A Good Measure

Luke 6:27-38

February 23, 2025

 

            Many years ago, I went to see a movie with a friend of mine. There is one character in this movie that you didn’t like from the very beginning. He wasn’t so bad at first, but he soon reveals himself to be a sniveling weasel, who would do anything to save his own skin. At the end of the movie, he proves this to be true once more and betrays someone the other characters cared deeply about. Another character finally has enough and punches this character – hard. When this long-awaited punch lands, you could hear people throughout the audience say, “Yes!” At that moment, my friend leaned over to me and said, “Man, that felt good.”

            He was right. It did feel good. I wasn’t one of the ones who said, “Yes” out loud when the punch landed, but I was thinking it. That punch felt good. In fact it felt great. It was the punch that everyone had been waiting for. It felt well deserved, and long overdue. It felt like justice.

            But ever since then, I’ve found myself wondering if punching someone, even if you think they really deserve to be punched, would really feel that good. I know that punches can hurt – not just the one being punched, but the one doing the punching. I used to be a devotee of a cardio kickboxing class in Oklahoma, and I know that without gloves on, it hurt like the dickens to punch that bag with any force. But it’s not just the physical pain from punching that doesn’t feel good. I can’t help but wonder if punching another person would bring satisfaction or would it bring shame?

            Then I read these verses from Luke, essentially Part Two of the Sermon the Plain, the sermon from the level and leveling place, and I groan. I might inwardly question the gratification that would come from punching someone but that doesn’t mean I want to be reminded about forgiveness. And it definitely does not mean that I want to be told – even by Jesus – to love my enemies. I may realize that going around punching people is a bad idea, but must I go so far as to love them?

            Yet, right after Jesus delivers his blessings and woes, he says just that.

            “But I say to you that listen, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

            Do to others as you would have them do to you; what we often call the Golden Rule. This maxim is found in other places besides these words from our Christian scripture. It is found in other religions and in secular ethical and moral treatises. Moral philosopher, Immanuel Kant, used the Golden Rule as the basis of his Categorical Imperative. In other words, this Golden Rule is found far and wide, but that doesn’t make it any easier to put into practice.

            Let’s be brutally honest here, none of this is easy to put into practice. Jesus is known for saying some pretty challenging things, but I think these words must be some of the hardest. They are hard because they are counterintuitive and countercultural. To consider someone an enemy in the first place surely means that you don’t love them. But Jesus says to all who would listen to do just that. Love your enemies. Seek the good for them. Help them if they need it. Treat them as human, even if they are opposed to you and yours. If someone hates you, your first instinct is not to do good to or for them, but Jesus proclaims that we should. If someone curses me, why in the world would I bless them? But here it is in black and white. These words of Jesus are so hard because they call us to do the exact opposite of what our instincts tell us to do, what our culture tells us to do, what our human understanding of justice requires. We want the punch that feels good, but Jesus says do the opposite. These words from Jesus hard to hear, and they are even harder to practice.

            Have you ever had to forgive someone who really hurt you, betrayed you, wounded you or caused you harm? Was it easy? It hasn’t been for me. It hasn’t happened quickly either. Forgiveness, in the scriptural sense, is not a feeling, it is an action. Just like love, it is a verb, not a warm fuzzy emotion. Often when I must forgive someone, and that includes myself, I have to do it again and again and again. I forgive and then something or someone triggers that pain and hurt, and I have to forgive all over again. Debie Thomas wrote that forgiveness is like ascending a spiral staircase. You keep going around and around trying to forgive, and it looks as though you’ll never leave the pain and hurt behind. But eventually, if you keep going up, you begin to see the top, the goal, rather than what’s behind you.

            But when it comes to forgiveness, I also want to make it clear that these words of Jesus have too often been used to keep people who are abused and violated in their place. Forgiveness does not equal relationship. Expecting someone who has been abused to stay in relationship with the abuser does not put Jesus’ words into practice. Yes, we are called to forgive but sometimes forgiveness is more about taking care of yourself then it is about absolving the other person. Because to live in a state of unforgiveness does not just affect us spiritually, it has psychological and physiological consequences as well. It causes an enormous amount of stress and keeps us in a constant state of fight or flight. That’s hard on our bodies and hard on our psyches and hard on our souls.

            You may have heard the expression that not forgiving someone or holding onto anger against someone is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die. Sometimes forgiveness is more about freeing ourselves than it is the other person. Forgiving can mean relinquishing the hold someone else has on us. Forgiving can free us from pain and bitterness even if doesn’t result in reconciliation.

            I also don’t believe that Jesus, through these words, is calling us to accept evil. We are called again and again to speak truth to power. Jesus certainly did. We are called to stand up to evil, to denounce it, and work to eradicate it. That’s what Jesus did. But that doesn’t mean that we are to respond to evil in kind. Responding to evil with evil only increases evil, and worse, the evil we denounce in another may become the evil we carry in ourselves.

            I wonder if Jesus is trying to get those who would listen to understand that to live in the realm of God’s kingdom is to live out this call from this level and leveling place. I think that if we lived out his words, if we loved our enemies and blessed those who curse us and turned the other cheek and willingly gave up not only our coats but our shirts, if we actually did to others as we would have them do to us, our world would be a different place.

            What does it mean to love more than just the people we already love? Sometimes loving the people we already love is hard enough, let’s not add enemies to the list. My kids would probably confess that they love me as their mom, but I know that they have found it hard at times to love me just because I’m their mom. Yet they still love me, and I them. Our relationship is built on love. That’s not going to change. But enemies? People who have wronged us? Are you kidding me, Jesus? We’re called to love them too? Yes.

            Think about it. If we were to actually strive to live out these words, to put them into practice daily, no matter how hard it is – and it is incredibly hard – we and the world around us could be transformed. It seems to me that these are probably the most transformative words in all of scripture. Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Give to those who take from you. Forgive as you have been forgiven. Do not judge. Do not condemn. Give and give and give some more. Give in good measure, not because you expect a reward but because that’s what we are called to do. And I realize that it seems as if Jesus is speaking in terms of reward. The measure we give is the measure we will get back. But maybe it’s not about reward as much as it about putting all this powerful love and kindness and compassion into the world and realizing that when we do that over and over again, it comes back around. The measure we give is the measure we receive.

            What would this world look like if we did this? What would our church, our community look like if we put these challenging, difficult, painfully hard words of Jesus into practice? What wounds would be healed? What pain would be lessened? What violence would be mitigated? What freedom, true freedom, would we experience? The measure we give is the measure we receive.

