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Ruth 3: 1-5, 4: 13-17; 1 Kings 17: 8-16 and Mark 12: 38-44;

Nov 10, 2024; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson; New Blue Church, Mazatlan

My grandma was widowed when my dad was just 8 years old. It was during WWII. My grandparents’ general store, the Ellenson IGA, and gone bankrupt in the 30s and they had been rebuilding their lives. Times were hard even before my grandfather died. Before she married, my grandma had been a teacher. She found a job as a teacher again and they moved to a small town and lived in 2 rented rooms. My dad never spoke of the hardship, except when his arthritic feet hurt, hammertoes a result of shoes too-tight throughout his growing years. No, he spoke of the care and love that surrounded him, the mentors and father-figures who stepped into the gap, and of his mother’s strength of character.

Maybe you have a widow’s story in your family. Widows figure prominently in the scriptures, 81 times to be exact. Widows, orphans and strangers stand as a sort of archetype of need. God commands their care, warns consequences for those who fail to care or cause them harm. A portion of every third year’s tithe when to support widows.

The story of Ruth has a relatively happy ending. Boaz was a relative of Elimelech, Naomi’s dead husband, and he fulfilled his duty, married Ruth and provided for them. She produced a son who became the ancestor of David and Jesus. Naomi and Ruth did what they had to do to survive.

The text from 1^st Kings shows us another important widow in Israel’s history. The prophet Elijah had spoken a word of judgement to King Ahab and Jezebel, predicting a drought and famine. Then, at God’s leading, he flees to Zaraphath, what is now Sarafand in Southern Lebanon, a city recently bombed by the Israelis, creating new widows and orphans. In the miraculous story we heard today, Elijah, the widow and her son are saved from starvation.

Jesus referred to this story in Luke’s gospel, chapter 4, right after his first message in the synagogue in Nazareth. He quoted the prophecy, The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. And said, today this scripture is fulfilled. There’s a linkage there, between his reference to the widow of Zarephath and his mission, our mission. Widows, orphans and strangers, symbols or need.

In today’s gospel Jesus points out another widow. Sometimes “The Widow’s Mite” is used as part of Stewardship Sundays, the day when congregations ask people for pledges of giving and set the budget for the coming year. Who hasn’t squirmed when a well-meaning pastor asks: “If a poor widow can give her sacrificial bit for the Lord’s work, how can we — so comfortably wealthy by comparison — not give much, much more?” I’ll admit it; I’ve preached that sermon. And I’ve squirmed, because it feels exploitive to use the text that way. I doubt Jesus had that in mind when he commented on her giving. I wish I knew her name. I hope that she died with dignity.

Died?  Yes.  Died. I suspect that she died, probably mere days after she dropped those two coins into the Temple treasury. Remember what Jesus said about her as she left the Temple that day: “She, out of her poverty, has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

I think that was an accurate statement. If Jesus said the woman gave everything she had, well, she gave everything she had. We can be sure that she was an impoverished widow in first century Palestine, a woman living on the margins of her society, without a safety net. No husband to advocate for her, no pension to draw from, no social status to hide behind. She was vulnerable in every single way that mattered, just two pennies short of the end. 

As Mark presents the timeline, Jesus died about four days after the events in this story. I wonder if the widow died then, too. Mark prefaces the story of the widow with an account of Jesus blasting the religious leaders of his day for their greed, pompousness, and crass exploitation of the poor.  “Beware of the scribes,” Jesus tells his followers.  “They devour widow’s houses and for the sake of appearance and say long prayers.” The Scribes’ practice of their faith, in other words, is phony, and the religious institution they govern is corrupt — not in any way reflective of the God the Psalmist calls a “Father of orphans and protector of widows.”

In the days leading up to the widow’s last gift, Jesus offers one scathing critique after another of the economic and political exploitation he witnesses all around him.  He makes a mockery of Roman pomp and circumstance when he rides into Jerusalem on a donkey’s back.  He cleanses the Temple’s money-mongering with a whip. He refuses to answer the chief priests, scribes, and elders when they demand to know the source of his authority.  He confounds religious leaders on taxes, indicts them with a scathing parable about a vineyard and a murdered son, defeats them on the question of resurrection, and bewilders them with riddles about his Davidic ancestry.

Jesus isn’t pointing to the widow as a model of giving here… Why on earth would he praise a woman for endangering her already endangered life to support an institution he keeps criticizing? Jesus never commends the widow, applauds her self-sacrifice, or invites us to follow in her footsteps. He simply notices her, and tells his disciples to notice her, too.

Wouldn’t you love to hear Jesus’ tone of voice. Was he heartbroken as he tells his disciples to peel their eyes away from the rich folks and glance in her direction instead? Was he outraged? Or was he resigned?  What does it mean to him, mere seconds after he’s described the Temple leaders as devourers of widows’ houses, to witness just such a widow being devoured? 

Then to top it all off: immediately after the widow leaves the Temple, Jesus leaves, too, and as he does, an awed disciple invites Jesus to admire the Temple’s mammoth stones and impressive buildings.  Jesus’ response is quick and cutting: “Not one of these stones will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”

Ouch!  I wonder if the widow is still on Jesus’ mind as he predicts the destruction of the Temple.  He has just watched a trusting woman give her all to an institution that refuses to protect the poor.  No structure funded by such injustice will stand.Jesus calls out, and we can call out any form of religiosity that manipulates the vulnerable into self-harm and self-destruction? 

Let’s find the good news. The gospel is this: Jesus notices the widow. He sees what everyone else is too busy, too grand, too spiritual, and too self-absorbed to see.  He noticed the widow’s courage.  Imagine what courage it took for her to make her gift alongside the rich with their fistfuls of coins, to allow the last scraps of her security to fall out of her palms, to swallow panic, swallow desperation, swallow the entirely human desire to cling to life no matter what — and face her end with hope.

Jesus noticed her dignity.  She must have had to steel herself when widowhood in her culture rendered her worthless, “expendable”, even in the Temple she loved.  She had to trust — in the face of all the evidence piled up around her — that her tiny gift had value in God’s eyes.

And finally, Jesus noticed her vocation.  Whether she knew it or not, her action in the Temple was prophetic.  She was a prophet because her personally-costly offering amounted to a holy condemnation of injustice and corruption. Without speaking a word, she spoke God’s Word in the ancient tradition of Isaiah, Elijah, Jeremiah, and other Old Testament prophets.

She was also prophetic in the Messianic sense, because her self-sacrifice prefigured Jesus’ own giving.  Perhaps what Jesus noticed was that kinship.  Her story mirrored his.  The widow gave everything she had to serve a world so broken that it killed her.  Days later, Jesus gave everything he had in his unceasing intent to redeem, restore, and renew that same world.

We all know that the biblical world was patriarchal and misogynist, as has been most of human history. Women have not had self-determination, education or freedom. They were chattel, passed from control of fathers to husbands at marriage and passed back to fathers of on to their husbands’ male relatives at widowhood. But, in much of the world it’s still that way. There are 258 million widows worldwide, tens of thousands in Ukraine, 3000 in Gaza.   

