations, the author’s city has fallen into ruin. It’s a shell of it’s former self, with people dying and suffering all around. For the first two and a half chapters of the book, the author names the suffering, names what has been lost, through rich poetic arcs. I encourage you to read those passages, if you have not done so recently. Briefly, though, hear the author of Lamentations as the author writes just before our passage for today: “I have become the laughingstock of all my people, the object of their taunt-songs all day long. God has filled me with bitterness, and has sated me with wormwood. He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes; my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, ‘Gone is my glory, and all that I had hoped for from the Lord.’ The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me.”
 
These days, we do not often practice this kind of lamenting. At least, not publicly. It’s hard to be that bold, that direct, that poetic about what you’re feeling. So often, especially in times of overwhelming devastation, it’s immensely difficult to name not only what has happened but to give language to what reactions feel like in the body. How it feels like teeth grinding on gravel. Arrrgh! Or how devastation can make us even forget what it ever felt like to be happy. In fact, that’s a common experience after trauma – losing the ability to feel joy. Feeling embittered toward everyone around you. Being able to acknowledge not only what happened – a traumatic event that has occurred – but to acknowledge how you reacted and to incorporate that into a regular rhythm of life takes time and nurture.
 
In trainings I lead, I often encourage people to practice finding words for lament, as this author has done. To try writing about grief, and naming what has been lost – even just to yourself and before God. Sometimes, for example, the pain someone might feel after losing their home, for example, might not be the only aspect of traumatic loss they feel. They may also, for instance, mourn the loss of how meaningful the neighborhood had been, or the loss of feeling safe. It’s these less tangible losses that can sometimes be the hardest to process, and can fester within us for years, partly because they take so much more effort and intention to identify. It takes getting quiet, and asking yourself about what’s been lost, and listening carefully to how your body reacts and what thoughts come to mind. Sometimes, journaling can help. Sometimes, talking with a therapist or a good friend can help. Creating art can help. Sometimes we find we are able to identify what’s missing, what needs to be lamented, when we’re fellowshipping with loved ones. Whatever method is most effective for you, it’s good to practice lamenting what’s been lost – especially when it’s complex and multi-layered.
 
Unfortunately, sometimes, as Christians, we would rather just jump to Resurrection. We would much rather declare everything will be ok, without doing the work of earning that confidence. Rather than acknowledging what’s happened or how we’ve reacted, we dismiss those feelings in favor of only thinking positively and not dwelling on anything negative. The problem with that practice, sometimes, can be that it actually makes us stuff down a feeling of loss, and, unfortunately, forces it to linger within us rather than get metabolized. Trying to jump straight to health – to will ourselves to resiliency, as if a shortcut might be possible – skips over an important stage that occurs in between loss and health, a stage of uncertainty when we don’t know precisely how things are going to turn out. When all we feel is lost and forsaken. We miss the importance of marking that experience of bewilderment – a stage where, ideally, we recognize God abiding with us even in the midst of our sense of great loss.
 
We get a glimpse of this step in another passage of the Bible, when Mary Magdalene goes to the Garden after Jesus has died. In John 20, she goes to the tomb and finds two angels there and Jesus is missing. She begins to cry, wondering if his body has been stolen or moved somewhere. The angels ask her why she is crying and she says, They have taken my Lord away and I don’t know where they have put him. She acknowledges her pain and her sense of bewilderment. She knows what she’s lost. As more and more scholars have studied trauma and healing, their studies show how acknowledging or expressing what’s happened – whether by words or by nonverbal action – is an important step in generating healing.
 
Sometimes, though, pain is much too hard, complex, or uncomfortable to name. Sometimes there are no words to truly describe what’s happened. Like it may have been for the woman who was hemorrhaging. After years of suffering, of seeking treatment after treatment to no avail, we find her experiencing her pain mostly by herself and not by speaking with others. She does not appear to have any friends or family in the crowd. She does not speak to the disciples or try to get Jesus’ attention. In fact, she’d prefer not to be noticed at all. She’s just going to touch Jesus’ robe, get her healing, and be on her way. After all, according to the Hebrew laws of her time, she should not be interacting so publicly at all, especially while she is bleeding which would have made her unclean. Imagine how isolated she would have been for twelve years. Never allowed to participate in celebrations or go to the Temple. But her she is, risking further ostracizing and punishment, for the possibility of being healed.

