1st Sunday of Christmas
December 28, 2014

²²When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord  ²³(as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”),  ²⁴and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”
²⁵Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him.  ²⁶It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah.  ²⁷Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law,  ²⁸Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,
²⁹“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
according to your word;
³⁰for my eyes have seen your salvation,
³¹which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
³²a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.”
³³And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him.  ³⁴Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed  ³⁵so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed — and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
³⁶There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage,  ³⁷then as a widow to the age of eighty- four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day.  ³⁸At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.
³⁹When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.  ⁴⁰The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him. -Luke 2:22-40

At first, today’s gospel appears to be a sweet post-Christmas-Day story of a gentle older man and a sweet old widow at the temple greeting the infant Jesus. It’s easy to think of the whole scene as a gentle and pleasant encounter with people who swoon over Mary and Joseph’s newborn. What new parents don’t love a little praise for their newborn? And this is high praise indeed to be called the savior of the world. But that’s not all that’s going on in this scene.

In this presentation at the temple, there is something darker lurking. For starters, Simeon’s response to seeing the Christ child is to pray, perhaps in song, that God can now let him depart in peace. That is, he is content now to die, having seen God’s promise enfleshed before him. This date today also marks the commemoration in our church year of the Holy Innocents, who according to Matthew’s gospel, were killed by Herod in a futile attempt to wipe out what he perceived to be a challenge to his power. Death and life are caught up together in the story of Christmas.  The reality of our finite lives is both made frighteningly clear and surprisingly peaceful by the presence of Christ. In the exchange with Simeon it is not only praise and joy, but also surrender. Surrender to larger purposes. Trust that God will complete promises that are yet in their infancy in our short lifespans. This is at once perhaps terrifying and freeing. It’s not exactly as it appears.

It’s that same tension that is at the heart of our baptism, the same tension that is at the heart of Eli’s baptism this morning. By this I don’t mean that baptism gives us peace of mind as some sort of eternal fire insurance, but rather that in the moment of baptism itself and in the life of the baptized that follows it, death and life are present together all the time. In baptism we say that we drown – we die to ourselves and die with Jesus – and are raised up from the water alive again with Christ. In the water we are confronted by our own mortality and by the power of the evil we have just renounced. We are confronted by our powerlessness to save ourselves in the end. And in the same instant we are promised salvation beyond our imagining. It looks like simple water and sounds like simple words but it is more than it first appears.

But what else is going on in this seemingly cheerful story? Simeon not only has words of praise for God but also a blessing for the child and for his parents. Perhaps suddenly he realizes it or maybe he’s known it all along and but seeing the actual people who will have to face it makes him pause. His blessing is for the ones who will face the cross. A sword to pierce the body of the one who is now an infant and a sword to pierce the soul for the mother who will stand witness. This is no ordinary blessing. It’s a blessing for facing the reaction of a world that will not stand for God’s radical love. It’s a blessing for ones who will stand up to the powers that are. It’s a blessing for the ones who will stand up to empires and traditions. This blessing is more than it appears.

And so, too, do we bless the newly baptized. We pray a prayer, which in its essence is not unlike Simeon’s blessing. A prayer that only gets richer and deeper for me with each time it’s prayed: “Sustain this child of God with the gift of your Holy Spirit: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, the spirit of joy in your presence, both now and forevermore.” What gets me every time is that we have no idea what a person being baptized will face. For those who are infants they have a whole life ahead of walking the way of the cross and living out the promises of baptism to engage the community of faith, proclaim Christ in word and deed, and work for justice and peace. Not just Eli, but you and me and all the baptized are called to these joys and challenges that will require us to draw on this spirit promised in baptism for counsel and might, knowledge, fear and joy. The call that is issued and the promises that are made in Baptism are certainly more than they appear.

And we cannot forget Anna, a woman who knows loss. A woman who has been fasting and praying in the temple. For what she has been praying all these years, we do not know. Laying whatever those hopes and dreams for herself and her world at the foot of God present in the temple, she has been shaped in her praying to recognize that presence of God in this little child. She rejoices. She has been fasting, likely unaware that the feast she was preparing for would come to her in the form of a child. This child is so much more than he appears to be at first.

And so we come, too, bringing our deepest longings to this place of worship. We hunger and thirst for the things that will relieve the burdens of our hearts. So we come to this table, not sure what God has in store for us. And in bread and wine, in the celebratory feast of our baptism, we receive God’s very self in answer to all we hope and yearn for. The morsel of bread and sip of wine becoming so much more than they appear to be.

Thanks be to God that things are not always what they appear at first. That the infant is a savior, that the cross can become an instrument of life, that the grave can become a womb for a new birth. Thanks be to God for people like Simeon and Anna, and all the saints since right down to the newly baptized Eli, who see through what seems to be to reveal to us God’s love and mercy. Thanks be to God that we have the gift of baptism to remind us of who we are as children of God even when we cannot see it ourselves and that we have this feast of bread and wine to take into ourselves that same reminder given to us at baptism. May you find this Christmas season, even as the Christmas lights begin to come down and the regular rhythms of our lives resume, that things are, thankfully, blessedly, not always as they appear.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

Christmas Eve 2014

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.
⁸In 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 those whom he favors!”
¹⁵When 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. – Luke 2:1-20

For all the ways it’s changed the world since, the first Christmas wasn’t really much to speak of as far as most of the world was concerned. Luke sets the Christmas story for us in the context of a great empire, but the people involved are only part of a backwater province whose importance to Rome seems to lie primarily in their ability to be taxed. It’s a story about some peasants from a small, insignificant village, even by the standards of the backwater province. Probably with nothing much to live on, one wonders if the innkeeper couldn’t find room because they couldn’t really pay the nightly rate.

