the light of hope, 12.22.13

Isaiah 55:1-13

Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.

3Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. 4See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. 5See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.

6Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; 7let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. 8For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. 9For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

10For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, 11so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

12For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. 13Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.


Romans 5: 1-5

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
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There’s a big part of me that hates Christmas. I hate shopping, anyway; and I pretty reliably leave things to the last minute. That makes it much harder to find joy in choosing the right gifts for people, because the choosing and the shopping happen under pressure in stores full of people.

Christmas shopping brings out a whole range of feelings in me, many of them unpleasant. First, there’s worry about not knowing what to get, and combined with that all kinds of worries about forgetting someone, spending too little, spending too much.

Then I feel guilty. I feel guilty because I didn’t plan ahead so the gifts I chose aren’t as thoughtful as I want them to be. I feel stretched financially and then I feel guilty about that because I know I have it easier than most people. I alternate between feeling like I should be a more generous gift giver and wishing the people in my life didn’t exchange presents at all because many of us feel similar stresses about the whole thing.

Shopping brings me face to face with the enormous amount of stuff we as a society want, buy, sell, give and return. I think a big part of our consumption, frustration, stress and depression has to do with a constant barrage of messages that things are the way to happiness. We feel overwhelmed by the things our TV’s and our children tell us we should buy. There is never enough time or money or energy for us to feel caught up in a world that’s always asking for more.

Regardless of the source of our stress, we have a deep fear that something big is at stake in the shopping and celebration that surrounds Christmas. Too many things depend on us and too many things are out of our control. We are scared that no matter what we do it won’t be enough. We shop, and plan and run, to fend off the hopelessness we feel threatening to overwhelm us.

Isaiah had never been to Walmart or Target, but he knew a lot about communities trying to establish security through their own efforts at any cost. He saw Judah plan and fight and oppress the poor because they thought wealth showed God’s blessings and that, as God’s chosen, they would not be defeated. Then after exile, the people felt lost and hopeless. The land and God’s promise went together, so they couldn’t imagine how to rebuild after the fall of the Holy City. Desperation, despair and hopelessness set in and they didn’t know how to seek God again.

Like Judah adrift after exile, we spend our money for things that aren’t nourishing and our labor for things that don’t satisfy us in the deep sense. We buy and buy (or wish we could buy) because at some level we think consumption is our only way to satisfy our desires. If we get the right gift, maybe we’ll be loved. If we don’t we risk our loved ones’ happiness. Maybe the longing we feel can be satisfied with the latest things advertised on TV.

But things don’t give us value and, ultimately, they don’t make us happy. Love, community, peace, faith: these things make us happy. God’s love gives us value.

Isaiah shows us what really nurtures and satisfies us. The image is of God welcoming everyone to clear springs of water, refreshing and pure. Beyond the water, God also offers rich wine and milk to drink. Not only are people’s basic physical needs met, God offers a celebration with only the best food and drink.

God wants to nourish us: body and soul. God wants to satisfy us, not only giving us what we need, but what we deeply want. And God doesn’t just want to satisfy the chosen few, the people of Israel or the church or the successful; God wants to renew the world in peace and joy. To a people drowning in fear and stumbling in the darkness, Isaiah brings a word of hope.

My ways are not your ways, God says. As high as heaven is above earth, so are my ways than your ways. Our attempts to secure meaning through hard work or shopping or cooking might not be getting us anywhere, but God’s word accomplishes its purpose. It doesn’t return empty, but instead it nourishes the ground and brings forth a harvest of joy and peace.

I spent the last two days feeling pretty trapped in Christmas stress. Even some of the ministries I love made me feel stressed instead of joyful. I love dropping off the Christmas baskets, and I finally got the gifts wrapped for my two Christmas angels and was excited to drop them off. When we got there the youngest child in the house was the granddaughter, so she wasn’t on my list and I didn’t have anything for her. I walked out of the kitchen feeling like a failure and I had disappointed a little girl.

I wasn’t even looking forward to the living nativity. The weather was lousy and I kept feeling like things weren’t going quite right. But then I got excited because everyone was pitched in. Karen, Karen, Tedd and Mike took care of hospitality; Sally and Al lent a portable stereo; Karen, Lea, Donna and Kelly got everyone dressed and a cast of actors from twelve to seventies (along with a loud donkey and other animals) brought the story of Christ’s birth to life. It was just what I needed, and from the grateful shouts and honks I wasn’t the only one. God’s word became flesh in Jesus, and for the twenty somethingith year Laurelton brought that story to life for the community.

