Here is a recording of today’s sermon from North Presbyterian Church, Kalamazoo.
Today we celebrated the 152nd anniversary of the founding of the congregation.
Today is also the day we moved into our new worship space at First Congregational Church. This was the last Presbyterian sermon to be preached from this historic pulpit. Photo of the procession by Edie Trent.
I want to toss a couple of sentences your way and see if you can tell me where in the Bible they come from:
“God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, so that whoever believes in him may not perish, but have everlasting life.”
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
“In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was formless and void…”
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God…”
“Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”
“We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.”
How did you do?
If you know your stuff, you might have raised an eyebrow at those last two. They’re not actually from the Bible. The first is a line from the third verse of the most famous Christian hymn: Amazing Grace. The second is from the Nicene Creed, the most widely acknowledged statement of Christian faith, written in the early 4th century. Neither of them comes from the Bible itself, but most of us in this room would almost certainly honor these statements as true, maybe even sacred.
We Protestants in the Reformed tradition pride ourselves on having a biblical faith, but the fact of the matter is that the content of our faith goes beyond the Bible itself to include several golden nuggets of sacred tradition that were mined from the mountain of history and refined in the furnace of the Church universal.
This might sound like a shock at first, but it shouldn’t. Jesus told his disciples, quite explicitly, that this would be the case. Christ says, in today’s gospel, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.”
Jesus seems to have recognized that his Church would still have work to do when it came to hashing out the particulars of Christian doctrine after he was gone. He also recognized that we would need help in this process, which is why he promised to send the Holy Spirit to guide us in the direction of truth.
We Presbyterians, who form part of the Reformed Protestant tradition, believe this is exactly what happened, but we also realize that being led by the Spirit often turns out to be much messier than we expected at first.
Take, for example, the doctrine of the Trinity, which we are celebrating today. The Trinity is the Christian’s core concept of God. We believe in one God who exists as three distinct persons (i.e. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Each person is divine, yet they are not three Gods, but one. How does that work? We have no idea. We call it a ‘mystery’, which is just a fancy way of saying we don’t know. The Church has decided she would prefer to stand in awe before the open question, rather than answer it with some kind of simplistic formula. We affirm that there is only one God, but this single Deity is also a Community: a Divine Ecosystem.
How did we come up with this idea? It is never explicitly laid out this way in the Bible. Nor was there ever an angel who floated down from heaven with the word ‘Trinity’ engraved on a stone tablet. We got this idea from the bishops of the early Church, who met together in community and debated the issue over a very long period of time (several hundred years, in fact).
It all came to a head in the 4th century at a meeting called the Council of Nicaea, presided over by Constantine, the first Christian emperor of Rome. The debate was fierce. On one side was Bishop Nicholas from the town of Myra, who supported the doctrine of the Trinity: that Christ was fully divine and co-equal with the Father and the Spirit. Later history would call him “St. Nicholas” and develop all kinds of legends that connect him to the holiday of Christmas. He didn’t actually live at the North Pole or fly around with reindeer, but he was based on a real person: St. Nicholas of Myra, who took part in the Council of Nicaea.
On the other side was the very popular priest Arius, who believed that Christ was the first and greatest of God’s creations, existing even before the universe itself, but not entirely equal with God.
When Nicholas decided he had heard enough of his opponent’s arguments, he walked right up to Arius and slapped him clear across the face. When the other bishops immediately confronted Nicholas about this outburst, he replied that he saw the devil sitting on Arius’ shoulder and was simply trying to shoo him off. Unfortunately, they didn’t buy his excuse and Nicholas was ejected from the meeting.
Now, I’ve sat through some really tense church meetings, but I’ve never seen anything so bad as somebody getting cold-cocked by Santa Claus!
Most Christians today forget that there was a time when beliefs about the Trinity were divisive and controversial. They were unsure of what to believe. The heated arguments of bishops threatened to tear the Church apart. What kind of a future would there be for the Church if they couldn’t reach a conclusion about their most central beliefs? People were justifiably frightened.
But you know what? The Council of Nicaea eventually came to a resolution on that contentious issue. They produced a document outlining their position. As a result, we now have the doctrine of the Trinity permanently enshrined in the Nicene Creed, which we will recite later in this service. The Trinity has become so central to our faith, most Christians take it for granted.
Jesus was right: the Holy Spirit spoke through the Council of Nicaea and guided the Church “into all the truth,” but it wasn’t pretty. It was messy. It got ugly. It was difficult. But God still worked with it.
People tend to have this romanticized idea of divine guidance being like a light that shines down from heaven while choirs of angels sing, but most of the time, it’s not like that at all. Most of the time, people don’t know what God’s will is for sure until after the fact (sometimes centuries after). We get to look back and see how God led our ancestors in the faith. It all looks so clear and obvious for us, but we forget that it wasn’t so clear for them. These imperfect Christians had to do the best they could with what they had at the time. They thought about it. They prayed about it. They disagreed with each other. They fought about it. And in the end, they made a decision and took a step together, hoping it was the right decision and trusting the Holy Spirit to guide their feet while they ran this race. And today we call them saints.
The life of faith is no different for us today from what it was for those who lived long ago. We have no guiding light or heavenly voices to make life’s decisions easy for us. We do the best we can with what we have. We think. We pray. We argue. We act. Repeat.
Over the past year, this congregation has faced a series of difficult problems, for which there are no easy answers. We engaged in the New Beginnings assessment process that led us to face some uncomfortable facts about our congregation’s financial state. We reflected on our deepest beliefs about what we believe church is at its heart: that the Church is a community with a mission before it is a building. We made the bold decision to relocate in light of those deep beliefs, held up next to the facts of our current situation. And now, the time is approaching for us to act on this decision that was made by our members who participated in New Beginnings.
Over the next few weeks, leading up to our 152nd anniversary Sunday on June 12, we will be breaking camp here at 603 N Burdick Street and pitching our tent a few blocks away from here in the chapel of First Congregational Church on Bronson Park.
The session decided to pursue this space-sharing relationship with this congregation after a careful consideration of three potential sites in the North Side and Downtown neighborhoods. First Congregational Church seemed to us to be the best available option for partnership, based on practical concerns for space and money, but more importantly because it is a community that practices its ministry with a set of values that is remarkably similar to our own. Moreover, the people of First Congregational Church have treated the people of North Presbyterian Church with the utmost respect, as equal partners in ministry, throughout this process.
Many of you have asked me whether we will be accepted and treated kindly by this new host community. I can tell you now, with a very high degree of confidence, based on our interactions with them so far, that we will.
