Hosanna!

Scriptures: Isaiah 11:1-9, Matthew 21:1-11
 

 One week ago, I was at the Hands-off protest in the little town of Lihue, on Kauai. For a couple of blocks people lined the street on both sides, cheering and waving all manner of signs, while music blared over the loud speaker: I get knocked down, but I get up again… We didn’t start the fire, the music mingling with the rhythmic pounding of a group of hand drummers, voices shouting and horns honking. I teared up, of course, picturing us here, on this tiny island way out in the Pacific Ocean, hours after everyone else, sharing in this thing that was happening all over the country. The feeling of collective action and comradery was electric.  It felt like hope, like possibility, like anticipation, like we were part of something bigger, something coming.

 
And then I saw him. The man in the tan t-shirt and fishing hat, bouncing an actual tiny palm tree in the air.  And it stopped me short. Because of course, I thought of this moment.  
 
How different are we, really from those 2000 years ago who lined the streets on Palm Sunday shouting,Hosanna, which means Save us!, protesting an oppressive regime and anticipating deliverance by this one who would restore their rightful place, and take his place as king, and rule them like King David did 1000 years before? 
“Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
 
Those in Jerusalem that day wanted Jesus to save them from the Roman Empire, to make Israel great again, to bring back stability, and raise up the weak, and destroy the corrupt mighty.  And maybe they even had in their minds the idea that Jesus was the fulfillment of prophesy. Because while, for Holy Week, we’ve momentarily jumped forward 600 years to join this crowd and walk this week with Jesus, we get to hear these events with their ancestors in mind.  And certainly, it’s possible that, standing there on their spread-out cloaks with their own palms waving in the air, they were recollecting the same stories we are working our way through. If we think back to Lisa’s sermon last week,we will recall that the kingdom of David and Solomon had crumbled, their homeland was destroyed by the Babylonians, and the people are in exile, waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

Today’s prophetic message from Isaiah comes to them fifty years in, give or take, when they’ve pretty much settled into their lives in Babylon. Some families in ongoing despair and suffering, others are getting comfortable in the empire. Into that accommodation and apathy, that acquiescing to the status quo of exile, here comes the prophetic promise of a savior who will deliver them from captivity. 
 
And with a scripture we normally read at Christmas time, we hear of the One from the root of Jesse who shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
and who is ushering in a kingdom of peace so counterintuitive to the natural order of things that fear is nonexistent – lambs and wolves hanging out, calves and cubs cuddling, children and snakes all safe together.  “No one will be hurt on God’s holy mountain” it promises. “Just as water fills the sea, the whole earth will be full of people who know and love the Lord.”
 
So maybe that day with their palms in hand they remembered the prophet’s promise to their ancestors 600 years before. And maybe, just like we do on Christmas, they’re declaring that Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s salvation, and maybe, also like us, they’ve decided what that salvation looks like so they’re making Jesus into who they think Jesus should be for them. Whether we think Jesus should keep us safe and prevent bad things from happening, take away our pain, strong-arm our enemies, or make us into supernaturally good people, however our version of God’s plan goes or our view of salvation looks, they had their version too, and figured he would fulfill it.

And like his very first journey on a donkey in the womb of his young mother Mary, when the world had no idea know what was coming, once again, he will take the cosmos by surprise.  Because beyond everything we think salvation should be, God’s way of love flips things upside down and inside out, it is unrelenting and quiet, foolish and strange. Jesus wasn’t there to lead the revolution at all, he was there to die. The things the people projected onto him were not going to happen. And just a few days later this whole crowd will join in collective chanting again. This time, instead of ‘Hosanna!’ They’ll chant ‘Crucify Him!’ without even a bit of irony or self-awareness. 

But the prophetic beauty and power of this moment is that, even though they’ve got messed up motives and confused ideas and false assumptions, what they are saying is completely true, part of the fabric of all things most true. Jesus does save us. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the lord. 

So I return to that fellow in the bucket hat at the protest last week, bobbing his palm up and down in time to the music. He didn’t bring a sign that said one thing; he used his foliage to affirm everything, to say ‘here, here!’ to it all, a bouncing exclamation point to every the messages surrounding him on cardboard, to all the stop doing this, bring back that, cruel and mocking jokes, heartfelt pleas, clever slogans and desperate longings, held by people joining together and projecting our desires, despairs, and prognostications into the air alongside one another, all of us shouting all our various Hosannas and Save uses into the atmosphere. 
 
Who were we aiming them all at? I guess we were aiming them at each other, at the collective consciousness, the universe, the far away government on the other side of the ocean. Perhaps at all those people in all those other time zones who did this before us, like some kind of call and delayed response. 
But mainly, to be honest, we were aiming them at the passing cars. If they honked and gave us the hang-loose hand out their window, the cheering got louder. We got a response! They agree! They’re with us! It was like facebook “likes” and Instagram hearts in real life -the literal thumbs up right to our faces, a feel-good echo chamber of our shared discontentment and frustrations, elevated by peppy music and comforting companionship.  And that is not a bad thing – making our voices heard matters, and it felt good. And then it pittered out, and eventually we tossed our signs in the back seat of the car to be recycled later and wandered off to a noodle house for lunch.
 
