Remembering What's True

saiah 43:1-2,10-13 and Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

I have had many conversations with folks this week.  And while some of us may be feeling fine and dandy, many of us are discouraged and disheartened, and frankly, exhausted.  Here we are again, with mask mandates and distance learning, fighting the urge to horde things, and our pandemic vocabulary keeps growing: now we know phrases like “supply chain issues” and “rapid lateral flow tests” and the fine point differences between “isolation” and “quarantine.” 

So let me first say again, that “it’s normal to feel sad in sad times.”  And if you’re feeling more tired than usual, that’s no surprise. We have been buffering for nearly two years and our operating systems are slow.  It’s ok to be slow. It’s ok to do less.  This all is a lot to process, and the constant recalibrating is exhausting.
 
For us in the northern hemisphere, Epiphany comes in the darkest time of the year. In the cold and barren landscape of winter, we spend a couple of months turning our faces toward the light of the world that the darkness cannot overcome.  And right we could use some reminders of things we know and trust but sometimes forget.  So this is a good time for some perspective.  A good time to orient ourselves again toward the light.
 
There are two reminders our scriptures give us today that I want us to hear, that I think will help us in this time that feels a bit dark.  I want us to remember who we are. And I want us to remember who God is.
 
Who we are is not up for grabs, it’s already decided. You are mine. God says. I have chosen you and redeemed you and called you by name.  And this fact is sealed on us by our baptism.
We are baptized into Jesus’ death and resurrection – we die his death and are raised into his newness of life.  So that belonging that Jesus has with God, that belonging he has with the world, that is our belonging. And that life that was there at creation and prevails through eternity is our life. 
 
Some of us were baptized as kids, teenagers or adults and some of us were baptized as infants. When we see a little squirming baby baptized, who didn’t choose to be there and sometimes isn’t very happy about it, we are reminded of some things about God’s promises and our own identity.  First, that it is not about what we choose or decide.  Who we are begins with who God says we are.  And God chooses us, and claims us and calls us God’s beloved child who God is delighted in.  God says YES to us –and we will spend a lifetime learning to receive God’s YES. 
 
And when we see an adult come to the font to be baptized, what we are remined of is in this relationship with God who chooses us, we get to say YES back to God’s YES. We get to embrace our own “one wild precious life” and submit to the journey whatever may come. And Jesus’ life of total belonging to God and other people will be what defines our life. 
 
Like Mary before him, and Joseph, and the Shepherds heeding the angels' call, and the Magi setting out on their journey, and every scared and wondering king and nomad and giant-slayer and sea-parter and child-bearer and prophet and journeyer before them, Jesus says Yes to God, and by the divebombing Holy Spirit like a dove and the voice from heaven, God says Yes to Jesus. 
God says YES to us and we say YES to God.

What does it mean to say YES to God? 
It means we say yes to not being in it alone. We say yes to life and light and hope. We say yes to suffering and struggling and living fully. We say Yes to forgiveness and grace and mercy.  We say Yes to being defined by our belonging to God and each other, and not by what we accomplish or contribute or earn or prove. We say yes to what God is doing to love and save the world, and Yes the astonishing truth that God wants to involve us in it.  

No matter what life brings, or where it brings us, the first and final word over you and me is this: You are my beloved child and I am utterly delighted in you!
That is who we are. And I want us to remember that today.
 
The second thing I want us to remember today is who God is.
Listen to who is saying YES to us:
Before me there was no God and there will be no God after me.
I spoke and saved and promised,
There is no one who can undo what I do.
I act and who can reverse it? 

This is the God who made us, and claims us, and redeems us, and calls us. This is who says YES to us. Our NO can never be bigger than God’s YES. No matter how much we flee or forget or fight God, God’s love will never depart from us. 
We will never stop belonging to God.  
 
And this world will never stop belonging to God. 
God’s love is not hindered by supply chains and shortages, God’s redemption is not slowed down by global pandemics or festering conflicts. Natural disasters, human brokenness and societal failures do not stop God’s salvation in any way. No matter how much pain or loss or suffering, no matter how much fighting or forgetting we do as individuals, or whole people’s and nations, the world’s NO can never be bigger than God’s YES. 
All that God does remains. Every act of healing and love, every moment of connection and hope, every transformation and redemption, every righting of wrongs and building up of humanity, each act of justice, each time peace reigns, every moment of joy and triumph of life can’t be broken or lost, destroyed or ended. 
It is into death that Jesus comes to bring life. It is in the darkness that the light shines.
So, we often find that in the midst of suffering and weakness we may even become more aware of our belonging to each other, more attentive of our identity as beloved, more attuned to God’s relentless YES.  
 
