Have You Ever Been Possessed?

I have to admit this morning that I have been possessed by unclean spirits.
Often beyond my control I have lashed out at people, used my position to advance my own agenda, spoke when I should have listened, acted with vengeance when mercy was needed.
I am wondering if you have ever felt this way.
Have you ever walked away from a conversation and thought to yourself, “Why did I say that?”

For example, it happened one time that I always carry with me.
I was in college.
I went to the gym with some friends to play some basketball.
While we were there we started to have a one on one tournament with some other people.
One thing about me is that I can be fiercely competitive while playing sports.
I was playing a game against a fellow student who happened to be Jewish.
The game was close and we were both going at it really hard.
I scored a point and instead of handing me the ball he rolled the ball away from me.
I yelled back, “Didn’t they teach you manners in Jewboy School!”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth I wondered where they came from.
It was like I was possessed.

We all get possessed by evil spirits sometimes.
We lash out at others, we find it hard to forgive, we say things that tear down people instead of build them up, and we lose our cool.
I believe that Jesus Christ came to help us take away evil spirits.
Jesus came to help us break free from the chains of those evil spirits that possess us.
After being Baptized, tempted in the desert, announcing his plans for the kingdom of God, calling disciples, Jesus now sets out to show us what the kingdom looks like.
This morning in the synagogue Jesus confronts the demons that stop people from living in the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of God is about forgiveness, love, self giving, sacrifice, hope, and joy.
When we are possessed by evil spirits we act contrary to these things.

We all possess things about us that we would rather do away with.
Some of those things are passed down to us from our parents.
Some of them we are simply born with.
Some we learn from the world around us.
Whatever the case, we are tied to them.

I want to tell you this morning that there is a way out.
That is to submit to the authority of Jesus.
I knew after I said what I said on the basketball court it I was wrong.
I asked for forgiveness.
It was granted and in the end we became pretty good friends.
But I had to submit myself to a greater authority.
I think that it takes great humility to be a Christian.
It takes humility because we have to admit that we are not always right.
That is hard.
We have to admit that we make mistakes.
We have to admit that there are forces at work in our lives greater and more powerful than us.

Jesus confronts those forces head on.
He does not back down.
Jesus authority gives him the ability to confront those things in the world that stop us from being all that we are suppose to be as God’s children.
This is what makes Jesus unique for us that he above anything else can make our lives right.
You cannot get what Jesus gives anywhere else.
You can’t get it in money, in possessing things, in stature, in fame, in winning.
The problem is that if all your life is about is winning then eventually you will lose, and then what will happen.
I know in that moment on the basketball court I was possessed by an evil spirit because I was possessed with winning instead of trying to live as God had intended for me.

This is why God’s grace given in Jesus Christ is so amazing.
The people in the synagogue that morning experienced it firsthand.
They went away that morning filled with amazement at what they had seen and heard.
They had heard preaching not like the scribes and Pharisees.
Not filled with quotes from scripture and precedent, but filled with God’s healing balm of grace.
Jesus is the center of his own teaching.
No need to quote lots of other sources only need to preach what he knows to be true.

I am hoping every week when you come here that you will be able to hear those same healing words.
That in this sacred space you will be able to experience the authority that comes from Jesus Christ.
When we do I believe that it alters our lives.
It casts out our evil spirits and allows us to go back into the world with renewed passion to love more and hate less, forgive more and judge less, let go of our past and live into the day that was given.

This week a friend posted this quote on Facebook by Anne Lamott, “I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us."
This is how I feel about Jesus.
That in times when I am most possessed by evil spirits Jesus is always there helping to chase them away, and helping me to end up in a different spot, because Jesus is bigger than evil spirits.

Recently I had a couple of different people in our congregation come and ask me about demon possession.
It seems that in one case another Christian neighbor was obsessed with trying to keep out evil spirits.
So anything that was conceived by this person as being evil he was keeping at arm’s length.
Did not listen to certain music because that is how evil spirits get into our lives, does not read certain books, go to certain movies, or hang out with certain people.
My response is always that evil has no permanent power over us, because God is bigger and more powerful than evil.
If we encounter evil spirits in our lives than the answer is to hand them over to God and watch them go away.
The story of Jesus is even more powerful, because it shows us that God’s power is already unleashed and working in the world around us.
God sent his son to free us from evil, to deal it a fatal blow.
When we do something evil we know it, because we know Jesus and what is expected of us.
I knew what I said to my friend playing basketball was wrong.
I would suggest to you that most of the time we know what is wrong, and do it anyway because we are possessed.
In Luther’s words we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.
But thanks be to God that Jesus has come to cast out the evil spirits and save us from our sin.