But it made me realize that as heartening as that was, it only goes so far what I was really craving was thisrally. The one where the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee when God incarnate meanders on a donkey through the middle of people’s expectations and projections to bring us the salvation we need, and not the salvation we think we want.  
Because if our salvation is up to us, to shout it back and forth to each other, to cajole and persuade other selfish, broken human beings to do the right thing, we have no hope. Left to our own devices, we’ll just grasp onto stability enough, a sufficient status quo of empire apathy that lets us turn away from our human siblings, slowly destroy this beloved planet, and perpetuate cruel injustice and dismissive division with maybe a veneer of civility.
We’ll wave our Yes at whatever makes us feel heard and seen, and fear will keep being our driving force. We’ll keep hating our enemies, and flapping our competing signs and propping up our conflicting causes and getting a thrill from the responses we solicit and calling it progress. We’ll elect good people, and bad people, and good people again, and if we get our way, life will go on pretty much the same with a few tweaks, while the threat of death looms as large as it ever has.  We need something from outside ourselves to do the saving.
 
Palm Sunday can feel a bit weird and superfluous, like a mini-Easter. Hooray! Jesus is the coming King! But really, Palm Sunday the culmination of Lent. It's the false finale that draws out all our counterfeit redemptions.  We wave our palms and shout our hosannas and save uses, thinking This is it! It’s going to happen like we want it to! and take all our self-deception and salvation projections—all we think we want and need, who we think God should be for us and what we think God should do for us—and we aim it right at Christ. We load all our misguided intentions, our self-centered solutions, and our sureness of what will save us, onto his shoulders, while he rides by us, perched atop that little donkey.  And Jesus welcomes them into himself, absorbs all of them, and carries these sins to the cross. There our cries for salvation will be answered, just not how we think they should be. 

There God incarnate submits completely to the human experience of suffering and death, so that nothing can separate us from God’s love. God has come, God is here, God loves this world and everyone in it far more than any of us do, and despite us, God is redeeming it all. As Lisa and the prophets reminded us last week, “we live in hope, because we know that God will act. We don’t know the why, nor the how, nor the when. We cannot predict God’s miracles, but we live in the certainty of God’s redeeming power.”
 
However, our hosannas get shouted, or whatever our palm branches represent for us today: God is breaking in, that God has come to share this life with you and me, and something irreversible is about to take place.  
Salvation is what God does and will keep on doing until it is complete. We don’t compel it, and we can’t thwart it. God is saving the world. So, bring your needs and longings and ask away. The Holy Spirit will translate our prayers, and God will bring the saving that we need. 
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the Highest.
Amen.
 

A Christmas Eve Message in Carols

 