            I freely admit that I don’t want to hear these words from Jesus most of the time. They are just too hard, to difficult. They require more from me than I think I can give. They require more of me than I believe I can do. But I also believe that the moments when I witness forgiveness, when I see love for enemy, when I am able to recognize that a good measure is being given, that I get a glimpse of God’s kingdom here in our midst. In those moments when I see these words of Jesus enacted, when I manage to live them myself, I get a glimpse of the kingdom that Jesus proclaimed was fulfilled with his coming. It’s not as far off as I believe it to be. It’s right here. It’s right here. If only we could see it. If only we could hear it. If only we could live it.

            “A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.” What we put into this world is what we get back. May we put in good measure after good measure after good measure of loving enemies, blessing rather than cursing, giving rather than getting, and embodying the loving and leveling mercy of God in Jesus the Christ.

            Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.
            Amen.

           

             

A Level Place

Luke 6:17-26

February 16, 2025

 

            If you remember the 90’s, perhaps you also remember the television show, Mad About You. The two main characters of this show, Jamie and Paul Buchman, were a newly married couple and the show follows them as they navigate marriage, in-laws, friendship, money, the demands of work, losing jobs, changing jobs, infertility and childrearing. In other words, it is a show based on real life issues that couples deal with but with a lot of humor thrown into the mix.

            In one episode, Jamie and her sister Lisa must meet briefly before they head off into the rest of their day. You need to know that Jamie is the organized sister – always prepared, efficient, hard-working, and focused. Lisa is the scatter brained sister – always unprepared, unorganized, follows a whim then abandons that whim to randomly follow another. Jamie is married and working and building her life. Lisa is single, perpetually unemployed, and seems to be drifting without any real goals for the future.

            Anyway, when they meet, they accidentally switch bags. Lisa is on her way for a job interview and Jamie is on her way to meet with a new client. Because this is a sitcom, they both run into mishaps. But because they’ve accidentally switched purses, Lisa is suddenly prepared for mishaps. She gets a run in her stocking; she finds the extra pair Jamie keeps in her purse. It starts to rain; there is an umbrella ready to go in Jamie’s bag. Her hair needs to be brushed; aha there’s a brush and a hair clip in the bag. Everything Lisa could possibly need to make a good impression on a potential employer is in that bag, so she arrives at her interview neat, well-groomed, and organized.

            You can see what’s coming next – Jamie experiences the opposite. Everything she needs to make a good impression on a new client is not in Lisa’s bag. There’s no umbrella, no extra pair of stockings, no hair clip and brush, no nothing that would help her stay organized and prepared. She runs into meet her client looking bedraggled and scatterbrained and just a plain old mess. And this is all because they switched bags without knowing it.

            Of course, this is a sitcom, so the point is to make people laugh and the resolution lies in switching the bags back. But it makes me wonder if what’s hidden in this episode is a good reminder that control is more illusion than reality. Jamie thought she was prepared for everything but losing her bag, even temporarily, changed all that. Lisa getting Jamie’s bag was just random luck, but it changed the course of her day. No matter what we do or how we plan, life has a way of leveling us.

            We have reached the moment in Luke’s gospel where Jesus gives his Sermon on the Plain. To some, this is merely Luke’s version of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes. But you may have already noticed that while Matthew gives his beatitudes a more spiritual tone – as in “blessed are the poor in spirit,” – Luke offers no such softening. Luke says outright, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”

            And unlike Matthew, who makes the Beatitudes a list of blessings only, Luke also includes a list of woes. If those who are poor are blessed, then woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. If those who are hungry now are blessed, then woe to those who are full now, for you will be hungry. If you are blessed because now you weep, but one day you will laugh, then woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.

            In Matthew’s version, Jesus is preaching from the mountaintop. But Luke writes that Jesus has come down from the mountain and is now standing on a level place telling all who would listen that life has a way of leveling us. Jesus was on the mountain choosing his twelve disciples, also naming them apostles. He has been healing and teaching and preaching his way through the countryside, ever since he stood up in his hometown synagogue and proclaimed that he was the fulfillment of the scripture.

            Now he has come down the mountain with his disciples and is standing on this level place. And before him are a great crowd of people, a multitude of folks from all over – from Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. The fact that folks are there from Tyre and Sidon also suggests that Gentiles are in the crowd as well as Jews. These people, Jew or Gentile, had come to be healed of their diseases and freed from their unclean spirits. And his healing was so powerful that it flowed from him. The people longed to touch him, because just touching him would make them well.

            Then, looking at his disciples, he begins to speak his blessings and woes. Maybe he wanted the disciples especially to understand what they had signed up for, what following Jesus really meant. While he directed his gaze at his disciples, he was speaking to the whole crowd. The blessings and the woes were for all to hear. And there is nothing prescriptive in his words. He is not telling people how to act in response to these blessings and woes. Do this. Don’t do that. It’s important to observe that these woes are not curses, they are warnings.

            Does this mean it is better to be poor than rich? No. Jesus was in no way glamorizing poverty. Jesus came to heal, to bless, and to offer abundance. And there is nothing glamorous about poverty or hunger or destitution. It isn’t romantic. It isn’t just a simpler way of life. Extreme poverty, which we see in this country and all over the world, is just that, extreme. It is extreme in its misery, and it is extreme in its consequences. No, Jesus wasn’t saying that it’s better to be poor. Jesus was telling those who were suffering that God was with them, and that they were not forgotten. The kingdom of God turns everything upside down, and what they don’t have now, they will have one day.

            So that must mean that Jesus is saying that to be well off is wrong, to be happy is bad, to be filled with laughter is a curse and an evil? No. Again, Jesus was not cursing those who had more. Jesus was warning them. Life has a way of leveling us. And when we are full, when we can pay the bills and enjoy life, when we have much to laugh about, when we are comfortable, when we are the opposite of suffering, we also can become complacent. That’s when it is far too easy to believe that we have life under control, that we have control. And when we think we are in control, it is far too easy to believe that we don’t need God. Or even if we believe that we do need God, we may not live as though we do. But when we’re struggling, when we must face suffering, our need for God becomes readily apparent.

            Woe to those who have enough now, who laugh now, who seem to have it all together now, because it is far too easy to push God out. It is far too easy to think that we have done it all.

