This image of Jonah being thrown into the sea is found in the Catacomb of Saint Peter and Saint Marcellino in Rome, Italy and dates from about the 4th century

Last week, we began to explore the story of Jonah.  This man is a real paradox.  He’s a prophet, meaning he’s received the Word of the Lord – but he won’t prophesy.  Chapter one of the book that bears his name narrates how he hears the call from God to “Arise, and go to Nineveh”, but how instead he goes down to Joppa, down to the shipyard, and eventually, down into the sea.  The last thing we saw last week was the big splash that Jonah made when the sailors, following orders from both God and Jonah, threw the prophet overboard.

Today we see where the Lord provided a great fish that swallowed Jonah, and he survived in the belly of this fish for three days and three nights.

Detail from a relief showing the story of Jonah from a tomb at the Saints Peter and Paul church in Köngen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. About 1615.

That might stretch your credulity, but the claim that a man survived for three days inside a fish is not the thing that gets me about today’s reading.  What really catches my attention is the beginning of chapter 2. “Then Jonah prayed…”

You see, it begs that age-old question: what is the appropriate amount of time one should wait between getting tossed overboard into a raging storm, sinking down into the sea, being swallowed by a ginormous fish…AND prayer.  I realize that there are really no instruction books for this kind of thing, but is there a protocol involved?  You know, like you’re supposed to wait half an hour after eating before swimming, or wait 24 hours after you color your hair before you wash it…  What is the appropriate time to wait?  You get thrown overboard, the fish swallows you…how long until you pray?

Jonah waited three days.  Why would he do that?

Maybe he was angry with God.  God gave him a task, and he didn’t want to do it, and so for three days he sat quietly, thinking, “Fine!  You want to kill me?  Be my guest. Go ahead, Lord.”

Or maybe, as we discussed last week, he was hopeless.  He was resigned to the fact that it was merely a matter of time for him, and when he felt the fish swallow him, he just hunkered down and waited for the end, never thinking to pray.

And I suppose that it could be that he was simply out of practice – we didn’t see Jonah pray at all in chapter 1, so maybe it just didn’t occur to him to open his heart to the Lord.

How long would you wait?

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Pastor Dave!  What a stupid question.  There may be a lot of things that will happen in my life, but I’m going to go ahead and say that I will not be eaten alive by a giant fish.”

You’re probably right…as far as that goes.  But I can just about guarantee that you will be swallowed by something.  It may not be a disaster at sea, but you will face shipwrecks and storms in the days to come.  There will be crises of health, in your family, at your work; you will be shaken to the core of your being.  And when those things engulf you, how long will you wait to pray?

It seems to me that Jonah chapter two has a word for anyone who has been, is, or will be flailing in the darkness or gasping for breath.  This is the prayer of one who has absolutely hit bottom.  Did you hear what Jonah said?  He cried to the Lord in distress…when the waters closed in over him…and the deep surrounded him…the bars closed in forever…in fact, he says, his very soul fainted.  The life was ebbing from him.

This is not the prayer of a man in a position of strength.

In Jonah 1, the storm rages on, and what does he care?  He’s a man who knows where he’s going, he’s got a plan…the sailors are fighting for their lives and he’s down below sleeping like a baby in the belly of the ship.

But here, in the belly of the whale, well, things are a little bit different.  He comes to God in brokenness and emptiness.  He says, “I have nothing…I am nothing…apart from you, God.”

Jonah cast out by the Fish; 14th century stained glass window; from a temple in Mulhouse, France

This is prayer, beloved.  So often we come to God in our strength and our capability, surrounded with our success and secure in our ability.  What passes for prayer on those days is something like this, “Lord, yes, it’s me.  Look, I’ve got a couple of things that I’m working on and, well, I thought I’d run them past you – you know, as a kind of a courtesy, really.  Just let you know what I’m up to, you know, so you can bless me all right.  I’ve got some plans, and I thought you’d want to know about them as soon as possible so you’d get on board with me…”

That’s not prayer.  True prayer is the realization that God, and God alone, is able.  God does not need Jonah’s – or my – approval.  God does not need Jonah’s – or my – resume.  God is God, sufficient in and unto himself.  He’s not waiting around to give the ok to any swell ideas that I might have.

What God is waiting around for – to the extent that God actually waits around for anything – is to hear Jonah, or me, or you, say “OK, God.  I’m ready now.”  And when Jonah says that, the fish spits him up onto the beach.  It’s not particularly his finest hour (although I suppose that the whale is not entirely upset about the whole experience…).  Jonah’s prayer ends with a statement of faith: Deliverance belongs to the Lord!

In our Hebrew Bible, that sounds like this: yeshuata leyahweh.  Deliverance belongs to the Lord.

Archaeologists have unearthed this rare find from the ruins of the synagogue in Nazareth. OK, not really. But what if???

Let me remind you about the Hebrew that you’ve learned.  What does Yahweh mean?  It’s God’s name, right?  God is Yahweh.  The other word, then, yeshuata, must mean deliverance or salvation.  You know this word, or a part of it.  Yeshua.  Remember in Matthew 1, when the angel told Joseph what to name the baby?  Yeshua.  When Joseph and Mary’s boy went down to coffee hour at the synagogue, he wore a little nametag that said, “Hello.  My Name Is Yeshua”.

I think it’s impossible for a Christian to read the end of Jonah’s prayer and not think of Jesus.  Deliverance comes from the Lord.  That is, essentially, Old Testament Prophet talk for “Jesus saves.”

And that leads me to consideration of the Gospel passage that you’ve heard today, because it, too, is an apt model for prayer.

Eustache Le Sueur, "Christ Healing the Blind Man", 17th Century

Bartimaeus is a blind man who is apparently alone in the world.  He has no resources, and his world is empty and dark.  He’s huddled in his cloak by the side of the road, and he hears Yeshua.  So he cries out.  “Save me!  Deliver me!”  He could have even said “Yeshua me!”

Those around him try to hush him, but what does he have to lose?  He cries out louder.  And then, when Yeshua calls to him, what does Bartimaeus do?  He sprang up.  How often do you see a blind person move quickly?  That’s a recipe for danger, isn’t it? Better to be cautious…but not Bartimaeus.  He springs up and tosses aside his cloak.  Another rash decision.  How is he going to find that once this Yeshua character is gone?  But he throws it away – his only place to hide, the only protection he has from the wind and the sand and the spittle and who knows what else – and he tells Yeshua what he wants more than anything else in the world.  He does not ask for money, although that’s apparently what he’s always done.  He does not ask for food or safety, or a nicer cloak.

“I want to see.”

And he is healed.  And then, Bartimaeus is faced with the same choice as old Jonah laying on the beach.  Where should he go?

Bartimaeus followed Yeshua.  Jonah started walking towards Nineveh.  Each of them cried out in the darkness, and then followed the voice that had called to them.

One of the holiest aspects of my calling is sharing prayer with people who are crying out to God in the darkness.  My phone is hardly ever turned off…partly because I’m such an extreme extrovert, but mostly because I can’t sleep if I think that you might be alone in the dark.

It is a sacred trust and privilege to wait with you in the hospital, or at the prison, or by the grave.  It is a holy responsibility to sit with you in places of emptiness and death.  And I do not for one second want to discourage you from crying out to Yeshua or to your pastor from those places.

But I wonder in what ways you and I might empty ourselves and come to God before the deeps close in around us?  After all, if Jonah had been in contact with God from the beginning, then he wouldn’t have been thrown overboard – he couldn’t have been thrown overboard, because he’d be nowhere near the water as he hiked across the desert from Israel to Nineveh.

And I am not speaking for anyone but myself here – but I know that there has been a lot of pain and isolation that I could have avoided in my own life if I’d have simply turned to God in my emptiness and brokenness, rather than resting on my strengths and pretending that I had it all under control.

Now listen: I am most certainly not saying that as long as I pray – even from my emptiness – that nothing bad will happen.  I promise you that the storms will come and the deeps will close in around you.  What I am saying is that if we develop a lifestyle of prayer and a willingness to come to God as empty-handed as Bartimaeus and Jonah, then when we get tossed from the boat or voted off the island or pushed into the sea, it won’t take us three days to find our voices.  The dark and the deep will come – but they will have no power to overwhelm or defeat us.  If we face each day remembering that we stand naked before God, empty except for what he puts into us, then yeshuata leyahweh is never three days away.

The bad news is that your deliverance, your salvation, does not come from you.  You cannot tread water forever.

The good news is that you do not have to.  Come to God in your emptiness and in the darkness, and ask him to change you.

And he will.

Yeshuata leyahweh.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

This week the folks at Crafton Heights began a series considering the message of JONAH.  Our texts for the week were Jonah 1:1-16 and Romans 8:38-39

The plane hit the turbulence with violence, and the entire cabin was shaking.  Passengers looked around with fear in their eyes – except for one woman, who calmly reached into her bag and began reading through the Bible she pulled from it.  The man sitting next to her grabbed her arm and began to mock her, saying, “Are you for real?  We’re falling apart here in the sky and you’re looking at a book of fairy tales?”

The woman quietly replied, “This is the word of the Lord, and in it I gain great strength and courage.”

The man wouldn’t let it go.  “That’s nothing but myths!  Are you telling me you believe that?  Do you actually believe in a book that describes people coming back from the dead or walking on water?”

“I do,” she said.

“What about Jonah?  Do you believe a man could live inside a fish?  How could that even happen?”

“You know,” she replied, “that’s one I’m awfully curious about myself.  I suppose when I get to heaven, I’ll just ask him.”

The man looked sarcastic.  “Well, what if you get to heaven and you find Jonah isn’t even in heaven?”

The woman smiled and turned back to her book.  “Well, then I guess you can just ask him yourself!”

Jonah.  That’s the book that is loved by generations of Sunday School teachers and Bible School Directors.  It’s a great story – for kids.  Lots of adventure, imagination, and energy.  But when we grow up, we are confronted with “science” and “truth”.  We come to learn that by and large, people don’t survive underwater very long.  There aren’t many, if any, fish capable of swallowing a grown man.  There’s no evidence in the archeological record of a great religious revival sweeping through Nineveh.

Listen to me: the Bible is no more interested in trying to convince you that Jonah is historical fact than Shakespeare is trying to teach Danish history while writing Hamlet.  In the book of Jonah, the Bible is telling a story.  More than that, the Bible is telling the truth.  I am here to tell you that the author of Jonah is no less an artist than Shakespeare or Twain or Hemingway – using a story to tell us the truth.  Jonah is not just for Sunday School kids.  It’s for you and me.

So what happens in the story?

