Month: December 2019

Dec 29, 2019; ICCM; Matthew 2: 13-25; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

It’s only 4 days after Christmas, that silent holy night where all is calm, and all is bright, with the holy infant, tender and mild, sleeping in heavenly peace.  Already we’re listening to a tale of violence, threats and a close escape to a foreign land.  Matthew uses journeys, prophecies and dreams to move the story along.  The gospel moves quickly from the genealogy of Jesus, to a brief mention that Jesus was born and named, to the visit of the wise men, and then to the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt in order to escape a mad king’s fearful rage. 

Herod practiced Judaism even if the religious elite of the day would not have considered him a Jew. He was elected by the Roman Senate in about 36 BC.  He claimed the title King of the Jews for himself even though he was just Rome’s lapdog. To mask his powerless puppet status, he went on a building binge of tombs, temples, fortresses and palaces… all supported by outrageous taxes that ground the common people into the dust. 

When the wise men appeared looking for a child born to be “king of the Jews” Herod’s fear and deceit kicked into high gear.  Herod used the wise men as pawns in a plot to eliminate this new king.  Then when realized that the magi have double crossed him, his instinct to preserve his power at all costs accelerated even more. He knew the approximate date of the child’s birth thanks to the magi’s calculations, and so he ordered the extermination of all children born “in and around Bethlehem.”  Given the size of Bethlehem and the birth rates and so forth, scholars think that about 20 toddlers would have been killed. 

Herod’s reputation for brutality was well known.  Even before the slaughter of the innocents, his vices had the makings of a grisly A&E mini-series. He murdered his wife Marianne, her mother Alexandra, his eldest son, and two other sons. 

Matthew draws his mostly Jewish audience’s attention to the striking parallel between the execution of the Holy Innocents by Herod and the male infants killed in the first Passover at the hands of Pharaoh the night before the Exodus.  Herod is presented as a new Pharaoh. Both rulers lashed out with great malice but also in vain. Both Pharaoh and Herod brought about devastating losses of life, yet both ultimately failed to prevent the birth of a powerful leader of Israel. Both Moses and Jesus were born under the threat of death; both were protected.

Matthew firmly placed Jesus’ story as part of a continuous history of the salvation of the Jews.  An angel appeared in a second dream to Joseph telling him to flee and head into exile. This geographical detour of the holy family as refugees in Egypt is shown as a fulfillment of a prophecy originally focused on the people of Israel. Matthew’s portrays Jesus as the embodiment of the people of Israel. He is the recipient, bearer, and fulfillment of the promises made to Israel by God.

Matthew doesn’t tell us anything about Jesus’ years lived in exile in Egypt. Instead, he quickly returns Jesus to his hometown, as promised once again by scripture.  Another angel appears to Joseph in a dream, announcing the death of Herod.  The coast is clear for the family to return home to Bethlehem of Judea.  Then, yet another dream warns him that Herod’s son, Archelaus, now rules in Judea.  So, the family makes its new home in Nazareth in Galilee. For the third time, Matthew points to a prophetic promise: “He will be called a Nazarene.”

Matthew reassures the readers that everything is transpiring according to God’s plan. In this gospel God directs the holy family at every juncture. And, even more important, every move they make has scriptural significance: Bethlehem in Mic. 5:2; Egypt in Hos. 11:1; Galilee in Isa. 9:1; and Nazareth in . . . well, actually, no one’s sure just where that reference to Nazareth is found, but Matthew thinks it must be in “the prophets” somewhere.

After leading the reader to believe that Jesus would be one before whom kings of the earth would either kneel or tremble, Matthew now reveals that Jesus is to be identified with helpless, and vulnerable people of this world. In time, this will include his followers, who, like him will be pursued from town to town.

The forced travels of Jesus and his family provide a powerful symbol for all the refugees and oppressed people of the earth. A terrible reality of life is that a great many people in many parts of the world are simply at the mercy of political tyrants or unpredictable forces of nature that determine where, when, how, and whether they will live. Our Gospel lesson for today, tells us that Jesus himself was one of these dispossessed ones. 

Potential doom looms over these early chapters of Matthew. Jesus’ welcome to the world is not all choirs of angels and awestruck shepherds.  It is also fear that this child would subvert the order of the world, that a mere child would weaken the powerful.

