Sermon - Christmas Eve 2019

Luke 2:1-20                                                                                        

                                                          “Welcome Home” for Christmas

I don’t know if you are likely as me to read church signs as you drive down the highway.  A few years ago, I noticed a whole book of them, in the country-store area at the Cracker Barrel.  There must be a newsletter, or an on-line resource or folks are just really quick in copying each other, because once a creative church sign goes up, it seems to go up at a lot of places at the same time.

My new favorite from this Christmas season; spotted somewhere down near Ware Shoals reads: “Are you part of the Inn group, or one of the stable few?”  Get it?  “Inn group,” spelled i-n-n, the inn where there is no room for Mary and Joseph.  Contrasted with the “Stable few” - there were only a few who gathered in the “stable” in order to adore the Christ Child.  Maybe it loses something when you can’t read it for yourself.  (It surely loses a lot when someone tries to explain what it means.  Sorry about that….)

My all-time favorite sign message is somewhere between here and the church where I spent my first 20 Christmas eves.   That the sign is on the highway to the rural area in North Carolina where I spent my first 20 Christmas’ might have something to do with it being my favorite.  My number one, all-time favorite church sign had a very simple message.  It read: “Come Home for Christmas.” 

At the risk of ruining another creative message, let me try to explain why this one moves me so deeply.

“Come Home for Christmas.” 

The Christmas story is built upon the lack of a “home” for baby Jesus and his family.  The Christmas story exposes that home is not so much a physical place as it is a place of welcome and comfort.  The Christmas story invites its hearers to enter the discussion about what it means to come home and to be at home and to have a home.

In ways more powerful than any family celebration I have ever attended; the story of this Holy Night is a story which settles our yearning for safety and security and contentment.

Where else could we come, or go, in order to be more at home, than in a place surrounded by others hearing the good news of a God who creates a home for each of us, and then comes to make his home among us? 

“Come Home for Christmas.”

The phrase stuck with me.  I thought of it as I listened to the music being played on my “Country Christmas” Pandora station.  Particularly at night, in the evenings, as many are wrapping gifts, a huge number of the songs played on such stations are all about “coming home.”  Many of the songs were familiar, and I find myself singing along – perhaps too loudly and maybe a bit off key.  But singing along with a warm feeling in my heart.  Is it okay for me to admit that I sometimes have difficulty remembering the second verse of “Oh Come, All Ye Faithful,” but I can sing right along without hesitation to every verse of Rascal Flatts’ rendition of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”  I wonder if the same might be said for some of you?

“Home.”  Being at home.  Going home.  This hope, this promise, this is the desire is just below the surface of practically every conversation had during this time of year.  There are few gifts considered as precious as the simple gift of “coming home.”

I didn’t lead worship this past Sunday.  The last Saturday before Christmas is when my mother’s fathers’ descendants gather on the family farm established by my great-grandfather.  I haven’t been in the office that much this week either, but I should have kept track of how many folks asked me if I enjoyed my weekend “at home.”  The question shows great sensitivity to me and my life, but there is a part of asking me if I enjoyed my weekend “at home” which strikes me as odd.  I have lived in the upstate of South Carolina longer than I ever lived in Vale, NC.  So why, when you who also live here ask me if I will travel to North Carolina, do you ask me if I am going to make it “home”? Isn’t this my “home”?  Isn’t this “home” for both of us?

“Come home for Christmas.” 

Or course it isn’t the “place” which beckons us – it is something else.  It is the returning to or going to that place where the shoes come off and the collar is loosened and the hair comes down and we experience what it means to be loved and appreciated and accepted and cared for and protected. 

That place is the place we all desire to be and long to be.  It is the place we go to and return to and come to. 

My hope for you, for all of us, as we sit together on this Christmas Eve, in this house of worship is that you are gifted with that same feeling of being were the shoes can come off, the tie loosened, and the anxiety level reduced.  My prayer is that each of you feel the relief associated with being “home.”

This is the hope and the gift for each of you.  Whether you are a regular attendee at the Sunday services offered in this place; whether you are an adult who came here with your parents when you were a child; whether you are a traveler, holed up in a hotel room; whether you are a local who wanted to be at home tonight even if these buildings and their occupants have failed to allow you to feel at home during the previous fifty-two weeks; whatever your status before you came through those doors – you are at home now.  And the owner of this house is committed to making your homecoming all that you desire it to be.

