Welcomed Back

Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

Today we encounter one of the well known stories of the Bible: the prodigal son.  This is a story that is known by most and loved by many.  It is a story that is relevant to our lives.  We can relate to it.  At its core this story really is about each one of us.  We could quickly try to claim that this parable is just about drug and alcohol problems, problems of dissolute living.  We could claim that it is about people who end up in prison because of lifestyle choices.  We could declare that it is about people in places that live in famine.  We could try to write it off as being about people who squander everything they have.  None of those meanings are the point of this parable. 

No, at this parable’s core is us, each one of us.  Within its cast of characters there is room for each one of us to play a part.  Are we the older son?  Are we the father?  Are we the younger son?  At one point or another in our lives I think we all will play the role of each character.  Feel free to change the gender of the characters.  Feel free to change the relationship of parent and child to another relationship in your life: teacher and student, you and your significant other, coworker and coworker, you and your boss, or whatever fits your situation these days.  The relevant question in this moment is who are we in this parable today? 

            Are you the older son?  Maybe you are you angry that a party has been thrown for your younger sibling.  Maybe you are upset that your younger sibling has squandered his or her part of the inheritance.  Maybe you are miffed that your little brother or sister would wander back after a bout of dissolute living.  Maybe you are absolutely irate at the way in which your sibling has been greeted, welcomed, and given complete reconciliation after such behavior.

Are you the parent – the father or mother?  Maybe you are overjoyed at the return of your child who was once lost.  Maybe you are annoyed with the way your children treat each other.  Maybe you wish there could be reconciliation between your children.  Philosopher James K. A. Smith, “Your children are going to break your heart.  Somehow.  Somewhere.  Maybe more than once.  To become a parent is to promise you’ll love prodigals.”  That love is an unconditional and unbecoming love.  Love that made a grown man run toward his son, which was inappropriate in ancient Palestine.  Love that caused the father to slaughter the fattened calf, which would need to be consumed quickly, which meant this was probably a village-wide party.  Love that shows extreme reconciliation.

            Are you the younger son?  Maybe you are glad about the way you have been able to experience freedom and independence.  Maybe you are upset with yourself for the way in which you have squandered your inheritance.  Maybe you are annoyed with your older sibling and his or her lack of hospitality when you return home.  Maybe you are shocked at the extravagant response of your parents when you return home.  Maybe you are simply thankful to finally have food to eat.  Maybe you are absolutely blown away by the reconciling love being expressed by your parent.

In case the story of the prodigal son seems to unbelievable to wrap your mind around in this current day and age let me share with you this modern day story of the prodigal son that I recently read.  The young son had gone to San Francisco.  He was out of money, out of friends, out of options.  He had hit the bottom and was at wits ends.  This lost son wrote a letter home to his parents living in the Seattle area.  He wrote, “Dear Mom and Dad, I have sinned deeply against you.  I have sinned against you and I have sinned against God and I am not worthy to be called your son.  There is no reason for you to love me or welcome me back home.  I am at the bottom of the barrel and I need to come back home.  I hope that you would welcome me. I have been given a ticket for a train, a ticket to get me back to Seattle.   The train comes past our farm south of Seattle.  The train comes around the bend and right past our farmhouse.  If you want me to come home, please put a white towel on the clothesline, out in the back yard near the tracks.  I will then know that you want me to come back home.  If there is no towel there, I understand.  I will understand that it is not right for me to come back home.”  The young man sent the letter, got on the train, and started heading north.  As he came closer and closer to home, he became more nervous inside and was pacing up and down the center aisle of the train.  As the train came closer and closer to his farmhouse, he couldn’t bear it anymore.  He was momentarily  sitting next to a man, and he said to him, “Sir, around this next corner, this next bend, there is going to be a farm house of the left.  A white house.  An old red barn behind it.  A dilapidated fence.  There will be a clothesline in the back yard.  Would you do me a favor and look and see if there is a white towel hanging on the clothesline?  I know it sounds peculiar, but I can’t bear to look.”  Well, the train came closer and closer to the bend and started to go around the bend, and the young man’s heart was racing as fast as it could.  The man said, “Look, look, look. Open your eyes.”  The whole clothesline was covered with white towels.  The oak trees were covered with white sheets.  The barn roof was covered with sheets.  The old dilapidated fence was covered with white sheets.  There were sheets everywhere.  The father and mother so deeply wanted their son to come back home.