How can we not make the connection between Ruth and Naomi, destitute, fleeing from Moab to Bethlehem and today’s widows without resources. How can we not see in them the faces of modern-day war widows, refugees, and victims of famine, making their own difficult way, nearly empty handed, carrying only the hope of safety and new life. 

God cares about this woman and her sacrifice. Our God sees her plight and recognizes her affliction. Our God will not stand for abuse, especially under the guise of religious piety. God sees her…and God cares about her. I doubt anyone else, including the religious elite parading around the Temple that day and dropping in their token offerings, noticed this woman. I doubt the disciples following Jesus noticed her either, until their Lord lifted her up for their attention.  God also sees struggles, recognizes challenges, cares about those who are hard pressed to make ends meet.

There’s a message to us, given our relative privilege in this world, too. God invites us to see each other, not just those like us, but those we don’t know too. To really see – the pain of those who are discriminated against because of their ethnicity, the desolation of those who beg on the street, those who have been exploited by sex traffickers, the millions of refugees seeking safety. God invites us to see them, to care for them, and to advocate for a system that does not leave anyone behind.

Oh, these are squirmy texts for sure…but the bottom line is this: God cares, and God invites us to care, too. God believes that we have something to contribute, that our words and actions can help bring more fully to fruition the kingdom God’s own Son, proclaimed and embodied. God cares about the widow and her sacrifice. God will not countenance abuse –especially under the guise of religious piety. 

God not only sees all our struggles and cares. God also believes in each one of us enough to use us to make a difference.  Where is God already at work?  Can we join God’s efforts to see those in distress, help them find comfort and relief, and work for a more just world?

Deuteronomy 6: 1-9; Mark 12: 28-34

Context is important when it comes to understanding most things. That’s true with these texts.

There are several layers of context to consider when we look at any scriptural text. The book of Deuteronomy begins with the people standing on the border of the promised land, which they are about to enter and occupy. That’s the storyline context- Moses and the people who have wandered the wilderness, preparing to conquer the land. The book of Deuteronomy is presented as a speech from Moses to the people before they enter the land in which he summarizes all the laws.

There’s another layer though. You see, the text wasn’t written down in 1300 BCE. It was first written down many centuries later, somewhere between 700 and 400 BCE. Deuteronomy was written in the context of foreign domination, just before, during or after the time we think of as the Exile. It’s important to remember that for most of Israel’s history they didn’t have their own kingdom with a temple and priests and so forth. Israel has nearly always been occupied land, dominated by various Empires—the Assyrians, the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Arabs, Crusaders, the Ottomans and the British.  

The 10 commandments are found in the chapter right before today’s reading. The law is to be observed, “so that it may go well for you, so that you may multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey.”  The original writers, in the 7^th to 5^th Century BCE, and the listeners or readers through the centuries that followed—even up until today— would have had the benefit of history to understand that text.

We know something about colonization, invasion and occupation. When we step back a bit and read the text with a historical mindset rather than the simple storyline view of it, we see the dangerous link between religion and politics. If we keep reading we find these words…

When the Lord your God has brought you into the land—a land with fine houses filled with all sorts of goods that you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves you did not plant, when you have eaten your fill, take care that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

When God is used as justification for the subjugation of one people by another, things don’t go well for anyone. Whether that means the Israelites conquering Canaan during the period called the conquest, or the early white immigrants in what is now Canada and the US claiming the first nations’ peoples’ land through manifest destiny and the doctrine of discovery, or the Spanish conquistador’s domination of the Mexica or Aztec people, or the fighting over the Holy Land in our own times–when God is used as an excuse for domination and war, life becomes anything but a land of milk and honey. Contextual reading calls us to remember God as the liberator of slaves from Egypt and letting that understanding prevent the enslaving of others.

There are even more layers of context to consider though.  A few hundred years later, after the text in Deuteronomy was actually written down, the words were interpreted again in a new way.  During the Hasmonean dynasty, from about 140 BC, after the Maccabean revolt—from which the holiday of Hannukah arises—until 37 BCE, the Jews experienced a rare period when they enjoyed freedom and self-rule. It was during that time that Herod the Great had the second temple built. It was during that time period that the practice of reciting the Shema developed.

The Jewish people have a prayer called the Shema, after the Hebrew word for hear, with which the prayer begins. As familiar as the Lord’s Prayer is to Christians, Jews, everywhere, twice a day, cover their eyes with their right hand and recite,

Shema Israel, Adonai elhenu, Adonai achad. Hear, O Israel, The L-rd is our G‑d, The L-rd is One. 

They continue in a softer tone,

Blessed be the name of the glory of G-d’s kingdom forever and ever,

followed by the words from our Old Testament lesson for today.

You shall love the L-rd your G-d with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you today shall be upon your heart. You shall teach them thoroughly to your children, and you shall speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road, when you lie down and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for a reminder between your eyes. And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates.

They often pray standing to show respect and deference and cover their eyes to prevent distraction. Their words express the belief that nothing exists outside of God, that all this exists is a veiled manifestation of God, that all is connected and interdependent, that life is continuously being re-created.

It was during that Hasmonean time that the use of phylacteries emerged. Still, today, some Jews take those words literally and they physically bind onto their foreheads and around their arms little leather boxes with long straps called phylacteries or tefillin. Those boxes have the words of the Shema printed within. They also place a little thingamajig on their doorposts, a mezuzah, which also holds the text of our lesson today. Jews touch the mezuzah as they enter and leave their homes.

Twice a day, Jesus would have recited the words,

Shema Israel, Adonia Elhenu, Adonai Achad! 

As I said, Shema! translates roughly to Hear! Or Listen! But it carries much more weight than that in Hebrew because there is no separate word for obey.  Hear means Listen and Do!  It’s sort of like that familiar parental command. Listen to me when I’m talking to you! It means: Listen and DO what I say. It’s why Jesus sometimes said Let those who have ears Hear, or They have ears but do not listen!  When he is asked what the greatest commandment is, his response is simply an elaboration of the word, Shema.  Love the L-rd your G-d with all your heart, soul and might and love your neighbor as yourself!  Shema! 

So that brings us to the next layer of context. The setting for our gospel reading for today is Jesus’ encounter with the scribe, during what we think of as holy week. Jesus had already entered Jerusalem on a colt to shouts of Hosanna! During the next few days, he was met with one challenge to his identity and authority after another. The Chief priests, scribes, elders, the Sadducees, Pharisees, and Herodians have all argued with him and tried to entrap him. They each reacted to him with questions, disagreements, or doubt. In our text a scribe engages Jesus in the only civil conversation of the week. That’s the story-line layer of context of our gospel—Jesus’ encounters during the days before his crucifixion.

In his and the scribe’s words we can hear all the previous layers of context, the 1300 BCE storyline, the exilic period when Deuteronomy was written down, the Jewish identity shaped by centuries of domination and movement, the Maccabean revolt, the new temple built by Herod the great that would have been standing in Jesus’ own time, the practice of recitation of the Shema, all underlaid by the liberating history of God’s deliverance and blessing, the various factions within Judaism and the Roman power structure during Jesus’ lifetime, the roles they each played in his trail and death.

