December 22nd, 2013 MATTHEW 1:18-25

MATTHEW 1:18-25

¹⁸Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. ²⁰But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” ²²All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
²³  “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
          and they shall name him Emmanuel,”
which means, “God is with us.” ²⁴When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, ²⁵but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

***

This Wednesday morning, Women’s Support Group gathered at Ginger Rembold’s home for an ornament exchange. We began with a rousing game of match the eighteen baby Jesus’ with their nativities. The nativities were made out of wood, and clay, and stone, and featured coconut stables, and moose angels, and ultra modern - MOMA worthy - depictions of the manger scene. We found out that Peru makes more nativities than any other country, and that Amber, despite my competitive streak, is the best guesser of us all as to which.  Yet, of all the fifty-two nativity scenes displayed, there is a commonality, of silent perfection, of the holy family bowed, and the visitors bent kneed, and the angels and the star, respectively, feather winged and gleaming. Yet, I long for a different nativity.

I read this text of Joseph, and I remember Luke’s account of Mary, and I want a nativity that shows them before Christmas, before the angels. I want a nativity of teenage-pregnant-out-of-wedlock-Mary running off to Elizabeth, and scared, scared, scared, with no good options: being stoned death the worst, and dismissed quietly to a life of disgrace and hardship - the best outcome. I want a nativity of Joseph, having thought his life was set out before him, now having to dismiss and disgrace the one to whom he was once betrothed. I want a nativity depicting those no good options, and the real people to whom those plights fell. I want a nativity that looks like you, and me, because in actuality, Mary and Joseph are not that different from each of us, and their predicament is both as universal and varied as a room full of nativities.

I look at Joseph, and I wonder, about the very human questions he must have asked. There are the W questions, the with whom, exactly what, when, where and why? There are the rabbit holes of future questions: What will this mean for our families who arranged our marriages? Will there be shame on both, for our choosing poorly, and for their being a poor choice? Will it split the friendship our parents enjoyed? What will this mean for me, Joseph, since people will most likely assume I am the father? How will I combat that disgrace? What will it mean for me in order to marry again? What will it mean for Mary and her life ahead? Do I have to follow the law and have her stoned, or can I dismiss her quietly to raise a child on her own in poverty, or will she be shipped off to Elizabeth’s and hidden away, with the secret child of her shame? If I were to claim she and the child, would Mary, once a cheater, always remain so? If I married her would people see me as Mary’s savior, or the one who threw his life away with the whore? I wonder if it came down to the question. I wonder if it was simply a choice of Mary’s life, or his own. I don’t blame Joseph for the choice he made. I would have done the same. Joseph, was not that different from you or I.

I think about these pews, and I know they too, have held stories of imperfect families, and I think about this pulpit and how it holds an imperfect pastor from a similarly imperfect, and perhaps similarly plighted birth. I have heard the story of my birth-grandma, getting a phone call from her sister-in-law, that her niece was pregnant. My birth-grandma tells of watching her son disappear into the bathroom, and knowing, simply by the look on his cast away face, that he was the father of his cousin’s baby. I have heard him tell of the worry and way feared for his cousin, about the way he knew she would be judged by the Catholicism of her family, and hidden away as the daughter of a city-councilmen. I have heard him tell about how he longed to protect and provide for her, and wished he could whisk her away like Joseph. My birth-dad did not have that choice; at 15 and 16 your choices are not your own. Today, in his telling there is a way you can hear him wishing he could have traded places with my birth-mom, and you can hear the deep care and love and responsibility he felt then and still feels. While my birthfather rightfully felt responsibility, the yearning to protect, and provide, especially to a woman with child, is common among men. It makes Joseph’s ultimate choice, though divinely inspired, one to which we can relate.

It is this humanness that makes Joseph holy, that common people can do divine things, and likewise, that God comes to the common people, the imperfect among us, and in the most broken of situations. Joseph, in a mess of life follows God, though the baby is not his, Joseph in adopting the child, names it Jesus, and in so doing, Joseph, fulfills the prophesy of the Emmanuel, which means God with us.

Perhaps this is why those nativities seem so perfect, because they are trying to depict those God moments that seep into the mess of this season, those God moments that seep into the mess of our lives. We must remember, Christmas doesn’t and didn’t always look that neat. That there was, and is Advent first, there is the longest night of the year, and there is a grief of our lives not looking like we pictured or try to portray. But we must also remember, that this humanness is where, and to whom, God enters in. That Mary and Joseph did not always look that peaceful, but in their humanness they followed a promise, that God would be with them, in the mess. We have that same promise today, that God is coming to be with us, that God will be the Emmanuel. Imagine what that nativity looks like, like us, like you as Joseph, or Mary, just as you are, with everything you bring, the mess of life included. We are the nativity, met by God, in this little town of Baker City, in this sanctuary, God comes to us, just as we are.