This same story appears also in the book of Luke chapter 8. There, when the woman touches his robe, Jesus says he immediately felt power go from him. He asks the disciples who has touched him and looks all around the crowd for the person who stole some healing.
 
No one knows, except for her. She knows she was instantly healed. Trembling with fear – she’s about to approach a Rabbi and his students within a crowd, knowing she also has not ritually cleansed herself. Still, she cannot help but tell the truth. She speaks both of what she has lost and of what she has gained. And he says, it is her trust in him and in his power that has healed her.
 
In the third account, a father is desperate to heal his dying daughter. When news comes that his daughter has died, Jesus’ first words are Do not be afraid, just believe. Sometimes, there are no words for what’s happened and no words come. There’s only the experience and going through the motions. In these cases, we acknowledge what’s happened through action, like giving the little girl something to eat . . . which would have been very different from every other time they had ever given her something to eat.
 
So there is the one truth – what’s happened. What’s been lost? And acknowledging what’s happened – what we’ve lost or suffered – as a part of the steps toward healing and health.
 
Then, there is the other truth, what’s to be gained. What goodness is at work in the midst of tragedy? The author of Lamentations speaks well to this in chapter 3. How, even amid an entire city in ruin, amid vast collective trauma, Goodness is still at work in the world. The author exclaims: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning. Trauma and loss are not the end of the story.

But so often, we miss the goodness. We miss those precious breaths of fresh air, fleeting moments of relief amid struggle. When we’re asked what’s happened, after trauma, we often will tell stories that only speak to the negative. Our emotions often blind us to the good. They get in the way of our faith, especially when we hang on to the feelings of pain and heartache. When we let them become, for example, a grudge we hold against God, or the world, or our loved ones. When they keep us from feeling like we can do good things – like when I thought I would never have kids in a world like this. We can become flooded with feelings of irritability, anger, frustration, sorrow, deep sadness, or great fear and anxiety. We stop being able to see Goodness at work. We stop feeling hopeful.
  
In trainings I lead, after I ask what’s happened, and I usually hear about all the bad. I ask, and when did you feel a moment of relief? And people pause, and remember, oh, yeah, these amazing people came to help, or my sister called right when I needed her to, or a stranger reached out a helping hand, or volunteers brought food and blankets, or in the midst of it all, I looked up and saw the clouds parting and I felt just a bit of peace. It’s important to remind ourselves, remind one another, we Christians are not meant to grieve like those who have no hope. We are not meant to go through sorrow only seeing the sorrow or only seeing Good and positivity. We are called to hold the two truths – of what has actually happened and how that devastation cannot overcome true Goodness.
 
Sometimes, we get to do that very publicly, like the woman who was healed. Sometimes, we do it privately, like the little girl and her father and their family. I’ve sometimes wondered what it would have been like to follow Jesus’ instruction and to not tell anyone what had happened, but to just know it for themselves. How does having witnessed such robust Goodness at work in the world, and not being able to talk about it, impact how you interact with the world? Do you become people who instead show what you know, without words? It’s something for us to ponder, as people who are called to be God’s witnesses in the world. What might it mean to be God’s witnesses without words? How do we show what we know and believe, or live what we know and believe, without telling people about it? While we are not instructed not tell anyone about God’s activity in ourselves, it can be helpful to think about what it might mean to live that way. It’s something to consider. How might you be if a miracle occurred in your home, and Jesus told you not to tell anyone about it? What would it mean to live more by action than by words? For example, might it mean living with less fearfulness? With less anxiety? With being more kind, more generous, more expressive . . . in other words, with more of the Fruit of the Holy Spirit? With our family, with our friends, with our neighbors, with strangers?
 
In days with headlines constantly telling us about the pain and suffering in the world right now, it can be easy to forget that people have experienced great forms of suffering for millenia. We met some people today who experienced great pain in their lives. And we have seen how holding two truths was a part of their movements toward healing – the truths of being honest about what’s happened or what’s been lost, and of recognizing how Good is still at work in the world even, and especially, amid great sorrow. And how we can participate in that Goodness. Indeed, we do not grieve as those who have no hope. We do have hope. We know crises, and trauma, and disaster are not the end of the story. We are invited to claim, as the author of Lamentations does, that new mercies come every morning, even after disasters. We are invited to recognize, as the woman who was hemorrhaging does, that God calls us into greater relationship with God and with one another, even, and perhaps especially if all we want to do is get a little healing and move on. And, again and again, throughout the Bible, we are invited, like the little girl’s father, to not be afraid, but instead to believe. To believe that trauma and suffering are not the end. And that the Author of Goodness is at work in the world bringing about a new covenant of love each and every day. We are a part of that good work. Amen.