            Are you uncomfortable yet? I know I am. It is hard not to read these words without nervously gulping in response. Because I know right now which side of this I fall on. As I said, ever since Jesus stood up in the synagogue in his hometown, he has been preaching and teaching and healing his way to this moment, as well as revealing his power over nature itself and calling the unlikely and unexpected to follow him. And from the beginning, indeed from Mary’s song that the poor are lifted up and the rich brought low, Luke has made it clear that those who are poor, those who are reviled, those who mourn, those who are condemned as sinners, those who are marginalized, those who are the least of these are the ones that Jesus, and through him God, favors.

            Does that mean that I am not favored by God or loved by God or granted grace and mercy by God? No, but it does mean that I cannot take for granted all that I have, and I cannot believe that what I have comes through my hard work alone. Life can turn on a dime, and life has a way of leveling us. So whether I am on the woe side or the blessed, I cannot take anything for granted. I need God all the time. I have control over so little, even though I like to believe otherwise. The only sure thing, the only steadfast thing is God. Life has a way of leveling us, and Jesus stood on that level place and reminded all who would hear that nothing we create is sure, but God is.

            Many years ago in Oklahoma, I got to know an unhoused man named Mark. I didn’t know his story or his background. I just knew that he was sad most of the time, probably clinically depressed, and I also knew that he was intelligent and kind. He asked to pray with him sometimes, and one time I remember bowing my head and getting a glimpse of his hands folded in prayer. My hands were clean and relatively soft, but his hands were scarred and stiff. There was dirt under his nails, and although I think we were about the same age, his hands looked years older than mine did at the time. I couldn’t get his hands out of my mind. I knew that when he was born, he had tiny soft little hands like I did, like all babies do. I wondered when he was born, did someone hold him lovingly in their arms like I was held? Did someone sing lullabies and read to him, like I was sung to and read to? Why did his life go one way and mine another? Was it because I was loved more or worked harder or just because? If life had gone differently for both of us, would he be praying for me and not the other way around?

            There was nothing glamorous about Mark’s hands. There was nothing romantic or special about the way he lived. But I saw God in his hands. I felt God with us in that prayer. And I knew, for at least a moment, that life has a way of leveling us, and that thinking we can count on ourselves alone is folly. Woe to those who think they don’t need God. Woe to those who think they are in control. Woe to those who forget that life has a way of leveling us. But blessed are those who remember. Jesus wasn’t cursing, he was warning, he was reminding. At every moment we need God, in every circumstance, we need God, in the good and the bad, in the joy and in the sorrow, we need God. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

           

           

           

           

Do Not Be Afraid

Luke 5:1-11

Isaiah 6:1-13

February 9, 2025

 

            Brent and I have a running joke, and I tell this story with his permission. Whenever I’m working on something, usually making dinner, Brent will come into the kitchen and ask what he can do to help. I’ll tell him something like “set the table,” or “grab drinks,” and so on. But regardless of what I ask him to do, he always says, “I don’t wanna do that.” Then, without exception, he goes above and beyond to help me. It’s a small thing, I realize, but it makes us both laugh, and that’s important.

            I must admit, when I read our passage from Isaiah for this morning, our running joke immediately came into my head. This passage describes Isaiah’s call from God to be a prophet to God’s people. The first eight verses are better known to many of us because we hear them quite often in the church year. I mainly associate them with Advent, but certainly Isaiah is read at different times and in different seasons.

            These first verses begin by setting Isaiah’s call in the specific chronological time of King Uzziah’s death. Isaiah has a vision. He sees the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty. The hem, just the hem, of the Lord’s robe filled the temple. I confess that I don’t know what the dimensions of the ancient temple were but imagine if we had this vision today and imagine what it would be like to see the hem – just the hem – of the Lord’s robe filling every inch of space in our sanctuary, top to bottom, back to front, and side to side. And that’s just the hem! Can you imagine how big the full robe would be?!

            That would be overwhelming on its own, but along with the hem that filled the temple, there were seraphs attending the Lord. I used to lump seraphs together with cherubim, which meant that I had the idealized belief that somehow they were cute, cuddly creatures like the cherubs we see depicted on Valentines Day cards. But actually, seraphs are more like snakes with wings, which means they would be snakes that could fly. Snakes that can fly. I still get scared at the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz. Flying snakes are the stuff of my nightmares. I cannot imagine how terrifying it would have been to watch seraphs flying around. And not only were they flying, but they were also “calling to one another.” I think our English translation softens this somewhat. I suspect that their call would have been more like thundering screeches because the text tells us that the pivots on the thresholds of the temple shook at their calling voices and the whole temple filled up with smoke. So, not the cherubs on Valentines.

            All of this is terrifying, but Isaiah is especially terrified because the overwhelming glory of God brings into sharp relief his own failures, faults, and shortcomings. He recognizes immediately that he is “a man of unclean lips,” and that he lives among people who are the same. In response to his lament, one of the seraphs picks up a live coal with tongs and touches Isaiah’s lips with it. It must have been unbelievably painful, but it is the cleansing he needs. His guilt is departed, and his sin is blotted out. Then Isaiah hears the voice of the Lord calling,

            “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”

            Isaiah, now forgiven and freed, responds with great eagerness, “Here am I; send me!”

            This is where we usually end the story. One of my favorite hymns, “Here I Am, Lord,” is based on this ending of the story. Whenever I read these first eight verses, I always want to reclaim Isaiah’s eagerness at answering God’s call for myself. But … the story does not end here. It goes on. Because now that Isaiah has said “yes” to God’s call, he has to hear what God is calling him to do.

            God tells him to say to God’s people, “Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand. Make the mind of this people dull and stop their ears and shut they eyes so that they may not look with their eyes and listen with their ears and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed.”

            Isaiah responds by saying, “How long, O Lord?” One commentator I read wrote that while this sounds like Isaiah wants to know his specific time frame for doing this, it’s really a lament. It is Isaiah’s wail at what he is being asked to say. It is a more emotional version of, “I don’t wanna do that.” But this isn’t a joke. Isaiah has volunteered to answer God’s call to do something hard and unlikely and unlovely and scary and … hard. Again, the commentator wrote that God is telling Isaiah to go and fail. We think of a prophet’s call as one where the prophet convinces the people to return to God, to turn back and turn around. But God is saying the exact opposite. To claim that this is an easy call is an understatement.

            The call that Jesus makes to Simon, James, and John seems light and carefree in comparison. Luke puts his own spin on this call to these fishermen. In Matthew and Mark there is a sense that while the fishermen might have heard about Jesus through the stories that were beginning to circulate about him. But in the verses just before ours this morning, we read about Jesus healing Simon’s mother-in-law. It’s clear that Simon has encountered Jesus before.