After much questioning, deliberation, prayer, listening to the members of this church, and consideration of available options, we, the members of session, are unanimous in our belief that this relocation to First Congregational Church is the call of the Holy Spirit for North Presbyterian Church at this time.
This has been a difficult decision for all of us. I dare not tell you that I know exactly how you feel, especially those of you who have worshiped in this space for many decades. Obviously, I do not feel that pain in the same way or to the same degree that you do. But as your pastor, I do feel it. I feel it because I care about you and your well-being matters to me. I have seen the pain in your eyes and heard it in your voices.
I have felt the pain of this transition in my own way as the work I am doing with you now has become very different from the work you called me here to do two and a half years ago. In addition to orchestrating this relocation and caring for grieving people in the midst of congregational redevelopment, I have also taken on responsibility for coordinating the Togetherness Group since late last fall. And, beginning last month, these increased responsibilities have come with a significant reduction in my work hours and salary.
I tell you this, not to arouse your pity, but to show you how I am feeling the pain of this transition with you, in my own way. My family and I are choosing to sacrifice for North Church because we believe the ministry we get to do here is worthwhile. We believe in you and this church, but even more, we believe in the Holy Spirit, who has called us to minister together in this place at this time.
I know that we will have much grieving and healing to do in the coming season; I plan to be here so that we can do that work together. I won’t give up on you and I pray you won’t give up on me either. I implore you not to give up on one another. And I charge you not to give up on the Holy Spirit, who “draws straight with crooked lines” and “guides you into all the truth.”
Our ancestors in the faith had no idea where or how the Spirit was leading them in their lives, just as we have no idea where or how the Spirit is leading us today. But we can look back and see how God was faithful to them then, so we can trust that God will be faithful to us now.
Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
to guide the future surely as the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
all now mysterious shall be bright at last.Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
his voice who ruled them while he dwelt below.
I love you, God loves you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Do you believe that today? If so, that’s a good start.
Let’s see where it goes from here.
Pentecost sermon from North Presbyterian
Click here to read the biblical text.
I have a close friend in Canada who lives with Schizophrenia. Several years ago, when he suffered his first major psychotic break, he was in pretty bad shape. In a delusional state, he walked several miles on foot from the town where he lived to the nearest major city.
Once there, he was tired and bored and wished he had something to read. Reaching into his pocket, he found a pamphlet of Christian literature. As he looked over it, he thought to himself, “This is what I need!” So, right there in the middle of the street, in downtown traffic as the horns of frustrated commuters surrounded him, he knelt down and prayed.
And as he prayed, something remarkable happened: he had a moment of clarity. He realized that something was wrong in his brain and he should go home and get help. So, he turned around and walked the many miles back to his house. When he got there, his mother was worried sick. The police had arrived and were trying to locate him. My friend walked through the front door and said to them, “Hi. I am a danger to myself and others. I need help. You should take me to the hospital.”
Today, I’m happy to report that my friend went to the hospital, stayed there, and got the help he needed. Today, he continues to lead a meaningful life with the help of medication and therapy. He went back to school, became a father, and is currently seeking ordination in his church.
And beautiful thing is how it all began with this brief moment of clarity in the middle of downtown traffic.
I begin with this story today because it is a perfect illustration of the biblical term prophecy.
Words like prophet and prophecy have been misinterpreted and misunderstood in Christian history. For many people, prophecy has become a kind of fortune-telling about the imminent end of the world. Popular authors scour the book of Revelation for clues about when and how Christ will return to earth. When many people think of prophets, they conjure up images of mysterious, occult figures like Nostradamus, who claim to have special, insider information about the end of days.
It will come as no surprise to most of you that I think these so-called “prophecies” are absolute and total bunk. Christians should pay no attention to them. I wholeheartedly affirm, along with the apostles and the historic Church, my belief in the second coming of Christ, the final judgment, and the resurrection of the dead (as we recite each week in the Creed), but I don’t dare to speculate about the details of when or how those events will happen.
When the disciples asked Jesus himself about these things, he responded in no uncertain terms, “About that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” If Christ himself doesn’t know when or how it will happen, I think the rest of us can absolve ourselves of the responsibility for figuring it out.
So then, prophecy, in the biblical sense, has nothing to do with predicting the end of the world. To the contrary, it has everything to do with interpreting the present.
This morning, as we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, we read a story from the book of Acts where the Holy Spirit descends upon the gathered community of Jesus’ disciples after his resurrection and ascension. The majority of sermons on this passage focus on the first part of the story, where the really interesting and dramatic depiction of the Spirit’s arrival takes place. But I want to focus our attention this morning on the much-neglected second half of the story, where St. Peter stands up and interprets what is happening to the people around him. This part of the story is prophecy at its finest.
The events of that day were confusing, to say the least. There were reports of inexplicable wind and fire. People were suddenly able to speak fluently in previously unknown languages. The crowd didn’t know what to make of it. The most rational explanation was to dismiss the pandemonium as a whole lot of drunken nonsense.
But that’s when Peter got up and began to offer some perspective about what was going on. Like any good Presbyterian, he begins by setting these seemingly random events in the context of Scripture. Citing a passage from the book of Joel, Peter showed the crowd how it had always been part of God’s plan to “pour out [the] Spirit upon all flesh”: male and female, young and old, slave and free. We are, all of us together, the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are all prophets.
Unfortunately, the lectionary cuts us off at this point, just as Peter’s sermon is getting started. If we were to keep reading, we would hear him shift the focus from Scripture to recent events. At that point, Jesus had only recently completed his earthly ministry with his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, his grandstanding in the temple, and a showdown with religious and political leaders that ended in Jesus’ execution. And then, as if the story was too good to end there, Jesus’ body suddenly disappeared. Rumors began circulating. Some said that Jesus had risen from the dead while others protested that his disciples had merely stolen his body and hidden it in order to make a stir.
Peter, inspired by the Spirit, spoke up in that moment and said to the crowd (about Jesus): “This man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power.”
What Peter does here is tie together current events, recent history, and the biblical text with the cord of the Spirit. He showed them how everything that was happening around them was not in fact a series of random events, but the unfolding of the divine plan in history.
Peter interpreted current events to the people from a spiritual perspective. He brought clarity to their confusion and reality to their delusion. This is the work of prophecy in the world. It is a gift of the Spirit. And it continues to this day.
