Don't Forget to Look Up!

You can understand why Herod was afraid of a new king being born.

It would threaten his power.

And we know from other stories of Herod that he did not like to give up his power.

The question is why are all the people of Jerusalem scared with him?

What do they have to fear?

Perhaps they thought that it was better to live with the devil you know in Herod then be ruled by the one you don’t.

This morning I would like to offer a different idea.

The good religious folks of Jerusalem had forgotten to look up.

They had forgotten what had been foretold to them through the prophets.

That a savior would come, that even among the darkest of times God would still be at work offering comfort and hope.

They had forgotten to look up and therefore they missed that new brilliant shining star in the night sky.

The star that the magi had seen, that they had traveled perilous nights and days to follow, was missed by the people of Jerusalem.

For if they would have seen it then maybe they would have noticed that God was up to something new and miraculous.

They would have remembered the words of Isaiah, “Arise, shine, for you light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.”

This is what happens when we forget to look up to search the sky for the signs of God.

It is true that the land is filled with darkness.

We know from Matthew’s story of the magi that the world that Jesus was entering was filled with darkness.

It was filled with people trying to keep power, and willing to do anything to keep it, even killing.

We think of this story as a nice kid’s story, but really it is filled with lots of adult themes.

It is filled with a world where darkness seems to reign.

Until we see that star.

The star that first attracted the attention magi from the east to make that long hard journey, the star that led them from Herod’s palace, the star that stopped over the house where the baby Jesus was, the star that shown bright and led the way to the place where our savior lay, that star is still out there for you and me.

It is the light of Christ that refuses to be put out by the darkness.

It is the light of Christ that shines even in death.

It is that light of Christ that Matthew Jr. receives today in his baptism.

The greatest gift that parents can give their children is the gift of faith.

It is the gift of being able to still look up and see that star shining, because there are going to be some tough times ahead on our journeys.

We are going to get side tracked.

We are going to get lost sometimes.

There will be dark times when we are threatened with violence.

There will be dark times when it seems that all we have is a bad administrator, who thinks he has lots of power, to help us out.

The people of Jerusalem had given up on God and instead given their lives over to Herod.

They thought he could protect them from the Romans.

They thought he could help them out of their financial ruin.

In fact, Herod brought them more heartache.

It will be Herod who will order the killing of the first born sons to protect his little power.

It does indeed seem like dark times.

I don’t this morning have to remind all of you of the darkness that we face in our own time.

I don’t have to point out the sin and violence that we experience in our world today.

All of it might lead us to despair.

But as long as we remember to look up we can see that light shining for us in the distance.

We can see the star pointing to Jesus who is there for us, who gives us joy.

That is what the magi felt when they finally found Jesus joy.

They knew they found something precious.

And they left profoundly changed by the experience.

That is what Matthew and Heather can give Matthew Jr. a faith that is always pointing towards the star in the distance.

I know parents will often tell me that their children will ask them questions that they don’t know the answer to.

My sister and her husband knew a woman who was young, and died of cancer, she left behind a husband and a couple of kids.

My nephew wanted to know why bad things happened to good people like that.

It is a weighty question.

It is one that we all deal with for most of our lives.

My sister, my brother in-law, and I all had the same answer, “We don’t know”.

As a parent it is ok to say, “You don’t know”.

We don’t have all the answers.

What you can say is that we can explore the answers together, that we all are on a similar journey to that of the magi.

We are wondering around this big world not sure what is at the end.

But we follow the star in faith.

And perhaps this is what else we can do as parents is point our children to the star.

We can say, “I don’t know every answer, but in faith I believe that God loves us and saves through his son Jesus.”

It is not just kids of course who believe this.

We as we get older need to believe in this even more.

I hear this all the time.

I hear it when someone loses someone they love.

They will say, “Well at least they are at peace.”

Or, “At least they are with Lord.”

They are not answering why their loved one died; they are looking up to the heavens.

In faith they believe that the star leads to something better.

A more peaceful and loving place.

I believe it is part of human DNA to believe in something greater.

We have to because the journey of the world is hard and complicated.

In Newtown, every family that lost someone had a religious service for their loved one.

In times of darkness we turn to the night sky and look for the light that points us toward God.

I was reading in the NY times this week about the humanist’s response to what happened in Newtown.

Humanist believes that there is some kind of innate goodness in people.

They did some great things.

They collected money and sent to a fund for the victim’s families.

But what they couldn’t do was point the grieving hearts to hope and joy.

Only faith could do it.

I believe in the goodness in people too.

But I believe that comes from the light of Christ.

I believe when we do good it is because God has given us the gifts, passions, and ability to do it.

When we say to Matthew today, “let your light so shine before others that they may see you good works and glorify your father in heaven.”

We are saying that Matthew will do great things.

He will wish upon stars, he will love greatly, and give generously.

But when he does those good things it will not be for his own glory, but to point others toward the star in the sky pointing to the love of God that illumines all lives with joy.

As we journey in this life.

As we go through the darkness, over hills, and valleys, nights and days.