Then, bear with me, there’s yet another layer. Mark wrote his gospel some 30 years later, during another period of unrest. There were four main factions of the Jewish world around 65 to 70 AD, the Zealots, Pharisees, Essenes, and the Sadducees. They were basically engaged in civil war with each other, not to mention coping with the new sect of Judaism—Christianity that was emerging.

Nero was the Roman Emperor. In 68, he sent his best general, Vespasian, to crush the rebellion of the Jews in the northern region of Galilee. Vespasian then became the new Emperor in 69 and sent his son, General Titus, to finally put down the revolution by besieging Jerusalem.  Unrest and rebellion against the Roman authority had been the order of the day. The internal division weakened the cohesion of the Jewish territory and meant that the Roman army could put down the rebellion and eventually destroy Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD.

That was the contemporary context of Mark’s writing.  When Mark includes the various challengers to Jesus’ authority, Mark’s community would make a connection between the opposing factions of their own time.

In Mark’s gospel, Jesus responds to the scribe’s question by reciting the text from Deuteronomy 6, and adding to it another command, from Leviticus, And love your neighbor as yourself.  His words call to mind the eternal dilemma of exclusive faith and universal love, the challenge faced by every time and people, that of loving One’s own God while maintaining a love toward those who love another God.  

Certainly, there is yet one more context to consider—today. How do we hear these texts on November 3, 2024? It is two days before an historic election in the United States, a nation challenged by division and the threats of Christian Nationalism and civil unrest. The nation of Israel is at war, a complicated situation nearly impossible to unravel even as the cities are being destroyed there, once again. The good news of Jesus Christ speaks to us, through the layers of history, with words of profound conviction and challenge.

Before I close today with a prayer in poetic form by Walter Bruggeman, included in his 2008 book Prayers for Privileged People. It is titled:
Post-Election Day

You creator God
     who has ordered us
       in families and communities,
       in clans and tribes,
       in states and nations.

You creator God
     who enacts your governance
       in ways overt and
       in ways hidden.
     You exercise your will for
       peace and for justice and for freedom.

We give you thanks for the peaceable order of
   our nation and for the chance of choosing—
     all the manipulative money notwithstanding.

We pray now for new governance
   that your will and purpose may prevail,
   that our leaders may have a sense
     of justice and goodness,
   that we as citizens may care about the
     public face of your purpose.

We pray in the name of Jesus who was executed
   by the authorities.  Amen.

The greatest commandment speaks through all the layers of history and can guide us onward. Love your neighbor as unconditionally as you love God, as God loves you. No historical situation, ethnicity, politics or religion is greater than this.

The New Blue Church, 2.5.23, Pastor Rebecca Ellenson, Nothing but Christ

A few weeks ago, I read a fascinating book by one of my favorite authors, Barbara Brown Taylor, called The Luminous Web. It is a collection of her essays, exploring the dialogue between science and Christian faith. She considers what insights quantum physics, new biology, and chaos theory can teach a person of faith.

As those of you who have heard me preach know, I am sort of a nerd about things like that. I would just love to spend this time exploring such heady topics with you. In fact, I started a sermon on just that—the compatibility of science and religion and the changing world views through the centuries. But then, Paul’s words in our assigned reading for today put me back on track. He said, “I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified!”

Oh, Paul drifted into lofty words of wisdom here and there—it’s an occupational hazard for preachers. In the book of Acts, Chapter 17, we learn that Paul was part of the cultural elite of his time. When he was in Athens he debated with the Jewish, Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. He said: “The God who made the world and everything in it, The One who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands…God gives to all mortals life and breath and all things… and allotted the times of existence and the boundaries of the places to live so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for God and find God though indeed God is not far from each one of us.” Paul quoted Epimenides, a philosopher from the 6^th Century BC, saying. “For in God we live and move and have our being.”

Paul held his own with the intellectuals of his day and wrote about the mystery of God in Christ and the Unity of Being with eloquence in several of his letters, identifying Christ as the revelation of God. But, in writing to the church in Corinth he turned away from rhetoric and debate to proclaim the gospel, plain and simple. He was continuing a theme begun in the previous chapter where he wrote, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing (a word he uses to describe unbelievers) but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’ Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?…we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”

Six years ago, on a Saturday afternoon, I got a phone call from Norman Peters, who was scheduled to read the same texts we that were read today. For those of you who don’t remember Norman, he was born in England, held two engineering degrees. He and his wife, Sylvia spent nearly 3 decades of winters here and were some of the charter members of this congregation. Each year the Christmas Eve gospel was read with his elegant elocution and proper British pronunciation, adding a sort of regal air to Luke chapter 2. Well, on that Saturday, Norman, the most exquisitely logical man, called me, absolutely beside himself over the text from Corinthians.  “What in heaven’s name does this mean? How can God be opposed to wisdom?” We had a long conversation which did not fully satisfy his question. I remember feeling lost in my own lofty words during that conversation. Both Norman and I knew the gospel and did our best to live in and through it. But even we could get tied up in knots.

Recently I’ve been corresponding with another friend of mine, who is also an electrical engineer. I’ll call him Fred. He would like to believe in God but cannot reconcile what the has heard about God with what he knows of the world. His approach to life is orderly and logical. Fred approached me with a proposal- that he would write what he calls “thought experiments” to me and I would provide careful responses.

The crux of his first question was, ‘If God is all-powerful, all-loving, and responds to prayers why doesn’t God stop the senselessness of mass shootings.’  As I composed my email response I found myself turning away from lofty words. Like Paul, I decided to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I wrote to Fred, as Paul wrote, in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, hoping my speech and my proclamation were not filled with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that his faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

I know that if he is to come to faith again, it won’t be through any logical argument. The proof he seeks for the truth of Christian faith cannot be found in theory. It musts be encountered in spirit. Clearly he is drawn to something he glimpses in his wife’s faith and in our conversations, which have been going on for years.

I love to read about the advances in scientific thought and method. I love to consider philosophical arguments. Lofty words and hair-splitting theology can be interesting, but in themselves they do not save anyone. Doctrines divide, the love of Christ unites. As Paul wrote later in his letter to the church in Corinth: “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and angels but have not love I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge but do not have love I am nothing. …Faith hope and love abide and the greatest of these is love.”

About 10 years ago, a man came to the church that I was serving to photograph the baptism of his friend’s child. I’ll call him Mark. During the service, I made the same announcement I always make before communion. I noticed that he did not come forward. I visited with him after the service and invited him to come and join us again. I told him about our community meal and said I hoped we’d see him there too.

The next month Mark came to our community meal and asked if he could talk with me in my office. He told me that he had grown up in church, served as an acolyte in worship, was confirmed. He moved to another state and fell out of the practice of attending worship. When he moved back to Minnesota to care for his parents, the church he had grown up in refused to serve him communion because he wasn’t a member anymore. That was it for Mark. Their doctrine excluded him, and he decided to be done with church. I assured him he was welcome to participate in any way he wanted, including partaking of communion. I think it was the fellowship and sense of belonging that motivated him to begin attending on Sundays.

