Psalm 27 and 1 Corinthians 1:10-17

Paul wrote this letter to the Church in Corinth from his apartment in Ephesus. Then he gave it to friends to hand deliver (16:17). When they arrived in Corinth they gave the letter to the pastor of the church or to other church leaders, so that it could be read to the congregation at its next gathering. This was the regular practice of the early church: to read aloud both Jewish and Christian writings as part of worship.

Word might have spread through the congregation that a letter from the great Apostle had arrived and would be read in worship on the first day of the week. Maybe that Sunday, the worship space was packed with people in anticipation of hearing what Paul had written.

The letter begins the same way all of Paul’s letters begin. There’s the usual greetings and a word of thanksgiving to God. Then Paul writes: you, the church in Corinth, have been enriched in Christ so that they were not lacking in any spirit gift. Can you sense the happiness of the congregation that day as Paul’s words are read aloud? God is faithful, the reader continues, by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Someone might have leaned over to a friend and said, what great, uplifting words we are hearing today.

And then I imagine the reader pauses, the paper he’s holding might be shaking a little. He’s nervous and looks around for a moment and then glances at an elder who motions him to continue reading.

And so he does: I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.

With this I imagine the smiles in the congregation are gone. The mood has changed and it’s clear that the Apostle’s letter is speaking right into the middle of that conflicted church. The reader continues: It’s been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.”

And there it is. The reason for Paul’s letter is now clear to the entire congregation. What follows is a long letter addressing the several reasons for division in Corinth. The letter ends with a series of commands: keep alert, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love. (16:13-14) I imagine there’s a long silence after the reader finishes the letter, then the pastor speaks.

Paul began with an appeal: that the Corinthians be united in the same mind and the same purpose. Unity is a theme for the entire letter. That prompts a question for me? Is unity too high a calling for the church? Church history has been one of division. In the church today there are struggles about music or how much water should be used for a baptism or the wording in a prayer book or who God calls to ministry and how mainstream exactly are Mormons? Is it too high a calling for broken people to be united in the same mind and the same purpose when it comes to church matters? We don’t have a very good track record when it comes to this.

Nevertheless, Paul wants this for the church because he believes unity in Christ helps us navigate our differences. So that’s where he begins this letter. Did you hear the test he offers for unity? It works in Corinth or anywhere else. It’s a simple test: answer three questions correctly.

Here’s the first one: Has Christ been divided? Our tribalism is deep in our DNA. We divide into groups very quickly: denominations, religious affiliations, groups who prefer one kind of worship over another, styles of baptism, different ways of coming to the table, even economic political and racial divisions in the church. We are quick to divide as a people, but has Christ been divided? No, we’re the ones who are divided—and mostly by our own choosing. We have a tendency to want to keep Christ with us in our group. We forget that we’ve been called into fellowship with Christ, not the other way around. Has Christ been divided, Paul asks? No.

Here’s the second question: Was Paul crucified for you? Our faith begins around a cross and an empty tomb. The cross in our sanctuary is empty, but that’s not because we have forgotten who was on it, or that it doesn’t matter who was on it. It’s empty because of Easter. Resurrection means that both cross and tomb are empty, and Christ is risen. Jesus wasn’t the only person crucified in the ancient world but we believe he was the only for whom crucifixion was not an end, but only a beginning. Was Paul crucified for you? No.

Here’s the third question: Were you baptized in the name of Paul? Baptism is that signs that one has a greater claim on you than God. You belong to the household of God. Many groups make lesser claims on your like, but whom do you wish to have the greatest claim on your life? Were you baptized in the name of Paul, he asks?

A church that answers no to all three of these questions passes the test and has the potential to become united in mind and purpose. That doesn’t mean we suddenly agree about everything. When has that ever been the case in the church? It does, however, mean that no matter how we separate into groups we still share a common Lord, we still have one faith in the saving work of Christ on the cross, and we still hold to the sense that God alone lays claim equally to all of us in the waters of baptism. Similar words are shared with the church in Ephesus (4:5): One Lord, one faith, one baptism.

The Corinthians didn’t pass the unity test. The letter Paul wrote them was part of Paul’s attempt to help them rediscover unity in Christ. We don’t know whether they found it or not, but we can know whether or not we are united in Christ, and share the same mind and purpose. Passing the test is only the first part, living it out is the second. I want to offer two images that speak to me about living out our unity in Christ.

The first image comes from my home last week. On Tuesday when it snowed, Susanne made chicken soup. That snowy day was a great day for soup. She added chicken, water, many different vegetables, rice, herbs, and spices. Separately those foods are all good, but together on that day, they all made each other better. Unity Christ is that calling to combine, to make each other better and offer the world something good on a cold day.

The second comes from John Calvin who writes that Paul is challenging the Corinthian church to move from quarreling to chorus. In this challenge discordant tones are replaced by a harmony which allows each person or group to sing its own part and yet still all share in the one overarching song the composer of which is God. That song is the song of the cross of Christ and its power.

The unity test, Soup, and song. I appeal to you brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. Amen.

Matthew 5:14-16 and John 1:29-42

There are some television shows Susanne and I want to preview before Katherine watches them. Sometimes it’s the show itself and sometimes it’s the commercials during the show. You may remember last fall I shared about a terrific movie we previewed about a spelling bee: Akeela and the Bee. I remember someone saying once that PBS was the only channel they would let their children watch by themselves. We want to see what Katherine is watching and so when the new season of American Idol began this week Susanne and I watched it after Katherine went to bed.

You may already know that American Idol is a nation-wide talent search for one individual, who will become a pop star. We hadn’t paid much attention to it until last year, when Katherine wanted to watch it. The season begins with auditions in a few American cities and a cross-section of America shows up for these—many with talent and many more with no talent at all. From these auditions people are selected to move onto the next step in the competition.

