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What Does God Want?  2.2.20; ICCM; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

One of my favorite classes in Seminary was called Old Testament Pericopes.  A pericope is a selected passage of scripture assigned to be read on one of the Sundays of the church year. Dr. Frank Benz taught the class. We were assigned a passage of the Hebrew Scriptures to translate for each class.  Dr. Benz taught us so much more than Hebrew verb forms. He taught us how to read the texts for preaching. 

• He said, the first thing is always to pray for God to open the text to us, to guide our minds and to be with us as we study.
• Next, read the text, silently, then aloud, then in another translation or a bible story book.  
• Then for those of us in Seminary the next step was to make a translation of the text from the Hebrew—paying special attention to the key words, any irregularities or unusual words. 
• Context comes next—identify what time period it was written in—what was happening then, who wrote it, in what style—is it poetry, wisdom literature, prophecy, or is it a story?
• Only after that part of the study could we turn to what others wrote about the text. 
• At last we were to reflect on it, what might God have been saying to the original writer, his audience, What about other hearers of the text?  How would Jesus or Paul have understood a text by Micah from the 8^th Century BC?  What might God be saying to me now, to my congregation? 
• And finally we were to pray again—thanking God for the opportunity to learn. 

Today’s text from the prophet Micah was one of those pericopes in Dr. Benz’s class.  The Old Testament is difficult for many people to study. It can be overwhelming to bridge the cultural gap of 2800 years.  But, it’s worth the effort.  Today’s text speaks a word of blessing to the people of Micah’s time even as he recounts the many blessings of God throughout their past.  Long before the time that the prophet Micah lived, God made a covenant with the people –a sort of contract for a permanent relationship.  Simply put it went like this– I will be your God and you will be my people.  Or put another way– I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other God’s before me.  God promised to provide all they needed and more.  The role of the people was to worship God and accept God’s gifts. 

God was faithful to the covenant– God brought them out of Egypt, freed them from slavery, sent leaders and prophets, blessed them when they deserved curses, gave them safe passage through deserts and against attacking enemies.  “Remember all of that” God says through the prophet Micah, “and know the saving acts of the Lord.”  

God is NOT saying…see all I have done for you…shame on you for forgetting…boy, oh, boy, do you ever owe me now!

With God there is no tallying up.  Micah lists all the blessings granted to the people in order to show that God’s love knows no end.  God’s love will never stop.  God is saying–come back to me so I can love you some more! 

Micah’s message is written in a specific pattern.  It is a metaphor of sorts.  This passage is staged as a sort of court case between God and the people.  In this lawsuit God is the one who has been cheated on, wronged.  Yet it is God who calls the partner back, not to get a payback or to punish but to love some more.

It is hard for anyone to imagine such love.  We live under covenants of our own, even if we don’t call them covenants.  Marriage is one of the best examples.  On a wedding day promises are made to live in good relationship, to share and give and love through whatever comes.  The promises reflect the ideal arrangement.  Even in the best marriages though, the love is not perfect or pure. 

The parent/child relationship is another sort of covenant.  If we have children, we take on the responsibility of loving and caring for them.  But, no matter how good the intentions, no parent can love perfectly.  As children we are born into a relationship over which we have no control.  We can accept the love given us.  We can respond with our own love.  But no child loves perfectly either.  It is hard to imagine such unconditional love.

The imaginary defendant in today’s pericope cannot imagine the depth or length of God’s love.  Instead of hearing God’s words as an invitation back into God’s loving care, as an offer of more free gifts, the defendant expects punishment and asks what penalty will be demanded for faithlessness. 

The defendant starts modestly enough.  How about a burnt offering, a calf, perhaps.  No, it must be more?  It’s kind of like—how badly did I screw up?  Do I have to get flowers and chocolate?  How about a thousand rams, or ten thousand rivers of oil?  That would still not be enough?  What about my firstborn child? In ancient times other nations offered child sacrifices.  Is that what you require from your faithless covenant partner?  All the questions hold the message: nothing I can offer will be enough so what do you want from me? 

How easy it is to turn the marvelous grace of God into a list of dos and don’ts, the invitation to blessing into a challenge for good works. The response from the prophet, the one who brought this whole courtroom scene to order is to bang the gavel and say. “God has told you what is good, O mortal, and what God requires of you– do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.  Those are three ways of saying–keep the covenant–be God’s people–trust God’s love and live in that grace.  Just open yourself to God’s love.  That’s all.  Live touched and transformed by grace day after day and let that lead you to live a life of blessing.

