They left the boat and their father

Matthew 4: 12-23, NT pages 3 and 4 Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles – the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea – for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him. Sermon I’ve been asked, as you probably have, about what, if any, sports you played as a teenager. I grew up playing baseball and even made the team in high school, which was a big deal in Cobb County back then, but to say that I played baseball in high school feels like a stretch of the truth and the more accurate statement is probably that I was on the baseball team, that I wore a uniform and watched the games, for in reality I very rarely played. In most instances, the only time I actually caught or threw a ball on game day was during warm ups. One wet spring day, too early in the season to be warm but early enough for a game, I remember how muddy the outfield was. Despite the mud I worked hard during those pre-game drills because I didn’t have any need to stay dry or to save my best stuff for the actual game, pregame warm-up being the only chance I had to so much as step on the field. By the end of warm-ups my cleats were drenched, so before the game started I took them off and put on a dry pair of tennis shoes that I had with me. As soon as I had done so I heard my coach say, “Evans, you’ll start in right field today.” I had been waiting so long to hear those words, and I sprung off the bench to change my shoes, when over my shoulder I heard him speak again: “Changing his shoes! There’s no time for all that – Jones, you get in there. It looks like Joe would rather stay dry in the dugout than play baseball.” In our second scripture lesson today, like the second lesson from last Sunday, Jesus is offering an invitation. For those who follow, the lesson is: if you want to be a disciple of Jesus you better have your cleats on when he calls. The disciples are our model here, as with great immediacy they follow – which can raise some important questions about who it was that they were so anxious to follow and what it was they were so ready to get away from. I’ve heard it said in Maury County that many have heard the Lord call them to the ministry out in the tobacco field during the scorching heat of summer, as preaching one day a week sounds so much better than working tobacco six days a week. But it’s not clear that these first disciples are trying to escape from something as miserable as a tobacco field or anything else, as a matter of fact it seems as though they were so compelled to follow Jesus that they willingly leave much of value behind. That’s consistent with the other accounts of Jesus calling his disciples. Last week we read of three who gave up a full day’s work and whatever pay they might gain for their labor to follow him. In a world of constant effort and continual production, to give up a full day is to give up a lot – but in today’s reading the cost of discipleship may seem even higher – as at the end of the day James and John, the sons of Zebedee, are mending their nets when Jesus walks by: “Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.” I’ve seen a few boats left behind on the side of the interstate, and I hear that the two best days for a boat owner are the day you buy the boat and the day you sell it, but a boat for these men was the tool that enabled them to work, to support themselves, and to feed their families. To walk away from your boat was to walk away from your livelihood, or to leave your livelihood for your father to deal with until you got back, if, when you got back, he wanted to have anything to do with you. Certainly many sons and daughters have walked away from the family business or the family farm despite stern warnings and even tears from their parents. Sometimes they leave “their boats and their father” only to return to it, the challenge of making it on their own in a harsh world fills them with appreciation for a job they’ve always taken for granted. So appreciative in fact that some are willing to hear the words “I told you so” in order to come back to the family trade, never wanting to leave it again. Others may leave home, chasing after some dream or some love interest, but the chasing and the risk eventually comes to something that makes them happy. Most parents grow to accept such a change in expectation and learn to accept that things don’t always turn out how you want them to but how they are supposed to. In such cases some families end up with more happiness than they ever would have had otherwise. But there are others – others who in walking away from their father do so much damage that there is no way to pick up where they left off. That’s the fear that keeps some from following the desires of their hearts or even the call of Jesus himself, as there can be so much pressure for you and me to stay exactly where we are. I know that feeling well, but I knew that feeling even better when I was a teenager and of age to join the church by taking part in the confirmation class. While our confirmation class is during the Sunday School hour, in the church I grew up in, confirmation was on Sunday nights. My parents would drop me off and I would walk into the church, only to turn around, walk out the door and to a back alley where I would meet my friends. We’d spend the hour not doing much of anything, but whatever it was that we were doing, it made us feel a lot cooler than if we had gone on into the confirmation class like we were supposed to. My best friend Matt had no intention of going to confirmation class. He told me that he didn’t want to join the church either, as our church had special parking places for visitors that were right next to the front door, and when he got his driver’s license he didn’t want to become a member or he’d be ineligible to use them. On the other hand, I had a guilty conscience, which eventually led me to leave my friends behind. I went to the confirmation class, which was the right thing to do – but when the right thing is different from what your friends or your parents want you to do then doing the right thing can seem almost impossible. “They left the boat and their father, and followed him.” Do you know how hard that must have been? But don’t you know that it was exactly what they had to do. It’s true that sometimes if you want to make something more of yourself, you have to leave behind the people who think that you are just fine how you are. When they find out that you’re going off to college or back to graduate school, they’ll call you uppity, they’ll ask why you suddenly started acting like you’re too good for everybody, and the question that you’ll have to ask yourself may be a question of priorities: your friends or your dreams? Then there are aunts and uncles who need to be given ultimatums: either you get quit or you don’t see your nieces and nephews. There are brothers who can’t be invited over anymore. There are sisters whose words act like a wedge between husbands and wives. The question for you is easy enough to say but are you brave enough to give an answer? And I don’t think that it’s any coincidence that the sons of Zebedee have to walk away from their father. How often has just the idea of gaining or losing his approval shaped your thoughts and your actions? How many times have your turned back or pushed forward because you wanted him to think well of you? What have you given up on because you were afraid of what you might lose in his estimation? Know that for James and his brother John, just the sight of Jesus made it worth it. Know that for them there was no second thought and no turning back. Know that they walked away because when they heard his voice not even their father’s approval seemed to matter. And he is calling to you now. He’s calling you away from poisonous relationships. Maybe you stay because he’s better than no one at all, but I tell you to listen to the voice of Christ and know that you will never be left alone. He’s calling you away from friends who hold you back and he’s inviting you into a new life that brings joy deeper and purer than anything you’ve known before. And he’s calling you away from trying to gain some approval that you’ll never quite get. Whatever you've been trying to prove and whoever you’ve been trying to prove it to, know that to Christ you are already enough and all you need to do is follow. Walk away from the boat. Walk away – and know that if you are following him it’s not what you are walking away from but who you are walking towards, and if you are following him you are walking towards the lights of all creation. Amen.