The arbitrariness of Herod would have been entirely familiar to ancient people living under Rome’s long imperial shadow. The narrative of these threats upon Jesus’ life bristles with authenticity –for such tyranny was well known to ancient peoples. Matthew’s trust in God’s providence emerges not from a simplistic expectation but from a faith that expects God to reign in a world where the dominance of the powerful seems unchangeable. 

Let’s look at it like this…The Gospels are not only concerned with spreading the joy of Jesus Christ (which I assure you they are). They are also given to us to explain the truth.  You and I all know that the truth is not always a pretty thing. Matthew is not worried about our holiday spirit as much as he is about showing us truth.  The sad truth is that tyrannical powers threaten the poor and powerless in every generation.  Syrians, Rohingans, Latin Americans, South Sudanese, the list is endless.

The whole point of Christmas is to give hope, even to tragedies like the Holy Innocents…..I’m going to say that again…. The whole point of Christmas is to give hope even to tragedies like this. It is to say to those suffering, in pain, “fear not, for I bring you tidings of great joy – a Savior is born!” When we start thinking in these terms it makes sense that we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Innocents in the Christmas Season. For we no longer have NO hope…We have a Savior. We have Jesus Christ…We now have hope! We now have nothing to fear!

The world is a hard place…. and like Herod it will try to silence the Good News of Jesus Christ. The harshness of this world will try to distract us and make us doubt. The world will bring each of us trouble and heartache. And certainly, we witness and work against oppression and injustice.  Each one of us carry heartache….Our own burdens. Our own anguish in our hearts….But now…We can “fear not”.

Rather than letting the harshness of this world turn us away from Jesus, let us rely on Christ as the Savior through all our suffering, brokenness and heartbreak. For the promise of his birth, now fulfilled, shows God’s faithfulness in all the promises of forgiveness.

Whatever tragedy you face, whatever cause for weeping and mourning, whatever great sadness or guilt or pain you bring here today…Or, will face tomorrow – find hope in Christ. Find forgiveness and blessing. Look forward in faith and trust in a God who always keeps promises… “Fear not”.

The Holy Innocents were among the first martyrs of the Church.  There have been many more. Jesus himself suffered a horrible and cruel death, later because of a different Herod.  The harsh reality, is if we separate the Incarnation from the Crucifixion, we don’t fully get Christmas…Or, Christianity for that matter.  Christ’s resurrection from suffering and death becomes our resurrection from the cold dark grave of despair… Jesus was delivered, and so are we.

May whatever heartache you carry, give way to Christmas joy, as you find hope and comfort in the Christ who was born for you. Who rose for you…And…Who is a present for you……………Fear Not!

ICCM; Christmas Eve 2019; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Instead of opening Christmas cards and letters that come in the mail, here in Mexico we make do with emails or Facebook posts.  Once again, this year I received a greeting from my cousin.  She always manages to gather her whole extended family for a spectacular photo—the blond and blue-eyed family is dressed in coordinated outfits, hair tidy, smiles perfect.  Their accompanying greeting is filled with news of their trips and awards and achievements.  One might think it was a professionally produced advertisement.    

Jesus’ birth wasn’t picture perfect.  He was born into a shaky, uncertain family. Mary and Joseph were trembling that night, I’m sure, not thumping their matching sweater clad chests in a family photo.  They were just a young mother, yet unmarried, and her soon to be husband, trying to follow their calling.  Certainly, they were baffled, needy, making do in a stable find themselves holding the sweet little Jesus boy.  I doubt it looked anything like a Christmas card picture.  We don’t see the mess of childbirth, or the smell of the animals, or the fear and joy mingled together in those pretty manger scenes.

If your family isn’t picture perfect, that’s ok.  Neither was Jesus’ family.  But, in that humble family Jesus learned to be merciful, to love, to follow God’s call.  That’s what we get to do too.  We hurt each other, and then we forgive. We live in a messy world that is not picture perfect.

People did not know who Jesus was at his birth.  He was seen as one more baby born on the run, born into poverty and anonymity. Jesus was not given a place of honor but a place of leftovers.  There were no warm towels waiting to receive him, only the warm arms of a very tired mother and father. The world treated him with contempt and disdain. Jesus practiced what he preached—a gospel of God’s great kingdom reversal where the mighty are brought low and the low are lifted up and the outcast have special reserved seating at the banquet while the insiders have to move down a seat to make room for them at the table.

