Where'd Christmas Go?

A lay person called today to tell me about a comic strip she loves, and how one recent installment had gotten her thinking. Here's the strip.

The woman who told me about this strip half asked, half asserted, "Isn't this how we're left feeling after Christmas?"

She's right. The cat's right. Christmas isn't done. Traditionally, and at least technically still, we Western Christians consider it Christmas until Epiphany on January 6th (think of the song, "The 12 Days of Christmas" deriving from medieval English celebrations and feasting through the Feast of the Epiphany). But for all practical purposes, we North American Christians are like Arlo and Janis' cat, except instead of just wondering where the tree is, we're wondering, "Where'd Christmas go?"

For weeks, when I'd be meeting with people or working from a local coffee shop, there had been Christmas music playing. I was there Monday to study scripture with others. There were no angels to be heard on high, no holy nights, not even any jingle bells. Christmas, it seems, at least in the general North American consciousness, has gone the way of Santa Claus: here today, done with its work, and gone tomorrow until the furor of another year.

For local business, this makes sense. The economic spectacle of Christmas is over (or nearly so once the returns are made and the gift cards used). They've no use for the enfleshed deity, the Savior whose birth we celebrate on Christmas, beyond the over-emphasized event of gift-giving initiated by the wise men (Mt.2:1-12), once done in Jesus' name.

However, for us as Christians in this North American culture, the condensation and abbreviation Christmas is a harmful habit that should be given up. I am not saying that "Christmas should be in your heart all year round." Such sentimentality too is in err, for Jesus does not stay a baby. Certainly, we need Christ in our hearts and actions daily, but we do not, necessarily need baby Jesus always at the fore of our thoughts. Nevertheless, we do need to consider and worship longer the Lord of Creation who took on flesh in Jesus, and ponder with Mary (Luke 2:19) what a strange a wonderful thing this means for Creation, for us, for the trajectory of our lives as disciples of Jesus.

God With Us

Sermon for Christmas Eve - Year C

Isaiah 9:2-7 & Luke 2:1-20

Tonight, as we do every year especially on this night, we’ve gathered together to celebrate and remember well the story of Jesus’ birth. Sometimes, we in the church call his birth the Incarnation, which is a big word that simply means, “to make into flesh, or put on flesh.” As one who likes big and specific words, I like having the term Incarnation, but there’s perhaps a better word that conveys the same thing for us tonight: Emmanuel, which means, “God with us” – it’s a name Matthew’s gospel uses for Jesus before he’s even named Jesus. So, really, tonight, we’ve come to hear again how God, the Almighty Creator of all that is, became “God with us” in Jesus, born in Bethlehem.

We’ve gathered to hear the story, so let’s retell it again, briefly. God created the world and humans with it so that there would be something, someone else to receive God’s overflowing love. But the world chose to go its own way, rather than obeying God and basking in God’s love. Since that time, long, long ago, God’s love for Creation has not diminished. God has continued to reach out to Creation in hopes of bringing her back to Godself. God chose a people called Israel to be the bearers of God’s blessings for others, but they too fell away from God. Yet, the people of Israel remained hopeful that God would send a Messiah, a Savior, through the people of Israel, to fully and permanently establish God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

Skipping forward many years, to around the year we call the first Year of our Lord (AD), Jewish people like Mary and Joseph are still hoping for God’s promised Messiah when angels come to them and proclaim that the baby Mary is carrying will be the one, the Messiah, the Savior. They’re not married at the time – she hasn’t even known a man in that way – but through the Holy Spirit, it comes to pass, as we read tonight in Luke, that Mary had her baby. Meanwhile, some angels go and tell some shepherds watching their flocks by night in fields near the little town of Bethlehem. They’re shocked and amazed, at first just by the appearance of these holy messengers, but then also by the news they bring – the long-awaited Messiah has been born!

Luke tells it all so matter-of-factly that we might overlook the birth for a while. There’s no one there except Mary and Joseph. Luke uses more words to describe the census and the government than he does for Jesus’ birth. They’re staying in a Bethlehem stable because there wasn’t any room at the inn – and perhaps also because the innkeeper knew that giving birth is a messy event that one would prefer to do apart from the busyness of a bustling inn. The holy family is alone, and as theologian Alister McGrath says, “Visitors may have come, but they did not linger” (Incarnation, 17).

“Visitors may have come, but they did not linger.” That line caught me as I was reading: it seemed strange. This is, after all, the birth of the Savior, the long-anticipated Messiah. If it were today, we’d expect fanfare, media, perhaps even E News. But, aside from those who’ve heard from angels, or later, those who’ve followed stars, few are there. The shepherds, and then the wise men from the East, come to visit, but they do not linger.

Perhaps the same can be said of us: we come, as we have here for worship, but we do not linger long. Even on this holy night on which we celebrate that God is with us in the person of Jesus, we come with frazzled nerves and frantic thoughts. Is dinner ready? Will our guests be able to make it through the storm? Have we forgotten anyone in our last mad dashes through the mall? Perhaps others of us gathered are distracted by other feelings and thoughts: longing for a loved one who’s absent; saddened by the death of a friend or family member; frustrated by a spouse or child who never seems to understand or do what is needed. And before very long, we’ll be off again, worship done, our obligation finished.