Four o'clock

John 1: 29-42, NT page 92 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.” The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter). Sermon Losing track of time can be a wonderful thing. To lose track of time may be the sign of absolute concentration, to concentrate so completely on a task that you enjoy time ceases to matter and the minutes fly by, or to get lost in a conversation with a friend who understands you so completely that all at once the afternoon has passed without you even realizing it. And you compare moments such as these to other times in your day when time seems to stand still. Say you’re in church during a time of prayer, everyone’s head is bowed and silent, when your cell phone starts to ring. Using the newest Beyoncé song for your ring tone seemed like a good idea when you picked it out at home, but it now sounds obnoxious and inappropriate. And worse, the cell phone seems to have buried itself in your purse, in some remote subterranean pocket that you’ve never used before. You unzip zippers and rattle around, feeling everyone’s eyes on you – and it feels like they are condemning you but they aren’t really judging you so much as they are giving thanks to God that it’s your cell phone ringing and not theirs. The whole thing lasts about 30 seconds, but it’s not a typical 30 seconds, it’s like 30 seconds of an earthquake and the stress of it has taken 3 years off your life. If you have a job that you hate time moves almost as slowly. Susie Baxter is our Director of Christian Education, and one of her first jobs was as an inspector for a blue jeans manufacturer called H.I.S. over in West Tennessee. They produced Chic jeans, which in those days was absolutely the brand of jeans to wear, and while Susie liked Chic jeans she did not like the part of her job which she actually got paid for. She’d walk into the factory, and this part is easy to believe if you know Susie, she would stop and talk to every person she walked by, but when she finally got to her station and got down to the business of inspecting jeans, time seemed to slow down. She would be paid extra for any jeans inspected beyond her quota, but because she couldn’t stand to inspect the jeans and spent so much of her time catching up with the people she worked with, no extra income was ever attained. That’s how it is with a job that you hate. But if you have a job that you love – then you find yourself late in the afternoon looking at your watch and saying, “What happened to the day?” You find that it’s time to be home, hours having slipped right by, so you rush out and storm into the house, proclaiming to your family, “I’m so sorry that I’m late, but I’ve been working on the most exciting project,” and maybe your spouse is excited or maybe all your spouse can say is, “And it looks like you forgot to pick up the milk.” It was a new day and there were two disciples of John the Baptist, who at his announcement of: “Look, here is the Lamb of God,” followed Jesus who invited them to “Come and see.” They went and they saw and next thing they knew it was four o’clock in the afternoon. And here’s the difficult part – you can imagine that they went home proclaiming, “We have found the Messiah,” but when they finally got home, the whole day having slipped right by, their children were wishing they had something besides that announcement to show for a day’s work; maybe something to eat instead of something to announce that they couldn’t really understand. Sometimes doing the right thing will cost you, and in the case of the first disciples of Jesus, it cost them a full day. One full day it cost them, and you can imagine what all was left undone. If they were fisherman, no fish were caught. If they were tax collectors as some disciples were, they went to their supervisor empty handed. If they were husbands, you can imagine what their wives had to say when they walked in the door with nothing to show for their day but a smile on their face while she had been chasing children and doing laundry and making sure that what had to be done got done. It’s a hard truth, that following your dream, fulfilling your destiny, and finding the Messiah are not activities that can be scheduled and the reality is that if you want to know salvation something must be left undone. It’s true. You know the story of the Samaritan man who walked down that dangerous road from Jerusalem to Jericho. He was probably wanting to make good time on his trip and we know he had business to accomplish as there was no other reason to make this trip down such a dangerous road unless your business interest demanded it. But this Samaritan man noticed another, lying on the side of the road who had been robbed and beaten. He stopped, “moved with pity,” and “went to him and bandaged his wounds having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him, and when I come back I will repay you whatever more you spend.”” How often have you said, “I’d stop, if only I weren’t in such a hurry,” but consider what the first disciples of Jesus would have missed had they been more concerned with what they had to do than with being a witness to the work of God? It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when the disciples finally looked at a sundial or something, and do you know what I am usually doing at four o’clock in the afternoon? Without fail I am rushing around, firing off emails, making a few more phone calls, all in the hopes of accomplishing something on my list of things to do so that I can go home feeling as though I’ve made something of my day. But do you know what I should be doing? I should be reflecting back on a day filled with miracles. A morning that began with food in the pantry for breakfast and children in their PJs to eat it. A walk across the street to deliver them to the school that they love, a lunch in a downtown that gets better every day, a conversation where some truth is spoken and some healing is found, a difference made, a corner turned, Christ made real as grace is discovered if for the very first time. You see – when the day slips by it is because you have been living, and while the world will tell you that when the day slips by it is because you are failing remember that the world will draw you ever closer to death and only the Lord will bring you to life. You must be willing to push your routine aside to make room for what truly matters. The sound of a ringing phone can feel like an annoying distraction even when it’s a friend calling, but a word from a friend is a distraction from what exactly? Dinner can be late, so sit down with your daughter if she needs to talk. Every game will end this way: one team will win and another will lose, so turn the TV off and talk to your wife before she quits trying. It’s true that President James K. Polk never left his desk until all the work to be done was finished, refusing to leave to tomorrow what could be finished today, but it’s also true that he died just three months after completing the term of his presidency when he was 53 years old, and maybe that was a full life back in those days but in the end, how many days at his desk would he have traded for just one afternoon with his wife? Tomorrow is a whole new day with another chance to do what needs to be done, but Christ may only walk through town this one time and if you won’t follow him now when will you? Amen.