When Lent came that year, I encouraged the congregation to read through the gospel of John. Mark was one of those who did. Over the 5-week reading program he encountered Jesus. He understood that the good news of Jesus Christ was for him and that all he needed to know about God he could find in Jesus. It’s absolutely thrilling for a pastor to see that happen, to field the questions when someone digs into scripture, to hear the excitement and new insights that come from a thorough engagement with the gospel.

The picture of God we find in Jesus Christ is compelling.  God reveals God’s own self in Christ—that is our starting and ending point. Colossians 1 tells us:  “In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” In Hebrews 1 we read: “He is the exact imprint of God’s very being.”

All anyone needs to know about God can be found in Jesus Christ. It’s really that simple. It’s not lofty wisdom.  In Jesus we can see another way- the way of self-giving love.  We are invited into right relationships. We are called to justice and a life of purpose.  In the powerlessness of the Christ on the cross we see the God who knows our suffering, who is in all and through all.

How long has it been since you sat down and read through one of the gospels? I know some of you are reading the scriptures regularly but there may be some of you here who, like Mark, are drawn by the sense of belonging and fellowship, without having really encountered Christ lately. Others of you may have never read the gospels in their entirety. It doesn’t take very long. If you’ve got a smart phone, then you’ve got access to a bible! Why not pick a gospel? It would make a good Lenten discipline. I would recommend Mark. It was written first and is the shortest and most straightforward of the gospels.

It has been a real pleasure to be with you today. I know I speak for Steve to when I say we miss you and we miss Mazatlan. We pray that you will grow in faith and love for God and for God’s world. We give thanks that the God who called each one of us will strengthen us to have the mind of Christ and that nothing can separate us from God’s love.  Amen.

2.6.22; Not a Fish Story; Rebecca Ellenson; ICCM

Maybe you have heard the fish story about Ole and Sven.  They decided to go up north for a fishing trip.  They were from Minnesota but had always wanted to go to Canada where the fishing was really good. But they had worried about how much it would cost them.  Finally they just decided to go anyway no matter how expensive it would be. 

So they got their equipment together and decided to go all out and replace some of the things that were old or worn out.  They checked into different resorts and travel packages and after all the arrangements were made, off they went. 

Well, they were gone for a whole week.  It was the longest real vacation either of them had ever taken.  The problem was, they didn’t catch anything worth keeping.  They couldn’t come home with little fish

like the kind they caught close to home.  They kept trying, expecting each day that the next day would be their lucky day.  Finally, on the last day of fishing, Ole caught a great big Walleye, it was 9 pounds.  Ole were thrilled. 

On the drive home the next day Sven was feeling pretty down, after a whole week of not catching anything.  He started to scribble on some paper.  Ole asked him what he was doing.  Sven said, “Ya, you know Ole, that von fish cost us over two tusen dollars.”  Ole shook his head and said, “Vell, ya don’t say.  It’s a good ting ve only caught von den.”

I think that would be about my luck too.  I grew up spending 3 months out of each year beside a lake.  But, noone in my family fished. Over the years I have learned to fish.  When the weather is nice, when a breeze keeps the bugs away, when the fish are biting so well that little waiting is required, and when I’m not preoccupied with something else–then I like to fish.  But, that doesn’t happen very often.  More often than not, fishing, in my opinion, consists of being too hot or too cold, bug-bitten, bored, frustrated with knots and kinks in line, and lots and lots of waiting.  It isn’t the times when the big one gets away that are so bad, it’s the times when the big ones stay under the weeds and never even make a splash. 

Living close to the fishermen here in Mazatlan I see what it minght have been like to be Simon Peter, James, or John, fishing day in and day out for a living.  This gospel story is one of the best told stories in the bible, it is also one of the most well-known stories–perhaps due to the children’s song based on it. 

The story has the ring of a tall tale, a fish story which would have left the people in Capernaum buzzing with talk for days.  Two years ago, at the start of the pandemic there was a fishing story right here in Mazatlan that got people talking. I saw photos of a great fish giveaway to ant and all takers.

In today’s gospel, though, the remarkable catch of fish is only the opportunity for something even more remarkable.  The ripping nets and sinking boats are left behind, ripening by the minute in the hot Mideastern sun.  This is not a fish story, it is a story about Christian discipleship, a story about following the Lord regardless of whatever else would keep us back.

Let’s look closer at this story, beyond the huge catch of fish to the human drama.  Anyone who has fished more than once or twice can easily identify with Simon Peter at the start of the story.  He’s been out fishing all night without catching a thing.  He must be tired and hungry and frustrated, maybe even worried about financial matters since he was not just a recreational fisherman but a professional with no catch.  When Jesus tells him to give the fishing one more try Simon Peter points out, from his years of experience, that the fishing has not been good. 

Knowing what we do about Simon Peter from the rest of the gospel stories we can just about see him shaking his head and muttering, “What does he know about fish–is he a professional fisherman?  No, he’s just a wandering teacher.  Oh, well, I’ll humor him.”  and down go the nets.  Then, as usual Jesus surprises Simon Peter.  The nets are so full they are breaking.  Help has to be called in and even then, the boats cannot hold the whole catch without beginning to sink.

If this were just a fish story the fish would be what Simon Peter reacts to or comments on. The response he makes, falling on his knees in the smelly fish and saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”  is hardly the response expected from a fisherman with an overflowing boatload of fish.  Neither would it seem likely that Simon Peter and the others would leave this catch, their boats, and everything when they had just gotten what they had only ever dreamed of, if this were just a fish story. We can give credit to Simon Peter in this story for recognizing what is happening.  He sees beyond the fish to the power of God that Jesus carries and to his own weakness compared to that power.  This is the same response that we see in other bible stories involving God’s call to follow. 

Moses, like Peter was out doing his job when his call came, he was tending Jethro’s sheep when the bush burned.  What did Moses do?  He hid his face and was afraid to look, knowing that God’s power was present. 

Gideon was threshing wheat when an angel appeared to him and caused fire to spring from a nearby rock.  His response too, was one of fear and a recognition of the commanding power of God’s presence.

Isaiah, too, was filled with fear and a sense of unworthiness when the vision we read about in our OT lesson came to him. 

The displays of God’s presence in each of those stories, like in our gospel, are so impressive that they may take over our memories of the stories, as if the burning bush, the fire from the rock, the transformation in the temple , or the boatload of fish were the point. 

All of them are aware of their sinfulness and the overwhelming power of God.  But, their sin and sense of unworthiness does not disqualify them for the mission of God.  Instead, the same power that brought them to their knees in humble recognition also raises them and empowers them and sends them out to carry on God’s purposes. 

This is not a fish story.  It is about the call to discipleship.  Those who encounter our Lord will meet an overwhelming power.  It is a power that is so strong that human sin and weakness is clearly evident in comparison.  It is also a power that raises up those who are unworthy and sends them out with a mission. 

As new followers of Christ Simon Peter, James and John set off to catch not fish but people–that is their mission, and ours, and anyone else’s who wants to follow Christ.  Jesus uses a word there for catching people that does not mean to hook them or spear them or capture them as natural resource to consume.  It is not a word normally used for fishing.  It means to catch and take alive for the purpose of rescuing.  Following Jesus is about saving people from death. 