This great reversal sees men and women and children—all, not some—sees all, first and foremost, as children of God and are to be treated with the kind of care and dignity that that claim demands. A young woman is called to smuggle God’s salvation into the world.  Lowly, ordinary shepherds are the first ones visited by angel choruses with the good news. I am convinced that God would not have had it any other way but to be born into a leftover place and to a left-out people, knowing full well no one else knew what God was doing in that sweet little Jesus boy.

By being born as unwelcome and unknown, God was taking the daring risk of Great Love. God was proclaiming to us all that God loves us so much that God is not content to be without us. God was determined to show us God’s constant presence and love by getting down into the grit of our lives, down into the grime of our pain, down into the messiness and beauty of being a human being, a child of God, a baby—completely weak in power, completely vulnerable to the world.

As William Sloane Coffin once preached, “To break through our defenses, [God] arrives [in Jesus] utterly defenseless. Nothing but unguarded goodness in that manger” (William Sloane Coffin, “Power Comes to Its Full Strength in Weakness,” 25 December 1977). God knew exactly what God was doing at this moment of birth into a leftover place to a left-out people, even though no one else did.

Here in this congregation one of the traditions we look forward to is Carl Williams, this time with Keith Reid in support, singing Sweet Little Jesus Boy.  That song was written by Robert McGimsey in 1934, in the depth of the Great Depression.  He had attended a midnight Christmas Eve worship service in New York City and was walking past some private nightclubs on his way home.  He witnessed drunken people singing and shouting and swearing through the doorways and the poor huddled in corners and doorways for warmth.  His biography says he wrote his thoughts that formed the basis for this song on the back of an envelope: What a strange way to celebrate the most loving, influential person that ever lived.  We seem to have missed the whole significance of his birth.

So here we are, on this night to claim hope and sing for joy.  We do so because of the way God chose to be Immanuel, God-with-Us, a baby, born into poverty and anonymity, born into a world full of violence and fear, born completely vulnerable and totally unguarded—because this is the way God has chosen to make God’s love most fully known. The God who chose to come to be with us like that is a God who will never harm us. Any God who would choose to come be with us like that can only be a God full of more love and grace and mercy than we can ever imagine.

So yes, God knew exactly what God was doing at this moment of birth, what we call incarnation. Even if they didn’t know who the baby was. Even if we still don’t completely know who this Jesus is. God knows what God is doing. And that is more than enough.

Therefore on this night hear anew what the angels sang: “Be not afraid. For I bring you good news of a great joy for all the people. To you, for you—messy, beautiful, broken you—is born this day a Savior, who is the Messiah, who is God-with-Us, who is the Lord.” Sweet little Jesus Boy. God’s Love-Made-Flesh.  Amen.

Advent 4a; Dec 22, 2019; Matthew 1; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson; ICCM

Today we heard Matthew’s version of the birth of Jesus. No donkey, no stable, no angels, no shepherds—just this business about the scandal of Mary’s untimely pregnancy.  But Matthew doesn’t start there—we jumped into Matthew’s gospel at verse 18.  The first 17 verses never get read in church on a Sunday morning- in fact they’re rarely read at all.  Those first 17 verses are the genealogical account of the ancestors of Jesus.  14 generations from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the Exile, and 14 more to the birth of Jesus.  Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, etc. etc. etc. At first it seems like a neat tidy package.  But, Matthew leaves out a bunch of the people listed in Samuel and Kings and his list of names is different from Luke’s list.  Clearly, Matthew is making a point in his choice of those 42 hard to pronounce names.  The truly unusual and risqué content that drives the whole point home of starting a gospel with what seems to be a boring old list of names, is Matthew’s inclusion of 4 women plus Mary in his list—five women whose lives were cloaked in scandal, referred to by one scholar as the shady ladies.

Matthew was written in about 85 AD for a particularly Jewish oriented community of Christians. Paul didn’t include anything about the birth of Jesus, neither did Mark.  Luke’s account is the one we normally hear that includes all those Christmas pageant characters and John who wrote later still starts his account with that metaphysical poetry about the Word of God, the Light and the Darkness, and the character of time.  Matthew grounds his story in the history of the Jewish people.  He starts with Abraham, through David, through kings and the exile, all the way to Joseph—and then, after all that, he says Joseph’s role is just husband of Mary. 