It continues in the Church’s ministry of Word and Sacrament. Every Sunday, before we read from the Scriptures, we say a Prayer for Illumination. This practice, introduced into our liturgy by the Reformer John Calvin, leads us to acknowledge our dependence on the Holy Spirit’s insight in order to properly understand the Scriptures. The Bible was never intended to be an inerrant book of science or history, in the modern sense. Those Christians who treat it as such misunderstand the Bible’s purpose and true significance in the life of the Church today. Presbyterians believe the Scriptures to be the “authoritative witness” to the person Jesus Christ, who is the revelation of God to the world. We refer to the Scriptures as “the Word of the Lord” because we believe they were inspired by the Holy Spirit, therefore we depend upon the Holy Spirit to illumine our hearts as we read the text, so that we might hear God speaking to us today through these ancient words.
In a similar way, the Spirit’s ministry of prophecy continues in the Church through the Sacrament of the Eucharist. In the Great Thanksgiving, the prayer we say before receiving Communion, we recall the saving deeds of Christ and tell again the story of the Last Supper. Then we call upon the Holy Spirit to descend upon us and the physical elements of bread and wine, so that our celebration of this meal might be a sharing in the Body and Blood of Christ. Unlike our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters, we do not believe the elements are literally transformed into flesh and blood. But unlike many of our fellow Protestants, we also do not believe this Sacrament to be a mere memorial of past events. We believe Christ is really, spiritually present, therefore we need the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of our hearts, so that we can receive his Body and Blood by faith as we partake of the bread and wine.
These two ways, Word and Sacrament, are two of the main ways that the Holy Spirit’s ministry of prophecy continues in the Church today. Of course, they are by no means the only ways that the Spirit continues to work in the Church. I could keep going about Baptism, confirmation, ordination, reconciliation, marriage, anointing, music, prayer, or church government. All of these are ways that the Holy Spirit continues to work in the life of the Church, but we would be here all day if I went into detail about each of them.
The Holy Spirit works in our lives outside church as well. I already spoke about my friend’s “moment of clarity” in the midst of a psychotic break. Many others, especially those who are in recovery from addictions, can tell about similar moments when they decided it was time to get clean or sober. Most of them describe this moment as pure grace: that clarity came to them, not from them. They say it felt like something (or someone) was speaking to them, but without words. Not all of them are ready to believe that it was “God” (as we understand God) who spoke to them, but you can visit any Twelve Step recovery meeting in this town and find people there who say, “We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” They credit their ongoing recovery to the work of a Higher Power. I, personally, have no trouble affirming that this too is the work of the Holy Spirit in people’s lives.
The Holy Spirit is all around us and within us, continuing that ministry of prophecy today: gifting us with moments of clarity in the midst of our confusion. The Spirit is at work today in the pastor celebrating at the Communion table and is also at work in the alcoholic struggling for one more day of sobriety (and sometimes, the Spirit works both of those things at the same time, in the same person). The Spirit is at work today in the friendly usher who joyfully greets worshipers on their way into church and is also at work in the sceptic who barely scraped together enough faith to make it to church this morning (and sometimes, the Spirit works both of those things at the same time, in the same person).
The Spirit is at work today, confronting us with moments of clarity and leading us to let go of our delusions. The Spirit is at work today, inviting us to follow where Jesus leads and to trust that our life (as individuals, the Church, and the world) is not a series of random events, but the unfolding story of God’s love for us.
Whoever you are, wherever you are on life’s journey, know this: the Spirit is at work in you today. Trust this and remember that you are loved.
Today’s sermon from North Presbyterian Church.
Click here to read the biblical passage.
Do you ever feel afraid that your life is going nowhere? Like maybe you’re all alone in this world and the universe is just a meaningless series of random accidents?
It’s a pretty common fear, actually. Human beings have achieved more, built more, and learned more in the past five centuries than we had in the preceding five millennia. In the span of the twentieth century alone, we invented flight, mass produced automobiles, cured diseases, split the atom, landed on the moon, and created the internet. I don’t mean to turn my nose up at the great pyramids of Giza, but even the most powerful Egyptian Pharaoh never fathomed the wonder of looking at cat pictures on Instagram.
There can be no question that we humans have pushed the boundaries of information and technology far beyond what our ancestors could have dreamed. One would think that, somewhere in this vast ocean of data we have collected, we must have surely discovered the secret to a happy and meaningful life. Sadly, the opposite seems to be true.
Our insatiable thirst for knowledge, while helpful in many respects, has had the unfortunate side-effect of eroding our shared sense of meaning. Other cultures, including our own before the modern era, have typically relied on traditional mythologies and religious rituals to help them weave the scattered fragments of their lives together into a unified whole. The cultural story helped people make sense of their individual stories. We, in twenty-first century North America, don’t have the benefit of a single cultural story that imbues our lives with meaning from womb to tomb. We are, as Walker Percy wrote, “lost in the cosmos.” We are adrift in a sea of information without any navigational tools to guide the way home. Under these circumstances, it is quite understandable for people to be afraid that their life is going nowhere and they are all alone in a random, meaningless universe.
But we Christians do not exist under those circumstances. We believe ourselves to be part of a unifying story that weaves the tattered fragments of life, the universe, and everything into a single tapestry that gets longer and longer each day as our individual threads are added to it.
The place where we find this story, this finely woven tapestry, is in the pages of the Bible. The Bible is not just a book; it is a library. It is a collection of legends, poems, memories, and letters that, when taken together, tell the story of our communal relationship with God through the ages. The Bible tells the Church’s family story. And in today’s reading from the book of Revelation, we get a powerful preview of how our family story ends. And here’s the funny thing: it ends in the same way that it began.
The very first book of the Bible is Genesis, which begins:
“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”
Compare that with the following from today’s reading, which appears at the end of Revelation (the last book of the Bible):
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.”
The story begins with the creation of “the heavens and the earth” and ends with “a new heaven and a new earth.” St. John, the author of revelation, did this deliberately. He wants to show us that God’s creation of the world was not a one-time event; it is ongoing. The universe is still in the process of becoming what God intends it to be. In other words, God is not done with us yet.
Next, he tells us, “the sea was no more.” Why is that? Does God have something against the ocean itself? No. This is another parallel image from the first chapter of Genesis. In Genesis, immediately after the heavens and the earth, the very next thing we hear about is the sea. It says, “the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”
For the ancient Israelites, “the sea” was a symbol of chaos and destruction. They believed it was the home of a monster called Leviathan, a creature so powerful and dangerous that only God could tame it. The sea, with its tsunamis and hurricanes, symbolically represented those forces of nature that threaten to undo the fragile project of human civilization. But God, they believed, was in the process of bringing order to chaos.
