John 1:42

Jan 18, 2026

God Is Faithful

          John the Baptist lived on the edge of town. Some people who came to him for his baptism of repentance believed he was the messiah. It must have been tempting for him. He could have told everyone that he was the messiah. That his baptism was the only one they needed. But, John was faithful. John did what God called him to do. John told everyone that another would come who would baptize with the Holy Spirit not just with water. I tend to imagine John alone out in the desert. Like a lone mad prophet hurling truth at the elite of society, reminding them of God’s expectations for proper living. That isn’t a correct image of John. John had disciples, people who followed him and learned from him. And he must have taught them very well because when John identified Jesus as the Messiah, they left John to follow Jesus.

          It was a gutsy move. They had already left everything to follow John. I’m sure they had been ridiculed by their friends and family. Taunted by people saying, “why are you following this crazy man?” “Why don’t you have some lamb instead of those locusts?” and “When are you coming home son? Your mother needs your help.” They heard all these taunts and stood up under the incredulous looks. They did it all because God had called them to be disciples of John. They were faithful disciples of John. And, having built their lives around John’s ministry, when John identified Jesus as the promised one who would baptize with the Holy Spirit, they stood up, shook the dust off their robes and followed Jesus.

          I guess Jesus didn’t have any followers yet. John’s baptism is the beginning of his ministry. I wonder though what Jesus was doing before his ministry began. I cannot begin to hazard a guess. The gospels were not written as a diary. The gospels are written in the style of a certain kind of biography which shows how the subject of the biography is a great man. There were origin stories about many famous people. It was a genre that would have been well known in Jesus’ time. The gospel according to John was the story of Jesus, the very son of God. Which means not every detail was recorded and the story was told in a way that supported John’s understanding of Jesus and his ministry.

          So, we don’t know if Jesus had any disciples before these two, but we do know these two men, left the man they had been following and started following Jesus. The gospel tells us that the two men started following Jesus before seeing any miracle, before hearing him speak, before knowing where he was going. But they did inquire about that quickly, Jesus turned around and asked, “what do you want?” They answered, “We want to know where you are staying.” I might have asked where are you going. If I am going to follow someone it would be good to know where we are going. One cannot pack properly without knowing where one is going. But these two men did not care. Wherever Jesus was going they would follow. What they wanted to know was where Jesus was staying. Jesus answered come and see. So, they did. They spent the day with Jesus. They talked and asked questions and decided that Jesus truly was the Messiah. Then, they went and told others.

          We know that one of the men was Andrew. Andrew was so excited after this conversation that he went and told his brother, Simon Peter. Peter’s name might be familiar to you. It was Peter who would follow Jesus to the trial and then prove very unfaithful. Peter would deny his association with Jesus. Peter would be the first to be brave enough to admit that Jesus was the Messiah of God. Peter would be the rock on which the church was built. Peter would argue with Paul about gentiles even after having the vision that told him all food was clean. Peter, who was introduced by Andrew would become the leader of the disciples.  And even though Peter was unfaithful to Jesus, Jesus was faithful to him. Jesus appeared to Peter on the lakeshore after the resurrection and gave him the chance to proclaim his love of Jesus. God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. God is faithful even when we are not.

          Faithfulness is difficult for us. We want to be true to ourselves and our loved ones, but we are frequently not honest enough with ourselves to be faithful to others. We lie to ourselves about our motives. We lie to ourselves about who we are and how we love. We lie to ourselves and we lie to God.

          Faithfulness is a spiritual fruit. As we grow in our relationship with Jesus our relationships with other people become better. The same spirit that convicts us to follow Jesus builds in us the ability to become more faithful. Some of the time that faithfulness is born from knowing what we can and cannot do. We realize that we will not be faithful to a resolution, so we do not make that resolution. We learn that there are only so many activities we can do so we say no to another one. We grow in our understanding of ourselves enough to know that if we do commit to something and it is too much for us, we can quit without it being unfaithful. We learn to weigh the outcomes to know what is faithful and what is detrimental to our hearts, minds, bodies and souls.

          Fruits of the spirit can be tricky. The same spirit that calls us to fellowship also calls us to solitude. The same spirit that leads us to the desert also leads us to still waters. The spirit is our comforter and our challenger. And despite everything we do and do not do, everything we think is right that isn’t’ despite all of our flaws, God is faithful. God kept God’s promise to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob even as they messed up time and time again.  Jesus walked with his disciples, shared meals with them, shared his life with them. He loved Judas Iscariot knowing Judas had betrayed him. He loved John Mark who ran away when Jesus was arrested. He loved all the disciples who abandoned him at the crucifixion. And though we are followers of Christ so many years later, Jesus loves us. Jesus loves me this I know for the bible tells me so. Jesus loves me this I know because he walks with me and he talks with me along life’s narrow way. Jesus loves us in the midst of all the messiness of life holding our hand when the night is too deep and the sunrise waits too long to show us the new day. Jesus carries us when we are too weary to stand on our own. Jesus helps us to mend the broken places in our bodies, minds and souls. There is no part of us that Jesus despises. Jesus knows our every weakness, every growing edge, every secret held closely, everything and Jesus loves us. Jesus is faithful to us. Jesus, our rock and our redeemer has promised to be faithful and God fulfills promises.

