Sunday, December 24, 2017

Sermon - Advent 4 - Year B

Luke 1:26-38
                                                                     How Can This Be?


“How can this be?”  This is Mary’s response to the news the angel shares with her.  “How can this be?”

And what the angel tells her is difficult to believe.  I mean – can you believe it?  Do you believe it?  Do you live your life in a way which bears witness to the news shared by the angel?

What the angel tells Mary forever changes the way mere mortals understand themselves and their role in the cosmos. 

The angel tells Mary that God – GOD – is leaving behind the heavens and taking on the very flesh and blood which mortals too often seek to abandon.

The angel tells Mary that God – GOD – is entangling Himself with the very creatures whom He created and entrusting these creatures to carry to term His own life.

What the angel tells Mary forever changes the way we understand ourselves and our role in the cosmos. 

How can this be?

Some of you have, no doubt, moved on to the second phrase uttered by Mary in verse 34.  Ah, but here is where your drive for logical explanations stands in the way of the reception of spiritual insight.  Tradition reminds us that Mary is a virgin, and too often (yes – I did say TOO OFTEN) we fixate on this and thus fail to comprehend the true magnitude of what the angel tells Mary.

Put this in perspective; and consider the magnitude of each.  A virgin giving birth – and – God turning to a human in order to accomplish His will.  Consider these two, and evaluate the magnitude of each.

I am as aware of biology as any of you.  But my working knowledge of biology tends to diminish the magnitude of a biological creature giving birth without the aid of another.  I know that I trust news sources that are not trusted by some of you.  Is the BBC on that list?  The BBC has an article – on line – titled “Spectacular real virgin births.”  Read it if you wish.

Maybe I am more aware that some of you, of the magnitude of the other statement I have asked you to ponder.  A virgin giving birth is one thing; but God entrusting his fate to a human carrier is the truly astounding storyline of the angel’s announcement.

Think of all the places that this plan of God’s could have gone wrong.  In the account of the story told by Matthew, Joseph considers putting Mary away, quietly.  “Quietly”!!!!  There was no way to quietly put away a young woman who was found to be with child outside of wedlock.  Maybe some of you have lived in big cities where such a thing could happen, but not in a small village of a couple hundred or possibly a thousand.  Think of how well things are kept “quiet” in this little town.

The best Joseph could do was to return Mary to the home of her father where, if folks didn’t get all riled up, she could bear her child and live her life under the protection of her daddy.  Under her daddy’s protection, till he died.  Then.  Who knows.  What Joseph was willing to do was to ignore Mary’s pregnancy and not expose her to the appropriate recourse of the day – death by stoning.

How Joseph responds to the news shared by the angel is only one step in the process.  And see how terribly wrong it could have gone?  What about crib death?  Or infant malnutrition?  Or measles, whooping cough, or a thousand other diseases to which Mary and Joseph might unknowingly allow this child to be exposed?

Am I beginning to impress upon you the magnitude of the news the angel shares with Mary?  Mary, a fragile, simple, humble, impoverished human being is given the opportunity (she might have felt it was the responsibility) of carrying into the world the very presence and being of God.

Let me say that again:  Mary, an unknown, nobody from the far reaches of the civilized world is being pulled into partnership with God to forever change and transform the way the world will see itself – as well as the way the world will perceive of God.

Forget the virgin birth.  This other part of the announcement is what is amazing.

Have I swayed you?  Are you beginning to see this perspective?  Cause I’ve got one more thing to say – and it really is the point I want to make out of all of this.

Ready?

Placing the emphasis on a virgin birth allows us to escape the impact of the angel’s announcement.  “How can this be?  For I am a virgin.” Distracts us and allows us to hear the announcement as one meant for Mary and Mary alone.  Placing the emphasis on a virgin birth allows us to exit ourselves from the story and fail to comprehend the way in which God is entrusting us with carrying to term his purpose and his gift to the world.

“How can this be?”  is our reaction practically any time it dawns on us that God’s work is dependent on our hands. 

“How can this be?” is our attempt to dismiss or diminish the significance of how we are called to live our lives in the aftermath of the angel’s announcement.

“How can this be?”  that God would turn to us and depend upon us to ward off the dangers and perils which threaten His life?

“How can this be?”

The Christmas story forever changes the way we see God and our role in the world.  The angels serve to tell us what God intends and to announce what God hopes from us.  But the angels were not sent, into this world of pain, to do in Jesus’ name, the do the work that was left for you and me to do.