For the rest of the first chapter of Genesis, we read about God shaping the earth around the primordial ocean by the power of the Word. God speaks forth light, sky, land, and life. These things emerge out of the sea at God’s command.
Fast forward to today’s reading from Revelation 21 and we witness the completion of that work as John tells us, “the sea was no more.” God has finally tamed the destructive power of chaos, once and for all.
John goes on to describe what this looks like in great detail:
“See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”
If we were to keep reading into the next chapter of Revelation, we would get a detailed description of this city:
“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.”
As for the inhabitants of this city, John writes:
“The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.”
And then, just to drive the point home even farther, that God’s ongoing work of creation from Genesis to Revelation constitutes one, unified story, we hear the voice from the throne say, “See, I am making all things new…I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.”
God’s vision for the end of history is a garden city with open gates, a thriving, multicultural community of healing and peace.
What John is giving us in this lavish image is a vision of where our lives are going. We are not going nowhere; we are not all alone in a universe that just popped into existence as a random accident. We were meant to be here; we are part of God’s story. John gives us a preview of this story’s end so that we will not lose hope or abandon the faith in the meantime. “Stay with me,” he says in effect, “because I promise this is all going somewhere.”
I think we need to hear that good news today. In this life, when things don’t always work out according to our plans, we humans desperately want to believe that there is some kind of master plan somewhere. We are looking for order in the chaos. We are listening for God to speak into the darkness of our lives, “Let there be light.” The good news for us today is that God is indeed present and active, speaking light into darkness and shaping chaos into beauty. The story of God’s creation is ongoing and we are called to trust in it.
We don’t know the details of how and when this story will reach its climax and dénouement. Contrary to the popular opinions of some Christians, the book of Revelation is not road map for the end of the world; it is a compass pointing us toward the beginning of a new world.
Our task, as the Church, is to not give in to those demonic voices of cynicism and despair that tempt us to wonder whether our life is going nowhere. Our calling is to trust this vision of the multicultural garden city, take our place in God’s unfolding story, and follow the compass as it points us in the direction of True North.
The way will certainly be long and hard, but the destination is worth it. Keep going, and know that your life is not going nowhere and you do not walk alone. The author of the letter to the Hebrews writes of the saints of old:
“All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.’
And God has prepared a place in that city for you, too. Keep going, and I’ll see you at home.
Today’s sermon from North Presbyterian, Kalamazoo.
Click here for the scripture reading.
I got to do some traveling this week with a team that’s doing some research for our presbytery’s camping ministry. One of the places we visited, in addition to being a Christian summer camp, is also a wildlife refuge for injured animals.
As a staff member was showing us around, she introduced us to a male duck and told us that he is “fully imprinted.” Not being very knowledgeable about animals, I had to ask what that meant. She said that many animals, shortly after birth or hatching, form an identity bond with the first creature that cares for them (whatever the species). In this case, the duck in question was hatched and cared for by humans, not other ducks.
“So,” I then asked, “does that mean this duck thinks he’s a human?”
The staff member replied, “Yes, he does.” That’s what “fully imprinted” means.
I find this idea terribly fascinating: this duck had an early experience with humans, and that experience continues to shape his sense of identity today. Of course, he’s still a duck and not a human. He looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck… he’s a duck! But in his little duck brain, he looks at us and thinks to himself, “I am one of you.”
It’s not all that different for us humans, either. We, no less than that duck, have a tendency to build our idea of who we are based on past experiences. In this morning’s first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles, St. Peter meets a group of people who have done just that.
They were a community of widows living in the Israeli city of Joppa, on the coast. Widows in that culture were extremely vulnerable to poverty and exploitation, especially if they didn’t have living (male) relatives to take them in. The early Christian church became well-known for supporting these women and incorporating them into the life of the community. In the context of the church, these vulnerable women were able to band together, support one another, and take an active role in the ministry of the church. Some scholars speculate that this community of widows might have even served as a basis for the ministry of nuns and convents, which would appear much later in history.
The event that has prompted Peter’s visit to this community of widows is the death of one of their own. A woman named Tabitha, well-known as a seamstress, had become ill and died suddenly. Peter was invited to come and pay his respects.
What I find most fascinating about the story up to this point is that these widows form a community that has been brought together by their common experience of grief. Each of them has lost someone important to them, most likely a husband. They all know full-well what it means to say goodbye to a loved one. And here they are again: brought together by grief, and saying goodbye to one of their own.
Just like that duck I met this week, their past experiences (of grief and loss) has shaped the way they see themselves today. And this new experience (of losing Tabitha) only serves to confirm their sense of identity (as “losers”). They have come to see themselves as “the ones who lose people.”
Now, enter the Apostle Peter.
Peter was staying in the nearby town of Lydda and was invited to come and pay his respects after Tabitha died. Like most pastoral visits to bereaved people, Peter visits with the community and hears stories about Tabitha’s accomplishments. The biblical text doesn’t say, but maybe he brought a casserole? And, of course, like all pastors do on bereavement visits, he prayed.
And that’s when things got really interesting.
The text tells us that Peter “turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up.” Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive.”
Through Peter, God has flipped the script for this community of widows. Experience had taught them to identify as “losers,” brought together by their common experience of death, but that’s not who they are anymore. Their identity is now rooted in something far deeper than death. As St. Paul says I his letter to the Colossians, their identity “is hidden in Christ with God.” They are Christians. They are the baptized. They are the ones who have passed through the waters of death and have been raised to new life in Christ by the power of the Spirit. That is who they are now, and nothing in all creation, not even the power of death itself, is able to shake them loose from that identity. This is the truth that Peter has come to proclaim to Tabitha’s companions.
It is also the truth that Christ is proclaiming to us today, through this text of scripture. Who we are is not confined to the sum of our parts or the sum of our past experiences. Like the women in this story, we too are the baptized, whose “life is hidden with Christ in God.”
This truth flies in the face of everything the world throws at us in this life.
This American culture we live in brainwashes us to identify with our money and our possessions, whether we are rich or poor. It also tempts us to identify with our accomplishments in life, be they many or few. But that is not who we are, as Christians. God tells us in the scriptures:
“I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”
That is who we are.
The people around us might try to pigeonhole, scapegoat, or oppress us because of our race, ethnicity, social class, national origin, disability, gender identity, or sexual orientation. Some of us are excluded or made to feel less-than because of these things about ourselves that we did not choose and cannot change. They call us names that I dare not repeat in church because that is not who we are, as Christians. God tells us in the scriptures:
“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
That is who we are.