As we encounter the darker parts of life in this world, let us always remember to look up.

To see the star that points us to Jesus so that we might have hope, joy, love, and know that we are saved forever.

Amen

God Is in the Church Too?

This is a parent’s worst nightmare losing your child while on vacation.

Jesus and his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of Passover an obligation of every religious person.

On the way home they noticed that Jesus was missing.

If you are parent and have lost your child even for a moment at the mall you know that sickening feeling that comes over you when you can’t find your child.

Then you know also first the relief and then the anger when you find them.

It is no surprise that Mary and Joseph are upset with Jesus.

But even if you don’t have a child you still know the feeling.

You know what it feels like to lose something important.

We all have lost things in our lives.

I know that I feel like I lose my mind at least once a day.

We know that feeling of loosing things.

What happens when what we lose is our faith?

What happens when we lose faith in God, in our fellow human beings, in each other, in the world?

First of all it is not hard to imagine losing our faith.

So many horrible things happen all the time that it is amazing any of us still has faith.

But I think what happens to us spiritually is that we become that frantic person running around like crazy trying to find something.

We begin to become unhinged and unmoored.

Faith is important to our lives.

Faith is what gets us up in the morning.

It is what makes us work hard for our children’s future.

It is what makes this world go around.

If we have no faith then we won’t believe that things will get better or that there is a greater purpose to our lives.

In many ways without faith we simply don’t have a reason to live.

And so it is no wonder that we search for it so frantically.

It is no wonder we become like Mary and Joseph in today’s Gospel searching with “great anxiety”.

Luke is the only Gospel writer to give us this picture of Jesus when he was 12 years old.

Luke tells this story for many reasons.

He tells it to show Jesus understanding his own calling and mission, he does it to show that Jesus kept all the rituals and practices of his Jewish faith, he does it to connect the story of Jesus back to the Old Testament story of Samuel.

All of the things would be correct interpretations of the story.

But something struck me this time I read the story.

It is in Jesus smart-alecky remark back to his parents, “Why were you searching for me? Did you now know that I must be in father’s house?”

In the New York Times I was reading an article this week about how the next generation (often referred to as the “nones”) is leaving the institutional religion

It sparked a debate online about the future of the Church.

One thing I agree with is that the Church is going through a massive change in the next 10 years.

In this shift it is often popular to talk about God existing outside the walls of the Church.

One of the people in the article said, “We felt like Jesus didn’t hang out at the synagogue, he hung out at wells,”

But I was thinking about Jesus words to Mary and Joseph, so today I want us to think about God existing inside of these walls.

God existing within the confines of what people call “organized religion.”

In fact Jesus did hang out at the synagogue.

Luke in writing his Gospel is very careful to make sure we know that Jesus grew up within the confines of organized religion.

Jesus went through all the proscribed rituals of his day.

In Luke’s Gospel he marks the important religious observances in Jesus life, circumcision at eight days, dedicated or presented to God at six weeks, bar mitzvah at age twelve, public life at age thirty.

These are the same religious observances of every firstborn male child.

And in our Gospel he is traveling to temple with his parents, “as they did every year”.

We sometimes talk about Jesus as if he is a wondering person out on the streets searching for lost souls, not connected to the religious institutions of his day.

And certainly this is part of what Jesus ministry looked like.

But we forget that Jesus is also brought up in the confines of a religious home.

In his family Jesus would follow all the rituals of the temple and synagogue.

The reason this is important for us is because perhaps if we have lost our faith the place to find it is in the church.

This is where Jesus said he would be.

If we want to find Jesus he is in his Father’s house teaching and preaching.

Jesus is here for us.

And we should not be surprised to find Jesus here.

When Jesus gave us his holy meal he told his disciples that it would be here at the table that we would come together to remember him, and have our sins forgiven.

Jesus told us that were two or three gather in his name that is where he would be.

Martin Luther once said, “Anyone who is to find Christ must first find the church. How could anyone know where Christ is and what faith is in him unless he knew where his believers are?”

Faith is nurtured and brought out in us by being together, by hearing God’s word, by receiving Jesus in bread and wine.

I know that many people have been burnt by the Church over the years.

I know in many cases it is because the people sitting in the pews, and the preachers behind the pulpit, have been in tolerant that it has chased many people away.

I once was at this conference about community organizing.

I met a woman there who grew up going to Catholic school.

She told me that she didn’t go to church anymore because when she was a kid her parents got divorced.

Because of this her parents were not permitted to come to parent’s day because they had committed a sin.

So when the other kids had their parents come for that day she had to stay behind and do extra work.

My heart broke for her, because she desperately wanted to be part of Church that part of her history was too painful.

And I know that there are many other stories out there of the Church’s intolerance that turned people off.

However, I also feel that the Church has come a long way.

We are much more tolerant and open then we have ever been.

In fact, we are so tolerant that some people criticize us for being too tolerant.

Not only that, but there are so many different types of Churches out there that you can find what you are looking for.

If you want a conservative church it is there for you.

If you want an open and affirming church it is there for you.