Yet, for just a little while longer, let us linger. With the shepherds, we’ve been beckoned to come and see the child born in Bethlehem, who is our Savior, and the Savior of the world. Let us linger and consider him, whom we call Emmanuel.

Jesus is, indeed, God with us. In him we see the greatness of God’s love for Creation, the lengths to which God goes to show us how much God loves us and draw us back to Godself. Jesus’ birth is like God saying to each of us, “See, this is how much I love you. I’m God, Creator of the universe, but I’ve come here for you. I’ve put aside all that power and have come in the weakest of packages, a little baby, born into a humble family. See how much I love you.” When God takes on flesh in the person of Jesus, God shows us that even in our earthly, limited condition, we can be in relationship with God. When God takes on humanity, God draws humanity back to Godself. In Jesus, God comes and lingers with us, walking with us, showing us how and enabling us to live as God created us to, showing us what’s important in life, showing us that no worry or care is too small as to go unnoticed or cared for by God.

The message of Christmas, the message God sends the world through the birth of Jesus, is that God is with us, for us, and wants us to be with God. And even still today, God continues to linger with us in Jesus in so many ways – through the love and support of friends and through the kindness of strangers. And tonight, we also get to experience God’s presence with us through our celebration of Jesus’ holy meal. We receive bread and wine, and we taste and see that God is still with us. We eat and drink, and God fills us with God’s presence, and power, and love, that we might draw a little closer to God, that we might linger a little while longer. And then, like the shepherds, God leads us out in the strength of God’s Spirit to share the good news of God’s love with others with praise on our lips sing, “Glory to God in the highest!” Amen.

God in the Unexpected

Preparing Our Hearts and Minds for Worship:

• Where, or in what events or people, have you seen God’s activity in the last week? In the last month? In the last year?
• Have you shared this testimony of God with anyone else?
• If so, what was his/her reaction?
• If not, why not?

Sermon for the Fourth Lord's Day of Advent - 12.20.09

Micah 5:2-5a & Luke 1:39-55

This morning as we gathered for worship, I asked some questions that I have been challenged with this week pertaining to our scriptures. Here they are again.

- Where, or in what events or people, have you seen God’s activity in the last week? In the last month? In the last year?

- Have you shared this testimony of God with anyone else?

- If so, what was his/her reaction?

- If not, why not?

At the Ministerial Association gathering we had this week, we all shared ways we had seen God’s presence recently. It was a wonderful time to celebrate Christ’s ministry in Grand Island; however, I noticed that we weren’t jumping up and down in anticipation for our turn to share. Now, I’m not a jump up and down person. Not in the least. But it got me thinking. I’ve been in other groups and done this same sharing of testimonies about what God has done – even at some meetings in this church – and it often gets very quiet when this question is asked. Usually, people do share things after considerable reflection, but it doesn’t often seem very celebratory, as I think it should when we’re talking about the activity of the Almighty God in our midst.

Why is this so? There are good reasons. Perhaps it’s that we’re surprised by the question; or that it doesn’t seem to fit with the meeting or context; or that we’re afraid what we say will be too trivial or silly and we’ll sound stupid. But in this, I wonder if the real reason is that when asked, we all start looking for the huge things, and we overlook the little, everyday experiences of God’s grace. I’m guilty of it. We look for the burning bushes, the pillars of fire, the miraculous healings, and the booming Voice. And we overlook God’s presence in the comforting touch, the kind words of encouragement, the life turned around, and the simple gift of peace. If there’s one thing that we should learn through Advent and Christmas, it’s that God works in little things and unexpected places.

Take our passage from the prophet Micah. He’s writing and doing his prophet thing in the Southern Kingdom of Judah around the time that the Assyrians are overthrowing the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Think of the anxiety. The supreme world power of the day is bearing down violently on your northern neighbor, eventually overtaking them, and you fearfully know that you’re next in line. Northerners are flooding into your towns and countryside and overwhelming your economy. With this turmoil, you’d be looking for God to raise up a strong leader to step up and lead the country back into prosperity – you’re looking to the armies, the politicians, the elite, and begging God for this kind of savior.

Within this environment, Micah offers God’s word of hope, but it doesn’t come from the expected places. Through Micah, God promises that a savior will come, but not from the army, not from the leading families, not from the royalty. God speaks to Bethlehem, one of the little clans of Judah, and tells them that the savior, the one who will bring stability, security, and peace to the people, will come from Bethlehem. Some hearing this might have thought, From Bethlehem? Please! How can the savior come from such a tiny, country place? But such questions show they’d forgotten that God raised up Israel’s greatest king, David, from this same area of Bethlehem. He began his life as the youngest shepherd boy of Jesse. From this area, this unexpected little town and clan, God promises to raise up the savior, the one who will lead with the strength of the Lord like a shepherd feeding and protecting his flock. And what’s more, this savior will be the “one of peace,” Micah tells us, bringing security not through violence and war, but through the humble service and self-giving love of a good shepherd (v.5).