Mary and Joseph were at home on this evening, in Bethlehem.  They were at home with their son.  Their home included shepherds sent their way by angels singing in the heavens.  Mary and Joseph found out that evening what home really means.  And ever since we have known that we can come home or return home or be at home in any one of the millions of places where the story of Jesus’ birth is retold.

What a joy.  What a delight.  What a gift.

Amen.

Sermon - Third Sunday of Advent - Year A

Matthew 12:2-11                                                                    

Are We to Wait For Another

Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another? 

I began to ask this question when the first round of sale fliers came in my mailbox.  I am looking for that particular gift which I know will eventually be on sale in one of the stores that regularly distributes such inserts.  I keep looking through them and tearing out pages and trying to decide if now is the time or if I should continue to wait.

What if I settle for the option which was in last week’s flier and then next week a better offer comes along?  I have three criteria.  Some of the offerings meet two but not the third.  Others have scored so well on one criterion that I was tempted to compromise on the other two.  Tempted, but not convinced.  I am sure that sometime between now and December 24 just the right product, for just the right price, with just the right features is going to show up.  And so I wait, and watch and hope – and occasionally I tear pages out of the flier and I ask - Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?

I do not mean to trivialize this question nor do I want to suggest that looking for right Christmas gift can in any way be the same as looking for the correct Messiah.  But all week I have been struck by the similarities between John’s question and my search.  All week – actually for the past several weeks – I have been struggling with this reoccurring image of a checklist and repeated evaluation as to whether this or that has met the criteria.  I think there are some parallels between John’s question and the way that far too many of our contemporaries approach the question of Christology.  Far too often, in the public discourse, we do hear persons elevating or devaluating this aspect or that part of Jesus and Jesus’ message.  We approach our Christ as we would approach the purchase of a new automobile.  We look around until we find the one that fits our needs and makes us feel comfortable.

It is an easy trap to fall into.  I mean, even John the Baptist seems to have succumbed to this temptation. 

John’s words, as recorded for us in the earlier chapters of Matthew’s Gospel, seem to indicate that he knew his role.  Remember from last weeks’ gospel reading that John speaks of himself as the forerunner of the one who is to come.  He says that the one for whom he is preparing the way is more powerful than he.  He says that his not worthy even to carry the sandals of this one to come.  “I, John, baptize you with water,” he had said, “but he who comes after me will baptize you with fire and the Holy Spirit.”  John seems to have known that Messiah was coming and coming soon.  But in his words recorded in today’s lesson, John isn’t sure if he was ready to accept that this Jesus was the One. 

He should have known.  Jesus has been active for quite a while.  He has preached his great Sermon on the Mount, he has healed many sick individuals.  He must have healed some in the presence of John’s disciples for he tells them to report to John “what you see.”  Jesus has begun to call his own disciples and in the 10^th chapter (remember that today’s lesson is from the 11^th) he sends out the twelve.  They preach, teach, heal and return to report to Jesus how well it had gone.  Obviously John had heard about this.  If not all of this, then enough of this to have given consideration to Jesus and whether he might be the one of whom John’s message had spoken.

John knew that the Messiah was coming.  He had observed and had reports on what Jesus had been doing.  And yet, he seems reluctant to accept that Jesus is actually the one for whom he had been waiting. 

Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another? 

What was it about Jesus that left questions in John’s mind?  What was it about his message that failed to convince?  Where was the disconnect between what John was hoping for and what Jesus was doing?  John seems to be attracted to what he sees, but he is yet to be convinced that he should buy.

Author Marva Dawn refers to this tendency (which she sees in far too many church-goers) as the “commodification of the faith.”  We look at Jesus and Jesus’ teachings and Jesus’ Church and we pick and choose what parts are going to be applicable to us and what parts we are going to ignore or devalue.  We approach church and faith as if it were a commodity to be purchased, rather than a life to be lived.  We look around until we find that group of persons whose reading of the Bible reinforces our own conclusions and then we grace that gathering with our presence.  Should something be said which disrupts our assumptions we begin to question whether we truly found the right place.  We might even begin to search for another.