          God is love and love never fails. We can go out into the world knowing that the king of all things, the creator and sustainer of the cosmos, the one on whom we rely is and always will be faithful, even when we are not. God is faithful and we need not worry because the one who made us will sustain us. And it is for this we can say, thanks be to God Amen.

John 1:14

Jan 4, 2026

Promises

God of steadfast love which lasts forever, help us to believe in that love. Help us to always remember you are with us. And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you our rock and our redeemer Amen

          The new year comes without promises. Time keeps flowing by like a river and we keep dipping our toes in the moments never able to stand still for very long. If we do stand still, we risk being swept under the rapids. Nothing is promised to us in the New Year except the love of God and the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

          This letter written to the Ephesians begins with one of the most beautiful passages of scripture. Ephesus was a thriving city when this would have been written. They had a sewage system made of clay pipes that is still somewhat intact. The mosaics that lined the sidewalks are full of Christian symbols. All the arrogance of the present falls away when looking at an ancient city. And the words at the beginning of the letter are even older than this letter.

            Hebrew prayers often begin in this way. Not with the Lord Jesus Christ part of course. The prayers are offered for elements of the meal. Listen to the blessing before eating bread in Hebrew. The English reads blessed are you, Adonai our God, Sovereign of all, who brings forth bread from the earth. Notice how the prayer addresses God. Blessed are you, Adonai our God. The first statement identifies who God is to us. The second statement, Sovereign of all, tells us something about who God is. God is the one who rules over everything and everyone. The final line tells us that it is God who calls forth the bread from the earth. In this short prayer, we are reminded of the greatness of God and of the blessings we have received through grace.

 The blessing this letter began with was like our call to worship. It is a signal to the people to listen because something really good is about to come. In this case the really good thing to come is a blessing in the form of God choosing us.

            The ancestral covenant God made with the Hebrew people included a word or two about them being a blessing to the world. They weren’t sure exactly what that meant. The apostles had to work that out after Jesus’ resurrection. What would it take for people to become Christian? Did they have to become Jewish first or could they just follow Jesus without learning how to be Jewish? From our vantage point more than two thousand years later, it seems a silly question. God chose to adopt us according to pleasure of his good will.  Once the apostle’s decided to listen to God’s will to include all people, the celebrations began for all of us. Celebrations that should continue today.

            There are times when it is hard to celebrate. The world gets heavy. We hear of wars and rumors of war. We fight illnesses that drain our strength and motivation. The stream of time rushes past us while we are trying to be still. All the things pile up in our to do list. Or, perhaps there are no things on our to do list. No call to achieve this or that. Those are times when it is hard to celebrate. That is precisely when we should yell out “blessed be the God and Father of Jesus Christ!”

            It is through the blood of Jesus spilled on the ground that we have redemption. It is through Jesus’ humbling of himself that we experience the exaltations that life sometimes gives us from the hand of God. Wisdom mediated by grace reveal to us God’s wish to redeem each of us. We are the children of God, and we too will be taken up when God collects everything into a grand embrace. The promises of God are sure and certain.

God is God and God will do what God will do. That is a beautiful thing for us. God’s will and promises showered on people, mere mortals, dipping our toes in the stream of time, we fall into the stream and God plucks us up when it is time for us to join another church.

            God has promised that God will be with us in all our troubles and trials. Jesus will sit beside us in the car as we drive to the next doctor’s appointment. The Spirit will breathe new life into our hearts when it feels like we have no more energy for the stuff of life. God promises and God’s promises never fail.

            For the next few weeks, we will be exploring just what it is that God has promised. We will have the opportunity to soak in the blessings that God has brought to us through Jesus. We will celebrate that God does not leave us or forsake us. That God’s mercy is new every morning. That from the beginning of time God has prepared a place for us at the table of life.

            Until then, we will go out from this place singing hallelujah, hallelujah until we believe it, until we feel the thrill of it in our toes like electricity flying through our bodies a million miles an hour and stretching into eternity.

            Amid everything, every thing, every hope, every breath, every disappointment, every moment on the mountain top when we drink the wine of holiness to every time we are the very embodiment of that ragged hope refusing to let that mustard seed of faith go because if we do, we too will go.

Remember Hagar holding Ismael to her breast to give him one last taste of love before the sands overtake them and she can do no more to protect him, God shows up, the God who sees us the God who knows us so intimately that even if we try to we can no more hide than Adam and Eve could hide in the garden.