As the evening went on and the cold and rain started to make me wish for 8:30, a young woman I’d never seen before started taking pictures from the sidewalk. I thanked her for coming and she said, “This is so beautiful. I can’t tell you how long I’ve waited for this. I’ve wanted to see a living nativity for years and I’ve never managed to go to one. This year my husband surprised me and brought me here. I’ve got tears in my eyes.” Truly, God’s word never returns empty, but it accomplishes God’s loving purpose.

Advent and Christmas is about hope in the darkness of despair. It’s about seeing a peaceful kingdom, even though the world around us is still full of violence. It’s about a vision of bread and wine, milk and food for everyone with no one worried about how they are going to pay for it. It’s about a dark night in a strange city with no room at the inn somehow becoming the entry for God to come into the world as a baby.

There’s a lot of confusion about hope, especially when we talk about the biblical hope for God’s peaceful kingdom. Hoping for God’s kingdom isn’t wishful thinking. It’s not ignoring or escaping from reality. It’s not putting on a cheerful face and pretending things are better than they are. It’s also not the false wisdom of the jaded cynic who says things are the way they are and nothing is going to change.

Hope is keeping our eyes on God’s vision of wholeness, peace and community and moving towards it. It’s also seeing clearly the problems of the world and the dangers that surround us. One theologian says it something like this, “Wishing is like drifting in a gondola; hoping is steering a ship through a gale.”

Thinking about hope like steering a ship helps us see the difference between short term and long term. We hope for the kingdom of God; that’s the far shore we trust we’re heading towards, the goal of our journey. Between that shore and us there are lots of waves, sharp rocks, and sand bars. In the big picture, we steer towards the far shore, but the moments and days of our journey are more about avoiding dangerous obstacles and sometimes seeking shelter for a few days.

The kingdom of God gives us our general course; the details of the current world in all its joys and sorrows determine what route we take to our destination. The journey takes courage, creativity, clarity and flexibility. Sometimes we think we’re going to go right around an obstacle, but the wind leads us left instead. Sometimes we need to shift course suddenly to avoid a rock. No matter what route and deviations we need to make, we keep a sense of the goal in mind all the time, and that destination shapes how we get there.

We can’t simply wish ourselves across the ocean, there’s a lot of work to be done. Just imagining a world at peace won’t create a peaceful world; there are all kinds of steps from relationship building to policy to collaboration, to prayer that have to take shape along the way. If we’re going to travel successfully, we need to be clear and honest about the challenges.

Paul’s words fit right in. He writes: "We also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

When we suffer and hold on to our love and faith we learn how to endure. As we learn to endure faithfully, our character: our courage, our integrity are strengthened. As our character gets stronger we see how faithful God is through it all, so our sense of hope grows. If God walks faithfully with us through divorce and death and financial struggle, we learn that a joyful kingdom for everyone can be real too. If God can bring this community of different people with all our scars and quirks and baggage together, we have reason to hope for a world where people come from east and west and north and south to sit together in the kingdom of God.

We’ve all been let down and hurt. So has God. The people God created in love have been hurting each other from the beginning. The special people God called by name and freed from slavery kept turning away from God and oppressing the poor, even though every part of their law reminded them that God loves the poor. Through prosperity, prophesy, exile and return, God’s heart broke to see his beloved children suffer and sin.

God had been burned over and over again, but God doesn’t give up on us. So God sent the son in human flesh, as a vulnerable baby to scared but faithful parents. Jesus knew fear and sorrow. He knew poverty and rejection. He knew suffering and death. All for us; all for love. In Jesus we see God’s kingdom: a kingdom of welcome, righteousness and love. We see where this crazy story is going and we know the powers of the world do not like it, but they can’t stop it. So come to the waters, come to the stable, seek the Lord, hope for the kingdom and steer through the storm. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.

Thanks be to God.

"Wait for the Lord," 12.9.12

Psalm 46:1-11

¹God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. ²Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; ³though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult.

⁴There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. ⁵God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns.

⁶The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts.

⁷The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. ⁸Come, behold the works of the Lord; see what desolations he has brought on the earth. ⁹He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire.

¹⁰“Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.” ¹¹The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.

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            Last week we talked about how Advent looks in two different directions. We look back to Jesus’ birth in the manger and we look forward to the end of history when Christ will come again and the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our. In some ways, that is setting the cosmic scene for our Advent experience. Today I want to look at Advent more personally and practically.