Matthew frames the story in scandal, Mary pregnant too early, Joseph’s pain and his decision to “put her away quietly.” A Jewish tradition gives meaning to that phrase and reveals more about the scandalous aspect of this story.  You see, in that culture, if a woman was raped in an urban setting and could not prove she had resisted the rape she would be put to death by stoning.  If she was raped in a rural area and couldn’t prove her resistance, then she could be “put away quietly.” The idea was that in a rural area she could scream her lungs out but there might not be anyone around for miles—so in that case she could be given the benefit of the doubt. Joseph’s dream offers an alternative explanation of Mary’s situation.  Matthew’s inclusion of four other women reinforces the point.

The first shady lady is Tamar.  Her story is in Genesis 38.  She is the daughter in law of Judah, Jacob’s son.  Tamar married Judah’s oldest son but he dies childless.  So, the next son of Judah is supposed to marry his widow—the second son is Onan.  If you want scandal—read his story for yourself. It’s too long for this sermon—He gets out of marrying Tamar.  The next son, Shela, is 5 years old and not yet a suitable spouse.  So, Judah sends Tamar home to her father’s house promising the marry her to Shela when he is of age. Tamar tries to put back the broken pieces of her life, cast off, without status.

Years later, Shela is grown and Judah’s wife dies. He has business in Tamar’s town. She sets a trap for him by dressing like a prostitute and sitting at the city gate. He sees her and once again revealing his character he decides to avail himself of her services.  They make a deal as he doesn’t have the payment with him. He gives her his signet ring and a couple pieces of clothing as a promise to pay. A few days later he sends a servant with the payment, but Tamar is no longer at the gate. The townspeople deny there has ever been a prostitute who sits there.  He tries to find her but can’t. He is worried about his reputation and decides to let her keep the things to avoid becoming a laughingstock. Three months go by and he hears his daughter in law is pregnant.  He is “wrathful” as the bible puts it.  He makes moves to burn her to death.  She sends the ring and clothing with a note—by the way, the father is the owner of these items. Judah repents and takes her into his own harem.  She produces twins. One is named Perez. Matthew tells us that it is through this incestuous and deceitful relationship that Jesus’ own lineage comes. 

What? How is this part of the Christmas story? But wait, there’s more… a few generations later the lineage flows through Rahab—she’s the prostitute that harbored Joshua’s spies in the battle of Jericho.  Then comes Ruth.  Ruth is the Moabite daughter-in-law of Naomi and her husband, Elimelech, who had fled Judah with their two sons in a time of famine. Having moved to Moab the two sons marry Moabite women.  All three men die there, leaving a Jewish mother and her 2 Moabite daughters-in-law.  One daughter-in-law returns to her Moabite family.  Ruth and Naomi survive by gleaning the fields.  Naomi knows the ways of the world and sees that the owner of the fields is Boaz, a distant kinsman of her Elimelech.  According to the same law that featured in Tamar’s story, Boaz could marry Ruth and care for them.  So, Naomi hatches a plan.  Ruth dresses her best and seeks out Boaz when he is drunk at a festival.  She gets under the blanket with passed-out Boaz.  In the old movies, the scene would fade out at this point and our imaginations could fill in what happened next.  Boaz, wakes up, sees what has happened and does the honorable thing. He marries her and through the sneaky seduction it all ends well.

Matthew moves on to the next shady lady, so shady we aren’t even told her name, just that she’s the wife of Uriah.  If you know your bible stories the way Matthew’s original audience did, you know the wife of Uriah is none other than Bathsheba who King David was smitten with.  He watches her bathing and summons her to the palace. She was in no position to deny the King.  She becomes pregnant and David engineers the death of her husband Uriah so Bathsheba can be added to his harem.  Conquest, adultery and murder in the lineage of Jesus.

Skipping the 17 verses of “begats” avoids the tricky questions.  But by the time Matthew opened his gospel with this genealogy there was already debate about the legitimacy of Jesus of Nazareth.  Joseph’s initial reaction of wanting to “put her away quietly” and send her back to her father’s house reveals that scandal.  Joseph’s dream gives him an alternative explanation.  Matthew draws our attention to the way God has worked before too.

God doesn’t work through moralistic actions. In fact, God can even take an immoral act and work through it to bring good. The line that produced Jesus can and does flow through incest, prostitution, seduction, adultery, and even murder without hindering God’s ability to work through human history to bring life and light to the world. 