My favorite mystic is Julian of Norwich.
She was a mystic in the 15th century right before Martin Luther.
She had revelations of what God was about.
She wrote them down for us to enjoy today.
In one revelation she saw how Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection had defeated the power of evil.
When Julian realized this she laughed at the power of evil.
“For I understood that we may laugh in comforting of ourselves and joying in God for that the devil is overcome.”
This is how Jesus freed us from evil spirits.
Is that not good news for us!
Does that not allow us to laugh while we comfort ourselves in knowing the evil can and will be overcome?

Those of us who have been studying the book of Revelation on Wednesday nights also get to see how the blood of Christ frees us from the powers of evil that tries to hold us back.
When we are free from this power we are able to live in the Baptismal covenant that God made with us.
We can be the people that God hopes we will be, and sends us Christ to become.

So let us leave worship this morning marveling in the grace of God that frees us from evil spirits, and gives us the power to be the people of God.
Loving our neighbors, speaking words of encouragement, walking in humility, forgiving others as we are forgiven, and doing justice for the poor and broken hearted.
Amen

Turn Around!

We have had a very successful year at Concordia Lutheran Church.
Today at our annual meeting you will hear all kinds of good news.
Good news about our worship attendance being up.
Good news about Sunday school growing.
Good news about our financial stewardship growing.
Good news about our membership growing.
All these things are good.
We should celebrate them and rejoice together in our mutual ministry.

This past month as I was preparing for our annual meeting I was thinking about all our success and what would be the message I would give to you this Sunday.
Once again the Spirit of God moved because the lessons for today say it better than I ever could.
God is always calling us away from our comfortable lives and into good news.
Maybe a better way to say it is that God is always interrupting our lives and calling us to turn to something new.

Think about Simon and Andrew this morning.
They are at work.
They have been doing this for a long time.
Their father before them fished these waters.
They probably thought that for the rest of their lives this is what they would be doing.
Waking up every morning, mending nets, pushing out the boat, sailing on the water, catching fish, hauling them in, selling them, going home, eating, going back to bed.
Some days were better than others, some days there were storms or trouble, but it was usually about the same.
Then Jesus arrives, calls them, and everything changes.
I am hoping that in the next year of our ministry together this will continue to happen, both for our congregation, but also for all of you individually.

We think of churches as static things.
In many ways it is comforting to think that something in our lives will always be the same.
We can count on the church to remain the same to always be there in the same way it was.
However, the truth is that the Church is not a static thing.
If it is to constantly hear the call of God it can never be static.
The church always is in motion.
I think it is merely a reflection of our own lives.
We are always in motion.
Things change.
People grow up, grow old, grow apart, and grow close.
This is the nature of the world.

I guess the question for all of us is how will we handle it?
What will be our reaction?
I suppose that one thing we could do is fight against it.
We could try with all of our might to keep things from never changing by creating traditions and set patterns of thought and behavior.
This is usually what I do.
I create in my life tons of traditions to keep up the appearance of things remaining the same.
If we do something once and it is good instantly for me it becomes a tradition that can never change.
I will tell you I am working on this because it is unhealthy, and a lot of work to try to keep everything exactly like it was.

We could also simply become upset and angry that things are not the way they once were.
I have spoken many times about this condition.
It is really not good for you, because you become mad about things that you have no control over.
You end up alienating other people who don’t share that same world view.

Today I am going to go against type and suggest to all of us that we learn to embrace it.
Jesus told people that the “Kingdom of God had come near. Repent”
We hear that word repent and we think about confessing all the sins that we have committed in our lives.
But hear it is about turning ourselves around changing the direction of our lives in order to be able to correctly see the Kingdom of God that is already here now.
Unless we allow God to turn us around we can never hear and see the good news.
We will not be able to follow Jesus down unwalked paths.

As we enter this new year of ministry together perhaps this is a helpful image in our church and in our lives.
We might find our lives on a certain path, going a certain way.
Today is a good day to hear Jesus tell us to turn around look at things in a new way.
I know that there are probably whole hosts of ways that I need to turn around.
There are things I need to look at from a fresh perspective.

There is immediacy to our life.
We don’t have all the time in the world.
Our lives are finite with a limited amount of time.
More than this Jesus tells us that God’s kingdom time is now.
Right in front of us, now, is the good news that we need to hear and believe.

We can’t look back because that is already done.
We can’t look ahead because we don’t know what that will be.
We can only have now!
We have the immediacy of this moment.