            Waiting is a key idea of Advent. During Advent we prepare ourselves for Christmas, but we’re not preparing for something we have any control over. We’re waiting for Jesus kind of like we wait for a train or a bus. Nothing we can do can make Christmas come any faster (not that we’d want it to), and nothing we do can make God’s kingdom come any faster. We have to wait.

            We usually think of waiting as passive, as passing time until whatever we are waiting for arrives. There’s a lot more to it than that, though. For one thing, if we’re waiting for something we trust that it’s going to happen. We wouldn’t wait for a bus unless we were pretty sure it was going to arrive. Not only do we trust that the thing we’re waiting for is real, the thing we’re waiting for is also our main focus. We can do other things, but whatever we’re waiting for takes priority when it arrives. It’s helpful to think about waiting for God in the same way. We can trust that God is real and worth waiting for. We can also remember that God is the point of this season and of our life. All the other things in the season are important, but God is the purpose for our waiting, the reason for our hope and our existence.

Our readings for today shed some biblical light on waiting, in this case, waiting for the Lord. Psalm 46, which John just read, is a meditation on trusting God. It begins and ends with the affirmation that God is our refuge, our safe haven. It expands on that by reminding us that we can trust God to take care of us even when life is chaotic. Even if the world were to melt away, God would still be with us, leading us through.

Both the images of chaos and the picture of a river running through the City of Jerusalem suggest God’s judgment at the end of history. When the Prophet Ezekiel sees a vision for the restoration of Jerusalem there is a river of life flowing from the temple. The river in this Psalm takes me there, to a peaceful stream and God’s restoration in the future.

The chaotic images of mountains shaking and the earth changing remind me of Jesus’ words about the judgment last week. Even when everything falls apart God is there. Thinking about God’s judgment like we did last week can be unsettling. This passage reassures me that even then, God will take care of us. If God can hold us together when the mountains shake and judgment comes, it’s safe to say we can trust him to get us through Christmas shopping and baking too.

space to follow (1.23.11)

Psalm 27:1, 4-9
1 The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
4 One thing I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after:
to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple.
5 For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble;
he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will set me high on a rock.
6 Now my head is lifted up above my enemies all around me,
and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make melody to the LORD.
7 Hear, O LORD, when I cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me!
8 “Come,” my heart says, “seek his face!” Your face, LORD, do I seek.
9 Do not hide your face from me.
Do not turn your servant away in anger, you who have been my help.
Do not cast me off, do not forsake me, O God of my salvation!


Matthew 4:12-23
12Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. 13He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
15 “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles —
16 the people who sat in darkness
have seen a great light,
and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death
light has dawned.”

17From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

18As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea — for they were fishermen. 19And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” 20Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. 22Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.
23Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.
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There was something compelling about Jesus that made people come and listen. There was something special that made Peter and Andrew, James and John leave everything to follow him. There’s something amazing about Jesus that keeps calling to our souls today, even when we can’t put it into words.

His core message as Matthew tells it today was straightforward: “Repent. The kingdom of heaven has come near.”

There’s something about repentance and the kingdom that makes us perk up our ears. Maybe it’s because we long for God’s kingdom. We long for the feeling of true peace that comes with resting in God’s arms. We long for creation to be made whole; we long for peace and justice in our world. We long to know that someone else is in charge, that everything is finally taken care of. We recognize God’s calling and in the depth of our soul we long to be with God. So hearing that the kingdom of heaven has come near fills us with joy and excitement.

But our joy is always tinged with guilt, colored by sorrow. We know we’ve made choices that separate us from God. When we hear the message about repentance and the kingdom, we feel a stab of homesickness and regret, but we also glimpse a ray of hope.

Maybe the reason Jesus is so compelling is that his call to repentance is an invitation to all of us. We’re so aware of our sin and separation from God we wonder if there’s even a place for us in God’s kingdom. We wonder if maybe we’re so far gone that God doesn’t want us. Jesus touches the part of us that worries and doubts. He heals the pain inside us, because his ministry shows that God wants to bring all of us home.

Here Jesus walks down the seashore and calls out to fishermen to follow him. In Luke’s version of the same story Peter says to Jesus, “Lord, go away from me; I’m a sinful man.” But Jesus won’t go away. Instead Jesus keeps calling sinners like Peter and Andrew, sinners like you and me to come and follow. Repentance and forgiveness makes space for us to follow Jesus.

Sometimes Christ’s calling pressures us to work harder, and sometimes we feel that demand too clearly in a church like ours. This church has deep roots. Many here have rich memories of childhood here. Many also carry the burden of the way things used to be. There are so many things we feel have to get done and there are not so many of us to do them.