Isaiah 6:2:6-7, John 1:1-5, Luke 1:26-38, Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 2:1-20 Christmas songs are the most eclectic collection of music that exists in the same genre. Streaming Christmas music you’ll bounce through tragic break-ups, saucy hook-ups, light-hearted dust-ups, and adorable mix-ups. You’ll go from anthropomorphized snowmen and catty reindeer to ancient magi, alarming angels, and imagined drummer boys. Whiplashing from glee to longing, wistfulness to punchiness, and superficiality to scripture with ho, ho, hos, fa, la, las, and glory-alleluias, the whole thing becomes backdrop soup that we stop really hearing.   But it’s also true that some of the most poignant and powerful lyrics ever written are sung at Christmas. Christmas songs can preach!   I recently came across all the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” Bing Crosby croons a few verses but skip others. I did not know it was a Christmas poem written amidst the horrors of the Civil War.    Listen to what Longfellow wrote:   I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play,  And wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to men! And thought how, as the day had come, The belfries of all Christendom  Had rolled along The unbroken song Of peace on earth, good-will to men! Till ringing, singing on its way, The world revolved from night to day, A voice, a chime, A chant sublime Of peace on earth, good-will to men! Then from each black, accursed mouth The cannon thundered in the South,  And with the sound The carols drowned Of peace on earth, good-will to men! It was as if an earthquake rent The hearth-stones of a continent, And made forlorn The households born Of peace on earth, good-will to men! And in despair I bowed my head; "There is no peace on earth," I said;  "For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!" Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;  The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men."   Every year Christmas comes around, interrupting our human stupidity and hatred, whatever current versions of awfulness we are engaged in this year.    Long lay the world in sin and error pining.   (O Holy Night)   Nevertheless, throughout time, when the bells ring Christians gather on this night all over the planet. In the midst of world wars and regional famines, through times of personal loss and communal tragedy, we take up our candles, our silence, and our songs to share again this sacred story, and trust again that the God who comes in will meet us here.   No ear may hear His coming, But in this world of sin, Where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.    (O Little Town of Bethlehem)    This is a holy act we do this night.  Because if Christmas has any real and lasting meaning, it can’t just be a bubble bath of nostalgia, or a Netflix binge of escapism. But neither can it be positive platitudes or religious head-patting.    Life isn’t messing around. We have 15-year-olds with guns and countries invading each on a dying planet. Right this moment in the very place our little Lord Jesus lay asleep on the hay, people are suffering and dying, their homes and lives destroyed. And in-between our holiday shopping and wrapping, people are logging online to cheer for a murderer,  because we’ve stopped seeing the human in one another, and in the world’s richest country people can’t get the healthcare they need. And millions of our siblings live in poverty because we also happen to live in the country with the greatest wealth inequality. We’re not crushing it, you guys.   We’re angry and lonely, anxious and scared, hurried and stressed, sad and mean. And in an unstable global environment armed with nuclear weapons and massive egos, the future is unknown.    So, if the best of what Christmas has to offer is the warm winter wonderland of fuzzy appreciation for family and friends, and a once-a-year emphasis on kindness, it’s not going to cut it.   For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!     (I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day)   So, also, it seems if we’re clinging to the delusion that we humans are somehow capable of righting this ship, we are not. Let’s admit it right now. We are not capable of restoring our wrongs. This world is broken, and we cannot fix it. We are hopeless. It is impossible.    But nothing is impossible for God.   And you, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low, who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow, look now, for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing: O, rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing.    (It Came Upon a Midnight Clear)   And now, something must happen that we cannot make happen. Something uncontrollable, transformative, and undeserved must break in and change things. It must be both cosmic and personal, universal and particular. We must be met here and now, by something entirely outside of ourselves that embraces our whole selves and everyone else too. We must be found.    The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee to-night.     (O Little Town of Bethlehem)   And so, a voice from the heavens announces to us – to each of us and to all of us ever –FEAR NOT!      Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing!    (O Come, All Ye Faithful)   Eternity breaks into time! God comes into this life – not as a mighty force overthrowing evil, as much as we may wish that were so, but as a helpless, displaced child into the arms and care of unprepared people in a broken world.    Once in royal David's city stood a lowly cattle shed, Where a mother laid her baby in a manger for his bed.   (Once in David’s Royal City) Mild he lays his glory by, born that we no more may die, born to raise us from the earth, born to give us second birth.   (Hark, the Herald Angels Sing)   God comes into this life, this darkness, this impossibility, the one we are living in right now. This, here, is what is being redeemed by love, flooded with the light no darkness can extinguish.    Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings!    (Hark, the Herald Angels Sing)   What we are incapable of achieving on our own, the life of wholeness and connection, belonging to God and all others, is given us in Christ. This world, and everyone in it, is claimed for redemption.   For lo, the days are hastening on by prophets seen of old, when with the ever-circling years shall come the time foretold  when peace shall over all the earth its ancient splendors fling,  and the whole world give back the song which now the angels sing.  (It Came Upon a Midnight Clear)    History on its inevitable course is interrupted and rerouted by Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. The whole trajectory now points toward love that will never end.     A thrill of hope the weary soul rejoices, For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!  (O, Holy Night)   We are not on this spinning ball alone fending for ourselves. The destruction we’ve done and keep doing is not our end. Death, in all its terrifying separation, is not the final word. God has come. There is now nowhere Christ is not actively bringing salvation. The middle of the story is messy, but conclusion has already been written. The world is God’s! The end is love!   Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;  The Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men."  (I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day)   Christmas calls us to walk alongside each other in impossibility, to watch for God’s in-breaking. This is God’s world, and every one of us has a particular place. We will see Christ when we welcome each exquisite human being here beside us with reverent care. When we tend the complex, fascinating earth with humble wonder. When we join in God’s ongoing creativity, merciful justice, unwavering forgiveness, and potent healing, by accepting all the small moments of connection as invitations into miracle, given by God’s Spirit in our ordinary days.    So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His Heaven.  (O Little Town of Bethlehem)    We are loved by God, always and no matter what, here briefly to love one another.  We can’t control most of what happens around us, or even to us, but we can receive our ‘one, wild precious life’ in with the defiant delight of joy. We can live in trust, gratitude, and anticipation for what God will do next.   Let earth receive her king; let every heart prepare him room.   (Joy to the World!)   Christmas not a happy distraction from the pain and suffering of life and the darkness and brokenness of this world, it’s the main event. God comes into the brokenness, and through the life, death, and resurrection of God-with-us that begins right here, the world will never be the same.  Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we, Let all within us praise His holy name!       (O,Holy Night)   What we do this night is a holy act. With our glory-alleluia good news songs of great joy for all people, we take up our candles and our calling, to share again this sacred story, so that with confidence and hope, we may go out from this place into the darkness of this night, trusting that the God of light who comes in is indeed redeeming this world, and even now has met us here.   Amen.

God completely With Us

  

Luke 2:1-20

Would it be utterly tactless to admit on Christmas Eve that I am a teensy bit sick of Christmas? For the past month the soundtrack in our house, and car, and on vacation, and during dinner, has been Christmas classics. And while Bing and Ella and Frank and Mariah and are great, there’s a point when it all turns stale. 

 

And because Christmas classics are playing all the time, we’ve naturally had many conversations picking apart the origins and meaning of everything from the culturally shifting read of “Baby, it’s cold outside,” to the weirdly morbid lyrics of “Frosty the Snowman,” to the sketchy relationship dynamics in “last Christmas I gave you my heart but the very next day you gave it away” to the debatably patronizing misunderstanding in “I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus.”  Interspersed among these empty, sugary treats are the delicious and filling songs we’re singing here tonight, telling a story of mystery and wonder, of love and joy. But it’s all mixed up together, the deep and the stupid, and it’s relentless. 

 

But I am not here to rail against the commercialization of Christmas, which I happily join in every year. Instead, I want to invite us into that story of mystery and wonder by being here in the presence of God and each other.

 

The truth is, I am not really sick of Christmas, so much as I am craving to know the truth of it, to feel the real of it, to be drawn back to the hope of it. I want to peel back the shiny paper and see Christmas for what it is, not a dreamy, cheery, fix-everything event that makes us feel all warm and cozy and ends all strife and strain. 

 

The birth of Christ is untidy and uncomfortable, and at least here, tonight, we need not pretend it’s anything else. The actual Christmas moment is just like the rest of life: it’s awkward and messy, tiring and scary, a little exciting, a little confusing.  