For all the times we sing the angels’ song tonight and through the whole year, the story has their great multitude appearing only to a few shepherds, and on the third shift at that. The rest of Bethlehem goes on about its merry way. And the star that appears, while perhaps some wondered, we only hear of a few mystics from a distant kingdom who take notice of what has transpired. The birth in the stable surely changes the lives of Mary and Joseph, but infants were born every day then as they are now. Miracles to be sure, but not unusual. God’s coming down at Christmas wasn’t really much of an event at all as far as most people were concerned.

And it seems, too, that God coming into our lives happens all too often on the fringes. For we live, too, in a world of empires. Governments, even the best of them, prone to waging war and using violence. A world where economics drive even our Christmas celebrations, leaving everyone, rich and poor alike feeling inadequate. A world where violent acts are unpredictable happening in our backyards as often as they do in far away places.  A world where even those who are aware of the privilege they carry feel powerless to change systems of inequality and discrimination. A world where disease can come and make us realize how little control we have over even our own bodies.

We are, despite all we may have, like Mary and Joseph and the clueless shepherds, and the obscure group of mystics who follow the star. We are people who in one way or another all wait at the edge, wait for transformation, wait for hope.

And while what happened that first Christmas by any account you want to follow changed very little at the moment it happened, by every account it also changed everything for the ones waiting and watching on the edges. A poem titled B.C:A.D by English poet U. A. Fanthorpe says it this way:

This was the moment when Before

Turned into After, and the future’s

Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.

 

This was the moment when nothing

Happened. Only dull peace

Sprawled boringly over the earth.

 

This was the moment when even energetic Romans

Could find nothing better to do

Than counting heads in remote provinces.

 

And this was the moment

When a few farm workers and three

Members of an obscure Persian sect

Walked haphazard by starlight straight

Into the kingdom of heaven.

 

This is good news for us who so often find God working in our lives at the edges. Because even though God comes quietly, and strangely. Christmas is about God welcoming every last bit of us into the kingdom of heaven. About God infusing every cell of a human being formed in a human womb. About God claiming not just the weakness of the infant but the weakness of all human experience. About God encompassing the people who stand on the edges. Christmas is about God claiming not just the good parts of ourselves, God claiming not just young and healthy infants, God claiming not just the perfectly cooked Christmas dinner and the beautifully wrapped presents, not just the good things we did for others in the Christmas spirit, not just the warm fuzzy feelings of home for the holidays.

No, Christmas is also about God claiming every tear that’s shed in silent corner, about God claiming the men, women, and children who shiver in the cold unnoticed, about God claiming bodies young and old that are weighed down by anxiety or disease, about God claiming the feeling inside us that we haven’t got it all together. That’s what God’s coming to be human is really all about. God claiming every last bit of us, even the parts we’d rather hide away.

So maybe it’s not so much that God comes only along the edges, but that it’s on our boundaries that we notice what’s happening. It’s in the cracks of our armor and our sleepless nights that we see the light shining and hear the angels singing. It’s when we are most helpless and find ourselves walking on the edges that we find we are being led into the kingdom of God. It’s in the brokenness we find God showing up in unexpected and mysterious ways. It’s there, in the messy manger, in the company of a ragtag group of shepherds that we discover the one who has claimed us from the beginning joining us in our helplessness and leading us now – this night – into the kingdom of heaven.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” – Luke 11:9

Ask. Seek. Knock. Usually when I hear this passage I jump to all my questions about the times I’ve asked and not received, sought and not found, knocked and found the door not opened. Prayers unanswered.

And the usual responses come flying from within and without saying something about God knowing what’s best and God’s will not always being our will. That may very well be true about a number of things I’ve prayed for over the years. But it does not explain the continuation of hunger and violence. It does not explain the horror that unfolded two days ago in Pakistan, despite our prayers to end gun violence. It does not explain the people who remain homeless despite our pleading week after week. It does not explain the continuation of wars and disease.

Or our responses posit that God is somehow using these things for greater good. I don’t deny that God can and does transform our evil into opportunities for good, but I get very uncomfortable with the idea that God created the trouble in order to have a venue to do something good. The God who created the world out of nothing can surely do something good without the evil first.

None of those responses really give any real answer or any real comfort to the problem. I’m not sure there is an answer that will really ever satisfy me this side of death. But I wonder if sometimes we get too caught up in those questions when we hear these words of Jesus.

It’s safer to put the focus on what God hasn’t done than to put it on our failure to ask, seek, and knock. I’m not suggesting that greater fervor in our asking will achieve our ends. I’m just wondering if we’re often reluctant to claim the boldness that Jesus is inviting us to in this passage. An invitation to bother the God of all creation with our every need. An invitation to knock on the door for a visit anytime.