But what I hope our congregation is more than anything is a place to belong.

We want this to be a place to ask questions and explore our faith together.

It is a place of great spiritual care that allows everyone to see Jesus and know of his compassion and mercy.

To me that is the heart of the Gospel.

It is not about being tolerant or not, it is about a God who loves and cares for all people.

It is about a God who leaves the ninety-nine and comes searching for the one.

It is about a God waiting for us to return home so we can have a great big party.

It is about a God who does not reside in the heavens, but right here next to us.

A contemporary theologian has described mercy as “entering into the chaos of another.”

In Jesus this is what God does.

He comes into our chaos.

Jesus comes into our searching with anxiety for him.

Jesus taught us about this God in word and deed.

Jesus continues to go to the temple to teach.

So if you ever feel like you have lost your faith.

If you are searching frantically for God and just can’t seem to find God.

If you are going through great anxiety about what you believe.

Know that Jesus is in his Father’s house waiting for you.

Amen

Joy to The World!

I don’t know about all of you but I could use some Good News of Great joy these days.

It seems we keep moving from one calamity to the next.

Each one of them is more heartbreaking than the last one.

After the shooting in Newtown Connecticut some people asked me, “How was it possible to have Christmas joy this year?”

The thought of parents sitting at home with unopened gifts, they had planned to give to children no longer there, was just too heart wrenching to imagine.

It is harder than ever to imagine Good News let alone to imagine this Christmas being filled with Joy.

In fact, the people of Newtown are not the only ones who are experiencing difficult times.

Plenty of people have no apparent reason to be happy this season.

People who are alone, people experiencing deaths, people losing their homes, people losing jobs, people experiencing homelessness, people suffering depression are all suffering this Christmas.

Despite all of this I would like for us to hear the angels this evening.

I would like for us to hear them bring us good news of great Joy.

Because I believe it is possible in all circumstances to know the joy of Christmas.

The problem is the way we think of joy.

We confuse joy with happiness.

Joy is not the same thing as happiness.

Happiness is something we experience from external sources.

If we win the lottery we might be happy.

Happiness is based on luck or good fortune and only last a little while.

Joy on the other hand comes from an inward source.

Joy comes from contentment with yourself and the world around you.

Joy is not about what happens but about how your soul lights up anyway.

We feel joy at weddings, at the birth of children, when seeing someone we love after being apart for a long time, when we give the perfect gift.

Joy comes from deep in our souls.

The angels on that first Christmas night do not proclaim that the shepherds will be happy, only that they will be joyful at what they find in the manager.

The Christ child will light up their insides.

Think about it.

What they go to see in Bethlehem is actually very ordinary.

The birth of a baby, those happen every day.

In fact, today 490,000 babies will have been born somewhere on this planet.

Not only is this just the birth of a baby, but one not worthy of note by the world.

It is not like Prince William and Kate are having a baby.

It is just some ordinary people, unable to get a room, having a child in a manger.

What makes this birth different is that it was sent here for us.

It is sent to give us joy and to light up our insides, and awaken in us something deep in our souls.

Yes even among the tragedies of life, even among sadness and despair we can still proclaim Good News and great joy for all people.

We can do it not because life is all rainbows and gumdrops.

Not because everything is ok with the world.

We are not naive people, but we are people of faith.

And because of that blessing we believe in our souls the joy of Christmas.

You see for us good news comes before the joy.

And that good news is that God has loved us all enough to not remain distant from us.

God has not given up on the world.

These shepherds I am sure all had struggles in their lives.

They all struggled to pay bills, to teach their children, to get along at work.

They lived in some very difficult times filled with great violence, wars, famines, injustices.

And yet the angels still proclaim good news!

That was God’s news, not the world’s news.

And that is one of the essential reasons we can still have joy tonight even with heavy hearts.

Our joy comes from God, it comes from a message that breaks forth into the world and keeps us going.

After Thanksgiving I went to Starbucks and there on the wall was written; “The wait is over. Let the joy begin.”

Our wait is over too!

Jesus has come again to us this night.

We have proclaimed it together in sacred story and in glorious songs.

Tonight we sing even louder, “Joy to the world” because we know that the world needs to hear it.

“No more let sin and sorrow reign.”

Instead let us hear the good news given to all people.

“He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found.”

Perhaps our vision of what Christmas is also makes us lose sight of what it means to have joy.

If our image of Christmas is only kids and parents gathered around a tree on Christmas morning opening presents than indeed there is no joy this Christmas for many people who simply don’t fit into those easy categories.

But if our image of Christmas is of God coming to touch the earth with sweet songs of good news than Christmas will never let us down.

It will always be here for us, because God is always here for us.

And here is wherever we are.

If we are sad then God is here.

If we are alone then God is here.

If we are lost then God is here.

If we are struggling God is here.

If we are thankful God is here.

And that is what brings us joy deep in our souls.

Tonight I proclaim even louder and with even more confidence that indeed this night there is good news and great joy for all people.

May all of you have a Merry Christmas.

Amen