A young lady who was auditioning shared with the judges that she does impressions of famous singers. They asked her do one of her impressions, which they thought sounded very good. And then they said, now let us hear your voice. She started singing again, but they recognized it as another impression. They stopped her and said we want to hear you. She paused and then began singing again and this time it was her own voice. The judges listened to her and then complimented her saying that her own voice was better than her impressions of other singers. They moved her on to the next level of the competition.

How often are we like that young lady doing an impression for others? Or to ask that another way, do you do different impressions of yourself for the people around you?

I don’t mean characterize that in every case as wrong. Sometimes it’s necessary and practical. You’ve been up all night with a sick child and you’re exhausted, you feel lousy, and you still have to make that presentation to your coworkers. You’ve gotten terrible news that morning about a loved one and you still have to meet with prospective clients that morning. You run into a neighbor at Kroger’s and you say everything’s fine even though almost nothing right now is fine.

We all know what it’s like to show the world something on the outside that’s different than what’s on the inside. Some of us are good at it and some of us are only good at it some of the time. Maybe you want to keep things private or you worry about burdening someone else with your problems, or you’re uncomfortable when the spotlight is on your troubles.

There are a couple of things Jesus said that I think speak to this. The first happened when Andrew took his brother Simon to meet Jesus. Andrew had been a disciple of John the Baptist and that’s how he first meets Jesus. The reading from John is early in Jesus public ministry, and it’s John (the gospel writer’s) account of the first time Jesus meets these two fishermen brothers. Jesus’ first words to Simon are these: “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas,” which John reminds us means Peter.

John Calvin writes that Jesus gave Simon the name Peter because of what he would become not because of his past accomplishments or failures. He would become the leader of the early church. Peter is Greek for rock.

Jesus does the same for us. As followers of Jesus we too are given a new identity, and everything else about us is secondary to that name Christian. Paul writes about this. He writes that in Christ everything is new and all things have passed away. A modern-day way of saying this might be: what part of new don’t you understand?

Like Simon Peter, you and I are now identified by our future in Christ. And that means our best self is not the impression we do of the person with everything put together or the impression of the happy person or the confident, secure, worry-free, strong person. Our best self is the new creation we have become in Christ.

When a community of faith can come together and recognize that we are all followers of Jesus and who don’t have to do impressions for each other as put-together, nothing’s-wrong-here people then we have begun to mature not only as Christians but as a community of Christians. When we can do that, then we are what Jesus called the light of the world.

You are the light of the world, Jesus said. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under a bushel basket, but on a lamp stand so that it gives light to all in the whole house. I hear this as a challenge to let go of the impression we do in life, which are the bushel baskets that hide the light. The light is our true self in Christ shining into the world. I hear this as a call to authenticity—authenticity before God and with each other.

Generally when people are good at impressions, they are asked to do them, or they’re comfortable doing them. The judges on American Idol may have been the first people to tell that girl that they would rather hear her own voice than any impression she could do. I say that because she looked surprised when they told her that her own voice was her best voice. Isn’t that how we should encourage each other? We are all broken people who walk a common path, and we don’t have to pretend we have everything put together or figured out or under control—but we follow the one who does. What a spirit of grace that would generate.

Martin Luther King said an individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

It takes a lot of energy to do impressions for each other and it takes energy to catalogue the past successes and failures of others. Impression and cataloging only keep us in narrow confines. So what if in this new year we rose above that and didn’t worry about those things any longer, and we discovered ways to celebrate that we are named for what we are now, not what we have been?

What could we do for the broader concerns of all humanity with all that redirected energy? Let’s find out together? Thanks be to God. Amen.

Psalm 29 and Matthew 3:13-17

We finally sold our red jeep. Some of you may have noticed the “For Sale” sign in its window since October. We were beginning to wonder whether anyone would buy it. Maybe it took the first snow of the winter, but we sold it last week. A soldier coming back from a two-year deployment to Iraq bought it. He was in the Kentucky National Guard and had been deployed while a student and UK. He’s come back to finish his degree and now he’s got a good jeep to get him around—in all kinds of weather.

It was a little emotional to watch the Jeep drive away. We bought it nine years ago, the year before Katherine was born. We needed a bigger car at the time with a baby on the way. Not to dwell on this too much longer, but getting rid of the jeep was a change forced on us by circumstance. We didn’t want to see it, but the kids can’t ride in it safely anymore—no head support in the back seat, and then there’s the price of gas. It was time for a change.

That word, change, is getting a lot of attention these days especially by presidential candidates. I’m the candidate of change! That one’s not. Ready for Change. Change you can believe in. Changing what’s wrong has to come from the outside. In 2008, “Stay the course” doesn’t sound like a slogan people want to hear.

In these early days of 2008, some of you are making changes of one kind or another as new year resolutions. In my newsletter article for this month I suggested some changes that could benefit all of us, and the world around us. Read those if you have a chance.

Matthew is also telling us that it’s time for a change. As the first book of the New Testament, Matthew is the first to announce the change which has arrived. A New covenant has been established by God, a covenant for all the world now and the one who has brought that covenant to earth is Jesus Christ. The change from Old Covenant to New has been accomplished in his life and work. This New covenant is about changing the established ways of relating to God and neighbor, being at peace with God and neighbor, and being reconciled to God and neighbor. And it’s Jesus who shows us what this change looks like.

In this account from Matthew 3, this is the first time we meet Jesus as an adult. He’s about to begin his public life and ministry. The Bible doesn’t venture to tell us why at that moment in Jesus’ life he put away his carpentry tools, hung up his apron, and made his way to the Jordan to be baptized.

What it does tell us is that when it was time for Jesus to go from a private person to a public person that meant seeking out John who was baptizing at the river Jordan. For he was the one sent to prepare the way of the Lord.

Doesn’t it seem out of place that Jesus should be baptized? This is a strange moment in the gospels. I imagine that moment looking differently. I imagine Jesus standing on a hill supervising baptisms. Don’t forget that one, John, he might say. Use a lot of water on that one. Even John didn’t understand why Jesus would be baptized. I need to be baptized by you, he said, and you come to me?