And now, consider our long passage from Luke – Mary’s visit to her relative Elizabeth and Mary’s song/prayer, the “Magnificat.” Nothing about God’s activity in this passage screams, I’M ACTIVE HERE, LOOK AND SEE! There’s no burning bush, just two pregnant women in the backwoods, Judean hill country, and a kicking baby in the womb. Yet, as baby John in Elizabeth’s womb moves at the sound of Mary’s voice – perhaps even jumping for joy – the Holy Spirit fills Elizabeth with joy and proclamation: “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?” (vv.42-3). In the hill country. Two women. A baby’s in utero movements. Elizabeth expresses her amazement, Who am I that the mother of the Lord would come to me? Nothing about this scene or the situation of two pregnant women meeting suggests that one would normally expect to see the presence and power of God. But God was present there, and we can see Elizabeth’s surprise at God’s presence.

Mary expresses the same sentiment in her song. O, my soul magnifies the Lord…who has “looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant” (v.46-8). Lowliness. Mary knew that in society’s eyes, she was next to nothing – a young, Jewish girl who was pregnant and without a husband. And yet, God chose her to be the bearer of the Son of God. And as she sings, she proclaims the work God will do through her son as though it’s already happened – even though it hadn’t happened yet. She praises God for completely turning the world order on its head: scattering the proud, dethroning the powerful, lifting up the lowly, filling the hungry while sending away the rich. She sings and praises God, claiming God’s preferential option for the poor, claiming what is being made true inside her womb: that God works through little things in unexpected places. She’s seeing God’s activity, God’s blessings, coming to the world through the child she’s carrying. As the holiday song by Dave Clark says, “What a strange way to save the world.” Never did she expect that God would choose her to be the one to bring the world’s savior into the world, but God did, through an innocent, little baby.

In our passages today, we see God’s precedent for showing up and working wonders in the midst of ordinary people in unexpected times and places. This brings us back to our earlier question: Where have we seen God at work? Implicit in this is another question: Have we been looking for God in the wrong places, or expecting God to work in a certain way?

Today, let’s begin a spiritual practice that will bolster our faith, encourage us in mission, and praise God more fully. Let’s list some of the ways we’ve seen God at work, especially in the unexpected and little ways. Please continue to do this during the coming weeks, and when you think of one, PLEASE share it with others.

- With your help, the youth group raised money used to buy Christmas gifts for a father and daughter who have been struggling. They bought a lot of great gifts, both useful and fun. To know that others care about them and that God cares about them is truly a miraculous gift.

- When Gloria helped serve Communion a couple weeks ago, she touched every person’s hand. One person in the congregation told me, “It was like Jesus was right there with me, holding my hand.”

- Travis shared his testimony last week about how God has transformed his life and is leading him out of addiction. And when he shared, he told of how he experienced God’s love through this congregation.

- I hear frequently about how many of you visit others in our congregation, extending loving relationship to them when they’re unable to come out to find it. When we visit, we spread God’s care and love.

- Some of the women at Faith prepared and served a funeral dinner for the family of Vi Remboldt, offering a very important time to fellowship and celebrate the life of their loved one.

- And how many of you scooped snow for your neighbors during our recent storm?

- Or, there’s a mitten tree in the Fellowship Hall so that kids at Howard Elementary can stay warm playing in all this snow. For those kids, knowing that others care about them is an experience of God’s love.

That’s just a small list. There aren’t any burning bushes, but I can assure you that God’s love is felt and known. Through these small things, God is breaking into this world and transforming hearts. God is doing amazing, miraculous, life-transforming things in unexpected, little ways and places – even in Grand Island and Faith UMC. The question is, can we believe it and get involved? Can we stand with Mary, everyday, and sing, O, let me magnify, let me make clear and apparent the Lord, the Savior of the world!

Faith to Go Out

Last night at our annual Church Conference, our district superintendent, the Rev. Harold Backus shared a video and a meditation about the church turning itself outwards toward those not in our fellowship who desperately need to know the love, healing, and redemption of God. In this meditation, he also shared an alternate interpretation of the image of Jesus standing at the door knocking. This image stood in stained glass in a church he served. It became part of his prayer practice to greet this Jesus and invite him in. Then one day, the Spirit led him to suspect that Jesus wasn't wanting to come in, but instead wanting those in to "come out and play."

Then this morning in a devotion I receive through email for Advent (see below for instructions on how you too can receive these devotions), this verse was the foundation for a message of hope and faithful following:

"By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going" (Heb.11:8, NRSV).

I'd always admired the faith of Abram and Sarai (for the "set out" before their names were changed) for their faith in following God's direction and trusting in God's promise, but I have never noticed the "set out" phrase, which occurs twice in this sentence.

As one with an office in a church building and another at home, who spends a great deal of time writing and reading, this phrase is a challenge and a judgment against me. Perhaps it's also a judgment of how institutions (like churches) can become inward-focused over time. As an example, think of businesses who start to care more for the interests of their shareholders than those whom they serve with the products they make or their employees. Or, closer to home, think of churches who employ great deals of energy, personal participation, and money on renovating and/or maintaining historic buildings while passersby continue struggling to make ends meet in a world that seems ever more hopeless.