            The same is true for us.  When we wander away from God and let me be the first to admit that I have done this and I would venture to say that we all have, we are welcomed back.  When we squander everything that God has given us, we are welcomed back.  When we spend our inheritance in dissolute living, we are welcomed back.  When we think that we are no longer worthy to be called God’s sons and daughters, we are welcomed back.  When we think reconciliation is impossible, we are welcomed back.  

If we go back to that quote by Philosopher James Smith, we can imagine them as God’s words. “Your children are going to break your heart.  Somehow.  Somewhere.  Maybe more than once.  To become a parent is to promise you’ll love prodigals.”  If you hear nothing else today, hear this: Regardless of which character you may be at this point in your life, know that there is welcome for you.  God will run to meet you, embrace you, give you the finest robe and ring, throw a party in your honor, and provide ultimate reconciling love and grace for you each and every day.  You are always welcomed back by God, because God promises to love the prodigals.  God promises to love us.  Amen.

Temptation and Trust

Luke 4:1-13

As I read this text I can’t help but imagine an infomercial for “The True Identity Challenge.”  I imagine a devil figure dressed in red with a flaming pitchfork.  Do you want to know who the real Son of God is?  In this 40 day reading guide with step-by-step instructions you can test the identity of the real Son of God.  First, say, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”  The real Son of God will resist your temptation despite his hunger.  Second, say, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please.  If you, then, will worship me, it will be all yours.”  The real Son of God will resist your temptation by saying “worship only the Lord.”  Thirdly, say, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here.”  Again, the real Son of God will resist your temptation.  Jesus’ ability to resist your temptation will be the proof that he is indeed the Son of God.  You can have your very own copy of this step-by-step guide for only $40.  To purchase this 40 day reading guide dial 1-800-Son-O-God.  If you make your purchase in the next five minutes we will throw in a free copy of how to protect your own identity as a child of God.

Temptation is all around us.  Want to be tempted?  Turn on the television.  Each day we are exposed to thousands of advertisements.  Open the advertisements in a magazine and be exposed to the pressure to have flawless external beauty.  Walk through the grocery store, especially when you are hungry and be tempted by junk food.  Listen to the radio and hear about the newest car or the new way to lose weight.  Talk to your friend and find out the latest gossip.  Seriously, temptation is all around us.  Not a day goes by without temptations being thrown at us, whether we seek them out or not.  Jesus was not exempt from that temptation.  Jesus, as one who was fully human, was tempted.  He understands what it is like to be tempted.  Now Jesus wasn’t tempted with new technology or a new car.  He wasn’t tempted by the new flavor of ice cream or the new clothing color for the season.  He wasn’t tempted by weight loss schemes or the latest gossip.  He was tempted to prove his identity as the Son of God.

Temptation and trust seem to have a lot in common here.  Jesus trusted who he was.  Jesus trusted his identity as the Son of God.  Since he had trust he was able to resist the temptation being sent his way.  In our lives I think the same is true.  If we trust who we are as children of God then temptation is easier to resist.  One author puts it this way, “To the degree that we trust God for our daily needs, for a sense of purpose, for our identity as a child of God, the temptations of the world have, frankly, little appeal.  But to the degree that we allow our natural insecurity to lead us to mistrust God, we are open to the possibility, appeal, and temptation of the proposition that it is all up to us, that God is not able to provide and so we’d better take matters into our own hands.”  Sounds easy, right?  No, not really.  I will be the first to admit that trust is hard to put into practice.  So much around us in our world causes us to put our trust in ourselves or in other things, so that we don’t actually trust God.

I just finished reading an incredible book that focused on trust.  The book, “By Faith, Not By Sight,” is written by Scott MacIntyre.  It is Scott’s story about his first twenty plus years as a singer, pianist, and songwriter.  So what does music have to do with trust?  Well, Scott was vision impaired from birth, and while not completely blind, he suffered from severe tunnel vision.  He started making music by ear when he was very young and then sang with his family in a family band.  Each time they performed they trusted that God would use their gifts to bless others.  He studied music, wrote music, and recorded music.  The day of his college graduation, with plans and a scholarship to further his education abroad, he was diagnosed with kidney failure.  Throughout the trials of his blindness and life threatening illness he trusted God, at a time when most people might think that God has somehow abandoned them.  After a kidney transplant he goes on to be the first blind performer on season eight of American Idol, reaching out to others with his story, his faith, and his trust in God.  Scott trusted God.