The first time we meet Jesus as an adult, he at the Jordan and stood in line with others who, like him, were entering the water as a sign of turning from their old ways and making a change. He didn’t ask to go ahead of anyone. He didn’t expect anyone to step aside so he could go first. He simply went and stood in line until it was his turn. We don’t know how long he waited, or who he spoke with while he waited, we simple know that Jesus choose to be with the people, and to stand with them.

I need to be baptized by you, John said, and you come to me? It has to be this way, Jesus said, to fulfill all righteousness. That’s one of those sayings that doesn’t make sense in the moment, but makes sense after Easter. A lot of what Jesus said is like that. But here’s what he means: that day at the Jordan, the son of God began a very human journey that will lead from the waters of the Jordan to a cross and an empty tomb. And all things will be set right for the world because of that journey. It will fulfill all righteousness.

Life changed for Jesus after his baptism, and his baptism was the visible sign of that change. A voice from heaven spoke into the moment. He went from there to begin his public ministry teaching and preaching and healing people. He called others to follow him. He was confronted because he challenged the long-agreed upon ways of doing things. He carried a cross up a hill. He triumphed over death.

That’s what happens with baptism. It changes people. It sets them on a new path. It identifies them with a community of faith. It shows God’s prior claim on your life. It challenges us to think about belonging to something bigger than ourselves. How will you be a testimony to the power of God to change you forever by the waters of baptism? Martin Luther, the great reformer of the church, who brought change would say, Remember your baptism.

We bought a new car this week to replace the jeep. When it rained on Thursday, I was worried about the rain leaving spots on it. I admit when you buy a new car you worry about silly things. But that shallow, passing worry about water spots got me thinking. What are the water spots that baptism leaves behind?

Here’s the mark I see that it left on Jesus. In his public ministry he continued to stand with people—right were they were, right in the midst of them—and he told his disciples to keep this work going. This is indeed God with us. Amen.

Matthew 2:1-12

Have you put away your Christmas decorations yet? Some of them? All? We haven’t. That’s a project for this week. We’re probably a week behind the rest of you on this because we were out of town after Christmas. Some of you may be getting back from being away as well, and are finding the decorations right where you left them.

This week at our house, we’ll put away the ornaments including the ones my mom gave us this year. She likes to give us ornaments. They’ll make their first appearance on next year’s tree. We’ll reread our Christmas cards and save the pictures that came with them. Maybe this will be the year I’ll start that album of Christmas card photos we’ve collected over the years. With some families you’ll be able to flip through it and watch their kids grow up. This week we’ll move the tree out of the house and repack the boxes for our Christmas decorations. Finally, they’ll go back in the attic for another year.

In the church, we pack up Christmas in an orderly way, too. After twelve days, we put the nativity away, but we keep the Magi out for one more day. We put them away last. Why do we wait to put them away? The Matthew text is our guide for this. In the time of King Herod, after Jesus had been born in Bethlehem, he writes, wise men came from the east. On the church calendar, January 6^th is celebrated as the day of the appearance of the Magi.

The wise men are actually late comers to the manger. The shepherds have already returned to their flocks by the time the wise men arrive. Mary and Joseph have gotten used to having another family member with them. In the church, we’ve wrapped up all the characters in newspaper including the palm trees and the innkeeper from the nativity set and put them back in the box.

And then the wise men show up. They bring their gifts, and then it seems they return to their own land. After today’s service, they too will get wrapped up and put away. Nothing more is said about them, but, with their arrival, Matthew is giving us another sign to help us make sense of who is in the manger and what he has come to accomplish for the world.

Joseph was one of these signs too. When he learned that Mary was pregnant, he planned to dismiss her quietly. With that decision Joseph did something different than is in the scripture. He took a path that did not result in harm to her or the baby she was carrying. Joseph took the path of mercy and decency. And this is a sign of things to come.

The star is another one of these signs. When the wise men reach Judea, they seek out King Herod and tell him why they have traveled such a distance. Herod checks with his religious advisors. They consult the prophet Micah: And you Bethlehem in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rules of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel. The star is a sign of how far Jesus’ presence on earth will reach: from Bethlehem into the whole world.

Those ancient star-gazers noticed something different in the sky, and they began a long journey because of it. Are you the kind of person to notice signs? I don’t mean in a superstitious way. I mean in the sense that you are open to seeing possibilities around you. Remember the wise men. They were already looking at the stars, and had spent enough time looking up to notice that a new star was rising. If you don’t pay attention to stars, how do you know when there’s a new one? Is that we are called to do? To pay attention to what is around us and be open to seeing signs that God is at work, and then to follow after those signs? So what signs do you see that  God is at work around you?

In a difficult week you get a note from a friend, who’s written exactly what you need to hear, and that cheers you up. You are facing a difficult decision and something you read in the Bible or hear in a sermon something that speaks right into that decision. You hear some news that isn’t what you were hoping for, but something happens and you feel like things will still be okay. What signs have you seen that God is at work around us? They don’t have to be as spectacular as a star rising in the night sky.

For me a lot of what we did together last month I see as a sign of goodness to come that will fill this place. I am still thinking about how much happened in December, especially the Christmas play (you can read about it in the newsletter) and our Christmas Eve services. I saw several signs last month, like stars in the heavens, that God is at work around us.

We are called to follow after those signs into this new year, and so I think we’re the wise men and we’re following a star that we saw at it’s rising. We aren’t heading west to find a newborn king, we’re heading into a new year to discover what God has planned for this Resurrection community. In many ways I am glad 2007 is over. It was a difficult year for many of us who lost a family member, and while it had some good moments, it was challenging. It feels good to begin 2008 on this journey. I hope it does for you too. In God’s providence we begin this journey at the same time that we begin a new year. And a new year can bring good energy and anticipation and I glad for that.