Bowed in receipt of this judgment, I hear the hopeful challenge from a God who knows the highways and byways of human life intimately. Our hope of Advent is that God sent the Son to make a way for all Creation to draw close to God, to be made whole, and that the Son will come again in glory to bring God's kingdom in full on earth as it is in heaven. Yet, our Advent hope is also closer than those far-off phrases. God is calling us out to play, to worship, to serve with and for others, and God is going with us, leading us into promise and blessing that all creation might know the blessedness of God.

If you too would like to receive daily devotions during Advent and Lent, please send an e-mail with your e-mail address as the subject and “join meditations” in the body of the e-mail to mharewood@episcopalchurch.org.

Fruits in Keeping with Repentance

Preparing Our Hearts and Minds for Worship: (on email and facebook)

• What is preventing you from knowing and loving God more fully?
• What's preventing you from being more like whom God created you to be?
• What does that person look like?
• What does the YOU God created and sees look like, act like, live like?

Sermon for the Third Lord's Day of Advent - 12.13.09

Luke 3:7-18

Introduction Before Travis' Testimony and Prayer:

In today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke, we encounter John the Baptizer proclaiming the good news by challenging his hearers to “bear fruits worthy of repentance” (v.8). In other words, John is saying, If you claim to be believers, if you claim to be repentant, then your lives should be productive: repentance bears fruit in and for the world.

As I thought and prayed about repentance, what it looks like, what it means for our lives, I wanted a story of repentance in real life. Then I remembered something. When I arrived here last summer we heard testimonies every week. During that time, I remembered, that Travis had told me he’d been thinking of telling his story of God’s work in his life, but that he wasn’t ready yet. So I reminded him of this and asked if he was ready. As he prepares to share of God’s work in his life, let us pray:

Holy Spirit,

In every age, you have set ablaze people’s hearts for God.

Send your fire into our lives this day,

that as your Word is read, witnessed to, and proclaimed,

we might leave this place fired up to give ourselves for others in your name.

In Christ, in your Holy church, through you, Spirit, we pray. Amen.

After Travis’ Testimony

God led me to ask Travis to share his testimony, because what Travis has just shared is a textbook example of repentance. In its original Greek(metanoia), the word repentance that John uses in our passage today means literally, after/behind one’s mind. Figuratively, repentance implies having a change of mind, heart, and action, after something; a thinking/living differently than before. When we think of repentance we think of a complete U-Turn in life and thought: once we did and thought that, but now, we do/think this. What is more, repentance is related ultimately to God: we turn from something, some sin or distraction, toward God and who God calls us to be. In Travis’ testimony, we saw clearly the way sobriety is repentance: by the grace and power of God, Travis has turned from alcohol and sin toward God and the new, productive, fruit-bearing life God has for Travis.

John the Baptizer’s message for those gathered that day, and today, is that God calls us to be more than we are. God calls us to repent so that our lives might produce good fruit.

Let’s consider for a moment the image of trees and fruit that John uses. Now, some people know tree species like they know the back of their hands, but most of us don’t. So bear with me as one who doesn’t know trees. Imagine there are all sorts of trees outside our church instead of a parking lot, even trees we don’t normally see around here: apple, orange, avocado, cashew, oak, banana, maple. How do you tell the difference between them, now, when all the leaves and fruit are gone and snow covers the ground? Except for experts who know trees by their bark, or the way they lean in the breeze, we know trees by their fruits. The same is true for gardens – unless you’re a gardener. To me, until it bears fruit or I planted it, I couldn’t tell you the difference between pumpkin, cucumber, squash, watermelon, or cantaloupe plants. We know plants by their fruit.

John knew this, so when crowds of people came to hear him preach and be baptized, his message was full of challenge: you’re not living like those who are truly repentant, like whom God created you to be. The crowd was diverse: non-Jewish Roman soldiers, religious Jews pridefully claiming Abraham as their ancestor as though this meant they were more godly, and tax collectors – who knows whether they’re Jewish or not? From the start, John can see that thus far, their lives aren’t reflecting their repentance and desire to live into whom God created them to be. So he charges them, Live in such a way that your repentance, your faith, shows and bears good fruit!

And so they ask, “What are we to do?” To the Jewish crowds, he implores them to be generous and caring, giving food and clothes out of their abundance. To the tax collectors, he tells them to be just and honest, rather than greedily collecting more than was required. To the soldiers, he tells them to be fair and content, instead of taking money from others by violence.

And what about us? John’s challenging judgment is for us too: Live in such a way that your repentance and your faith shows! Your life should bear good fruit! True repentance produces fruit! Similar to last week when we considered how our lives reflect God to others, our lives ought to bear fruit for others. Consider the questions I asked as we gathered:

- What is preventing you from knowing and loving God more fully and being who God created you to be?

o For those with John, their mentality of prideful conceitedness, greed, and violent hatred of others kept them from knowing God and living as God created them to be.

For each of us, perhaps, the answers are different. But, God created each of us to bear fruit, fruit that sustains others, gives life to others, shares God’s love with others. There are things in our lives that, if we turned away from them, repented of them, we would be closer to God and more like who God created us to be. For this reason, I’ve given you each three Take-Home Questions. Consider them in your prayers. Talk to others about them if you want. You’re welcome to talk to me too.