I want you to take a moment to think about what it is that you do trust God with.  Think of just one thing, one thing that you feel confident to trust God with.  Maybe it is your family or friends.  Maybe it is your job or sense of security.  Tuck it away in your mind.  Over the next 40 days of our Lenten journey I would invite you to thank God for that piece of your life and the ability to trust God with it.  Now think of one thing that you are struggling to trust God with.  Maybe it is a relationship or a struggle at work.  Maybe it is uncertainty about the future or finances.  Tuck it away in your mind.  Think about what makes it easier for you to trust God with one thing and not the other.  Over the next 40 days of Lent I would invite you to pray for the ability to give God control of that thing which you are struggling to trust God with.

Let that trust in God become part of your identity not just for Lent, but for forever.  At the core of the temptations that Jesus resisted was the theme of his identity.  The tempter was questioning Jesus’ identity, who he was as the Son of God.  There are days when our very identity is questioned as well.  Who are we?  We are parents, spouses, children, siblings, co-workers, and friends.  Ultimately we are children of God.  That is central to our identity.  There are, however, things and people in our world who want to question that identity.  They want to question who we are as individuals, as Christians and as God’s children.  That identity stems from our ability to trust God, our ability to know that God sent God’s only son into this world that we should not perish, but that we should have eternal life.  So, when the storms of life rage around us.  When the temptations are thrown at us with full force.  Use your identity as a child of God to resist those temptations.  Use your identity as a child of God to trust God, for who God is and for who God has created you to be.  Amen.

Jesus: Hometown Prophet

 Luke 4:21-30

Have you ever returned to your hometown, the place you grew up in, after being away for some time?  If your hometown was small, like mine was, it is likely that you go back and pick up right where you left off.  People still remember you and they are excited to hear about your life, or maybe they have been kept up to date about your life by another family member living in the area.  Often you can quickly catch up on all the gossip and local happenings.  But have you ever tried to be a prophet in your hometown?  Have you mentioned that the schools should consolidate?  Have you mentioned that the local pizza joint seems quiet these days?  Have you suggested that new mayor is needed?  Have you ever tried to speak a word that the locals were maybe not ready to hear?  Today Jesus heads to his hometown.  The lesson he proclaims, after being asked to do in Nazareth what he had done in Capernaum, is that “No prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.”

This is the exact reason I used, in not so eloquent terms, when someone asked me if I wanted to come back to my home church and be their pastor someday.  I remember saying, you all know me and I know you.  I can’t possibly be your pastor.  Now, I have been back to my home church to preach and lead worship.  They are a very loving group of people and are always very affirmative in my call to ministry.  The day I was ordained, a first for them, was likely one of the proudest moments in their over 120 year history.  Yet, I know there are words that they need to hear that I cannot say to them, because I know them.  There are words they may need to say to me that I cannot hear, because they know me.  There are realities that lie ahead of them that they are not prepared to receive.  There are likely critiques I need to hear that they are not able to tell me.

On a second occasion, after a few years in seminary, the parent of one of my high school classmates and a member of another church in town stopped me in a restaurant to ask if I would come back and be their pastor.  Again, I said no, I would not be a good pastor of the local town church.  I knew those people and they knew me, too.  They knew about who I was as a kid.  They knew about my family.  They knew the car I drove.  They knew about all the choices I had made growing up.  Some of them were even related to me.  Besides it not typically being a good practice to be a pastor in your home church, I knew that I would not be a good pastor for these people.  I knew it would be difficult to be a prophet in my hometown.

Part of the difficulty of being a prophet in your own hometown is that the listeners or the audience know you.  I came here as someone you did not know.  But really the difficulty of being a prophet in your own hometown is two-fold.  The other factor is that you know the other people.  I came here as someone who did not know you.  In my hometown people knew me and I knew them.  I knew about relationships gone bad.  I knew about the personalities they had in school.  I knew who had money and who didn’t.  I knew how they treated other people.  I knew them just as well as they knew me.