 

And that’s how God wanted it. God wanted to be human, so God came human -  vulnerable, needy, loveable and infuriating – to humans, into the arms of ordinary, conflicted people struggling to do the right thing and wondering even what that is.  

 

God trusted ordinary people to welcome him in and care for him like one of our own. Love came in to be loved. This is the beginning of the story of Jesus Christ, and it’s the new beginning for the whole earth and everyone in it.   

 

God chooses to be with us, as we are, in this life, as it is.  And so this Christmas, like every day, our sadness is as welcome as our happiness, our anger is a gift that points us to truth, and no matter what we do, even when we lose sight of what’s real and bury it in layers of false cheer, even when we hurt others or ourselves, even when we’re drowning in regret, desperate for forgiveness, or numb with fatigue, nothing can separate us from the love of God, who heals what’s sick and mends what’s broken and welcomes home what’s lost.  

 

This little baby Jesus will die, that guaranteed when he draws his first human breath and cries his first tiny tear. God takes all suffering and death into God’s own self. Addiction, estrangement, illness, pain, injustice, cruelty and loneliness, there is nothing God does not bear with us, nothing can be greater than divine love coming in. The cross is there, in the manger. So is the empty tomb, so that, even now as we celebrate his birth, we can say with confidence, No death, no matter how big or small, gets to define who we are, or decide where all this is going. In Christ Jesus, we are forgiven, connected and made whole. You and I, the earth and everything in it, this whole story from beginning to end, belongs to God. 

 

No wonder the angels busted the sky open with joy, and the shepherds’ fervent words caused awe and amazement in all who heard them, and Mary eternally ponders these things in her heart.  

 

God took on flesh and God crept in beside us. Suddenly the ordinary is miraculous. This human living, astonishing. Every breath we take, a gift.  Bodies that grow, and learn, and smell, and taste, and sweat, and break down and need tending, minds that solve complex problems, imaginations that conceive breathtaking art, hearts that discover little ways to make each other laugh, and uncover just what will comfort another, all of it, miraculous. All things God is utterly delighted by. All things God wanted to know from the inside. 

 

Christmas invites us to be present, then.  Not to have answers, or have it all together, or to be cheerful or even introspective. Simply to receive the presence of God, right here, in these ordinary, miraculous lives we’re given, and to receive these lives too, with all our limitations and misdirections and all our mystery and wonder, love and joy, our beloved, holy, ordinary lives as conflicted people struggling to do the right thing and wondering even what that is, called to be here in this gorgeous world God is always making new.

 

And honestly, God loves us so much, I think God probably finds it cute when we make such a big, fancy, obnoxious to-do out of stuff, inevitably mixing up together the deep and the stupid,even so much that we sometimes lose sight of the treasure underneath. No matter, because when this turbo-charged season ends we remain forever inside the story of Christmas, of God-with-us nevertheless, fully, always leading everything eternally toward life and love.  

 

Amen.

Merry Christmas: God is here!

 

May your day be filled with joy and connection.

Reflection on the Christmas Story, Luke 2:1-20, 

from Rev. Kara Root and Rev Lisa Larges, shared on Christmas Eve, 2021.

Luke 2:1-7                                                                                          

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. ²This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. ³All went to their own towns to be registered. ⁴Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. ⁵He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child.⁶While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. ⁷And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

A first century Middle Eastern home design show would be big on the open concept.  House hunters would follow a large family with their animals, looking for a place for them all to be comfortable.  The homes they would visit would all be variations on the same theme: a split level with two entrances.  It would consist of one large room, where all the life happens, with a portion of the room several feet lower than the rest, and a small set of stairs going down to it. This portion would be open to the outdoors, because of course they would want their animals to be able to comfortably crowd into it at night to bed down safely next to the family.  

 

The savvy designers of these homes ensured there was a classic manger – a dugout feeding trough in the floor of the main room near the edge where the floor dropped lower, so that a hungry cow could easily reach forward and eat.  

Then, because hospitality was so central and important, on many of these homes a guest room was built on the roof or the side of the house. The word Luke uses in our text that we’ve translated as “inn” is not the word Luke for inn later on. It’s the word meaning guest room.  Perhaps the house hunters would find or build such a home, and our show would end with the family happily settled into life in their new digs in Bethlehem.

 

A few months or years later, Mary and Joseph came to the small town of Joseph’s ancestral family.  While they were staying there in this very home, the time came for Mary to deliver her baby. Elizabeth and Zechariah did not live not far, and since Luke begins the whole story of Jesus with them, it’s not unlikely that they came too, baby John strapped to Elizabeth’s chest, to be for Mary and Joseph what Mary had been for Elizabeth in her own time. 

There was no place for them in the guest room, we’re told, or perhaps our family had selected a home that did not yet have a guest room, so right in the center of the home, Mary labored and birthed her baby and laid him in the manger.  The animals looked on.  The women of the village, the midwives and the aunties, assisted with the birth.  

 

Not apart but alongside, not beyond but within, right into the center of a world in upheaval, right into the center of a crowded room, in a peasant home teaming with life, into a neighborhood rallying to the needs of a birthing mom and an anxious dad, fetching water, offering food, neighbors clapping shoulders, sharing joy, strangers lifting voices in thanksgiving for the baby’s safe arrival, the Lord of the universe entered into this world: Jesus Christ was born.

Entering a world already in motion, interrupting narratives already unfolding, just like every child born in every time, God came in.  