Well, for starters, the Word of God comes to Jonah.  That means that Jonah is a prophet.  Of all the people in the children of Israel, Jonah is called to listen to and to speak the Word of the Lord.  It is a singular honor and a profound responsibility.  It is a high office.  And he has no interest in serving in that office!

What is the call from the Lord?  “Arise” – that is to say, “Get up” – and “go to Nineveh.”

Nineveh?  Why would any right-thinking Hebrew want to go to Nineveh?  It was located in what we now know as Iraq, along the Tigris River.  It was the scene of tremendous brutality against the people of God.  We hate those guys!  Listen to what the prophet Nahum has to say about Nineveh:

1 Woe to the city of blood, full of lies, full of plunder, without victims!

2 The crack of whips, the clatter of wheels, galloping horses and jolting chariots!

3 Charging cavalry, flashing swords and glittering spears!

Many casualties, piles of dead, bodies without number, people stumbling over the corpses—

4 all because of the wanton lust of a prostitute, alluring, the mistress of sorceries, who enslaved nations by her prostitution and peoples by her witchcraft.

5 “I am against you,” declares the LORD Almighty. 9 “Nothing can heal you; your wound is fatal. 
All who hear the news about you clap their hands at your fall, 
for who has not felt your endless cruelty?” (Nahum 3, selected verses)

Oh, yeah…we really, really don’t like those guys.

Asking a Jew to go to Nineveh in the time when this story takes place would be like asking a survivor of 9/11 to take relief supplies to an Al Qaeda village in Pakistan, or asking a Holocaust survivor to lead a mission to Germany in 1949.

Yet oddly enough, that is the call of God – “Arise, and go to Nineveh”.  And what does Jonah do?

Well, he heard the Word, all right, but instead of “arising” and going to Nineveh, this is one long descent.  First, you need to know that Nineveh is North and East of Israel, over land.  Tarshish is West, and over water.  But even if you didn’t have a handy-dandy map to help you, the narrative is full of clues that Jonah has no interest in following the call of God.  Did you hear where Jonah, who was told to “arise” and go up to Nineveh, was going?

“Down” to Joppa (1:3), “down into the hold of the ship” (1:5) where he “laid down” (1:5).  Eventually he went down into the depths of the sea (1:15) where he went down into the belly of the fish and even down into Sheol, the underworld (2:2).  God says, “Arise, and go up” and Jonah spends all of chapter one and most of chapter two going down, down, down.  And yet God does not let Jonah go.  God chases Jonah.  God has a purpose for Jonah.

The sailors on the ship are unaware of this, of course.  All they know is that ever since they met this Jew, their lives are a lot more difficult. I want to say that again, because there’s a lesson there – that innocent bystanders find that their own survival is imperiled because one of God’s own people was walking away from the call of God.

It’s important to remember that there is precious little that is actually simply between me and the Lord.  Oh, I love to “come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses”.  I hope he walks and talks with me.  But the truth is that my ability and willingness to listen to and follow the call of Jesus – or my unwillingness to do the same – will have huge consequences not just for me, but for the people around me.  This is especially important for anyone in a position of leadership to remember!  The sailors are paying the price for Jonah’s disobedience.  Who pays for it when you run from God?  Who pays for it when I ignore God’s call?

The sailors, who are my favorite characters in this part of the story, respond to the problem just about like I would.  They don’t want to face it.  Their solution is to keep on doing what they’ve always done.  When they discover that this entire storm is Jonah’s fault, what do they do?  They row harder.  They try to sail better.

Isn’t that human nature? We find ourselves in a difficult situation, and we simply do what we’ve always done a little more frantically, a little faster, a little harder.

This image of Jonah being thrown into the sea is found in the Catacomb of Saint Peter and Saint Marcellino in Rome, Italy and dates from about the 4th century

But finally, it dawns on them that this is business between God and his prophet, and so they pray for forgiveness and then toss Jonah overboard.  Did you hear that?  In the book of Jonah, who prays first?  The prophet, who is called by God and given the Word of the Lord?  Nope.  We see that it is the pagan sailors who actually talk TO the Lord.  So far, Jonah is only willing to talk ABOUT the Lord.  It’s the sailors who wind up doing the worshiping in chapter 1.

This morning, we stand on the brink of a New Year in several ways.  It’s January.  We are ordaining and installing leadership for the congregation and inaugurating a new ministry.  Is there anything for us in Jonah chapter 1?

Let me tell you that you, no less than Jonah, have received the call from God.

“Oh, no, Pastor, I wish!  But you see, I’ve never heard the voice.  God has never spoken to me.  Uh-uh.  No call for me…”

Listen: Jonah, or Moses, or Abraham, or David, or Ruth, or Esther would love to sit where you are sitting!  They would love to have the resources that you have.  You have the Bible – a written record of God’s movements in and call to his people.  You have the sacraments – signs and seals of God’s presence with and grace for his people.  You have the gift of the community, the body of Christ – a flawed and imperfect people, perhaps, but nevertheless shaped by thousands of years of relationship with the Lord.  You have more access to the Word and call of God than most humans who have ever lived.

You have the call!  Listen for it.  And Act on it.

“Oh, no, Pastor, I wish!  I used to think that.  I would like to think that, but you see, it’s complicated.  I can’t.  Not anymore.  You see, I got divorced.  The baby died.  There was trouble at work.  I got to drinking.  Something happened, Pastor, and now I’m disqualified. I’m not good enough.  I can’t speak for God.  Sheesh.  It’s about all I can do to speak with God.

Really?  Seriously?  You want to look Jonah in the eye and say that your flight from God is worse than his?  You want to say that somehow, you’ve managed to screw things up more royally than he did?  I doubt that.

But even if that were somehow the case, we have the testimony of another gigantic screw-up – a follower of Jesus named Paul, who wrote to his friends in Romans that there was nothing – nothing – that could separate us from God’s intentions for us.  The God who pursued the reluctant prophet, Jonah, out to the middle of the ocean and who finally got him where he could hear him is the same God who will go anywhere, everywhere, any time, all the time to get to you.  Nothing will stop him.  Not even you, I don’t think.

There’s a word here for those who would step forward as leaders in our ministry.  You may or may not have ever felt like a prophet before, but the reality is that you have the Word of the Lord.  And like Jonah, you are charged, first and foremost, to listen for that Word.  And after you’ve heard it and reflected on it, to follow where that Word takes you.  And today you are accepting the added responsibility to lead the rest of this bunch into a place where we’ll be better able to hear and to follow for ourselves.

But this is not only a word for leaders.  The rest of us are also called to pay attention to where God is.  Like the sailors helped Jonah to hear and respond to God’s movement in his life, we are called to remind those around us of the presence of God in every place.  And just as the sailors had to give up striving to do the same thing faster and better, there may be something in your life that you need to change in order to find a better way of serving and following.

God is calling you.  God is sending you.  God is calling and sending us to proclaim truth, and hope, and love, and mercy, and grace, and justice.

You are not disqualified from that call.  And you cannot hide from it.  So let us arise.  And go.  And speak and live truly this day. Thanks be to God!

When you take a child to an amusement park for the first time, what’s the one ride that you expect to go on?  I mean, if it’s little Billy’s first trip to Kennywood, do you get in line for the Phantom’s Revenge right away?  Probably not.  My hunch is that you head for the carousel.  You might choose one of the horses, or the lion or tiger on the outer row.  Or perhaps you’d opt for one of the “jumpers” on the inside rows.  Or, if the excitement was just too much for you, you’d choose one of the benches.

Kennywood Park's Carousel was built and installed in 1927 by the William H. Dentzel Company

What happens on this ride? Well, you go around.  You listen to music.  Maybe you bounce up and down a few inches.  And every rotation, you take the kid’s head and say, “Hey, look!  There’s grandpa!” and wave like an idiot.  Ride. Listen. Bounce. “Hey grandpa!”.  Ride. Listen. Bounce.  “Look, dad, let’s not go through this again.  I get it.  Grandpa’s still there.  He’s always gonna be there every time this stupid thing turns around…”

I know that this is a pretty subjective issue, but for my money, the carousel is the worst ride in the amusement park…but every park has one.  Why is that?  Why do people like them so much?  My hunch is that we like them because they are predictable, they are safe, they are pretty, they are shiny, and they are loud.  And most of us have a fascination, if not an appreciation, for the predictable, safe, pretty, shiny, and loud things of the world.

The reality, of course, is that while we call the carousel a “ride”, you don’t really go anywhere, do you?  There is a lot of noise and movement but no actual transportation.

For too many people, life is like that – a seemingly endless stream of meaningless encounters of the same stuff on different days.

Do you remember the 1993 film Groundhog Day?  Bill Murray stars as Pittsburgh television weatherman Phil Connors who seems doomed to repeat the same day over and over again. In one key scene from that movie, he turns to Ralph, at the bowling alley, and says, “What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?

Ralph’s reply brings out the pathos in the movie. He says, “That about sums it up for me.”

No one in this room is literally stuck on the same day, but you know how cyclical life can be.  Doesn’t it seem as though sometimes it’s just a constant blur of motion?  You are putting away your Christmas things and, as you do so, you discover something new that you bought last year and forgot to get out for this year.  This morning, you woke up thinking, “Holy smokes! Is it 2012 already?”  You’re thinking about the fact that you’ve got to get your house straightened up, and then the taxes will need to be worked on; it’ll be Easter before you know it, and then school will be over…

Life just seems to be rushing by!  There’s no meaning or purpose to each day; no overarching theme to the months or the year…it’s just a whirl, and every now and then you catch grandpa waving at you, trying to make you smile so he can take your picture…

That’s not how it’s supposed to be, or course.  And it surely doesn’t need to be like that.  What if instead of seeing our lives as revolving around atop a meaningless and changeless platform, we actually got somewhere?  What if instead of feeling like we were spinning our wheels, we were able to live with the conviction that we were going higher up and deeper in every single day?

The Dungeness Lighthouse stands guard by the coast of Kent, in England

I’m going to ask you to leave the merry-go-round and come with me to the lighthouse.  Have you ever been to visit a lighthouse before?  Let’s take a walk around the outside, at the very base of the structure – and it’s a circle, just as we made on the merry-go-round.  As we walk, which directions will we cover?  North, East, South, and West, right?  The same exact directions traversed by the carousel.  As we walk around, what do you see?  Water.  The Beach.  Rocks.  Trees.

Now, let’s go inside.  Look up, and you’ll see that big circular stairwell.  And there are windows looking out in all directions – North, East, South, and West.  Let’s climb the steps, pausing to peer out of the windows in the directions we’ve just looked when we were on the ground.  What do you see when you look out the windows?  Water.  The beach.  Rocks.  Trees.