I know that some of you feel at times that we as a church are moving too quickly.
Things are happening at an accelerated rate.
Know that I am sensitive to that.
But also know that there is immediacy to our actions.
The Church as we know it is dead or dying.
If you don’t believe me all you have to do is look at the statistics and see that we are heading in a negative direction.
I believe that God is calling us to turn and see things from a different perspective.
I understand that it is not easy.
It probably was not that easy for the disciples either.
But we have to be open to the ways that we will be turned around.

I had this moment this year when I panicked.
Three leaders Alva Hauser (Who was head of our altar guild), Phil Joseph (Our council president), and Bob Hunton (Our treasurer) were all stepping away from the positions they currently held.
Three leaders of our congregation who I rely on were stepping away from their positions!
The reasons for their stepping away were varied and none of it was due to hurt feelings or bad blood.
It was just natural for these three leaders to step away.
In Phil’s case it was constitutionally mandated that he step down.
But when I heard it I freaked out.
I relied on those people.
I knew they would do the job.
It was comfortable for me.
For example, I never worried about the altar.
I knew that Alva would make sure everything was just right.
What was the church going to do without them?

But I was turned around.
God calmed me down.
The Holy Spirit reminded me.
This is the natural course of action for congregations.
This is the way things go.
New leaders will be called, new people will step up.
Those three leaders are being called in a new way.
At the end of it I could see it as a good thing.
I share this with you so that we can remember that God is always turning us around.

The question I want to leave you with is where do we need to be turned?
What are the things that we have become so comfortable with that they keep us from following Jesus?

As we individually and as a church face the challenges ahead let us remember to let God turn us around so we might here the call and believe in the Good News.
Amen

Tough Mind and Tender Heart

It seems that we are living in a time like that of Samuel.
It seems that we are living in a time when the word of the Lord seems rare, when visions are not widespread.
I remember in seminary being at a discussion about social inequality.
A retired pastor got up and asked, “When are we going to see person like Martin Luther King again.”
He went on to talk about how young people didn’t care like they used to back in the day.
He believed that the church had become complacent with prestige and power.
I thought his assertions where not only not untrue, but extremely insulting.
First of all not all of us are called to be Martin Luther King Jr.
We are not all called to be a prophet of a movement for justice.
We are not all called to preach and call people to think about their actions in light of the Gospel.
Secondly, I thought it was offensive because there are plenty of people in our world fighting for justice; standing up for what is right and good.
There are plenty of people advocating for peace, working with people experiencing poverty, fighting the good fight.
I happen to know that in Concord there are many good people out there doing the Lord’s work with passion.

It is wrong to assume that Martin Luther King went into the ministry to become an international figure for justice and peace.
By all accounts he went into the ministry to preach the word of God.
It just so happened that just after arriving in Montgomery Alabama, to be the new pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, King was called to be the leader of a movement.
That is the way calling works.
It is about our context and the circumstances around us.
One of the reasons there can never be another Martin Luther King Jr. is because there already was one.
Because Martin Luther King heard God’s call and saw the vision of a different world we no longer need to fight the battles that he fought.

We today have newer battles to fight.
This morning I want us to think about what it is that God is calling us to do?
Because when we hear God’s call, when we respond to it, two things happen.
One, we see and experience great things.
Jesus promised his disciples that they would, “You will see great things than these.”
Later in John’s Gospel Jesus will tell his disciples that they will also do greater things than these.
I believe responding to God’s call opens our lives to all sorts of wonderful blessings.
We get to see the heavens open up and angels ascending and descending.
The second thing is that our life will become harder.
Think about Samuel this morning.
After hearing God’s call the task that is given to him is to tell his boss, Eli, that God is firing him!
Not an easy task.
In fact, Samuel is reluctant to do it.

Hearing God’s call and responding usually means that we will have to take on something that is going to be controversial and difficult.
It means giving up some comfort on our part.
Again, it will bring great rewards, but always at a cost.

The people who have dared to follow God know this truth.
Because, ultimately following God’s call for justice and peace lead to Dr. King’s assignation.
Following God’s call lead Jesus to be crucified.
I am not suggesting that any of you go out looking to be crucified, but I will suggest that following God’ call cost us something.

This week I kept coming back to this question: Since we are not Martin Luther King Jr. or Jesus, What is it that God is calling us to?
It is a hard question because often times we have a hard time even hearing God.
I think one of the great tasks that we face in our day is trying to hear God through all of the clutter.
In our day when there are so many opinions about everything, and all those opinions are right at our finger tips, how do we hear what is authentically God?
There are people telling us that God is found only in traditional doctrines know by the church for centuries.
Others are telling us that God is found in new innovative programs, worship, and theology.
Still others tell us that we can only hear God’s voice through a literal interpretation of the Biblical witness.
Some will say that the Biblical witness must be heard through the cultural lens that we know today.
We hear opinions from politics from left and right wing preachers.
Each of whom is sure that God is heard and found where they are pointing.
In such a world with bloggers, pundits, and prognosticators with all their own slants, prejudices, and opinions how do we know what God is really saying?