Please join me in our First Testament reading, Psalm 4

Answer me when I call, O God of my right!
    You gave me room when I was in distress.
    Be gracious to me, and hear my prayer.
How long, you people, shall my honor suffer shame?
    How long will you love vain words, and seek after lies? Selah
But know that the Lord has set apart the faithful for himself;
    the Lord hears when I call to him.
When you are disturbed,[a] do not sin;
    ponder it on your beds, and be silent. Selah
Offer right sacrifices,
    and put your trust in the Lord.
There are many who say, “O that we might see some good!
    Let the light of your face shine on us, O Lord!”
You have put gladness in my heart
    more than when their grain and wine abound.
I will both lie down and sleep in peace;
    for you alone, O Lord, make me lie down in safety.
 
This is the Word of our Lord.
 
Thank you for having me. It’s an honor to be here, and I am always grateful for any opportunity I have to share my passion for healing and health. I was graciously invited me to preach this morning, and I find it a great pleasure to dive in with you into one of the more peculiar passages in Scripture today.

This morning we find ourselves actually still on the first day of the resurrection. And what a weekend and a day it has been! Obviously, a tremendous amount has happened. And these passages related to the first hours and days after Jesus rose from the tomb give us a lot of insight into what it’s like to be ping-ponged between overwhelming events in which worst fears and greatest hopes become reality. Some find these passages haunting, others exhilarating and motivational. Some stake the core of their faith on these passages, while others can’t make heads or tails of them and it’s all they can do to hang on to their little mustard-seed size hope that there might be even a sliver of a chance they are real. Still others find they are just too far from the kind of life they’ve experienced – surely they must be myth or symbolic literature. Indeed, these passages take us right to the heart, right to the feet of God, where we can only go alone. They bring us right to the very essence of faith, and ask what do you believe? What will you bear witness to? Will you follow Jesus’ call to bear witness to these events?

This work is not for the faint of heart, and we do well to enter in with some fear and trepidation. As we look to our New Testament passage for today, on this particular day in Scripture, let’s set some context. A couple of disciples have just walked with Jesus along the Emmaus Road. At first, consumed and in the tunnel vision of their grief, they do not recognize him at all. Later, as they eat together, they suddenly realize who he is and, at that moment, he vanishes. They jump up and immediately return to Jerusalem. They gather other disciples, who also have wild stories to tell about sightings of Jesus. And this is the moment where we find them. Let’s listen in . . .
 
Luke 24: 36-43, 46-50
While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them, saying, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. Even in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering. So he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. He said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending you what my Father has promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. 
 
This is the Word of our Lord.
 
It’s fairly safe to say the disciples are traumatized. We’ll unpack this a little more in a minute, but for now, it’s important to point out that a significant sign of trauma – or, the experiences we have immediately following severe loss – is not trusting or accepting what we sense in front of us. What we see, what we hear, what we feel. Just like what’s happening for the disciples here. And it’s one of the greatest challenges of being a witness. Unless you practice presence, any one of our body’s first responses to adversity is in some way to not take it in. To not believe what we see, to not fully hear the information, to not process the information accurately.
 
Think of significant stories in your own life – or, times you risked the possibility of loss. A close call. Think back on how the information came and went.
 
I’ll share one example of my own. Years ago, on my daughter’s birthday and when my son was about to turn three, just as we were finishing up dessert, Kaden was in the living room getting off a couch. He mis-stepped and came crashing down, full weight – and he was a little tank of a guy – slammed his forehead on the edge of the oak coffee table. I was by his side in what felt like a millisecond – like I just flew across the room. Instinctively, he had covered his forehead with his little pudgy hand. As I gently lifted his hand away, I was staring straight at that amazing, undeniable color of skull. A flurry of activity commenced, which resulted in a few of us heading to Urgent Care. 
 