The steps inside the Dungeness Lighthouse

We see the same things that we saw when we were on the ground, don’t we? Or do we?  What happens as we climb?  The perspective changes.  We see the horizon differently.  The shadows and the colors play out differently.  We appreciate the topography a little more.

So what’s the difference between the lighthouse and the merry-go-round? While both involve 360° views, in a lighthouse, you’re actually getting somewhere.  The views are similar, but not the same.  Your perspective on reality changes as you climb.

Oh, and another thing: the lighthouse is a lot more work, isn’t it?  There are no benches in a lighthouse.

Simeon with the Christ Child in the Temple Rembrandt (c. 1666-69)

Our Gospel reading for today offers us a lighthouse perspective.  When Jesus is only 8 days old, his folks bring him in dedicate him. Simeon takes the little screecher and sees him, not as “just” a baby, but as the Messiah.  He is filled with the Spirit of the Lord and makes predictions about the life of the baby who rests in his arms.  Simeon sees Jesus as the new thing that God is doing in the world.

Think about all the folks we’ve met around the manger this Christmastide.  It seems to me that of all the people who greet the Lord, it’s Simeon who has the gift of perspective.  The shepherds hear a snappy song from heaven and they come looking for the one of whom the angels sang.  The wise men saw the shiny light in the heavens and followed the star, and came to see where the baby was laying.  By and large, these folks were essentially tourists who were brought in to see a wonderful sight.  But Simeon recognizes Jesus when Mary and Joseph bring him in.  For his entire life, Simeon’s been climbing in the lighthouse of God’s dealings with his people, and he’s therefore able to recognize God doing something new in a way that the other people cannot.  Simeon’s practice of going to the temple, of participating in worship, of seeking the holy every single day, have brought him to the place where he’s able to recognize and celebrate the gift of God’s son while that same son is wearing only diapers and unable to speak.  Simeon’s perspective gives him wisdom and insight that the shepherds and wise men do not have.

This morning I’d like to issue a challenge to each of you – to make 2012 a “lighthouse” year.  Let me encourage you to get off the merry-go-round and take the opportunities to look for God’s perspective on the events of your daily lives.

Think about those newsletters that we send out at Christmastime.  You know, the one or two page notes in which you announce to your friends which relatives have made the honor roll, which are eligible for parole, and which are simply taking their toll on you.  We send one of those out most years, and the last time that New Year’s Day fell on a Sunday was 2006.  In my letter for 2005, I dared my readers to go to church on January 1.  I predicted that the place would not be crowded and that it might be as good a place as any to start the New Year off right.

Imagine my surprise when early in 2007 I got a letter from “Darlene”, who had been a member of a youth group I led in the early 1990’s.  She and her husband were living in the Midwest, where their lives were comfortably hectic as they pursued graduate degrees, paid off student loans, and simply enjoyed each other.  Darlene went to church on January 1, 2006, and she took her husband.  They’d grown up in different places, both spiritually and geographically.  It took them some time to find a worship space that was comfortable and challenging to both of them. But they found one.  They joined that church.  They had a baby, and baptized her.  She wrote me a letter, more than a year after the fact, to simply thank me for daring her to go to church.  Her belief was that her world had changed as a result of the perspective she gained from acting on that dare every week.

So in that spirit, I have a dare for you.  I can’t simply follow Hebrews 10:25 and dare you all to come to church, because, um, well, you’re already here. While that might be the easiest New Year’s resolution you’ve had for a while, to me that’s a lot like sitting on the bench at the merry-go-round.  It’s just too easy.

So let’s back it up one verse.  Hebrews 10:24 : “Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds…”

I dare you to act on this in the next twelve months.

What would our lives and our community be like if we, as a congregation of a hundred or a hundred and a half people decided that we were going to be intentionally affirming in our communication with and about each other?  What would happen, do you suppose, if we chose to be direct and honest in our relationships, motivated by love and seeking the best for each other?

I dare you to expect the best from the people sitting next to you this year – and to tell them that.  And to help them get there.  I dare you to “provoke” each other to behaving in loving and affirming ways.

The Amplified Bible translates verse 24 in this way: “And let us consider and give attentive, continuous care to watching over one another, studying how we may stir up (stimulate and incite) to love and helpful deeds and noble activities…”

So bring a friend to worship.  Sit next to someone you don’t know.  Talk with your brother about how he decides to spend – or give – his money.  Show up at a service project.  Help out at the after school program.  Read the Bible.  Pray. Come to Faith Builders.

A lot of people I know tell me that they can’t read while they’re riding in a car or on the bus.  There’s something about the motion that distracts their concentration, or invites them towards nausea.  How often do you see anyone reading – or praying, or contemplating – on the carousel?  Not often.  It’s too hard to be looking deeply for meaning and purpose when the world is so loud and is whizzing by and it’s about all you can do to reach out for a glimpse of grandpa every now and them.

But in the lighthouse, it’s a little slower.  A little quieter.  And you can stop to read, to talk, to pray, to think if you need to.  So come in, and take a look around.  And encourage someone else to climb in with you.  I dare you.  Amen.

Twelve-year-old Reuben was among the tallest boys around.  He was smart, he was well-spoken – he was the kind of boy that any dad in Nazareth would have been proud of – except for that arm.  Something had happened the day he was born, and ever since then, his left arm had hung limp by his side…useless.  No, it was worse than useless.  If it were merely useless, then Reuben would have overcome that already by virtue of his hard work and his desire to please his family.  Every day, Reuben showed up at the grinding mill, where with his one good arm he hitched the donkey to the wheel and loaded flour and grain and helped people who were eager to feed their families.

Yet every day of his life, Reuben endured the scorn of those who believed that his disability was an affliction sent by God to punish him for some sin.  The children his age taunted him.  He was unable to think about joining his father in service at the Temple.[1]  Perhaps that’s why he was so quiet and introspective.  I don’t really know.  I do know that most of the time he watched as an outsider.

I also know of one day, like most days, when he helped old Rachel pour out grain to be ground into flour.  She seemed to come every day, like clockwork.  He was glad for that, because unlike most of the customers who tried to avoid him, Rachel actually treated him as a human, and spoke with him almost like an equal.  As he helped her, he commented, “Are you baking again?  You cook more bread than anyone I know!  Who is there to eat all this bread?  Do you have a lot of relatives who stay with you?”

The older woman smiled and said simply, “Well, not in the way that you’re thinking of.”  She paused, and then continued, “Look – tomorrow is the Sabbath.  Why don’t you come and see me and share some of this bread?”

As he wandered through the village the next day, Reuben thought about Rachel.  She may have been a widow, he thought, yet he couldn’t remember her having any children.  At any rate, he knew that she went through a lot of flour.  He arrived at her home, which was empty – but clearly ready for company.  There were several benches, and the table was laden with freshly-baked bread as well as a large container of wine.  There was also a scroll on the table.

“Welcome to my home,” Rachel beamed.  “I have lived here for nearly my entire life.  I came back here to stay after my husband, Joses, died.”  She noted the unasked question on Reuben’s face, and continued, “No, we did not have any children…he died before that prayer could be answered.”

Reuben, who had four brothers and two sisters, blurted out, “You must be awfully lonely, then!”  Yet as he said it, he couldn’t help but wonder about those vast sacks of flour that she used.

“Oh, no, my friend.  If there’s one thing I’m not, it’s lonely.  I was, and might still be, were it not for a conversation I had many years ago.”

She continued.  “Have you heard of the teacher, Jesus?”

Reuben nodded – there was nobody in Galilee who hadn’t heard of this man.  “He’s the one who was killed – in a rebellion or something? – a long time ago, right?”

“Yes,” Rachel said, “he was the son of Joseph and Mary, crucified more than 25 years ago by the Romans.”  She sighed, and the room got very quiet.

“He was the most amazing man I ever knew,” Rachel offered, with a faraway look in her eyes.  “Although we didn’t speak much as children, I saw him most days when I was growing up.  He was several years older than I.  When I was about fifteen, I married his brother, Joses.  At that time, Joses and Jesus were working together in the carpentry shop their father had established.”

“Oh, Reuben, it was so wonderful to be young,” the older woman gushed.  “As Jesus was not married, he was often in our home.  We ate together.  We laughed – oh, how we laughed together!  And Jesus – well, Jesus knew the scripture better than anyone I’d ever met.  He was far wiser than any of the teachers of the Law we had in town then – but he was only a carpenter!  He spoke so beautifully of God’s ways – every time we spoke, I wanted to hear more and more and more.”

“But then things changed.  Jesus just quit one day.  He left the shop and went down to the lake.  He became a teacher, and even gathered a few followers to his side.  And then, even though he wasn’t at home, it was a wonderful change, at least at first.  One day, I was taking him some bread, and I saw him heal a blind man!  I had known that man my whole life, and when Jesus touched him, he could see!”

“I don’t know whether it was the miracles that brought people or his teaching.  One day, there were more than 5,000 men who gathered just to listen to him speak.  Jesus – our Jesus – was becoming famous!”

“But as his popularity increased, we saw him less and less.  Oh, we still got together for family meals, but he was rarely there.  And when he did come, he was never alone.  I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the times that year when he showed up at the door by himself.  Always, he had two or three – or fifteen or twenty – people with him.”

“At first, I thought them to be students, and I tried to respect them.  Even though most of them were fishermen, we didn’t mind.  All of us knew someone who worked hard out on the lake, and I sure didn’t begrudge them.”

“But soon enough, he started showing up with all sorts of people!  We would be gathered for dinner and Jesus would walk in with a tax collector or someone even worse!  One time, he tried to bring a Samaritan into our home!  There were women who I knew to be prostitutes – and he must have, too – he couldn’t have been that blind.  I was embarrassed!”

“And then, in my mind, it just got worse and worse, Reuben.  Can you imagine trying to eat dinner and having a leper walk into your home?  Sure, he said he’d been cleansed, but when you’ve known a person to be sick for fifteen years, you don’t expect him to just ‘get better’ from leprosy.  And there were beggars, and cripples and…”

Here, Rachel’s voice trailed off as she found herself gazing uncomfortably at the withered arm that hung by Reuben’s side.

“Reuben, I’m not proud of this, but the truth is that I allowed my irritation with Jesus’ friends to drive me away from him.  Know this, Reuben, and know it well: I loved Jesus.  But I simply could not stand his friends.  And so gradually, I began to remove myself from Jesus’ presence.”

“After I complained for a while, Joses and I eventually moved down to Tiberias where he started his own carpentry shop.  We rarely spoke of Jesus, and saw him even less.  I cut Jesus out of my life altogether.”