            The is the God who loves us. The God who is preparing a place for us in one of the many rooms in his Father’s house. The very same God who has poured out blessing upon blessing and filled our lives with good things. And it is for this we can say thanks be to God Amen

Luke 1 17 

Dec 7, 2025

Make Ready

God, as we rejoice in this season of lights and carols and cookies, we ask that you would help us to follow your ways so that we can be righteous and wise. Help us to remember that it is not the material things that matter. Our love for you and for each other is the goal of life. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen

            If you’ve looked at the December calendar, you will see that we are not doing our normal routine. We are doing more worship services during this month. We have the Blue Christmas and Christmas Eve services. They require us to prepare differently than we do the rest of the year. These decorations are vastly different from the simple ordinary decorations for the other seasons. There is something about Advent and Christmas that creates in us a desire for beauty and extravagance. We search the world to find the good things. We donate to charity because hope is blooming with the poinsettias. We are kinder to one another because joy is in the air. We leave our routine and prepare ourselves to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Our emotions are vulnerable during this time. We feel pain more strongly. We feel the mystery and holiness of this time.

            Zechariah was serving in the temple. I have read that because there were so many priests that one would get to celebrate this temple ritual only once in his life if that. It was a special time. I am sure he was a little bit nervous. This week was my ordination anniversary. I remember very clearly when I went before the committee on worship to run an example of a worship service. I did ok until the benediction. The typical words for the benediction are “And may the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God, and the fellowship of the holy spirit be with you.” I stood in that little room set up as a small sanctuary walked to the front and proudly said “And may the Love of the Spirit, the Grace of God, and the fellowship of Jesus be with you all.” I could see the face of my mentor. Her eyes were wide in disbelief that I had said the wrong thing. I knew that my candidacy was at risk. The committee had grace, and I was deemed ready to enter the search and call process.

            I imagine Zechariah had practiced what he was supposed to do. It was a very special privilege, and he wanted to do it correctly. And, as soon as he walks in the sacred space-boom-there is an angel standing there. Can you imagine? You have rehearsed this so many times and the moment you begin, the whole thing changes. You can’t do what you were told to do because all the rules of the ceremony changed when he saw that angel. He certainly couldn’t light the candles and bask in the glow of the holy space. Nope, this was extraordinary. This was one of those new things God is always doing.

            And God never leaves things to routine expectations. The normal flow of society would be that the oldest son would be the most important in the family. God repeatedly chose the youngest son to receive the blessings or do the work. The normal way of life was that people had children in their youth. Over and over again, God gives children to older couples. Abraham and Sarah didn’t have Isaac until they were very old. Zechariah should have remembered this while he was standing in that holy place speaking to an angel. I’m not sure I would have remembered that looking at an angel who had interrupted the ceremony I had practiced my whole life for this one opportunity.

            The angel tells him this miracle child would have the spirit and power of Elijah. This was an awesome prophecy. There was no greater prophet in Israel’s history. Elijah prayed that it would not rain and it did not rain for three years. Elijah sought out a widow with a son during the drought. She told him that she was going home to make their bread with the last of her oil and flour. Elijah said her flour and oil would last and it did. Elijah stood against the prophets Baal and called down fire from heaven. Elijah was a big deal. To be told that not only would he have a son, that son would have the power and spirit of Elijah had to more than he could comprehend.

            The angel doesn’t stop there. The angel is talking about John the Baptist. John was well known for calling people out on their sin and urging them to repent and be baptized. The angel was kind enough to deliver this news in soft words saying  John would come before Jesus “, to turn the hearts of parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

            The angel was really saying that John would proclaim the sin of the people of Jerusalem. He would live a life on the edge of society encouraging everyone to examine their lives, to recognize where they were off track, to be humble enough to repent and to submit to being baptized. This is how he would turn the hearts of parents to their children and the disobedient to righteousness.

            We did not read the rest of the story. After the angel says all of this, poor Zechariah still dazed from the angel and all those words about his son asks “How can I be sure of this? I’m old and so is my wife.

            I don’t know if the angel hadn’t eaten that day or maybe he hadn’t slept well but he jumps back at Zechariah with I am Gabriel. I hang out with God. If I tell you something you better know that’s what God sent me to tell you. And since you didn’t listen to me, I’m going to shut your mouth until that baby is born.

            Most angels aren’t so forceful in their messages. I don’t really know why Gabriel goes off on Zechariah this way. It seems a bit much. Maybe it was so people would believe he saw an angel. Maybe he had an annoying voice. I don’t know and Luke doesn’t tell us. That will have to be classified as a mystery to ponder. There are many mysteries to ponder, things we don’t understand about how and why God does what he does. We see our hopes and dreams being changed regardless of how we envision them.