I remember walking up to the front desk, and the woman there welcoming me politely and asking me a few initial questions and then for my insurance card. I handed it over. At that was at that moment that I fully saw my arm for the first time, which was covered in blood. I burst into tears.
“It’s ok,” the woman at the desk assured me before I could barely get out, “I . . . I . . . didn’t have a chance to clean up.”  “It’s ok,” she said again and took my card.  
A lot has been said about Mary Magdalene in the Garden outside the tomb, or the disciples on Emmaus road, or Peter and disciples fishing on the shore, and none of them recognizing Jesus when he appeared to them. People wonder how they ever could have missed something so amazing and so obvious as their beloved Rabbi appearing before them. But it happens all the time, especially after trauma. Our bodies pace our processing, and help us focus in on what is most critical for us. You probably have your own stories of times you could not take it all in, or can’t remember quite how you got from here to there in the midst of it all.

So, here we are, with the disciples in a similar position, unable to take it all in at once. And for good reason. They’ve just been through one of the most tumultuous weekends of their lives. To start, their worst fears happened. The man they believed was going to save them, died. Dead. And they lived with that reality for at least 48 long hours.

Over the centuries, we Christians have conveniently removed ourselves from that part of the story. We often quickly jump from Good Friday to Easter, without a thought given to Friday evening or Holy Saturday. Without any sense of appreciation of what it would have been like for the disciples to really feel utterly forsaken, to really feel like the Messiah was gone and not knowing what comes next.
 
There’s a remarkable painting that can help Christians today consider what it might have been like for the disciples – another art form that brings viewers right to the feet of God and invites you to come to terms with what you really believe – Holbien’s Dead Christ paining. Personally, I think it’s a painting all Christians should see at some point in their spiritual journey. You can easily google it. Apparently, it haunted Dostoevsky. He’d spend hours staring at it. I don’t mean to be overly morbid. I just hope for you to have a sense of the fact that that’s where the disciples are when we meet them in our Scripture today. They had been facing the dead Christ for the last two days. We do well to try, even a bit, to put ourselves in their shoes.

Then, as this day unfolded for them, crazy rumors began to fly. People are reporting that the body is gone, the tomb is empty. People are wondering whether soldiers have stolen the body, whether zealots of any form have stolen the body, and what to do with the fact that a few trusted people seem to have possibly really gone crazy and are saying they’ve actually seen him and talked to him.

It’s not all processing. Wait, say it again. You’re sure?? They keep talking it through together, trying to make sense of what they are experiencing.

And we know what that’s like. We all have our own stories . . . of births, of deaths, of emergency room visits, of close calls, of heartbreaking loss . . . Wait, what? No. I don’t understand. I’m confused. How is that possible? It doesn’t make any sense. What? I woke up, and for a split second, I forgot it had happened, and then it all came rushing back again. We know these stories. We’ve lived them.
 
Like us after thoroughly life changing events, the disciples are radically disoriented when we meet them today. And, it’s understandable, that in the midst of this incredible disorientation, Jesus suddenly appears, and they are terrified and believing they are seeing a ghost.
 
So, what do you do in that moment? Can you help yourself, or help others, come back to your / our senses. To come back online, so to speak, when you feel like you’re going crazy and can’t trust your own sense of things.
 
Years ago, flight tower attendants received a terrifying message from a packed commercial airplane that had not finished taking off yet. It was mid-take off in New York City, not even a full minute off the ground yet, and the pilot is radioing in to say both engines are down because of a flock of geese and they are needing to land immediately. The attendants struggle to register the information. Wait, what? You can actually hear the exchange online. As I have listened to it, I have wondered whether, at a very guttural level, they did not want to believe a packed commercial airplane might suddenly fall out of the sky in the next moment. Say it again, they tell the pilot. The pilot repeats. Later, the pilot said, he turned to his co-pilot, and he asked, “My plane?” The co-pilot affirmed, “Your plane.” Then the pilot said, he forced calm on the situation. In other words, he forced himself to become immediately present. Within just three minutes, take off to landing, the pilot guided the engineless plane into the Hudson River. Lots has been made of this story, a book, a movie, and extensive investigation and study into exactly what the pilot did and the training that helped him to accomplish this tremendous feat.
 