            In our story, the crowds are pressing in on Jesus to hear the Word of God from him. In order to keep teaching them without being knocked down, Jesus gets into Simon’s boat and asks Simon to row away from the shore a little. Then Jesus sits in the boat and continues to teach the people. When he was finished, Jesus asked Simon to go out to the deep water and “let down your nets for a catch.” Simon, a professional fisherman, tells Jesus that they have been out all night. They have let down their nets again and again and again, but they caught nothing. Then Simon utters these words, “Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”

            Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets. Essayist Debie Thomas writes that Simon is at the point of complete exhaustion. He is frustrated. He has tried everything he knows to do, and he was a professional fisherman, so he knew a lot. He knows that there are no options left. And it is in this moment of resignation, despair, exhaustion, frustration, that he is open to any other suggestions. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.

            And does Jesus make good or what?! They caught so many fish their nets were beginning to break. Their partners in the other boat had to come and help them so the one boat wouldn’t capsize. Both boats were filled to the brim with fish!

            When Simon Peter sees this, when he realizes just what Jesus has done, when he gets a glimpse of the power that Jesus has, he also sees his own sinfulness, his deeply flawed sinful self. And just as Isaiah recognized this about himself and cried, “Woe is me,” Simon Peter falls down on his knees before Jesus and says,

            “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”

            But Jesus says, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”

            Do not be afraid. I know that Jesus was referring to Simon Peter’s fear and amazement in that moment, but I also wonder if Jesus was speaking to the future as well. Following Jesus would not be easy. In fact, it would be spectacularly difficult. There would be times when Simon Peter might think, if not speak aloud, “I don’t wanna do that.”

            Answering a call to follow, to serve, to walk the narrow path of discipleship and servanthood is not easy. I don’t think it’s meant to be. God told Isaiah to go and fail at bringing the people back to God. Jesus will tell anyone who listens that the first must be last and the last first, that if they want to follow him, they must also pick up their own crosses, that following him means leaving behind home and safety and security and even those they may love the most. None of it will be easy. It is one thing to worship Jesus; it’s another thing to follow. And Jesus is calling them to follow.

            But as Thomas points out, when Jesus called these first disciples, he called them not to become different people but to follow him as they people they are. He spoke to this professional fisherman, a man who knew what he was doing when it came to casting nets and respecting the sea and its power. Simon Peter was a fisherman. So, Jesus did not say, “Follow me and you will be healing people as a doctor heals or herding people as a shepherd herds his flock.” Jesus said,

            “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”

            Do not be afraid. I call you as you are. I call you to use the gifts and talents and skills you already possess. Will I challenge you to do more? Yes. Will I call on you to do what you think and believe that you cannot do? Yes. But do not be afraid because who you are is enough.

            Isn’t that what most of us want to hear, long to hear? That we are enough. Jesus does not call us to transform into someone completely unlike ourselves. Jesus does not call us to become someone else. Jesus calls us to be us.

            There is a beautiful scene in the television show, Young Sheldon, when Sheldon, a boy from East Texas and raised in a Southern Baptist family, has convinced himself that the best scientists are Jewish. He wants to be like Einstein, so he thinks that if he converts to Judaism he will be like Einstein. He goes so far as to call a synagogue and speak with the rabbi about converting. The rabbi tells him to not worry about converting to Judaism but to be the best Sheldon he can be. Because someday when he goes to Heaven and meets God, God will not ask him, “Why weren’t you Einstein?” God will ask him, “Why weren’t you Sheldon?”

            We are called to follow Jesus, and I think it is safe to say that following Jesus is not easy. It’s not supposed to be. It is going to be hard, and it is going to challenge us. It is going to call us to do difficult and even scary things. There may be times when we wonder if we’ve done the right thing, if we say to ourselves and to God, “I don’t wanna do that.” But do not be afraid because we are called to be ourselves – to be Amy and Charlie and Charlotte and Anne and Emmy and Sam and Brianna and Garrison and Andrew and Barbara and Brent and Cacey and Linda and Sarah Ella and Betty and John and Sherry and Matthew. We are called to be ourselves, so do not be afraid. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

           

Love and Consequences

Luke 4:21-30

I Corinthians 13:1-13

February 2, 2025

 

            I have had friends, clergy friends, who have returned to the church they grew up in to serve as the pastor. To be honest, doing that hasn’t always worked out so well. If there is anyone in that church who remembers them as a child or as a youth – even a youth who was active in the life of the church, a youth who participated in worship – it is very hard for those who remember the child before to accept the adult and pastor they are now. It’s incredibly hard to see this child of the church as pastor. It can be even harder to receive and accept their leadership, pastoral care, and church administration.

            I have not had that same experience because the church I grew up in does not exist anymore, and, even if it did, it was a denomination that does not welcome women ministers. But I do remember what it was like to preach in front of family and friends for the first time and see their struggle to reconcile the kid they knew with the person I am up here. My sweet dad was nothing but supportive of me, from the moment I felt called to seminary, and in every call I’ve had since. But he told me one time, many years ago, that while he absolutely believed in me and believed in my call, he struggled to see me as a pastor until the first time he saw me in the pulpit. Then it clicked.

            All this is to say that I understand why the people of Jesus’ hometown might have resisted seeing their hometown boy go from carpenter’s son to healing, teaching phenom. They’d heard the stories circulating about him, and now he was here, home, back where he came from, back where it all began. What can Joseph’s son possibly have to teach us, to tell us?

            But if we read Luke’s telling of this story carefully, the people don’t initially seem to doubt Jesus, do they? If anything, Jesus seems to be the one who goes after them. Jesus reads the scroll from Isaiah and declares to the people in that synagogue that the words of the prophet have now been fulfilled in their hearing. That would have been the moment for the people who knew him when to scoff or shake their heads in disbelief or even jeer at him. But what does the scripture say?

            “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?”

            Unless I’m missing something, there doesn’t seem to be any antagonism on the people’s part. They seem positive and receptive to Jesus’ words. They seem eager to hear more, to see more from him. They are astonished, to be sure, but not hostile. Not yet.

            But with his next words, Jesus seems to go on the offensive.

            “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’ And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.’”

            Then Jesus goes on to tell them that in the time of Elijah, when there was a famine in Israel and there were many widows who needed help, Elijah was sent only to the widow of Zarephath in Sidon, a widow not of Israel but a foreigner. And what of Elisha? Of all the lepers that could have been cleansed, Elisha was sent only to Naaman the Syrian, another outsider, another foreigner.

            Jesus made it clear from the get-go that any expectations they might have of him as the hometown boy made good, they needed to let them go. He wasn’t there to fulfill their expectations. He wasn’t their to be their personal messiah. He wasn’t there to play favorites just because this was his hometown.