For it is proper

Matthew 3: 13-17, NT page 3 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented it saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Sermon It is Sunday morning, and I am willing to bet that each one of you could think of something else that you might be doing rather than being here, dressed, and in church. Because you are here there are unread newspapers sitting on kitchen tables, 2nd cups of coffee growing cold because there wasn’t enough time to drink them, there is wrapping paper still not put away, clean clothes that sit unfolded, leaves unraked – all because you chose to give your Sunday morning to God rather than whatever chore that will now have to be done later. But not only does getting here take a restructuring of priorities, there are obstacles to getting here as well. I heard a mother say that Satan works the hardest on Sunday mornings, and I can believe it, as there is some power who hides that other shoe, who keeps socks from sliding on, and who puts tangles in little girls’ hair so that getting here at 10:30 is nearly impossible and getting here at 9:00 for Sunday School completely unattainable. But you are here, and simply in showing up I believe that you have done something significant. However, it has been said that a person showing up in a church doesn’t make him a Christian any more than a person showing up in a garage makes him a car, so it not only matters that you are here, to some degree or another it also matters why you are here. There is an old story about a Christian Educator, a good and talented one like our Susie Baxter, who led her group of children into the sanctuary to teach them about reverence in holy places. She said to her group, “it’s important to be quiet in the sanctuary, do you know why?” A smart little girl raised her hand and said, “So we don’t wake up all the people who are sleeping?” You not only have to show up, you also have to stay awake. You have to try to sing hymns that you’ve never heard before. You have to participate fully, because it’s not as though I am the presenter and you are the audience – we are all the worshippers and God is the audience. It is good for you to be here – it is right for you to be here – and – it is proper for you to be here too. Jesus showed up to be baptized by John in the river for the same reason. Our second scripture lesson from the Gospel of Matthew says tells us that, “Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented it saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” It is proper for you to be here. It is what good Christian women and men are supposed to be doing on Sunday morning, and I am proud of the way you make this time a priority week after week. I believe that it is when people like you make it a priority to be present in a place such as this and at a time such as now, that the Lord works to change your heart and fill you with the Spirit. It is proper for you to be here, just as it was proper for Jesus to be baptized by John, but that word, “proper,” can mean a lot of things. Some would say it is proper to get married in a church – but that doesn’t mean that every bride and groom who have been married in this place ever set foot in this sanctuary again after the ceremony was over. It is proper for young men and women to be confirmed, and to join this church as full participating members by their own choice and will, but just because it is proper that you be confirmed here, confirmation is the beginning of your life in Christ and not the fulfillment of your Christian obligation. Proper, you see, can mean a lot of things, but saying that it is proper to be baptized – know that it is proper, just as it was proper that Jesus be baptized in the Jordan by John, but by no means was Jesus baptized to satisfy his grandmother or to prove to everyone in town that he was a good a decent person. His baptism, while it was done properly, it wasn’t about looking pretty on a special day, though that’s what being proper can turn into. Doing what is proper – this is a sticky and complicated business, as you probably know. You want to follow the proper procedure, abide by the rules of upstanding society, you want to show the people you care about that you and your family are good enough to be taken seriously and have done all the proper things to hold your head up high when you walk through the grocery store or into the Benefit Ball. As the eyes look you over, you want to be able to say to yourself, “I have done the things that I am supposed to do – I have done what is proper and right.” Married in the right church. Baby’s been baptized. Kids are enrolled in the right school, they have a good group of friends, and they wear the right clothes. The list goes on, and it never gets any shorter because most people don’t know when they’ve done enough, even though while the list gets longer it also gets more expensive. Parents of small children, sooner or later your little girl will need the iPhone that everyone else has, and do you have any idea how mean kids can be about that kind of stuff? Of course you do, and so do I. I am sure it still feels true, that if a rumor goes out in middle school that your mother buys your clothes at Walmart, you may as well pack up your desk now and get ready to change schools. And if your daughters get their shoes and their pants wet on a hike like ours did yesterday, but you decide to take them into the Baskin Robins anyway because you made a promise, and nothing is more serious to little girls than a promise that involves ice cream, so you take them in there, both of them barefoot and one of them pants-less, and you worry if your status in the community will still be intact by the time they finish their ice cream cones. Have you done everything that a proper parent should? Do you have everything that a proper teenager is supposed to have? Have you done all that is proper to “fulfill all righteousness?” It feels good if you have, but what if you know you haven’t? If you look yourself over and are left with the distinct impression that everything is not quite right, if you look deep inside and become convinced that more can be done, or, if you don’t feel proper at all, and in fact, you’re just about ready to give up trying to be – if that’s where you are than you know the reason Christ was born and you can come to understand why he went to the river to be baptized by John. He went to be baptized by John, not because he was supposed to or because it was what good people were doing at the time – Jesus goes to the river to be baptized by John because even though he’s God, that doesn’t mean