            We want our lives to be a beautiful ceremony lived out in a script we create. We dream of a life and sometimes, God takes that dream twisting it until it looks nothing like what we had envisioned. Like Zechariah going into the holy place, we assume our lives will be routine even when we have these holy experiences. Like Zechariah we go into our lives not expecting to see angels, not expecting our lives to be altered, not expecting a miracle.

            But friends, miracles abound. God is not off far away in some distant castle in the sky. God is here. God is a baby born in unremarkable circumstances who grows up teaching us how to be righteous, how to live in the world, how to be the people God will have us be. God, in Jesus, accepts torture and death at the hands of the powerful. Jesus dies and sets us free from death. God raises Jesus to new life and in doing so transforms not only our world but the whole of creation. Our God does not stay six feet away from us, watching us go through our lives. God is here with us as close to us as the air we breathe. God is in the space between the atoms that form our bodies and our world. God has chosen to be with us in this time and in this space. God performs more miracles that we could ever imagine or even acknowledge.

            We do not have to see an angel to know that there is a magnificent God. We know it in our hearts. We know it when we see the moon over the fields. We know it when we see the one we love. We know it when we taste and see that Lord is good. We know the very real presence of God in all of our comings and our goings. And if you do not know this magnificent God, if you do not feel the majesty or hear the voice, there is hope and a way to reach it. Through the life and love, the death and resurrection of Jesus we see the very real, very powerful, very kind, love of God revealed.

            Beloved, as you prepare for Christmas, prepare your hearts, minds and souls to receive the good news that we are dead to sin and alive to Christ. We are alive and as George Bailey reminds us it is a wonderful life. And it is for this that we can say, thanks be to God. Amen

Luke 1 35 

Dec 14, 2025

Clothed with the Most High

God Most High, thank you for the miracles you do for us every day. Thank you for the way your love wraps around us so that we may give life to something holy. And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you our rock and our redeemer. Amen

          We are known by the clothes we wear. Even if we aren’t aware of it the clothes we choose each morning say something to the world about who we are and what we expect out of life. They are a clue to our wealth or lack thereof. They tell a story about us that can be read from far off. Our clothes give away secrets we meant to keep. In the days when pregnancy meant the loss of your job, women learned to wear clothes that hid the growing baby bump. Women who needed to work until the very last possible minute found ways to disguise their condition. Today, many women are so excited about that baby that they wear clothes that magnify their condition.

          Mary was sitting there grinding wheat for the next meal just doing the ordinary things that ordinary people did. Most of the visual representations of Gabriel’s visit to Mary depict her at night or at prayer. I don’t think that is what she was doing. Had she been praying, the visit from the angel might not have been so confusing. I think if she were just doing her daily jobs, perhaps enjoying the feel of the sun on her face while she ground the wheat that would become their bread, a visit from an angel would be more confusing.

          Not that angelic visitors were ever just friendly chats about the weather. Angels don’t leave their heavenly homes unless God is doing a new thing. New things aren’t always big things either. I don’t know if you were a fan of the show Touched By an Angel. It ran from 1994 to 2003. The premise, as best I can remember, was that a group of three angels would roam the United States looking for people who needed guidance or intervention in their lives. It was sappy and sweet and not very scripturally based. One could make the argument that we should watch because we might be entertaining angels unaware. I am sure we have often entertained angels, but I doubt it was in a formulaic show where all the problems were wrapped up by the end of the episode unless it was the season finale. Then, something wild would happen and you would have to wait until the next season for its resolution.

          Real human lives to not have situations resolved in thirty minutes or an hour. God does not write scripts where the inciting incident is followed by a climax and a denouement with the world returning to the stasis it was in prior to the inciting incident. It is only stories that work in this manner. We craft the stories of our lives in this way because we would really like to have complex situations resolved quickly with order restored at the end. Real life is messy and each event in our lives has a lasting impact. We are often unaware of that impact until we glimpse a reminder of it in a song or a taste of something infused with that memory.

          I will tell the story this way. Mary was sitting grinding grain for the family’s supper. She lived in a family group. Only the very destitute did not have family to support them. People lived in groups. They didn’t partition themselves off in houses with five bedrooms and four and a half baths-just the nuclear family however that is expressed. People lived with parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles. The houses were usually small so everyone was very close. Each person contributed to the work of the household. Anway, Mary is doing her chores. Maybe she is wondering about her marriage that is coming quickly. She might be dreaming about her future babies or how she will arrange her kitchen. Living such an ordinary, holy and blessed life when boom! Gabriel is there.

