The Light of Christmas

“All flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

As Christmas gets closer I think it becomes harder and harder to see the salvation of God.

We get busier and busier.

Decorating, buying, hosting, and cooking.

All things that we do for this season, but it also makes it hard to see through the material part of Christmas to the spiritual part.

I was thinking a lot this week about how we see Christ in this time of year.

Today in this second week of Advent we are talking about light.

Light is about having something made visible to us.

When the light shines something we couldn’t see before become illuminated so we see it more clearly.

I am not a scientist, but as I understand it light exists as tiny particles that make possible the illumination of things.

God exists in the same way.

God exists in little ways that make God’s presence in our lives more visible, so that we see our salvation.

I want to start this morning with people whose Christmas will not be joyful and merry, people who will not have a glitz of a Christmas celebration.

Those who have no kids and Santa will not come.

There are people who will be alone.

What does Christmas look like to them?

I want to say that in some ways they are the lucky ones.

Because if we don’t have all the trappings of Christmas then maybe Christmas can be about what it really is about.

It is about God coming to us.

It is about the mountain and hills being made low, and the crooked made straight.

It is about the reality of God in our lives.
In other words without anything that we would equate with Christmas it still comes.

God’s light still shines without any presents, food, or decorations.

Then there are the others of us.

Those of us who Christmas does have all the trappings.

Christmas is full of presents, the food, the decorating.

What does all that mean?

This is not a sermon about the evils of commercialism.

I don’t like to shame people about how they celebrate Christmas, because it seems like another way to make Christmas about following rules instead of what it is supposed to be about God’s gracious invitation to see our salvation through the birth of Jesus Christ.

So this sermon is about is about how the light of God comes to us in Christmas no matter what we do or how we celebrate it.

How do we see the salvation of God this time of year?

The truth is that I am going to go crazy this Christmas just like all the other Christmases.

I am going to buy a bunch of presents for my kids that they don’t need.

I am going to cook my Swedish meatballs.

I am going to put up a tree and put lights up around it.

I am going to play Christmas music nonstop.

Does that mean that I am not really celebrating the spiritual part of Christmas?

For those of you who are in that reality let me offer some suggestion of ways that these Christmas traditions can help us see God’s salvation.

The things we do for Christmas that seems material can have spiritual meaning for us.

For me buying a present is a holy thing.

It is about thinking about the person whom I am buying for.

It is about thinking what they like to do, and who they are as a person.

For me hosting my family on Christmas Eve is more than merely having some people over.

It is a holy time of joy.

I really do enjoy the process of making food, of setting up, of having people over our house.

I really do enjoy being together with family.

It brings really great joy and happiness to my life.

When all of you come to our house for our open house it is one of the great times for Vicki and I.

We enjoy preparing together the meal that you will eat.

We enjoy cooking together.

One of the things I love is sitting in my living room and looking at the tree while listening to Christmas music.

It reminds me of home, of God’s love, of light that shines through dark nights.

You see right in the middle of your Christmas time that always seems too crazy and too busy there are moments to reflect on why we do these things.

There are moments in them to remember that in the middle of a busy and crazy life God is there.

And that is really the message of Christmas that in the middle of darkness God’s light shines through Jesus so we can see our salvation.

In Luke’s Gospel this morning we have a list of people that places Jesus coming in an historical time and place.

“In the fifteen year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontious Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was rule of Galilee, and his brother Phillip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah…”

God comes in the middle of difficult times, in the middle of life.

If I could recast Luke’s introduction in our Gospel this morning into our times it would read like this…

“In the seventh year of the presidency of Barack Obama, when Maggie Hassan was Governor of New Hampshire, and James Bouley was mayor of Concord, and Byron Champerlin was counselor of ward 4, during the Bishop of Jim Hazlewood, the word of God came to the people of Concordia Lutheran Church.”

This year today, God has spoken to us; God’s light has shined so we might see our salvation.

In the days when John came to prepare the way for Jesus things were not so great.

Just as one example, Pontious Pilate was a tyrant; he would have people crucified for everything and nothing.
The historian Philo described Pilate as, "vindictive with a furious temper", and was "naturally inflexible, a blend of self-will and relentlessness".