 

Luke wants us to see this:, Into a hungry world comes the Bread of Life, his first bed a feeding trough. Into the chaos, with no privacy from other humans or animals, and no capacity to be treated as an honored guest, comes the Word through whom God speaks into being all order and design, life and light, animals and humans alike. 

And into a corrupt system that takes advantage of the poor, under a government that wields power personal gain, comes the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, ushering in a different kind of kingdom. An empire of kindness and belonging, justice and equity, love and forgiveness, and power through sacrifice.  And he shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace.

 

Instead of turning the Almighty face away from our hunger; Jesus becomes for us the bread of life. Instead of recoiling at our dread, Jesus says Fear not, I will be with you. Instead of shunning us in our arrogance and ignorance, abandoning us to our violence and hardheartedness, God comes to us in humility and weakness, a helpless baby, needing us to show up for him and take care of him, knowing all the while we would then betray and kill him, and coming all the same.  

Instead of concocting a way for a few very good people to escape dying, God came to die alongside, with and for us all, to end the power of death over us, and give us Christ’s life of unbreakable belonging to God and each other as our own life.  

In our chaotic, unprepared, unwelcoming, unsuspecting and unjust world, God’s home is with us, in our homes, in our neighborhoods, in our circumstances, whatever they may be. God makes our ordinary holy; God makes our everyday sacred.  Because the first and final word is love. And by the power of God’s love this world is being redeemed. Our lives are being redeemed.                                     

 

- Pastor Kara

 

             

Luke 2:8-14                                                                                        

8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people:¹¹to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.¹²This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ ¹³And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 

¹⁴ ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,

   and on earth peace among humans, whom God delights in!’

 

There’s a layer of earth’s atmosphere called the ionosphere. The ionosphere, for a certain little slice of human history, connected late-night romanticists and restless spirits with faraway places.

Back when radio was a thing, for the news or the weather, or the baseball game, or the latest top forty hits, or for companionship on a long road trip, there was the radio. There was FM, with its clear signal; but before FM, and then alongside it, there was AM

At night, some of the less powerful AM stations would go off the air, and a handful of bigger stations with more powerful signals would own the airwaves. After the sun went down, AM radio waves would behave differently up there in the ionosphere. They would get bounced around, and returned to earth, and be scattered far beyond their normal daytime range. And so you could, and still can, sit up late at night, and with patience and focus, slowly, incrementally, turn the tuning knob  on the AM band of any old radio. Maybe you’ll get Detroit, or Denver, or Madison. You’ll hear late night preachers, and sports talk radio, and late-night callers with their theories of how everything works. The signal, bouncing around up there in the ionosphere, will be clear for a while, and then fuzzy, and then go away altogether; but you can twist the radio dial a little to the left or a little to the right, and maybe you’ll get that station back again, or maybe another, from another town not close to here.

Shepherds, on a night that was no different than a thousand nights before or a thousand nights to follow, got tuned in to a cosmic frequency. The music of the universe, which hums at a frequency just beyond human hearing, was suddenly audible to them. The cosmic glory, which continues in a range beyond human seeing was suddenly visible to them.

God’s love and human love collided on the earth, and the realm of grace and glory was especially electric that night. It danced in the skies. It hummed and reverberated, until at last it connected. It broke through on a patch of open land on a hillside, where sheep were gathered, and shepherds watching.

Why shepherds? Was it because they were awake and watching, alert, as a habit of the work, to any anomaly? Did their work of caring and tending predispose them to the announcement of newborn love? Were they lonely out there, and did that cosmic song come as a salve to their spirits?

However it was, the song of the universe, with news of God-with-us, came to shepherds, in the middle of an ordinary night. And the signal was so strong, so clear, so persistent, that not only could they feel it, but they could hear it, and not only could they hear it, but they could see it, and not only could they see and hear it, but they understood it, and not only did they understand, but when at last the signal faded, they got up, and went searching for that source of love.

Here we are this night. And there is music in the air.

The song of the universe is singing for you. Not just here, not just this night, but always. The song of the universe sings around you.

One day, you, and I, and everyone else in this room and with us across the invisible spaces, every one of us will be taken up into that cosmic song. We will return to the song, be enfolded by it. The ground of our being is love. We have come from love, and to that love we will return.

And here, in this life, maybe, not unlike the shepherds, a few times in our life we might actually hear the song. Maybe you have heard it? Maybe there’s been that moment when the joy was so strong in you, or love was so powerful, or your very own deep longing welled up from the core of your core and suddenly you were palpably connected to a signal – a field force – a shimmering – an awareness of love and grace that is the music of the spheres.

Sometimes, some of us are just that lucky – lucky like the shepherds, to hear the music. But whether or not we ever hear it – whether or not it ever breaks through and sings in glory around us – that music, that song of love is still there. It holds us. It renews our hearts for love. It gives us strength. It is always and forever singing the good news: God is with us. God is here.

 

- Pastor Lisa

 

 

Luke 2:15-20                                                                                    

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’ ¹⁶So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. ¹⁷When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; ¹⁸and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. ¹⁹But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

    

                                                                                                               

In our rotation of holiday music the other day, while I was baking cookies, Go Tell It On the Mountain began to play.  Maisy said, “This isn’t a Christmas song!” and I assured her that, indeed, it was, and we paid attention to the verses, which turn out to be about the angels telling the shepherds and the shepherds telling too.  