The same was true of Jesus.  He knew everything about the people in Nazareth.  In fact, he knew more than the average person would know.  After all, he was God.  So, Jesus shows up in his own hometown and speaks prophetic words.  Just before our text today, Jesus, while in the synagogue, stood up and read this text from the prophet Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  After hearing that the locals expected to perform, to be a prophet, to be the person he is in other places.  His response seems to be filled with some reservations.  And I think some of his reservation about this is that he knows these people and they know him.  He doesn’t just know these people; he knows them!  He knows the good, the bad, and even the ugly.  Yet, because the locals know Jesus as their hometown hero they feel entitled.  They feel like they deserve to have Jesus’ care, concern, healing hand, and prophetic nature, because of who they are in relation to Jesus.  They fill entitled to his divine power because they knew him from when he was a kid.  We know that is not how God works though.  God doesn’t work out of requirement or entitlement.  God works where God needs to work, regardless of where we think God should place God’s divine energy and time.

If we look back to the Old Testament, Jeremiah is in a similar situation.  He is being appointed to go and be a prophet, not only in Judah, but to all the nations.  Jeremiah uses his age, his youth, as an excuse to God to use someone else, someone more fit for the job.  He is appointed “over nations and kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”  That is a big job.  He is to be a prophet in his hometown.  He is to proclaim a message to people he knows and people that know him.  He is to speak a word that people may not be ready to hear, let alone to receive.  And Jeremiah is filled with reservations. 

We, too, are often filled with reservations when it comes to being prophets in our own town, our own schools, our own church, We are filled with reservations when it comes to speaking a word that people might not be ready to hear in our own neighborhoods, our own jobs, and our own families.  We know the people whom we are called to speak to and they know us.  Despite the odds we may feel we are against, we are surrounded by a promise of protection.  In Jeremiah, we hear the words, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.”  And in Luke as the townspeople drove Jesus out of town in hopes to “hurl him off the cliff,” he was protected as “he passed through the midst of them.”  I firmly believe if God protects these two prophets, Jesus and Jeremiah, then God will protect us, too.  Specifically, I find these words of protection are very comforting.  Before we were formed God knew us.  Before we took our first breath on earth God knew us.  Before we spoke words of wisdom and intellect God knew us.  So, I would challenge us to speak that word that others might not be ready to hear and trust that God will protect us.  I would challenge us to be prophets in this town and know that God will not let us be hurled off the cliff.  If God protected the speakers of prophetic words in the past then God will protect us as we speak prophetic words in today’s world.  Amen.

Prayer: Thanksgiving

John 2:1-11

Here we are in the book of John.  Remember the beginning of John?  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  A little later in that first chapter we hear “The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”  It continues, “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” 

            Now fast-forward through Jesus’ baptism and the calling of the first disciples to the next chapter of John.  This is where we pick up our text for today.  The first miracle or sign that Jesus does.  Jesus, the disciples, and the mother of Jesus are all at a wedding in Cana.  The wine runs out.  But the wedding is still a lively party.  Talk about things you don’t want to happen at a wedding and this is toward the top of the list.  To some this would be a catastrophe.  One author that I read this week said that wine played an important role at weddings.  He said, “Wine isn’t just a social lubricant, it’s a sign of the harvest, of God’s abundance, of joy and gladness and hospitality.”  Wine is a gift, a blessing.  As the miracle plays out Jesus is called to remedy this catastrophe.  He does so in great abundance.  As one who is full of grace and truth, he fills the six stone water jars full.  That is a lot of wine – 120-180 gallons of wine.  The blessing is restored and it is even better wine than before.  But what deeper message does this miracle story teach us?  What is revealed about the character of Jesus?

            I think grace is revealed here.  It echoes the beginning of John.  “From his fullness, we have all received, grace upon grace.”  From the fullness of Jesus to the fullness of water jars filled with wine we have received grace.  We have seen grace.  We have heard grace.  We have experienced grace.  What then is our response to grace?

            I think that is where the third week of our sermon series fits.  We have been studying prayer.  We have already heard about prayers of adoration and confession.  Now this week we move to the T of the acronym ACTS.  We move on to thanksgiving.  I think that is our response to grace.  The fullness of God revealed in Jesus.  The fullness of Jesus revealed in miraculous signs and an abundance of wine.  The response, I hope, to that wine was thanksgiving.  The fullness of grace which we receive through Jesus’ death and resurrection.  The response to that grace is thanksgiving.