This morning I would like to suggest some ways that we can hear God’s voice.
We can recognize God talking to us when we hear words that are tough minded and tendered hearted.
Dr. King in one of his sermons suggested that these are two characteristic Jesus’ demanded of his disciples.
On the one hand we must use our minds for “incisive thinking, realistic appraisal, and decisive judgment”.
Discerning God’s call always includes thoughtful examination of the facts before us.
We must in this time weed out those things that are not true.
Just because we hear something on Television, read it on the internet, or see it in print that does not make it true.
A tough minded person always asks the next question, and wonders at the possibilities.

But discernment can never forget to be tendered hearted.
When discerning God’s call we must remember that God always calls us to love.
God calls us to give of ourselves for others, and to love even those who are our enemies.
As Dr. King once said, “On the one hand, God is a God of justice who punished Israel for her wayward deeds; on the other hand he is a forgiving father whose heart was filled with unutterable joy when the prodigal returned home.”

For me it comes down to being able to stand up for the things I believe in, to fight for what I believe to be just and true, but it is also about never losing sight of the fact that God never calls us to hate our neighbor even if they disagree with us.

I think the implication of this is that when we set out on a course to be a disciple of Jesus Christ our lives are forever changed.
We see great things and do great things.
And our lives are never quite the same again.

When God calls you what will be your response?
When God calls you to see and do great things will you be able to hear and respond?

God will call you.
God will call you to have a tough mind and tender heart in all sorts of difficult situations.
Will you be able to hear that call?
Will you be tough minded and tendered hearted?
When your co-workers are gossiping about someone else will you be able to stand up for the person being picked on?
When your cousin asks for forgiveness for the remark they made about you at a party will you be able to forgive?
When your kids steal a candy bar from the store will you be able to discipline them?
When we hear on television that such and such candidate, said this or that, will we be able to discern what is true, honorable, kind and good?

We will be able to hear God’s call, if we talk about it with other people of God.
Just like Samuel needed Eli to help him hear God’s call, just like Nathanael needed Philip to help him hear Jesus call, we need each other to help us hear God through the clutter.
We will be able to hear God’s call if we are able to remain close to Jesus.
Just like the disciple’s needed to remain close to Jesus so he could show them the way, truth, and life we need Jesus in order to help us discern what God would call us to do.

In this time of what seems like God’s silence and visions that are not widespread let us remember to listen to God’s call and follow with a tough mind and a tender heart.
Amen

Happy New Year!

There is a moment that happens for me just after midnight on New Year’s Eve.
It happens just after the ball drops and I hug my wife and friends to wish them a “happy new year”.
It is a moment when I believe that this year will be better than the last.
It is a moment when I kick the old to the curb and anticipate the arrival of the new and possible.
I love that moment.
However, it is usually short lived.
I started my New Year off this year by attending a funeral of a dear soul who always brought joy to whatever room she was in.
On my way home from the funeral I thought, “This year will be no different than last year.”
This year will bring its shares of good times, celebrations, and joys.
But like last year there will also be disappointments, deaths, and difficult times.
I don’t want my sermon to be a downer to all of us this morning.
There is nothing wrong with that moment just after midnight when all things seem possible, when hope shines into our lives with the possibility of a new beginning.
It is just that our lives are not that simple.
Just because we turn the page on the calendar it does not mean that life will not go on as normal.
In this year life will go on.
There will be children born, celebrations, joys, and sorrows, and people will die.
I suppose that it is the uncertainty of life that makes us yearn for signs of something more stable.

As I was thinking about this year to come and its uncertainty about the things that we might face I was sure about something.
God will still be our companion in 2012.
We will still be called to live in the grace and mercy of God.
Perhaps that is why life is so uncertain to begin with.
It forces us to trust our lives to God’s care.
If we could know everything, if we could control life then there would be no need for God.
If we could stop our loved ones from becoming sick, if we could stop ourselves from practicing self destructive behaviors, if we could stop others from committing sins, than we could live life without ever having to rely on God.
Our own will is insufficient for these things.

When I was at the funeral this week I was sitting in my pew before the worship service began and I was looking around at the Church that was packed with people.
Every pew was filled, and people were standing along the walls and in the back.
I was thinking that this is why the Church will never go away completely.
We will always need a place to come and collectively grieve together.
We will always need a place to come and pray that God’s grace will be sufficient for today.
We will need a place to come to when everything else is falling apart around us.
When we have lost our money, our families, our friends, and all the things that keep up the illusion that all is well then we will see clearly our need for God.