Having been drawn into the cosmic celebration, inducted by a stunning angelic pronouncement into the growing collection of humans in on this world-changing scheme of the Divine, the shepherds rushed to share in the reality alongside those who were also experiencing it.  Just like Mary did when she went with haste to find Elizabeth and Zechariah. 

 

This is a truth that must be shared, a mystery to be treasured and pondered in our hearts, a reality to join in, a message to be told (Go tell it)

on the mountain, over hills and everywhere: 

The trajectory of the universe is shifted, 

A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn

Because

In our dark streets shineth the everlasting light,

a light that no darkness can put out! 

The hopes and fears of all the years are met 

tonight in God-with-us,

and in his name all oppression shall cease.

God crept in beside us, 

and the soul felt its worth.

Love is born! Come share in the wonder,

Love is God now asleep in the hay.

Love is Jesus within and among us

Love is the peace our hearts are seeking.

 

So

come let us adore him!

 

So the breathless shepherds go! And they find the baby swaddled tightly in a manger, in a regular peasant home not unlike their own, his tiny black lashes resting on his soft brown cheeks as he sleeps, reminding them of their own grandsons, their own sons.  And they excitedly share what the angels told them about this child.  And all those who hear - Mary and Joseph, all those neighbors celebrating in the yard, and our proud little host family, in whose living room this miracle took place, and by whom visiting hours are graciously extended as the wee hours of the morning begin to break around them all – they were all amazed at what the shepherds told them.  And Mary treasured these things and pondered them in her heart. 

 

And just as their message changed all those who heard it, the shepherds went away changed too. They were transformed by the experience and also by the sharing of it. Altered by both the supernatural encounter with the music of the cosmos, and by the sight and smell of the baby in the feeding trough. 

Beyond the bounds of daily routine and rhythm, even beyond time and space and life and death, the shepherds eyes were lifted to a further horizon. 

By witnessing heaven leaking into earth and earth invaded by heaven, angels and strangers and God-with-us sharing in this extraordinary ordinary event together, 

their awareness was opened to the vast interconnectedness of all things. 

In praise and gratitude for all they had seen and heard, 

their hearts were turned toward God. 

 

God comes in.  Nothing stops God, nothing deters God, nothing hinders God from coming in.  God’s love and salvation are for the whole world.  

Not a perfect world, this world. Not ideal lives, these lives. 

Right now, in the midst of every single thing happening on the earth, every life, every death, every moment of joyous celebration, every cry of devastating loss, 

any and all chaos and upheaval, 

into weariness and despair, 

corruption and violence, beauty and simplicity, 

in all of it, 

God is with us. 

We are every day invited to join in the world-changing schemes of the Divine.  Because the first and final word is love. And by the power of God’s love this world is being redeemed.

 

So tonight we turn our hearts toward God, and we lift our eyes to a further horizon. Tonight our awareness is opened to the interconnectedness of all, and we are too drawn into the cosmic celebration. Christ has come.  

Glory to God in the highest heaven! And peace on earth, good will to all!

- Pastor Kara

Right Into the Middle of It All

LNPC Christmas Eve 2012

Luke 2:1-20

I need to hear the Christmas story this year, to remember that God crept in beside us, that this world is shot through with love and hope. I’m craving the good news of great joy for all the people.

But there’s a line in the Christmas story that has always bothered me.  It’s when the choir of angels sing, “On earth peace among those whom he favors” – it’s also been said, “Peace on earth to men of good will,” or “peace on earth to those who please God.”  

 

Of course, we human beings are divisive and exclusionary, it’s sin’s hold on us, the way of fear that has us always competing and comparing, always striving to be good enough, and deciding who isn’t good enough. So translating it this way fits our distorted projection of who God is and what God must be up to.  

 

But it doesn’t fit what we know about the Kingdom of God, and who God really is and what God is really up to in the world, particularly at Christmas, when God comes into this life to save us.  And I’ve learned over the years that wherever we make the message of Jesus Christ narrow and obstructive we’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way and it’s worth retracing our steps.  

 

So, I did some digging into the Greek this week. And it turns out that the word “favors” means pleased in, delighted by. It’s the same word God speaks over Jesus at his baptism; This is my beloved child, in whom I am deeply pleased.

So when those ecstatic angels who cannot contain themselves blast their joy into the faces of the terrified shepherds, they are singing, Glory to God in the highest heavens! And on earth, peace to the humans, in whom God is utterly delighted! Y’all humans are God’s favorite! Glory to God and bottomless connection between God’s very own beloved children!

 

God is so utterly committed to us that God came right in with us to share it all, so that we might never again be separated by death, so that the end of this story is decided once and for all.  Christ has come to free us all from the bondage, judgment and suffering we inflict on ourselves and others, and bring us into peace.  God’s peace is not just for a few, for those who earn it or deserve it or claim it.  God has come for whole earth, and every person here belongs to God and to the rest of us. There is no pain or suffering of a single one of God’s beloved human beings any place on this wide planet that God is not intimately bearing with and tending to. There is no human joy that God is not celebrating.  

 

Each of our lives get to be part of glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth, our lives get to be for peace between all beloved human beings on this whole wide earth. God is doing this, it has begun and will continue until it is complete.  

 

Right now everything feels hard, we’re weary and strained, the future is unclear, the present is not simple, the world is aching, and life and death are close to the surface. So what better time is there to tell each other again about God coming in as a tiny, vulnerable human baby, born incognito, in the middle of unfortunately-timed road trip, to a teenage girl and the man who agreed to be the child's daddy? 