          I would need at least a minute or two to process this. Last week, we had Gabriel visiting Zechariah in the temple. It wouldn’t be quite so surprising to see an angel in the temple of God because the temple was a holy place. The front of the house where the wheat was ground is not often seen as a holy place. People like to elevate holiness as if it is something wrapped in gilded clothes, like holiness can only be experienced in proper places at proper times. The holy comes to us daily. Washing dishes is a holy act. Decorating the Christmas tree is holy. Eating a meal is holy. All of our lives are holy, every part of them. Our lives are such a blessing that they become holy, not because we are extra good but because God is. And Jesus, God with Us, is beside us every holy day of our lives.

          And as she is taking in this angel either in human form or in that terrifying angel form. I’m going with the human form for this version of the story. As she is processing the dude in glowing clothes, he says, Greetings favored one. And she is like, how am I favored. I’m out here like everyone else, grinding wheat. How could I be favored? That angel doesn’t stop to let her ponder that very long. The message just keeps getting weirder. Gabriel tells her she will have a son named Jesus who will be the Son of God. I imagine she looked around to see if anyone else was seeing this. Did anyone else hear what she had been told? She asks, how? How will this happen?

          Gabriel gives her one of the most annoying angel answers. He says the Holy One will make this happen because with God anything is possible. She goes on in the story to give her assent. She then sings the song about overthrowing the government and the disrupting Jesus is going to cause. But our reading today stops with her saying those words. “let it be according to your will”

          Mary was clothed in God’s holiness. She was just a young woman doing young women things. She was as ordinary as any of us. And, she was highly favored.

          Beloved, I tell you we too are clothed with God’s holiness. Even when we have sinned and our robes are stained, God has provided the means for forgiveness and restitution. God has already saved us from sin and death. We are free to live as the beloved of God doing our daily work wrapped in God’s holiness the way our terry cloth bath robes wrap around us.

 An aside, I recently discovered the wonders of a terry cloth bathrobe. I think this means I am old but I do not care. The bathrobe is the most amazing article of clothing, greater even than old sweatpants and well loved sweaters. If you do not have a bathrobe-terry cloth for the winter, I would highly recommend adding it to your Christmas wish list.

We are holy because God is with us. It is not our righteousness that makes us holy, it is Jesus’ holiness, Jesus’ obedience, Jesus’ life death and resurrection that have opened the gates of our hearts so that we may be clothed in the riches of holiness. The Most High will cover us just as God covered Mary. We will not bear the Son of God but we will bear the cross of living in a just manner. We will bear the burden of praying for others. We will do the work of feeding the world through our acts of love and kindness. And when we go astray, which we always will, the Most High will bring us back to the fold and cover us in holiness. Because Beloved, there is no where in heaven or in earth or under the earth, neither height nor depth there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God found in Jesus the Christ

          And it is for this we can say, thanks be to God. Amen

Sermon         

Prophecy Fulfilled

Dec 28, 2025

Matthew 2:23

23 and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene

God who knows all things, Help us to rely on you when things seem bleak. Open our ears to hear your words of joy and hope. And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you our rock and our redeemer Amen

          There is a reason why we have to be careful when people tell us to act in Biblical ways. The best example of that is when people declare that they are in support of Biblical marriage. There are many examples of marriage in scripture. There are multiple wives. There is abandonment of spouses without anytype of support. In general, there is no real biblical marriage. Jesus does say that a marriage is between a man and a woman and we can extrapolate from that that God would rather us marry one person. But, it is not a good idea to lump all of the biblical examples of marriage together or things would look very different than they do today.

          Another example is when scripture tells us to obey our rulers because God has appointed them. There are times when avoiding rulers is a much better plan.

          Joseph’s little family was on the move again. They were called out of Egypt when they heard that Herod was dead. This was a man known as Herod the Great. The Herodian dynasty was awful. Herod the Great is the one who ordered the massacre of the children. This was not his only atrocity. He was the client king of the Herodian kingdom of Judea. He was really into building projects. The second temple is Jerusalem was his most important project for us. That may be the only good thing he did. His children certainly were not good.

          When Joseph heard that Herod was dead, he left Egypt. Then, he heard who had been named ruler in Herod’s place. Archelaus. He was so inept in ruling that Emperor Augustus decided to name him as ethnarch of Judea instead of king. This title was an insult and demonstrated Archelaus’ dependence on Rome. Things did not get better with the Herodians.

          But, things did get better with Joseph’s family. Instead of going back to Bethlehem, they went to Galilee to a town called Nazareth. This was to fulfill a prophecy that the Messiah would be called a Nazarene. These were important prophecies that would convince Jewish people that Jesus really was the messiah. Theses do not have quite as much meaning for us. We do not have that history as part of our cultural foundation. We have things like the Boston Tea Party and the Civil War and presidents great and not so great. Each of the prophecies Matthew tells us about is a support for Jesus of Nazareth being the Messiah.