Past experience might tell us that we are “losers,” who will never fit in, and will never amount to anything in this life. But that is not who we are, as Christians. God tells us in the scriptures:
“I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”
That is who we are.
Past experience might tell us that we are unlovable, but God tells us, as God told Jesus at his baptism:
“You are my Son (or Daughter), the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Just like Peter with Tabitha’s companions, Christ stands among us today in Word and Sacrament, bringing new life where we had given up hope. We can no longer afford to identify ourselves with our past experiences, like that duck at the nature center. We have to find our identity with who we really are in Christ.
We are the baptized: those who have passed through the waters of death and been reborn to life in the Spirit. The waters of baptism have washed away every other name or label that we might be tempted to identify with. Now, there is only Christ. Paul writes, in Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Through the sacrament of baptism, you have become the hands and feet of Jesus in this world. Baptism is not just a rite of initiation into church membership; it is also an ordination to ministry. Once we have realized the significance of our baptismal identity in Christ, we are sent out into the midst of the culture we live in. We are sent to expose the cultural lies that trick people into identifying with anything other than who we are in Christ.
Now, I want to ask you a serious question: Can we believe this for ourselves, as Christians? Can we believe it for ourselves, as the Church?
This is a challenging time to be a Christian in this culture. Most denominations and congregations, ourselves included, are facing a steep decline in membership, participation, and financial support. Many, like us, are facing the loss of our buildings and full-time clergy. The temptation for us, at this point in our shared experience, is to identify with these peripheral things. One video we watched in our Tuesday afternoon Bible study called them “the 3 B’s: Buildings, Budgets, and Behinds.” If those things are how we measure success, then we are no different from the culture around us. We are like the community of widows in Acts: huddled together around our shared experience of loss; pining after the good old days.
But the truth is that we are not those things. The truth, in this Easter season, is that Christ is risen and living among us today, breathing new life into us, flipping the script, and unraveling the twisted knots of death, so that we can begin to find our identity, not with our past experiences or present circumstances, but with Christ and Christ’s mission in the world.
And Christ’s mission is ever and always the same:
To proclaim to the ends of the earth, in word and deed, the good news that “I love you, and God loves you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Be blessed and be a blessing.
The text for this week’s sermon is John 12:1-8.
I love that 70s song by Edwin Starr that goes:
“WAR! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!”
I think that’s a great question to ask: What is it good for?
It’s a question I think we could easily ask of ourselves, simply by changing the first word:
Church… Faith… Prayer… Worship… What is it good for?
There are many who have asked that very question over the centuries, and not a few of them have come back with the same answer: Absolutely nothing!
Historically, one well-known philosopher who asked that question (and came up with the same answer) is Karl Marx, who co-wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848. He wrote, quite famously:
“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
Years later, the Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin expanded on Marx’s idea by saying:
“Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward. But those who live by the labour of others are taught by religion to practise charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven. Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze, in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.”
More recently, a group of three, young, Christian pastors have written a book called Never Pray Again: Lift Your Head, Unfold Your Hands, and Get To Work. In this book, they say:
For many people, Christian discipleship is sleepwalking. We inhabit a world of dreams and imagination, of theology and interpretation, of jargon and tradition. Worship services follow the same pattern week after week, and we can just coast through. Christian leaders can, and do, phone it in. We stand, we sit, some of us kneel, we turn to face the cross, we bow our heads, we take a morsel of bread and a sip from a cup, and we proclaim our work done.
Now, what each of these authors is trying to say is that any religion, any church, or any spiritual practice that does not lead humanity toward a transformed world is good for absolutely nothing. That kind of religion is like a drug: it makes people feel good by numbing them to the pain of the world. People use that kind of faith as an escape. It’s a drug and it’s good for absolutely nothing. Marx and Lenin would say that it’s better to have no faith at all. And I agree with them… to a point.
To all of the above authors, I would say, “Yes, but..”
I would say “Yes” to Marx and Lenin because the kind of religion we learn from Jesus, the prophets, and the apostles is firmly based in God’s desire for a world that has been transformed for good. Nowhere in orthodox Christian theology do we find the notion that God doesn’t care about this world.
Instead, we hear God say through the prophet Amos:
I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
In other words, God is sick and tired of their religion and wants them to work for justice instead. This is a profoundly biblical idea. Likewise, God says through the prophet Isaiah:
Announce to my people their rebellion,
to the house of Jacob their sins.
Yet day after day they seek me
and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments,
they delight to draw near to God.
“Why do we fast, but you do not see?
Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,
and oppress all your workers.
Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
will not make your voice heard on high.
In the Epistle of James in the New Testament, the apostle writes:
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
So, this is where I say “Yes” to Lenin and Marx. If our Christian faith is just a way for us to escape the pain of life instead of working to make this world a better place, then our faith is just a drug that’s good for absolutely nothing. Better to have no faith at all, than that kind of faith.
However, my “Yes” to Marx and Lenin is not unqualified. It’s a “Yes, but…”
Yes, “faith without works is dead,” but empty escapism is not all there is to Christianity. As we have already observed, the core message of both Testaments in the Bible is the God who is “making all things new” in Christ. God’s dream is for “a new heaven and a new earth” and God has invited you and I to help make that dream come true by living our lives as “the hands and feet of Jesus” on earth today. The fact that some Christians have distorted or forgotten that fact does not negate its truth one iota. The solution to bad Christianity is not no Christianity, but better Christianity. That’s where Marx and Lenin go wrong.
In this morning’s gospel, Mary of Bethany, that wonderful mother of all contemplative saints, performs an extravagant act of beauty and service for Jesus. The text tells us she “took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” We soon find out that this perfume was worth almost a year’s salary for the average working person.
Judas Iscariot, ever the practical Marxist, laments, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (NOTE: Of course, we also learn in the next sentence that Judas’ motive for saying this was somewhat less than pure.)
Judas saw Mary’s act of worship as nothing more than a giant waste of resources. Many critics continue to accuse Christians of the same thing today.
Why do we get up and go to church on Sunday? Wouldn’t it be better to spend that time volunteering at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter? Why wake up early for prayer and Bible study before work? Do we think our prayers will magically come true like wishes upon a star? Why practice Christian spirituality at all? Why not just work hard as an activist, fighting for peace and justice? Like Mary’s anointing of Jesus, isn’t it all just a big waste of precious resources?