“During this time, my mother-in-law, Mary, came to visit.  She was not one to beat around the bush, and she simply came out and asked me about my absence from Nazareth.  I was ashamed, and embarrassed.  I didn’t want to say anything.  But finally I erupted into anger.”

“It had always been clear that Jesus was her favorite child, and I surely didn’t want to offend her – she’d been nothing but kind to me.  But my anger towards these ‘friends’ – and towards Jesus himself – had been simmering for so long that I just exploded into a tirade about Jesus and the people he kept bringing home.”

“To my great surprise, she listened, and then she smiled, and then she said, ‘Well, Rachel, I know how you feel!’  Just like that!  Plain as day, his own mother agreed with me.”

“She talked to me about the early days – even when he was born.  I had never heard about the fact that she’d given birth to him in a stable, nor about the fact that while she was just recovering from that, a group of shepherds came barging in and wanted to see the baby!  Can you imagine that?  Her, covered with blood and who knows what else, and these hooligans from outside coming in and talking about angels and other nonsense?”

“Not long after that, Mary told me, there was a group of gentiles who came looking for him.  Again, these strangers just barged right into the house where they were staying.  They said all kinds of strange things about her son, and gave her some strange presents, and then just left.”

“And then Mary said, ‘But in some ways, that was just the start.  When Jesus was growing up, he would have conversations with the strangest people.  Joseph and I never knew where we’d find him, or who he’d be with.  It used to really irritate me…no, worse than that, Jesus was scaring me.’”

Rachel sat for a moment, remembering this conversation with Jesus’ mother.  She continued: “I interrupted Mary, and I said, ‘but you have always stayed with him!  How?  Why?’”

“And Mary looked back at me and said simply, ‘He is my son.  He is the reason I am who I am, in many ways.  And I love him. I do not expect him to live a long life.  And I want him near me every day.  And if loving him means loving his friends, then I guess that I can learn how to do that!’”

The house was quiet for what seemed like a long time.  Finally, Rachel spoke again, saying, “You have heard what happened to Jesus, I know.”

Again, Reuben simply nodded.  Everyone in Galilee knew what happened to Jesus, and to anyone who stood against the establishment.  The crosses from Rome appeared as frequent reminders of what happened when people asked big questions.  The boy didn’t know what to say, and so he was silent.

Rachel continued, “About a year after Jesus was killed, my husband Joses died when a house collapsed on him.  At that point, I moved back to Nazareth. I hoped to find Mary, but she had gone to Jerusalem.  I was alone.”

The enormity of that struck Reuben – he, who was surrounded by a large and loving family – tried to picture Rachel as a young widow with no family, no children, no means of support.  He tried to think of life without his family – what it would be like to live here among the mockers, all alone.  He offered, “It must have been terrible.”

“It was at first.  Simply horrible.  But then something happened.  Something I couldn’t have imagined, and surely didn’t deserve.  Jesus’ friends began to come and visit.  They brought me gifts – a little food, some firewood.  I noticed that the same people who used to frustrate, or anger, or disgust me were now treating me as if I was their family.  They were different.  I was different.”

“After a couple of months, it occurred to me that this home is bigger than I need.  There are several rooms here.  We began to meet regularly, every Sabbath.  We remember Jesus.  We share his teachings, and we try to live the way that he taught us to.  We tell others about not only his death, but his resurrection.  And we invite any who care to to follow us as we follow The Way.”

The boy didn’t know what to say.  He wasn’t really hungry, and yet the smell of bread filled his nostrils.  He surely wasn’t looking for a new religion, and yet there was a presence in the room that defied explanation.

Rachel was clearly not in a hurry.  Finally, she gestured towards the table. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t wish I’d have treated him differently in those years when I ran away”, she said.  “When I think about all the time I missed…all those things he went through without his family nearby…well, I feel empty.  And now, I miss him terribly.  But at least his friends…my friends…our friends…still come by.”

“We’ll be having dinner soon.  It’s not much – some bread, and a little wine.  A young man named Mark has just arrived from Rome, where Jesus’ friend Peter is in jail.  He’s brought a message.  I hope you’ll stay, Reuben.”

Do you know, that was the first time in his life someone other than his family asked Reuben to share a meal.  And he stayed.  And his world was never the same since that day when he met Jesus’ friends…and became one of them.

It would be nice if this story ended with me telling you that Reuben’s arm was healed and he went off to serve as a priest in the Temple.  But that didn’t happen.

Reuben did become a follower of The Way.  He learned, and he then talked about Jesus every chance he got.  He learned to break the bread and baptize people one-handed.  And, so far as I know, he never stopped looking for – or loving – Jesus’ friends.  Thanks be to God for that.  Amen.

It’s easy to be sentimental about Christmas.  We sit and we bask in the candlelight and to think about all the things that warm our hearts.  We read about the innkeeper who didn’t make room for the holy family, and we swear that we’d do things differently.  To quote Peter Storey,

Some tell us that following Jesus is a simple matter of inviting him into our hearts. But when we do that, Jesus always asks, “May I bring my friends?” And when we look at them, we see that they are not the kind of company we like to keep. The friends of Jesus are the outcasts, the marginalized, the poor, the homeless, the rejected — the lepers of life.

We hesitate and ask, “Jesus, must we really have them too?”

Jesus replies, “Love me, love my friends!”[2]

As we begin the new year, let me say that I hope you have Jesus in your heart.  And it may be that as you wander through the days and months to come, you’ll catch a glimpse of Jesus. I hope so.  I guarantee that you will see his friends.  I promise you that you will.  In the year to come, love him – and love his friends.

What does the number one grossing movie of all time have to do with a gathering of 318 leaders of the church that took place in 325 AD, and why should you care about that?

Well, for starters, what is the number one grossing movie of all time?  It was released in 2009…it won three Oscars, essentially all of which have to do with visual effects…it stars Sam Worthington as a paraplegic Marine who adopts  second identity… Yes, the movie is Avatar, which has grossed nearly $2.8 billion worldwide.[1]

Have you seen this movie?  It’s a good one, and the Oscars for the artwork are well-deserved. It is a lush and beautiful world.  Avatar is but the most popular of a long line of Hollywood blockbusters that center on the theme of an alien presence who comes into the home world disguised as one of us, but who we, the movie-going public, know to be quite different.  Think about Men In Black, Battlestar Galactica, or, for those who favor the older films, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  All of these stories explore the possibility that an alien race has managed to infiltrate our own – they sound and look and smell and act like us, but at the end of the day, they are not us… and that usually has deadly consequences for all kinds of people (and aliens!).

OK, that’s the movie.  How about that church meeting?  In the opening years of the fourth century, Constantine united his Empire militarily and politically. He became a follower of Jesus, and was concerned that the church, too, be united.  However, there was a dispute raging within the Body of Christ at that time, and it centered on the question of who, or what, was Jesus?

Some folks, such as the Ebionites, taught that Jesus was an ordinary man who somehow, at his baptism, became filled with the Spirit of God and that allowed him to do things that no one else had ever done.  He was a human who was transformed by the power of the divine – just like Jake Sully, in Avatar, was a human who, through mysterious means, became one of the Na’vi people.

Others, often called Docetists, said that Jesus was God, and not human.  Oh, sure, he acted like a man, but that was just for appearances’ sake.  In reality, they said, Jesus was God in a man-suit, the Divine impersonator.  If you’re a Battlestar Galactica fan, I suppose, that makes Jesus a Cylon “skin job”.

Emperor Constantine and his mother, Helena

When Constantine declared Christianity to be the official religion of the Roman Empire, the logical question was, “what kind of Christianity?”  Two of the more powerful voices involved in that discussion were men named Arius and Athanasius.  Arius taught that Jesus was created by God at some point before the Garden of Eden.  God knew what was going to happen, and so Jesus was conceived and made to be a sort of Divine “Plan B”.  Athanasius, on the other hand, said that Jesus shares eternity and divinity with God and the Holy Spirit – that there has never been a time when Jesus was not.  God, from eternity, has always existed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, even though the human presence of Jesus was felt on this planet for three decades some two thousand years ago.

Although the Emperor was not a trained theologian, he saw that there were some problems, and he called the leaders of the church to come together in the town of Nicaea, in Turkey.  While there, they debated the merits of Arius’ and Athanasius’ arguments, and, believe it or not, the argument (which actually lasted for most of the fourth century) came down to a single letter – an iota, the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet – in one word.

Everybody agreed that Jesus was something special.  But who was Jesus, really?  The first draft of the document the church leaders proposed said that Jesus Christ, the begotten Son of God the Father, is of one substance with the Father.  The Greek word there is “homoousios”. A minority of scholars, however persisted in saying that Jesus Christ, the begotton Son of God the Father, is of like substance with the father.  That word is “homoiousios”.  The question at hand was this: is Jesus God, or is Jesus like God?

For fifty-six years debate went on (and you thought a 22 minute sermon was tedious!), until in 381 the Council of Constantinople approved a statement that we now as the Nicene Creed, and which says, “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father…”[2]

And now, somewhere in the sanctuary, I hear a voice crying…pleading… saying “Make him stop!  Please, dear Lord…who cares?  I didn’t come to church this morning to be lectured to about a church argument from 1800 years ago.  I hear that voice.  And listen: if it was only an 1800 year-old argument, I wouldn’t waste your time or my breath.  But it’s not ancient history – it’s the question of the hour.  Who, or what, is Jesus?

Throughout Advent, we’ve been talking about the people we meet at the Nativity.  We’ve looked at Wise Men and Shepherds, at Joseph and Mary.  But we can’t stop this series until we look into the manger.  Who is laying there, and, depending on whether you can believe the Christmas Carol, “no crying he makes…”?

Jesus is there.  Baby Jesus, in the manger.  Who is he?

If you go with the Ebionites, and some Gnostics and other folks, well, that’s just your typical baby boy.  Nothing special about that child at all – a human being just like you and me.  Exactly like you and me.  When he grows up, he’ll have some exploring and some explaining to do, but now – he’s a baby.  End of story.

And if you pay attention to the Docetists, you’ll think that no, this baby lying in the manger is actually the greatest hoax ever perpetrated – because the God of the universe has come down and put on a little baby suit so that he won’t be recognized.  He looks like a baby, smells like a baby, and cries like a baby – but he’s really God, just biding his time for a few decades until it’s time to make his move.

When Jesus was laying in the manger, did he know what was coming?  Was God simply pretending?  When he grew up, did he need to go to school? After all, if he was fully God, wouldn’t he know everything already (in which case, he would be the absolute perfect lab partner, right?  “Hey, Jesus, can you take a look at this theory for me…?”)