Sometimes instead we couch our prayers in churchy language, maybe because we think we’re supposed to or maybe deep down because we’re afraid to speak boldly about what we really mean. The difference between the prayer “Comfort me in my sickness” and what we really want to pray, “Make me not sick any more.”

Perhaps we’re afraid that really asking sounds childish or simple. Perhaps we’re convinced that miracles won’t happen. Or maybe we’re afraid they will. Or maybe we’re just worn out from the asking. But the invitation this Advent evening is to be bold in asking. To be bold in hoping. To be bold in yearning for the coming of Christ to us and to our world. To claim that prayer for our own and pray it with courage and power. To demand Christ’s coming. To insist that God fulfill God’s promises for us today.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent
December 14, 2014

⁶There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.  ⁷He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.  ⁸He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.  ¹⁹This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”  ²⁰He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.”  ²¹And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.”  ²²Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”  ²³He said,
“I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,
‘Make straight the way of the Lord,'”
as the prophet Isaiah said.
²⁴Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.  ²⁵They asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?”  ²⁶John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know,  ²⁷the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.”  ²⁸This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing. – John 1, selected verses

“Who are you?!” the messengers from the Pharisees demand. John answers them in the negative, explaining that he is not the messiah.  So they demand again, “What then? Who are you? Are you Elijah?” He is not. “Who are you? Are you the prophet?” He is not. “Who are you? Let us have an answer!”

Of course they want to know who this man is drawing attention to himself in the wilderness. They want to know, “Can we trust this man to be what he says? Is his message true?” The cynical ones want to know if he’s going to end up causing trouble for them. The hopeful ones wonder if this one of many wilderness preachers might be the one.

We ask the same questions of one another and of ourselves. In trying to navigate the world around us we question and test until we think we have sure enough footing to take another step forward. “Who are you?” we ask one another. And I don’t mean that question the way that most people do. We’re not really asking for people’s name, occupation, marital status, where they’re from. What we really want to know deep down is, “Can we trust this person?” Is this person someone I can be comfortable next to whether it’s for a short train ride or a lifetime commitment: “Who are you, really?”

We could answer like John the Baptist. I am not the messiah. Well, that’s a relief. If anyone said they were, we’d probably lock them up. But then, we spend an awful lot of time trying to be the one to swoop in and fix things. We put the weight of things on our shoulders, things that don’t belong there. Things we try to carry alone that only crush us under their weight. We’re called to participate in the messianic kingdom for sure, but it’s not our kingdom and it never will be. At least John is upfront about it.

Who are you? We could answer in the way that John the Baptist eventually does answer their questions with an affirmative answer. We are ones called to testify to the light. We are the ones called to point the way. We are the ones called to stand alone shouting a gospel message that some people would call ridiculous. There are some who would see what we as people of faith do on Sundays as just as crazy as John’s standing in the wilderness wearing camel’s hair and eating locusts. Perhaps we are the ones called to be witnesses, pointing others to a truth we see, pointing out to others who God is. Pointing out to others as John does that God is, in fact, standing in their midst whether they know it or not.

Who are you? We could answer in the way that Isaiah answers: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed and to bind up the broken-hearted.” Because we are the ones called to proclaim God’s coming reign to the kingdoms of injustice. Perhaps we are the ones who must speak out today in solidarity with others that all lives matter in the face of racism and classism and sexism and other isms.

Who are you? We could answer in the way that Mary, whose song we sang today for our psalm, answers: “I am the servant of my God; I live to do God’s will.” Perhaps we are Mary, bearing God out into the world, singing out our song of praise about the lowly lifted up and rich sent away empty-handed. We are called to be a prophet just like Mary: to proclaim the power of God to transform the world, not just pointing the way but becoming ourselves a vessel for the power of God.

Or maybe it would be simplest to answer with a fundamental truth, the one proclaimed to us in baptism. I am a child of God. Unlike our usual answers to the question, “Who are you?” whether that’s occupation, or net worth, or even our family identification, the answer about being a child of God is the only one that follows us into death. But it comes with problems of its own. Because anyone who is really trying to ask you who you are is going to follow up, “Then, who is the God?”

And suddenly not just to answer for another but to get an answer for ourselves, we turn the question on God, “Who are you?” Are you one we can trust? How do we know? The problem is that God answers in funny ways. Funny strange and funny laughable, both. God responds by sending a message through a man on the fringes wearing camel’s hair and eating locusts. God responds through a reluctant prophet speaking to a hopeless and scattered people. God responds through an unwed teenage mother. God responds in an infant born with no earthly fanfare save a choir of angels appearing to some shepherds and a star that appears in the sky. God responds by dying and rising again.

What kind of God is that? Who are you? And with those questions we enter a mystery we cannot understand and a God we cannot fully know. A God whose answer to that question is always changing, but whose presence is always with us. A God who shows up in so many surprising ways it’s a wonder we still manage to be surprised. A God who already stands among you, yet remains hidden.

Is that enough of an answer? Is that enough to trust? Is that enough to get us over the hurdles of pain, grief, illness, war, violence, and torture?

I can’t answer that, except to say that it’s all we’ve got. And here’s a crazy man in the desert who testifies to it. And here’s a scared young girl who bravely faces a society that does not understand. And here’s some water and a bit of oil to mark the sign of this God on you, on your forehead. And here is a piece of bread and a sip of wine.