I would say no, it’s not a waste, and here’s why:
The biblical text tells us that, after Mary had broken open this expensive jar and anointed Jesus with its contents, “The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”
In other words, the act of worship transformed the place where it happened and, by extension, the people who witnessed it. Even Judas was affected.
In the same way, our worship transforms us. It empowers us to do the work of being the hands and feet of Jesus in the world. Without being taught by the Word of God in Scripture, it never would have occurred to us to look for the presence of Christ in “the least of these” and serve them as if they were Christ himself (as indeed they are, as Christ said). Without being fed by the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, it never would have occurred to us that our broken and suffering neighbors are actually our brothers and sisters, fellow members of the Body of Christ, who eat from the same bread and drink from the same cup as us. Without the experience of dying and rising with Christ in the Sacrament of Baptism, we would not have the courage to face death and risk our lives for the sake of what we believe is right. But we have all these lessons because we have received them through the symbols, myths, and rituals of the Christian tradition. These tools shape us, so that we can then go out and shape the world. Without them, many of us would be utterly incapable of making a positive difference.
That’s what St. Mary of Bethany understood and the Communists didn’t. Worship makes a difference. Marx and Lenin were right that faith is worthless if it doesn’t make a difference in way we live our lives in this world. But they were also wrong, because the Spirit-filled worship of God in Word and Sacrament has the power to transform us from the inside out and then send us out into the world, where we can be agents of transformation in the revolutionary coming of the kingdom of God, on earth as it is in heaven.
Thank you to everyone who has offered prayers on behalf of Kalamazoo today. We are all exhausted.
As many of you know already, Jason Dalton went on a shooting spree last night, killing six and wounding two others in seemingly random acts of violence around our community.
I scrapped the sermon I had prepared for this morning and started over from the beginning. The text is Luke 13:31-35. Here is the sermon:
Jason (the suspected shooter) was arrested at the corner of Ransom and Porter, a scant three blocks from our church’s building at Ransom and Burdick. North Church is the closest Presbyterian congregation to the scene. After worship this morning, I took the water from our baptismal font and walked down to that intersection, sprinkling the four corners in an act of blessing. This ritual was done in your name and in the name of all who support Kalamazoo with their prayers today. Thank you. Your presence is felt.
Our closing hymn this morning was written by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and set to music by the Iona Community:
Goodness is stronger than evil.
Love is stronger than hate.
Light is stronger than darkness.
Life is stronger than death.
Victory is ours, victory is ours,
through God who loves us.
If you live locally, please come and join us at an interfaith community prayer vigil on Monday night (February 22), 6pm at First Congregational Church (345 W Michigan Ave).
NOTE: There will be much talk about Star Wars in this sermon, but NO SPOILERS about the new film.
I’ve never known a world without Star Wars. I was born in the same year that The Empire Strikes Back was released. As a little kid, I saw the movies and played with the toys. My younger brother and I would dress up as the characters. Since I was the taller one, I would put on a football helmet and tie a towel around my neck and become Darth Vader. My brother would be Luke Skywalker. Then our dad would put on his Star Wars disco record (and yes, it was still a record) and we would duel in the living room with plastic baseball bats as lightsabers. As I got older, I would re-watch the movies with my friends and read the novels and comic books. Several of us got together and played a Dungeons and Dragons style role-playing game based on the movies. When I was nineteen years old, I met my wife in the same week that Episode I: The Phantom Menace came out. I won’t lie: I saw it six times in the theater that summer… and I’ve already been to see The Force Awakens three times since it came out last month.
I’m a lifelong Star Wars fan. There has never been a time in my life when these movies weren’t there. Their presence has been a given in my life, and I made their story my own as I grew up. And now, I get to pass them on to my kids as the saga continues in these new films that are coming out.
Tell you this today, not just to gush about these movies, but because I can see in my love for them something about how Christian faith begins and grows in the Church. And my point will be this: faith begins, not with what we do or believe in relation to God, but with what God does and believes in relation to us.
Today we remember the baptism of Jesus by St. John the Baptist in the river Jordan. Scholars generally agree that this event is the moment when Jesus’ public ministry begins. Jesus’ baptism is, in a sense, his ordination. Especially interesting are the words spoken to Jesus after his baptism: “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.”
Jesus’ ministry begins with the message, communicated to him in baptism, that he is loved. That love is a given. It’s just there. It’s the foundation upon which the rest of Jesus’ ministry is built. There is no part of Jesus’ life that is not shaped by this love. Because Jesus is loved, and because he knows he is loved by God, everything else he says and does becomes possible: his teaching, healing, forgiving, welcoming, even dying, and rising again from death. God’s freely given, unconditional love is the source for all of this.
The same is true for you and me. Those words, which God spoke to Jesus at his baptism, God also speaks to you in your baptism: “You are my child, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.” God’s love is a given. Like the Star Wars movies, it’s just there. We grow up with it. Most of us take it for granted and never stop to think about how amazing it is.
The sacrament of baptism is how we become conscious of God’s love.
The word baptize comes from the Greek word baptize, which means “to submerge or immerse.” Think about soaking in a bathtub, jumping into a swimming pool, or floating in an ocean. When we are immersed, the water surrounds us on all sides, holds us up, and carries us along in its currents. Now, imagine that the water is God’s love: surrounding you, holding you up, and carrying you along. God’s love washes us clean. The water of baptism is a symbolic representation of that truth. The sacrament of baptism is not a religious merit badge or even a rite of initiation. Baptism does not make God love us; it makes God’s love real to us in a physical way.
The Holy Spirit meets us as we celebrate this sacrament and speaks to each and every one of us the same words that God the Father spoke to Jesus at his baptism: “______, you are my child, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.”
This, by the way, is the reason why we Presbyterians (along with Catholic, Orthodox, Reformed, Lutheran, Methodist, and Anglican Christians) have always been comfortable with the baptism of infants. Whenever a baby is born, we believe that God loves and accepts that child before he or she can say, do, or think anything. We believe the spiritual journey does not begin when a human being makes a conscious decision to search for God, but when God makes a decision to search for us. And the good news, the best news, is that God already made that decision a very long time ago. God says in Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I created you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I set you apart.”
The promises we make in baptism, to turn away from sin and turn toward Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, are only ever a response to the grace that God has so freely bestowed upon us. This is why we say that baptism is not a merit badge. It is not something we do for God; it is something God does in us.
In the same way, growth in the Christian faith is not about how much we love God; it’s about realizing how much God loves us. Like Star Wars, God’s love is ubiquitous: it’s just there, all around us. We grow up with it, and we grow into it.