Or was Jesus only a baby, a normal child who grew up and one day was saddled with this “God thing” that came upon him, much like the lead character in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, in which an unwitting young Jew is mistaken for a prophet and becomes a reluctant Messiah?

Paul, writing to his friends in Philippi, addresses this question.  He says that Jesus always was, and is, and always will be.  He existed with God the Father before any creation began, and will be for eternity.  But because of his love for God the Father and for the creation itself, Jesus emptied himself.  He set aside certain aspects of his divinity so that he would become fully and utterly human.

Those who wrote the Nicene Creed understood this, because the lines of the creed which follow those I’ve already read are these: “For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human.”

Image by Ariel Carver, taken from "I WIll Hold My Candle & Other Stories for Christmas" ©2011

The theological term is “incarnation” – from the Latin incarnatio. In meaning in and caro meaning flesh.  In flesh.  Enfleshed.  Jesus, the Son, in flesh.

That, beloved, is the amazing gift of Christmas.  We have come to worship a God who knows us because of the humanity of Jesus – and it is precisely in that knowing that our salvation lies.

Think of who you are.  Not who you want to be, or who you are afraid of becoming; not who you wish others to believe you to be, or who you used to be, or who you’re going to be when you finally stop fooling around and get your act together.  Who you are, right now.  God, in Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, knows that you.  And God, in Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, loves that you.  There is no part of you that is unknown to God.  There is no one in this room that is unloved by God.

I spoke with a man who struggles with anger, and he wept as he told me of the time that he raised a hand to someone else.  That’s a serious problem…but do you suppose that there was ever a time when Jesus looked at someone and said, “You know what I’d like to do?  I’d like to pop you in the mouth right now…”  I think so!  He was human.  I mean, there’s no indication that Jesus ever went off on someone, but he was human – he had to be tempted to do that.

In the same way, to those of you who struggle with sexual purity: isn’t it possible – no, isn’t it likely – that Jesus looked at someone and said, “You know what I’d like to do?  I’d like to kiss you on the lips right now…”?  Again, there’s no record of his thoughts there, but remember that Hebrews 4:15 says “For we do not have a high priest incapable of sympathizing with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet without sin.”  If Jesus was human, Jesus was tempted.

Some of the temptation and pain that Jesus endured are recorded in the Gospels.  Have you been lonely?  Do you remember Jesus’ anguished cries in the Garden of Gethsemane, “will none of you wait with me?  No one?”

Who hasn’t struggled with pain and fear of the future?  It sure seems like Jesus did.  As his own death approached, what did he say? “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me…”

The fact that Jesus is fully human and fully God should be of great comfort to anyone who recognizes their own humanity.  The essence of the Christmas story is that whatever it means to be a human being, Jesus is that.  And at the same time, whatever it means to be God, Jesus is that, too.  Jesus is God for humanity and at the same time is humanity for God.  What amazingly and wondrously good news for those humans who want to know God!

Listen to me: four weeks ago I started talking about Advent and I told you that it was originally a time of confession and repentance.  It’s been called a “little Lent” because of the ways that we are invited to consider our own brokenness as we prepare for the birth of the Savior.  Unfortunately, sometimes it’s hard to do that.  I mean, we’re supposed to have “the holiday spirit” and all that.  We can be in a rush to get to the angels singing “Gloria” and the star shining brightly and Good Christian Men Rejoicing.   I know.  I’m partly to blame, because I’m picking the songs here.

But here’s the deal.  It’s December 18.  The next six days are, for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the shortest and darkest days of the entire year.  I know, Andy Williams and Johnny Mathis and I don’t know who else want you to believe that this is “the most wonderful time of the year…the hap-happiest season of all”, but I can’t ever seem to get there.  I love the holiday, but it’s dark and cold and I miss the people who have been here before…I miss the way it used to be…I am enraged by the things that are wrong…and sometimes I feel guilty for not being all happy clappy at Christmas. I hate the dark, and I miss the light.

So here’s what I want to invite you to do.  Enter into the darkness of these next six days.  Look at your self.  Your real self – not the self you present to others.  Look at your humanity, and all that is wonderful about that, and all that troubles you about that.  Talk with God, in Jesus’ name, about the things that you wish were different, and about the things you are glad for.  Engage.  Reflect.  Confess.

And then, let’s meet together again on Saturday night.  By then the days will be getting a little longer.  And we’ll have some candles to hold.  And we’ll approach the manger together, and behold

the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, no made, of one Being with the Father… For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human.

Engage your human self this week, and give that human self to Jesus.  And come Saturday night, we’ll ask Jesus for a bit of His Self.

He will not say no.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

This Advent, we’ve been taking a look at the people who gather in and around the manger in Bethlehem.  We’ve tried to think about what they left behind, what they brought with them, and the impact that the visit had on their lives.

Last week, we spent some time with the shepherds, and we noted that these men left their busyness and their commerce and in so doing were able to participate in a night of wonder, worship, and celebration.

Two weeks ago, we watched the Magi leave the comfort of their own homes and the security of the answers that they already knew so that they might enter into a new season of learning and growth.

This morning’s scripture points us towards the Holy Family themselves.  What did they leave, and what was the result in their lives?  As the Gospel of Matthew is mostly concerned with the story of Joseph, we’ll look at things from his vantage point.

We learn that Joseph and Mary are betrothed.  Sometimes, we read that passage and we assume that means they are engaged and we think, “Oh, engaged!  I know what that means.”  We all know people who have gotten engaged as they moved towards discerning what marriage would mean for them.

In their culture, however, the betrothal between Mary and Joseph has a far different meaning than our modern-day “engagement”.  According to the customs of the time, these two would have been engaged prior to their betrothal.  The first step in a formal marriage was when the fathers of the bride and groom came together and negotiated an agreement that the two would be married.  These men would act as agents for their children in formalizing their relationship and begin the process of arranging for the families to come together.

The next stage involved a betrothal ceremony in which the parties would make promises of fidelity to each other in front of witnesses and the groom would present his intended with gifts.  This level of relationship was legally binding and could not be dissolved except through divorce.  In fact, if a man died during the time of betrothal, the woman was considered by those in the village to be a widow.  After the ceremony, the man would separate from his betrothed and build or prepare his house to accommodate his family.

The final stage of the marriage process was when the man and his friends would come to the bride’s home and declare that all was in order, and so the marriage feast could begin.  There was often a year between the time of betrothal and the celebration of the wedding feast.[1]

It is during this time of betrothal that Joseph is confronted with the inconvenient truth that his fiancé happens to be pregnant with a child that is not his.  The vows of betrothal have been violated. This is clearly not right.  Joseph has the rights of an injured party.

Look at what Matthew chooses to tell us about Joseph: that he is a “righteous” (or “just” – the word is the same in Greek) man.  The Gospel of Matthew was written primarily for Jewish people who had come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, and when Matthew uses the term “righteous”, he is using it in the way that many rabbis in the first century might have understood it.  “Righteousness” is maintaining appropriate, or “right” conduct in the eyes of the Lord.  The rabbis taught that as humans sought to please God, they were most likely to do that by following the Law.

Well, on this point, the Law seems pretty clear: Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy all contain passages indicating that adultery is an offense punishable by death.[2]  Following the Law would mean death for Mary.

Yet the rabbis also taught that just as God may sometimes exercise unexpected and undeserved mercy because he is righteous, so too for humans, mercy is better than a slavish adherence to the Law.

So Joseph, because he is righteous, cannot in good conscience follow through on this marriage, because there has clearly been a departure from the Law.  Yet, because he is righteous, he also cannot bear to see his betrothed shamed or killed.  And so, on the basis of his righteousness – and I’m repeating that word over and over again because I want us all to see that Joseph’s conduct is based on his understanding of who God is and what God expects from us – because of his righteousness, Joseph decides to be quiet and discreet in beginning the process of divorce.

The risk here, especially to a man who has the reputation for righteousness, is that people will say that he is soft on the Law and that he is in fact condoning adultery.  After all, if the law says “death”, then why not “death”?  That’s not really your call to make, Joseph…

But before his plan can be implemented, Joseph has the dream wherein the angel tells him to go ahead and finish the plans for the marriage – to go through with it after all.  And he does.

And if divorce carries with it a sense of leaving himself open to judgment for being soft on the Law, then this behavior carries an even greater stigma. People who know Joseph will assume something untrue about him.  They might think that he is a liar and a fraud – he had this great reputation for righteousness, and now his own fiancée is knocked up.  You can just hear the tongues wagging, can’t you?

And even if they don’t think that he’s lying about the baby’s paternity, at best people will think that Joseph is an idiot.  Why in the world would you enter into a marriage covenant with someone who is so demonstrably proven to be untrustworthy?  Joseph, you’re a nice guy, but you are pretty thick some days…

Can you see that for Joseph and Mary, following the path that leads to the manger has a cost?  The implication of the Gospel is fairly clear at this point: if you take your faith seriously; if you seek to live a life that is rooted in righteousness – that is, acting in such a way to please God and love your neighbor – then it’s very possible that the people around you will come to the conclusion that you are either a fraud and a hypocrite or that you are simply not right in the head.

Participation in the events of that first Christmas cost the shepherds a night of their time and put their flocks at risk for a brief period.  It cost the Magi something else – more time and more money, perhaps, but for them it’s possible that the search for the newborn King was something that preoccupied them for a season.  For Joseph and Mary, however, the cost was very different.  When they chose to listen to the angelic message and shape their behavior accordingly, they knew that they would be treated differently by the people around them for the rest of their lives.

Friends, this is not simply a story about a young couple from another time and place.  This is a fundamental truth that is applicable today.  If you choose to take the meaning and message of Christmas seriously, you will find yourself in places where the people around you will think that you are nuts.

I know a man who was convinced that his company was behaving unethically, if not illegally.  On the basis of his own faith and ethical commitment, he approached his superiors and was told, “Look, you want to work here, you play by our rules.  You want to change the rules, then get another job.”  He began to look, but was blacklisted by his employer so that he could not find work in his own field.  That led to a prolonged period of unemployment and tremendous financial difficulties for him and for his family, and things only changed for him when he entered an entirely new profession.  He was a righteous man who, based on the depth of his own convictions, could not support what he knew to be wrong.  And it cost him.

What about the young person at school who is different than the rest of the kids?  Maybe it’s a medical condition, maybe it’s a life-situation, maybe it’s a choice that the other kid made – but do you remember how difficult and how painful it can be to stand up for – or stand next to – the one who is so different?  What will people think if you start hanging around people like that?

In this season of consumer spending and gift-giving, what about those parents who are seeking to make decisions about gifts on the basis of what is needed or what will bring health and joy to the community, rather than simply buying the newest load of loud, shiny junk?  When “everyone” has to have the latest bells and whistles, how do they explain to their children that the Author of Christmas did not come so that we would all get iPhones without guilt?