Today’s text is a recap of what God wants for us—It’s like one of those things we should be sure to focus on because it so beautifully summarizes the story of God and God’s people.  God reaches out, calls us by name, invites us into covenant, and then fixes our messes when we fall away, over and over again…  We don’t earn our way into God’s grace by sacrifices- we live in God’s grace by humbly aligning ourselves with justice, kindness.

Justice is one of the key words in this passage.  It is a central theme of biblical life. Justice is identified with the very nature of God.  It is a transformative virtue that restores community while balancing personal and common good.  In our Modern Western Culture we tend to think of Justice more in terms of judgements, laws, punishment for wrongdoing, or vindication for victims.  Justice in the conventional wisdom of the world is when people get what they’ve got coming to them.  Fairness.  But that’s just a tiny bit of what the Hebrew word means. 

In the Old Testament there are three basic types of justice—Commutative justice—which focuses on the relationships of people within a community.  The law wasn’t separated from the community—justice had to work for all the people.  The second kind of justice is distributive justice—which ensured the equitable distribution of resources, goods, benefits and burdens.  There is no justice without sharing—without equity, without mutual suffering and benefit.  And finally, the third understanding is what we call social justice—the work of justice that means systems of oppression need to change. 

What does the Lord require—that we do justice.  It can seem daunting—How do we know where to start?  Well, we can start by asking how Jesus did justice.  What did he say in the gospel—he announces what it is to be blessed—to live in God’s kingdom. He’s not telling people to be blessed, he’s saying they are already.  He pronounces a blessing to all the people who have come to hear him. His blessing invites them to think differently about the way the world works because of what he says.

This was a new teaching. In the ancient world, just like today, many people believed strongly in cause and effect. They believed that if they were good people who followed God’s commandments, worked hard, and tried to do their best in all circumstances, then God would reward them with good health, food to eat, stable jobs, happy families, and prosperity. Likewise, they believed that God punished the sinful with illness, poverty, imprisonment, blindness, divorce, and other personal tragedy. Many believed that God even punished entire sinful populations through war, famine, droughts, and other disasters.

If a man was sick, or mourning, or poor in spirit, or starving, or persecuted, it was his own fault for sinning. A woman who suffered did so as the consequence of her own bad behavior because suffering was understood as punishment for sin.

But Jesus flips things on their head.  It doesn’t work like that in the kingdom of God. Jesus blesses everyone who had gathered, no matter who they were and no matter what they had done. God’s blessing in Christ is not just for the righteous ones. God’s blessing is not just for certain religious groups, or certain genders, or certain sexual orientations, or certain cultural or racial groups. God’s blessing is not just for those who are pure, who go to church and give to charities and treat people with kindness. And God’s blessing is not evidenced by a big bank account or a fancy title or a luxury home.

In this new kingdom that Jesus is showing us, God blesses the saints and sinners alike. Jesus offers a blessing on the poor in wallet and the poor in spirit. He blesses the blind, the lame, the imprisoned, the outcast. He blesses the leper and the prostitute. He blesses the murderer and the thief and the adulterer. He blesses the Jews and the Gentiles.  Today who would he bless? the Muslims and the Hindus, the Buddhists and the Ba’hai, the Mexicans and the Canadians, the Syrians and the Russians, the people of Ghana and Brazil. In Christ, God’s blessing does not discriminate. God’s blessing is for all. God’s blessing is for you. God’s blessing is for me.

That’s good news, don’t you think?  It’s commutative and distributive and social justice.  It means that no matter who you are or what you have done, you are blessed and you are welcomed into God’s family, and there is nothing you can do, ever, to lose God’s love, affirmation, and blessing.

Blessed is our identity, blessed is our condition, blessed is who we are because of God’s saving love shown in Jesus Christ.  So in this first teaching for his followers, his disciples, in his first teaching for you and for me, Jesus is telling us as clearly as he can that these people—”look around you,” he says to his disciples—these people in the crowd that gathered that day near the shores of the Galilean lake—these people who drive loud razors under your window at night, these people who whose political views differ from ours, these people who are in jail for dealing drugs, these people who got pregnant out of wedlock and now want an abortion, these people who are members of a gang, these people who are members of a white supremacist group, these people who sit in judgment, these people who carry guns, these people who are crazy feminists, these people who are pro-life, these people who are pro-choice. . .well, you get the idea. Jesus his telling his disciples that ALL THESE PEOPLE are blessed.