he can do everything by himself. And so often the pressure is on you to do more and be more – but Jesus goes to the river to be baptized by John and he gives thanks for ministry that not he, but someone else, is already doing. Picture him there baptized by John and know that doing what is proper is not always about you, but giving thanks for the work of those around you, asking for their help, and learning from their example. He went to John to be baptized, not because he had lived a proper life, in fact we know that he hadn’t. His mother was pregnant before the wedding day, his father wasn’t really his father, he was from the wrong side of town in the wrong kind of city – but baptism has little to do with living up to the standards of proper society – baptism is about being made proper by the hand of God. So picture him there, not much in the eyes of the world, and know that no matter what you think they are saying about you, in the eyes of God you are not just proper – you are beloved. He went to be baptized in the river by John, not because he needed to cross all the t’s and dot all the I’s, not because he wanted to look like he had it all together and was doing everything just right – Jesus goes to the water, and it was for him just as it is for you – he goes to the water to give thanks for a strength and a love beyond himself. Picture him coming up out of the water and know that when he’s baptized by John it’s a voice that is not his own that he hears and it is a power beyond his own that he feels just as coming here should have little to do with what you have done or have failed to do but has everything to do with what God has done and is doing. It is good that you are here, it is right and good and proper, for this place is not about how proper you feel as though you are – this place is about God and who God will be to you if you are willing to believe in a redeeming power beyond yourself. If you are tiered of trying to prove it to yourself and everyone else, let God make you proper, let God make you well, for God created you and called you good, God redeemed you and called you Beloved. Amen.

They offered him gifts

Matthew 2: 1-12, NT page 2 In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, Are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; For from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.’” Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road. Sermon One of the most interesting parts of our local paper is Sound-Off. If you don’t subscribe know that this re-occurring section alone makes the Daily Herald worth your time and money, as Sound-Off is just the publication of calls to the paper concerning whatever the caller wanted to call in about. Someone called in to Sound-Off last week or the week before and said, “I sure do hope that the Christmas Star stops over Congress because we sure could use some wise men there.” Always Sound-Off is entertaining, but rarely is it so theologically brilliant. The wise men from the East follow a star to Jerusalem, just as this caller hopes that some wise men will follow a star to Washington DC to replace the ones who seem to the caller to not be very wise, and assuming that everyone in Jerusalem has also been following this same star these wise men just ask around about the star, as though they assumed everyone in Jerusalem were watching excitedly for it as well. They were not however. That’s the way it is sometimes – something big happens somewhere and the people who live there are the last ones to appreciate it. It’s like Mule Day, when people drive into Columbia from across the country, from far and wide; but half of you will leaving for the beach. But it’s not just that Jerusalem doesn’t know about this star that the wise men are so excited about, this thing that has happened that they have journeyed many miles just to see, it’s not just that the citizens of Jerusalem don’t know anything about it, at least one person in Jerusalem doesn’t want it to be happening at all. Not only does King Herod not know anything about the star, while he inquires of the wise men and tells them that he would like to go to the child to pay him homage as well, his intentions are sinister. In an effort to rid his kingdom of any threat to his power, in an effort to destroy anyone so important as to motivate wise men from the East to journey and pay him homage, Herod has every child in or around Bethlehem two years old or younger killed, because the birth of someone so important that the stars change their course to mark his birth is a threat to Herod’s sense of self-importance. Jesus slips through Herod’s fingertips, his father Joseph having been warned in a dream to escape to Egypt, but Herod here illustrates an important reality: on the one hand there are those whom the Bible calls wise who are in our 2nd lesson for this morning seeking to find the Christ child, and on the other hand there are those whom the Bible calls afraid who are in our 2nd lesson doing everything they can to preserve what they have. While the wise men are searching for someone whose importance has been proclaimed by the heavens, Herod is threatened, believing that the heavens should be proclaiming no one’s greatness but his own. While the wise men come searching for a savior, Herod thinks that the savior of the people has already come and he is it. And while the wise men carry precious things to give to a precious child, Herod grips his treasure and his power with cruel hands and lashes out in violence at any perceived threat. There are those who are like the wise men, who believe that they have something to gain – and so they go and search it out, but then there are those who are like Herod, who are consumed with thoughts of what they stand to lose – and they are so truly characterized by their fear. Herod’s fear reminds me of the fear of the church during the time of Galileo. Galileo of course was one of the first great astronomers, and staring out into the night sky as the wise men did so long ago, he became convinced that the earth was not in fact the center of the universe as he had been told, but that the earth was one of several bodies who orbited around the sun. The great learned minds of the established order at that time were all a part of the Church, and they had already decided, they already knew that the earth had to be the center of the universe, and just as Herod feared any threat to his power so the church feared Galileo and his theory that the earth orbited the sun. While Galileo sought out the truth, while he searched the stars for answers, the Church had no interest in ideas that challenged