And that’s about as much answer as we get. That God comes to you. In a season of waiting, in a season of hope, in a season of darkness and yearning and longing, God comes to you. In this place, in this time, at this table, this mysterious God offers a piece of God’s self for you. For you John the Baptist, for you skeptical Pharisees, for you confused bystander, for you Mary, mother of our Lord, for you Isaiah, the trembling prophet, and for you, children of God, gathered here. Whoever you are, God is here. For you.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

 

 

For our Advent midweek service on Wednesday, December 10, our text was not a typical Advent text:

Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” – Matthew 11:28-30

But it’s a perfect Advent text. In a time when our culture is pushing us to busier schedules, more consumption, and convincing us that we should have a perfect family, perfect decorations, a perfect feast, a perfect life, we are tired and carrying heavy burdens. The season of Advent calls us both to let go of that, but also to engage in a different way: in prayerful action, in acts of justice, in confronting the ways our attempts to exercise control just mess things up.

For our midweek reflection I shared an abbreviated version of this reflection from Jan Richardson’s The Painted Prayerbook. I highly recommend her work in general and this reflection in particular: http://paintedprayerbook.com/2008/07/02/if-the-yoke-fits/

-Pastor Steven Wilco

Second Sunday of Advent
December 7, 2014

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
²As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, 
“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way;
³the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight,'”
⁴John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  ⁵And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.  ⁶Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.  ⁷He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals.  ⁸I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” – Mark 1:1-8 

I stood on Monday afternoon with a group of students, faculty, and staff at the university in front of the student union to be in solidarity with Michael Brown and others who had been killed at the hands of the police. One after another student leaders got up to the megaphone and cried out their anger, sadness, frustration, and fear. There were calls to action, but no one quite sure what that action should be. A voice crying out in the wilderness.

Then the grand jury’s verdict in the Eric Gardner case came out and suddenly there was a whole new outcry. Two verdicts, twice forgoing a trial within a week of each other. Whether you want to debate the circumstances of either case or not, there is clearly a much deeper problem of racism in our country. That much is clear. Jon Stewart on the Daily Show said, “We are definitely not living in a post-racial society and I can imagine there are a lot of people out there wondering how much of a society we’re living in at all.” A voice crying out in the wilderness.

And as disturbing and important as this conversation about racism is, it’s not the only wilderness we find ourselves in. We continue to hear about economic inequality. And as much as we find ourselves rightly disturbed by the super-rich, many of us continue to find ourselves in the wilderness that accompanies life near the top of the world’s economy. We hear the problem and yet cannot find the solution. A voice crying out in the wilderness.

Yesterday we commended another of our saints back to the hands of God, for what seems like too many times in the course of this year. Though Wanda Bridges’ death was not unexpected and she lived a long life, we are once again confronted with the wilderness that death leads us into. So with cries of anguish and whimpers of defeat we come face-to-face with death in our midst. A voice crying out in the wilderness.

The wilderness is a frightening place to be. A dry and dusty desert with little water and blazing sun and scavengers who come out at night or a jungle whose intertwining plant life hides dangerous creatures, it’s a disorienting place. It’s a dangerous place because it does not follow the rules we have established. We are not in control. Perhaps more than anything the wilderness is by definition a place without a way out. Not that you can’t get out, but that there simply isn’t a road or path to lead you. True wilderness doesn’t give you so much as an overgrown trail.

That’s how this advent season feels with all that is happening in the world around us. That we’re lost, disoriented, living in problems with no solution, trying our best to clear a path but ending up deeper in the wilderness. Thinking we’re finding our way out only to find ourselves deeper within. And in our wandering we get this crazy character of John the Baptist shouting. It seems likely that he chose the wilderness he’s in, perhaps to join an ascetic community like the Essenes. Perhaps because he saw that civilization was just as wild if only in a different way. He stands out for his insistence and his boldness. And for his pointing to something more that is happening. Others lost and wandering, others trying to find their way out of their own wilderness, others who are alone, afraid, oppressed, and dying are drawn to his shouting, at least to find someone alongside them in the wilderness.

In the gospel writers’ accounts, they’re reading a different translation of the Isaiah reading than the one we read today. In their version the punctuation in a different place, one that suits the application of the prophecy to John the Baptist – a voice crying in the wilderness and that voice crying out “Prepare the way.” We hear the call as one to repent, to transform ourselves. And we do need to hear that. We need to hear about our own brokenness, our own racial or economic privilege, our own turning toward death. And in our wilderness we must join John the Baptist in crying out against injustice, against privilege, against death.

But in the translation we read today from Isaiah, which follows the Hebrew text, it is not the voice that is in the wilderness, but the road. The voice cries out to prepare for the transformation of the wilderness itself into something else, something navigable. Maybe John’s call today is really a call to get out of the way. Because a royal highway is emerging in our wilderness. The king is coming. Those two lit candles out of four remind us. The king is coming soon. And the wilderness will be transformed by his path.