Here’s what I’m getting at: this year, as every year, you will not be able to go very far without encountering a nativity set.  You may have one in your home.  There’s one up front here.  Several churches are offering “live nativity” displays, there’s the giant one downtown, and so on.  There’s no getting around it.  You’re going to pass the manger.

But that’s all you have to do – pass it.  Nobody is going to make you come inside.  As we said last week, it’s entirely possible that a lot of people – not just the shepherds – heard the angel voices that first Christmas Eve.  Only a few shepherds actually went, though.  You are free to ignore or acknowledge the nativity.

However, should you choose to enter into the story – should you follow the star, listen to the angel’s songs, or hear God speaking in your own dreams, make sure you realize that you will be changed.  There is a cost.

Back to Joseph.  Think about this: when he died, nobody knew that Jesus was the Messiah.  Nobody knew about the virgin birth.  Nobody knew about the resurrection.  From the night he had that dream until the night he died, there were people who thought Joseph was either a fraud or an idiot.  And Mary.  There were people in her town who went to their graves convinced that she put one over on Joseph and that she was lucky to be alive after running around the way she must have.

Living the gospel way is not for sissies, and it’s not for people who are merely looking for the flavor of the month, spiritually speaking. It’s a demanding calling that will take all of you.

Fortunately, you are not in this alone.  Joseph and Mary had each other, and they each had angels behind them.  In addition, they were supported by those shepherds and wise men we keep mentioning.  Elizabeth and Zechariah came alongside of them.  They were sheltered later on in Egypt.

If you are intent on going inside the manger and even following in the footsteps of Jesus, know that you need the community around you as much as did Jesus’ parents.  Accept the support of those who are here, and reach out to them in ways that will strengthen them to live in the way of righteousness – pleasing God and loving their neighbors.

In the third century, a man named Tertullian was living the high life in the North African city of Carthage.  He was rich, pampered, and on a fast track towards being a celebrity.  He heard about the Christians, and considered them to be ignorant and stupid.  Yet as he watched, he became fascinated by the ways in which contemptible slaves and weak little servant girls were willing to die for their beliefs and for each other.  As he continued to investigate this little group of Christians, Tertullian eventually became a Christian himself, and devoted the rest of his life to writing for and about the cause of Christ.  He was the first person to write about Jesus in the Latin language.  When he talked about the church, he continued to marvel at the ability of a Christian community to change people’s lives.  “Look”, the pagans say; “See how the Christians love one another (for the pagans are filled with hate); see how they are ready to die for each other (for they themselves are readier to kill).”[3]

May the things that we find when we are together strengthen us for life in the times when we are not together, that we might all be found faithful and righteous in our obedience to the Law and in our care for those around us.  Amen.

I know that you’re used to seeing sermons or long reflections at this site…but here’s a short note inviting you to visit a blog authored by the owner of Hearts and Minds Books in Dallastown, PA.  Byron is a friend who was among the first to take the risk of selling the book in his own bookstore.  Once a month Byron sends out a list of mini-reviews and recommendations.  I was very pleased to see his enthusiastic write-up about my recent book.  As he mentions, if you’d like to purchase a copy, you’ll get a nice discount – and great service – from Byron.  To read his entry, click here. Happy reading!

So…What do you suppose is the longest-running prime-time game show in the history of US television?  Family Feud? Millionaire?  Nope.  Click on this link and take a trip down memory lane (or discover that snazzy graphics weren’t invented in the 21st century….Sheesh!):

What’s My Line debuted in 1950 and was in production until 1975.[1]

My hunch is that most folks under the age of 40 have not seen or heard of the program, so here’s how it worked: There were 3 celebrity panelists who were asked to question contestants in order to determine what their profession was.  These jobs included what you might expect – airline pilot, nurse, housepainter…but also some unusual occupations, such as “breadbox maker”.

“What’s my line?” is a question that I would imagine doesn’t make a lot of sense to many people these days.  While it’s proper to say, “Dave, what line of work are you in?”, that seems old, and stiff, and formal.  More likely, we say, “Dave, what do you do?”  And you might think that’s just a more efficient way of asking the same question using fewer syllables…  But I think that it reflects a change in our cultural understanding.

“What line of work are you in?” invites you to tell me about some aspect of yourself.  The question recognizes that your occupation is a part of who you are, but not the sum.

“What do you do?” is an attempt to get you to define yourself by your profession.  I’m a barber.  I’m a janitor.  I’m retired.   It’s a subtle difference, but I think it’s a difference nonetheless.  I suggest that the truth is that in America in 2011, more often than not, we allow our occupations to define us.  Which is, I might further suggest, at least one reason why there is such misery, grief, and confusion among the unemployed or the underemployed and even the retired.  After all, if I AM what I DO, and what I DO is not valued, then I am not valuable. If I am ashamed of what I do or don’t do, then I am ashamed of myself.  So I like asking “what is your line of work?” or “tell me a little bit about yourself” much more than I like asking “what do you do?”

Believe it or not, I actually tried to find out whether they’d ever had a shepherd as a contestant on “What’s My Line”, but even with the vast tools of the internet and six minutes of research time, I couldn’t get an answer to that one.  But I can guarantee that if this show was running in Jerusalem in 4 BC, shepherds would not have made the guest list.

We love the shepherds at our mangers.  We like to think of the sheep as cute and cuddly and the shepherds as gentle, yet strong protectors.  That’s us.

Most middle-easterners, in biblical times at any rate, thought of shepherds as low-lifes who were rude and dirty.  They were men who were believed to be unfit for anything else, and commonly perceived as thieves.  Their reputation for untrustworthiness was so engrained in the culture that the law forbade a shepherd from ever testifying in court.  Why bother?  You can’t ever believe a shepherd…

And yet…and yet, when Mary and Joseph are huddled around the newborn Son of God, the angels appeared to a group of shepherds.  Isn’t that crazy? God’s PR campaign for the “Messiah Initiative” begins with a group of men who were legally unable to tell the truth in a court of law…  That’s irony.

Portinari altarpiece by Hugo Van Der Goes (1476)

And when the angels show up, what happens? The shepherds leave their jobs and go running off into the village to check out this God-thing that is going on.  Isn’t that just like a shepherd?  Seriously!  You can’t rely on these jokers for anything.  No wonder nobody trusts them – they leave the sheep and go traipsing off after some song and dance from the angels.  No sense of commitment, I tell you…

Here’s a question for you.  When you think of shepherds and Christmas, where do you picture them?  Don’t we always have them hanging around the manger?  Last week, we talked about the fact that the Magi would have had to make a journey that lasted months to arrive and worship.  The shepherds were close by.  Whenever we put up a crèche, where are they?  Right there.  In fact, they’ve been lollygagging over there under the Christmas tree for more than a week now.

But check out verse 20.  What do the shepherds do?  They go back to work.  They returned, glorifying and praising God…  That doesn’t sound like typical shepherd behavior to me.  I mean, if they really were as lazy and shiftless as everyone seems to think that they are, then what better excuse to stick around town and have a couple of beers and some wings?  “Wow, Larry, how about those angels?  God’s Son coming into the world…this round is on me, boys!”

Only that’s not what happens.  They go back to work.  They are full of praise and glory – they are changed – but they return to their occupation and responsibilities.

I know that not every adult in this room is employed or has a job.  But each of us have work to do.  For some, there is a profession or an occupation.  For others, there is the care for a child, a spouse, or a parent.  We pray, we garden, we volunteer, we encourage each other through the written or spoken word… each of us works.  It’s a part of the created order – God gave Adam & Eve work to do.  Work is a good thing.

Do you ever leave your work?  I mean, do you, like the shepherds, ever turn aside and “go with haste” to a place of wonder and amazement?  How hard is it for you to set aside the business of your day and find a quiet place?

Some might say, “Oh, I wish!  But you know, if I stop working for a day or so, there’s so much to do when I get back it’s just crazy.  My boss is a tyrant.  My work environment is insane.  Trust me, if I let up for a minute, I’m hopelessly behind.”

And others might respond, “Wow, that’s lucky for you.  Nobody even notices me at work.  Heck, I could be playing solitaire on my smart phone all day and it wouldn’t make a difference.  I am never even tuned in at work.”

And someone else might think, “At least you have somewhere to go.  I don’t do a thing.  I am just useless.”

Another way of asking the same, or a similar question: why do you do the things you do?  What is it that keeps you working at whatever work is in front of you?

Do you keep working because you’ve got bills to pay?  And is the work that you do enough to pay for what you need?  Are you working for things like food and shelter, or are you working to have newer and shinier toys?  Or do you work because that’s the part of your life where people notice you and affirm you…You get so many props for the things that you DO that it slowly blends into the thing that you ARE?  Or do you labor because you’d feel guilty if you didn’t.  Someone has got to do something around this place, and you’re not going to let people think you’re the slacker?

But whatever your work, do you ever stop?  Can you, like the shepherds, hear the angelic call and follow?  I had an interesting thought this week as I read through Luke.  The shepherds were outside.  The angels appeared in the skies.  Do you think that the shepherds were the only people who saw the angels?  What if there were lots of other people out that night… soldiers… innkeepers… travelers… pastors… What if the roads were full of people who saw something, but were so focused on getting their important work done, or so afraid of what would happen if they left their posts even for a moment, that they could not pay attention to the angels?  Scripture doesn’t say anything about that, does it?  But isn’t it at least possible that there were some people out and about that night who heard the ruckus and decided that it was too risky, too dreamy, or too unproductive to stop their jobs and wander over to the stable?

The shepherds are a good model for what it means to be human.  They are fully engaged in their work, and they notice the Holy when it appears.  They are able to set down their work for a season and enter into a time and place of awe and wonder.  And then they fully re-engage in their work in ways that bring health and fruit for the community.

And this would be a good time for someone to say, “You’re talking pretty big for someone who only works an hour a week, Dave.” Yeah, I get that.  I don’t have a real job.  But I know what it’s like to be trapped by your work.

In 1987 I was putting in between 80 and 90 hours a week at work and at school.  I dried up inside, and was diagnosed with clinical depression and burn out.  I had to leave a job I loved because I wasn’t doing it the way I thought it needed to be done.  I moved to a new town, got a new job, and tried to learn a new way of engaging the world around me.

I came to be the pastor here in 1993.  Eventually, some of the old behaviors caught up with me.  I began to worry, a lot, about my performance as your pastor.  I lived in fear that I was letting someone, somewhere, down.  And so I started to work more.  And harder.  And longer.  And every now and then, I would disappear for a while.