Becoming present in an overwhelming situation makes a world of difference, and it’s one of the critical ways we take on the responsibility and calling to be witnesses and agents of healing in this life.
 
Thankfully, we also do not have to do it all on our own. In this passage, we see Jesus model how to help people who are overwhelmed come to their senses and become present. Being a caring person who helps others become present provides a tremendous gift of healing, and helps people become trustworthy witnesses. Let’s look at what he did.
 
“Peace be with you,” he starts off. Be calm, take a beat, be content in all circumstances. Peace be with you.
 
Then, he begins to draw their attention to their senses. Recall the five senses – touch, sound, smell, taste, and sight. He invites them to pay attention to how they feel inside – why are you troubled and have doubts? Trust your senses. What do you see? My hands, my feet. My bones and flesh. You hear my voice. You can even touch me, and know it is me. Then, as he’s commanded their attention in the most relational of ways, he brings his point home. He asks them if they have anything to eat. Over the years, nourishment is one of the most helpful ways I have found to bring someone back to their senses – to bring me back to my senses and sustain me in the work of care. A cool glass of water, a bit of healthy food.
 
The disciples bring him some broiled fish, hand it to him, and he eats it in their presence.
 
Now, think about what this last moment would have been like for them. Sure they saw him, they heard him, they touched him. But think about the amount of dreams you’ve had and how very real they have felt. But this, the fish, changed things. There’s no way that can be a dream.
 
It’s a moment that often reminds me of the scene in the 1964 movie Mary Poppins, when Mr. Banks is interviewing Mary for the position of nanny. Mary brings out a single sheet of paper to read the advertised Qualifications for the position. Item 1, a cheery disposition. “I am never cross,” she assures a suddenly very bewildered Mr. Banks. Item 2, rosy cheeks. “Obviously,” she retorts. And now, Mr. Banks has risen to his feet, crossed the room, and is trying to make sense of what feels utterly impossible. This is not the advertisement he had posted. No, this is literally the advertisement his children had created, and he is quite sure he had ripped it up and thrown it in the fireplace. “Where did you get that paper?” He insists, even as he stops listening to her and goes over to the fireplace where he recalls his actions the night before. He sees how none of the pieces are there any more. He continues to completely ignore Mary, and instead continues in his revelry, even going through the motions of the previous evening, reminding himself how he physically tore the paper and threw it away. “I beg your pardon, are you ill?” Mary inquires with concern. “I hope not,” he says, disconcertedly.  

I like to imagine the disciples also were hoping they were not ill. Imagine them watching Jesus eat the fish. Imagine the one or two of them who had held it in their hands and handed it to him, or watched this being done, and it disappearing. Right before their eyes. The very substance they knew for sure was real, was now gone, inside him. I like to imagine his smile growing wider and wider, as their eyes bulged.
 
Fish play a prominent role in the resurrection passages. For example, Jesus famously makes a breakfast of grilled fish on the beach for the disciples and invites them to share what they have to offer. Despite having read and thought about these passages many times, I admit, I’m a little embarrassed to say how long it took me to connect these passages with the Christian Fish symbol.

I had grown up hearing about the Christian Fish in much more analytic and scholarly terms. Even as a middle school or high schooler in Sunday school and youth group, I was taught about the greek word ichthus for fish, and how it was an acronym to help early Christians remind themselves of who Christ was and to teach others. How they would draw it as a form of greeting, a way to identify one another in a highly intense and harsh political climate, and how they used it to spread the Gospel message. That may be. But I wonder if it’s even more than an acronym, if it is at all. See, in my work with survivors and study of trauma treatment, I find most survivors – myself included – aren’t very pithy or scholarly after trauma. In fact, more often than not, it just seems like there’s no words that really do justice for what I just witnessed or lived through. No words could fully encapsulate those real experiences of terror or the fullness of unimaginable joy.
 
I find the Passion weekend and the days of Christ walking among the disciples after resurrection to be some of those kinds of experiences.
 
Right there, in the midst of all this bewilderment, disorientation, and jubilation, Jesus says, you will be my witnesses to these things – how does one even begin to describe what’s just happened? They can barely talk about it among themselves and make sense, let alone tell other people. To which Jesus says, you will not do it alone. You will have the power of the fruit of the Holy Spirit with you as you go.
 