what they already believed, they had no interest in a truth who contradicted their truth. And the same is true today, just as it always has been. Today there are those who have nothing new to learn – they have already learned it. The ideas that they grew up with cannot be replaced, the structures of the established order must not be shaken, what is must be what will be, even if what is should be torn down and replaced. Like Herod they fight for stability over growth and old patterns of falsehood over the truth – but the wise on the other hand – they are not so interested in preserving what they already have, as they are in searching out what they stand to gain. In the days of the Civil Rights Era there were those who fought, who lashed out, at any movement that threatened the established patterns of an unjust society. It didn’t matter that racism was wrong, racism was, and the way things were needed to be the way things would always be. But there were others who dreamed dreams and who wouldn’t settle for the way things were, and instead they walked towards the way things might be. Jerusalem had a savior already, and Herod as the savior of Jerusalem would ensure that nothing ever changed, that things would be as they always had been – but the wise men from the east were convinced that just because it has always been does not mean that it should always be – that the injustice of the day might give way to a justice rolling down like waters – that the hopelessness of today might give way to the bright hope of tomorrow – that while today there is despair and cruelty and ignorance – today, unto you, a child has been born who can set things right. And the wise sought him out, while Herod tried to destroy him. The wise gave him gifts, while Herod only knew what he stood to lose. But there are others in our world who act the same way. The cruelty of their home is better than some potential safety that they cannot imagine, so they do not go searching out for stars, they settle for what they have already. There are also those who already know everything, who have nothing new to learn and who are afraid to accept any truth that threatens their perception of truth. And there are those who only stand to lose and who never stand to gain. They hold fast to the power and influence that they have even if it strangles those around them. Like Herod they would rather murder threats to their power than step aside in favor of something better – but you do not have to live like that. You are called to be wise – to kneel at the manger of the Christ child – to offer him gifts believing that what you have is nothing compared to what you stand to gain. You are called to give him gifts – for in offering yourself to this child you proclaim the truth – that all that you have and all that you have known – is like nothing compared to the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Do not concern yourself with what you stand to lose – do not be afraid – and if you have nothing else to give him, give him your heart. Amen.

It took place in this way

Matthew 1: 18-25, NT page 1 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus. Sermon I love to carry up the boxes from the basement that contain all our Christmas decorations. These boxes are not touched and are hardly thought of during most of the year, but every December I love to open up these boxes with my family to unpack the special things they have inside. You wouldn’t necessarily know that any of these things were special upon first glance, but of course they are. There’s a little wreath my mother knitted when I was a child and that she gave Sara and me to put on our first Christmas tree in our first apartment. There are new ornaments that our daughters Lily and Cece have made at preschool with glitter and felt, and there are old ornaments that my wife Sara made with those same materials when she was just about their same age. There’s also a nativity scene that we unpack from those Christmas boxes that Martha Boone gave us, and Mrs. Boone, in her infinite wisdom, gave us two baby Jesus’ for this nativity so that our girls wouldn’t have to fight over just the one. In some ways this is absolutely the height of irony. It would seem to most people that the baby Jesus in the nativity shouldn’t cause conflict, baby Jesus is supposed to bring peace on earth and not disputes between siblings, but sometimes it is better to face facts – baby Jesus, maybe his birth especially, has an effect on people that is often more conflict than peace. It’s true. I’ve seen it, having been to Walmart more than once this December. And yesterday, because I’ve been trying to tackle a home improvement project, I drove to Lowe’s on James Campbell twice, and each time was impressed by just how many people were rushing from one store to the other, rushing with such urgency that I noticed four wreaks. The people standing outside their cars didn’t look filled with joy. Their expression was not so much peace on earth as how am I going to pay for this on top of everything else, and that’s a sad reality this time of year. There’s a look on peoples’ faces in Kroger as well. It’s not panic exactly, but as they go from aisle to aisle, you can tell what they’re thinking. They’re worried about dinner – high stakes dinner – dinner where everyone will gather at one big table with placemats and cloth napkins and unrealistic expectations. They’ll be expecting perfectly smooth mashed potatoes, buttery yeast rolls rising just enough, and turkey. There’s a Christmas turkey that I’ll never forget at a Christmas table several years ago. It wasn’t store bought, but had been shot not long before it was served. It looked perfect on the outside, and only as it was carved did anyone realize that Uncle Al knew enough about killing turkey to kill it himself but didn’t know enough about killing turkey to have cleaned it properly. There was grass still in the craw, and thinking of things that should have been cleaned properly before they were cooked reminds me now of some chitlins I had with Ron Neal last week, but more than that I think this turkey also acts as a symbol for Christmas – sometimes we anticipate so much that reality becomes a notorious disappointment. The baby Jesus is to be born, but like his reproduction in the nativity that we unpacked from that big Christmas box, sometimes the birth of Christ causes more conflict, more anxiety, more pressure than peace. For this and many other reasons it’s important to remember that “the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child.” Can you imagine that? Maybe you can – after all, it happens