John sends his disciples to ask Jesus point blank – “Are you the one?”  No more of this pulling punches; they want a straight answer.  Does Jesus give them one?  Jesus responds to their direct question by saying, “Go and tell John what you hear and see:  the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” 

I don’t think Jesus is giving John a direct answer.  But what I think doesn’t matter.  I don’t think it matters what John thinks, or believes or accepts.  Jesus isn’t in some contested election, popularity vote or sales campaign.  Jesus is doing the work that God sent him to do.  John can decide whether he will accept Jesus or if he will continue to look a little longer, hoping to find someone who is a better match for what he had in mind.

Christ is not a commodity.  The church is not a marketplace.  We are not at liberty to design or create or accentuate what pleases us or satisfies us or meets some deep seated desire or longing.  We are given the opportunity; we are repeatedly invited; someone else pays the admission price – all of this so that we might join the throng who have come to know that Jesus is the long awaited and desperately needed Messiah of God. 

We are given the opportunity, we are invited inside - and once here we set ourselves about the task of learning more about our Messiah and how to work together with the rest of his followers.  There will be messages that we don’t want to hear and there will be lessons that we don’t want to learn.  But we are not free to choose and pick. 

Christ is not a commodity; the church is not a marketplace.   When we find ourselves engaged in disagreement we can allow the minor point in question to destroy us – or - we can see in the argument our never ending resistance to accept the Lordship of Christ.  We can come to understand that being God’s children is more important than determining who among us remembers correctly what Daddy said.

“Are you the one who is to come or shall we wait for another?”   The wait is over.  Christ has come.  It is time to get on with the proclamation of his message.                                                                        

 Amen.

Sermon - Advent 2 - Year A

Matthew 3:1-12

Repent! 

The story of John the Baptist figures very heavily in the story of Jesus’ birth.  It is impossible to get through the Christmas story without mentioning this fiery country preacher.  In the four short weeks of Advent (the season in which we prepare for the birth of Jesus) two Sundays are given over to John.  This week we hear a short section of his preaching; next week we will learn of his attempts to determine whether or not Jesus is truly the Messiah.

John is very important in the story of Jesus’ birth.  He is the messenger who comes before Jesus in order to prepare his way.  He is the herald who announces that the Son of Man is coming.  He is the first act of the one-two punch which stirs the Judean countryside and causes alarm among the civil authorities.

And yet, there is something very different about the message of John and the message of Jesus.  They are interrelated, but they are not the same.  Jesus came to remove our sins.  John’s role was to make us aware of just how sinful we can be.

I want to be very careful, from the outset, to point out the reason for discussing this difference between John and Jesus.  It is important to note the difference so that we can dispel the false notions which would have us believe that confessing our sin is all that is necessary.  Too often, in our good southern churches, we have heard a continuation of the preaching of John the Baptist.  What we Christians ought to be hearing is the message of Jesus. 

John convicts us of our sin; Jesus – by his death and resurrection -  proclaims our forgiveness. 

When John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, the message he proclaimed was a call to repentance. 

The scriptures contain very little of his actual sermons, what we get are a smattering of phrases and comments.  But these are enough for us to realize that John's message was not a pleasant one.  He came with a word of warning, a word of judgment, a call to account­ability.  John, through his preaching, delivered a message, a notice, that Jerusalem and all of Judea must acknowl­edge their sin and returned to God.

The word that is used by John is "repent."  The baptism he offers is a “baptism of repentance”.  To repent is to turn around.  It is to go in the opposite direction from the direction our current course would take us.  To repent is to identify where were are doing wrong and from this point forward to do the right thing.  To repent is to make the changes in our lives which align us with God’s hope for our lives and the world.  To repent is to turn around and prepare ourselves for the in-breaking of Messiah.

I want to be careful, not to repeat what I referred to earlier as the theme most often preached in our good southern churches.  Repenting does not make us right with God and thus assure where we will spend eternity.  Repenting does not complete our quest for salvation.  But we also need to be careful, not to so forcefully separate the messages of John and Jesus that we ignore John’s call to prepare.

John figures heavily into our Advent readings and our Advent preparations.  John is not Messiah.  The Messiah will come after John is finished.   The work of John is to prepare the way.

So, let’s return to this concept of repentance; of turning our lives around.  For John, this is a confession.  But it is also a change in behavior which produces visible changes.  Twice in today’s passage Matthew quotes John saying that we ought to “bear good fruits.”  Once they are called “fruits worthy of repentance.”   