          It is easy in this world of suspicion and cynicism to decide that Jesus isn’t really the Messiah or more accurately that there is no such thing as a Messiah. We can see the way science explains the things that were once thought to be miracles. We think it is silly to trust prophecies. We are living in a technologically advanced time. We really don’t need a Messiah and we certainly do not want one who tells us to love our enemies. What kind of nonsense is that? How do we love people who disagree with us on what scripture says? Who tell us the only true marriage is biblical marriage and that if we do not assent to their doctrine that we are wrong.

          It might be nice to take a page from the scriptures themselves to remind us that God likes diversity. Those four gospels are definitely all different and all authoritative. Mark and John don’t bother mentioning all of this. Luke focuses on other parts of the birth story. Things do not mean the same for each of us. If it did it would be like giving all the people in your family the exact same item. Like a gift certificate to a store that only sells hunting equipment. My brother would love that but my vegetarian sister would be highly insulted.

          God presents things to us in the way we will understand them best. For some of us that means strict adherence to laws and expectations. For others it is proof from various sources. Others of us want scientific certainty and still others believe because a butterfly fluttered by. We attend church because we believe so strongly or we attend because it is routine or we attend because we are rather lonely which is not good for people.

          Some of us love bright colors and dancing and singing in loud raucous ways. Others of us listen to our classical music and dream in quite images. I could go on forever with the comparisons and even then I would not be able to catch all the nuances of who we are. Do you see that God truly loves diversity? God created each of us differently on purpose. God gave us different paths and different jobs.

          Our Christian vocation is what God has given us the unique interest and abilities to do. Some of us are meant to be leaders. Others of us are meant to work in the background. The body of Christ is not made of all ears or all feet. It is the beauty of all of us together that creates the tapestry of time.

          The common discussion of prophets today focuses on prophets as those who speak truth to power. The prophets are the ones who lead rebellions when injustice is done. They are the ones who write letters to leaders who refuse to follow in Godly ways. They are the ones who stand up for the poor and the needy. The prophets live so fully in God’s way that they leave the “normal” world completely.

          I don’t recommend being a prophet unless God has specifically called you to it. Most prophets do not live long. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was killed because he declared that was another way to do life and he is just the easiest example. That being said, do what God has called you to do. If you see an angel in your dream who tells you to feed the hungry, go feed the hungry. If you feel a tug in your heart to care for the sick, care for them. If you feel a thrill in your soul for caring for the financial aspect of the church for all means please share that with the church. If your love is serving others by helping in the kitchen, that is an amazing gift. If you attend worship faithfully every week, that is a blessing to the church. It takes every single one of us doing our job faithfully to truly be the kindom of God.

          And I believe that it is through good people following Christ with all their hearts, souls, minds and strength that we will overcome the injustices, the pettiness and the ickiness of our world and usher in a new more beautiful world where all are loved, all are cared for and everyone has enough to eat and it is for this we can say, thanks be to God Amen

Luke 22: 28-30

November 23, 2025

Thrones of Humility

Rev. Jennifer Dawson

“You are those who have stood by me in my trials, 29 and I confer on you, just as my Father has conferred on me, a kingdom, 30 so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel

God, open our eyes to see the beauty of the kingdom that you have conferred on us. Help us to know that the thrones are thrones of humility and not of pride. Give us ears to hear your word and hearts open to being remade. Amen

            Scripture is difficult. I feel like this has become my mantra while reading through the Gospel of Luke this year. The lectionary, our guide to reading and preaching, is kind in that it leaves out some of the troubling parts of Jesus’ story. This passage is read on Palm Sunday. Well, not really. This passage is for Passion Sunday. Passion Sunday is all about what happens after Jesus arrives in Jerusalem. It is what happens after the parade, after the shouts of hosanna, after Jesus and the disciples come down off the mountain and enter the valley. Those mountain top experiences of God are addicting. We want to feel that joy and that elation and yes, in following Jesus, we are rewarded with mountain top experiences. We get to fall in love and rejoice in the beauty of earthly success. We have moments when we pray for a good parking place and we get the best one. We have times when the gas tank is so low and the gas station is so far that we pray the gas will last and it does. We have times when we pray for our sibling in Christ that they will be made well and their illness is miraculously healed. But those times are remarkable because they are rare.

            More often following Jesus is like this passage when the disciples who have followed Jesus so closely for these few years, who have walked with him and witnessed so many miracles, who have even had the ability to heal others through his power, who have had the dirt washed off their feet by this man they call master, when those same disciples allow Jesus to feed them and then betray him. Judas is the first one to betray Jesus. Judas sets in motion the events that will lead to Jesus being arrested, tortured and killed but the others are just as complicit. Peter will deny knowing Jesus because it is too dangerous to be associated with him. Peter could just as easily be capture and tortured and killed so he stays by the fire and protests that he does not know Jesus. And the others flee. They hide in their houses like rabbits scattered to their burrows. To know Jesus is to be persecuted. They are not willing to lay down their lives for others. John tells us that Jesus said “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” The disciples are gripped with fear that they will be required to do just that so they run and hide. Most of the disciples will forsake Jesus as he hangs on the cross with the crown of thorns cutting through the thin skin of his head and face, his body destroyed by the violence of the torture.