Those ancient star-gazers traveled together from Persia and as they headed west, and they brought with them the best from their land: gold, frankincense and myrrh. Some people like to attach symbolism to the gifts they brought Jesus. It’s certainly one way of interpreting the text, to associate the gifts with the recipient. But what about looking as the gifts in light of those who brought them? What I like about the gifts of the wise is that they brought the best their land had to offer. Let that be a mark of our journey, too. As we also travel with each other may we bring the best we have to offer.

It can be tempting to give what’s left over, or what we’re regifting, or what we don’t want anymore, and consider that enough—especially when we are so busy. I hope instead as we being 2008 together, we can remind each other that God wants our best.

A sign is always less amazing than what it points to. A star is amazing, but not as amazing as the baby in the manger. The mercy of Joseph toward Mary and the baby is amazing, but not as amazing as the mercy of Jesus toward all people. Bread and cup are amazing, but not as amazing as the grace they point to, and the meal of deliverance they recall. And even our time together last month—as wonderful as that was—will be eclipsed by the joy of our time together in this new year.

It is a blessing to make this journey together with you following the signs of God at work among us. Happy new year. And thanks be to God. Amen.

Isaiah 25:6-10 and Matthew 1:18-25

This is our fourth week climbing mountains in Isaiah. From three previous mountains in this Advent season we have seen amazing views of the Christmas landscape ahead. For the past three weeks, the words from Isaiah have announced that God wills to act for the creation, not against it, and not with ambivalence, but for it and in love.

The purpose of our Advent preparation is to help us hear that claim in a way that makes the news of Christ’s birth all the sweeter. In a way that stirs us to do something more than just pause here for a few days in December before we go back to business as usual.

I began this series with the idea that we have to climb the mountain if we want to see the view from the top. Thank you for traveling with me through this season and climbing mounting together. On this final Sunday of Advent, we have the clearest view yet. Did you hear the mountain in this poetry from Isaiah?

Listen to part of that poetry again. On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines. God will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all the people, and will swallow up death forever. And then this poetry captures in a single sentence the whole of our Advent days: Lo, Isaiah writes, this is the one for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. I’ve enjoyed the poetry from these mountains in Isaiah.

These words from Isaiah are often read on Easter Day, not during Advent. They are part of our celebration of the empty tomb. Death is swallowed up. Tears are wiped away. Do you hear how these are words of Easter triumph over Good Friday sadness? I like that we are on this mountain today hearing these words. They remind us where all of this heading. We celebrate Jesus’ birth and all that flows from the manger, knowing what lies ahead. On this fourth Sunday of Advent we stand on a mountain and gaze out over the entire landscape of God’s work of salvation.

In a few months, we will return to this mountain as part of our Easter celebration. At that point we’ll be looking backwards at what God has accomplished in Jesus Christ. What a view we have, if only for a moment, to watch again how it all began with two people, Mary and Joseph, long ago. And that leads us to the Matthew reading.

Matthew is telling of the birth of Jesus, and scholars date his birth to around 4BC. This sounds a little strange since BC stands for “before Christ,” but perhaps one way of looking at it is that he always was a person ahead of his time.

If Time magazine were around in 4BC whom do you think they would name as person of the year? Can you imagine the editorial board meeting to come up with a short list of candidates? For sure, the short list would have included Caesar Augustus. He was the supreme ruler of a 500 year old empire, which controlled lands reaching thousands of miles. No one was more powerful than Caesar. He had statues everywhere in the empire to remind people of his authority and coins minted with his face on them.

That short list for person of the year in 4BC could also have included Herod the Great. Great, that is, in the sense of powerful, great in the way Katrina was a great hurricane. Mostly he was known for being brutal to his subject and for building palaces. He also expanded the Temple in Jerusalem. He convinced the Roman Senate to elect him King of the Jews. In 4BC he controlled the politics, religious activities, and commerce of the Roman province of Judea.

There was a poet that year in Rome named Ovid. He might have made the list. The Romans enjoyed reading and discussing his works. That year he had published another collection of his poems and letters.

There was also the commander of the Roman legions. This commander was north of Rome in Germania fighting the invading various tribes who were attacking the northern territories. Roman forts had been built in Germania against this threat. The security of Rome depended on keeping these barbarians under control. Their strategy was to fight them in their land so we don’t have to fight them in Rome.

There are probably other people who might have been in the running that year, but I think in these verses from Matthew, Matthew himself is giving us his choice for person of the year in 4BC. It’s a carpenter from Nazareth named Joseph.

Joseph is the first “live” person we meet in Matthew’s gospel. The gospel begins with a genealogy from Abraham to Joseph, a long listing of “begats.” This list shows how the story about to be told is connected with what has come before.

After that list a narrative begins about the birth of Jesus. It’s from Joseph’s perspective. The other gospel that tells of the birth of Jesus is Luke, and that version is from Mary’s perspective. We’ll read that tomorrow night. So in Matthew, Joseph learns that Mary, his fiancée is pregnant. This is a serious offense in that ancient and very socially conservative culture. Joseph was unwilling to do what the holy book permitted in such cases: stoning the offender. He did something different. Matthew writes that Joseph was unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, so he planned to dismiss her quietly. This was before he learned in a dream the nature of Mary’s pregnancy.

Matthew is telling us something very important about Joseph. He chooses to do something different than is written in the holy book. The first person we meet in the New Testament is changing the long-established ways of doing things. Something new is taking place, something that will challenge established traditions to their core.

Matthew’s pick for the person who influenced the world more than any other that year is Joseph. He did not dismiss Mary. He did not pick up the first stone to throw at her. He did not step back and let other do the violence for him. He chose to be merciful to Mary and the unborn baby.

Fred Craddock wrote that Joseph knew how to read the Bible. He read it through the lens of grace and goodness and the love of God. If you read the Bible, Craddock writes, and you find justification for humiliating or harming another, especially if it makes you feel better about yourself, you are not reading it correctly.