At least according to Mark’s gospel, for all John the Baptist knows, the one coming after him might take years or decades. Certainly they had been waiting long enough. People claiming to be the messiah came and went with some frequency at the time. The collective memory of the people was more wilderness than anything else. They’d traveled down roads before that led them only to a different wilderness, a different trial, a different oppressor. And ask many of them even after Jesus comes and dies and rises again and you’d probably hear them say they were in a whole new kind of wilderness in the early days of the church, but one which had now been transformed by the one who walked with them for a while, by the one who died with them, by the one who was leading them maybe through more wilderness but who has the assurance of one who had already been to hell and back on their behalf. One who went into the worst wilderness there was and found a way out.

So we continue to live in our wilderness. We continue to cry our advent cry year in and year out. Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus! And a voice calls back to us in scripture, in bread and wine, in song and breath, in the people beside us, calling us forward through our wilderness on the road being made as we walk, twisting and turning until all the mountains are brought low and the valleys raised up and we can at last see what has been for us all along – God’s love bursting forth in every step along the way from the wilderness to the kingdom of God, from death to life.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

A reflection for our midweek Advent prayer service (12/3/14):

Reading: Psalm 51:10-12: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.

Reading: Isaiah 43:19: I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

Once a physical heart reaches a certain point of failure, the only option becomes a heart transplant: removing the diseased heart and putting in a new one. The chest cracked open, the heart systematically removed, and a new one attached. A risky operation, for sure, but one that people for most of history would have never dreamed possible.

When the psalmist writes “Create in me a clean heart, O God and put a new spirit in me,” he probably wasn’t imaging such a procedure. But he was talking about a radically new thing. To the ancient Israelites the heart was the center of begin. In their understanding, it moved the limbs – a stopped heart meant paralysis, not death. It was the center of emotions: joy, grief, love, courage, and fear. It was the source of thought – providing wisdom for living. It was the source of volition and conscience – the place where human beings meet God’s word.

So to call for a clean heart and new spirit was to replace the whole center of one’s being. Like the heart transplant patient, to be ripped open to the point of balancing on the edge of life and death, only to be restarted with a new life.

Too often we think of Jesus’ saving work, the call to repentance, and the point of Christianity to be about tidying things up and getting ourselves in shape, as if we can somehow make it good enough. If we only stopped sinning that one sin that we can’t let go of. If we could only piece together the right system to care for people in need. If we could only take care of our hearts just enough to keep them limping along.

But part of the Advent journey is coming to terms with the ways in which our efforts to tidy up our hearts is not enough. We are at the point where there is nothing else to do. Our desperate Advent cry, “Come, Lord Jesus,” is not a cry for a little help or a request for a little medicine, but a plea for our very life. A recognition that without Christ’s coming our hearts – our selves – will not survive.

The flip side of a heart transplant, though, is that someone else must stop living for it to be possible. Another otherwise healthy person must die that another may live.

Maybe there is something of that in the crucifixion – God’s ultimate statement of self-giving, God’s willingness to be broken open along side us, God’s willingness to share the divine life with us. The sharing of God’s own heart. The response to our cry, “Come, Lord Jesus,” is that God does come. God comes to gives up self that we might continue to live.

In baptism we are connected to that gift, brought to the edge of life and death, we are cracked open and something quite new begins within us. We begin to truly live in the only way that abundant life is possible – with the heart of God beating within.

First Sunday of Advent
November 30, 2014

²⁴But in those days, after that suffering,
the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light,
²⁵and the stars will be falling from heaven,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
²⁶Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory.  ²⁷Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.
²⁸From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near.  ²⁹So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates.  ³⁰Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. ³¹Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
³²But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.  ³³Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.  ³⁴It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch.  ³⁵Therefore, keep awake — for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, ³⁶or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly.  ³⁷And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.” – Mark 13:24-37

I think there’s a misconception about Advent that it’s primarily about waiting for Christmas. It’s understandable. Somewhere in most of us is at least a little bit of child-like excitement for the holiday. For church services that glow with candlelight, for family dinners, Christmas trees, and presents from Santa. For some perhaps there is anxiety – about a holiday without a loved one or about facing the tension of family stories past and present. If nothing else, the commercials, the stores, and even online shopping sites will give us a countdown til Christmas. And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with waiting for Christmas. But I wonder if that has much to do with advent.

We get a little closer to the heart of advent waiting for Jesus to come again. I personally love the tension that exists as we slowly build toward the Christmas story many of us already know and love while at the same time longing for the transformation of the world that none of us can yet fully imagine. Waiting for what we know well and what we cannot ever know become one and the same. But I’m still not sure that’s exactly what advent is about.

The problem with those things is that we’re waiting for something, and I wonder if advent is simply about waiting. In Mark’s little apocalypse in today’s Gospel reading, Jesus tells the disciples to keep awake for the day of the Lord. But if you read the description of what they’re waiting for – the stars falling from the heavens, the sun darkening – it doesn’t actually sound that pleasant, not something I’m interested in being awake for.

And I’m not that good at staying awake in that way even for something I really want to see happen. Sure I can find anxious thoughts to keep me up for a few hours, but ask me to stay up all night keeping watch and I’m sure you’d find me asleep by midnight. There’s a certain energy that it requires to wait for something that isn’t here yet.

We spend our time imagining what it will be like. If we’re waiting for something good perhaps we imagine it already happening around us getting lost in the dream only to look up at the clock and realize that only another minute has ticked by in a wait that seems to take too long.  Like waiting for each next stage of life – worried about getting there soon enough and in the right way and with enough money and skills and relationship.