            But, after witnessing all of that, after seeing Jesus executed for his refusal to be like the ruling powers of this world, after seeing how God resurrected Jesus and in this resurrection God destroyed the power that sin and death held over people. After all of that, the disciples went on to stand firm in their faith.

            Peter became the head of the church proclaiming his love of Jesus to everyone he met, preaching on Pentecost the message that could and eventually does get him killed. Seeing Jesus endure that death and return victorious inspires Peter to understand that love is greater than death. Love is what will set us free. Love is the most powerful force in the world and when we love one another we find the strength to serve one another in humility.

            How different this is from the way our world works. We come to this place and we give our time our talent and our treasure. We toil in the garden and in the kitchen and in the meetings, so many meetings. And our reward is not money and fame. Our reward is growing in our relationship with Jesus and with one another. We are rewarded with crosses to carry and the ability to help our siblings in Christ carry their crosses. We are given strength to pray for one another when our lives are falling apart and we are given strength to learn how to rebuild our lives in the likeness of Jesus and Jesus’ kingdom.

            Today is Christ the King Sunday, the last day of the church year. Next Sunday, we will enter Advent when we wait expectantly for Jesus to be born. We wait and we celebrate because it is the miracle of Jesus’ birth that set in motion all of this. God began our salvation though a young woman giving birth to a baby in a barn. And it was through the resurrection of this baby who grew up to love and serve others that our salvation was made complete. We are those who have been given authority to live just as Jesus commands us. This is not an authority like the world gives. It is the authority of service. It is the authority to work for the well being of one another and of the world. It is the grace to let go of our fears and failures. It is the mercy to let others make mistakes and love them anyway. It is the grace to find a way to love those who despise us. It is everything. Love, the kind of love we encounter in Jesus is everything.

            It isn’t much of a sales pitch to say Jesus has called us to suffer, to carry our crosses, to be slaves to one another. I guarantee that if I sold a transactional gospel, if I told you week after week that if you give all your money to the church, you would be rewarded with mansions here on earth. If I told you that all God wants of us is to sing praise songs and care only for those who look like us and speak our language we would see every pew filled.  And, I will not lie to you, the anxiety that keeps me up some nights, that evil thought that we should change our message, tempts me to do just that. But the God I serve, tells us that we are to love one another. That we are to serve one another. That we are to lay down our lives for one another even if it means our death.

            I will not lie to you and say this road is easy to travel. I will not sell you a quick fix. I will only share the deep abiding love that Jesus has shared with me and with you. I will tell you that there is a power greater than all the leaders of this world. There is a hope more tenacious than any fear. There is a king of the universe who does not rule with threats and torture. There is the king of love who chose to sit with those who would betray him. He chose to love them knowing what they would do. He chose to feed the ones who would give him over to the authorities of his day and time. He chose to allow the torture he faced because it is in giving his life that our salvation was accomplishes. And, Jesus commissions us to serve in the same way. Loving with abandon. Caring for the least of these. Giving our time our talents and our treasure not to earn a place in heaven but to make life here on earth a little better for those around us. And it is for this we can say. Thanks be to God. Amen

New Beginnings

Matthew 1: 20. Advent 1

Rev. Jennifer Dawson

20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit

God with us, as we begin this Advent season, let us grow in awe of the wonders you have done among us. Let us look with new vision and see the beginning of something whimsical. And may the words of my mouth and the mediations of our hearts be acceptable to you, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. In the beginning was the Word and the word was with God and the Word was God.  This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about. God is all about beginnings. Even at Jesus’ death. God began a new world through the resurrection. And each time a baby is born a new life begins. Every time an accident permanently changes our lives, a new life begins. Every time we face the loss of a loved new life begins. Every time we fall in love a new life begins. You have heard it said that nothing is certain but death and taxes. A better phrase might be nothing is certain but endings and beginnings. And there is beauty in both beginnings and endings.

          Genesis is the Greek word for beginning. It is used first in the story of creation. In the Genesis, God created the heavens and the earth. In the Genesis, the Word and the word was with God and the Word was God. Matthew uses this theme of beginnings to make it clear to the reader that God is doing something that has not been done before. God is beginning a new thing. A whole new world because with Jesus on earth, everything is different. When God shows up and walks around turning water into wine, the world is fundamentally changed. And when we surrender our hearts and wills to Jesus our new world begins.

          The Christmas story is familiar to those of us my age and older. Fewer and fewer younger people seem to know the story. Our world has changed so much over the years. People my daughters’ age tend not to go to church. Their understanding of Christmas is vastly different than ours. Listening to children who don’t go to church describing Christmas is revealing.