            Was Jesus saying this to be mean? Was he directing his words at his former bullies or the kids who once taunted him? Was he trying to rub his healing power in their collective face? Of course not. This wasn’t an attempt to get back at people or to have revenge on those who may have discounted him at one time. But Jesus was making it very clear that just because this was his hometown didn’t mean that they had special favor with God. The two examples he gave about Elijah and Elisha show that God goes to the outsiders. God moves among the marginalized. If they really believed him when he read those words about good news to the poor and release to the captives and sight to the blind and the oppressed going free and the year of Jubilee proclaimed, then they also needed to believe that just because they occupied his hometown did not mean they ranked above the other. God sent prophets to the margins, to the outsiders, to the foreigners, to the strangers, and he would go to those same people.  

            Now the people turn on him. They become so angry, so enraged they chase him out of town, and up to the edge of the hill the town was built upon so they can hurl him off the cliff. He escapes their clutches and goes on his way, But that does not diminish the violent response the people had to his words.

            Was Jesus just trying to provoke them or did he enrage them because he spoke a hard and stinging truth? And what was that truth? It wasn’t that God didn’t love them or care for them, but that he came not to curry favor but to upend expectations. He came to turn everything they thought they knew and understood about God upside down. He came to fulfil what Isaiah prophesied. He came not for the ones in the upper echelons of society, for those in power, but for those at the bottom, for those on the edges, for those who were dismissed or forgotten or exploited or all the above. His words evoked a bitter truth – that proximity to him did not mean they could take God for granted. God was doing a new thing through him. They could either join him or not.

            It’s interesting to read this story from Luke through the lens of our verses from I Corinthians and vice versa. Go ahead, admit it, when we hear these words from I Corinthians chapter 13, don’t we all think of brides and grooms, of wedding dresses and tuxedos, of flower girls and ring bearers, and couples standing in front of the officiant promising to love each other in the way that Paul defines love? How could we not? These verses are read at weddings all the time. They are quoted in beautiful script on wedding invitations and programs. It’s hard not to think of them as being solely connected to starry eyed couples on the precipice of a new life together.

            But that’s not who Paul was writing these words to. It’s not that they can’t apply to couples. Anyone who has been married for more than five minutes knows that there are times in a relationship when you need to be reminded that love is patient and kind. But Paul was writing to a church in crisis. The Corinthian church was filled with conflict. That’s why Paul was writing to them. They were taking sides; they were dividing into factions. People who had the gift of speaking in tongues were considered spiritually superior to those who didn’t. The most vulnerable in their midst were being forgotten. They were arguing over whose baptism was the best. They were a mess! The Corinthian church was a mess.

            In Chapter 12, Paul has written about the importance of all spiritual gifts. They were all needed and had their place in the community. He wrote to them about the body and its many members. There was no member of the body that was dispensable or disposable. In fact, the smallest, seemingly most insignificant member was the one that was indispensable. But now he brings all this home in these words about love.

            No matter what your gifts are, no matter what member of the body you are, if you don’t have love then your gifts all come to nothing. If you can speak in the tongues of the angels themselves, but you don’t have love, that language is worthless. Its nothing more than the clanging of cymbals. If you have superior knowledge but your knowledge is not grounded in love, then it’s pointless and fruitless. If you are generous to the point of giving everything you own away, but you don’t do it out of love and for love, then your gesture is empty.

            You have no patience with one another, you show no kindness to one another, but love is exactly that – patient and kind. You boast to one another. You are jealous of one another. But love is neither of those things. You say your way or the highway, but love does not insist on its own way. You rejoice when someone else messes up, but that’s not love. Love bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

            All of theses gifts and talents that you hold so dear, they’re going to end. They will die with you. But love does not come to an end. You think you know everything, you think you can see everything, but you can only see a glimpse of what the full truth and knowledge is. Children may bicker and quarrel, but childishness needs to be left behind. You need to grow up. You need to grow up spiritually and leave those childish ways behind. You need to have faith, and you need to have hope, but most importantly you need to have love. You need to love.

            It seems to me that both Jesus and Paul were trying to convey the same message. Jesus wanted his hometown to understand that they could not be complacent in their faith just because they were his hometown. They could not take God for granted. God was doing a new thing through him, and they were invited to come along but on God’s terms not theirs. And God’s terms were about love – love as action, love as a verb, love with its work boots on, seeking out the lost and the forgotten. Though it may not seem like it, Jesus was speaking to his hometown with love.

            And Paul wanted the church in Corinth, a church that came together because of their faith in Jesus the Christ, to understand that their fighting and grasping and grappling was pulling them away from Christ and one another, not the other way around. They were missing the point because they were missing the love. And if anyone understood what the power of love could do, it was Paul. It changed him from Saul to Paul, from being a vengeful, vicious, violent threat-breathing persecutor to a man willing to die for the One, the Love that saved him, that struck him blind on that road to Damasus so that he might finally see.

            Jesus and Paul both spoke the truth in love and faced the consequences of doing so. Are we able to do the same? Are we able to face the consequences of love?

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

One Body

Luke 4:14-21

I Corinthians 12:12-31a

January 26, 2025

            “Whenever you finish writing the first draft of a poem, go back and cut out the first line. It doesn’t matter if that line is one that you think is perfect, if those words are ones that you spent hours crafting, cut it out anyway. Be ruthless. Because I promise you that if you are willing to do that, your poem will be better. It might even be greater. But cut the first line. You won’t regret it.”

            This was advice from a professor of mine in college during a lecture in our poetry class. He was speaking to our poetry class. His point was that the first line of a poem is often the most awkward. It’s the poet’s way of getting something on the page, getting started. Once started, the rest of the poem will hopefully begin to flow and move. But you gotta get past the first line.

In college I was a Communications major with an English Writing minor. That means that I did a lot of writing. I worked at the school radio station and wrote copy. I wrote articles for the school newspaper. I had a creative writing scholarship, so I wrote for that. In my classes I wrote everything from speeches to fiction to narrative non-fiction to technical instructions and poetry. Early on in all this writing, I learned the importance of a good lead. A lead is that first sentence or first sentences in a story that grab the reader’s or the listener’s attention. A good lead will get your audience hooked. They’ll want to continue to read or to listen. But write a bad lead and you’ve lost them.