And if we’re waiting for something not so good, maybe we get that worried feeling in the pit of our stomach that seems to make the clock drag on as our mind imagines the thing we’re waiting for to be worse and worse all the time.

Some kinds of waiting are especially challenging. One of the hardest things for people I visit in times of illness is waiting – waiting for scary test results, waiting for the all clear to go home, waiting to find out if a rehab bed is available. In that kind of waiting our minds tend to go into overdrive. We begin to imagine the worst possibilities, stressing ourselves out about what might be.

But all of that is focused on what will be on what comes next. It’s about our determination of what is needed and waiting until it happens. If advent is that kind of waiting, that it isn’t really much of a season at all. It becomes solely defined by the thing we’re waiting for. The problem is that like the first coming of Jesus, we may not know it when it comes, at least not if we haven’t really learned what the waiting itself is all about.

When Jesus calls us to keep awake like a master who leaves the doorkeeper on the lookout for his return, if it’s merely to sit and watch for the return, it’s a fairly lame invitation indeed. A waste of time, really. And even if it’s an invitation to active waiting – to active preparation for the master’s return, it’s at least not idle, but it doesn’t seem terribly fulfilling.

But what if the invitation to keep awake is an invitation to be more alert to the present. What if keeping awake isn’t so much about imagining what is to come, but learning to wait with what is, learning to be fully present to each moment as it happens.

I’m not suggesting complacency with what is – there is certainly much work to be done in the waiting. But more that our Advent cry “Come, Lord Jesus!” is our recognition that perfect fullness is always yet to come. More about coming to terms with our incompleteness.[1]

We have a tendency to think that God is waiting for us somewhere – maybe when we finally have everything together, or maybe when we’ve learned enough or forgiven enough or served others enough. Or that God’s will is something we have to try to figure out, as if God is in some choices and not others.

Maybe Advent is an opportunity to name for ourselves the things that we are waiting for, an opportunity to name the things that leave us dissatisfied, an opportunity to name the mess we find ourselves swimming in. Maybe advent is a chance to be honest that we don’t have everything perfectly polished, or exactly right. And then to come to terms with God here with us in the waiting.

Because maybe we will find our way out. Maybe the news we wait for will be good. Maybe some part of our life will come together. Maybe we will achieve our goals and dreams. But to be honest, maybe we won’t. Maybe things won’t go our way. Maybe things will unravel further.

You see, maybe it will be more like that first coming of Jesus, maybe Christ will come among us more like a helpless infant than as a warrior king. Maybe we will discover that waiting is much more about finding an awareness of God at work among us in the mess than it is about whatever we think is coming at the end of the wait. Maybe we’ll discover that the plan we have in mind isn’t always how it will work out, but that we can become more fully awake to the power of God in what is happening now. So join me this Advent season in naming before God the things that are broken, the messes we’re in, and the imperfect people we are. And join me also in letting that brokenness fall into God’s hands, trusting that whether it gets fixed or whether it remains in pieces, that God is holding it in such a way as to never let us go.

³¹When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.  ³²All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,  ³³and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.  ³⁴Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;  ³⁵for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,  ³⁶I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’  ³⁷Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?  ³⁸And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?  ³⁹And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’  ⁴⁰And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’  ⁴¹Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels;  ⁴²for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,  ⁴³I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’  ⁴⁴Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’  ⁴⁵Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’  ⁴⁶And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” – Matthew 25:31-46

I invite you to join me in this prayer, responding after each line: “Help us to see you”:

O God who stands in line for food at the Survival Center down the street…help us to see you.

O God who lives with the isolation and stigma of mental illness… help us to see you.

O God whose skin color subjects you to racism large and small day in and day out… help us to see you.

O God who lives within our country without documentation… help us to see you.

O God who cries from the crib with no one to hear and respond… help us to see you.

O God who has no home to return to… help us to see you.

O God who will spend the holiday alone… help us to see you.

O God who is among us stressed, tired, overworked, and anxious… help us to see you.

O God who is alive in us who are gathered here…Help us to see you. Amen.

[Adapted from The Prayer Book Guide to Christian Education – theprayerbookguide.wordpress.com]

Something about this parable sticks in our minds. One commentator suggested that no one who has ever heard it forgets it. And its point is fairly clear. It calls us to serve our neighbor – every neighbor – reminding us that in serving others we in fact serve God. It’s a beautiful and creative story to get that point across. But as I’ve said on other occasions, we don’t need Jesus to tell us that. We can come to that fairly logical conclusion on our own. Most people when it gets right down to it want to live in a world where people help one another. And we live in the Valley, so while it is not as perfect as we might like to think, there is an assumption that people, most of whom are not followers of Jesus, ought to treat everyone with respect and to help those in need. And I think many of us feel strongly about both serving the people in front of us and working for greater justice in the systems that create the need in the first place, but I know lots of non-Christians who do that. And frankly, we get easily caught up in wondering if we’re more sheep or goat. And honestly most of us are both in the course of the day, and plenty of days more goat than sheep despite our best efforts to the contrary. So while this beautiful parable calls us to a deeper recognition of that call to serve one another, I think there’s a whole lot more going on here than just a very important reminder to service.