more often than you might expect. For Joseph, this news of Mary’s pregnancy was no doubt a shock, and more than a shock, it’s a horrible disappointment, possibly a heartbreak if there was real love between them – this new reality that she was pregnant and the baby isn’t his. But Joseph isn’t a cruel man, if anything, his kindness towards this woman is profound, for while it was his right under the law to have her humiliated publically or even killed, Joseph instead decides to have her dismissed quietly. I don’t think anyone could have asked for anything more than that. He’s a good man – because while he could have acted out of his anger or his heartbreak, dismissing her loudly and cruelly, exacting the same hurt on her that he believed she had exacted on him, instead, what he could have done loudly he seeks to do quietly and with compassion. An ideal has been destroyed – his expectations are shattered – but still, Joseph is a kind man and wants to act kindly which is miracle in and of itself. He’s like a child who doesn’t get anything that he want’s on Christmas, but still he is nice about it, still he thanks Santa Clause and forgives him for his mistake, assuming that his letters weren’t written clearly or there was some kind of confusion at the North Pole. He looks under the tree and sees nothing but educational toys and politely smiles anyway because he is a kind young boy, not wanting to appear ungrateful or rude. Could any more be expected? Certainly it would be nice if more people acted this way, certainly being quietly disappointed would be an improvement to being loud and rude and classless, but the Lord requires even more of Joseph than kindness, the Lord expects him not only to be kind, but faithful. The Lord expected him to see that more than his disappointment and more than his failed expectations were at work so many years ago. The Lord expected him to believe that it is when everything does not go according to your plan that God’s plan unfolds. This is a hard lesson for you and for me. So often it seems that Christmas is the time when everything is supposed to be right in the world – that Christmas should be the one day when everything is perfect – when the children are happy, when the family gets over their grudges, when everyone settles down to watch It’s A Wonderful Life with a perfect fire in the fire place. No one should have a drinking problem on Christmas. No one should get divorced No one should be fighting, and I’m sure that Joseph was thinking that Mary should not be pregnant – but it’s here that he is an example, for rather than throw up his hands proclaiming that “Christmas is ruined,” instead he remains faithful – and it is in this way that the birth of the Messiah took place. And it’s that same thing that is required of you – to be faithful enough to believe that Christmas can survive a roast turkey still full of her last meal. To be faithful enough to believe that Christmas can survive some harsh words and some damaged relationships. To be faithful enough to believe that when your plan falls apart, God’s plan holds a broken world together – for the birth of the Messiah took place this way – not the way Joseph wanted it to – it took place this way. I was thankful to talk with Lucy Scotty Kuykendall this weekend. As the wife of an obstetrician and as the mother of another, Lucy Scot has heard more incredible stories of childbirth than most. She’s heard many stories of men in the delivery room who took one look at the baby and realized only then what Joseph was told in a dream, and while there have been those who walked right out of the delivery room or fainted on the spot when faced with this harsh truth, more often the birth of a child is such a profound thing that even the most betraying details become simply details. I pray that the same will be true for you this Christmas. I pray that in witnessing the birth of the Christ child you will realize that nothing else – not the imperfect turkey, not the senseless arguments, not the un-received gift or the broken expectation will matter so much as the birth of a child. Joseph managed to do what so few people ever achieve – to look at life and to accept it for what it is rather than what you had wished it would be. He witnessed the birth of a child and realized that nothing else really matters, for this child, “he will save his people from their sins.” Thanks be to God. Amen.

Help me to sing

Luke 2: 39-56, NT page 57 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord. And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home. Sermon Something that I’ve learned is that you kind of have to know who you are talking to, before you go and tell them just anything. You need to know about who you are talking to, because, at this point, how you talk about President Barak Obama depends on who you are talking to. How you talk about health care, even what you call it – Obama Care or the Affordable Health Care Act – that depends on who you are talking to, and if you misjudge who you are talking to you may end up not in a conversation but an argument. You know who Paige Chamberlain is – he is one of my favorite members of our community, one of our most well-known and respected – and I went out on a limb the other day and told him that I had recently been to a yoga class. “Yoga?” he said, “That hurts me to hear about.” And that is just reality – if you want to talk about yoga you have to choose wisely who you are going to talk to about yoga or the conversation may end up being even shorter than that. Fortunately, for Paige and for the sake of our lunch together, there are many other things to talk about that spark his interest and mine, and, on which, we can stay on the same wave-length. Over lunch at Christy’s with Bob Towler last Thursday we talked about all kinds of things that interest all three of us – who lived in what house and when, who is still alive and who isn’t, and can you trust Bob Duncan’s account of such and such event or can’t you. While we were talking about this kind of thing we were interrupted, as one often is when it comes to lunch with Paige Chamberlain who taught English to nearly half our community, and there engaging Paige was a man wearing a San Francisco Giants jacket and shorts. “It’s a little cold for shorts isn’t it?” Paige asked him, and then I stopped really listening assuming that a man in a San Francisco Giants jacket and shorts in January might not be talking with Paige about anything that I really wanted to hear about until this man asked Paige whether or not he’d like to go with him and his wife to see the opera. Unlike yoga, Paige