An elder in the church visited me and said, “Dave, I’m worried about you.  You are way too engaged here.  You’ve got to slow down a bit.”  And I looked at her and I said, “You know, that’s why I go to Africa every now and then.  I get so worried about how I am doing or not doing what I’m supposed to do that I just need to get away and be in a different place.”

And she said, “Doesn’t that seem at least a little bit odd to you that you’ve got to physically leave the continent in order to disengage from your professional role?  Are you so task-oriented that you can’t bear the thought of being unavailable and staying on Cumberland St.?”

Bazinga!

One of the enduring gifts of my sabbatical time is, I hope, an ability to look for ways to be my best person and to do my best work in all sorts of areas with intensity and purpose.  To work long and hard at those tasks to which I am called.

And then, to stop for a while.  Since the Sabbatical experience I had last year, I’ve read more than I have in a long time.  I’ve played, and worshiped, and been a good neighbor. I’ve seen some amazingly wondrous things…in my own backyard.  I’ve been able to write more and better material than ever before.

I don’t think that I’m doing any of these things to the detriment of my vocation.  Instead, I think that my participating in some of these behaviors is making me a better pastor who is trying to pay at least as much attention to what God thinks of him as to what the guy in the fourth pew from the back on the right hand side thinks of him…or to what the people I don’t even know, but somehow feel the need to impress think of him…  I think that I’ve learned something from the shepherds about turning aside and sitting down with the Holy for a while.

This Advent, let me invite you to do the same.  If you are doing something because you are driven by some compulsion; if you are consumed by a pressure to DO and to ACCOMPLISH and to PRODUCE – whether it’s for your job or some other need in your life – then let me encourage you to find a way to leave the driven-ness behind and enter into the joy and wonder that waits for each of us in the manger.  Like the shepherds, can we leave our work for a while, and then worship, and then return to our tasks, glorifying God?

Earlier this week, I posted on Facebook and I emailed to everyone whose addresses I have a link to an Advent Devotional.  It’s called Following The Star, and if you’d like to click on that link, you can experience a well-done exercise that includes music, scripture, and space.  That’s a start.  Maybe you can take ten minutes today and listen to some good music, read the scripture, and pray.  Maybe you can do something else.  I hope that in your Advent journey, you will allow God to shape who you ARE, not just what you DO.  Amen.

Our texts for the day included Isaiah 60:1-7 and, of course, Matthew 2:1-12.  

I would imagine that there are very few in the room this morning who are unfamiliar with the Gospel reading.  The story of the wise men, the Magi from the East, who came to worship the Christ child is one of the most enduring images of our holiday celebration.  This is one of those comfortable stories that we expect to hear in this room at least once a year…although those of you who pay attention to the church calendar might be surprised to hear it in November, on the first Sunday of Advent.  We are more accustomed to seeing the three kings in January, as we celebrate Epiphany.

Yet as I mentioned to the children, the Wise Men belong to Advent, too, because they had to plan.  They were on a trip that lasted a long time.  We don’t know how long they were on the road, or when they got home.  But of all the people who crowd our nativity scenes, the Magi are definitely the people who had the longest trip (with the possible exception of the angels, but I’m not going to argue about that with you!).

Think about this: what do the wise men have in common with Patrick Daniel Tillman, Jr., Jimmy Swaggart, and Steven Georgiou?  Do you know these men?

Pat Tillman played football – and played it very well – for the Arizona Cardinals.  Following the terrorist attacks on the USA in 2001, he walked away from a $3.6 million contract with the NFL and enlisted in the Army. He served several tours, including both Iraq and Afghanistan, and was killed in action in April 2004.

Jimmy Swaggart was one of the most successful evangelists of the 20^th century.  By the mid-1980’s, his television program was carried on more than 250 stations; he had founded the Jimmy Swaggart Bible College, and his empire included a printing plant, a recording and television studio, and a $2.5 million collection of private planes and classic automobiles.  Yet his world collapsed in 1988 when he was photographed at the Travel Inn in New Orleans with a prostitute.

Steven Georgiou was a coffee house singer in Britain who had plenty of talent, but felt uncomfortable with his name.  He said, “I couldn’t imagine anyone going to the record store and asking for ‘that Steven Demetre Georgiou album’.”  With that, he changed his name to Cat Stevens, and became one of the most popular musical acts of the 1970’s.  But in 1977 he converted to Islam, and in 1979 he stopped performing and auctioned off all of his guitars for charity. He entered into an arranged marriage and moved to London, where he devoted his time and energy to his family as well as to studying religion and practicing philanthropy.

Pat Tillman, Jimmy Swaggart, and Cat Stevens.  You have probably never heard those three names in the same sentence before, but their lives bear witness to a common theme: they all chose to walk away from something at which they were successful and to which they gave great worth so that they could get closer to something – positive or negative – that they desired more.  It might have been duty, or sex, or faith that called them – but each of these men felt the strong call of something powerful enough to change the fabric of their lives.

Now, think again about the story of the wise men from Matthew 2.  Don’t they have a lot in common with these other three men?  Look at what they left behind in order to journey to Bethlehem and worship the newborn Christ.

The fastest way to the top of Mt. Sinai?

First, they left their comfort behind.  I want to tell you that when I was in the Middle East last year, I had the opportunity to ride a camel all the way up Mt. Sinai.  And I’m here to say that while riding a camel up Mt. Sinai is probably better than walking up Mt. Sinai, I would never use “comfortable” and “camel ride” in the same sentence.  It took about two and a half hours to get up the trail.  My ideal time in a camel saddle, unfortunately, is somewhere around forty-five minutes.  It is not an easy mode of transportation.

While we don’t know where these Wise Men came from, the fact is that they came from somewhere else in a caravan of some magnitude.  I am positive it would have been more convenient for them to stay at home.

In addition to their comfort, the Magi also left their security.  Back in the East, they were the ones who everyone knew.  They were the folks to whom people brought their problems and their hopes, their fears and their dreams.  They were known.  They were respected.  They were trusted.  But here in Palestine, they are just another group of wealthy foreign tourists.  They don’t know where they’re going, exactly.  They don’t know what they’re looking for.  But they are willing to enter into this new place because they believe that here they will find something – and someone – who will change the world.

Of course, we think about the Wise Men as leaving their wealth.  That’s one of the things that we can easily see in the story: we know that they left some costly gifts behind when they visited the Holy Family.  In addition to the gold, frankincense, and myrrh that they gave away, of course, we’ve got to figure in the cost of the trip itself – what percentage of their personal fortune did they spend in order to make this pilgrimage possible?

And let’s not forget that the Magi were willing to leave their accumulation of knowledge behind as well.  These strangers were renowned in their homeland for having accumulated a vast amount of wisdom and learning, and yet they are here because they believe that there may be something more to be learned.  They are open to the idea that they have not figured it all out yet – they were able to leave their answers at home and come and ask some new questions.

Do you see?  They were on the way – they left home believing that One who was worthy of worship could be found – and that would change everything for them.  And so they were willing to leave most of what they had accumulated in their lives in order to find that One Thing, that ultimate Presence and Power, that had eluded them.

Do you see why I think that these Magi are good Advent companions for 21^st-century Pittsburghers?  We are here this morning because we confess that there is something more.  We have come from great places…but there is something greater that we hope for.

As Advent begins, we announce to our culture that there is One who is worthy of worship.  And you and I both know that the world around us is looking for something to fill the holes in our lives.  Think about what’s gone on in the past couple of days.  Friday, November 25^th was called “Black Friday” because it was such a crazy time of buying and spending.  In fact, we bought more stuff on Friday than we buy on any other day of the year…and it’s ironic because we do that less than 24 hours after setting aside an entire day to give thanks for what we already have.  “Congratulations, America!  You have more than anyone in the history of the world ever has!”  “Great.  Thanks…thanks a lot.  Um, now, can I get some more?”

No matter what we have, it would appear, there is one thing missing…one thing that we can never have… “enough”.

The Wise Men ride off into the sunset in Matthew 2:12.  We don’t know anything else about them…only this telling phrase: “they departed to their own country by another road.”  I suspect that means two things: first, that instead of taking the turnpike, they went over the scenic route, and secondly, that they themselves went home differently.  The time on the road, the time searching, the time they spent together, and the encounter with the Holy Family had left them changed.  They were different men when they arrived in their own towns.  The journey, and that which they had left as well as that which they gained, had changed them.

This Advent, let me invite you to see yourself as someone who is on the way.  Let me challenge you to risk leaving some of what is for the dream of what might be.  Let me invite you to open your heart to the reality that your comfort, your security, your wealth, and your knowledge are incomplete – and that there is One who waits for you and who longs to bring you into a new sense of who you are and who you can be in this world.

In a few moments, we’ll be sharing in the sacrament of Communion.  Typically when we do this, we sit in our seats and wait for the elements to come to us.  We receive them in the midst of our own comfort and location.  But this morning, we are going to invite you to come forward to receive the Lord’s Supper.

Already today, you have left your home.  You have left your stuff behind; many of you have left family, friends, and other scheduled activities to participate in worship.  Wonderful.  In a few moments we will invite you to come forward, and when we do so, let me ask you to leave even more of your stuff behind.  Don’t bring your purse or your bulletin or your cell phone with you.  Leave that stuff in the pew, and come forward – bringing nothing – to receive the elements of communion.

Don’t do that because we are here to worship the bread or the cup – but do so because that is a physical way to demonstrate a spiritual truth: we are sustained in this life and in the next, not by the stuff we manage to accumulate or even the people who tag along with us, but by the presence of the living Christ.  As the Magi found the Christ child worthy of their worship, so we, too, confess that He alone is worthy of our worship.  Our lives may not be as noteworthy as those of the wise men, and certainly not as dramatic as the three examples we considered above, but we, no less than any of these other people, have the chance to leave behind that which does not satisfy in order to gain that which will.  In this room, at this time, through these elements, Jesus the Lord promises to be present to you.  That is something worth traveling for.  That is something worth having.  That is something worthy of worship.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Earlier this week, we began to plan the 2012 Adult Mission Trip.  As we did so, we heard the sobering news that the place we’ve gone for the last two years, McAllen, Texas, has recently been designated as “the poorest place in the USA”.[1] To those of us who have traveled there, it’s not a surprise – the official poverty rate is 33%, and only 62% of the adults graduate from high school.  It is a difficult place to visit.  But less than 200 miles up the road is the town of Corpus Christi, Texas, and the story is a little different there.  In the 78471 ZIP code, the average income tax return lists almost $800,000 in annual income – or nearly 23 times the average household income in McAllen.[2]

If you’ve seen the news, you’ll know that the folks in the “Occupy” movement are raising this issue as if it were something new.  The truth is that it is not. Although it is alarming to see it on the increase here in the USA, there has always been a disparity of wealth.  In fact, this morning’s scripture comes from a place where that was true two thousand years ago.