What are these fruits worthy of repentance and are they evident in our lives?

I do not want to make you squirm in your seats – well, not squirm too much.  But it would be a disservice to the appointed Gospel lesson to fail to ask whether we have fully embraced the scripture’s message.  Have you heeded the call to repentance?  Martin Luther’s insistence that we remember our baptism each morning as we wash our face is surely a call to also look each morning at the invitation to repentance.

Let’s approach it from a more tangible side – where is there an absence of good fruits in your life?  Maybe a complete and total turning around is too much to ask or hope for.  But what one thing might you change which would make your life one in which fruits were found.

Maybe you need to stop saying bad things about Clemson football fans.

Perhaps you need to repent of the way you have found to cheat (just a little bit) on your income taxes.

Is there opportunity and reason to repent of the way you speak of the stranger and sojourner? 

Maybe repentance is needed in the way you use the resources at your disposal?  (Yes, I am talking about whether you live up to the biblical standard of giving a tenth of your income.)

In my own return to repentance, I find myself greatly challenged when it comes to “interpreting my neighbor’s action in the kindest of ways.”  I am so quick to find fault and to blame and to speak ill of them and never even attempt to talk to them so as to understand their perspective.

Where is repentance needed in your life?  How might you live a life in which there is a greater abundance of good fruits.  REMEMBER:  this is not the whole of the story; John’s call to repentance is a preparation for the arrival of Jesus.  But as preparations go, it pretty darn good.

In the first draft of this sermon, I actually had you turn to someone next to you and identify the one thing of which you need to repent.  There is a part of me that would still like to do that.  But I won’t.  Here is what I would challenge you to do – make a covenant with someone to spend ten minutes (just ten minutes) talking about the call of John and how it speaks to your life.  Discover with them where repentance is needed and what you can do to bear fruits worthy of repentance.

I know that this will be extremely difficult.  But I also know such self-reflection will lead to the ability to give your family, your friends, and your neighbors a Christmas gift beyond comparison. 

The kingdom of heaven has come near.  Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.  

Amen

Sermon - Advent 1 - Year A

Isaiah 2:1-5; Matthew 24:36-44           

                                                         All the Nations Shall Stream to It 

“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, or the Son, but only the Father.

True - we might not “know” the day and hour, but this isn’t something which we worry about not knowing.  Jesus’ words have a sense of urgency about them, but it is my hunch that most of us don’t worry too much about that day coming, at least not any time soon.  Am I off target?  Did you linger over your good-byes at those Thanksgiving gatherings?  Is the anticipation of the return of the Son of Man so heightened among us that in speaking our words of farewell we acknowledge the arrival of that day on which one will be taken and one will be left might interrupt our seeing each other again?

It is difficult to observe the Season of Advent in a world where there is little interest in ushering in the arrival of God’s anointed one.  This is what Advent is supposed to do; it is our time of getting ready, it making sure we are readying our lives for that which we hope will happen and pray will happen soon.

It is the reading from Matthew 24 which tells us to be ready.  I want to spend most of our time this morning looking at one phrase in the reading from Isaiah which may expose if this is something we have any interest in doing.  So, turn to Isaiah 2.  It would be helpful if you have your bible or a bible app on your phone.

First - a bit of background.  I hope at least one of your previous pastors has taught you that Isaiah has three distinct parts.  The first 20 chapters are warnings of what is going to happen should the people of Israel continue on their current path.  These warnings go unheeded, so the next 20 chapters are spoken to Israel during the time of occupation by non-believing invaders.  The final 20 chapters speak of the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the return of hope. 

Part I (which obviously includes Isaiah 2) are those proclamations spoken by Isaiah during the anxious years.

Now, it should be made clear that not all were anxious.  Part of Isaiah’s challenge is to catch the ear and attention of those who were very content with the situation as it was.  The effects of Jerusalem’s decay were slow to reach those nearer the top rungs of the ladder.  Isaiah attempts to warn them.

Chapter 1 of Isaiah makes it clear where the trajectory they are on will lead.  Follow along: 

Vs 7 – Your country lies desolate, your cities are burned with fire

Vs 3 – The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people do not understand

Vs 2b – I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me.