And we who call ourselves disciples, followers of Jesus Christ, get to not just understand this, but we get to live it out by our words and our actions. What does the Lord require—to do justice, to love kindness to walk humbly with God.  We are blessed and we can be a blessing to others.

1.26.20; One in Christ; Epiphany 3A; Pastor Rebecca  Ellenson; ICCM

The story goes… A young rabbi found a serious problem in his new congregation. During the Friday service, half the congregation stood for the prayers and half remained seated, and each side shouted at the other, insisting that theirs was the true tradition. Nothing the rabbi said or did moved toward solving the impasse.

Finally, in desperation, the young rabbi sought out the synagogue’s 99-year-old founder. He met the old rabbi in the nursing home and poured out his troubles. “So tell me,” he pleaded, “was it the tradition for the congregation to stand during the prayers?”

“No,” answered the old rabbi.

“Ah,” responded the younger man, “then it was the tradition to sit during the prayers?”

“No,” answered the old rabbi.

“Well,” the young rabbi responded, “what we have is complete chaos! Half the people stand and shout, and the other half sit and scream.”

“Ah,” said the old man, “that was the tradition.”

When two or more are gathered, factions lurk in the midst of them, as Paul discovered. One of my best friends is a professional interim ministry, specializing in resolving conflict in congregations. It isn’t my cup of tea! There are steps to follow, profiles to complete, interviews to take, goals to establish. It’s a serious business.

Jesus didn’t seem to worry about any of it. When he said, “Follow me,” he apparently wasn’t concerned that these followers might not turn out to be model disciples. Indeed, they were often dense and hard to teach, and on the rare occasions when they did understand him they would usually try to talk him out of his ideas. They squabbled about who was greatest. One of them betrayed him. And no one stuck around when the going got tough.

Jesus simply said, “Follow me,” and something in the way he said it pointed to God so clearly that two, then four, then 12 decided that whatever Jesus had to offer was worth leaving their old lives for. And as far as Jesus was concerned, their willingness to get up and follow was credentials enough. He would make his community out of this diverse, contentious dozen.

Of course, Jesus had to live with this makeshift community of disciples for only three years. And whenever they wandered off course, he was right there to set them straight. The real problems began when he was gone, and they had to make decisions for the long haul. How do we admit the gentiles? What about those who teach a different gospel? Who is really in charge? Do we have to make a break with Judaism? The apostles held meetings, drew lots and trusted in the Holy Spirit’s lead. The infant church grew.

The Acts of the Apostles tells the story of that initial stage of the church.  In the early 40’s Paul stayed with Priscilla and Aquila in Corinth, fellow handworkers. They lived in the small factory-shops alongside the other laborers. It was from that hardworking pagan community that Paul’s first converts were made.  They were tough, poor, uncouth people. 

When Paul tried to preach to the Jews in the synagogues he usually got thrown out.  But in Corinth he was somewhat successful with that crowd, at least among the God worshippers.  They were people who were not Jewish by birth but Gentiles who attached themselves by varying degrees to a synagogue. Paul converted a wealthy God-worshipper named Gaius Titius Justus, and a synagogue patron Crispus.  By the time he wrote his letters to the church in Corinth 10 years later, there was another Jewish patron, Sosthenes. 

The original poor, pagan, laborer converts were eating meals with the high-status wealthy people and their households. Ancient society was marked by great wealth disparity. The top 1.5% has over 20% of the resources, the next 10% consumed another 20%, leaving the bottom part of society living in constant hunger.

Spiritual gifts like speaking in tongues factored into the disarray too- as they were apparently praying so enthusiastically that their clothing would get disheveled and offend others’ sense of propriety.  Some were shaming their spouses publicly, others were bringing lavish meals and gorging themselves while others were left hungry.  It was a mess.

The congregation quarreled about class divisions, ethical issues and the qualifications for spiritual leadership, not to mention such daily concerns as what foods to eat. Paul struggled to get them back in agreement, offering specific advice when necessary. Most of all, though, he tried to knit them back together into a whole. They didn’t have Jesus’ physical presence with them. They themselves had to be the body of Christ now. The only way they could manage was to keep their eyes on the cross and love, love, love.