            If you have ever traveled to an impoverished country you have likely seen very visible thankfulness.  It is in those places where I often see deep need, that the local people see great blessings and are filled with extreme thankfulness.  In January of 2010 I had the opportunity to travel to Nicaragua and Honduras.  As our group from South Canyon prepares to travel to Nicaragua, I have been reliving some of my memories from my trip.  In homes with dirt floors and boarded up windows, people were thankful for shelter.  In homes with very little income, they were thankful for food and more than willing to share that with their guests.  As a guest you typically eat first and the family eats whatever is leftover.  In places with no electricity, they were thankful for their one solar powered light, which provided them with a few hours of light after the sun had set.  Thankfulness is at the center of their lives.  Gratitude to God for everything.  Thanksgiving is at the core of who they are, whose they are, and what they have been given.  I think those are three areas that we can be thankful for as well.

            Thanksgiving for who we are.  Through the waters of baptism we have been given an identity.  We are called children of God.  We are loved, beloved children of God.  In those same waters we were promised forgiveness from our sins, deliverance from death and the devil, and life eternal.  We were given grace upon grace.  As our text from Isaiah states, “God rejoices over you;” “the Lord delights in you.”  God delights to call us sons and daughters.  Just like our earthly parents, God wants the very best for each of us. 

            Thanksgiving for whose we are.  We are a community of believers.  We are brought together by the common beliefs of Christianity, by the common belief in God the creator of the universe.  We are brought together by the one who first created and claimed us.  We are people who have been saved by the blood of the one Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Thanksgiving for what we have been given.  We have been given food, clothing, shelter – the basic necessities of this life.  We have been given family and friends who love and care for us.  We have been given blessings of medicine, technology, travel, and education.  Ultimately, we have been cared for by the one who first loved us.

Today I am going to invite you to share with a neighbor what you are most thankful for.  So, take a moment and share what you are thankful for and then listen to what your neighbor is thankful for.  If you don’t know the person sitting next to you make sure you introduce yourself, too.  The listening here is just as important as the sharing.  I would invite you to remember what your neighbor is thankful for and at some point offer prayer on behalf of that person, thanking God for the opportunity to worship with them, and giving thanks to the creator for whatever they are most thankful for.

We each have much to be thankful for, but we must remember to direct our thanks to the one who most deserves it.  We must let God know just how thankful we are for who we are, whose we are, and what we have been given.  Our prayer life is the perfect way to share that thanksgiving with God.  It is the perfect way to let God know that we are filled with thanksgiving for all that we have so graciously been given.  Amen.

Prayer: Adoration

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

Today we begin a sermon series on prayer.  More specifically over the next four weeks we will be focusing on four different types of prayer or four different parts of a prayer.  You can remember them by remembering the word ACTS: Adoration; Confession; Thanksgiving; and Supplication.  This week we will focus on the A: Adoration.

Adoration.  Adoration means to give homage or to worship something or someone.  Adoration is a profound love or admiration. It is an act of worship, praise, or honor.  Today is Epiphany.  Adoration is what the celebration of Epiphany is all about.  Today we celebrate the magi, the wisemen, who followed the star to the place where the baby lay.  They came to pay homage and honor to the holy family.  They came to bow down and worship this newborn babe.  They came to adore the one whom the star shone down upon.

These characters from the East didn’t just come alone, empty handed.  They came bearing gifts.  Isaiah states, “They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.”  I am sure over the past few weeks you have went several places bearing gifts.  You have visited family and friends, taken gifts to school or work, and shared things with those you love.  As we celebrate the season of Epiphany, I want you to think about another gift you have to give.  That is the gift of prayer.  This is a gift we are all capable of sharing.

Now, I am sure the idea of prayer makes some of you uncomfortable.  You immediately think of long eloquent prayers that are said in front of large groups of people.  Yes, that is prayer.  But, prayer is also much more than that.  Let me share a quote about prayer that appeared on my Facebook this week.  Father Richard Rohr writes, “[Prayer] is not a technique for getting things, a pious exercise that somehow makes God happy, or a requirement for entry into heaven.  It is much more like practicing heaven now.”  Prayer is practice and just like anything else we do it also takes practice.  Prayer can be silent meditation alone in your room or in your car.  Prayer can be one word long and whispered.  Prayer can be spoken or sung.  Prayer can be memorized and recited at the table before a meal.  Prayer can take on many different styles and forms.  The ways to pray are endless.  Let me share a few ideas.