The view from this fourth mountain of Advent is that God wills to be gracious toward creation. The people through whom God chooses to bring that goodness our way are not the powerful people of their day or the articulate or the famous or the ruthless. They are the faithful. In 4BC, two faithful people: Joseph, an honorable, merciful man, and Mary, a girl with a servant-heart were married, and they were the first to welcome Emmanuel, God with us, into the world.

There is a pattern set here in the opening pages of Matthew’s gospel, a pattern that will be woven through Jesus’ public ministry. The least will become greatest.

Blessed are the pure in heart, Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, for they will see God. Amen.

Isaiah 52:7-10 and Psalm 98

Advent leads us toward Christmas in a way that makes me want to savor these days—they go by so quickly. I also want to invite others to join with us and hear the good news of this season. This year I am suggesting that during these Advent days we are walking an uphill path toward Christmas. Uphill in the sense that the farther we get into Advent, the better view we have of Christmas Day. Like Mary and Joseph who on their way to Judea had an uphill climb the closer they came to Bethlehem, we too are climbing a mountains in this season. From the tops of these mountains we’ve already had some great views.

Last week you may remember the geography of Isaiah 40. That poetry took us up a mountain to hear a herald announce that God is making a way through the desert to return to Jerusalem and to gather the people together with words of comfort and tenderness. The view from this mountain pointed us toward Christmas day and the news that God has come near in Jesus to show us what that comfort and tenderness looks like. The first views we have of that divine comfort and tenderness is of a mother holding a baby in a manger.

The week before that, the first Sunday of Advent, the geography of Isaiah 2 took us up the Lord’s mountain. The poetry of Isaiah 2 offered an image of the end of time. From the highest of all mountains, God will establish a lasting peace for all creation. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. Swords become plowshares and no one will study war anymore. The view from that mountain pointed us toward Christmas day and the arrival of the prince of peace on earth, the arrival of the one who will show us what divine peace looks like.

What a view we’ve had together from mountain tops so far. So did you hear the mountain in this text from Isaiah 52? The geography of Isaiah 52 takes us up a mountian this week to listen to a messener. The messenger has brought news from a far away place. Isaiah calls the feet of the messenger beautiful because feet have carried to us the news of peace and salvation and of the reign of God.

In this poetry Isaiah announces that heaven has touched down to earth and the Lord will return to Jerusalem and all people shall see the salvation of our God. The view from this mountain points us toward Christmas day, the moment when heaven met earth: angels leave the choir of Heaven to bring a message to humble shepherds in the fields; a star shines its light out of the heavens on the way for Magi to travel across a desert to find the baby; and John writes that the Word, that was with God and was God, takes on flesh to become one of us on earth.

On the mountain of Isaiah 52, the messenger tells us heaven has touched earth. How beautiful are the feet of the messenger who brings such news.

Has this news made a difference? I ask that because the world seems so content to live in the valleys and miss the messenger on the mountain. The world is still so full of war, and greed seems to win. So many people around the world live in desperate poverty, and neighbors still argue with neighbors. Isn’t it fair to ask what has changed because heaven has touched down to earth? Here’s what I see from that mountain. We have a pathway out of the ways of war, violence, fear, power, and greed and that pathway is full of people with beautiful feet.

I heard someone say recently that it’s not that we don’t know how God wants us to change, or what we could do better with our own time and energy, it’s that we’re mostly comfortable where we are, or we don’t want to do what we know the gospel would require of us. Why walk a different path now? Why let go of what I’ve worked to hard for? Why should I forgive that person? Let me offer two comments on this uphill pathway forward.

First, none of us is a finished product or finished growing in faith. Have any of you reached the point where you’ve got it all figure out? The news of heaven coming to earth means there’s more for me, for you, to become.

Second, we should risk walking a different path because the world is watching. What difference does it make that any of us is here if we don’t live differently out there? The news of that messenger on the mountain, the news that God is coming near, demands some response from us more than simply a pause and then a return to busyness as usual, or conflict as usual, or resentment as usual. If the world sees no change in us because of that news why would they care to hear any news from any messenger on any mountain? That messenger bring news that calls us to risk stepping forward into a new way of living, a new way of coming together as community.

Susanne and I saw a movie recently that lifts up this theme of risking a step forward. I would recommend this movie to anyone. It’s called Akeela and the Bee. A middle school student from central Los Angeles is encouraged by her principal to enter a school spelling bee. She wins it and enters the next level of competition. Part of the movie is about her sense of comfort with the life she always thought she would have and how she has to leave that behind as she climbs from one spelling bee to the next. Spelling brings her family and community closer together. It’s a good movie to watch. Akeela, her coach, her mom, and the people around her all risk something and find something. And there’s something beautiful in watching that happen.

I’ve seen something beautiful this morning: feet, like the messenger on the mountain. I’ve seen the feet of people walking across the gravel of the church driveway to get to the sanctuary. They were announcing a new way forward: the way of peace and community. In this great enterprise called humanity, we travel a new way forward together.

We are the messengers of joyous news. Where will your own feet carry you in the days ahead? What kind of messenger will you be? What will you announce? Here’s one idea: share with the people you meet this week the view from this mountain. Heaven has touched earth and a baby lies in a manger. Listen for the cry of this baby. It’s a call away from the comfortable, familiar ruts of life to a path that gives hope and new beginnings and peace. Et Gloria in excelsis Deo. Amen.

Isaiah 40:1-11 and Matthew 3:1-6

Advent is that uphill climb toward Christmas Day. Last week I shared that in Advent I will be preaching around the theme you’ve got to climb the mountain if you want to see the view. So each week I plan to ask the question where’s the mountain in the text? And how are we going to ascend that mountain as we make our way toward Christmas.

Last week, you may remember the geography of Isaiah 2, took us up the Lord’s mountain from which at the end of time, God will establish a lasting peace for all creation, and as the song goes, no one will study war anymore. What a great view we had together from that mountain top.