These two beloved, overwhelmed humans were living in the midst of great unknown and upheaval, making do with whatever they had, and welcoming God into the world, right into the middle of it all.  

Beloved human, God is utterly smitten with you, and with every person on this planet.  And God is here with us all. So we will tell each other the story again, and welcome God into the world, right into the middle of it all.  

May you go into your Christmas, whatever it looks like and whatever it holds, with your heart open to whatever cocktail of joy and grief, love and disappointment, hope and longing may be bubbling within you tonight. God comes in to be with you just as you are, and to bring us all peace. 

Christ has come; the world belongs to God.  Christ is here; we are not alone.  Christ is coming; the future is God’s.

Amen.

 

Being Found Again: A Letter to John

Mark 1:1-11

John

A letter to our ancestor, John.

Dear John,

Who are you? Under all that sweat and dust and camel hair? Behind all the drama and noise?  What do you think about out there when the crowds have gone home, and the stars are glowing above you, and the sounds of the desert creatures and the wind are all the noise that’s left? What keeps you awake, tossing and turning?  What gets you up in the morning, for another day of locust-eating and yelling yourself hoarse with passion and fire?  

You are pissing people off, you know.  You don’t live much longer than this – you’ll die soon for telling Herod like it is and calling him out on his adulterous marriage.  And you don’t get much sympathy from the establishment after your criticism of them and your direct competition – baptism for repentance? Really? The people can get that in the temple. The favor and forgiveness of God is already available…for a fee. But you offer it for free? All the while saying something greater is brewing and you’re just the warm-up act?

I’m sure you heard the story over and over in your childhood, in those few short years your ancient parents had left - between all their prophet-grooming, their stories of prophets of old and messages to Israel and encouragement to listen, listen for the voice of God, the surprise of God that would bring life to deadened wombs and laughter to creaky voices, lay mountains low and raise valleys up, bringing hope and wholeness – between all of that I am certain you heard tell time and again of when Mary came to see your mom, the moment your fetus self bumped belly homes with the embryonic Messiah, as you jumped for joy, recognizing already that everything was changing, and there was nothing to do but celebrate it.

And the messages, all those prophets swimming in your mind, taught to you from Torah, spoken in story from your priest father and your devout mother – it must have meant even more to you than to others…

Did you three carry this secret promise, this crazy truth that you had come from impossibility?  Were you always aware that God had broken in, and nobody knew it yet, but the time was coming when they would all see…? 

And did you ever forget, John? We forget all the time.  Did you? Did you ever wake up knowing there was something to remember and then have the truth wash over you in wonder once again? That God was making good on all those promises of old, that God was coming in?

Did you recognize him in the prophesies? Jesus, I mean. When you were kids, did your cousin seem like the one? Tell the truth now – was he just so ordinary? Or did you know all along?  Did you know before he did? Or more than he did? Or did the two of you whisper about it together at sleepovers?

What was it like, by the way, the day he came to the river, the day you plunged him under the water and the sky opened up and the voice of God claimed him? After the elation that it had come at last, were you psyched to retire? Be finished with your message? Or was it anti-climactic? Or even disillusioning? 

Who are you now, once the one you’ve prepared the way for has arrived in our midst?  When the thing your whole life has been about has been accomplished, what is your life for then?  

If you knew then what you know now, would it all have gone the same?

Mark begins all of it with you, you know. “The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ the Son of God,” then he has you bursting out like you couldn’t contain the secret any longer, the message ripening within your young body and mind until you had to get out of the city, flee to the wilderness and give the message room to breathe, give it space to expand or it would swallow you and everything else with its magnitude and power.

The others don’t begin with you – Luke and Matthew, they tell Jesus’ genealogy and his birth, and the book of John starts with the very, very beginning, with the Word of creation, light in the darkness, but Mark starts with you.

Where would you begin the story?– I bet you’d go back to those prophets – your lifeblood, your mother’s milk, your father’s breath in your ear, whispering their messages and hope.

  

You’d begin the story by saying there were those who said it was coming… remember those voices? Remember those promises?  Then you’d say, It’s true. It is coming. It’s already begun. 

You spoke fantastic visions as well—baptized with the Holy Spirit?  The very Spirit that hovered over the water at Creation, is claiming and cleansing us? Now?  It was a fact.  You spoke these things like they were a fact – preached the future with a present tense. Perhaps you had such bold confidence because you yourself had come from the impossibility that was becoming.  You believed it and you made them believe it too.

I heard someone say once that ‘repentance is what happens to us when the truth of who we are and who God is enters our lives and scatters the darkness of competing ideas.’ (Nadia Bolz-Weber)  It’s like being found, being grabbed on the shoulders by love and turned from death toward life, to see it all stretching out before you with a different horizon.  

Trading our way of perceiving for God’s way - it doesn’t just happen once. It can happen any and every time we start to drift back to the fear, to hide ourselves in the anger, to barricade ourselves in the false security.  When the truth of who God is and who we are enters in, we can repent, and are freed again. It’s an option available to us at any moment.

It happened to me yesterday.  There was a conversation I’d been dreading, practicing what I’d say in defensive language, couched in self-protection.  Then a friend told me to bring my honest self to it, my sadness and fear, and tell the truth.  She invited me to repent. She’d probably laugh to be told that’s what she was suggesting.  But it was, and I did, and I felt my armor fall away and the fears subside. I found myself feeling hopeful again, and secure in whatever God might do there, because the truth is we all belong to God and each other no matter what, and I could feel that truth again.