December 8th 2013 Matthew 11:2-11 NRSV

Matthew 11:2-11 NRSV

When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Jesus answered them, 

“Go and tell John what you hear and see: 

the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, 

the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.

And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: 

“What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? 

A reed shaken by the wind? 

What then did you go out to see? 

Someone dressed in soft robes? 

Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. 

What then did you go out to see? A prophet? 

Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 

This is the one about whom it is written, 

     ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
          who will prepare your way before you.’ 

Truly I tell you, 

among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist;

 yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” 

***

Last week I told you to go out into the wilderness, and to look for the prophets, to look for the Christ Child, and this week, we come across Jesus asking the crowds, “At what did you go out into the wilderness to look?” “A reed shaken by the wind?” Jesus goes on to say, that John, that wild and probably crazy prophet, is no reed shaken by wind, that he is one of whom the prophet Isaiah foretold. Yet, despite all John’s stability, even he wonders, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” 

John is in jail, and will soon be beheaded, and I can only imagine how much he needs Jesus to be the Christ. From inside his mother’s womb he leapt at this hope, from his life as a grown man he went into the wilderness on this hope, from that wilderness he preached to the people and baptized the crowds on this hope, he defended himself to the Pharisees and Sadducees on this hope, and now in jail facing death, his eternal life depends on this hope. John needs Jesus to be the one who was to come, John does not want to wait for another. So he asks, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Are there times in your own life where you have needed Jesus to have already come? That to wait for another is too long? Have you needed to hear that hope, that promise, that assurance of grace, to be baptized and welcomed, and claimed God’s own? Perhaps you have been in your own type of jail, perhaps you have faced your own type of death. Perhaps you also need to know that Christ is the one who has come. I understand John’s question. I often look around, and hear the stories of your lives, and I wonder why do we have to wait for Christ to come again? I go out into the wilderness, and I am reed shaken by the wind. I wonder why our loved ones struggle with mental illness, with violence, with addiction, with incredible pain, with natural disasters, with poverty, and hunger, and on this day, with cold, cold, cold. I go out into the wilderness, and I am a reed shaken by the wind. 

And to John, and to I, Jesus sends an answer. He says, 

“Go and tell John what you hear and see: 

the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, 

the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.

And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

I am the one taking offense, I have never seen the blind receive their sight, nor the lame walk, nor the lepers cleansed, no the deaf hear, nor the dead raised, and I have not been poor enough to know what that good news truly sounds like. These seem like extraordinary miracles, and when faced with such things, I tend to have my doubts or explanations - modern science is an amazing thing. Modern faith then perhaps, is an amazing thing. That with all our knowledge, and our science, and technology, there seems to be less without answer. We must look for ordinary miracles, which seem like an oxymoron. I have been looking for miracles amidst the ordinary. 

Falling asleep to the glaze of snow clouds lit by street light, or waking to a world of white and winter, and the skinny silhouette of trees made thick with impractical layers of snow, or dusk turning to a blue and black finger-painted night sky with a waxing crescent moon and venus charting a course, ordinary miracles in a wilderness. I have been looking for miracles, seeing Jen Kelley in Melissa’s workout class, the familiarity of old friends and the stories running deep, and the joy of new friends, of relationships forming on youth trips to McCall, and the surprise and welcome of Thanksgivings in unfamiliar homes. I have been looking for ordinary miracles in a wilderness, thinking of this room on Christmas Eve, filled with families and coats and jackets and the cozy warmth they bring, and enormity of our carols and faint beauty of our chimes, and flickering beams of candlelight near our skin, and that somehow every year, Christ comes again, as a babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger, promising, extraordinary miracles by way of the ordinary. 

“The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, 

the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”

Perhaps, in this modern day and age, it is just as much about teaching ourselves to see the silhouette of snow on trees when we are blind. Perhaps in this day and age to remember Nelson Mandela walking out of prison we can see the lame walk. Perhaps in our little towns Cancer Center, we can see how the lepers are cleaned. Perhaps as we being to hear Christmas carols our deaf ears begin to hear. Perhaps as we hear this story foretold again and again, we believe that the dead are raised, and we believe the good news that comes in the greatest miracle. A little child, born in a manger, and the promise of miracles he brings. 