Pray for others.  There are many people in our congregation, both members and friends and family, that are in need of our prayers.  The list of prayer requests on the back of your bulletin is created by people submitting the prayer request form that is in the lifelines.  Each week you could commit to taking your bulletin home and holding those people in prayer.  Maybe that means reading through them as you eat your breakfast or before you go to bed.  Or, once our new photo directories come you could commit to paging through it and praying for all the families on a page for one week.  We all could use some prayer.

Did you know there is also an email prayer chain at South Canyon?  Sometimes when people fill out this prayer request form they ask for their loved one to be placed on the prayer chain.  From there Lorys sends an email to people at South Canyon who are committed to receiving these emails and offering prayer on behalf of others.  The list of people that Lorys sends those emails to is very short.  If you would like to be included in this ministry you can let her know or sign up in the Koinonia Room.

Pray publicly. Maybe you feel called to lead our congregation in prayer.  That is the role of the assisting minister in worship.  Each week someone leads us in the mission prayer and the prayers of intercession.  Yes, the prayers are written out for you, but it is still an important ministry for those voices to lead us in prayer.  We are always looking for new people to share their gifts through this ministry.  Let us know if you are interested.

Pray through Scripture.  Adoration is a common theme in scripture.  Not only in the texts today, but in other places as well.  Throughout the Psalms we find themes of adoration, praise and honor.  Those words can be read as your own personal prayer.  Phrases like “praise the Lord” and “I will sing praises to your name” are very repetitive in Scripture.  Check the index of your Bible for some ideas or just start paging through the Psalms.  Let those words be your own as you give adoration and praise to God for who God is.

Pray through song.  When I ponder the word adoration this time of the year especially, I think of the Christmas carol “Oh Come All Ye Faithful.”  The chorus invites us to adoration.  The chorus invites us to come and adore Christ the King.  Other songs that come to my mind are “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee” and “Father, I adore You.”  The song we will join in singing after the sermon, “Praise the One Who Breaks the Darkness,” is full of praise and adoration.  If you haven’t figured it out yet, I enjoy music.  These songs and many others are filled with adoration.  They, in themselves, are a way to pray.  Music is prayer.  Although this is debated, some claim that St. Augustine even said, “Singing is like praying twice.”  So, I would invite you to sing boldly today.  I don’t care if you are perfect at it or not.  Sing and as you sing think of those words as prayer.  Notice the feelings and emotions that come with each verse of the songs.  Pay attention to verses that are about adoration and praise.

As you pray for others and for yourself, in whatever way you choose to, let your prayer begin and be rooted in adoration and praise.    When we pray prayers of thanksgiving, often when things are going well, it seems easier to give praise and adoration to God.  I would suggest that even in situations of declining health, difficult divorce, financial hardship, and impending death, it is important to offer praise and adoration to God the source of our being.  It is important to center ourselves and remind ourselves who it is we are praying to.  In doing so we remember that no matter what we may be facing there is a God, our God, that is facing it with us.  Giving our praise and love to God comes first.  From that the rest of our prayer flows.  On this celebration of Epiphany, may our gift, the gift of prayer, proclaim the praise of the Lord.  Amen.

God Is With Us

            Messy.  What do you think of when you hear the word messy?  Your messy kitchen.  Your messy purse.  The mess that winter weather makes of the roads.  The mess of mail on the counter.  The mess of mud tracked on your clean carpet.  The mess of post-Christmas.  The messy house.  The mess after a dog rips up a toy.  The mess of spilled coffee on your new pants.  The mess of wax on the church floor after 5 worship services.  The mess of the return lines after Christmas.  The mess of the kid’s toy room.  You get the idea.  There are a lot of messy things in life.