loves to talk about the opera, and so they went on talking and talking about Puccini, Strauss, Stravinsky, and whether or not Gershwin qualified. Paige finally came to his senses, reconciling the appearance of this man and his great knowledge of opera. The man seemed to realize this and said, “It’s amazing the music you’ll start to love if you just give it a try.” It was at this point that I introduced myself to Peter Hudson, realizing that the former owner of Sam Hills is much more than meets the eye – but that’s just how it is. We look for people to share ourselves to – we look for people like us – and we trust our likes and dislikes, our passions and hobbies, our politics and our religion, mostly to people who we hope might understand. So Mary goes to Elizabeth. Because Elizabeth is the one who just might understand, after all, she’s pregnant too. You see, they were already whispering about Elizabeth in the streets and at the luncheons. Mary wasn’t the only one who had gotten pregnant when she wasn’t supposed to. “At her age,” they were saying, “at her age people will be mistaking her for this child’s grandmother,” and they were saying that because she was older than she was supposed to be. Zechariah and Elizabeth had been waiting and their barrenness had defined them during those years that normal people start their families and went on defining them far beyond those years, so when an angel came and told Zechariah that Elizabeth would be having a baby he no more believed it than Mary’s mother would have believed that she was still a virgin should Mary have been foolish enough to tell her mother about this pregnancy. And can you imagine that – being pregnant and not being able to tell your own mother for fear of how she would react? Of course you can – it happens all the time. If your father wants you to grow up and be a doctor like he is, then you don’t rush home to tell him that you got the lead in your first off-Broadway play because he will be incapable of giving you the congratulations that you want. If your sister hates him, then guard yourself before you tell her about your engagement. And if your mother will see that pregnant belly and will only think about how you’ve just lost any chance of a proper wedding – how Joseph now has every right to walk away once he finds out – if you’ll want sympathy for your swelling ankles know that all she’ll be able to focus on is the lack of a ring on your finger – if you want her to be happy when she’s afraid that you’ll be stoned for adultery – then you are going to have to go to see someone else – you are just going to have to go and talk to someone else who might understand. So, “in those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” Do you know how much that meant to her? Do you have any idea what it must have felt like to finally have someone who wasn’t ashamed to have her in her house, to finally have someone who would believe her story, and to be able to sit down in her kitchen so that Elizabeth might share in Mary’s joy? A large portion of our scripture lessons for this morning is one of the most well-known passages of scripture in the Bible – it’s known as the Magnificat. The Magnificat is Mary’s song of joy, of faithfulness, of hope. She sings: My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.” It’s important to read this passage in its context, because she doesn’t sing right after the angel comes to see her to tell her about this pregnancy. No, she sings in Elizabeth’s house, and I’ll bet you know exactly why. She sings then, because it’s not always possible to sing when you are alone. In the funeral services at our church we often sing hymns, but rarely is the family able to sing out the words, so overwhelmed by loss and sadness. And I stand here and watch as the congregation carries them, singing with and for mourning families when they’re not able to sing alone. You do the same thing for parents when their children are baptized. I’m standing next to them and I know they’re not singing the words to “Jesus loves me” that we sing after every baptism, and they’re not singing because they aren’t thinking about singing – they’re thinking about finally getting their baby who has been on the brink of crying for the entire service up until this point out and into the nursery where she can have her pacifier and get into some clothes that aren’t family heirlooms, and can cry as loud as she wants. They can’t be expected to sing in that moment – so you sing for them – and they can’t be expected to raise that child on their own either – so through the liturgy of baptism you promise to help them raise their child in the faith as well. And children can’t always be expected to sing either of course. I watch my own daughter stand during the hymns next to Susie Baxter, standing just how Ms. Susie stands, holding her hymnal just like Ms. Susie even though it’s upside down. And Ms. Susie helps her to sing you see. Last Sunday during communion I watched as John Satterwhite walked down the aisle, and he stood right beside Ava Corbin who was serving as an acolyte. I watched as he put his arm around her so they could share her hymnal – and I don’t really know who was helping who to sing, but it was a beautiful image that I won’t soon forget. Mary sings – but Elizabeth is there to help her sing those words when her own mother was tied up in worry as mothers sometimes are. Elizabeth is there for the girl to help her to sing, just as you must be there to help the children of this church sing faithful songs in a world where so much happens that they’ll know neither how to explain nor accept. This world of ours is full of tragedy and miracles, so stand beside one another, and stand especially beside the children and the teenagers who you have promised in their baptism to nurture in the faith – and help them to sing. Help them to sing songs of hope when the world as they know it comes to an end. In that moment help them to sing about God’s constant presence for when the Lord might have seemed to be clearly absent Mary sang, “Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.” Help them to sing songs of trust when life’s path takes an unexpected turn and everyone it seems is against them for “He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.” And help them even then to sing songs of joy, for with Elizabeth, Mary sang in what might have been her darkest hour, “He has helped his servant Israel, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” This Christmas give thanks for those who have been Elizabeth to you, and sing, out of praise to God just as Mary did so long ago. Amen.