The Christian life is not like a fishing vacation, a recreation that is given up when the bugs bite and the fish don’t bite or when the equipment fails or the weather turns bad.  Following our Lord is not a hobby, it is not a do it now and then sort of thing.  Following Jesus means having a mission, an important mission–to rescue people. 

The overwhelmingly powerful God that calls each of us to follow has high expectations of us.  In the ninth chapter of Luke’s gospel Jesus clarifies just how high those expectations are. 

As they were going along the road someone said to him,

“I will follow you wherever you go.”  Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air

have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” 

He said to another man, “Follow me.”  But the man replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury

my father.”  But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go

and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 

Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.”  Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Jesus does not let any of us off the hook any more than he let those would-be followers off the hook.  There are people to catch, to rescue. There are hungry people, lonely people, empty people, angry bitter people.  There are people who have not known love in their lives, either the love of God or other people’s love.  There are people drowning in alcohol or other addictions.  There are people caught in a net of greed and self-absorption.  We have been given a mission and a call and the power to carry it out.  AMEN

Good morning. I want to thank you all for your prayers and support. I am doing well, and have been resting, following doctor’s orders. I’m going to keep this brief as i only have one functional hand to type with.Over the years here I have assembled a group of people to help make decisions and to manage the administrative tasks of our congregation. On Tuesday the advisory group and I will meet to make plans for the rest of the year.In my reading this week I came across an article by Evan D. Garner, in the Christian Century magazine. He reflects on the psalm for today, 71:1-6

1 In you, O Lord, have I taken refuge;
let me never be ashamed.
2 In your righteousness, deliver me and set me free;
incline your ear to me and save me.
3 Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe;
you are my crag and my stronghold.
4 Deliver me, my God, from the hand of the wicked,
from the clutches of the evildoer and the oppressor.
5 For you are my hope, O Lord God,
my confidence since I was young.
6 I have been sustained by you ever since I was born;
from my mother’s womb you have been my strength;
my praise shall be always of you.

He writes:

I like to go for walks and day hikes, losing touch with people and electronics for a few hours out in the woods. But I don’t hike far enough or long enough to have ever needed to scramble for shelter. I remember an informational hike with a naturalist who encouraged us, if ever stranded, to look for the rootball of an overturned tree as a possible place to take refuge. The hollowed out hole in the ground, the overhanging mass of roots and dirt, and the surrounding leaves can provide some shelter from the elements. Of course, one dreams of finding a cave or even a large crack in a rock face to crawl into during a bad storm or overnight. I think that’s what the psalmist had in mind when he imagined God as the crag and stronghold in which the psalmist has taken refuge.

I don’t often think of hiding in God. Maybe that’s because I take my house, my car, and my overcoat for granted—sources of shelter that are always close by. Or maybe it’s because I take God for granted—the never-failing one whose presence is true but unseen. But the psalmist knew what it meant to take cover in God, to hide from the enemies, to wall up from threats, to be defended by the Almighty. Still, I wonder what that looked like.

So often the protection that God offers is as transparent as the wind and as open as the night sky. God sends us out into the world as vulnerable as the prophets—as sheep in the midst of wolves. The crag in which we take refuge is rarely a crack in the rock, a turret in the castle, a shelter underground. As the psalmist prays, our shelter is God.

We take refuge in God not by walling ourselves off from the threats around us but by encountering them clothed with power from on high. Sometimes, in the face of violence or abuse, we do run and hide, and we pray that God would keep us hidden. Often, though, we look around and find no where to take cover except in God. And still God is our refuge and strength, our crag and our stronghold.

I’d love to hear from those of you who read this post about the times you have found refuge in God. Share a few words, or a paragraph, or a page. Let’s use this forum to uplift each other.

May God hold you in the palm of God’s hand!

Humor and joy are two of the best things in human life.  They are gifts from God, who, according to our lessons for today also enjoys these capabilities.  Our God is a god of gladness and delight.  In fact it is the creation, including us humans, in which God delights.

Listen to Isaiah’s words:

     You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, a royal diadem in the hand of your God…  The Lord delights in you…As a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you, and as the young bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice in you.

What a contrast to some of the descriptions of humanity we hear and say. Compare the images– an adornment for God’s beauty, like a necklace on a beautiful woman, a crown on a good and just King  –or the words we hear so often,  we are by nature sinful and unclean, in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves, unworthy, broken, sinful…

Those words of confession are true.  They describe part of who we are.  But the words of Isaiah also express part of the truth of who we are.  According to God, we are really something special, precious and beautiful like jewels.  God delights in us!  Get the image clearly in your mind.  This God of ours is as glad as a young bridegroom head over heels in love with his bride, ready to brag about her to anyone who will listen. 

Think of someone who is newly in love. I’m not talking about infatuation, but real deep-down all enveloping love, love that overshadows every other thing in life and fills the days with grins and happiness. 

That is the picture Isaiah gives us of God.  God is a God of gladness, a God who wants a relationship with us as close and joyful as that of a couple of blissful newlyweds.  The picture of ourselves that we get from this same passage is an uplifting one.  God loves us.  God grieves when we turn away from this wonderful love that is offered to us.  God will not rest until we shine like the dawn or like a burning torch, filled with divine love and adoration. 

The second lesson expresses another cause of gladness.  Paul tells us along with the Christians at Corinth that we are all gifted. In schools sometimes there are programs for students identified as “gifted.” These programs select a few individuals for special opportunities. According to 1st Corinthians each and every one of us is gifted.  No one is left out.  Every person has something wonderful about them, some God-given talent.  These talents are given for the common good and are to be celebrated and enjoyed and developed.

The image of God we get from Paul’s words is one of a generous giver of good things.  God, our maker, the same one who delights in us, blesses us with talents and abilities and then activates them in us for the good of all. 

The God we see in the gospel lesson is again a God of gladness and one who gives lavish and wonderful gifts.  Jesus was at a wedding feast.  It was a celebration, a special time in the life of a family and the community.  The family would plan long and hard for such a celebration.  They would scrimp and save to secure all the best provisions.  Friends and relatives would gather to surround the newly married couple with support and join in a weeklong celebration of good food, wine, and music.  Hospitality was a very crucial value in that culture and they would have purchased the best food and drink available and affordable. 

Jesus was there with his friends and family to join in the fun.  In the middle of this happy celebration, a problem arises.  The wine has run out.  Jesus saved the day.  He transformed something good into something outstanding.

Water was and is precious in the Middle East.  It had to be drawn from a limited number of wells and then carried and stored carefully. Water was something special.  The wedding celebration was something special.  Jesus begins his ministry with this miracle of transforming what is already special and precious and joyous into something wonderful beyond comparison. 

There is more to this miracle than Jesus fixing a household shortage with an outstanding batch of wine.  This miracle is the first sign in John’s gospel of who Jesus is and what he has come to do.  Jesus comes to transform all of life, to bring about goodness and gladness and joy beyond all comparison. 

There is a detail noted in this gospel that is well worth noting.  Jesus made 6 jars of wine, each holding 20-30 gallons.  That’s 120-180 gallons of wine.  My goodness!  When our Lord does something he really does it up right!  Not only was it exceedingly good wine that Jesus made it was an enormous overabundance of this outstandingly good stuff. 