 So often people use the bible as a book of judgment. They want to make it a severe kind of weapon with which they can organize and control the behavior of others. But the writer of Matthew says, “NO the message of God in Christ is a message of love. It’s a message of love that says, no matter what you have done, no matter who you have been, the love of God can transform any life and bring holiness out of any human distortion.

Jesus lived out that pattern.

No matter what they did to Jesus, he loved them.

No matter what they said to him, Jesus loved them.

He was denied and Jesus loved those who denied him.

He was betrayed and Jesus loved those who betrayed him.

He was tortured and he loved those who tortured him.

He was killed and he loved those who killed him.

How else can you say with a life, there is nothing any of you can ever do, there is nothing any of you can ever be that will finally separate you from the love of God that we meet in Christ Jesus.

Christmas is not primarily about miracles. The story of Christmas is about the love of God interacting with human life to create wholeness, extravagant love, and the courage to be everything that you are capable of being. It is the power of God in Christ that enables you to live and to love and to be. That’s what the Christmas story is all about. It’s told in a dramatically human fashion.

Even in the supposedly boring 17 verses of “begats” we find the key that unlocks the truth. The bible is a remarkable book. People destroy and distort the Bible whenever they treat it as if it is a literal document about history. It’s not. It is a magnificent portrait painted by Jewish artists who describe the impact of a God filled life named Jesus of Nazareth upon human history.  We are called to live fully, we are empowered to love, we are enabled to be all that you were created to be, and that’s the message of the baby born in Bethlehem, who himself came through a very checkered ancestry.

The love of God is never distorted by the means through which it flows.  And it can never finally be distorted even by the acts of those of us who claim to be Christ’s disciples.  Bethlehem means that the love of God has entered human life. And Christmas will be real when we understand that our job is to allow God’ presence to flow through us so that the love of God might be known among all the people that God has created and that God still loves.

Gift of Hope; 12.8.19; Rebecca Ellenson; ICCM

Have you heard the story about the identical twin boys? They were alike in every way but one. One was a hope-filled optimist who only ever saw the bright side of life. The other was a dark pessimist, who only ever saw the down-side in every situation.

The parents were so worried about the extremes of optimism and pessimism in their boys they took them to the Doctor. He suggested a plan. “On their next birthday give the pessimist a shiny new bike but give the optimist only a pile of manure.”

It seemed an extreme thing to do. After all the parents had always treated heir boys equally. But in this instance, they decided to try to Doctor’s advice. So, when the twins birthday came they gave the pessimist the most expensive, top of the line racing bike a child has ever owned. When he saw the bike his first words were, “I’ll probably crash and break my leg.”  To the hopeful son they gave a carefully wrapped box of manure. He opened it, looked puzzled for a moment, then ran outside screaming, “You can’t fool me! Where there’s this much manure, there’s just gotta be a pony around here somewhere!”

How do we look forward with hope when we find ourselves looking a pile of manure?  The prophet Jeremiah wrote in what was widely seen as the darkest of times.  The Southern kingdom of Israel had already been overtaken by the Assyrian empire’s army.  The Babylonians were gaining strength and threatening to overtake the Northern kingdom of Judah.  Jeremiah often sounded like the pessimistic twin in the story—but in Chapter 29 verse 11 he sang out like the hopeful twin, “For surely I know the plans I have for you, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”  

Hope is more than optimism.  It is connected to faith and trust.  In Hebrews chapter 11 verse 1, we read, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  We hope because of the steadfastness of God, even when things seem as bad as they can be. 

I learned a lesson about hope the year a woman named Nancy died right before Christmas.  Her husband Antti told me about the day Nancy had been diagnosed with Leukemia.  They were distressed and still somewhat disbelieving as they drove home from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN.  He told me she turned to him and said, “Honey, we’ve got to look for the gifts in this.”  That

was her approach through the many years she lived with the disease.  She squeezed out of her diagnosis all that it had to teach her and those close to her. Nancy faced the disease through her faith and proved the truth of those words of Paul’s:

…we boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

The disease itself was not a gift, but Nancy found the gifts in it. I remember sitting with them in the hospital the week before she died.  She spoke in her quiet, gentle way about the blessings that came for her, and for Antti and for their family through the suffering.  She commented that many people were all too ready to seize control and deny their pain, and thereby miss the blessings to be found by going through suffering.  She pointed my attention to the two-edged character of life, to the mystery and majesty of it — to the gift to be found in the suffering. Most of the important things in life have that double-sided reality, including the gospel.  Real truth requires that we see the whole, both sides. 