He writes that Pilate feared a delegation of the Jews might send to Tiberius because "if they actually sent an embassy they would also expose the rest of his conduct as governor by stating in full the briberies, the insults, the robberies, the outrages and wanton injuries, the executions without trial constantly repeated, the ceaseless and supremely grievous cruelty".

This is to say nothing of Herod who was equally as ruthless and evil.

I say this because this week we again had an act of evil done to people in our country.

We had another shooting, by intolerant people out to create terror.

I don’t want to down play what is happening in our country or in the world.
I don’t want to say that it is not evil and scary, because I know it is.

However, in this advent time I want us to know that the light shine in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

That in these dark times of terror, violence, intolerance, political division we too can see our salvation through the light of Christ.

See God.

Look for God, because God is here.

God is in the middle of it all.

So if your Christmas is going to be without the tree, the presents, and the big meal I want you to know today that God is with you.

If your Christmas is busy and crazy and has the tree, the presents, the big meal I want you to know today that God is with you.

If you are worried about our world, about the violence, about the hatred, I want you to know that God is with us.

Because Christmas is not based on how we celebrate, or what is going on the world, the lord’s coming and the preparation for that coming are the initiatives of a gracious God who wants you to see your salvation.

May the light of God make that God visible to you this Christmas season.

Amen

Love Your Enemies?!

This past week I was not myself.

I was filled with such mixed feelings about the terror attacks in France, Beirut and Kenya that I was out of sorts.

I was talking to one member of our congregation who said that I just didn’t sound like me.

I was simply tired of terrorism.

I was tired of hearing about it on the news.

I was tired of it being something that is scaring us all the time.

I was thinking that perhaps we have to start wiping people off the face of the earth.

But more than that I was feeling despair about it.

And then on Thursday something happened that got me out of that funk.

I was at the board meeting for the New Hampshire Council of Churches.

And for devotions someone read from the Gospel of St. Luke, “But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.

Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.

Do to others as you would have them do to you.

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?

For even sinners love those who love them.

If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you?

For even sinners do the same.”

Sometimes the exact right Bible passage comes to us at the exact right moment.

I was overtaken by Jesus’ words.

I was convicted and I was set free by them.

I had forgotten what is essential for Christians, to love in spite of hate, to hope in the face of despair.

And then I read a letter written by a husband whose wife had died in the attacks in Paris.

This husband wrote a letter to ISIS the people who killed his wife.

He wrote:

“Friday night, you took an exceptional life -- the love of my life, the mother of my son -- but you will not have my hatred.

I don't know who you are and I don't want to know, you are dead souls.

If this God, for whom you kill blindly, made us in his image, every bullet in the body of my wife would have been one more wound in his heart.

So, no, I will not grant you the gift of my hatred.

You're asking for it, but responding to hatred with anger is falling victim to the same ignorance that has made you what you are.

You want me to be scared, to view my countrymen with mistrust, to sacrifice my liberty for my security.

You lost. 

I saw her this morning.

Finally, after nights and days of waiting.

She was just as beautiful as when she left on Friday night, just as beautiful as when I fell hopelessly in love over 12 years ago.

Of course I am devastated by this pain, I give you this little victory, but the pain will be short-lived.

I know that she will be with us every day and that we will find ourselves again in this paradise of free love to which you have no access.

We are just two, my son and me, but we are stronger than all the armies in the world.

I don't have any more time to devote to you, I have to join Melvil who is waking up from his nap.

He is barely 17-months-old.

He will eat his meals as usual, and then we are going to play as usual, and for his whole life this little boy will threaten you by being happy and free.

Because no, you will not have his hatred either.”

These two things brought me back to what Jesus tells Pilate this morning, “My kingdom is not of this world.”

Jesus is not saying that God’s kingdom is in some far off place away from here.

He is saying that the values of the world.

The values that Pilate rest in, the values of retribution, of hatred, of might makes right, of power that wants to rule over others.

Those values are not the values of the Kingdom of God.

In John’s Gospel the “world” is anything that is opposition to God.

It is the things that want us to strike out in our anger.