You are the people who walked in darkness and have seen a great light! You are the saved, the ransomed, baptized in the Lord Jesus! Don’t overshadow the glory of the gospel with divisions and quarrels!

“You are the light of the world,” Jesus told his followers. Unfortunately, the church doesn’t always act like the light of the world. There’s nothing quite like a church fight.  We all know of places and times where conflicts split churches. But there are also moments when the fractures heal and the light shines through, times when together we accomplish far more than we could ever have managed alone. There are times, between and within our congregations, when we are truly more than the sum of our parts. The Spirit breathes through us and warms the darkening world. The light of Christ breaks forth like the dawn. We are caught up in some power beyond our individual selves, and we become the Body we are meant to be. 

It’s only normal to label and draw boundaries.  In childhood we form our identities by doing so—these are my people, my family, my tribe, my sect, my place.  I am a Minnesotan of Norwegian descent, I am white, I am educated, I am Christian.  We learn the power of naming and then we learn its perils.  This sorting and separating is as old as humanity itself.  Look at how strongly the naming part of the story figures in Genesis 2 and 3.  It’s part of human development to name and claim our identity—the rub comes when we name one kind as blessed and elect while others become by default, pagan or savage, deluded or damned.  

One of the real beauties of this congregation is the fact that we come from all over and we are used to certain ways of doing things wherever home has been.  Here, we get to sing unfamiliar songs that are someone elses’ favorite one week and sing our own favorite songs another week.  We focus on Christ—not on our particular doctrinal backgrounds.  It’s a real treat to be here leading this very diverse congregation.

It’s quite liberating to not have a strict doctrinal standard here.  Some sophisticated believers whose approach to faith incorporates astute thinking about psychology, theology, history or philosophy have room to grow when it comes to the practices of compassion and generosity. Others who approach faith more simply and from the heart have room to grow when it comes to depth in thinking critically.  Some see faith as getting things right intellectually, others see faith as submission and surrender.  The ways we read the scriptures differ, our views on Communion or Baptism may vary slightly.  That’s ok.

Paul’s message was the same, in Ephesus, in Philippi, in Galatia and in Corinth:  we are neither Jews nor Greeks, male nor female, slaves nor free, rich nor poor.  We are all God’s children and heirs to the kingdom, sharing as we do a kinship of gifts, neither earned nor deserved, but ours all the same. No matter who we are or where we come from, no matter where we are in the journey of faith, we are all welcome.  Praise be to God.

Let us pray,  O great Love, thank you for living and loving in us and through us.  May all that we do flow from our deep connection with you and all beings.  Help us become a community that vulnerably shares each other’s burdens and the weight of glory.  Listen to our hearts’ longing for the healing of our world.  Knowing you are hearing us better than we are speaking, we offer these prayers in Jesus’ name. amen.

Called;  January 19, 2020; ICCM; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

I never met my husband’s grandfather, John Rautio.  But I’ve heard a lot about him. He lived to be over 100. He wore a shirt and tie to the dinner table every day of his life. He was married for the second time in his 80s after his first wife died.  He traveled to Mexico in his later years. By ethnicity he was a Finn.  By vocation he was a carpenter in Ely, MN.  What he was remembered for most was his sense of humor. 

In case you don’t know, Finnish humor is a bit of an acquired taste.  Evidently, he liked to say things like, Come again when you can’t stay so long, Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?  He was always ready to hire good helpers in his carpentry shop—especially young men with lots of experience, he would say with a wink.  His saying that’s in my mind today, though, has a certain ring of truth.  We are too soon old, and too late smart. He’s someone I would have liked to meet.  He wasn’t an important person by any of the world’s measures. But he left a legacy of a strong work ethic, a quirky sense of humor, a patient quiet presence, and a respectful demeanor.   

Gathering the wisdom we have accumulated in our lives to share with those who go on after us is one of the important tasks of the last part of life. If we can glean the smart part from the too soon old and too late smart and make sense of our experiences then we move from just smart to wise.  The life work of our last years also includes mending rifts or broken relationships. Another task is to grow closer to God, letting go of the strivings of the ego. 

Our lessons for today simply drip with the theme of God’s call and claim on life. We are meant for lives of purpose and intention.  God’s gifts are given to us for our own fulfilment yes, but also for the world’s good and for the glory of God. 