I recently heard a story about a mess.  There were two little old ladies, both in their young 80s.  They were old spinsters living in North Dakota.  They were not only living in North Dakota, they were living on a farm in North Dakota.  It was not only a farm in North Dakota, it was a dumpy farm in North Dakota.  It was the dumpiest farm you have ever seen in North Dakota.  The chicken coop was falling down.  The barn was falling down.  The rusted machinery was falling apart, and the old rusted spinsters were falling apart.  These were two old spinsters and they were as tough as nails.  They had weathered every storm for the past sixty years and they were tough.  Well, it so happened that a nephew came to visit them one fall day from the city, and he took out his camera to take a picture of his weather worn aunts, with the barn and the chicken coop and the rusted machinery in the background.  The aunts just stood there, strait and stiff for the picture.  The nephew took a picture and later sent them a copy.  The old aunts just loved that photograph, and they decided to use it for a Christmas card that year.  At the top of their picture, they put the words, Merry Christmas, in bold, black letters.  And at the bottom of the picture, in big bold letters were the words:  God is with us in our mess.

Indeed, God is with us.  “The virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, “God is with us.”  If you think about it the Christmas story is a bit messy.  A young unmarried teenager conceives a child.  Mary, who is with child and Joseph travel several days, about 80 miles (and it wasn’t by plane, train, or automobile).  The innkeeper declares that there is no room in the inn for the pregnant Mary and her husband, Joseph.  Jesus, the son of God, a babe born in a barn in Bethlehem, placed in the animal’s feeding trough, knows messy.  In the midst of messy, God is with us.  In the midst of messy, the holy shows up.  God is with us.  God proclaims, “This is Emmanuel.”

            God is with us when things are going well.  God is with us when marriage vows are said.  God is with us when children are born.  God is with us when we walk across the stage on graduation day.  God is with us when we land the job we have always dreamed of.  God is with us when laughter and joy are shared.  In these good times I think it is often easier to remember God’s presence.  God is with us.  God proclaims, “This is Emmanuel.”

            Sometimes it is more difficult to remember, but God is with us all the time.  God is with us when things are not going well.  God is with us when terminal illness comes upon a loved one.  God is with us when fertility problems are encountered.  God is with us when divorce enters the picture.  God is with us when life ends too quickly.  God is with us when holiday are not happy days.  God is with us when tears and sadness are shared.  God is with us.  God proclaims, “This is Emmanuel.”

            As the Christmas card from the old ladies in North Dakota proclaimed, “God is with us in our mess.”  That is the message I hope you take away this Christmas.  God is with us in our mess.  Emmanuel, God with us, is foretold in Isaiah and then proclaimed in Matthew as Joseph is told of Mary’s pregnancy.  Christ enters into the world as one who is both human and divine.  Christ enters into a world filled with mess.  Christ lives amidst the mess.  Christ knows what it is like for us to live in the messiness.  Through the good and bad God is with us.  God is with us.  God proclaims, “This is Emmanuel.”

The truth of life is that it is more often messy than neat and tidy.  Do you know of anywhere that is not messed up?  Relationships are messy.  Families are messy.  The world is messy.  Life is messy.  And in the midst of the messy, Christ comes in.  God will not protect us from the messes, but God will walk with us in the messes.  God will show up.  God will not forsake us or leave us.  Just when we think life has gotten too messy, Christ bursts in.  Just when we think that we have strayed too far for God to care about us, Christ comes to us.    In the messiness of our lives, Emmanuel comes to us.  God is with us.  God proclaims, “This is Emmanuel.”

            It may seem like a dark, silent night here in this sanctuary, but there are still messes surrounding us.  Messes in our lives.  Messes in our hearts.  Messes in the lives of those we love.  Messes in the lives of strangers near and far.  Messes in our society.  Messes in our world.  Messes surround us.  In all of those messes Christ is showing up.  God first burst into our world as a human some 2,000 years ago.  And God continues to burst into our world each and every night.  Emmanuel is coming to us this night.  Born again this night for you and for me this Christmas.  Emmanuel – God with us.  God is truly with us.  God proclaims, “This is Emmanuel.”  Amen.

Christmas Shoes Sharing

Luke 3:7-18

John the Baptist proclaims, “I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming.”  Who is coming?  Who are we preparing for?  Who is this character whom John the Baptist speaks of?

These days it is easy to think we are preparing for Santa Claus.  The good news of Santa Claus proclaims, “Blessed are the rich. Blessed are the powerful.  Blessed are the religiously correct.”  Santa Claus says, “Love your family.  Love your friends.  Enjoy a festive dinner.  Befriend the well dressed, the healthy, the young, the comfortable, and the respectable.”