But Jesus always teaches us a new way.

In the beatitudes Jesus teaches us to love our enemies, to pray for them.

How many of us have prayed for ISIS?

How many of us have prayed that they might have a change of heart?

How many of us have prayed that we might have a change of heart?

I know what you are thinking that prayer is not going to do anything.

We cannot pray the crazy out of people.

But this husband, who wrote that letter, knows what we should know, that we only let people win if we give into our hate.

And for me this week it was only Jesus who could break through my hardness of heart.

It was God’s word that broke through to me to understand the power of love, the power of prayer, the power of things that other people in the world see as foolish and useless.

Truth is that ISIS is an extremist Muslimgroup that believes that we are living at the end times.

They believe that the area they have captured in Syria, Dabiq, is the place where the battle that brings about the end of the world is going to take place.

We are wrong to think that they only fight us because they don’t like our western values, although they don’t like them, they fight to hasten the day when the end will come.

We too wait for that time.

But we don’t believe that by controlling others we will bring it about.

We don’t believe that it comes by us killing people.
But more important is what Jesus told us that kingdom looks like.

It is a mustard seed, a women searching for a lost coin, a wedding banquet with uninvited guests, a small child.

It is found in values anathema to the world, forgiveness, gentleness, love, self-control, humility, poverty.

It is in the lost and forsaken.

It is in the least.

Most important that kingdom is here now.

It is here this morning amongst us, within us, around us.

God’s kingdom has come and it is present this morning as we break the bread and drink wine.

As we remember Jesus death and resurrection.

It is present as we kneel at this rail and ask for forgiveness.

We are not merely waiting for it to come.

Jesus has told us that it has come.

“The Kingdom of God has comes repent and believe in the good news.”

It has come because God so loved the world.

The world that is against God, that fights to make sure we don’t know what God wants from us.

A world, were people distort religion so they can kill others.

God loves that world and sent his Son so we might know how to live in the kingdom.

Church, today God is calling to us, God is asking us to be the kingdom of God.

God is calling us to live in the kingdom of God, and not just this morning, but everyday of our lives.

God is calling us to live in that kingdom outside of here regardless of what is happening in the world.

The response to this kingdom is reverence and awe.

To be overtaken with how God’s words of grace speak to us.

I know that I was in awe this week as I heard again the beatitudes from Luke’s Gospel.

It reminded me of what the psalmist says, “The Lord is king, robed in majesty!”

Even though we experience the kingdom it is not yet what it shall be.

It is not as perfect as it someday shall be.

And that kingdom will not look like this one.

There will be war no more; there will be no more violence, or tears.

There will only be love.

There will be a father and his 17 month old son robbed in God’s love, reunited with their mother and wife.

There will be us who shine like the son.

As we go back into the world filled with terror, with hatred, filled with opposition to God, let us live not in that world, but in the kingdom of God.

Let us live in God’s love that cast out hatred and violence.

So that we can imperfectly live in God’s kingdom now with reverence and awe, even as we wait for the kingdom come.

Amen

God Is Our Champion!

It is back to school time.

I often think that a kid going back to school is often harder on parents than the kids.

Having your kids go up a grade is bitter sweet because it means that they are growing up.

They are going out on their own.

And it means that they are one more year closer to adult hood.

They are closer to being out in the world that we all know is hard and sometimes cruel.

One mother put it really well when she wrote this about her son going off to Junior High, “We need a word for the feeling that overtakes a mother after saying goodbye to her infant who is somehow masquerading as a young MAN and who is walking away from her into his adolescent life.

A word to describe the phenomena that is a mother sitting helplessly in her empty van while her heart silent screams her daily PLEASEPLEASEPLEASES!!! PLEASE be good to him.

 Please see his strengths and overlook his weaknesses.

Please sit by him at lunch.

 Please smile back when he smiles.

Please want to be his partner.

Please be gentle.

Pleasepleaseplease. PLEASE.”

We want our kids to do well.

We want them to make it in the world, but most of all we want them to be understood.

We want others to see their uniqueness, their gifts.

Rita Pierson who is a teacher that gave a TED talk on education said, “Every Child needs a champion”

In fact, I believe that every person needs a champion.