I do not want to suggest that virgin births happen every day.  They are rare enough that even the BBC has to do searching for spectacular occurrences.  Unfortunately, another aspect of the angel’s words do not happen every day, either.  We do not respond like Mary.

The God which Christianity seeks to reveal has made it clear, on a clear night in Bethlehem.  If the world is going to change, it will change because of those whom God has visited and asked to bear His word.  If God’s will is to be done, it will need to be done by the Mary and Joseph’s who are shown how to be kind and caring and humble and serving.  And then live lives consistent with what has been revealed to them.

How can this be?

I don’t know. 

I only know that it is.


Amen.

Thursday, December 14, 2017

Devotion - Thursday, December 14

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to speak to a group of high school students at one of our Greenville congregations.  As my notes began to take form, I found one word to be central to what needed to be said.  "Incarnation."

Incarnation is the word which attempts to address the significance of God taking on our form.  Incarnation acknowledges the action of setting aside the glories of heaven in order to take on human form.  Incarnation means that God shares our flesh and enters into our realities.

This is not a fake inhabiting.  Jesus does not have the appearance of a human.  Jesus is human.

Christmas is all about this motion on the part of God.  Christmas is the acknowledgement that God has experienced the pains and hardships which are experienced in our lives.  

My sending prayer for you over this Christmas Break is that you will remember and be reminded that God is with you.  And that God desires nothing more than to be with you.  As you celebrate and give thanks, receive the gift of God's presence in your life and along side the life you live.

See you in January.

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Mid-week Homily

2nd Week of Advent                                                                                
Discipline of Prayer 
                                                                               Prayer 

As Pastor Jon and I were dividing up the topics for these Advent reflections, both of us expressed a similar thought: “I probably ought to accept the assignment of the Discipline of Prayer, because that is the one I most need to work on.”

I trust that you can hear that confession, without losing confidence in your pastors. 

Prayer is a life-long, evolving, and developing spiritual discipline.  I would hope that all of us, each of us, would feel the continual need to “work on” our prayer life and our use of this means of grace.

Prayer is essential and central to a life of faith.  Nothing is as important in establishing and maintaining a perpetual communion with God.

We know this to be true.  We know this from our experience with every relationship.  How can we understand another or be understood by them except by hours of conversation and interaction?  Of our deepest relationships we might say “she knows what I am thinking before I say it.”  But such only happens after long years of listening attentively to the other individual. 

To pray is to listen.  To pray well is to listen well.  To pray one must be prepared for the exchange which changes and alters all things.

Prayer has become a difficult thing in our empirical and research driven world.  We want to know the how’s and why’s; we are ill prepared to simply accept.  I remember in my first call, praying with a sister who suffered mightily from arthritis.  A few weeks later, she was speaking of the healing which came from those prayers.  I took a quick glance at her hands.  When she had entered the room there was that all too familiar stumble in her step.  My empirical self was working powerfully to discredit the shared experience of God’s miracle.

There are many moods in which one might pray.  There are prayers of celebration; prayers of affirmation; prayers of praise and worship.  Intercessory prayer is what we practice most often when we are together.  These are the petitions in which we lift to God our concern for neighbor, the Church, or the world.

In Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster points out how common it is for us to hear prayer petitions followed by “If it be thy will.”  His search of scripture revealed no such addendum to the prayers of Jesus, the prayers of the Apostles, the prayers of the early Church.  These prayers were prayed with the confidence that they were in perfect alignment with the will of God.

The work needing to be done with regard to our prayer-life surely begins with listening for what God wants and what God intends.  When we have heard, we then pray with confidence that God’s desires are known by us and known to us.  We pray the petition that is on God’s heart and thus in complete alignment with God’s will.

Ignore – forget – set assign any temptation to measure or evaluate how your prayers impacted the matter over which you pray.  Attempting to determine if our prayers had any effect on the cancer of a loved one is an admission that our empirical/research side seeks to dominate our spiritual/faithful selves.

Prayer brings about change.  Some of that change is easily seen; other is more difficult to precieve.

A favored book of mine is “Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time.”  In the opening chapter, the author discusses the various derivatives in the Latin language for our one English word for faith.  One of these is visio.  This expression of faith is to see as God sees.  Prayer strengths this faith expression in us.  Prayer makes this faith expression prevalent.

Pastor Jon and I were open to using these homilies as a way to introduce to you the spiritual discipline of which we were speaking.  I want to do that, this evening, with prayer.