The more we realize just how much God really does love us, and how there really is nothing we can do to about it; the more our lives and our ministries begin to look like Jesus’. Everything Jesus did, from teaching, to healing, to feeding, to welcoming, to forgiving, even to his death and resurrection, was based on this core truth that God loves us and there’s nothing we can do about it.
I pray that we, as a church and as Christians in this world, would realize this same truth in our own lives, and that our lives, one day a time, might begin to look more and more like his life.
Merry Christmas!
I still say Merry Christmas to you because the celebration of Christmas in the Christian Church (unlike the rest of society) lasts for an entire season, and not just a day. The last vestige of this tradition in our cultural consciousness is the song The Twelve Days of Christmas. That’s how long the liturgical season of Christmas lasts.
Note: In case anyone’s wondering, today is the tenth day of Christmas, wherein the anonymous “true love” gives “ten lords a-leaping,” according to the song.
The Christmas holiday seems to come and go so quickly in its secular, materialistic celebration. Celebrating it as a season (as indeed it was meant to be) is one way that Christians can make the joy last and (hopefully) let the spiritual significance of Christmas sink a little deeper into our souls.
Last Sunday, Rev. Bill Dodge spoke about making Christmas last, not by savoring the nostalgia, but by looking forward to take hold of the promises that God has laid up for us in Christ. Today, I would like to pick up on the heels of where my mentor left off and talk about the reason why Christmas happened in the first place. My hope is that if we can answer this question adequately, we might be in a better position to understand the meaning of Christmas and keep it in our hearts all year long.
Why was Jesus born?
There are several theories that propose an answer to this question. First, there are those who think the meaning of Jesus’ life was his message. “He came as a great teacher,” they say, “to show us how to love thy neighbor as thyself and do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Now, there is certainly a degree of truth in this idea. Jesus was, after all, a great teacher. However, he is hardly the first great teacher to walk the earth. Others have come from all corners of creation to enlighten the world with their wisdom. As a teacher, Jesus is one among many. Furthermore, scholars of comparative religion will tell you that many of the truths he taught were also devised by others. The Golden Rule, for example, is so-named because of how often it appears in the various philosophical and religious traditions of the world. There is nothing unique about Jesus if we relegate the significance of his life to his words alone.
There are others who claim that the meaning of Jesus’ life can be found in his death on the cross. “He came to die,” they say, “His blood paid the price for the sins of the world, so that those who believe in him can go to heaven when they die.” This theory is the one most commonly associated with traditional Christian teaching. However, I find it just as incomplete as the theory that Jesus was nothing more than a great teacher. If we believe the only reason Jesus was born was so that he could die on the cross, then we can conveniently ignore everything that came before and after that event: not only his teaching, healing, confronting, and forgiving, but also his resurrection, ascension, and eventual return. If he only came to die, then we can conveniently dispense with reading the remainder of the Bible and rest assured that our sins are forgiven and our eternal destiny secure.
So then, why was Jesus born? Why was it that Jesus, the Word of God Incarnate, “became flesh and made his home among us,” as it says in this morning’s gospel?
St. Paul gives us a better answer in this morning’s epistle:
“God revealed his hidden design to us, which is according to his goodwill and the plan that he intended to accomplish through his Son. This is what God planned for the climax of all times: to bring all things together in Christ, the things in heaven along with the things on earth.”
Jesus Christ, in the mystery of his Incarnation, “bring[s] all things together in [himself], the things in heaven along with the things on earth.”
This is a central theme of the Christian faith. If we miss it, we are dangerously close to missing the whole point of Christianity itself. Jesus, the Divine Word, crossed the divide between heaven and earth so that he might also bridge the gap between God and humanity. And precisely because he has done this, he also bridges the many other gaps that divide us on earth: the gap between races, genders, social classes, political parties, nations, and even the various denominations and religious traditions. This is why Paul is able to say, in another place, “There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
When people begin to realize our oneness in Christ, all of those petty distinctions lose their meaning. In place of those divisions, we come to see the truth, as Paul did, that:
“Christ is just like the human body—a body is a unit and has many parts; and all the parts of the body are one body, even though there are many. We were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jew or Greek, or slave or free, and we all were given one Spirit to drink. Certainly the body isn’t one part but many… If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part gets the glory, all the parts celebrate with it. You are the body of Christ and parts of each other.”
It is not too much of stretch to say that this healing of divisions in Christ applies even to the breached relationship between human beings and the earth. We read in Colossians that “[Christ] existed before all things, and all things are held together in [Christ].” Therefore, Paul has no problem saying to us in today’s epistle that God’s plan is “to bring all things together in Christ, the things in heaven along with the things on earth.” This promise includes all human beings, as well as all things animal, vegetable, and mineral. God’s plan even includes planets, stars, and galaxies. When St. John tells us in his gospel that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life,” the word he uses for world is cosmos; so it’s not just the world of people that Christ came to save, but the entire universe.
Paul calls this work “the ministry of reconciliation” in his second letter to the Corinthians. It begins with God reconciling the cosmos to himself in Christ and continues as God then invites each and every one of us to participate in the reconciliation of broken relationships through Christ. This, by the way, is why we are rightly able to call ourselves catholic Christians, as we say in the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds. The word catholic means one, and we are indeed one in Christ: having been brought together and reconciled to God, each other, and the cosmos. We form part and parcel of the one Body of Christ, the holy catholic Church.
This ministry of reconciliation matters now more than ever in the world. Human technology has advanced to the point where we have now sent spacecraft to the edge of our solar system. Humans have stood on the moon and snapped photographs of the entire earth at once. Telephones have made it possible to communicate instantaneously with people on the other side of the planet. The internet gives our brains instantaneous access to massive amounts of information.
But what have we done with all this knowledge and power? We have used it, not to unite, but divide ourselves even further. We use our rockets to launch missiles at our enemies’ cities. We use our computers to anonymously abuse each other in comment threads. We access only those bits of information that confirm our previously-held opinions and demonize our opponents in the worst-possible light. We use our telephones to stay connected to the latest headlines, but we are utterly disconnected from the person standing next to us in line or even lying next to us in bed. We are lost.
But we are not without hope, for the purpose of Christmas still holds true, two thousand years after it was first revealed to us. St. Paul said it best: “This is what God planned for the climax of all times: to bring all things together in Christ, the things in heaven along with the things on earth.”
This is what God intends for us, and God will not rest until this ministry of reconciliation is accomplished in us. The reconciliation of broken relationships is the mission of the Church catholic. How do we participate in this mission? In two ways: by receiving the gift of reconciliation from God and by sharing that grace with our neighbors.