That is what our Baptism is about helping us live our lives under a new understanding.
Baptism brings into our life a different reality.
In Mark’s Gospel Jesus Baptism is the beginning of his public ministry.
Thirty years into Jesus’ life he begins this important work.
And the world will never be the same again.
For the world it meant that God cannot be kept any longer in the heavens.
God is not the merely the work of theologians and church people.
But God becomes part of the human story.
God in Christ begins a new chapter.
At Jesus Baptism the heavens rip open and God comes out of the heavens and is set loose on the world.
We will see during the other Sundays in the season of Epiphany that from here on out Jesus begins to challenge the things in life that hold us back.
He cures the sick, cast out demons, challenges deeply held religious beliefs, and sends the powers of death and sin on the run.

Perhaps for us Epiphany is a good time to wonder what will be new and possible in our lives.
Our baptism is not merely about having an insurance policy that gives us something to lean on in the tough times.
Rather our baptism is the means by which God has communicated to us his grace.
Because of God’s grace every day we are able to rise and challenge death and sin.
Baptism allows us to deal with the uncertainty of life.
One of the things I am becoming more thankful for is the feeling of loss.
It reminds me that I am alive; it reminds me that I love and care.
My life with God allows me to live more deeply into the human reality.
It is not a way to avoid life but rather a way to live more deeply.

If we are always protecting ourselves against feeling bad than we will never truly live.
Baptism helps us live trusting that God is at work in all things.
When you were baptized when the pastor dunked or poured water on your head life changed.
In that moment and for the rest of our lives new possibilities were opened up to us and the world.

One thing is for sure about this New Year we can never go back to 2011.
Whatever mistakes we made, whatever triumphs we had they are in the past.
We are now on the move to our next destination.
We have new challenges to face, and new mountains to conquer.
I hope in this New Year you will be able to trust that in all things God is near.
God is with you and around you.
God is working through you.
God is speaking words from the heavens, “This is my beloved child and with him/ her I am well pleased.”

Those words that are spoken to Jesus God also speaks to you.
They are spoken especially in those moments when you feel like they can’t possibly be spoken about your life.

There are many people who get this whole religion thing way wrong.
Like I said earlier they see it as an insurance policy against anything bad ever happening to you.
If I have faith, if I do the right things, if I live the right way than everything will work out the way I think it should.
I consider myself a pretty religious person.
I go to worship every Sunday, I study the Bible daily, I pray every day.
On days when I am visiting shut-ins I will take communion three or four times.
Despite this since July of 2011 the following things have happened in my life.
My wife’s grandfather died, my grandmother fell and broke her hip and moved into a nursing home, our son’s godmother (who is only 34) and lifelong friend was diagnosed with an aggressive life threatening type of cancer, another one of my long time friend’s mother died, my mother was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer.
I tell you this so that you see that having faith is not a guarantee against anything.
It is not insurance of a life free from pain or struggle.
Instead it is about a God who comes out of the heavens to tell us that we are beloved.
A God who offers us words of grace at every turn.
It is a God that encourages us to love in a world where things are uncertain.
None of the people we love will live forever.
That love that we share with others is proof that we are still alive, that we still care, that we are living out what God put us on this earth to do.
If you want a life that removes us from pain, and the hard parts of life than being baptized into the Christian faith is not for you.
Jesus baptism leads him to the cross.
It leads him to be tempted, reviled, deserted, betrayed, and ultimately killed.
Ours leads us into a life that is always uncertain, but always blessed by a God who has come out of the heavens to call us beloved.

In this season of Epiphany let us be able to see God at work in our lives.
Let us be able to trust God even in situations that are out of our control.
Most of all let us remember that God has called us beloved!
Amen

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Every year on Christmas Eve my Grandfather would put us in his big Cadillac and on the way to church we would search the winter sky for Santa Claus.
What was amazing is that every year we would see Santa Claus led by Rudolph traversing the night sky on his way to deliver presents which would always be waiting for us when we got home from Church.
I am wondering if tonight when we search the winter sky what will see?
Or maybe even more what will we hear?
As we leave here tonight will the echoes of the Hallelujah chorus be in our ears, will we hear the angel song singing sweetly in the sky?
Will we hear the mountains echo the joyous strains?
Can we imagine just over the tress the sounds of angel’s sweetly singing songs of good news, joy, and peace to all people?
Can we hear the song of the angels on this Christmas?