Because of her depressed immune system Nancy was not able to attend a Sunday morning worship service.  So, three weeks before she died their family gathered on a Saturday for the baptism of her latest grandchild.  The sanctuary had been decorated with freshly cut pine trees. We glimpsed the mystery of life and death as we stomped our snowy boots around the baptismal font.  Nancy stood next to me as I dipped my hand into the water and washed the top of a tiny head and said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” 

I prayed the prayer whose words are taken from our Old Testament reading for today:  “God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we give you thanks for freeing your sons and daughters from the power of sin and for raising them up to a new life through this holy sacrament.  Pour out your Holy Spirit on this child, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord., the spirit of joy in your presence.”  And as I made the sign of the cross on his forehead, I spoke the child’s name and said the words, “child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ, forever.” 

As we stood there, next to the altar rail, we all knew another day was coming. I was thinking ahead to the words I would soon say when we began the funeral service for Nancy–

When we were baptized in Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death.   We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live a new life.  For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

I was thinking about the sign of the cross I would make, not on her forehead, but on her casket, draped in the pall that symbolized the last leg on that baptismal journey, calling on those same promises of new life for Nancy and promises of comfort and hope for all of us who would remain. 

Today, on this second Sunday in Advent, we look forward in hope toward another mystery: the mystery of Christmas, the incarnation.  It is when we feel fear or grief or uncertainty that the prospect of hope is most needed. Grief and loss, fear and uncertainty, suffering and pain don’t take a break for the holidays. Christmas marks the beginning of a life that encountered suffering and hardship all along the way.  It is the beginning of a life that suffered pain and death.  Christmas is the beginning of Jesus’ walk through all of life with us, with all its stark realities.  This season gathers in all the sorrow we know and gives us a promise to hold on to. 

In every season we need the hopeful message of Christmas that God so loved the world that Jesus, God’s only son, was sent that whoever believes in him might not perish but have eternal life.  The coming of the Christ is about God being one of us, knowing loss, knowing sorrow, knowing health and failing health, knowing human weakness, knowing all of what it is to be human, even death.   The message of Christmas is that Christ came, as an infant, to live our lives, to grow with us, to serve us and love us and lead us. 

We are not promised lives of comfort and ease.  Even when it seems like we’ve opened a box of manure—there are gifts to be found.  Through steadfastness and the encouragement of the scriptures we may have hope and glorify God in all things.  Amen.

Maranatha! Peace.  Dec 1, 2019; ICCM; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Road trips can be fun, or they can be terrible. When my daughter was 2 and my son was 7 their father and planned a camping trip to Yellowstone National Park.  We had great expectations. We left our dog, Penny, with the grandparents and set off.  It was a long journey, really long! Our youngest was in a car seat calling out her mournful lament, “I wanna go home!  I miss Penny!”  Mile after mile all across the Dakotas she hollered her refrain, “I wanna go home! I miss Penny!” Her brother made the best of it—alternately trying to keep her occupied, or turning his back to her and playing his Gameboy. I’m sure there were a few good moments, but it wasn’t what the journey we expected.

Advent, the four weeks before Christmas, is a journey of a sort. The path is set: we start with expectations, we are encouraged to keep awake and alert so we’re ready.  We have a vision set before us of what we might encounter. We have candles to light the way. And our experience depends on our readiness to encounter new things. Some of us might feel like a backseat passenger, dragged along by someone else when all we want is the security of home and the things we know and love.  Some of us, our Gospel text suggests, don’t even know there is a journey at all.  Those travelers are just doing their thing, too busy to pay attention, too focused on the tasks at hand to notice that there is any movement happening, that the keys are being jangled, that the car is pulling out.

The first goal on the Advent journey this year is Peace.  We are given a vision of peace in the text from Isaiah. In the days to come swords will be beaten into plowshares, spears into pruning hooks, the nations will stream to God’s holy mountain and no one will be taught war anymore. The psalm tells the same story—pray for peace and draw near to God’s throne.  It is a vision of our world transformed into a place of peace.  Our gospel invites us to watch and wait for the coming of the Lord. 