First of all, we receive reconciliation from God through the ministry of Word and Sacrament. We listen for the Word of God in the Scriptures, as they are read and preached. We are washed clean and grafted into Christ in baptism. When we celebrate the Eucharist together, we ask the Holy Spirit to bless us and the elements of bread and wine, so that our physical eating and drinking might be a spiritual Communion in the Body and Blood of Christ. And then, as we receive the Body of Christ, we become the Body of Christ: we are made one with God and one with each other in Christ.
Once we have received God’s grace in Word and Sacrament, we are sent back out to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world. Our job is to do today what Jesus did when he was on earth: heal the sick, feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, forgive our enemies, open blind eyes, and bring new life to those who are dead inside.
Just as Jesus Christ bridged the gap between heaven and earth in his Incarnation, so we his Church are also called and empowered by the Holy Spirit to continue his work in the world by bridging the infinitely smaller gaps between us and our neighbors. This is the work to which North Church has given itself over the years. Ever since four teenagers snuck off into the woods with stolen hymnals, the members of this congregation have been continually drawn toward the least, the last, the lost, and the loneliest people in our society. We had our beginnings in a time when this country was divided and at war with itself, and ever since then, we have not ceased to reach across the gaps that divide “us” from “them.” In the middle of the last century, we reached out to our neighbors who are hungry and homeless through ministries of service and compassion. In a time of racial division (much like our current time), the pastors of this church took a dangerous and unpopular stand in favor of equality and desegregation. The Rev. Margaret Towner, the first woman to be ordained a pastor in the Presbyterian Church, has preached from this pulpit. We have stood up for the rights of the poor and the oppressed, we have spoken out against violence, and spoken up for expanded public transportation and equal marriage rights for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. For the last 27 years, we have especially dedicated ourselves to fighting the stigma that is heaped upon people who live with mental illness. Every Sunday at worship and every Thursday at the Togetherness Group, Christian hands and hearts reach out across that divide and the demonic spell of isolation is broken, even if only for a moment. This is the work of the Church, the work of Christmas, and it is our work.
St. Paul says, “This is what God planned for the climax of all times: to bring all things together in Christ, the things in heaven along with the things on earth.” Brothers and sisters, that is why Christmas happened; that is the reason for the season. So may we, the people of the Church, keep our hand to that plow and Christmas in our hearts all year and every year from now until the end of the age.
Tonight we gather again to hear the Christmas story: the story of angels and shepherds; the story of Mary and Joseph; the story of Jesus who was born in manger. It is one of the most beloved stories in all of human history. It is a beautiful story.
But it feels sometimes feels removed from real life. We hear about the angels singing, “Glory to God” and “Peace on Earth” but this Earth often seems to be quite devoid of peace. We enjoy the warm glow of the Nativity Scene and the Hanukkah Menorah in a city park, but that stands in stark contrast to the biting chill of the wind on our faces. Our world feels very different from the world we imagine when we hear the Christmas story. It seems sometimes like tonight is the one night a year when we take a break from harsh reality and pretend to believe in magical things like angels and Saviors. We tell and retell this imaginary story from “a long time ago in a Galilee far, far away.” We cross our fingers and hope against hope that our telling of this story will somehow spark the imagination of our hearts and carry us through to next Christmas, when we will come to church and hear the story once again.
But here’s the thing: our world is not a different world from the one into which Christ was born. It is the same world. The shepherds who saw the angels were poor workers. They were despised and distrusted by respectable society. They knew the struggle of making a living, the pang of hunger, and the sting of rejection. Mary and Joseph were refugees, hustled around like cattle being counted and finally forced to flee for their lives from violence and tyranny in their homeland. Mary, his fiancée, was an unwed teenage mother. We hear that Jesus was born in a stable; have you ever smelled a stable?
The Christmas story is not something that happened “long ago” or “far away.” It is the story of how God comes to meet us: and the time when God comes to meet us is now; the place where God comes to meet us is this place, with all its problems, messes, and stinky smells.
I think the reason why we tend to get so romantic and nostalgic about our Christmas story each year is because we don’t like this world we’re living in. We want to change it. We want to believe that it can become better. We think, “Maybe if we just try harder, or close our eyes and pray harder, the wish will come true and the magic of Christmas will come alive forever!” But, obviously, that hasn’t happened yet. The world we are left with now is still the same weary world into which Jesus was born two thousand years ago.
Some might take that fact as a sign of cynicism or despair, but I don’t. I see it as a grand opportunity. If the world into which Christ was born is this world (so we say), and if Christ is alive forever (so we also say), and if Christ has promised, “I myself will be with you every day until the end of this present age” (so we also also say), then the place and time where God comes to meet us is here and now. God lives within and around us in this world. If we don’t see God, it is not because God isn’t here, but because we, in the hardness of our hearts, are refusing to look.
We wish we could change this weary old world and make it into what it ought to be. But obviously, we can’t. This world is what it is and things are the way they are. We have no control over those circumstances. But that doesn’t mean that change is impossible.
First of all, the loving power that spoke the universe into existence now lives, breathes, loves, and works in each and every one of us. That truth alone is no small cause for hope. Secondly, the power of God is able to change us.
Tonight’s epistle reading tells us, “The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people.” I love that. Let’s break it down: It begins with grace. The “unmerited favor” of God, the love God gives us in abundance whether we deserve it (or want it) or not. This work of transformation begins, not with our best efforts, but with God’s decision to love us beyond our own capacity for self-destruction.
And this grace, we are told in the reading, “educates us so that we can live sensible, ethical, and godly lives right now by rejecting ungodly lives and the desires of this world.” Grace is our teacher. God’s grace changes us from the inside out. Grace gives us the power to envision a life we never thought possible. We may not have the power to change the world, but we have the power to live changed lives, not by virtue of our own strength and wisdom, but because the love of God is able to change us as we live our lives in this world.
My hope, my prayer for all of us this Christmas, is that we would come to trust this silent and invisible power of God’s grace so much that we will live changed lives in the midst of this weary world. And I further hope that we, in the words of Mahatma Gandhi, will “be the change we wish to see in this world.”
The time and place where God lives is not “a long time ago in a Galilee far, far away,” but here and now, in this place, at this time. God meets us here and now, in the messy, stinky problems of this world as we know it. God meets us in the little things, like refugee babies born in stables, and works in us through those little things to change the world into what it ought to be.
Hopping Hadrian's Wall 