There have been attempts to domesticate this wonderful Christmas story we hear from Luke.
Sometimes we want to make it more realistic and more acceptable to our modern ears.
But I believe that even we that live now in the 21st century need things in our lives that don’t make sense.
We need to believe in things just beyond the realistic expectations of human beings.
We need to recapture the mystery and wonder of this night.
Angels singing in the sky might sound improbable, but I would love to have some things that are improbable.

That song that we hear from the night sky, that song of good news, joy, and peace is exactly what we need.
That Hallelujah chorus that rings in our ears speaks to our deep need for God to be with us.
It speaks of our need to be transported away into the realms of glory that tell us of Good news, joy, and peace.
“For we are bringing you good news of great joy.”

It seems that our lives are filled with bad news, hard times, and violence.
It is nice to believe that just beyond our sight, only in the place of mystery and wonder there lays a new reality.
This is what Christmas is about mystery and wonder.
It brings me back to searching for Santa in the night sky, and to that feeling I had when we finally saw him.
It brings me back to that feeling of the joy and wonder of it all.
Perhaps the only word I can think of to describe that feeling is Hallelujah.
That is really the only appropriate word for the wonder and joy of Christmas.
“To you is born this day in the city of David a savior.”
We need a savior!
We need a savior who brings good news.
Most days when I come into the office I read the news.
I have to tell you and can be depressing.
We hear bad news of bad politics, bad economies, and bad people.
The other day on the homepage of MSNBC there was a story of a man in New York who got on an elevator, and set a woman on fire and then watched as she burned to death.
My immediate thought was what are we to do?
How can we hear the song of the Angel’s through such bad news?
In faith we turn to something greater, more mysterious, and wonderful than we can think is possible.
We need look towards the heavens to hear that song of sweet Good News.
We need to hear the angels sing to us that chorus that rings louder than all the bad news.
Louder than all the sensational headlines.

We need joy!
We get stuck in our lives sometimes.
We get stuck in the mundane getting up and going about our business.
A few weeks ago I got to spend a night out with some friends.
It was such great medicine.
I didn’t realize how much I needed to laugh and have good time.
Joy brings release.
We need the angel’s song that reminds us that all is not lost.
There is something greater in store for us.
The joy of knowing God helps us not merely tolerate life, but helps us to triumph in it.

We need peace!
We need to be able to rest and to calm our minds and bodies to feel secure and safe.
This is no small thing.
We are in so many conflicts with ourselves, our family, and our friends.
This is not even to mention our prejudices and our separation from that which is different from us.
Peace is more than merely an absence of conflict it is the restoration of balance that gives our lives wholeness.

Tonight God has come to earth.
Tonight earth has ascended to the heavens.
The song of the angels is filled with mystery and wonder because they sing it to our humanity.
Hallelujah is the reminder that God is going to dwell in a baby sleeping in a manger.
God is here in the flesh, and we have experienced on earth good news, joy, and peace.
Can you hear the song of the angels just over the trees?
Can you hear the song of the angels drown out the bad news, the sorrow, and the conflict?
Tonight I wish you all the wonder and mystery of the angel song that sings from the skies and comes down to us this nigh, so that we might know our savior and have good news, joy, and peace.
Amen

The Crazy Plan

It is a crazy plan.
God is going to use a fourteen year old girl to bear His Son who will save the world.
Salvation is going to come to the world through a poor girl of no consequence in a poor back water town in Nazareth.
It just doesn’t make sense.
So we can understand Mary’s confusion when the angel shows up and tells her that she is favored.
“She was perplexed by the angel’s words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.”
Who is she that God would favor her?
Who is she that God has chosen her for this task?

We talk a lot about God’s plan, but what we forget is that often times God’s plans don’t make much sense to us.
This is one of those plans.
We get lost in this story on some of the more sensational points.
Was Mary a Virgin?
I had a friend in college who was estranged from the Church who insisted that the word virgin simply meant young woman.
I often thought she got lost in this point, but forgot to look at the more scandalous parts of the story.
Sure according to the story Mary is a virgin but that is not the most sensational part.
The fact that God would come to dwell among us, that God favors us, is really crazy.
Look at us human beings, there is not all that much to find favor with.
We hurt one another, we are greedy, and we are focused on the wrong things.
And yet, God sees it important to dwell with us.
In our lowliest of moments God is dwelling with us.
That is something extraordinary and mind blowing.

We think that an angel showing up to deliver this news is mind blowing.
But most people believe in angels to some degree.
Most people have a statue of an angel somewhere in there house.
We love angels so much that they are in movies all the time.
An angel is not the crazy part of the story.
God dwelling in the heart of human life is the craziest part of the story.

