Mark 1:4-11 I always love this Sunday. The baptism of the Lord. It always comes the Sunday following Epiphany. It’s the one day of the year that we intentionally remember that Jesus was baptized by John, and that we are also called to be baptized into his family. For me, it’s always a treasured opportunity to talk with you about why we baptize, what it means to us. It’s easy to forget about baptism, really. Every new Christian is meant to be baptized, but we do it so infrequently that we seldom think of it. We all get baptized, but only once. And if you were baptized as an infant, as most of us were, you don’t even have any memory of it. Some people don’t even know for sure if they were baptized. Which is interesting to me. It says to me that baptism is sometimes a rather meaningless […]
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Stronger than Fear
Matthew 2:1-12 Much of the time the stories from scripture live in our imaginations somewhat differently than they live on the pages of the Bible. This morning we sing an old familiar song, “We three kings of orient are, bearing gifts we travers afar.” And yet the scripture says nothing about them being kings. And, whatever we call them – kings, magi, wise men – the scripture never mentions how many of them there were. We only infer that from the number of gifts that were mentioned. Nonetheless, every nativity scene has three men bearing gifts, often wearing crowns. Because they’re kings. Only, they’re not. We’re really not sure what they are – except we know they are foreign. These guys are out-of-towners, and I think that helps to explain why they act as dumb as they do. They go to the king – Herod – to ask him for […]
Continue readingGiving and Receiving
Luke 2:22-40 This Sunday we are in the Christmas season, which means that, for the world we live in, Christmas is over. All around we see the debris of Christmas, while here in the church we’re saying, “At last – we have arrived and we are just getting started!” Because there is much more to Christmas than the shopping and the gift exchanging. It’s after the rush is over that we have the chance to really see that. This first Sunday of Christmas is a day to get some perspective on it. This is a good day to get some perspective on giving and receiving. I read an article once that said, from an economist’s point of view, Christmas gift giving is irrational. It said, “ill-chosen gifts caused between $4 billion and $13 billion a year in economic waste.” I didn’t want to know that. But I know it’s true, for I have personally been in the […]
Continue readingLove Came Down
John 1:1-14 Annie Dillard wrote a lovely little essay about a childhood remembrance, called God in the Doorway. One Christmas Eve, in her fancy dress, having returned home from a festive dinner with her family she sat near the fire for the warmth, and she became aware of a sudden commotion; the front door opened and there stood Santa Claus in the doorway, big as life, ringing a loud bell and shouting “Merry Christmas!” And Annie was terrified. She ran upstairs and refused to come down, no matter how much her mother coaxed and cajoled her; she wanted this so much for Annie. But Annie wanted none of it. For Annie, seeing Santa there in the doorway was like meeting God, and at this stage in her young life, she was in no hurry to meet God. It is easy for children to confuse God and Santa Claus. I remember my oldest […]
Continue readingJourney to the Light, Part 4: The Impossible
Luke 1:26-38 There is a legend that says Mary was not the first young woman to whom the angel came. That, in fact, the angel Gabriel had made numerous attempts to identify a young woman who would carry the Christ child. Madeleine L’Engle imagines how these conversations might have gone. Responses to the angel might have sounded something like this: “Are you sure you mean – but I’m unworthy – I couldn’t, anyhow – I’d be afraid. No, no, it’s inconceivable, you can’t be asking me – I know it’s a great honor but wouldn’t it upset them all, both our families? They’re very proper, you see. Do I have to answer now? I don’t want to say no – it’s what every girl hopes for, even if she won’t admit it. But I can’t commit myself to anything this important without turning it over in my mind for a […]
Continue readingJourney to the Light, Part 3: As We Wait
John 1:6-8, 19-28 Today on this third Sunday of Advent, we await the coming of the light. It is a dark season. We are a week away from the darkest day of the year – the day when the sun is farthest from this northern hemisphere, making our day short and our night long. It is a dark season, yet we await the coming of the light. It is a dark season for us in many ways. Day after day, the weight of this novel coronavirus darkens our land with sickness, want, loneliness, and death. It is a dark season around the world where the numbers of the sick and the dead continue to rise, where leaders try, or do not try, to alleviate the suffering around them. In a world where powerful people behave as though they own the power, rather than that they are stewards of it. Where […]
Continue readingJourney to the Light, Part 2: Voices from the Edge
Isaiah 40:1-11 Mark 1:1-8 I remember one day back in kindergarten when the teacher gave us a coloring sheet and told us, “Color it all in, nice and neat.” I was a little rule follower, so I made it my job to color in and cover over every speck of white within the lines of the picture. I wanted teacher to know she could count on me. I colored just as hard as I could – but I ran into a problem. The pressure of the crayon in my hand was making flakes of colored wax flick right off the paper. Naturally, I panicked. I colored harder, but that only made it worse. Finally, exhausted and out of time, I had to surrender. I just wanted to do it right but, in my mind, I had failed. I’m older now and no longer so obsessive as I was. But a […]
Continue readingJourney to the Light, Part 1: Awake
Mark 13:24-37 I saw a t-shirt recently that said, “I miss precedented times.” I have to agree; this year, “unprecedented” has worn out its welcome. But here we are in the season of Advent – a season that tells us to expect unprecedented things. The sun and moon will go dark, stars will fall from the sky, the Son of Man will come in the clouds, and no one knows the day or the hour. Every year it feels a little strange to begin the Advent season, because it’s a thing that most of the world doesn’t recognize. To most people, this is the Christmas season, or maybe the Thanksgiving leftovers season. It is the time of the year when the church is the most out of sync with the world around us, because we are waiting for Jesus – in a world that detests having to wait for anything. […]
Continue readingCrime and Punishment and Forgiveness
Matthew 25:31-46 There is a story about two little girls in a small English village who decide to spend their summer searching for Jesus. The book is called The Trouble with Sheep and Goats. It’s a little bit of a mystery, but it’s a lot more than that. Something has happened in the village: a neighbor woman has gone missing. The girls are at an age where they can understand some of the adult conversation, but not enough to really know what’s going on. They gather that there is a story behind this disappearance, something all the adults in their street are in on, but they don’t know what it is. One of the girls, Grace, is mulling it over one day outside the church. When the priest approaches her, she asks: why do people get lost. She means it quite literally, but he hears it as a metaphorical question […]
Continue readingPerfect Love
Matthew 25:14-30 There is an old familiar saying: Be careful what you wish for, you might get it. It comes from that wise fellow, Aesop, who told a story about an elderly man trying to gather up some firewood and finding that he is too frail to carry the load. In exasperation he called upon death to come and get him. To his surprise, death appeared and asked, “What can I do for you, old man?” The startled man said, “O! nothing at all; sorry to have bothered you.” We sometimes wish for things simply because we haven’t thought it through well enough. We wish to win the lottery without thinking through the various costs such good fortune might present. There are enough cautionary tales about people who did win the lottery and have nothing but bitterness and woe from the experience. If you are like me, you think, “But […]
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