Let Us Walk

Isaiah 2: 1-5, OT page 631-632 The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; All the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord! Sermon I’ve told you before about my grandfather, my mother’s father, who grew up in a place called the Caw-Caw Swamp in the Low Country of South Carolina. He was born into a world I have to work to imagine. In the time and place of his childhood things were different than what they are now. You couldn’t just run to the store to get what you needed, there were no stores to just run out to, so mostly what you didn’t have you learned to do without. There was no access to Spanish or Italian wine in the Caw-Caw Swamp, so my grandfather’s mother made her own in the bathtub. And when my grandfather was born, several weeks premature, there was no specialist to refer him to if there was a doctor present at all. Nor was there an incubator to put him in where he might slowly make up for lost time in the womb, he was born and his only chance of survival was his mother’s ability to make due. It’s a well-known story in my family, that when my grandfather was born premature, my great-grandmother put bricks in the fire place, and once they were good and warm she used those hot bricks to fence in the pallet she made on the floor for my newborn grandfather. There he stayed warm, and there, by the grace of God and his mother’s ingenuity, he survived. Now that I have children of my own I have gained a small sense of what this must have been like for her. Before the baby is born, the dreams and the worries can be big. There are bikes and worries over elementary schools. There are thoughts of college and how it will be paid for. For the parents of little girls, there might even also be thoughts of marriage and how much the wedding will cost, but somewhere in the hospital other possibilities become so real and the dreams become smaller. Parents hope, as nurses hover around and monitors chart a little heartbeat, not for Harvard, but simply for another heartbeat. In the delivery room, there is no thought of the perfect wedding, but just for a baby who keeps breathing. So, I imagine my great-grandmother, in one scene feeling her pregnant belly and dreaming big dreams, but then I see here there, warming bricks in the fire and stacking them around her newborn son, just praying that he’ll stay with her another hour, maybe another day. Her dreams became small surely, as sometimes dreams have to. The dreams of the Israelite people had become small at the time the prophet Isaiah saw the vision that our second scripture lesson is based on. They were a small nation, no longer the military power that they were at the height of King David’s reign, and during the prophet Isaiah’s lifetime they had to fear the great power of Assyria, who will eventually force them out of Jerusalem and into exile. Their dreams had become, not big dreams of greatness and strength, but simply of survival. You can imagine the hope that they had for their children – maybe that they would have the chance to leave home and work in one of the Assyrian cities where they would have the chance to do something with their life. They hoped small hopes for their daughters – that she would marry well, marry a man who could scrape together a living – thinking little of love and even less of happiness. Israel – what hope had Israel? But the prophet saw a vision. A vision in which people will not stream out of Israel for some place better – no, that is too small a dream – the prophet sees a time when all the nations shall stream to Israel. They will not go somewhere else to learn something worth knowing – for – that is not aiming high enough. The prophet sees a time when all people will seek out the house of the God of Jacob to learn how to walk in paths of righteousness based in the word of the Lord. And the Lord shall judge between the people, bringing forth righteousness and justice – the time of frustration and futile hope will be over. Even those who are bold to hope for a time when Israel might defeat Assyria haven’t hope for enough for the time is coming says the prophet, when “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” But maybe you think that’s dreaming too big? Or maybe you’re not dreaming big enough. On Thanksgiving Day a man in Culleoka killed his wife over a pair of shoes. This event causes me to wonder – have we hoped for enough? Is there no more to life than a pair of shoes? Surely this Christmas there are those who will settle for small hopes. Rather than dream big dreams of happiness, there are those who will settle to hope for the things that the world has told them to hope for: a new television, some video game system, while others will go so far as to dream for a new Lexus parked in the driveway with a bright red bow – but I tell you, none of them has dreamed for enough. Just think about the world we live in – just think about what God has done already. Our own Beth Himes now oversees a floor in our local hospital that can do things for premature babies that my great-grandmother would never have dreamed of in a million years, so why then would you underestimate the power of God? The commercials tell you to want the kinds of things that are possible, but I’m telling you today that Christmas wishes should not have so much to do with what is possible according to human power. By human power there is a chance of all kinds of gifts and delicious food, and all it will take is a maxed-out credit card. But as I consider the prophecy made in Isaiah I realize that our dreams have become too small. Too often we leave the notion that swords will someday be beaten into plowshares to the foolhardy idealists who don’t understand how the real world works – but in dreaming too small, have you failed to understand how God works? The Lord can change what you cannot. The Lord can bring peace to the very heart of war. The Lord knows your inmost desire – that hope so fragile that you wouldn’t dare speak it much less actually hope it – the Lord knows what you really want for Christmas and I tell you that you should not be so quick to settle for the same thing you asked for last year. Have you given up on the idea, the dream, that everyone would give up fighting this season – that your children and grandchildren would calm down long enough to get along - and have you resigned yourself to something less? Have you given up on the idea that there would not just be a full house, but a house full of love? Have you started to dream of something smaller because your heart has gone hopeless? Have you stopped dreaming of a better life and just started hoping for some better channels on TV so you don’t have to think about it anymore? Have you stopped dreaming the big dreams? If you have than remember that Isiah is talking about a day when war will be no more – and if the Lord is about doing such work as that don’t you imagine that God can handle something more than a stocking full of Lifesavers? Dream big dreams. And until they come true, “let us walk in the light of the Lord.” Walk in the promise, not of what is, but of what will be. Walk in the light that shines forth from the God of heaven and earth, and know that no darkness will ever overcome it. Walk towards such a future, such a dream, greater than what you have dared imagine, and know that the Shepherd of Israel who is to be born in a manger will lead you there. Amen.