Prepare the Way of the Lord: Take-Home Questions

on the Third Lord’s Day of Advent, 2009

- What is God calling you to turn away from in order to turn toward God and whom God created you to be?

o Bluntly, is there a specific sin you need to repent of that’s preventing you from being more whom God created you to be?

- To whom does God call you to be nice, fair, and generous?

o Be specific: Not just “the poor” or “church people” or “our neighbor.”

- What must you do in order to meet that person with goodness, fairness, and generosity?

All those crowded around John the Baptizer, those in the First Century and those here today through the Gospel of Luke, hear challenge in his words, but we also hear good news, which Luke says John continued to proclaim. See, John doesn’t believe that repentance and fruit-bearing are things people do alone. He calls us in the name of God and promises that God is going to cleanse us with the Spirit and fire as well as water. God empowers us to repent so we can be fruitful. In John’s preaching, the people weren’t turning away. They weren’t scared. They’re excited and hopeful. Just before our text, John proclaimed that in repenting, they’d be forgiven by God, who would cleanse them so that all people will see the salvation of God (3.6). And this gives them hope, so much hope even that it’s drawn Jews and non-Jews alike to the riverside to be baptized, to be made whole, to be connected with God and one another. God is still working in our midst in the same way, calling us to repentance, calling us to bear fruit that demonstrate our commitment to God and to others, and God is empowering us to repent so that we can bear such good fruit for others.

Refined for Reflection

Thoughts Before Worship (I sent these out via email and facebook on Friday):

• When you look in a mirror, what do you see? When others look at you, what do they see? How are we like mirrors? What/whom do we reflect? What makes for good reflection, or poor?

Sermon for the Second Lord's Day of Advent Year C - Dec. 6, 2009

Malachi 3:1-4

I’m an amateur photographer. I like taking pictures, especially of landscapes, and though I’ve never taken such a picture, I love those pictures of landscapes reflected in water. Have you seen pictures like this? As if the mountains weren’t beautiful enough, in these pictures, you can see them twice – once as they are, and once reflected in the lake below, almost exactly the same. I like such pictures because of their beauty, but I think I also like them because we don’t see such reflections here. Around here, we’re surrounded by muddy, dirty, water used for irrigation and filled with field run-off – think of the Platte River or Mormon Island. In the right light, at the right angle, you can see reflections, but they’re not clear, not precise – the image reflected isn’t really much like the original at all. And this issue of reflection is, in a way, exactly what our reading from Malachi is getting at today.

The book of Malachi is a strong prophetic judgment against the people of Israel, and especially the priests, in the late Fifth Century BC. It calls the people to turn back to God, to be again whom God created them to be. From the beginning with Abraham, God blessed the people of Israel that they might be a blessing to others, a reflection of God’s love that all nations might know God. As Moses stood on Mt. Sinai, God proclaims that Israel is supposed to be a “priestly kingdom, a holy nation” (Ex19.6).

God’s people are supposed to reflect God’s love and spread God’s blessings, but according to Malachi, they aren’t even close. For homework, read the four chapters of Malachi to see for yourself God’s judgment of the people, but now, let’s focus on the priests, the “Levites.” God accuses the priests of “defiling God” and “showing contempt for the name of God” by offering food sacrifices from defiled, unclean animals (Mal.1). These priests have gotten lazy and sloppy in their service – only twenty to forty years after the new Temple was built after the Babylonian exile. They’re actually preventing the people from connecting with God and being who God called them to be.

In the midst of this mess, in walks Malachi – whose name means, “messenger” – to bear God’s prophetic word of judgment and hope to the Temple leaders and the people of Israel. Prepare the way of the Lord, he cries, for God is sending a messenger and then God is coming to the temple. And when God comes to the temple, Malachi tells us, God will be like a refiner’s fire and like a fuller’s soap – like lye soap.

Indeed, Malachi promises, God is coming like a refiner’s fire, like lye soap, to purify the descendants of Levi – the priests – and refine them like silver and gold. God refines the priests so that they can serve God faithfully by offering righteous sacrifices on behalf of the people. In that time, the way people connected with God was through the sacrifices offered by priests. So, when God purifies the priests and makes their offerings acceptable and pleasing, God is making a way for the people to connect with God.

Further, consider Malachi’s image of a silversmith refining silver with fire. The silversmith holds the piece of silver in the middle of the hottest part of a fire in order to burn away all the impurities – called dross. She holds it there as long as it takes and then pulls it out just before the piece of silver itself melts away. Now, you ask, how does she know when the time is right? That’s easy. She knows that all the junk metal has been burned away and the silver is purified when she can see her reflection in it. When God refines the priests – and everyone, as part of a priestly nation – the reflection of God is seen in their lives.

Similar to the people of Israel to whom Malachi wrote, God calls all Christians to be a “priestly kingdom, a holy nation, God’s own people” (1Pe2.9). We too are created and called to be reflections of God’s grace that others might come to know the saving love of God in Christ. Yet, take a moment and ponder this: Are we at Faith reflecting God to our community like the mountain pond, or the Platte River in late July?