Virgin births, Angels delivering messages, these are not the real crazy parts of the story.
They are details added for effect or for theological reasons.
The real scandal here is that God, the Most High, the ruler and maker of all things, has favored this girl of no significance.
That God is going to dwell in the skin of human beings.

The Christmas story is about God showing up just outside our expectations.

God is always working in ways that we just don’t understand.
Consider King David from our first reading this morning.
By all accounts he is making a reasonable assumption.
He lives in style in his house of cedar.
The Ark, and in David’s mind this means God, is living in a tent.
Shouldn’t God live in something grander?
But God refuses to be domesticated.
God doesn’t need or want some fancy house.
God asks David, “did I ever ask for a house?”

It reminds me of all those Christmas gifts we get that we didn’t really ask for but get anyway.
The feety pajamas sent to us by some distant relatives, the sweeter given by a neighbor, a Chia pet, a personalized belt buckle that flashes your name in neon.
I once saw Bill Cosby in concert and he told this story about his birthday.
He had hoped that he would get a new car.
He spent months dropping hints that he wanted this new car.
On the day of his birthday his wife woke him up all excited.
She brought him down to the garage and sat him in a chair.
She told him to wait there.
He waited in anticipation of his new car.
A few minutes later his wife backed their old car into the garage and in the back of the car was a new cedar dresser.
Bill Cosby sat there thinking to himself, “Did I ever say I wanted a new dresser?”

This is God’s attitude toward David this morning, because God does not want to be boxed in.
God wants his home to be in every human heart.
What is it that we are going to give God this Christmas?
God does not want or need anything fancy.
God does not want a new home, or car, or dresser.
God wants you.
God wants all of you.
God wants to dwell in your heart, live among you where you are.
Our Gospel reading this morning reminds us that we are God’s favored ones.
God brings you this morning Good news.
God remembers today the promise of mercy made through the generations.

We can certainly see how God is working in our congregation to show blessings to others and us.
In this advent season we have heard lots about what our congregation is doing.
How we are spreading the good news through our worship and music.
How we are touching the lives of the youth.
How we are proclaiming the good news to the next generation through our Sunday school.
How we are reaching out to the hungry.
All those are great things, but they are not our work.
They flow through the Holy Spirit into us and out into the world.
The Holy Spirit has come upon us and that is why we do these things.
We don’t do them to curry favor with God.

This morning as you fill out your commitment cards, I want to warn you that giving your money to this Church gets you nothing.
It does not curry you favor with God.
Rather giving is an expression of the gifts that God has given.
God in his mercy has favored us.
And God has called us blessed.
Go has favored us not because we are special, not because we give money to the church, but because God wants to live in our hearts.
God has called us blessed.

This week the Patriots will play the Denver Broncos.
For those who don’t know Tim Tebow is the quarterback for the Denver Broncos he is a sincere young man who plays football really well and has a deep faith in Jesus Christ.
According to his pastor, Wayne Henson, "God favors Tim for all his hard work.”
But Tim Tebow is not favored by God anymore or any less than anyone else.
Our Gospel this morning and Mary’s magnificent remind us that God dwells and lives not in those who are rich and famous.
Not by those who are powerful.
God finds favor with those who are of little or no consequence to the world.
God finds favor with those who don’t work hard.
And winning football games, elections, or being a pastor is no sign of God’s favor.
God is always working outside the box, just beyond our expectations.

If you are feeling lowly, unimportant, and forgotten remember today that God is favoring you.
God is looking for you.
And when God shows up I am willing to bet that your reaction will be one of puzzlement.
What kind of greeting can this be?
What kind of plan is this?

Because when our lives are tied to God’s we find that our lives too are out of the box.
God is always interrupting our lives with surprises and new revelations.
How can this be?
Is often our response to what God is up to in our lives?

Advent is coming to a close.
I hope in this advent season you have been surprised by the ways that God has shown up in your life.
I hope that you are willing to give to God all of our life, your heart, your time, talent, and treasure.
Not because you are paying a bill but because God has granted you favor, and given you the greatest gift that of his Son Jesus Christ who brings Good News to all people.
Amen

The Not So Perfect Christmas.

What is our picture of Christmas?
For many of us it looks like this ?


Or this?



Or perhaps this?




For most of us Christmas look like family gathered around a perfectly decorated house, kids happily opening presents, and smiling families gathered around a big table filled with food.
In many ways this ideal of Christmas is what we all strive for.
It is why we work so hard in the days leading up to Christmas to make sure that we have bought the perfect gift, cooked the perfect meal, and decorated appropriately.
This often leads us to feel really stressed.
In fact we often don’t feel the wonder and beauty of Christmas because we are too busy making the perfect Christmas.
We are trying to live up to the ideal in our head.
But often times Christmas brings with it not so good times.
Sometimes we are so stressed about making everything perfect that we end up not simply enjoying being together, or sharing gifts.