          Christmas is a time to get presents. Christmas is a time that celebrates Santa. Christmas is movies about love and miracles and lives transformed. So much of our world has forgotten about Jeus. Which is interestingly proper in light of Jesus life.

          The new world began with a very ordinary engaged couple. There was nothing particularly noteworthy about them. They lived like everyone they knew. The Romans and the Jewish elites were annoying because they held all the power and most of the money. Normal people had to work hard to maintain any quality of life. Not terribly different from today.

          In the way things happen, the engaged couple encountered a problem. Mary was pregnant. Joseph was sure that she had messed around on him. He wondered what he should do. It was a bad situation. He didn’t want to raise someone else’s kid. He was a good man and thought that Mary just made a mistake. He would quietly release her from the engagement. No need to bring in all the authorities who would punish her severely. Just as he makes up his mind, an angel appears.

          Most of us think of angels as beautiful men dressed in robes with wings on their back. God doesn’t deal in soft angels. God creates angels that are terrifying. You may have seen pictures of biblically accurate angels. They look more like some kind of monster than beautiful creatures. I imagine Joseph paid attention to the angel because he was afraid he would be destroyed. It is a reasonable fear. Angels dropping by means that you will have to change your life in one way or another.

          That was certainly true for Joseph. The angel told him that his soon-to-be wife was pregnant with the Holy Spirit’s baby. The angel told him that he would be named Jesus. And in that holy moment Joseph accepted Mary’s baby as his own adopted son.

          The little family had a new beginning. No longer thinking he had been betrayed, Joseph jumped into supportive husband mode.

          Matthew tells the story from Joseph’s perspective. The angels talk to him. He is the one who must protect the family from danger. Those in power are always threatened by anything that would take away their power. Power is addictive. Power is seductive. Power over others creates in us an unhealthy view of the world.  Powerful people do not want a new beginning. They want to hold on to every bit of power they have.

          But God isn’t like that. God doesn’t need to coerce us into giving over our hopes and our fears. God approaches us gently. God comes to us singing lullabies. God awakens in our hearts a desire for something more. Something greater than this world with all its problems. God comes to the earth not like an avenging war lord. Jesus comes to the earth as a baby. A quite ordinary baby with two parents and a bunch of questions.

          I enjoy the way Matthew tells the story with Joseph as the center of attention. Mary has to deal with a lot too, but Joseph faces his own fear. Joseph is supposed to have faith enough to believe what an angel tells him is true. I mean, an angel shows up and provides an alibi for your soon-to-be-wife? What is that about? Maybe Mary had slipped something in his drink so he would have this vision, and she and the baby would be safe. And everyone would either know she had cheated on him or they would think both of them were sneaking around before the marriage.

          The angel tells him what angels always tell people. Do not fear. Do not fear because God is doing something here. God is doing a new thing and we don’t understand it. We look at the bleakest of winter, the loss of our dreams and we see tragedy. But beloved, everything that happens-all the good, the bad, all of it is redeemed in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. We cannot even begin to tell the story of Jesus without witnessing all the terrors he faced.

          Jesus was born to parents who were ill equipped to handle such a mystery. They were just average people. Probably on the lower end of wealth spectrum. They were being persecuted by the wealthy and the elite, the Jews and the Romans. They were the little people, the hoi polio, just ordinary. They stepped out in faith that God had something in store for them. They fled from their homeland to Egypt. They would rather have gone anywhere else. I don’t know if they had appropriate paperwork, but I do know they had a baby.

          There are days when it feels like nothing will ever be right again. There are nights so beautiful it is as though the stars are reaching down to wrap us in their light. There are moments so holy that they cannot be described as good or bad. They are simply holy. Simple. Ordinary. Average. Holy.

          The holy rarely shows up in the form of a terrifying angel. The holy shows up in children’s books. The holy is revealed watching a woman decorating the house or the church for Christmas. The holy is revealed at the dinner table set with paper plates or set with China. The holy comes to us as we wash the dishes. The holy is with us when we struggle and when we rejoice. All of it. All of our lives. All of the times God begins a new thing in us. All of the days we walk with Jesus in faith. All the new things come from God, a God who in Jesus joined us and walked the earth with us and danced at weddings, blessed babies, fed the hungry. Jesus our Immanuel is coming. Just as he did as a baby. Jesus is coming and Jesus is here and Jesus will be in the fullness of time and we, beloved, we can sing and dance because Jesus loves us, us ordinary humans doing the extraordinary work of loving one another. We get to live this one beautiful ordinary life dancing through the slings and arrows and waltzing through beauty and hope. We are so fortunate beloved. So fortunate and so well loved. And it is for this that we can say, thanks be to God Amen