The situation at the middle of the first century was that the main body of Christians in Jerusalem was having a very difficult time financially.  There had been a famine, and people were struggling.  In fact, the Christians there authorized the Apostle Paul to visit churches in other parts of the world in an effort to bring some relief.  Paul appealed to the church in the town of Corinth, not far away from Athens, Greece.  Corinth was a busy town with a lot of commerce.  It sat right in the middle of one of the most important trade routes between Europe and Asia, and Paul knows that the Christians who are there can afford to help out.  They’ve done so before – in fact, he mentions the same offering at the end of 1 Corinthians.  But in our reading from 2 Corinthians today, he revisits the topic and asks them if they are sure that they are doing everything they can to help out those who are struggling.

There was a lot going on in the Corinthian church, but financial need did not seem to be a part of that picture.  Those folks were sitting pretty.  But less than 200 miles up the road things were a little tougher.  The towns of Macedonia, like Thessalonica, Philippi, and Berea, were having a hard time.  The believers there were among the poorest of the poor.  In fact, those churches were struggling so much that when Paul made his initial appeal for help, he didn’t even bother to ask the Macedonians.

But here’s the crazy thing: when the people in Macedonia heard about the troubles that the people in Jerusalem were having, they came to Paul and asked if they could help out.  They literally begged him to take their money.

I know that some of you get out of bed every week and say to yourselves, “You know what would make today great?  If Pastor Dave would give us one of those sermons where he talks a lot about obscure Greek words.  I love it when he does that.”  Well, my friends, today is your lucky day, because in order to see what is going on in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, you’re going to have to polish up your Greek.  I want to focus on four key words in this passage.

First, Paul writes that these poor Christians “begged us earnestly” to participate in this offering.  The Greek word there is parakleseos – and it means “cried out” – they pleaded…they whined and coaxed and nagged…for the chance to give some of their money away.  This was not a polite request – they were lobbying for a chance to give. Parakleseos.

Next, he writes that the aim of all of this begging was that they might have “the favor” of participating in the offering.  You might not have known the word for “begging”, but I know you have heard of the word that’s translated as “favor” here: charis.  In other parts of the New Testament, it’s translated as “gift” or “favor”.  You know the words “charisma” or “charismatic”, I think.  They refer to someone who has a particular knack, or talent, or gift.  The Macedonian Christians thought that helping the people who were struggling was more than a nice gesture – it was a gift that they might receive – the chance to be a part of this great thing was of the utmost importance to the Macedonians.

The third word I want you to consider this morning is the one that you’ve got translated as “taking part in”.  Paul writes that the Macedonians were eager to be koinonian – to be “sharing in” or to be “having fellowship” in this gift.  If you’ve heard the word kononia before, you’ll recognize that it means “fellowship”.  The point that Paul is making in choosing this particular word is that the poor Christians were feeling “left out” because they didn’t have the chance to take part in this offering.  Who did Paul think he was, they were wondering, going around offering people a chance to help out and not including them?  Why would he do that?

And the last word I’d like to highlight this morning is the one that you have translated as “relief”: “begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints.”  The word used for “relief” there is actually diakonias, and it’s more literally translated as “service”.  In fact, if you’ve ever been a Deacon at the church, you’ll know that’s the exact same word.  The Macedonians want to be able to participate in this kind of service.

Now, here is where it really gets exciting, at least to a word geek like me.  That word, diakonias, is used several other places in the New Testament, but the one I’d like to point us to is Mark 10:45, where it’s used twice.  “For the Son of Man did not come to be served (diakonethenai) but to serve (diakonesai).”  Do you see what is happening here?  The poorest Christians in Macedonia saw that they had a chance to be like Jesus – and all they had to do was chip in on the offering!  Jesus was a servant – and they wanted to serve, too.  And so they did.  And they gave.  More than they could afford, most likely.  More than Paul would have expected.  In fact, they gave not only to the poor in Jerusalem, but they helped Paul and Titus out with their traveling expenses, too.  They gave extravagantly and generously.

And now, Paul says to the Corinthians, you ought to know this.  You don’t want to miss your chance on this.  This is amazing work that is taking place.  You want to be a part of this.  You want to be like Jesus and the Macedonians.  So do what you can.  Serve. Give.

I wish that I could say that I learned this kind of generosity from reading the Bible.  But that would be a lie.  Let me tell you where I saw people begging to give in this way: it was in Malawi, Central Africa, which is regularly ranked as one of the poorest nations in the world.

After worship, this little fellow told me I should keep the eggs, but he asked for the bowl and the sawdust back so he could use them again...

Now, you know that I’ve been to Malawi a lot, and I’ve preached in a lot of Malawian worship services.  And it’s not uncommon for people in Malawi to want to share something of what they have with those who come to visit.  One of the most meaningful offerings I’ve ever witnessed was the little boy who came forward to share five eggs with Pastor Dave – eggs he’d carefully brought all the way from his home.

But once – and only once, in dozens I’ve preached in Malawi – a church paid me in cash.  It was in a very remote prayer house, miles and miles from the nearest paved road.  Near the end of the service, one of the elders came forward – barefoot, and holes in his shirt – and he gave me a handful of cash he had collected from his fellow worshippers.

I know that it seems hard for us to imagine this, but there are places in the world where people simply do not have cash.  The villages of Malawi are places like this. Everyone is a subsistence farmer.  You grow what you need, or you trade for it.  Paper money in these villages is a rarity, to be saved and used only when you go to the big city.  And here was this poor man, in a country where the per capita income is about $200/year…and he’s offering me cash.

How could I take that?  How could I accept a gift like that in a place like this village? I started to refuse, but my friend Ralph M’nensa sternly said “No!” and told me to smile and put the money in my pocket.  Later that day, he said, “Look, Dave.  You are the first American to ever visit this congregation.  Your church sent you all the way from America to Malawi.  These people don’t know how much that cost, but they know that it’s a lot, and they want to help.  Do not take away their ability to give.  Let them have a part in your visit.” And so, I did.  Later, we shared that cash with some of the elderly in the next village who were literally starving to death – but I learned what it means to be an extravagant giver while singing hymns in a grass building in one of the poorest places on earth.  The Malawians in that village were sisters and brothers to the people in Macedonia.

Here’s the funny thing: a couple of months after getting home from Malawi, I got a letter from the IRS telling me that I had to have all of my taxes audited.  They said, “We see how much you say you make, and how much you say you give away.  That can’t be true.  You’re making that up.”

And I had to explain to those nice people in the government that they just don’t understand. I am not generous.  Compared with what I’ve seen, I can’t declare myself to be any kind of a giver.  I have always, always, always had enough.  Compared to the people I’ve seen…I am not a giver.  I’m trying, but I am not there yet; not by a longshot.

Today we conclude our series on the Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, and we consider the habit of extravagant generosity.

You know what generosity means – it’s what we’ve been talking about all morning.  When we put the word “extravagant” in front of it, we are saying that it’s a generosity that is lavish.  Overflowing.  Abundant.  In fact, often when we use the word “extravagant” we often mean, “too much”.

That’s the kind of giving we see in Exodus.  Moses has been on the mountain talking with God, and God, in addition to telling Moses that he’s the leader of this nation, and that he’s got to take them into the promised land and set up a new system of government and worship, gives him lots of specifics as to what kind of lamps and gold furnishings he’s supposed to make.  Now, it’s not recorded in scripture, but I bet that Moses had to be thinking, “What the heck?  Do you not remember that for the last 40 years, I’ve been a shepherd?  Where am I going to get all this gold?  And how will I make all this furniture?”

And God says, “Relax, I’ve called Bezalel and a few others to do this.  They are amazing.”  So Moses tells the fellows what they are supposed to make, and they’ve got to be thinking, “All this stuff out of gold and precious gems?  Are you crazy, Moses?  Do you forget that we’re all escaped slaves here?  Where are we going to find that kind of bling?”

Moses calls for an offering.  And the people respond.  In fact, they respond so extravagantly that Bezalel comes to Moses and he says, “Make them stop.  These people are bringing too much!  We’ll never get any work done if the people don’t stop giving!”

Can you imagine that?  If after the sermon today, Cheri stood up and said it was time for the offering and Kate Lyden said, “Nope!  Stop!  Don’t even ask.  We’ve got way too much money as it is.  Tell ‘em that they’ll have to give somewhere else.  We can’t use that money here.”

It could happen.

Beloved, let me invite you to a lifestyle of extravagant giving.  You have the opportunity, today and every day, to stand shoulder to shoulder with a group of escaped slaves whose love for the Lord prompted them to give more than anyone even knew that they had.  You stand alongside impoverished and marginalized Christians who longed to follow Jesus with their wallets, not just their words.  You are connected to the church in Malawi, that is growing like crazy, in part because they have learned to be generous.  That’s your family I’m talking about, folks.

You’re going to get a letter in a day or so.  And in that letter, there will be a request for you to think long and hard about what you plan to give to the Lord’s work through this congregation in 2012.  You may be a part of some club that collects dues.  You live in a nation that pays for its programs by taxation.  This is neither.  This is an opportunity for you, as sure as the one that Moses and Bezalel put before the Israelites or that Paul put before the Corinthians.  It’s a chance for you to take part in the gift of service that happens here every day.

Think about what goes on here because people give: there are more kids on youth retreat this morning than we’ve had in years.  What about the ministry of prayer that has changed people’s lives?  Or the food pantry that sustains so many families?  There are ministries of discipleship and teaching, of music and finance, of nurture and compassion…all because people have responded to God’s call to be generous with their time, and their skill, and yes, their money.

I am appalled by the tremendous gap between this world’s “haves” and “have-nots”.  I will be honest and say that I do not understand all the things that have contributed to that reality, and I do not understand the “Occupy” movement.  But I’m not waving signs.  And I’m not camping out.  And I’m not giving up.  The protesters in recent weeks use that word, “occupy”, to mean, I suppose, “to take possession or control of”.  To take.  I’m not interested in “occupying” anything.  But I am delighted to “inhabit” this space, on this street, in this community.  “Inhabit” – “to live in or among.”  To have fellowship in. Koinonia.

Paul wrote to the church in Corinth and said, “Look friends, don’t be left behind.  You want to get in on this.”  It is my deep privilege and honor to invite you to inhabit this fellowship of diakonias, this service of Christ.  I am humbled to stand among you, and hope that you will join me in giving with joy.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.