Get yourself comfortable and relaxed.  Perhaps you will remember some of the notes from last week’s thoughts on meditation.  Find yourself sitting comfortably.  Close your eyes.  Set aside concerns and thoughts.

Begin to imagine a conversation – with God.  Strive to hear.  To hear God’s voice.  Imagine, if you will, the one thing God is most trying to say to you.  What is the sentence that God would speak to your heart; in the midst of your life?  Listen for that exchange. 

Conversation is two way.  Think of the one thing you most want to say to God.  What is on your mind or in your heart or weighing on your soul?  Speak this, to God.  Say it out loud, or in a whisper, if this might help.

Allow me to close with a few lines from Foster’s book:
Let me insert a word of caution at this point.  We are not trying to conjure up something in our imagination that is not so.  Nor are we trying to manipulate God and tell him what to do.  Quite the opposite.  We are asking God to tell us what to do.  God is the ground of our beseeching….. and we are utterly dependent upon him.  Our prayer is to be like a reflex action to God’s prior initiative upon the heart.


Amen.

Devotion - Wednesday, December 13

In Matthew 23, we find the often quoted "He who is greatest among you shall be your servant...."  Less often remembered were the words of Jesus in the immediately preceding verses.

He says:  "(C)all no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.  Neither be called masters, for you have one master, the Christ."

We sometimes fail to remember the radical nature of our call.  Jesus offers great words to his followers. But he also insists they not look back once they have put their hand to the plow.

I am not advocating disloyal or rebellious actions toward your parents or your supervisors.  But as a student of scripture I must lift up those lines which we might be less inclined to remember.

The bond among Christian communities grows strong when we come to understand that this bond supersedes all others.  There is no devotion more deserving of our lives than the commitment to live among God's faithful people.  Here, we find our purpose for living and we are strengthened for our life of serving.

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Devotion - Tuesday, December 12

The great commandment (love God, love neighbor as self) is repeated in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  Only in Luke do we get the follow up parable of the Good Samaritan - which provides an interpretation of who is to be considered our neighbor.  The other two gospel writers provide no such instructions.  We are left to form our own understanding of who is our neighbor.

Left on our own, we tend to restrict that designation.

Most of the best things which have happened in my life occurred because someone who didn't even know my name gave me a gift.  The residents of Lincoln County, NC, hired David Choate to work with the 4-H program.  He came to know my name, and to expose to me a world which I would have found difficult to discover from the part-time farm worked by mill-hands.

The folks in 1969 who formed Lutheran Student Movement-USA did not have me in mind, but their organizing and planning for participation in a global youth movement allowed me to serve as Secretary for International Concerns, which resulted in my first ever letter from a Christian sister on the other side of the world.  (She lived in Tanzania.)

Jesus' great commandment is clear - we are to love God, and we are to love neighbor.  It is in loving God, and loving neighbor that we follow the way of Jesus.  

Monday, December 11, 2017

Devotion - Monday, December 11

Not many of you stayed or showed up for yesterday's Congregational Meeting.  I understand why.  Most of you (practically all of you) are "members" of a congregation somewhere else.  I do wonder if you attend the meetings, there.

Such meetings are important.  Such meetings allow us to set up the budgets and select servants for the Council.  Such meetings provide the framework and structure for the people of God to assemble and thus experience the community which bears Jesus' name.

We do need to make sure that those structures remain focused on the goals lifted in the previous paragraph.  Sometimes, other agendas or motivations creep in and overwhelm.

This was pointed out to me this morning as I read from the book of Amos.  Amos is among the prophets included in our bibles, but Amos lacks the credentials of many of the others.  Amos was a lay person.  He was not a professional prophet, nor was the the son of a prophet.  His occupation was that of a migrant worker.

Yet, the Word of God came to him.  And he was moved by God to speak.

Amos asked for the kind of community where persons like him would be welcomed and valued.  Amos reminded the powerful of God's concern for the lost and lonely.  Amos asked if all those fancy rituals and festivals did something to bring life to God's children or if they were a "good party" for those who planned them.

Never allow "the church" to move without you.  Be engaged and give voice to the ways in which a community which notices the stranger and the new-comer represents the Church God seeks to establish.  And do not allow your lack of position or power to silence your voice.

Many of you did show up for last night's Christmas dinner.  We sat at tables and ate our fill; we sang songs; we told silly stories.  It is the beloved community which God establishes for his community.  Thank God for the Council who set up the Parish Life Committee which organized the volunteers who reserved the Hall and set out the decorations so that we could all share in a grand and glorious event.