            When it comes to leads and first lines, I have never forgotten that advice from my professor. I have taken his words to heart, so no matter what I’m writing – whether it’s an email, a blogpost, a poem, or a sermon, I inevitably go back and cut the first line. Sometimes I cut the whole first paragraph. And with that advice always in my mind, I wonder if Jesus had these first words of his first recorded sermon ready to go, or if he was going to say something else and cut that just like my professor advised us to. Whatever his process, his first line, his lead certainly grabbed the attention of all who were listening.

            Our story picks up after Jesus’ baptism, and after he was tested in the wilderness. Now he has returned to Galilee filled with the Holy Spirit, and he began to teach in synagogues around the region. As our story begins, he has returned to Nazareth, his hometown. He’s gone to the synagogue of his childhood, of his growing years. And with the eyes of everyone who once knew him fixed upon him, he stands up and reads from the prophet Isaiah.

            “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

            And after reading these words from Isaiah, rolling up the scroll, and handing it back to the attendant, Jesus said,

            “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

            That is one powerful first line. That is a gripping lead. The lectionary stops the story here for this week, and the rest of his sermon and the response to it will be read next week. But as first lines go, this is pretty intense. In just nine words, Jesus has made a bold statement, one that could not be ignored. He read Isaiah’s words about the anointed one of the Lord, the Messiah, the One sent by God to preach the good news to the poor and release to the captives, sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed, and the proclamation of the Lord’s favor which is another way of proclaiming the year of Jubilee. Then he states that these words, this prophecy, this vision, has now been fulfilled because he is that One. That’s right, folks, your hometown boy is the One, sent by God, anointed by the Spirit. That messiah you’ve been waiting for, longing for, well here he is. Or, to say it from Jesus’ perspective, “Here I am!”

            Whatever the folks in the synagogue expected Jesus to say, that probably wasn’t it. And I doubt that the people in the Corinth church expected Paul’s words either. The Corinthian church was a troubled church. They were a church in conflict, and Paul spends most of this letter addressing their conflicts. In the first part of this chapter, the part we read before the proclamation last Sunday and what we heard in the ordaining and installation of elders during that same service, Paul wrote about the importance of recognizing that all of us bring spiritual gifts to the table. In the verses before us today, he is pressing the point that not only do all of us have necessary spiritual gifts, we are all necessary. He uses the analogy of the body. Every member of the body is necessary and needed, no matter how small, no matter how seemingly insignificant. He even writes,

            “On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable …”

            It was about this time two years ago when I fell and broke my right wrist for the second time. When that happened I was vividly reminded of how much I rely on both my hands to function every day, and I definitely rely on my right hand because I’m right handed. So, losing the ability to use that hand to the fullest made me aware of how every part of the body is necessary and needed.

            But Paul was not speaking only to the literal necessity of our bodies, these amazing God-created machines. He was speaking to the body of Christ, which is what every church is supposed to be a part of. It is a connection between every child of God. None of us are without value. All of us are needed and necessary. All of us. Jesus stated that the reading of Isaiah was fulfilled in the hearing of those in that Nazarene synagogue, and he lived that out. Through his words, Paul is reminding the Corinthians of this. There is not one disposable or dispensable member of the body of Christ. From the top of the head down to the pinky toe, all are indispensable.

            But like the Corinthians, and like so many since, we have a hard time remembering that. There’s something in our human nature that wants some to be in and some to be out. I’m certainly guilty of that, and I suspect we all are. But if we take Jesus seriously, and if we take Paul’s words seriously, then we must take the idea that we are one body seriously as well. We are all necessary and needed. We are all God’s children.

            This week Nashville experienced another school shooting. Two children of God, two children, were killed – one murdered and one who murdered that child then killed himself. Another child was hurt, and hundreds of children were traumatized, along with teachers, administrators, and families. Again. We keep failing our children. We keep failing ourselves, because we can’t seem to understand that we are part of one body. We need each other. If one of us is sick, all of us are sick. If one of us is hurting, all of us are hurting. In the body of Christ, there is no us versus them or insiders and outsiders. We’re all in it together. We all bring gifts to the table. We are all necessary and needed. We are all God’s children. When are we going to start living it?

            Jesus said that he was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s words. Jesus said that he was the embodiment of those words. He was the living and breathing and walking and teaching good news.

            What will it mean for us to live the gospel? What will it mean for us to be the body of Christ in the world? What will it mean for us to take to heart these words that we read today? I’m not sure. I know that I fail at this call every day; I live out my call to the body of Christ imperfectly at best, but I also know that I need you. I need God’s children. I need the other members of this body. I need the power of community, of connection, of relationship. I need it desperately. I cannot fulfill my call or live into the gifts I have been given without community, without connection and relationship. I cannot be a hand or a foot or an ear or a toe by myself. All of us matter in the eyes of God. All of us are necessary and needed. All of us make up the one body of Christ. That is indeed the good news of the gospel. May God give us the courage and the power and the strength to proclaim it, to teach it, to live it. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

Increased in Wisdom and Years

Luke 2:41-52

January 5, 2025

 

When my two oldest nephews were little, they loved to watch the movie, Home Alone. Somewhat surprisingly, my dad really loved to watch it with them, not because he was enamored by the movie itself, but because he loved to listen to his grandsons laugh with delight at all the traps set for the bad guys. I have vivid memories of my dad and my nephews sitting on the sofa together with a bowl of popcorn between them watching Home Alone and laughing and laughing.

            Home Alone is now considered a Christmas classic, but just in case you know nothing about this movie, it lives up to its title. The movie tells the story of a little boy named Kevin who was accidentally left home alone over Christmas. His large extended family was taking a trip to Paris for the holidays, so there’s people and suitcases and a whole lot of kids everywhere. And even though headcounts are taken, in the frenetic shuffle of wrangling so many kids and adults into airport shuttles and onto a plane, Kevin, who had gotten in trouble and been sent to his room the night before, was left behind.

When the rest of the family finally makes it safely on the airplane, Kevin’s mom keeps thinking that she forgot something, but she can’t figure out what it is. After the plane takes off and is ascending to cruising altitude, she remembers. Kevin’s mother, played brilliantly by Catherine O’Hara, bolts upright in her seat and screams, “Kevin!”

In the meantime Kevin is home alone but holding his own. He manages to reunite a cantankerous old neighbor with his estranged son and fend off robbers who discover that this little kid is home and unsupervised. They think that this house will be an easy target, but they’ve never met a kid like Kevin before. That’s where the traps come in.

            For this story to be plausible you must believe that an entire family could leave home, board a plane for another country and forget one of their children. Although I think the movie is funny, before I had children I couldn’t imagine anyone forgetting their child. Then I became a mom. It’s not that I have forgotten my children, but I do know how quickly and how easily losing a kid can happen in a crowded mall or even outside in the backyard.