Many were content with the system the way it was – but others were shouting out in frustration and anger.  Isaiah collects their emotions, pours them into his oracles, and then speaks the word of God in the midst of all this.  Would they listen to him?  Would they hear him?  Did they perceive that the time of cataclysmic upheaval was upon them?  Or did they not worry, so much.  Did they give lip service to readying their lives while continuing to live the same lives they had lived for generations?

Their challenge was not so different from the one you and I are facing, as we begin together this season of Advent.  Do we expect something to happen?  Happen soon?  Happen to us?  And in our lifetime?

We are about to go from the general to the very specific.  I want you to look at the first phrase of the second verse of chapter 2.  On our bulletins, it reads, “In days to come.”  This is the New Revised Standard Version translation.  Other translations interpret the phrase a bit differently.  Does anyone happen to have a New International Version translation?  The NIV translates the same phrase as “In the last days.” 

“In the days to come.”  “In the last days.”  Same phrase, two different translations.  And while I don’t want to make mountains out of mole hills, these differing translations can also align themselves with differing attitudes regarding how ready we need to be and the role we are to play in the unfolding of these promises.

The NIV interpretation tends to be preferred in congregations where the focus of our assembly is in the far-future.  Reading Isaiah’s words as “In the last days,” put the action on that final day, the day of Christ’s return, the day of God’s in breaking.  The NIV interpretation may suggest to us that we see Isaiah’s words as something which will come to pass at the final consummation of all things.  It isn’t something we are to expect now - it is something that will happen at the return of Christ.  It isn’t something that will happen in our life-time – and therefore it isn’t something we affect or influence or bring closer by our participation.

I want to acknowledge that the NIV a translation has solid backing.  Those who translate the phrase “In the last days,” have done research.  In fact, this translation is more in keeping with the historic translations favored by the Church from the 16^th century till the 20^th.  “In the last days” is the mood in the Latin Translations and thus also in the King James Translation.  You can find further support such an interpretation when you cross reference the Hebrew phrase as it ­is used in Daniel 2:8 and 10:14. 

However, I want to attempt to persuade you that this is not how Isaiah meant these words to be understood.  Verse 2 of Chapter 2 is a foreshadowing of the promises outlined in greater detail in Chapters 40-60.  For Isaiah, “the days to come” may be indefinite, but it is not vague.  It refers neither to the end of time nor to some point beyond time.  It is a reference to God’s activity within time. 

Isaiah’s oracles assure God’s people that the promises of God will not forever evade us.  We will find it possible to set aside our longings and our desires and to experience the arrival of that which truly satisfies.  While systems of evil and power and domination may attempt to maintain their stranglehold, God’s people can and will break free.  And all this isn’t some distant last day, it is in the days which will come.  Perhaps those days will come even before Isaiah finishes his book.

To be sure, the prophet Isaiah expects a radical transformation of history, as the remainder of his prophecy demonstrates.  But Isaiah does not speak of some future integration of the things of heaven with the things of the earth.  He is talking about what he sees God doing in the history which we call human history.

It is very important, how we understand those four little words.  If we accept the ­interpreta­tion of the NIV then we are justified in accepting the continued presence of hatred and war and violence and loathing of others.  Such an interpretation would allow us to believe that it is beyond us to live in a world where swords are bent into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.  But, if we accept Isaiah’s words as God’s promise which comes within time - then we find ourselves looking for ways that our history might be transformed into a history of peace and good will.  If we join Isaiah in describing the days to come, we are also presented with the chance to participate in the making those very same promises a reality.

Some will sit and wait for the “last days.”  They will resign themselves to the war and hatred and violent talk.  They will forever perceive our world and shared existence as one devoid of words and instructions of the angels. 

Others, will listen for the announcement of the angels.  They will insist on seeing today as the “day to come;” the day on which the “mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established.”

Those horrible images I shared from Isaiah 1 are offset by the invitation of Isaiah 2 to not only dream of the days to come, but to make them come.  The Lord will do his part.  Then we are to do ours.  Read verse 5 with me:  O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!

Will we sit back and remain indifferent to “The last days”?  Or will we allow our hearts to come alive at the angels’ song?  Will we see “Peace on earth, and goodwill among men” as a future and far-off possibility?  Or will we join the prophet Isaiah in streaming to the highest of the mountains where God “may teach us his ways… that we may walk in his paths”?

This is the opening question of the season of Advent.  It is answered by the place we focus our attention and our preparations.   Amen.