Sunday, December 10, 2017

Sermon - 2nd Sunday in Advent

Mark 1:1-8, Isaiah 40:1-11    

                                                                      In the Wilderness 

There is a technical, theological term which often gets completely misapplied.  The term is “The Plain Sense of Scripture.”  I promise that I won’t entrap you or embarrass you, but I would like to ask you to consider what you believe this technical, theological term means – “The Plain Sense of Scripture.”

The phrase is used to begin to deliberate how the initial hears would have heard what scripture is saying.  Scripture surely says something to us, in our day and time.  And what it says to us is not something completely different than what it might have said to the Church two thousand years ago.  But there might be differences.  So before we teach or preach or proclaim “The Gospel of our Lord..” it serves us well to deliberate how the writers anticipated the initial hearers hearing the same words which we would hear two millennia later.

The people to who Isaiah spoke and the persons for whom Mark wrote were likely to have heard in the words of both an assurance that God had not abandoned them.  Both audiences were in the midst of difficult times.  Both audiences were eager for an announcement that things were going to be better, soon.

But their situations were different.  Different enough that the words being uttered needed to be rearranged and reapplied.  Mark’s first hearers needed to realize that the one they had gone out to hear was not the Promised One they desired; Isaiah’s audience needed assurance that God would clear a path which would allow them to return to their homes.

I asked Donna to underline the parallel verse in March and Isaiah.  Open your bulletin so you can see both of them.  It was a bible study prepared by a pastor in Wisconsin which called to my attention the subtle differences between what Isaiah had said and how Mark makes use of the same promise.

Mark’s gospel says this:
“[T]he voice of one crying out in the wilderness:  ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight’” (Mark 1:3)
But Isaiah said this:
“A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’” (Isaiah 40:3)

Pastor Jay McDivitt asked: See the difference?  Mark gives us a messenger from out in the wilderness—as if John comes from some weird other place (hence the clothes) to bring a message to the people about getting their house in order.

Isaiah sends everyone out to the wilderness to see the good thing God is doing out there. Or, more accurately, Isaiah knows that his listeners are already in the wilderness, and—contrary to expectations—that is precisely where God is doing a new thing. God has not abandoned God’s people—despite how desperate their plight. Rather, God is in the wilderness, making a way out of no-way, carving out a smooth path for the people of God to walk through the desert in style, all the way home.

The folks who were going out to the Jordan River to see John needed to know that the fiery preacher they admired was not the promised messenger of God.  The message for them was to get ready for the one who is about to come.  This is why we read this passage during the season of Advent; we too need to be encouraged to get our house in order – to prepare the way for Christ to enter.

Isaiah’s audience was in a different place.  They had experienced nearly 200 years of being captives in a foreign country.  The invading Babylonian army had destroyed their temple and carried them off into exile.  The word of the Lord came to them as a promise that a way would be prepared for them.  A way which would allow them to make a grand entrance.

What is the plain sense of these words for you, this morning?  The miss application of this technical, theological phrase is to believe that the words plainly say one thing.  But words are only one part of the exchange.  The impact of those words also figures into what they are saying.

As I said earlier, a typical, traditional interpretation is to hear words encouraging us to make those last few minute adjustments.  To strive to prepare the way of the Lord, to make straight his path of entry. 

No doubt, the activities of these days and weeks encourage such a response.  Even as we worship this morning, some among us are anticipating the preparations of this place for an entry to come.  We are “hanging the greens” immediately after the 11 am service.  For me, when the Chrismon Tree lights go on it is a signal to get my own decorations out of attic and get my Christmas cards in the mail.

How does our experience of hearing these words align with their Plain Sense?  Do we hear them as folks heard John the baptizer?

Or, might some of us be hearing these words in the style uttered by Isaiah?

It is to those who may fall into this latter category that I most want to share the Good News. 

Isaiah’s promise was uttered to folks who had no home into which they could welcome Messiah.  Isaiah’s audience was discouraged and disappointed and distraught.  The word of the Lord for these people was not a warning about what they needed to do.  The word is a word of promise about that which God is doing.

My hope and prayer is the people who sit in darkness will see the great light which is dawning from on high.  My hope and prayer is that the tinsel and twinkling lights will not inhibit the ability to admit that we are anxious and worried and unsure.

There are far too many for whom this is true.  And far too few allowances for an honest expression of such fears.