Our God is a God of Gladness, a God who delights in us, who makes us all gifted, talented people.  That might have been enough.  But God doesn’t stop there.  Jesus created a special vintage of wine there in Cana, about 150 gallons of it.  He kept that celebration going. He joined in the joy and gladness of the party.  But more than that he showed what he came to do and continues to do among us.  He transforms even the good and precious and valuable in life into something beyond comparison. 

Jesus came to Cana and changed water to wine, he did the first of his signs there and revealed his glory.  The disciples watched and saw what happened and believed in him.  They “read the sign” as best they could, because at that point they had no way of knowing that through his broken body and spilled blood, Jesus would transform even the dead into new and living beings.  We can “read the sign” of what he did in Cana even more clearly than the disciples can.  For we know that those who drink the wine at Jesus’ table receive a very special vintage, the best wine of all, and wine that will never run out, wine of pleasure and joy because of what this God of gladness does. 

One night during my sophomore year at a small Lutheran liberal arts college, I was taking what I thought would be a shortcut through the Student Center, up a short flight of stairs and through what was normally an empty lounge area. But, that night, it was full of people listening to two women singing. I was in a hurry, and thought about turning around and taking another route, but one of the singers was my cousin, Dorthy. I stopped to listen as they sang, Part the Waters. I’m so glad I did—it’s a song that 40 years later still sounds in my head with its comforting words.  You can listen to it by clicking the link below: 

The lyrics go like this:

When I think I’m going under, part the waters, Lord
When I feel the waves around me, calm the sea
When I cry for help, oh hear me Lord
And hold out Your hand
Touch my life
Still the raging storm in me

Knowing You love me
Through the burdens I must bear
Hearing Your footsteps
Let’s me know I’m in Your care
And in the night of my life
You bring the promise of day
Here is my hand
Show me the way

When I think I’m goin’ under
Part the waters Lord
When I feel the waves around me, calm the sea
When I cry for help, oh hear me Lord
And hold out Your hand
Touch my life
Still the raging storm in me

Knowing You love me
Helps me face another day
Hearing Your footsteps
Drives the clouds and fears away
And in the tears of my life
I see the sorrow You bore
Here is my pain
Heal it once more

When I think I’m goin’ under
Part the waters Lord
When I feel the waves around me, calm the sea
When I cry for help, oh hear me Lord
And hold out Your hand
Touch my life
Still the raging storm in meTouch my life
Still the raging storm in me

I always associate that song with the text for today:

But now thus says YHWH, the one who created you, O Jacob, the one who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have vindicated you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.

For I am YHWH, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life.

Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; I will say to the north, “give them up,” and to the south, “do not withhold; bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth- everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” Isaiah 43: 1-7

This is one of my go-to scriptures. I use it with people when they are in a bad way, when they are suffering, or dying, or losing a loved one, or so low they think they’ll never smile again. I call on it myself when I’m feeling overwhelmed or discouraged or afraid. When I hear this text and imagine what it would sound like to hear the voice of God speak these words to me, I hear it in my mother’s fiercely protective, familiar and loving voice. She was always able to comfort me, to calm the raging storm in me, to encourage me. I know how blessed I have been to have known the love of a close and healthy family. It’s easy for me to make a step from knowing I am loved by my family, to knowing God loves me.

I understand that for some who haven’t known that unconditional parental love may struggle with the image of God as a parent who loves so extravagantly. Yet that is the message Isaiah proclaimed: God will be with us and will protect us. God created us, formed us, named us, called us, and says we belong to God, that we are created for God’s glory.

As a mother myself I resonate with this text—for I named my children. They were formed and made inside me- they are mine, they are precious in my sight, honored, loved. I would give whole nations in exchange for them if I had nations to give. I want to encourage them and build them up and instill in them the belief that love will see them through the mightiest floods or fires, that what matters most cannot be touched by rivers of water or flames.

This image of God that I hold is reinforced in the previous chapter of Isaiah where the prophet tells us that God says, “I am YHWH, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you…For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor, I will gasp and pant.”  Isaiah 42: 6 and 14. We see God as a mother taking her children by the hand and keeping them safe, having labored to bring them to life. Throughout this whole section of the prophet Isaiah, called the Book of Comfort, we find the love of God expressed passionately, assuring the people of God’s fathomless, fierce and tender, gentle and strong commitment and devotion.

God’s estimation of us as beloved, cherished, named and claimed as children of God can be difficult to take to heart. Such an identity can take time to be believed and absorbed.  May we take the time to soak in the love of God and live from the sense of self that comes from knowing God is with us, in all things.  Amen.

January 2, 2022; ICCM; Praises Be!; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Last Tuesday Steve and I took some friends to Las Labradas, the archeological north of Mazatlan, located right on the Tropic of Cancer. We’ve been there many times and every time it impresses us. Between the waves and the sand lies a quarter of a mile long stretch of volcanic boulders on which were carved over 600 drawings. There are geometric shapes: circles, spirals, crosses; human figures in various poses: hunting, raising their hands to the sun, even giving birth; animals and plants as well as depictions of an eclipse and a comet. And there are pictures that defy explanation.  Most of the carvings are dated to the Aztatlán Period from 750 to 1250 AD but some were made as long ago as 3000 BC. Each time I am there I am astounded by the way the petroglyphs speak across the ages, communicating what the people experienced so long ago. The cover image on my blog features a photo I took the first time we were there.

Well, last Tuesday was even more spectacular than any other visit. We were just about to leave when we spotted two whales frolicking in the waves about 200 yards from shore. They breached and surfaced, they slapped the water with their glorious tails and rolled side to side, displaying their flippers—for 30 minutes! There we were, literally standing on ancient communication, watching, with mouths agape, a very present demonstration of the living mystery of the cosmos. We were dwarfed by time, and size and beauty. I have tried to describe it to you, but explanations fail. I felt so alive and aware.

The psalm we read responsively in worship last Sunday has been rolling through my mind since that encounter on the beach. Psalm 148 instructs all creation to praise God.

Praise God, from heaven—all angels, sun, moon, and stars for God made it all!

Praise God from earth—sea monsters, all deeps, fire, wind, hail, snow, frost, mountains, hills, fruit trees, cedars, wild animals, cattle, creeping things, flying birds!

Praise God you kings, all peoples, princes, all rulers, young men and women, old and young alike, Praise the Lord!

There on the shoreline, the whales, the rocks, the sunshine and the waves all demonstrated the glory of God. The loud booms of sound from the whales’ tails announced the grandeur of creation. The people scattered across the rocks, young and old, men and women, locals and tourists stood with mouths agape for a half an hour, exclaiming at the marvel of life itself. The water stretched to the horizon so far that the curvature of the earth was visible. No wonder the ancient people of that place carved their praise on the rocks!

Like the psalm from last Sunday, today’s readings sing the praises of God in poetic form. Eugene Peterson, who wrote the biblical paraphrase called The Message, points out that about 60% of the bible is poetry. He says, “poets tell us what our eyes, blurred by too much gawking and our ears, dulled by too much chatter, miss around and within us. Poets use words to drag us into the depth of reality itself. They do it not by reporting on how life is, but by pushing-pulling us into the middle of it. Poetry grabs for the jugular. Far from being cosmetic language it is intestinal. It is root language. Poetry doesn’t so much tell us something we never knew as bring into recognition what is latent, overlooked, or suppressed. Poetry forces us to slow down.”