I know that I have many great memories of Christmas.
However, I have some not good memories too.
This week we put up the tree in our house.
We had a wonderful time.
But Vicki and I were talking about how when we were kids we didn’t remember that time as being really great.
For example, my parents would fight as they put up the tree.
Because of this, we have a rule in our house that you are not allowed to fight as you put up the tree.
The cost of perfection is sometimes that it stresses us out to the point where we no longer enjoy the moment we are living in.

I know that other people are going to be struggling this year.
They might be in a nursing home for the first time and feel depressed that they can’t have the ideal Christmas.
Some families are experiencing great financial stress at this time of year and can’t provide the ideal Christmas we all have in our head.
I know that other people are mourning the death of a loved one and feeling not so merry, but sad that the person will not be here to fill out that ideal picture.
One of my friends wrote on her Facebook page, “Dear Santa, all I want for Christmas is to catch a break!!”
Sometimes life just feels that way, and it can feel even worse at Christmas because life is not measuring up to our perfect picture.
Because perfection is so hard we end up feeling likes failures when we don’t get there.

I say this because our witness to the world is not about the perfect Christmas.
Being a person of faith does not guarantee that your Christmas will be perfect like this picture.
As Christians we are not promising anyone the joys of spending holidays with friends and family, or the blessing of gathering around the table to eat at great feast.
Our witness is about the light.
It is the same witness that John the Baptist has for us in our Gospel lesson this morning.
The light comes into the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it.
We are not the light, our families are not the light, the perfect Christmas is not the light.
No we testify to the light that is more secure than all these things.
We testify to the true light that shines in our darkest days.

Our proclamation is about the one who comes to take away the sting of death, the one who comes to take away the sins of the world.
The John the Baptists from this morning’s Gospel is much different than the one we met last week.
In Mark’s Gospel John is a prophet in the tradition of Elijah, John comes to tell us to repent.
In John’s Gospel John is the one who testifies, who proclaims that Jesus is coming, that the light is shining.
John prepares the highway by proclaiming the thing that we all need.
And what we need is Jesus to come into our imperfect life.
We don’t need perfection, because it only brings stress.
Perfection is never a good thing.
Instead we should embrace our darkness; because it is there that Christ will shine the brightest.
Our proclamation to the world is this truth that into the darkness Christ comes to shine light.
And that we all have darkness.

Our proclamation is an important one.
Because it helps us overcome the picture of perfect.
It allows us to live in our imperfection.
This is why our Sunday school is such an important part of our ministry here at Concordia.
We get to proclaim to the next generation the truth of Christ coming.
I know that the teachers take this task very seriously.
They see it as part of our responsibility to keep the promises we made at the baptism of our children.
The Congregation promises to proclaim Christ as they grow in their faith.
As one person wrote on our giving tree, “(Teaching Sunday School) Gives me the opportunity to touch the lives of children and let them know that God loves them. And hopefully prepare them to lead others to Christ.”
Proclamation begins here among and with us.
We must proclaim to each other that Christ comes in our darkness.

John came proclaiming Christ not to strangers but his own people.
John came proclaiming the light in the darkest of hours for the people of Israel.
Just like Isaiah before him.
John was telling an expecting people that God had not forgotten the promises God made long ago.
It is important for us as a community to proclaim that same truth to one another.

Visiting people who are sick reminds them that you care and have not forgotten them.
Being with people when they have lost someone they love gives them human contact when they need it the most.
Walking with someone as they struggle to overcome problems they face gives hope.
We can be the light to others.
We can be the light that God sends to proclaim light in the dark times.
But just like just like John we also must proclaim that we are not the one who people are looking for.
We are not prophets.
We are not Elijah.
We are not the messiah.
We are imperfect people simply proclaiming that in Jesus others will find what they are searching for in their lives.

This message hit home with me this week.
I was in the middle of preparing my sermon this week.
In the middle of writing it I got a call from my sister that my mom had been diagnosed with cancer.
It was a wakeup call from God that I don’t only preach these things to you, but I live them with you too.
I need this advent season to be about more than the picture of perfection.
It is not perfect;
It is lousy in so many ways.
I need it to be about Jesus Christ and the light he spreads into my life.
I need it to be about how Jesus comes and heals an imperfect world, saves us from death and sickness, and sheds light even on the darkest of times.

I hope that this year your Christmas is not perfect, but rather it is filled with the light that only comes from Jesus Christ.
Amen