“You are my witnesses” God says, “I chose you to know me, and trust me, and watch for me and join me. I chose you to share my YES with the world. 
 
So whatever these next weeks bring us, bring the world, we will keep remembering together who we are and who God is, and reminding each other.  In our tiredness or sadness, we will still keep being witnesses of our own and each other’s belovedness.  And in the unrelenting unknown and the persistent upheaval, we will still keep practicing saying YES to our belonging to God and each other. Like a song always being playing, we will let the Holy Spirit attune us to God’s unwavering YES in the world, in whatever ways it is beckoning us to join in. 
 
REMEMBRANCE OF BAPTISM
(With water trace the invisible sign of the cross permanently on your forehead)

Hear and speak these words of truth over yourself:
I am a Beloved child of God, in whom God delights. 
I am loved and claimed just as I am, for who I am, not for what I do. 
This cannot be earned and it cannot be lost. 
God has spoken this over me and it cannot be undone.
May I begin here, and let whatever work and rest, whatever sadness and joy, whatever flows out from me and back into me, be a response to this love. And may it give me hope. Amen.

Being where we'd never choose to be

 Psalm 126

Matthew 1:18-30

There are times in life, (we might even say most of life is this way), when things do not go like we’ve planned them to go.  When we find ourselves in utterly new territory, somewhere unimagined, un-planned for, even undesired. 

There are times in life when life directs us more than we direct our lives, and factors outside of ourselves make the decisions for us about where we are going to go, or what we are going to do, and even, who we are going to be.

This is certainly the case for Joseph.  Joseph is not the lead character in this story, so he doesn’t get a lot of press, but even so, he is essential.  The family line of David comes through him, not through Mary – so the prophecies aren’t fulfilled without him.  He is to be the father of this child, the human parent adopting God as God has adopted all of us.  That’s a little mind-boggling.  And yet, Mary at least is given the news awake and in person when an angel stands before her  – she at least has the illusion of control and agrees to participate in this scheme. She is able to ask questions and get clarification about God’s plans and how they might affect her.

But Joseph’s first inkling that his well-laid plans are meaningless occurs when he finds out Mary is knocked up.

The Christmas story – the story of God-with-us - begins with scandal and infidelity (or the strong appearance of infidelity) to this marriage, which was yet to be made complete.  For some reason, when God comes, God comes not only in impossibility– bringing to mind the creation of the universe from nothing, and life and promise from all the barren wombs of old - by taking up residence inside a virgin -  but God also doesn’t seem to mind much what people think about it.  Controversy and the appearance of guilt, the suggestion of wrong-doing cling all over this couple, and would have over just her if Joseph hadn’t decided to go through with the marriage anyway.

We’ve got the Christmas story all soft-lens sentimentalized and “holy”, but these are real people with real relationships and expectations and emotions and secrets, and it couldn’t have felt saintly and nostalgic to Joseph. It must have been a cold shock, betrayal, horror, anger, deep hurt. 

And Joseph doesn’t even get the first-person conversation, the chance to decline before the wheels are set in motion; he finds out secondhand that this is his fate.  Stone her, divorce her quietly, or go along with this whether you want to or not.   Some hand dealt to him.

And then he has a dream, which puts things in a much different light.  And when he awakes he makes his choice.  He says yes to the path he is already on anyway, and agrees to jump in - with all the implications thereof: the guilt it paints him with, the change of his own plans and life direction.  In this unexpected, unwanted life interruption, Joseph finds his new calling.

Would he have said yes to this role if he were asked ahead of time? If he knew what was coming and had a real choice? The fleeing to Egypt to protect his small family from Herod, the returning to Nazareth years later to start all over again, the worry and stress and burden of shepherding this miracle through childhood and adolescence - the enigma of raising God, disciplining God, parenting God, what must that do to you? Would he have said yes to all of it? Would we? 

When you look back at your life, knowing now how painful or challenging some of the things you’ve walked through have been, would you have said yes to them before they came?  