We need someone who believes in us, who cheers us on, who knows our faults and failures, but cheers us on through them.

Today I want all of us to know that God is our champion.

God is the one in our lives who knows us enough to know all of our deficiencies and imperfections.

But God cheers us on; God wants what is best for us.

God wants us to know that God is on our side.

God is a like a parent on the first day of school, putting us on a school bus, and waving goodbye, secretly dying inside as we venture out into the world.

God is hoping along the way that we meet people who will sit next to us, will care for us, will show us what God already knows that we are loved and cared for in a special way.

This morning our Gospel story is about a woman who knows that God is her champion.

She knows that God roots for her and her daughter.

And that struck me this time as I read the story.

It struck me that what we have is a mother who is championing her daughter.

This mother is relentless, daring, and full of faith.

This mother will not let Jesus dismiss her so easily.

This mother changes Jesus mind with her faith and tenacity.

But what also impresses me is Jesus, because Jesus allows this uppity woman to change his mind.

Jesus allows her faith to turn him around.

She says to Jesus that yes God even cares about me.

God cares about a single woman from a foreign land.
God is my champion; God is my daughter’s champion.

Jesus has enough humility to listen to her, and in compassion reach out.

This story is one of the reasons I love the Bible so much, because this story escapes easy lessons, and easy explanations.

This story challenges what we think about other people different from us.

This story challenges the ways we think about Jesus.

It is complex, and every time I read it I am confronted with something new and different.

Today it is of a mother fighting for her child.

Today it is about faith in a God who champions the lost and forgotten.

Tomorrow who knows what nugget of wonderful grace it will reveal to me.

I mention this because it is political season and we all know that this means it is time for politicians to pander to us.

It is time for politicians to tell us what they think we want to here.

It is especially time for politicians to pander to us who are religious by telling us that their favorite book is the Bible.

I wonder have they read the story of the Syrophoenician woman?

Have they struggled with its meaning, with what it says about us, about God?

I don’t think that one needs to love the Bible to be president.

But if you are going to tell us that the Bible is your favorite book I hope that you have read it, studied it, and heard it preached.

Because I would like to challenge any politician to tell me where in the Bible Jesus talks bad about the poor?

Where does Jesus say that we should shun the foreigner?

Where does Jesus say that we are perfect enough to never have done anything wrong, and therefore we never have to apologies for anything we have done?

In fact, even Jesus in this morning’s Gospel is humble enough to know when he has made a mistake.

What the politicians don’t say is that Jesus is the champion of the people they have to talk bad about to get elected.

I can say that to you this morning because I am not trying to win your vote, I am trying to get you to see that God is your champion.

And I know that is hard to believe sometimes.

It is hard that God even loves you.

That God loves not because you are good.

Not because you are successful.

Not because you have done something awesome.

God loves all of you.

God even loves the failures.

God even loves the stuff that we don’t want to talk about.

And God even uses that stuff to make a difference to make us humble, and give us perspective.

God is the one who came here and walked with us.

God is the one who even listened to a desperate mother.

God is the one who walks with us every day.

God is the healer of our every spiritual ill.

It is hard to believe that God is our champion because we live under the idea that if we are ruled by shame and intimidation that it will make us better.

If we tell people enough all the things they do wrong then their behavior will change.

I don’t really believe that, because shame simply leads us to fear not to higher purpose.

Shame does not lift us up it drags us down.

Perhaps this fall as we all go back to our routines of school and work, as we leave behind vacations, we can champion each other.

We can champion our kids.

We can champion the people around us at work.

We can champion our neighbors and friends.

We can champion our spouses.

We can find ways to speak of what they do well.

We can find ways to rejoice in their particular gifts.

We can see each others strengths and overlook our weaknesses.

We can be gentle with each other.

We can want to be each others partners on this ride of life.

Most of all we should remember what the Syrophoenician woman knew so well, that God is our champion.

God is the one who is our healer, friend, confidant, and cheerleader.

God is the one who wants us to use both our strengths and weaknesses for each other.

God is the one whose love and grace give us strength.

God is our champion!

Amen