The mountain in today’s texts is stark and rocky but the view from its summit is spectacular. Did you hear the mountain in the Isaiah reading? Listen to verse 9 again: Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tiding. Isaiah writes about a bearer of news calling out from a mountain into all the land. Do you know what that news is? God is making a way through the desert to return to Jerusalem and to gather the people together? These are words of restoration and reconciliation.

One historical note is helpful here. Isaiah 40 speaks about one of the most powerful moments in the Old Testament. With the rise of the Persian Empire, and the decline of the Babylonians in 540BC, Isaiah interprets the will of God at work in this shift of powers. In this transition of power from one empire to another, God calls exiles home from Babylon to Judea with a word of comfort and tenderness, and God returns with them on a highway through the desert. In Isaiah’s poetry, a herald climbs a mountain to announce the good news with comfort and tenderness: that God will again reign in Jerusalem, like a shepherd who gathers the flock together.

Who needs to hear this good news? Can you think of someone who longs for a place of safety? What about someone who longs for a place where they are accepted and welcomed? Can you think of someone who longs to be at peace? I can think of people who long for such things.

I imagine people in Omaha long for a place of peace right now. Somewhere this day a family waits for some break in the search for a family member. A family grieves over the loss of a young person who had so much life ahead of him. A soldier tells his family they have to wait a little longer. A mother searches for some way to communicate to her teenager.

To all these people Isaiah announces good news: come and find what you’re searching for—safety, acceptance, peace, a home. Find these things with God’s help and in a community of God’s people.

I reread something that E.B. White wrote that makes this Advent climb toward Christmas just a little more challenging for me. E.B. White was a great American writer who wrote in the last century for the New Yorker. He also wrote children’s books (Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little). He reminded me that what we have together as a community of faith is really good. He wrote, I rise each day torn between the desire to savor the world and a desire to save the world. This makes is had to plan the day.

What we have together is so valuable and part of me wants to savor this sense of our community together as we observe Advent, enjoy the music, anticipate all the events leading us toward Christmas. There is a part of me that want to savor all of that and focus on that. There is also a part of me that feels a burden to share this with people who are hurting and searching for some hope in life. Do you know what I mean to feel torn about this season?

We actually get to do both as a community: to savor the season and to share with others the news of a God who cares enough about the creation to come close, dwell with us, and save us. So I am glad to make this trip up Isaiah’s mountain today and hear again this call to announce that God is coming near, for this changes everything.

John the Baptist heard this message in Isaiah 40. It changed everything for him. He even started climbing mountains to announce good news from their summits. He did this in the wilderness of Judea, where the view is fantastic. From some of the mountains you can look down and see the Dead Sea, the Kingdom of Jordan, Jerusalem and on a clear day you can just glimpse the Mediterranean Sea in the far distance. John climbed those Judean mountains and told people to wait for the who was on the way. And they listened to him.

The crowd that followed John found a new way forward in repentance and baptism. They heard John speak the poetry of Isaiah and they heard John tell them he was preparing the way for God to come near.

In the season of Advent we are reminded by Isaiah and John that God has come near, in a way that is new and different. God has come near in the birth of Jesus. By this humble arrival, God reframes what divine power looks like, what complete dependence on another looks like, how we all begin life the same way, how the least among us really can be the greatest.

In the days ahead we will announce to the world with much celebration that long ago a baby arrived with a cry, and that cry was an invitation to come near, to come home. Everyone who comes near discovers a great surprise of the Kingdom of Heaven: God is the one who has come near to us to show us the way.Walter Bruggeman wrote that Advent is a time to imagine a homecoming, and to recognize that, because God has come near, the old ways of fear, anxiety, power, war, violence are not our true home. The way forward through Advent leads us to our true home. Savor this way and invite of others to join us. And thanks be to God. Amen.

Isaiah 2:1-5

Advent is a spiritual time to reexamine our sense of why we need a savior. With so much happening in December, however, spiritual preparation can easily get lost in the mix of activities. So what plans do you have this month to get ready for the sweet news of Christmas day? What plans do you have so that you are carried to some deeper sense of who the one in the manger is?

I want to preach during Advent season using the theme: you’ve got to climb the mountain to see the view. In some ways that idea is built into the geography of the Isaiah readying which is about a mountain. Advent is that uphill climb to the top of the mountain. On the summit then we see the view. We celebrate the arrival of God’s salvation of the world. Now admittedly the view on the walk up the mountain is not as spectacular as the view from the top, and sometimes the travel is a little uncomfortable and windy, but once on top of the mountain, it’s worth it. On this first Sunday of Advent, are you ready to begin this ascent toward Christmas?

To understand who it is that is born in Bethlehem and what he brings to earth, we must also understand who we are. We have all fallen short of the glory of God and we deserve God’s condemnation, but God surprises us. God does not reject us, but reaches out to us.

Who are we that God should do this? Or who is God that God should do this? John Calvin writes that these two question are bound together. We can’t make sense of one of these questions without making sense of both of them. On this uphill climb through Advent, I want first to look at those questions.

Who are we. We are people in need of healing and wholeness—and we can’t manufacture what we need to be whole. Like the lepers who called out to Jesus, our brokenness is too thorough. Like the prodigal son, we have wandered far from home. We could come up with a long list of how this wandering and brokenness shows up in us, but I want to suggest a list of three.

First, we make much of life me centered. We are famous for taking something and making it personal. This works in several directions: insults, challenges, resourcefulness, control, decision making. We think we can do accomplish much on our own, but Jesus said, I am the vine and you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. I am a better person when I am challenged by others who inspire me, when I am connected to my source of strength: the vine. In this great enterprise called humanity, we forget that we are branches.

Second, we are casual with apologies. We don’t do well after someone says, “I’m sorry.” Did you ever notice that children have an easier time with this than adults? What happens to us when we grow up? Somewhere along the way someone said we should forgive and forget. I have never seen that work, because we never forget. Why would we want to forget? In the church I believe we should say forgive and remember; remember that we are a redemptive community where forgiveness is central to who we are. If we are going say the words “I’m sorry,” and another person is going to accept that apology, we are called to move toward reconciliation. In this great enterprise called humanity we undervalue the radical idea of forgiveness.