  

What did it look like, John, to see so much repentance on people? Could you see it in their eyes? Was it relief? Joy? The darkness scattering, the truth seeping in… Did their faces change as the light entered their lives?  Did their bodies feel lighter coming up out of the water than they did going down? Did seeing it strengthen your own hope and trust?

Did you know how they looked at you? How they saw you? You must have.  You dressed like Elijah, you sounded like Isaiah, you were a prophet, and the people came. They came from far and wide to hear you, to catch a glimpse of that modern day prophet who was just like the ones of old.  But the others thought you were dangerous, crazy, threatening, an embarrassment, a freak show.  Did all that bother you? 

Once someone well-known and respected who speaks in front of large crowds told me that what is hardest is the admiration, being admired.  You feel you either have to live up to people’s expectations or disabuse them of their notions, is that how you felt? Is that why you were always so quick and forceful to point out that it wasn’t about you at all, that you were paving the way, clearing the clutter, making the paths straight, because the one who would bring life to the world was coming -?  

I know what’s ahead for you too, John – when you’re in prison and you hear about what Jesus is doing and you send your people to Jesus to ask if he “really is the one who is to come or if we should wait for another?” when you question if it all really is real.  Even you!  That doubt and fear are such an intrinsic part of being human, such an integral part of faith, that even YOU wondered, faltered.  You, who told everyone else so confidently, that God was doing this thing, you too had those scary secret moments when things didn’t look like you thought they would, and you weren’t sure if you could trust what you had believed. It gives me some comfort to know that.

And when your messengers reached him and asked your question, he answered, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” 

What was it like for you to hear that? Did it put you back inside the cosmic story? Could you trust again that what the prophets had said was really happening when your friends had seen it unfold right in front of them?  

Did you repent then?  Let the light scatter the darkness of competing ideas? Sitting there in prison, just days away from your unexpected and senseless death, did you feel the chains fall away and the trust return? Let the truth of who we are and who God is release you from your fear? Did it bring you peace?  

  

I’ll bet you never heard that right after he sent away your messengers and they were hot-footing it back to you, he told the crowd with conviction in his voice that you were a prophet, just like those of old, actually, more than a prophet, he declared, you were the ‘One who announced the Messiah.’  Then he said, “Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist;” and then did what he does and added, “yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”  

I think you would have liked hearing him say that.  About the least being great, I mean, the poor and forgotten being lifted up that way in God’s kingdom.  Maybe even more than his message to you, it would have affirmed that this is all really happening after all- God’s kingdom really is breaking in, showing how upside down we have it all.  You would have liked hearing him say that, I bet.

When you died, John, it crushed him.  He left everyone to be alone with his terrible grief.  Did that shake his faith, I wonder, bring him to doubt?  That even though the way of God has begun and the light is in the world, the darkness is still here too, for a time?  How did he reconcile that? How can we? What would you say to us now about that, John? 

What would you think of the world right now, John?  

What would you shout at us if you were here? 

You see, we have the benefit of hindsight, we get to see all of this WAY after the fact, so we don’t have to stand on the banks of that river with the mud in our sandals and the insects buzzing around us, listening to you roar out your message and wonder who to believe –wonder whether what you say is even remotely possible, or whether you’re just another fanatic off his rocker. We know who you are and how it all goes down from there. 

So we can ask you now, and we’re willing to listen, what would you say to us? What would you have us do?  

How can we receive our Savior?

Ah, but you’re long gone. You’re silent now.  And so it’s on us.  

See, John, it’s like this every year.  It might have been all new and amazing to you, but we’ve beat this message to death with jingle bells and sentiment and buried it in a sea of candy, carols and wrapping paper and when January comes it is behind us and we’ve moved on.  We’ve put Jesus in the manger and we like him there; he’s so cute and clean.  

So if we really take you seriously, what does it mean for us? 

How does it shape our lives?  

Does God still come?  Is God still coming? We need a little taste of your honey and fervor, I think. A sense of wonder and awe once again. A longing to be stirred enough that it feels like absolute refreshment to be plunged under and feel the water roll off us along with all that keeps us in darkness, to be baptized into a promise that holds us even when we can’t see it.  How should we live a good life, a meaningful life, a life that matters, a life that sees God?  What should we do, John?  

But you would never really say, would you?  When we plead for some direction, Tell us how we navigate all of this, desert prophet! You’d just point your finger again at him and tell us God has come.  In the flesh.  Right here.  

“I’m just using water, people,” you’d say, “he’ll immerse you in the Holy Spirit, you’ll be surrounded and filled by the life-creating breath of God.  

So get ready. Be ready. Live ready.  God is coming.  God has come. Repent.”  

And you’d leave us to it, this holy exchange of our way of seeing for God’s, that scatters the darkness of competing ideas, and welcomes us back to the impossible that is becoming.

So, because I’ve not said it before, John, thank you.  

Thank you for your words and your life. Thank you for preparing the way.  Thank you for reminding us what’s real. Thank you for pointing us back to Jesus.

Sincerely,

Kara Root, and your sisters and brothers at Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church, Minneapolis, MN, 2020 AD.

This is part of a series, journeying with some of our Biblical ancestors: Hannah, Mary, Anna & Simeon, John, Samuel, David*, The Samaritan Woman, 

(*This is an older message about David, in this series, we had a wonderful performance of 'David" by Theater for the Thirsty)