And that’s wonderful to think about. Being filled with the Holy Spirit. Still, it’s hard to know, what do you do next? What’s the actual next step of bearing witness to all these things? How do you really begin to speak of such immense things like repentance – doing a 180, and going in a completely different direction from anything that in the past has broken your relationships or destroyed your health or the health of your loved ones or neighbors – and in stead, to be For. Giving? To take a stand for giving instead of holding grudges and being vindictive? How do you do this when you yourself are still just barely coming to your senses, just barely becoming present to what all that this means? How do you find your steps forward when the real mess of life is still out there, even after the Resurrection? And that’s the radical counter-cultural part, right? That Jesus did not come and lead a revolutionary army, or a governmental coup. He did not come a Western Hero, all herculean. He came as a baby, and he grew to be a man who loved and never exploited any one. He never used his power to manipulate, to finesse, to make things happen and make people do what he wanted. Instead, he always invited, enabled, empowered, and hosted opportunities for the people he was with to rise, as whole people – mind, body, spirit.
​
How do we witness to that? How do you witness, in yourself? In your home? In your neighborhood?
Maybe, maybe, for the earliest disciples, it started with one first question and one drawing: Do you believe he ate the fish?

​Scripture: 

Matthew 4:23-5:11

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
​“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.


Genesis 18:1-15
The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. He said, “My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.” And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, “Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.” Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it.  Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

They said to him, “Where is your wife Sarah?” And he said, “There, in the tent.”  Then one said, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?” The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.” But Sarah denied, saying, “I did not laugh”; for she was afraid. He said, “Oh yes, you did laugh.”

This is the word of the Lord.
 
There’s a lot we can talk about here. For today, we’re going to focus on having a vision, blessed by God, and what it takes to achieve that vision. In the vast majority of cases, people who achieve great things will tell you, they had a plan. It may have been one they scratched out on a napkin, or one they just knew by heart, but they had at least a general sense of where they were going, why, and how they were going to get there. That’s why any investor or donor worth their salt always wants to know, what’s the plan? How are you getting to that vision? And not just your mission for getting there, but what are you going to do to achieve that mission and vision? What’s your strategy along the way?
So, today friends, as we consider our vision, mission, and strategy as a Presbytery, and ask God to open our eyes, ears, and hearts anew to what God intends for us, let’s consider one of the great vision’s God already gave and granted. God’s infamous vision for Abraham and Sarah.
 
We first meet Abraham and Sarah back in Genesis 11, descendants of Noah’s son Shem. We learn there that the couple is childless and unable to conceive. We also learn how they become a nomadic family at this point. Then, immediately, at the beginning of Genesis 12, God gives Abraham a vision. “I will make you a great nation and bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing.” Abraham likes this vision and follows God. The Lord continues describing the vision as they travel, “Your children will have this land.” And Abraham builds an altar to God.
As they travel more, Abraham also is nervous about his safety. He tells Sarah to pretend they are siblings, and not spouses, scared that powerful people might kill him in order to steal his beautiful wife. Of course, this means as they go, powerful people believe she’s single and available to be a wife or a concubine. Thankfully, despite Abraham’s gross recklessness, God protects their union and inflicts diseases on a household which has taken Sarah in. God promises Abraham again, “All the land you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offsping like the dust of the earth” – countless. Abraham builds another altar, and it is in this same place that God comes to visit Abraham and Sarah in chapter 18. But before we get there, God promises Abraham again, in chapter 15, “a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir; look up at the sky and count the stars – if indeed you can count them. So shall your offspring be.”

Abraham can imagine the vastness of his descendants, living out in the promised land, and expanding into all the earth, more numerous than the stars in the sky. And all of them calling him father. He can see it out there. He believes it. And in Genesis 15:6, we hear the Lord say he reckons this faith – this blind faith – as righteousness. What a blessing, for us all. How incredible, that even as Abraham barely knows how to proceed towards this vision, like so many of us in so many seasons of our life, other than to wait for it to just become a reality, God makes a covenant with Abraham, full of grace and abundant blessing.

In fact, Abraham and God both make embodied covenants with one another. They continue to grow in relationship.
But still, Abraham and Sarah wonder how this mystery will be solved. How will they have countless descendants?
Perhaps, Sarah wonders at one point, maybe she is not meant to conceive. After all, this has not been the easiest marriage. She has been hurt and scared at times. Could she ever, really, conceive a baby with Abraham? Perhaps it’s too hard to even think about coming together after so much pain and distance between them.