Malachi described the day of he Lord as a great and terrible day saying, “Who can stand?” Since the presence of God is that intense, seeing God’s perfectly clear, radiant reflection in others should be impossible to miss. People would see it, for sure. They’d look at us and see God’s love and power reflected in us.

I don’t get the impression that people in Grand Island have this experience. I tell people I’m the pastor of Faith UMC. They ask where the building is. I tell them some of the things we’re doing. They pretend to ponder and then shake their heads – haven’t heard of it. People don’t know because we are not reflecting God as well as we were created to. Now, I’m not sure how we came to this point of dim reflection, but here are two steps that I see, two ways that we, like the Israelites, gave way to the prevailing culture and strayed from the way of God.

First, to some extent, we, like many churches, have slowly grown to accept the idea that church is a Sunday thing – that being a Christian is a Sunday thing. Maybe we don’t say it, but when no one knows that I follow Christ except when someone asks me to do something on Sunday, that’s a bad thing. Being a follower of Christ is an everyday thing, an every minute thing: it’s a way of life that is plain to see. And when we as Christians allow the world to think that being a Christian is just a Sunday thing, we lead them to think that following Christ really isn’t worth their time.

And the second step of dimming reflection is that, over time, many of us began to think about the local church we are a part of as OUR church and OUR ministry, rather than Christ’s ministry through Christ’s church of which we’re a part. Now, I know this is just language and that I’m geeky about English. But think of it this way. When I want to make someone really feel welcome at my house, I tell him, Make yourself at home. My house is your house. Let me know how I can help you. That’s very different than saying, Welcome to my house. Hang your coat here, take off your shoes, and don’t touch anything. People can pick up on the subtle way our language and our actions display a sense of ownership. We say, Welcome to our church, we’re so glad you’re here, no matter who you are, but others often hear something like, Come on in. We can tell you’re different, but we’ll make you like us. There’s no reflection of God’s steadfast love and mercy when all people see and hear is that Christianity is for Sundays, and in order to be Christian, you’re going to have to just like us.

And yet, God’s promise is the same for us as it was when Malachi first proclaimed it. God is sending a messenger proclaiming, Prepare the way of the Lord! Prepare to be washed and scrubbed and have all the junk burned off you until you shine just like the radiant light of God that shines on you. Today is a day to prepare, but it is also a day to be purified. As we proclaimed in the service of baptism today, God is always at work drawing Creation back to Godself. So too is God purifying us, burning away the dross, washing away the imperfections. God is making us new, just as we celebrated during Briella’s baptism. God is purifying us so that we can reflect God’s love for others.

And during our celebration of Briella’s baptism, we each had the opportunity to recommit ourselves to Christ’s ministry through this church, and renew our part in the covenant God made with us at our own baptisms. Recommitment. Renewal. These are Advent words. Advent is the time when we hear prophets like Malachi proclaiming, “Prepare the way of the Lord!” So how should we prepare? How do we prepare to welcome God into our midst to live and reign forever? How do we prepare ourselves for God’s purifying power, for God’s fire and lye?

I propose we start with the hard judgments about our dimming reflection of God. Advent is a time that we can recommit ourselves to practices of study, prayer, and service. In these practices, we make room for God to help us realize that this isn’t really our church – it’s Christ’s – and that following Christ is an everyday way of life. In these practices, God can show us what junk needs to be burned off and get to refining. Through Malachi, God calls us to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord, who is and will fully purify us. God is purifying us so that we can reflect God’s love to others, and God is doing it little bit, by little bit through our daily practices of Christian discipleship. So this Advent season, pick up some practices that make space for God to purify us, so that all might see God reflecting clearly and radiantly in our lives.

8 Steps for Transformation

About a year ago, The United Methodist Church's communications ministry unveiled a new adversitising campaign called "Rethink Church." More than just an ad campaign, it's an inviation for churches and individuals to imagine what church might look like if it were a verb, not a noun.

This could be a very faithful tool for churches and Christian communities to really examine what it means to be a follower of Christ.

In our Annual Conference, there was recently a Rethink Church event in Lexington for laity and clergy. Pasted below are some excerpts from this event, found in full on the UMConnect.

Eight steps to transform your congregation:Source: Kotter, John P. "Winning at Change" Leader to Leader. 10 (Fall 1998): 27-33

No church today—large or small, local or global—is immune to change. To cope with new technological, competition, and demographic forces, leaders in every denomination have sought to fundamentally alter the way their congregations fulfill their mission.

These change efforts have paraded under many banners—total quality management, re-engineering, restructuring, mergers, turnarounds, consultations, refocus. Yet, despite all of this change, most church fail at managing change.

Yet, according to change management guru John Kotter, fewer than 15 of the 100 or more organizations studied have successfully transformed themselves (what a challenge). While the particulars of every case vary, Kotter has identified eight critical stages of successful change management. Mismanaging any one of these steps can undermine an otherwise well-conceived vision.