Those who hear the word of God do not change the word of God.  But the word of God faithfully addresses those to whom it is uttered.  It is an error in biblical interpretation to claim that the words plainly mean this or clearly say that.  We arrive at what God is saying by beginning to ponder on how the first audiences were likely to have heard and understood the words.  From there, we can see how these same words speak to us and to our lives.


Amen.

Thursday, December 7, 2017

Devotion - Thursday, December 7

I tend to shy away from the verses which have Jesus saying threatening things.  The Gospels are full of words of welcome and blessing.  It is too easy for us to stumble over these threatening comments.

Matthew 21 has one of these:  "Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it."

I would ask you to pause and consider this statement.  And I would ask you to allow your meditations to inform your understanding of the "fruits" to which Jesus refers.

At the Bible Study this Tuesday, we recalled the stories of Abraham.  The selection of Abraham is clear and specific.  Abraham is blessed by God and sent to be a blessing to others.

The "fruits" for which God yearns is this blessing of others.

How easily we fall into the mistaken notion that the fruits of interest are those which reflect our piety.  We identify going to church, praying, singing hymns, pointing out the transgressions of others.

The nation which produces the fruits of the kingdom of God is the one in which others are blessed - their hungry are fed, their sick cared for, and their orphaned given shelter.

The "gospel within the Gospel" (to quote Martin Luther) informs us on what is good and what it is that the Lord requires of us.  It is to be Jesus in the world - to be the one who looks out for the welfare of the beaten and abused and abandoned.  It is to realize the blessing that has come to us and to actively be involved in blessing others.

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Devotion - Tuesday, December 6

The Christmas decorations at the home of a congregational member were up last week.   The saying on one caught my eye:
The stages of Santa
You believe in Santa
You don't believe in Santa
You are Santa
You look like Santa

I feel compelled each December 6 to repeat the basic information about Saint Nicholas.  Nicholas was the Bishop of Myra, in the 6th century.  He was a generous man, who is reported to have used the cover of night to disburse funds to the needy and vulnerable.  Coins in children's shoes.  Money for a father to pay a dowry.  Bishop Nicholas adorned the red cap appropriate for his office.  When a disturbance woke the members of the household, they would report having seen a man in red hurrying down the street to his next appointment.  When they look around their house, they would find gifts.

It is the history of Saint Nicholas which gives rise to the fantasy of Santa Claus.  Christians eager to observe the traditions of Christmas morning need to know of St. Nicholas and we need to repeat his story.  Maybe, most importantly in a self-indulgent world, we ought to remember that the origins of this tradition began with a christian act of caring for the least among us.  To whom will we give Christmas gifts?  To whom does St. Nick give gifts?

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Devotion - Tuesday, December 5

The season of Advent is a time to prepare - to make ready.  It is a liturgical season, meaning it has a purpose for our spiritual lives and health.

Advent ends with Christmas.  These four weeks are a time to return to the time before Jesus was born.  These four weeks are an opportunity to recall all the things absent when Christ is not among us.

The prophets of old and all of Israel longed for the arrival of God's Messiah.  There are psalms and prayers and oracles which address the hope for Messiah.  Many of theses serve as readings during the season of Advent.  Those which move me deepest are those which asked "have we been abandoned"?  

What would your life be like?  Had Christ not come to you?  In what ways have you become so comfortable with the assurance of God's presence that you fail even to comprehend what it means that he is with you now?

We will never go back to a time when Jesus isn't with us.  But Advent allows us to reflect on what this presence means.

Monday, December 4, 2017

Devotion - Monday, December 4

The cycle of readings for Advent begins with Jesus' entry to Jerusalem.  The Gospel accounts include Jesus sending his disciples into Jerusalem in order to bring out to Jesus a donkey.  Jesus enters Jerusalem riding on this "colt, the foal of an ass."

Remembering that Jesus walked most of the places he went, having anything on which to ride could have been a luxury.  But what he rides is the humblest of animals.  His mount is used by the workers and the common folk.  When others were welcomed into Jerusalem, the city of God and God's people, they rode on powerful steeds or in a chariot.  Jesus comes riding on a donkey.

This is a powerful reminder to us.  We are too easily fooled into looking for the war horse or the carriage of the powerful.  Our Messiah comes in the plain and common.  Our Lord is mounted on the foal of an ass.

There will be powerful and wonderful things which happen in your life.  For them, give thanks to God and recognize His presence.  But do not overlook the subtle or the common events in which God is also attempting to enter your life.