Lucky for us, we don’t have the choice, most of the time, to say yes to all of it, but we usually do have the choice to say yes to one little step in front of us. The one little thing within the bigger picture – for Joseph it was, don’t be afraid to take her as your wife.  That’s it.  Stick with your plans. Marry her anyway. 

And he does.  And his life goes in a massively different direction than he ever could have imagined-  than anyone could.

How do we participate with God in life? Where do we see God? Really, concretely, can you see God in life? Where? How?  I think perhaps, like Joseph, sometimes we see God when we choose to be where we already are. When we decide to open our eyes and our hearts to the possibility that even though we never would have chosen this, we’ll live here anyway. We’ll invest ourselves in this new thing that is our life at the moment. 

I’ve shared with you about my sister and her husband and their 8 year old son’s surprising foray into foster care. They went through the process of entering the system with the dream of one day adopting, and they have found themselves instead with a household full of children that can’t belong to them – a baby and her 2 and 4 year old siblings, and another 2 year old, all with various needs and sufferings. Abuse, neglect, night terrors and developmental delays - my sister’s days are filled with all manner of surprising and unexpected turns. Court visits, home visits, supervised parental visits, doctor visits, and babies visiting college finals.

My sister is exhausted, juggling the child who can’t sleep in the same room as another with the one who can’t sleep alone, the one who cries at night and the one who screams at night and the one who wakes up at 5 am to go and shake the rest of the household awake and bellow at the dogs.  This isn’t remotely what they imagined.

 

But she finds herself in the night, when everyone else is asleep, rocking this sweet baby, with her deep mahogany skin and soft dark curls, resting peacefully in my sister’s arms, she finds herself suddenly wondering how she got to be so lucky.  What had she done to deserve this moment? Holding this little beating heart in a warm bundle in her arms while the moon looks on?  She catches herself, between the fatigue and the chaos, suddenly hearing or seeing one of these little ones in their joy, or in their fear, a moment of washing a foamy head or buckling a small lap into a carseat, and she realizes that she is alive, connected, even, for the moment, contented. 

And I see her, in a situation I could never imagine being in, and one she could never have thought she could handle, and she is somehow thriving, her little family is in this together, making space in their home and hearts for these tiny lives passing through. Being this haven for them. 

And, like Joseph, (and most of us if we’re really living in love), she takes on guilt too.  She is part of a system that is broken, failing them almost as much as it rescues them - she sees how complicated all of it is and that she will eventually give them up too, eventually let them down, and no matter how hard she tries, she can’t save them.  Was it enough? Of course not. But it’s something. And while she can’t tell you with any certainty what will happen tomorrow – how many her household will hold a week from now or six months from now – she has said yes to where she is, and God has met her within it.

This is God-with-us, God who comes in. And God doesn’t always, or usually, give advance warning or veto power. God will do what God will do.

But also, there are no circumstances, no situations, no lives that are outside of God’s incarnation – no places or people with whom God is not already involved, already there, alongside. 

And so often God, life, other people’s choices- or a messy cocktail of all these factors and more - puts us in a place we never would have chosen for ourselves, opens a door and shoves us in a direction that frightens us, angers us, challenges or intrigues us, and then slams the door shut behind us and we’re stranded there - in this new and unrecognizable place, where everything about us looks different in the strange light, and the smell is unfamiliar, and we aren’t sure what to do. 

And while we have no choice, we do have a choice. To say yes to where we are. Or not to.  And I am not even suggesting that the only faithful response is to say yes, necessarily, to wherever this bend in the road takes you.  It might be more faithful to kick and flail and resist with all your might, to die resisting. 

But perhaps, in some of these moments, you are invited to plant your feet, fill your lungs with air and look the moment squarely in the face and introduce yourself.  We’re going to get to know one another, you and I.  We’re going to figure out how to live together, how to share the fridge and take down each other’s messages, because I’m apparently not going anywhere and nether are you, cancer, unemployment, new relationship, empty household.

And there is a freedom that comes from relenting. From choosing, from saying yes to where you already are – even if you didn’t plan ahead of time to be there.  Because the truth is, God can only be found right where you are.  God is not stuck in the past or dangling out the future, and God isn’t writing out some perfect plan you are expected to find and follow – God is right here, in the moment, in the situation, as confusing or unexpected as it may be. You can only really see and welcome God when you let yourself open your eyes and your heart and be where you are. 

This looks different for everyone, but is an invitation for us all.