            What we are really preparing for is Christ.  The gospel of Christ proclaims, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.  Blessed are the meek.  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice.”  Jesus says, “Love the stranger.  Love your enemies.  Befriend the hungry, the naked, the sick, all ages, the homeless, and the prisoners.” 

            Santa Claus proclaims that “Christmas comes that we may have things more abundantly.”  God proclaims that “Christ comes so that we may have life more abundantly.”  Regardless of how much we may like the things we receive at Christmas from friends, family, and Santa Claus, I hope that we can recognize who it is that is coming to us this day.  It is Jesus.  He is more powerful than you or I, even more powerful than John the Baptist.  He is bringing to us the good news of the gospel.

            In the meantime, John’s job is to prepare us for the coming of Christ.  To prepare us for the coming of a babe born in Bethlehem.  To prepare us for the second coming of Christ at the end of the world.  Last week, we heard John proclaim, “Prepare the way of the Lord.”  This week we pick up right where we left off.  So the crowd asks, “What then should we do?”  John tells them to share their coat with the coatless.  To share their food with the hungry.  Then to a few specific groups of people he says, “Do not collect more than is yours” and “Be satisfied with your wages.” 

               At the core of John the Baptist’s message is to share.  This is something we learned or should have learned at a young age.  It is something I am reminded of every time that the song “Christmas Shoes” comes on the radio.  Maybe you have heard the song, read the book, or seen the movie that is based on this song.  The chorus goes like this:

“Sir, I want to buy these shoes for my Mama, please It's Christmas Eve and these shoes are just her size Could you hurry, sir, Daddy says there's not much time You see she's been sick for quite a while And I know these shoes would make her smile And I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight.”

Lately I have witnessed some incredible sharing in our local community – Christmas Shoes sharing.  The first weekend in December people in our congregation shared, out of our abundance, with thirty families in this area who are living in scarcity this holiday season.  As over one hundred people gathered in the front of the sanctuary for a photo before we left to make our deliveries, I was amazed at people’s willingness to share with others.  In addition to those people, all of the confirmation small groups and the high school youth group helped as well.  What a gift of Christmas Shoes sharing.

            Recently, I was in conversation with one of the staff of Lutheran Social Services.  She was telling me that the staff off Lutheran Social Services adopt someone in their stepping stones program.  This is a program that reaches out to 16-20 year olds in our area to provide affordable housing and independent living skills.  When these young people make their wish lists things like toothpaste, toilet paper, socks, and gloves appear.  Of course the staff help provide those basic necessities, but they also make sure to get them a fun gift as well.  They want to share beyond gifts of basic necessities.  What a gift of Christmas Shoes sharing.

            As a member of the Board of Directors of the Lutheran Campus Ministry at the School of Mines and Technology, I was surprised at our recent meeting to hear about another opportunity of sharing happening in our midst.  They put up an angel tree in the campus center.  College students, people who are accruing student loans at a high rate and possibly eat Ramen Noodles and Easy Mac for many meals, share gifts with children in our community who may otherwise not have a gift to open this Christmas.  What a gift of Christmas Shoes sharing.

            We see acts of sharing and kindness happening all around us.  We see gifts given.  We see love shared.  We see joy passed along.  We see prayers lifted up.  All of this sharing points us to God.  That was John the Baptist’s job – to point us to Jesus, to point us to the one who would come after him.  May our giving, our sharing, our loving, our prayers and all that we do we continue to point others to Jesus.  That is our job.  In the midst of pain and suffering.  In the midst of hardship and homelessness.  In the midst of hurt and sorrow.  In the midst of war and school shootings.  In the midst of death.  It is our job to point others to Jesus.  It is our job to share the hope of the resurrection – the risen Christ, the one who overcame death and sin so that we would live forever.  It is our job to share the joy and the hope of the New Jerusalem, when there will be no death, no mourning, no crying, no pain. 

I think beyond the crowd’s question of what they should do is a bigger question of why they should be the ones to prepare the way.  Why is it our job?  That role falls to each of us, too.  It is our job to prepare the way.  It is our job to prepare for the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.  It is our job because of what Christ has done for us.  Christ has come and made us holy.  Christ has called us his own and loved us just the way we are.  It is not about anything that we have done.  It is all about what Christ has done.  Because of the gift of grace that has been freely given to us we respond by preparing the way, by making the paths straight.  It is our job to share what we have been given.  It is our job to share the Christmas Shoes.  Amen.