Today’s readings are dense, written with exquisite artistry and care, each word carefully chosen to convey the overwhelming love of God for all creation. Both texts announce the same message, that the Christ is the pattern of existence. Christ was present with God before the cosmos began, fully revealed in Jesus, and continues to be revealed in the us, the children of God who live in Christ.

I slowed down to spend some time with these poetic this week in their original Greek. Those of you who’ve heard me preach before know that I’m a bible nerd. I could spend years studying these texts and never exhaust the depth. I’m going to try to share some of that fascination with you today in a manageable way.

Biblical poetry is different from what we normally think of as poetry in the western modern world. I printed the texts out for you in a different format. Let’s start with the gospel.  Let’s read it responsively.  This side is going to read the left-hand column and this side is going to read the right-hand column. Look for parallelism, a thought presented once and then repeated a little differently for emphasis and deeper meaning.  Look for how Christ is portrayed, as one with God, and one with us from before time began, as the pattern of life and light.

1 In the beginning was the Word,             and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God.                          ² He was in the beginning with God.

³ All things came into being through him,      and without him not one thing came into being.

What has come into being ⁴ in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 

⁵ The light shines in the darkness,   and the darkness did not overcome it.

⁶ There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 

⁸ He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. ⁹ The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.^[b]

¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 

¹¹ He came to what was his own,^[c] and his own people did not accept him. 

¹² But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 

¹³ who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and lived among us,

and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son,^[d] full of grace and truth. 

¹⁵ (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”) 

¹⁶ From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 

¹⁷ The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 

¹⁸ No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son,^[e] who is close to the Father’s heart,^[f] who has made him known.

John 1 is not doctrine so much as it is a doxology. In the last few years, I’ve been fascinated by these New Testament hymn to Christ. They distill the beliefs of the early church, proclaiming the incarnation as the very goal of creation itself. Another one of these hymns is found in Colossians chapter 1

“Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him, all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”

These texts express that deep mystery of God in Christ, and Christ in us, and God revealed in the cosmos. In them we hear echoes of the poetry of Genesis, when God spoke the world into being. They tell us that the Incarnation of Christ in Jesus is not a fall-back plan made necessary by sin, but actually is the very purpose of creation. 

The great thinker Albert Einstein put it this way:

There is an extremely powerful force that, so far, science has not found a formal explanation to. It is a force that includes and governs all others, and is even behind any phenomenon operating in the universe and has not yet been identified by us. This universal force is LOVE.

When scientists looked for a unified theory of the universe they forgot the most powerful unseen force. Love is Light, that enlightens those who give and receive it. Love is gravity, because it makes some people feel attracted to others. Love is power, because it multiplies the best we have, and allows humanity not to be extinguished in their blind selfishness. Love unfolds and reveals. For love we live and die. Love is God and God is Love.

God laid the foundation of existence so that it reveals God’s own love and goodness. God is within all that God has made, wooing us, whispering to us to choose in our freedom the most beautiful future intended by God’s own self.  Jesus called that future the kingdom of God, a world in which love, justice and equality would reign.  There’s a line in the Talmud that says, “Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers: “Grow, grow”. That’s how God relates to us, always alluring us to grow in the direction of love.

Jesus is our exemplar for this life lived in the image of God. The Word, the Logos, is the mind of God- what the Old Testament referred to as Wisdom and that Word is working through all creation, through the Tropic of Cancer and the crashing waves, through the slapping tails of whales, or the birth of a child.

Ilia Delio puts it this way “The Incarnation represents not a divine response to a human need for salvation but instead the divine intention from all eternity to raise human nature to the highest point of glory by uniting it with divine nature.” God is perfect love and wills according to the perfection of that love. Since perfect love cannot will anything less than the perfection of love, Christ would have come in the highest glory in creation even if there was no sin and thus no need for redemption.

Jesus said, “anyone who sees me has seen the Father.” If we want to see what the divine looks like when fully aligned with the human form we just need to look to Jesus. Paul says in Romans 11, “for from him and through him and to him are all things.”

Salvation is not just deliverance from sin but fulfillment of who God is in Christ for all creation. If we reduce Jesus to just helping us get rid of sin, we lose fulfilment of Gods purposes for all of creation in Christ and in the church as a continuation of incarnation. Certainly, salvation is the overcoming of sin, but the fullness of redemption is the completion of creation’s purpose. The outworking of the love as we see in Jesus is the very essence of God. The whole point of who God is and what God does is summed up in the incarnate Christ.  That’s what we find expressed in our reading from Ephesians.

Let’s turn the handout over now.  These 14 verses have been called the most monstrous sentence conglomeration ever seen in the Greek language.  When it is translated as prose it becomes a 200 word mess of subordinate clauses and phrases. As I said earlier, I’m a bible nerd.  I spent some time studying this passage this week, looking at it in Greek for clues to its structure.  I wound up learning that it follows a Greek poetic form of lyric poetry called and Ode, intended to stir the listener’s emotive response through rhythm and musical accompaniment.  So I examined it as if it were a song, looking for recurrent phrases and patterns. 

I didn’t have time to figure out how to make it sound like poetry in English, to include the alliteration present in the original language, for example.  But I think I was able to show you a little of it by using the formatting of the text.  As I read this poem, follow along and look for the ideas I just told you about:  how in Jesus the Christ the blessing of God is carried out, and how we and all believers are included in that belonging.  Note the refrain that God’s plan is for us to live to the praise of God’s grace and glory.  Note that nearly every line ends with “in him” or some equivalent of that phrase.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

The one who has blessed us

with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ

As God chose us in him

Before the foundation of the cosmos, to be holy and unblemished before him

Predestining us to God’s self, through adoption as children through Jesus Christ

According to the good pleasure of the will of him

To the praise of the glory of the grace of him

Through which he has freely given to us in the Beloved

In whom we have redemption through the blood of him

The forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of the grace of him

Which he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery will of him

According to the good pleasure of him

Which he purposed in him

As a plan for the fullness of time, to gather together all things in Christ

Things of heaven and on the earth in him

In whom we also were chosen as heirs, predestined according to the purpose of him

The one who accomplishes all things according to the will of him

So that we should be to the praise of the glory of him

We who had previously hoped in Christ, and you also,

hearing the word of truth, and believing the gospel of your salvation

You were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance

until the redemption of those who are God’s possession

To the praise of the glory of him.

Christ is more than just a historical person who walked this earth for 33 years, though he is that. He is more than a great teacher, marvelous miracle-worker, and extraordinary moral-exemplar, though he is that too. Indeed, Christ is even more than the God- man who died for our sins and rose from the dead, though that is a crucial part of his identity. Christ, the scriptures tell us, is also someone and something within the very structure of the cosmos itself, the pattern on which the universe was conceived, is built, and is now developing.

Last week’s lesson from Paul’s the letter to the Colossians says this: “Christ is the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created … all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things and in him all things hold together.”