For starters, all the nations are gathered before the one who comes in glory. The good, the bad, and the ugly are gathered together before the throne and discover Jesus to be the shepherd of them all. Not just the good and bad people or the faithful and unfaithful people, but good and evil itself, faith and unfaith itself is gathered in God. Every last mountain and valley are swept up in the final day. The separation that happens in the parable is swift and strong, but it does not destroy relationship with the one who has been the shepherd all along.

For another thing, this is not actually a story about what will be, but a story about what always is. This is a parable about the day when the world finally realizes that it’s only been able to see the tip of the iceberg of what this kingdom of Christ is really all about. We celebrate today that Christ is King over everything everywhere. That Christ is King not by claiming the throne for himself and not even in grand judgment over the nations, but in stooping low to seat the lowly on the throne.  Christ has been king in the vulnerable all along. Christ has been leading the sheep and the goats, both of whom are utterly oblivious to what they’re doing in the world. What happens at this gathering before the throne isn’t a magical transformation, but revelation of the presence of God suffusing everything that’s ever been. It becomes not so much a welcome to the party to the kingdom as a revelation that the kingdom party has been happening around you all along.

And you’ll notice that whatever the goats or the sheep do or don’t do, the presence of God is in the ones in need. I’m reluctant to simplify this parable to simple moralisms about doing the right thing. What’s interesting is that it’s not simply about doing the right thing, but that in doing so the sheep were in relationship with the divine. They had no more idea about it at the time than the goats did, but every act of service was a deepening of relationship with God. Every time they comforted the sick, visited the imprisoned, fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and gave water to the thirsty they deepened their relationship with the Divine. Every encounter was an entry into deeper relationship with God as much as any spiritual experience in worship or Bible study and probably more.

And because it’s stewardship Sunday and because every day is about how we steward the gifts of God, let’s not stop with people. If this whole kingdom is getting caught up in God’s last day, it’s not just every person in need, but every polluted water supply and every molecule of polluted air which is infused with God’s presence and demands our care. It’s every hour we spend of precious time and energy that is filled with God’s presence. It’s every piece of food we buy and consume or share with others that is brimming with the spirit of God. And are we ready, perhaps, even to imagine the presence of God in every dollar bill we hold, every check we write, and every credit card swipe we make? Are we able to imagine the presence of God transforming and engaging every ounce of being we have?

That is, of course, what we celebrate when we gather around this table: the sacramental presence of God. And yes, the presence of God in bread and in wine. But also the sacramental presence of God in the people who are gathered. Pastor and liturgy professor Gordon Lathrop reminds presiders at the Eucharistic table that if they bow to the presence of God in bread and wine, that they ought also to bow to the presence of God in the people who stand hungry and thirsty before the table. So it is to the presence of God in you that I bow each week as we sing “Holy, Holy, Holy. ” And it is in that bowing to one another and in the consuming of the bread and wine that we become aware of the need in ourselves. It is in eating that we recognize our hunger. In the drinking that we recognize our thirst. In the forgiveness offered that we realize our sickness. And in the gift offered freely that we recognize our imprisonment. In the life offered that we confront our own dying. At the table we are fed with the presence of God only to learn that as the ones in need we have born the very presence of God to the table within ourselves. And it is when at the table we come to touch the presence of God in us that we discover the abundance of God to share with others. In receiving we are called and sent to be bread and wine for the world, bearing to them the reminder that God is already present but perhaps yet to be discovered.

So with that assurance of Christ in us and for us, let me end with the words of Robert Farrar Capon on this parable: “We need only to act as if we really believe he meets us in leastness and death. The rest is his business, not ours. And therefore all the theological baggage about repentences that come too late or acts of faith that peak too soon… and all the doctrinal jury-rigging designed to give the unbaptized a break or to prove that unbelievers are invincibly ignorant – all of it is idle, mischievous, and dead wrong. We simply don’t know, and we should all have the decency to shut up and just trust him in the passion we cannot avoid. And we don’t even have to know if we have succeeded in doing that, because Jesus is there anyway and he is on everybody’s side. He is the Love that will not let us go. If anybody can sort it all out, he can; if he can’t nobody else ever will. Trust him, therefore. And trust him now. There is nothing more to do.” [Capon, Robert Farrar. Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus. Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 2002. p. 512]

 

23rd Sunday after Pentecost
November 16, 2014

¹⁴For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them;  ¹⁵to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. ¹⁶The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents.  ¹⁷In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents.  ¹⁸But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.  ¹⁹After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them.  ²⁰Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’  ²¹His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’  ²²And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’  ²³His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’  ²⁴Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; ²⁵so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’  ²⁶But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter?  ²⁷Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest.  ²⁸So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents.  ²⁹For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.  ³⁰As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ – Matthew 25:14-30

In the first half of the 20^th century there was a well-known radio newscaster by the name of Walter Winchell.* He was known for the sense of urgency he brought to his radio broadcasts, beginning each broadcast with the sound of a radio telegraph sounding furiously followed by his rapid-fire staccato reports, reportedly delivering up to 200 words per minute at his fastest. According to some reports, Winchell achieved a sense of urgency in his voice by drinking multiple glassfuls of water prior to each live broadcast. In case the content wasn’t enough to develop the urgency he wanted to come across, his, well, need to use the facilities would motivate him to speak quickly creating the urgent tone he was looking for. He didn’t want to raise anxiety or create fear and panic, but he wanted people to get a sense of the great importance and timeliness of what he had to say. With his behind-the-scenes trick he was able to communicate the utmost importance and urgency of the news he had to share.