1. Establish a sense of urgency (reality orientation)

• Examine demographics, history and changing current realities
• Identify and discuss crises, potential crises, or major opportunities

2. Form a powerful guiding coalition (leadership team)

• Assemble a group with enough power to lead the change effort
• Encourage the group to work as a team

3. Create a vision

• Create a vision to help direct the change effort
• Develop strategies/prescription/action plans for achieving the vision

4. Communicate the vision

• Use every vehicle possible to communicate the new vision and strategies
• Teach new behaviors by the example of the guiding coalition

5. Empower others to act on the vision

• Get rid of obstacles to change
• Change systems or structures that seriously undermine the vision (create teams)
• Encourage risk-taking and non-traditional ideas, activities and actions

6. Plan for and create short-term wins

• Plan for visible Blockbuster Events
• Create multiple improvements

7. Consolidate improvements and produce still more change (resource focusing)

• Use increased credibility to change systems, structures and policies that don't fit the vision
• Hire, promote, and develop staff/volunteers who can implement the vision
• Reinvigorate the process with new projects, themes and change agents

8. Institutionalize new approaches

• Articulate the connections between the new behaviors and organizational success
• Develop the means to ensure leadership development and succession (leadership culture)

Hope Past the Tip-Toes

Sermon for Nov.29, 2009 - First Lord's Day of Advent

Luke 21:25-36

Thoughts before Worship:
Today is the first Lord’s Day of Advent, which I think needs just a little explanation. The word advent means coming or arrival and every year many Christians around the world specifically celebrate Advent on the four Lord’s Days before Christmas Day. Now the question: if advent means coming or arrival whose coming are we talking about? With Christmas Day within sight, we’d be right to say that during Advent, we prepare to celebrate the past event of God taking on flesh in the person of Jesus. Yet, Advent is more than a remembrance of Jesus’ birth – that’s what Christmas is for. During Advent, we also prepare for and anticipate Jesus’ final coming when he will bring God’s kingdom in full on earth as it is in heaven. Advent then, is a season of preparation – to celebrate Emmanuel’s birth well, to live faithfully between Jesus’ human life and his final coming, and to receive Christ daily in our midst. With this focus on preparation, Advent is a season ripe with anticipation – for Christmas yes, but also for the new creation.

Sermon Text:

Advent is a season for preparation – for remembering the birth of the Messiah, for receiving Christ daily in our midst, and for being ready for his final coming in glory. With such preparation comes great anticipation and this week I’ve been pondering this question: What does anticipation look like? For me, it looks like this [tip-toes around and above pulpit]. Anticipation looks like standing on your tip-toes. It’s like when I go outside to take the trash out, or do something, and for a while, Noah just stands at the door or by the windows peering around looking for me. He’s straining and looking for me to return, that is, until he loses interest and does something else. Tip-toes. It’s like when you’re waiting at home for a date to pick you up. He’s promised to be there at 6:30. You’ve been prepping and primping, perhaps with a friend to help and you’re ready at 6 (you’ll pretend not to be ready when you hear the doorbell). And for the next thirty minutes, you keep peering out the door. You pace by the windows. You talk to people between glances at the driveway. But 6:30 comes and goes and you’re wondering where he could be. You check your phone, your clock, your doorbell – does it still work? You keep looking, the anticipation is heightened by his lateness. But it gets later, and soon you end your pacing as you flop onto the couch, resigned to spend another night with TV and your family – or you throw yourself on your bed not sure whether to scream or cry. Now that’s what anticipation looks like.

And if that’s what it looks like for a date, think about how great the anticipation was for the early Christians waiting for Jesus’ promised return? In numerous places, Jesus promises to return and establish God’s kingdom in full. Luke reports this promise as from angels in the first chapter of Acts, and John reports that Jesus told the disciples that he’s going to prepare a room in the Father’s house for them and return to take them there. Anticipation. Jesus has prepared them to expect the redemption of God’s people at any moment.

And yet, when Luke writes to the Christian community near the end of the First Century, they’re still waiting, still pacing. Jesus was crucified and resurrected before leaving his disciples with a mission of spreading the good news of God’s love through Christ. People were excited and many came to believe. Through the ministry of the first disciples, now apostles, and others, like Paul, many people were coming to know God through Jesus. And there was a great sense of anticipation, that the Son of Man would come in glory and redeem God’s people soon. This is why they gathered and worshiped and taught one another, why they told and retold the stories of Jesus.

It’s like they were standing on tip-toe awaiting the promised return. But as time went on, don’t you think it began to get harder and harder to wait? In our reading today, Jesus told the disciples that “this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place” (v.32). Yet as Luke writes his account of Jesus’ life and ministry, the first generation of Jesus’ followers are all close to passing away. Jerusalem and the entire Roman Empire have been through years of upheaval and turmoil. There have been many Jewish revolts and numerous changes in Roman leadership – in the year 69 CE alone there were four different Roman Emperors. This turmoil would culminate with the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple by the Romans in 70 CE, which probably happened before Luke wrote this gospel. Thirty to forty years had gone by and still Jesus had not returned. That’s a long time to stand on tip-toes, and perhaps, some started to rock back on their heels, flopping down on the couch of their everyday routines. Meanwhile, people all around the Christians must have been asking, Where’s your Messiah now? With all this turmoil it feels like the very heavens are coming unglued and still your Messiah hasn’t come. Why keep waiting and meeting together and hoping? Don’t you see he’s not coming?

