Sermons
Pay attention to where you pay attention. We can’t escape the attention economy. But we can look at the ways our attention is manipulated, valued, degraded. The inward-looking season of Lent invites us to take a look at how our minds work, how we value our time and the time of others. How we use our limited resources for the common good.
The Holy One delights in you. She wraps her arms around you and scoops you into her warm embrace when you are hurting. He sees you when you make mistakes, or bad decisions, and instead of piercing you with a parental stare down, looks at you lovingly with tears in his eye. They give their very life to you in sacrificial love, because you are adored and delighted in by the same God who delights in Jesus.
Jesus’s healing in our Gospel could not be contained, and God’s healing will be experienced by all people, and on that day, not one will be missing for as our Psalmist proclaims, “The Lord heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” Even for those who were not healed in this age, God promises resurrection in the age to come. God’s resurrection will bring us into this new day and age, but while we are still in this age, God’s hope and healing will show us the way to show up for one another and ourselves.
What do you have to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth.? Everything! At the cross—in suffering—God is revealed! When the demons of injustice try to silence the good news, Jesus comes. When the demons of fear take possession of us, Jesus heals. When the demons of apathy and anger and aggression seize us, Jesus brings peace and reconciliation. When we convulse and resist the new thing that will set us free, Jesus speaks with authority, calling you to become more than you ever imagined.
Being muted is weird. I get it. It is a bit humbling. But it reminds us of the holy work of listening. It involves paying attention, slowing down, being present, being open. As a Sufi musician states, listening is “making an altar out of our ears.” So listen. Listen to the voices of others. Listen to the sound of silence. Listen to the God who knows us intimately—who invites us to come and see. And to come and the word of the Lord—words of grace, justice, mercy and forgiveness. Come and follow this one who comes to us as one unknown, yet in flesh and blood, is Savior and Lord.
In this moment between stimulus and response we can perceive God calling out to us like God did to Samuel and in this powerful moment we too can say, “Speak Lord for your servant is listening!” The road noise and commotion around us might be pretty distracting and we might miss our exit or our turn, but we can still trust that the moral arc of the universe will bend us back towards justice because each of our Godly positioning systems has a route re-calculator that gets to work whenever we get off track.
Will you live out your baptismal calling and say no to all that defiles God? Say NO to white supremacy and it’s demonic legacy in our country? Say NO to serving self above all else? Say NO to unjust systems that benefit one group of people at the expense of others? Say NO to abuse of self, others and our planet? Say NO to empty promises and complicity? This day, every day, boldly shout a strong NO to all that destroys and deceives, and turn toward the Holy One’s YES that proclaims, “You are beloved of God.”
The Word is made flesh. All earth rejoices. Heaven and nature sing. God has come to dwell with us, to make us people of God, to make all things new. Will we receive him as he comes to dwell in us, as he comes to make his home in and with us, in all humanity, in all the earth? Will we find room, will we make room for God? Perhaps this is our work of Christmas in this new year of 2021.
Just as God has embraced all things through Christ's earthly incarnation, God is also at work healing, redeeming, and restoring all things. Through baptism and communion, we finite humans intimately receive God’s infinite presence and grace, and we are God bearers for the world. A life of praise is the only appropriate response to such amazing grace and we take our place in joining the hymn of all creation.
Our very beings are capable of containing, receiving, and bearing the infinite. Jesus’ radical incarnation on this earth has brought heaven and earth together as one.
Even on this day of fullness, we wait. And yet. And yet, even at empty chairs and empty tables, Christ comes. To empty, sorrowing hearts, Christ comes. Even in a miserable year, Christ is born! From his fullness we have received grace upon grace. This is God’s promise. This is our song. This is our hope. Evermore and evermore.
May the Holy One give us the grace to remember that we cannot create Christmas, we can only receive it. Just as the Grinch could not stop it, we can’t make it happen either. Because we learn over and over again that Christmas is more than boxes and tags and ribbons and bows. More than traditions and celebrations. God enters the world and lives among us this night, and for all our days, full of grace and truth. Full of love and promise.
Merry Christmas dear found ones, whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever you have done or not done, Christ has been born to you this day and is with you and leading you towards your ultimate destination, a place we can’t get to with a map because this place is not so much a place at all, but a new day where there will be no more virus, where all will live in unity, and where love and light will fill all creation to overflowing.
This good news of unmerited favor on us all was announced to Mary by the Angel Gabriel and it echoes for us to hear tonight. Through scripture, song, and sacrament we have been reminded not of our power and privilege over others, but of God’s favor and the Lord’s presence with us all, so rejoice O highly favored, the Lord is with you, and Christ is coming to make all things new.
We are waiting for many things, some of which will come soon, like Christmas, and others that may or may not ever come. Paul's advice helps us to live fully in the present, grateful for all that God has provided for us. We may discover, in a paradoxical way, that we are waiting for what we already have. And yet we continue to sigh, and to beg, “Come Lord Jesus, come.”
As we work through the dark winter months that will give way to spring let us sing and write our own songs with evergreen hope. Like Sarah Evans and Claudette Colvin who didn’t know their song of resistance would inspire Rosa Parks, we might not who is listening in the audience and is being inspired by our song, but we can comfort trusting that because of our song the world will be ever more excited and enthusiastic for the headliner who is coming after us, the one who is making and will make all things new, the one in whom we live and move and have our being, the one, the only Jesus Christ.
As we begin this Advent, even though it feels like a never-ending Advent, we can look with hope to the promise of God who stops at nothing, not even death, to come and save us. God’s grace has made us ready for that moment. In the meantime, God sustains us, God strengthens us, and God our potter’s hands support us in our waiting.