The story goes that an elderly woman attended a conference featuring presenters from a wide spectrum of believers.  It was a new experience for her to venture out beyond her own congregation and denomination.  She was surprised by the diversity of Christian perspectives. One of the preachers suggested that the participants might try using a greeting that had been popular in the earliest days of Christianity.  People in the first century of the church expected Jesus to return any day. They used the Greek word Maranatha, the Lord is coming.  The woman embraced the suggestion.  She decided to live expectantly—to look for the Lord’s coming and try this new greeting.  So, the next morning she positioned herself at the entry to the breakfast area and enthusiastically greeted each person saying, Marijuana, brother.  Marijuana, sister.  She was close, I guess—at least phonetically speaking.  Marijuana isn’t Maranatha is it? 

The idea that the Lord is coming is interpreted in a variety of ways within the broad spectrum of Christian faith.  Some see our gospel text and a few other passages as predicting a scenario that would unfold 7 years before the second coming of Jesus and the final judgement. They see it as an event they call the rapture when some will be taken up to heaven and spared the tribulation: horrific suffering, wars and devastation for those left behind. 

Some of you may have read one of the Left Behind novels that were first published in the 1990s.  These fictional books are filled with a violent conflict between the tribulation force made up of the left behind who have repented, committing themselves to Jesus.  With military weapons the forces of the Antichrist clash in a battle of Armageddon with Jesus who is figured as an omnipotent warrior who defeats his opponents and condemns most people to eternal suffering in hell.  All 12 of these fictional masterpieces were on the New York Times bestseller list, selling more than 60 million copies.

The idea of a rapture is a modern invention that traces its origin to John Nelson Darby, a late 19^th century British evangelist.  His Scofield Reference Bible was first published in 1909 and divides world history into multiple dispensations climaxing in the rapture and second coming of Jesus.  When we zero in on a few isolated texts and create a fictional and elaborate scheme full of violent destruction we lose sight of the vision of Peace that dominates Christian teaching throughout most of history and most of the world.  If everything might end in the next 50 years, why work for peace?  Why protect the environment? Rapture theology doesn’t match the biblical Jesus who came as the prince of peace. Maranatha doesn’t mean marijuana, and it doesn’t mean Armageddon either. 

When we embark on this Advent journey we are invited to live expectantly.  This season begins not with fear but with peace: Christmas cards read, Peace on Earth. Our carols are filled with Peace, Peace, Peace, Sleep in Heavenly peace.  Today we lit the candle of peace.  We seek the peace of Christ that passes all understanding.  We strive for the vision where swords are beaten into plowshares, spears into pruning hooks, where there is no more learning war, no more fighting, but walking in the light of the Lord! 

Advent invites us to draw close to Christ, to journey into peace, hope, joy, trust, and love.  We are invited to leave behind the excess and examine our hearts so that we can follow our Lord.  While the rest of the world is already full-swing into the Christmas season the season of Advent beckons us to travel a different path—to get ourselves ready for the peace that passes understanding.  We make a choice to journey together to the manger, to prepare our hearts to welcome Christ anew.  It’s a counter-cultural choice, this Advent journey.  We’ll resist the urge to sing Christmas carols just yet—while all the world is shopping and partying and splurging, the advent journey invites us to leave the safe and comfortable in search of something wonderful and new.

Advent is about listening for the vision of God’s intention for life, longing for something that is both here already and not yet fully realized.  God’s peace is greater than we can imagine on our own. The peace of Christ that passes all understanding is bigger than personal salvation.  Its goal is no less than the transformation of the whole word.  Far from removing us from the present concerns of this life, the season calls us to influence life here and now.  As expats we’re limited in what we can do here in Mexico to call for peacemaking in schools or governments or community priorities. In our own homelands we can take a stand on policy issues.  Here though, our options are more individual.  I love hearing about the volunteer work being done in orphanages, schools and shelters, with neighbors and organizations.  In two weeks the Salvation Army Children’s Home will be with us in worship.  That’s a peace-making opportunity. The Lord is Coming in those actions.  Maranatha.  The Lord shows us the way of peace and invites us on the journey.  Amen.

Dear friends, this is not just another Sunday, another Season, and another day. Are you ready to encounter Jesus? Are you ready for the unexpected to change your life, alter your plans, and disrupt your direction? Be still. Be aware. Be ready. God is good. Jesus is coming—again, and again, and again. Don’t miss a single opportunity of this present day.