I have asked a couple of people what it was like for them to be somewhere they didn’t choose, face something they never wanted.

Diane shares her experience this way:

Last May I discovered a lump in my breast.  I had a mammogram and a biopsy and was informed it was breast cancer.  When I learned of the cancer it was a little hard to believe.  I didn't feel sick or look different. Than I got caught up in the swirl of doctor appointments and tests and treatment discussions.  I didn't feel overwhelmed or depressed, and I just wanted to get on with it. 

 I expected to not feel well part of the time and not be able to continue doing all the things I usually do.  But I did expect to continue with most of my work and activities. I thought I would probably join a support group, but then found that there were so many people that I knew or knew of that had had breast cancer that I could just talk with them.

Having breast cancer has affected me a lot with time and scheduling.  I have lots of doctor and treatment appointments and they take priority over other things. And I have a good excuse not to do things I don't feel like doing.  My experience is tremendously affected by my body responding well to chemotherapy and the surgery going well.  My progress has given me lots of hope that I will recover.  Had I had setbacks or not responded well to the treatments, I would not feel as hopeful.

I am grateful that God is part of my life and is there for me.  Also grateful that God has been somewhere in the medical advances that have helped me so much.  God's presence created a sense of peace that no matter what happens God is there. I will probably feel the absence of God if I don't continue to recover, or if the cancer returns.

I feel like I will be a stronger person after this.  There are issues with my business and my family that I will be making some changes in.  Part of that is realizing that life is short and I can't be passive or tolerant about things I am uncomfortable or unhappy with.  The future is right now. It is no longer way off in the distance.

I don't know how it has changed my relationship with God.  This is yet to come and I will be thinking about my relationship with God, family and friends more than I have before.

This month, Barb watched her son, David head down to Florida to face a felony drunk driving charge.  She shared about it this way:

The day of David's trial I prayed for a miracle. Jail time and no felony, time served and no jail, many different outcomes than the actual and deserved verdict. I wanted the phone to show a picture of David when it rang then I would know that he was at his Florida home and safe from all of the dangers he would face in prison. When the call did come and the number was friends of ours who had spent the day with David in court, my heart just stopped and so many thoughts and feelings rushed in that I thought my heart would burst. It was like a part of me died.

Before the trial I had spent a lot of time wondering if only I had been a better mom, if only his father hadn't died, all of the what ifs. Knowing that no matter how much I loved my son, this time I could not fix anything, I just had to stand by and let all of the pain unfold. My mind told me that what happened in court was for the best, but my heart cried for all of the what ifs.

I have encountered God with a ton of prayer. I rely on him to keep David safe.  I do not feel an absence of God, I just know that he is always with me, even when I have pulled away from life God is with this sometimes crazy mixed up person. I may at times be absent, but God has a way of finding me and pulling me back to just where I belong. That may not be where I want to be but I can accept and live with that, given time to think things through.

I do not spend too much time thinking about my future because that who knows if the future is tonight or many years from now. It is very bad medicine for me to go any further than this moment. The future is now.

I have been through some pretty ugly stuff in my life and it was only by God’s grace that I was able to get through it. There have been so many times that I unknowingly put God on a shelf and then realized I had not prayed or thought of him in a very long time, it is usually when I realize that, that pain and sadness has been replaced with the gift of joy and a happy heart. Right now today it is difficult to stop the tears and pain but I do know that no matter who I shut out of my life God will remain steadfast because I am his creation and he loves me very much.

This is the week of Advent that we focus on joy. The week we talk about joy in the waiting.  But as we look at the story of Joseph – at our own lives when we find ourselves in something we don’t choose to be in – as someone said to me earlier this week, joy would be a stretch.

But that’s just it, isn’t it? 

Joy is a stretch. 

It comes when we’re not expecting it, when we’re right in the middle of the sorrow or the fatigue, and suddenly the tiny head shifts on our arm, or the gratitude for family and friends, for the gift of living, floods in and takes us by surprise. And joy stretches us starting right where we are into a moment of eternity.

God is in the midst of it. Whatever it is.  Always.  That’s the promise we celebrate and anticipate in this season.

So let us join our voices with Mary, Joseph, John the Baptist and the Prophets and, not knowing how it might change our lives or what it might do to us, let’s say anyway,

Come, Lord Jesus.




A special thank you to Callie, Barb, and Diane, for honoring us with the sacredness of their stories.