Today, we can relate to the feelings of the first readers of Luke’s gospel in the First Century. One of my favorite Advent hymns is Charles Wesley’s “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus” (UMH, 196). Singing it, we pray that Christ would return and bring full redemption to all Creation, would bring God’s kingdom in full. It’s filled with anticipation that has been building for two thousand years since God’s way of salvation was born in Bethlehem. Yet, as time has gone on, we have perhaps lost some of our vigor for the anticipation of the song. No more tip-toes; we’ve grown accustomed to our necessary, everyday routines; we’ve waiting and paced, but we too have flopped down in disappointment – he hasn’t come yet. Perhaps we give it little thought that the span of God’s history is headed toward something, toward an end. Maybe some don’t even think Jesus will come back.

But somewhere deep down we still have the seeds of hope that God is making all things new, and so we continue serving Christ through the church, we continue coming to worship on Sundays. And we wait, for Christ’s return, for Christ’s power to invigorate us for another week. We wait for other things too that seem a long time coming: for the return of greater vibrancy to our local church, for reconciliation of family members long broken apart, for the day when we’ll finally feel like we have enough; for peace between nations. And surrounding us are hoards of people wondering why we bother. Sometimes they say it. Other times we just know they’re thinking it. Why do you go to church? they ask. Why do you spend so much time with that when there’s fun to be had? Why give your money away when you can buy more stuff for Christmas? What has your Jesus done for me, or anyone else, when you can look around and see that the world is falling apart faster than we can remember? In the middle of a hurting world surrounded by naysayers, it’s awfully difficult to feel the hope and anticipation of Advent.

Yet, in our passage today, Luke is writing specifically to those in the midst of a hurting world having trouble hanging on to hope, having trouble staying on tip-toes. When we read the first part of Jesus’ speech from Mark’s gospel two weeks ago, it seemed like Jesus could have been speaking more about the destruction of the Temple and the world as the early Christians knew it. But from Luke, writing after the Temple’s destruction, Jesus’ words shift toward the end of time when Jesus would come again in glory. Yet, with the Temple already in ruins, Luke seems even more vague than Mark. There’s no set timeline of when “these things” will happen, just assurance that they will happen. And this forces his readers to focus not on when, but rather on what to do in the meantime.

Jesus instructs his disciples that they’ll know their redemption is near, they’ll know it just as clearly as they know when the seasons are about to change. The issue Jesus wants to make clear then, is not when the end will come, but how his followers are to live until that day comes. So he instructs them to be patient and stay alert. As Eugene Peterson paraphrases in The Message, Jesus says,

“[Be] on your guard. Don’t let the sharp edge of your expectation get dulled by parties and drinking and shopping. Otherwise, that Day is going to take you by complete surprise, spring on you suddenly like a trap, for it’s going to come on everyone, everywhere, at once. So, whatever you do, don’t go to sleep at the switch. Pray constantly that you will have the strength and wits to make it through everything that’s coming and end up on your feet before the Son of Man” (vv.34-36).

Jesus fills the disciples with hope so that they can live faithfully in the in-between. He fills them with hope because he assures them that he is coming, and that at his coming, all the world will know that Jesus is Lord. And in the meantime, he gives them the mission of staying ready, being prepared, and not being distracted by other things or the questions of the naysayers. And with this hope, they are strengthened to stay on their tip-toes, filled with anticipation.

And just as Jesus filled the first disciples with hope, so Jesus fills us with hope, so that we can live faithfully in the in-between. Yes, Jesus promised to return again in glory, which is what we celebrate during Advent. No, it hasn’t happened yet. But that doesn’t leave us just sitting on our hands and waiting. Instead, Jesus calls us to live faithfully and hopefully in the in-between with full assurance that the Son of Man is coming into our midst each and every day and will come again in glory to bring God’s kingdom in full. We stand on tip-toes for this day.

Christ fills us with hope precisely so that our waiting can have power, for in our hope and anticipation, we can live as faithful followers of Christ, bringing glimpses of the kingdom wherever we go. And then, this hope takes on the shape of our earlier definition of anticipation: we stand up and raise our heads, because we know that redemption is drawing near (v.28). We continue to gather for worship with excitement, energy, and joy. We worship when all the rest of the world asks why and continues to live without hope, trying to find meaning in stuff bought on sale. And with hope, we vow to keep one another alert and ready. We gather together often to pray, study, and serve others, for in doing so, we remain focused on Christ and his kingdom, rather than the worrisome, distracted ways of this present kingdom. Just as Luke’s first readers did, we live in the in-between, the time after Christ’s resurrection and before his final coming in glory. Yet, he has not left us empty-handed. He has not even left us, for he established through the Spirit his body, the Church that we might live faithfully as his followers. And in so doing, that we might bear witness to the hope we have in Christ, a hope our broken world so desperately needs to see and know. Christ fills us with hope so that we can live faithfully now, and Christ guides us on through the work of the church, that all the world might come to know the hope we have in Christ.