            Despite Home Alone, we still might be shocked that Mary and Joseph could have traveled a full day without realizing that Jesus was missing. Yet they would have traveled to the festival of the Passover with a large complement of family and traveled back home the same way. Jesus was 12, on the cusp of manhood, so I can see how they assumed he was walking with other family members, maybe spending the journey talking to a beloved cousin. It must have been when they stopped for the night after that first day of travel, when Mary and the other women were getting supper together that she and Joseph looked around and said, “Where’s Jesus?”       

            We can imagine the panic that sets in when they realize he’s nowhere to be found. We can imagine the fear that clutches their hearts when they realize he hasn’t been with them all day. Even though it’s dark and even though it’s dangerous, Mary and Joseph go back the way they came, to Jerusalem, to search for their son. They searched for him for three days.

            Three. Days. Panic would have turned to terror. Three days they searched for him. Jerusalem was not the modern metropolis it is today, but it was still big and crowded and there would have been numerous places to get lost. With each day that passed, their terror would have grown exponentially. We don’t know from the text what Mary and Joseph were thinking or feeling, but we can guess. We can guess the different scenarios they were envisioning. Maybe he had been kidnapped and wasn’t even in the city anymore? Maybe he was hurt and couldn’t find help? Maybe, maybe, maybe.

            But after three days, they returned to the temple, the object of their original journey, and there he was! He was sitting among the teachers, listening to them, asking them questions. He was safe and he was sound. After so many days of unrelenting fear, Mary and Joseph must have been weak with relief.

            When Zach was little he ran off from me in a crowded mall. I was terrified. When we found him, really when he wandered up to us, I fell to my knees and cried with relief. That was after about 30 minutes. Mary and Joseph had been looking for him for three days. Mary asks Jesus why he did this to them? Why did he treat them this way? The word that has been translated in our bible as anxiety, is actually better translated as agony. And it isn’t the typical word used for anxiety or worry. Luke uses this word one other time in the gospel for the agony surrounding the cross. This is not just your garden variety worry. This was the agony of parents who believe their child is lost forever.

            Jesus’ response to his parents seems inadequate to our ears.

“Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

Yet his response was probably not meant to be flippant or mouthy. I suspect that he was truly confused by his parent’s response to him. Again, digging into the Greek helps clarify this a little. The word that we read as must; I must be in Father’s house is more closely translated as it is necessary. One commentator wrote that this is code in Luke’s gospel for the necessity of what Jesus does and says. It is necessary that I be in my Father’s house. It is necessary that the Messiah suffers and dies. It is necessary that these things happen in this way. It is necessary that after three days, the Messiah will rise again.

I have preached this passage before, but I have never noticed the foreshadowing that lies at the heart of this passage. Jesus’ parents searched for him for three days. It is necessary for him to be in his Father’s house.

Mary had heard and treasured the things that had been about Jesus up to this point, but now Jesus shows that he is beginning to understand his relationship with God, to God, as well. After this exchange between parents and child, Luke tells us that Jesus returns home with them, and was obedient to them, submitted to their understanding of who he was to them and his responsibilities to their family. And Mary once more treasured what she had seen and heard in her heart.

The passage closes with these words, “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.”

Jesus grew up, not only physically, but emotionally, mentally, spiritually. He increased in wisdom. He grew into himself and into his call and purpose. Luke is the only gospel that offers us any insight into young Jesus. We hear of his birth, we read of his dedication at the temple when he was still a newborn, and we have a brief glimpse into one moment during years in between. The next time we see Jesus he will be grown and beginning the work, the call,  he was born to do.

But in the intervening years, in the time that we don’t read about, the time we can only speculate about, Jesus increases in wisdom and years.

Although Luke offers significant foreshadowing in this story about the life and call Jesus will live, I find it profoundly helpful and hopeful to consider that Jesus had to grow and learn. Jesus had to grow and learn just as all of us do. He had to figure things out. He had to grow in his understanding and knowledge of the world around him. He had to learn and grow into his relationship with God, with God’s people, and with the mantle of call that had been wrapped around him before his birth.

A commentator on this story shared about when he first moved to New York City. New York, like many other cities, is always under construction. There is always a building being constructed or a sidewalk being fixed, or a road being widened. There are always cranes and jackhammers and construction sites. The writer naively assumed that one day all that would be done. The jackhammers would cease, the scaffolding would be torn down, and the construction crews would go home. But after living there a while, he realized that the construction would never end. One site might be finished, but another one would have already begun.

Maybe this is what its like for us to increase in wisdom and years. We finish one phase with new understanding and insight, only to be thrust again into a situation where we must learn something new, see through new eyes, perceive in a way we had not considered before. Jesus is our model in what it means to love God, to love others, to love ourselves, why shouldn’t he also be our model in increasing in wisdom? Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and while we are not Jesus, it is good news to know that no matter how old we are, God is not finished with us yet. No matter how much we think we know, there is always more to learn. God is not finished with us yet. We are still increasing in wisdom and in years. Thanks be to God.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.

The One of Peace -- Fourth Sunday of Advent

Micah 5:2-5a

December 22, 2024

 

            Bethlehem was the one place I could not wait to see. It wasn't that I didn't want to visit the other countries and sites we were touring, but Bethlehem? Bethlehem was it. It was the real deal. This was the town that I had been singing about, hearing about, and imagining my whole life. Finally, I was going to see and experience that little town of Bethlehem. I guess in my mind, I saw Bethlehem as a cozy, charming village. After all, the artistic depictions of Bethlehem I saw growing up made it seem like a quaint little town tucked neatly into the Swiss alps. Just substitute sand for snow and you've got it. Of course, these are the same pictures that portrayed Mary, a Middle eastern Jew, as blonde and blue-eyed, so I should have guessed that reality might differ from the pictures.

            But I never guessed or imagined just how different that reality would be. Bethlehem different from the pictures? That's an understatement. Bethlehem was nothing like I thought it would be. How shall I put this? It looked like a dive. A pit of despair. A ditch of despondency. You get the idea. The pictures and paintings I'd seen growing up were far cries from the reality of Bethlehem.

            When we first pulled into the town, I looked eagerly for those dark streets that were once illumined by an everlasting light. But they were just dark. And if they were wide and open enough to be filled with sunlight, then what really stood out was the dirt and the dust. There were people walking around, but they stared at our tour bus with suspicion and distrust. I can't say that I blamed them.