Third, we have a tendency to tribalism. We don’t do too well with differences and are quick to divide into affinity groups. The world is full of examples of this—even when the differences between groups are very small. To be sure, we have our share of tribalism in the church. We divide into affinity groups over religion, politics, theological perspectives, what names are holy, levels of wealth, race, and almost everything else. In this enterprise called humanity, we are very tribal.

One result of this is conflict. Some of that conflict could be a charged debate within a church over a new ministry. It could be a heated exchange in a courtroom over land use. It could be a protest over someone’s poor judgment to give a stuffed animal a name. It can of course result in war between nations.

We could continue to name our brokenness, let me stop and share with you something Calvin wrote. Until we are prompted by our own ills to contemplate the good things of God, we cannot aspire to God.

Who are we that God should reach out to us? Broken and wandering people in need of a savior who will lead us to become something better than we are on our own. Who is God that God should reach out to us? The one who invited us to follow, to climb a mountain, if we dare to risk being changed forever.

The reading from Isaiah offer us a vision of where the savior will lead us. We will be led toward a peace that will come from somewhere other than us. That peace will steep into all creation. It will be inner peace, peace in the family, peace in the church, peace between tribes and in all the world. It will come from beyond us. The savior of the nations will lead us forward into a future that culminates with peace for all creation. He leads us forward and he will be waiting for us when we get there.

As we make this journey, we are also beginning an Advent ascent toward Christmas. Will you commit with me to be changed along the way so that together we follow Jesus out of our corruption and into a more excellent way?

If we do this together, we are committing to show the world what it means to be connected to an endless supply of strength for all kinds of challenges, what it means to live out reconciliation, what it means to find unity in Christ, and what lasting peace looks like. Do you have the courage to demonstrate this as part of this faith community? May this be our spiritual preparation in a wonderful season. It starts even with our gathering around a table. Thanks be to God. Amen.

1 Corinthians 16:5-9 and Colossians 1:11-20

Paul ends his letter to the Corinthian Church by outlining his travel plans for the coming months. He writes that he plans to travel to Corinth and pass through Macedonia on the way from Ephesus. Do any of you know how far that is? It’s about 600 miles, and Paul would have made that trip partly on foot and partly by boat. He wants to spend the winter with that congregation. He also writes that when he finally arrives, he plans to stay a while. After such a long journey, you can hear why he might not want to visit them in passing. He may also want to stay longer because of the work that awaits him in Corinth. His long letter to them suggests that there is much to sort out.

But first I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost, he writes, because a wide door of effective ministry had opened here. Doesn’t that sounds like a hopeful claim? Something has happened, some door has opened, and there is effective ministry to be done. Nothing more is written about that.

So do you wonder how all of that turned out? When Paul writes again to the Corinthian congregation he has already left Ephesus and was on his way through Macedonia. We don’t ever learn exactly what that ministry opportunity was in Ephesus or how it turned out.

A lot of ministry is like that. Do we really know the effect we have when we sit with someone in a hospital and offer a prayer for healing? Do we really know the effect we have when we tell a youth how glad we are to see them in church—that their presence here makes a difference? Or when we grieve along side of someone who’s just lost a daughter—even if there are no words spoken but only our silent presence? Or when we invite someone to come and see what God is doing in this community of faith? These are all wide doors of effective ministry, and ministry is such that we don’t always see the fruit of our ministry. Maybe that’s partly why the word “patience” is in the New Testament so much.

Certainly when we see an opportunity to minister to another—whatever that might be—don’t we all hope that God will make that ministry effective? I like the way Paul words that earlier in his letter: I planted, he wrote, Apollos (a colleague in ministry) watered, and God gave the growth. I like that image because it puts our work at the beginning the rest is up to God. That is a great sequence for us to keep.

The trouble with that kind of an approach is that the world measures success by output: the final score of a ball game, the amount of a shareholder’s dividend, the net sales on the day after Thanksgiving. Those are all results, and to be fair, they are fine for the world, but I hear a different metric for the church. We are called to focus on the input side—the planting and the watering—and then trust the results to God. I know this can be a challenge in a culture that teaches us to be impatient and to be result-oriented.

Do you remember Brody’s baptisms two weeks ago? We gathered around the font that day and celebrated the beginning of his life in Christ. We don’t know what is down the road for him, but what will it mean to him as a teenager that someone here (not his parent) took time to get to know him because they were there on the day he was baptized in this sanctuary? Which one of you will that be?

What about that grieving person? The doorbell rang and someone dropped off some food and offered a smile. No words were shared. It was too emotional a moment, but later a grieving mother remembered the ministry of caring from a church she didn’t even attend but reached out to her.

What about a person searching for a place to belong who will come to our Moravian lovefeast or our Christmas services because someone invited him?

What about the soldier in Afghanistan who received a Bible from us along with a letter from a pastor and a card signed by people he had never met?

Do you see how we work on the front end and trust the results to God? Sometimes we are blessed to see those results and sometimes we do not, but the wide doors of effective ministry are there. So what wide doors are waiting for you to walk through? The door of this church? The door of your own home or a friend’s home, the door of your work or school? Maybe it’s a hospital door or a barn door.

A church member asked me consider and pray about organizing a prayer time for peace so that people could gather here in this place and pray together for an end to the war. Another church member asked what we might do for the wounded soldiers at the VA hospital in Lexington? We’ve just finished a stewardship season and are shaping some plans for a new year of mission and ministry.

What are our winter plans in the kingdom? I hear an answer in the Colossians reading. Our winter plans in the kingdom are for us to remain a redemptive community. That means we forgive each other just as the Lord has forgiven us. That means we pray forgive us our debts to the extent that we are willing to forgive others. Our plans call us to demonstrate by our lives what redemption looks like. It has been shown us by God who has made peace by the cross, and it must be shown to the world by how we gather together for worship, study, mission, and fellowship.