As we’re probably all familiar, she tries to solve the problem herself. She offers her slave as a surrogate. It seems she believes it is the best option available. Had they ever tried to address what was keeping them apart? The hurt, pain, embarrassment, anger, frustration? The emptiness? The longing? The wish to be closer, but not knowing how to get there. How often had they tried, and failed? How often had they tried, and it only ended with them both even more upset. Sometimes, that chasm between loved ones seems so immensely wide. So impossible to clear.
It would take a real miracle.

So, then, today. . . God shows up. Suddenly appearing near the trees of Mamre. What do you think Abraham was thinking at that first moment? You think he was only thinking about how to honor the Lord and his guests? How to be hospitable for his very special guests?

You think he had maybe a twinge of . . . Oh. My. God.

“Sarah . . . make some cakes.”
 
I have a friend who likes to repeat the quote, “The longest journey you will ever take is from the head to the heart.” He says this often when he’s teaching what he calls, Fearless Dialogues, where he brings together people from all different walks of life and facilitates conversations between them in which they learn about each other’s backgrounds and experiences and have the opportunity to discover one another’s humanity more closely.
  
Abraham and Sarah struggled for a long time – decades ­­– to share a sense of humanity with one another, let alone a sense of real pleasure with one another. They maybe could have used a fearless dialogue or two. And perhaps that’s what God is making way for here. Maybe later, after the guests leave, maybe they actually get around to addressing what’s been hurting most. Why there hasn’t been any pleasure, for so long. And not just happiness, but the fullness of life kind of pleasure. The kind of pleasure God intends for spouses, for families, and for intentional loving communities. The kind of pleasure God intends for all God’s children.

I would argue, pleasure is Abraham and Sarah’s mission. A mission they’ve been neglecting for dozens of years, and without which they cannot get to their God-given vision of receiving the tremendous blessing of a large family that in turn becomes a blessing for the world.   

In our passage today, the Lord begins by speaking directly to Abraham. “Where is your wife?” God asks. She’s in the tent, Abraham replies. Then, the Lord restates the more explicit promise he had already given to Abraham at their last visit in chapter 17. In several months, Sarah is going to have your son.
 
Now, I don’t know if any of you like mysteries or who-done-its. If you do, you’ll probably remember how a common question a detective or investigator will ask or will check in phone records, texts, or emails, is what did you do when you found out great news? And the reason they look at this point in a storyline, is because it’s a common impulse across the board and it’s an easy way to check if someone is lying. Because it’s nearly impossible to avoid telling someone you love good news. You might not even love them that much, in most cases you can’t help but tell them. Whether it’s your family member, a best friend, someone you work with – you blurt it out – I got the job! Our kid got into the college of their dreams! We found a donor for the transplant! We’re having a baby!
Those are the expressions, the outreach, we make ordinarily in life, especially within loving relationships. Not even when we’ve waited decades for something special to happen.
 
But Abraham doesn’t do that. He doesn’t tell Sarah they are going to have a baby. And no wonder hardly anyone preaches on this point. Are there even words for what’s going on here? For what’s keeping them apart? Yet, it’s the stuff we know so well in our own lives. And it’s the stuff we encounter in pastoral counseling. It’s the blockage, the gnarly knot of emotion that keeps us from turning towards each other, and from confronting and resolving our pain.
But God, in God’s way, shines a big spotlight right on the painful knot entrapping Abraham and Sarah. Let’s bring that pain you’ve been harboring for so long out of the shadows. When God says Sarah’s going to have a baby, Sarah makes it abundantly clear she’s still in the dark. In fact, she can’t help but laugh out loud at the absurdity of it all, and says to herself, “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I now have pleasure?”
 
And here’s the thing about this word pleasure here. It’s about so much more than only having a baby, becoming pregnant, or conceiving a baby. But, too often, we skip right over it, partly because it’s a word that does not translate well into English. Other languages have better words that may work – like, the French word juissance, the fullness of life, or the Danish word, hygge, joy in a cozy environment, or the Japanese word amae – the tender, emotive, and formative character of a nourishing relationship.

This Hebrew word here shows up five times in the Bible, which can give us some hints at what Sarah is expressing here.