So in this Advent season, in this modern wilderness, be not a reed shaken by the wind, but a disciple who brings the good news back to John of the miracles already in our midst. He is the one who was to come. We shall not have to wait for another. He is here.

December 1st, 2013 MATTHEW 3:1-12

MATTHEW 3:1-12

1In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 2“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,
     “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
     ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
          make his paths straight.’”
4Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, 6and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

7But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8Bear fruit worthy of repentance. 9Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 10Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

11“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

***

            When was the last time you were in the wilderness? When was the last time you were out in an uninhabited, and uncultivated place? When is the last time you hiked beyond the paths, and saw beyond the towns, and felt the world beyond yourself? When is the last time you felt one with the unfamiliar? When was the time you felt stretched, and knew there was more to learn, and there was more knowing beyond what you already knew? When was the last time you found yourself in the wilderness of a new place, or new a friend, a new job, a new calling, a new child? When was the last time you came to the wilderness seeking?

            It was no different in John’s day. John, the scripture tells, appeared in the wilderness of Judea, and I like to imagine it was kind of like that, because sometimes we find ourselves out in the middle of nowhere, and all of a sudden out in the middle of nowhere - we find, ourselves, and it happens in that all of a sudden type of way, appearing. I like to imagine John appearing. I like to imagine John in all his craziness, and perhaps literal craziness, with his desert diet of locusts and wild honey, with his clothing of camel’s hair and a leather belt, and his proclamation of repentance, and baptism, and of the one to come. I can see how John simply appeared.

            I can understand why Matthew describes John, with the words from the prophet Isaiah,   “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord.’” John was the prophet type, one familiar with the wilderness. For, as much as we would like to believe, it is not those who live the status quo who are the prophets. It is often those who are off the grid and off their rockers. Think of the prophets of our time, Nelson Mandela locked up in jail, Mother Theresa with a vow of poverty walking into the middle of a battle, Martin Luther King fighting for justice with peace. There is wild streak in them all, and I am sure that each have been called crazy many a time. Yet, they mesmerize us, and we draw nearer.

            It does not surprise me that the people of Jerusalem and all of Judea were going out to John the Baptist. It does not surprise me that something in him, invoked something in them, that to be near the prophet created a change heart. This yearning to confess their sins, this yearning to be baptized, this yearning to be made clean, this yearning to belong, this yearning to find a place out in the wilderness to prepare for the one who is to come, the one who so powerful he can baptize with the Holy Spirit and with Fire. It does not surprise me that the people came. Would you not go out into the wilderness if this was the hope? When is the last time you were in the wilderness?

            I have been in a wilderness of starting to date again. I tell you, being thirty, and the advent of texting, and the remembering again what it is to get your heart hurt, and have to hurt another’s is not for sissys. It is a wilderness. About a month ago, I found myself driving home from Boise at night later than I had planned. It had been the worst date yet, and I will spare you the details, but to say that I was pretty mad, and confused, as I left Boise. Yet, as the fields started to roll out into hills, I had a feeling of pride, for knowing, now at thirty, how to get out of an uncomfortable situation. Soon I was in the passes where the moon lit up the cliffs with the road winding in between, and in that contrast of greyscale, I found myself alone on the road, but feeling utterly connected: to the world, to this life, and thankful for it all, and to God, for the chance to be thirty, and alone on the road, and dating again, and learning anew. The stars were out, and the rivers gleamed silver like the silage of a snail, and as I entered Baker County a faint snow began to fall and there was a deep peace in the silent night.

            John says, that the one who is to come will separate out the chaff from the grain, and I think this is what happens in those wilderness places. That we are able to see what is good and worth keeping in our lives, and what needs to be burned. What is giving us life, and what is depleting us, what we are learning and what still have to learn, who we are, and who we are created to be, for for whom we were created. It is a finding ourselves in these wilderness places, and finding the prophet who helps us prepare for the one who is to come. This is preparing the way of the Lord, this is Advent. Advent can be the opposite, we call it Christmas season and it starts right after Halloween, if not sooner, and it is often a plethora of things to do, to get, and to go. It not a wilderness, a time away, but a familiar American grind in a country that cannot wait. Yet, when this season is good, it is waiting, it is Advent, it is a wilderness, and it becomes a time of where we find ourselves and Christ, in the quiet of old familiar hymn, hmm Silent Night, in the warmth and glow of lights, in the loved ones we know, in the quiet peace of  being out alone in gentle falling snow. When is the last time you went out in the wilderness? When is the next time you will go out into the wilderness? It is Advent, Go, find time, find space, find hope, find joy, find peace, find love, find the Christ child, out there, laying in a manger out in the wilderness.