At the heart of it, that level of urgency is behind today’s parable. I think Jesus tells this story to have the same effect as Winchell’s water drinking – to instill a sense of urgency about the kingdom of God.

Now the problem for us is that we usually hear the parable not from a place of urgency, but from a place of fear. We hear the parable as if we are the third servant, afraid of a capricious and frankly outright criminal master who reaps where he does not sow. We hear the threat of outer darkness and the weeping and gnashing of teeth as a threat of eternal punishment. We read the parable through the lens we have internalized from our culture and history whether we believe it or not, that the world was created perfect, we messed it up, and Jesus is either going to pull us out of it or we’ll end up with weeping and gnashing of teeth.

But that reading instills fear, not urgency. To illustrate the difference we can look at the current Ebola outbreak. Urgency calls us to research cures and support aid work through organizations like Lutheran World Relief. But what we’ve seen a lot of instead is fear – irrational reactions to unscientific fears.We respond out of fear about big things that sound scary and beyond our control. And the fact of the matter is that like the kingdom of God some things are big and scary and out of our control. And yet, some things that are much more likely to affect us or even to kill us and over which we potentially have some control like heart disease or climate change, fail to create the level of urgency they deserve. Fear tends to cripple us or cause us to make destructive choices, whereas urgency might push us to engage in constructive work.

It seems to me that the parable illustrates for us the destructive nature of fear. We don’t know whether the third servant’s assessment of the master is accurate. But it doesn’t really matter, because he acts not in response to the master but in response to his own fear. And it cripples him. He can think of nothing to do in response except to bury this extremely large sum, thousands if not tens of thousands of today’s dollars..

How often do we respond to our lives with the same level of fear? By most accounts, the church today is facing a decline. And there’s a lot of fear out there about what the future will be. It motivates a lot of church growth literature, arguments about how best to save the church, or how best to attract new people. The problem is that is that we tend to respond out of fear. We’re afraid the institutions we’ve created won’t be there in the next generation. We’re afraid of the changes that might take place as the place and role of the church changes. We’re afraid perhaps because it parallels the ongoing changes that happen in our personal lives that leave us sometimes confused and fearful. And the problem is that fear ends up creating the opposite of constructive urgency.

So what is our alternative? I think the point of this parable is urgency, not fear. If we read it through the lens of our having broken a perfect world and doing our best to prove ourselves worthy of salvation rather than damnation then we end up stuck in a cycle of fear right along with the third servant. But what if we reorient ourselves to a different deeply Biblical lens in which God is breaking in on a broken and imperfect world to liberate, create, and establish a reign of justice and mercy?** And what if God cares so deeply about this broken world that nothing will get in the way. Jesus tells a story designed to instill in us the same urgency about the kingdom that grows out of a deep and self-sacrificial love for the world. This is not about our proving anything to the master but about the incredible importance of God’s transformational work to which we are invited to participate.

As we look at the story through this other lens, perhaps we see in the reaction of the first two slaves a joyful participation in the generosity of the master. Whether they share the same negative opinion of the third servant or not, they react to a generous opportunity to participate in what the master is doing. They take risks and double the investment. If they had some fear about what would happen, they have found a way to overcome it. The generosity of the gift creates in them an urgency to engage the work of the master.

So maybe the outer darkness with weeping and gnashing of teeth isn’t so much about finding ourselves thrown out of the kingdom, and more a way for Jesus to say that this inbreaking of God’s creation, liberation, and reign of justice and mercy is seriously important. Jesus’ way of saying, “Look, I know it’s hard but the work to which you are called, the use of your incredible abundance, is urgent. This work cannot wait! There are people still living in that outer darkness yet to be transformed by the inbreaking of the kingdom.” As we will hear next week in the parable that immediately follows this one, there are sick, hungry, thirsty, imprisoned people out there now who need to know the power and generosity of the kingdom. There is no time for fear.

So we as the church are called to step out boldly. And here’s the thing – none of the servants in the parable lost money, but risk, real risk, means we might. We might step out as the church and the institution as we know it might crumble. But the urgency of the reign of God calls us to that risk trusting that God’s work continues beyond our best institutions. We might take a risk as individuals and find that we fall flat on our face, but the urgency that comes from the sheer amazement at the generosity of the one who has blessed with abundance drives us forward. Jesus’ call to us is clear that our baptism instills in us that same deep sense of urgency and that same deep love for the world that calls Jesus to the cross and us to follow.

So this parable calls us to take a cue from Walter Winchell, drinking deeply of the waters of baptism, water which creates in us that urgency for the reign of God: an urgency that powers over our fear, an urgency that calls us to move boldly and quickly, an urgency that sweeps us up in the grand transformation of this world into the reign of God for us and for all who still wait in darkness.

*Thanks to the New England Synod Rostered Leaders text study for telling me about this wonderful story.
**The wording for this reorientation is drawn from a lecture by Brian McLaren at the New England Synod Bishop’s Convocation referencing his latest book, We Make the Road by Walking.

-Pastor Steven Wilco