“Oh goody. Another group of westerners come to stare at us.”

            The Bethlehem I visited, and the Bethlehem of lore were two very different places. That really shouldn't have been a surprise, I know. But the disparity between the ideal and the reality was far wider than I would have ever thought possible. Bethlehem in 1993 was a sad, neglected town, ravaged by violence and hopelessness. Never was I so glad to leave a place as I was Bethlehem.

            My visit was in 1993. Things change. My dear friend, Ellen, took a tour of the Holy Land several years after I visited there, and the souvenir she brought back for me was a coffee mug from the Bethlehem Starbucks. If Starbucks has made it to Bethlehem, then you know changes have been made. I have no problem with coffee shops in Bethlehem or any other place. As many of you know, I believe strongly that coffee has the power to effect change and inspire hope. At least that's the promise coffee makes to me every morning. But Starbucks in lieu of a star? That gives me pause.

            But lattes aside, the Bethlehem I visited was a different place from the one which abides in the carols we sing. Yet the Bethlehem of my memory doesn't seem that different from the Bethlehem Micah spoke of and to in these verses.

            "But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days."

            As always, understanding of these particular verses comes from understanding the larger context. Israel and Judah were under siege by the Assyrians. Samaria, the stronghold of the northern kingdom had fallen. According to one Old Testament scholar, great walls and fortresses were built around city after city in attempt to thwart the invaders. But eventually invaders could not be thwarted. City after city had fallen. City after city lay in ruins. Bethlehem was no different. It was ravaged by war and conquest. All that was left of its mighty walls and ramparts were smoke and ash. But in the midst of this devastation, Micah spoke this miraculous word of hope. Out of this little clan, this little town, this seemingly unimportant and conquered place will come one who will rule. This one that Micah spoke of would be both rooted in the ancient days of Israel's beginnings and in the future that would be grounded in God's promise and faithfulness. Out of this little one, this little Bethlehem, would come one who would rule, shepherd, and bring peace.

            As I said, understanding this passage, this word of hope, means understanding the larger context. Unlike other prophets that may have survived assaults from foreign armies by holing up in heavily protected strongholds of kings and rulers, Micah and his people had witnessed the devastation wreaked across the land from the invading armies. They had seen the destruction and waste that resulted from the king’s response through force. Micah saw firsthand how violence only begets violence. Micah saw up close and personally how violence destroys the most vulnerable, how it destroys the land. And as one commentator wrote, Micah was furious. He was furious with the current kingship and the genealogical lines that put one weak king in power after another, and furious that all these kings seemed to understand was violence. According to the scholarship I read, Micah did not want the current line of kingship to continue. Micah, a prophet who had seen what happens to the least of these because of war and violence, wanted change – dramatic, life-altering change. And Micah knew that this was change that could only come from God. Micah understood that the ruler who would come from God would be the one of peace.

            So, it is into this maelstrom of history, violence, devastation, and destruction that Micah prophesied. It is into this chaos of violence that Micah prophesied of the one who would come, the one of God who would hearken back to the ancient beginning of Israel, indeed the beginning of creation, and who would be the change the future demanded. Micah prophesied of this one of God, this one who would bring peace. And this one who would bring peace would not come from the high echelons of Jerusalem, but from the most unexpected and lowly of places: Bethlehem.

It's easy to Christianize Micah's words. Certainly they tie in neatly with our story from Luke. Elizabeth, a woman well past childbearing age, is expecting a child! And her kinswoman, another unexpected, lowly one, a young woman named Mary, is also expecting an unexpected child. Both Elizabeth and the child within her recognize that Mary is carrying the one that Micah spoke of, the ruler, the shepherd of the people, the one who would bring peace. This one of peace is the one we know as Jesus the Christ.

However, I’m not sure if Micah would have understood this one of peace as the Jesus that we know and honor. Micah and the people to whom he prophesied, were probably hoping for a new kind of ruler, one who would bring peace, true, but one who also would restore the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. This new ruler would bring peace but would also lead the people with might and power. Their enemies would be defeated. Their homes would be rebuilt. Their lands would be restored by this new and powerful one of peace. Wasn’t this the hope of the people who followed Jesus? Didn’t they understood the Christ, the Messiah, as one who would be the mightiest warrior of all? Wasn’t this part of the problem? Jesus did not fulfill this idea of Messiah, and never pretended to. He was the most unlikely of people to be the chosen one of God. But maybe Micah had a glimpse. As one scholar wrote, Micah’s prophesy of hope is far more radical than we realize. Micah knew that God was doing something new. The one to come from God, the one would bring peace, was radically different than all the ones who had gone before. Maybe Micah had a glimpse of just how unlikely and unexpected the one who would bring peace would be.

            When it comes to God, the unexpected and unlikely should not surprise us, should it? The unexpected and unlikely are at the heart of the gospel. That’s what makes the good news of the gospel so radical and indeed it is radical! The unexpected and surprising nature of God's incarnation is what makes the story of our faith such good news. From the unexpected and the unlikely, from little ones, little towns, and the lowliest of people comes great hope, peace, joy, and love. Our good news, our salvific news, our amazing news is found in God’s divine surprise. God is where we least expect and in the unlikeliest of people.  

            It seems to me, though, that while we know this about God we don't really know this about God. We either take this good news for granted, or we forget it in the midst of the darkness that surrounds us. The pain of the world is so great that the idea of light overcoming darkness sounds like just a nice thing to say. This world we live in is so filled with enmity, violence, greed and fear that it is surely beyond redemption. And that’s just out there. What about in here? What about in us? What brokenness lies within each of us? What pain and sorrow do we bear? Will this bringer of peace bring peace to our lives, bind up our broken hearts, and soothe our weary spirits? Of course God will. Of course. That is the good news of the gospel! We say it, but do we always believe it? When the darkness of the world fills me with despair, I find it hard to believe that a light will shine in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it.

            But God never fails to surprise me. God surprises me, and I am shaken from my complacency and knocked out of my selfish ease. God surprises me, God surprises us, through the little ones, the unexpected ones – unexpected people and unexpected places.

            The gospel is a gospel of surprise, and the call of Advent is to be surprised again by God. After all, how can we not be surprised that our God was born into this broken body in a broken world, not to overwhelm us or destroy us but to bring light into the darkness. God was born into this world to lead us with peace. So, let us be joyful. Let our hearts and minds be filled with hope. Let us shout the good news of peace to a world in desperate need. Let us give thanks and praise because God surprises us still, because God loves us. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God's children say, "Alleluia!"

Amen.