In addition to these great passages of scriptures, we have some other texts from the earliest days of the church too, that outline this idea.  In the second century there was a man named Irenaeus who left us some amazing writing. He was born in Smyrna (modern day Turkey) and  studied under another writer, Polycarp, who was a disciple of the apostle John. That’s amazing isn’t it, that we have these messages that endure across the ages. Irenaeus became the Bishop of Lyon, in what is now Southern France. In about the year 185 he wrote the first systematic exposition of the Christian faith, called “Against Heresies.”  In it he says something that seems to be based on these hymns we’ve been looking at.  He said, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive. The life of humanity is the vision of God.”

I love that! When we are fully alive, we display the glory of God. As we follow Christ we become more alive. What can we say but, Praise God! 

Let us pray– come into our hearts Lord Jesus, come in today, come in to stay.  Fill us with the wonder of your love.  Amen.

When my son was about 6 years old he asked me if God hides from us.  Then, without missing a beat he told me God must be like The Flash, a superhero from comic books who can zip from one place to another before you can see he’s gone.   

Understanding who God is or what God is like can be very hard.  Children know that and so does anyone else who has tried to explain God to a child.  Children learn that God can hear their prayers and the prayers of all other people at the same time. Children learn that God is with us all the time and with everyone else too.  Understanding God can be hard. 

It can seem like God is hiding from us even when we grow up.  But, because of Jesus we don’t’ not have to guess about God any more– God came out of hiding, so to speak.  We see who God is when we see Christ.  All we need to know about God is in Jesus.  That is something even a child can understand. 

When my daughter was about 6 years old she was sitting at the kitchen table coloring in an Advent/Christmas coloring book—because that’s what preacher’s kids do—sometimes.  She started to tell me about the picture.  She pointed to the manger and said, “That’s Jesus lying there.”  She pointed to the woman kneeling by the mange rand said, “That’s his mother Mary.”  Then she pointed to the man standing next to Mary and said, “That’s God.” 

I corrected her, “No, that’s Joseph.”

“But I thought God was Jesus’ father… If that’s not God then who is God?”

“Well, God isn’t a man like Joseph,” I said.  “God isn’t a person at all.”   I thought to myself, so much for all my training.  How do you explain God to a 6 year old.  I said something like, “God created everything and can’t be seen like Joseph could.  God is power and truth.”  I could see her puzzling over what I said.  I think I tried to explain saying something like, “The bible says that the Spirit of God is like the wind that blows where it wills…”

She interrupted me with a roll of her eyes and something like, “Well, that doesn’t make any sense at all!”

So I started over, once again.  “The bible also says that God shows us all we need to know about God in Jesus.” 

Relief and understanding came back into the conversation. “Yeah,” she said, “God sent Jesus to show us what God is like. That’s right.”

All we need to know about God can be found in Jesus.  Paul said it this way, “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. He is the image of the invisible God.”  In Hebrews 1, v. 3 we find a similar verse—“He is the reflection of God’s glory and is the exact imprint of Gods very being.” Those are some of my favorite bible verses.  They direct me, like a child, back to Christ as all I really need to know about God. 

There is a wonder to this season that draws out the child in each of us and answers the longings and questions of us all.  Something about little babies captivates us all– from the toughest and oldest to the youngest and sweetest.  Toddlers who are just learning to talk learn “baby” as one of their first words.  New parents can watch their newborns for long stretches of time.  Respectable, dignified, reasonable adults become gibbering fools when their grandchildren are born.  Maybe it is the helpless dependence of children that captivates us.  Maybe it is the miracle of birth and life itself.  Add to all of that natural appreciation of babies the fact that in Jesus we have God the child and we have the childlike wonder of Christmas. 

Today’s gospel presents us with Jesus at the age of twelve. But, you’ll pardon me if, on the day after Christmas, I stick with the baby Jesus and the child in all of us for today. 

I recall my childhood memories of Christmas.  It seemed almost a magical time– a time when anything could happen.  I remember shopping with my mom and sister and wanting to linger in front of a particular store window in Fargo that had a display each year of moving dolls.  I remember thinking that they were real, and that they only lived at Christmas time.  There were special decorations brought out of wrapping and handled with care.  There were candles.  Christmas, too, was a season of secrets and surprises. 

Certainly, the traditions are not the main point of Christmas.  They are like the accompaniment to a melody.  The traditions can become like the squiggles of a doodle.  Everyone knows how to doodle, during a long boring class or meeting you start by making a shape, say a circle or a star, then you add other shapes around the original one, expanding and spreading all over the paper.  Before you know it you can’t see where you started, the simple beginning is swallowed up in adornment. 

Christmas too, started simply.  And because it is special, we have adorned our celebrations with countless wonderful decorations and traditions– shopping, presents, parties, trees, twinkling lights, stockings, carols, concerts, foods, candlelight  and so on.  We have to be careful not to lose sight of the simple truth from which it all began. 

You have not come here today for the beauty of the sanctuary as it is decorated for Christmas. You come here week after week, and year after year, to hear again the story of God come close to us in Jesus.  There is a hunger in our souls, a hunger we are often not even aware of, that draws us to hear the story of the Child born so that we may be free, united with God, and so that we may learn to love one another. 

Christmas is a time for all of us, no matter what our situation.  Within each of us is someone who needs love and comfort and security.  There is a child in each of us, no matter how old, who wants loving arms to rush into when we are hurt or sad or lonely.  Who doesn’t want a gift?  Not everyone has happy memories of Christmases.  Some come from non-beleiving homes, or from homes that were scarred by a host of problems.  Some people carry with them memories of significant losses that happened near Christmas time.  If we did not get the love we needed as children, or if we’re nogetting the love we need now it can be even more important to hear the message of Christmas.  No matter who else has let us down, no matter what hurts we carry, the message of Christmas is that God has come out of hiding and will never fail us. 

I heard Dr. Jim Nestingen, from Luther Seminary, tell a story once about a pastor he knew and respected named Edmund Smits.  Visitation to a psychiatric hospital was a regular part of Pastor Smit’s ministry.  One of the people he visited there was a woman in a catatonic state.  She did not have a physical reason to be paralyzed but she did not move and did not respond to any contact or communication.  This pastor went in to see her regularly, even though the staff did not think it would do any good.  He spoke to her and read to her and prayed with her.  Before he left her, he would repeat these words,  “No matter who else let you down, Jesus never will.”  He did this for 70 days straight.  Finally she responded.  The Christmas gospel can reach through even the toughest barriers.  God has come out of hiding.  In Jesus and his love we are shown just what God is like. 

The gospel is as simple as Christmas–simple enough for a child, for the child in each of us. For God so loved the world that a savior was born to an unknown couple in a faraway place. Jesus was born, like all the rest of us.  God took on our lives and transforms them. 

The Christ child comes to us, asking us to receive him as a child with wonder and awe and trust and to welcome others with grace and love, as we should welcome children.  This little child grew up to tell the people

Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. 

Let us pray.  Your little ones dear Lord are we, and come your lowly bed to see, enlighten every soul and mind, that we the way to you may find.  Oh draw us wholly to you Lord, and to us all your grace accord, true faith and love to us impart, that we may hold you in our heart.  Amen.