Like in Psalm 36:7-8, when David describes, “How precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings. 8 They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your ______ (delights).”
 
Or in 2 Samuel 1:24, after Saul and Jonathon have been slain, and David, in anguish, immediately bursts into a song of lament, saying, “O daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you in ________ (luxurious) crimson, who put ornaments of gold on your apparel.”
 
Or when Jeremiah talks about King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon devouring the inhabitants of Zion, and filling his belly with their _______ (delicacies). (51:34)
 
We don’t have a word for what’s being expressed in all these places with the same Hebrew word. We don’t operate with an English common sense, a tangible embodied sense of the God-given fullness of life brought about within loving caring relationships. This Hebrew word relates at once to nourishing food, to nourishing drink, to luxurious fabrics and jewelry, to battle, and to coming together with a spouse and conceiving new life. We don’t have an English word for what Sarah is getting at here. After all this time, my husband is going to care for me? Is going to care about my role in bringing about our dream with him? After all this time, I may experience the joy of giving him gifts he’s been longing for?  “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, now will I have nourishing, luxurious fullness of life?”
It’s a quintessential question. We miss a huge part of the story if we brush past it.

God asks Abraham, “Why is Sarah laughing?” 

So much is in that moment.
 
And Sarah, out of her own fear, feeling the immense tension in the air even from behind the cloth of the tent, suddenly jumps in with a lie, before Abraham has a chance to face with honesty his own actions and heart. God says, don’t even start. And when he addresses Sarah, I’m not sure he even takes his eyes off of Abraham when he says, “Oh yes, you did laugh.” You two! You keep acting individually, and not together, as I have intended.

If Abraham and Sarah’s mission is to experience nourishing, luxurious fullness of life – what the Rev. Becca Stevens, an Episcopal priest in Nashville, TN, and the founder of Thistle Farms calls lavish love ­– what then is their strategy?

Unfortunately, this isn’t a faery tale. It doesn’t all work out happily ever after in the end . . . yet.
While Abraham and Sarah do come together and find a way to love each other enough to conceive a baby, Abraham in particular continues to struggle to extend lavish love to the people closest to him. He may not know how. But, it seems whatever love Abraham and Sarah, and Hagar, were able to offer their boys, it seems to be what the pediatrician-turned-analyst D. W. Winnicott famously called “good enough parenting.” In a poignant phrase in the Bible, after Abraham dies, his estranged sons both return to bury their father together.

Achieving a great vision is hard. It doesn’t just miraculously happen. A vision is like looking out over a property and imagining the mature orchard that could grow there. To get to a mature orchard, you have to decide you’re going to plant the seedlings (your mission). And tending to your mission takes strategy – someone’s got to prepare the soil, feed and water the trees, and prune them regularly.
 
Abraham and Sarah had a great vision. Thankfully, God abided with them, graciously teaching them how to develop a mission (to have a baby and raise a child). God then continued to abide with their son and his descendants teaching them how to develop a strategy of nurturing, luxurious, lavish love – a strategy we are still learning how to embody today.

You see visions, missions, and strategies, are not just for businesses or organizations. They’re for families and intentional communities. They’re for all who are ill with various diseases, those who are suffering severe pain of the body / the mind / and the heart, those who are possessed by spirits that fill them with senses of evil, those who have seizures, and those who are paralyzed by disability / fear / or by a silent inability to reach across the chasm between us. These are the ones who Jesus says are blessed. The Abrahams, the Sarahs, the Ishmaels, and Isaacs, the Jakobs, and Esaus. The Rebeccas. The Rachels. The Leahs. Whatever words you want to use for them – visions, missions, and strategies of love are the essence of covenantal relationships.
 
When we make marriage vows, or ordination vows, or life orders, or commit to intentional communities, we are promising to bring our whole selves to building love together. We are acknowledging that love does not just happen. Babies don’t just happen. Healthy children do not just happen. It takes people coming together. It takes caring villages. It takes loving parents and communities.

And by God’s grace, God keeps showing up to help us connect and reconnect. Even after the dead, God shows up to remind us we praise a scarred Savior. His wounds do not magically disappear, though they are healed. The wounds matter. And they become part of the tremendous story of new life we are invited to bear witness to every day.
 
Amen.