I also hear in those ancient words that God wills for the church to do this in such a way that we understand Jesus himself to be in charge. A couple of years ago I suggested that there are two rules for church leadership. The first rule is that Jesus is head of the church. The second rule is if you think you’re in charge, see rule number one.

Here are some of the marks of a church that gets this: it’s free to concentrate on the input—on those wide doors for effective ministry—and not on measuring the results—God will take care of the results. It knows the difference between ministry and distractions from ministry. And then as Nancy Jo reminded us at the Thanksgiving Day Service, a church that really understands that Jesus is head of the church gets to rejoice together and then share that joy with the world.

I am looking forward to the winter months ahead. There is much work for us to do in the Kingdom. It will take all of us, and we will be made strong for this work with the strength that comes from God’s glorious power. And more than that, we will be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to God. Amen.

2 Corinthians 4:7-15 and Mark 1:29-39

When I drive our jeep, and then drive our minivan, I notice what I can see of each car through the windshield is a little different. When I drive the Jeep, I can see the end of the hood. Jeeps are made like that. Maybe you can see the front of the hood in your car and you know what I’m talking about. There’s the hood out there and beyond that there’s the road.

When I drive the minivan, however, I can’t see its hood. If I look to the bottom of the windshield down by the wipers, all I can see it the road. Maybe in the car you drive, that’s your view too. Of course it doesn’t take an aerospace engineer to figure out that the front of the minivan is like that so air flows smoothly around it. A jeep is not that aerodynamic.

So when I’m in the jeep and looking out the windshield, I can see where the jeep ends and the road begins. Many of the events of life are like that view from the jeep. You know when they are out there right when they end. A child’s school day is like that. Katherine gets home at 3:07pm. Your work might be like that ending at 5:30pm. Your subscription to Newsweek is like that. It will end next April. So too the days until the Iowa caucus, the time it takes to bake a roast, when the library books are due, and the number of days until a loved-one comes home from Iraq. All of these events of life are like looking out the windshield of a car and seeing that end point out there where the car ends and the road begins.

The seasons of the church year are like this. We know right when Advent begins (in two weeks) and right when it ends (on Christmas morning). We know that Christmas will last 12 days and give way to epiphany. Most Sunday mornings we even aim at finishing by 9:30/12:00. Much of the stuff of life is the regular, predictable beginning and ending stuff. It’s like the hood of the jeep. You see it out there and you know right where it is.

Then there’s the other view, the view from the minivan. There’s no front end visible on the van only the road ahead. A lot of life is like this view too. It’s the stuff that doesn’t have a clear end point. When will the war on Terror end? How long will it take for this new medicine to work? How long will I grieve? When will I find happiness again? And what about global warming?

Do you hear the difference between these two views? The view out this second windshield isn’t so predicable, and this second view has a lot of uncertainty with it. I am sensing anxiety in the conversations I’m having with people. Are you sensing this too? Is there a collective anxiety in our world right now? The economy, housing market, war, security, elections, the price of gasoline, new technology, we could add more to this list. Some of these have no clear end point. I wonder what life will be like for the children and youth of our church indeed even what they are facing right now. There is much that remains unanswered about our world and for many these are anxious days.

What role has the church in these anxious days? Our role is to act. We don’t react. We act. With wisdom, we bring word and action into that anxiety. To react would be to retreat or circle the wagons or wring our hands. As the church we are called to do none of those things. Instead we are called to make a stand and lead this fearful world forward with the promise that God is a present help in times of trouble, the predictable and the unpredictable moments in life

In the face of anxiety we choose to be people of hope. That means we—to return to the illustration of a car—do not put that car into park and stand still refusing to go forward. Neither to we put the car into reverse and seek some happier time in the past. We do not put the car in Neutral either and then let the slope of the road determine our direction of travel. As the church, we are called to put the car in drive and move forward into the future determined to make a difference. God is with us on this journey and nothing can change that.

This reminds me of a moment early in the gospel of Mark. After a long day of helping what must have seemed like an endless line of people, Jesus rose early the following morning and went off by himself to pray. Later the disciples went looking for him. When they finally found him they said everyone is looking for you.

That’s one of my favorite stories in the gospel of Mark. I imagine Jesus is quiet for a moment as he thinks about the previous day and the line of people stretching out the door, and the words from the disciples, “everyone is looking for you.” An anxious world is looking for you. Jesus answered, let us go on the neighboring towns and proclaim the message for this is what I came out to do. Knowing that his future would mean more of what he had just experienced the previous day, Jesus went forward.

This is the pattern he has set for the church. We are to go forward and bring a voice of hope and healing into the anxiety of the day. The world needs us to do this. There are times when the right question is not what’s in it for me, but what does the world need from people of faith? I believe right now the answer is some alternative to anxiety around us.

On this stewardship dedication Sunday we are committing to make visible this alternative by our mission and ministry. Your role as a follower of Jesus is to give your time, energy, and treasure toward this work as an act of discipleship.

Paul shared with the church in Corinth the struggle he faced in his ministry; certainly a formula for anxiety and defeat. He writes that he was afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down. With each of these, however, he adds something more to show the presence of God with him. This presence, he writes is treasure we carry in clay vessels. Though we are afflicted, he writes, we are not crushed. Perplexed, he writes, but not driven to despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down but not destroyed. We might add to Paul’s litany: we are anxious, but not stuck, for we have the same Spirit of God with us, the same treasure in our clay vessels. The world needs us to share this treasure, and God calls us to do this.

In this stewardship season, you’ve seen some of the plans for the new year. Some of them are from your dreaming last summer. Today, for the two-hundred and twenty third time, the people of Pisgah church will choose to act, and make plans for the future. We will look through that windshield and drive forward on this journey together.Two hundred and twenty three years is a long history. To be sure, it is first and foremost a testimony to the faithfulness of God. Only after that it is a testimony to the greatness of this place, and to the commitment of God’s people who assemble here. And thanks be to God. Amen.