Listen again:  You are a polished arrow—you are not just a plain stick but you are made for a purpose.  You are a sharp sword—a thing of value and craftsmanship.  You are hidden away in the hand of God—to be used by God.  You are God’s servant, to give glory to God. You are a light to the nations.  You are my chosen.  You are called, sanctified saints, enriched in Christ, in speech and knowledge of every kind. You are strengthened, not lacking any spiritual gift. 

Our identity in Christ is not just hinted at or promised, it is not dependent on how much we do, on getting it right.  It’s right there—before we were born—all the way to the end.  The message is redundant, repeated over and over so we get it!  We are who we are. The trick is to live into that calling. 

Vocation is often a theme we think belongs to the young or those in mid-life.  What are we going to do with this one wild precious life?  Yet the questions of the third stage of life include those of purpose and calling too.  Those who are blessed to reach retirement and the elder part of life are also empowered. We are strengthened in Christ, we are purposeful instruments in the hand of God. 

Parker Palmer wrote an essay a few years ago, just before his 78^th birthday called, Withering into the Truth.  The title comes from a poem by William Butler Yeats.

Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun,
Now may I wither into the truth.

He started out by saying , When friends say they don’t know what to give me for my birthday, I always respond with the same tired old joke they’ve heard from me before, which causes them to sigh, roll their eyes, and change the subject. (Here’s a perk that comes with age: repeat yourself so often that folks think you’re getting dotty, when in fact you’re fending off unwanted conversations.)

Q: What do you give a man who has everything?

A: Penicillin.

Palmer says he doesn’t need gifts of a material nature.  Instead he offers his gleanings of wisdom about living nearly 8 decades as a gift for others.  He begins,

The Yeats poem at the head of this column names something I don’t want to forget. Actively embracing aging gives me a chance to move beyond “the lying days of my youth” and “wither into the truth” — if I resist the temptation to Botox my withering.

My youthful “lies” weren’t intentional. I just didn’t know enough about myself, the world, and the relation of the two to tell the truth. So, what I said on those subjects came from my ego, a notorious liar. Coming to terms with the soul-truth of who I am — of my complex and often confusing mix of darkness and light — has required my ego to shrivel up. Nothing shrivels a person better than age: that’s what all those wrinkles are about!

Whatever truthfulness I’ve achieved on this score comes not from a spiritual practice, but from having my ego so broken down and composted by life that eventually I had to yield and say, “OK, I get it. I’m way less than perfect.” I envy folks who come to personal truth via spiritual discipline: I call them “contemplatives by intention.” Me, I’m a contemplative by catastrophe.

To find our wisdom, to age well, involves letting our ego shrivel.  Interesting.  When we talk about our calling, our gifts, our vocation—we can easily move into the territory of the ego.  I can do this! I feel called to that.  The ego is an important driver for us in our working lives—pushing us on to achieve and accomplish. 

My dad was sharing with me on the phone this last week about a group he attends each week at his church called Caring and Sharing. He commented on how accomplished most of the men in the group were in their careers, doctors, lawyers, professors, CEO’s.  He said, “They’re PIPs, Previously Important People.” His gentle laugh spoke volumes. My dad himself accomplished all kinds of things in his working life.  But his legacy is his positive attitude, his supportive and gentle manner, his tender heart full of emotion, and his simple trusting faith. What really matters in the end but loving others, growing closer to God and meeting the needs around us?

St Augustine said we were here to love God and enjoy life.  Kurt Vonnegut believed we are here to be the eyes and conscience of God.  Karl Jung, standing on the silent African veldt at dawn, watching the drifting rivers of animals moving in their timeless way, wrote that we are here to bring consciousness to brute being. 

It’s so nice to be at a place in life when we don’t have to prove anything to anyone anymore.  We are free to love, to grow close to God and to serve those around us. There are so many needs.  Holly has tickets for the Hearts of Hospice Dance on February 15^th.  The tickets support the work of Hospice Mazatlan, a group that served over 160 families last year—160 families facing the death of a loved one with social services for family members, palliative care, counseling for the bereaved and so much more. 

Last Saturday I was at the Organic market buying a pot holder from the organization called Floreser.  It is a home for teenage girls who have been victims of abuse and violence. It is the only one of its kind in Sinaloa, and one of the few in the country. Its mission is to provide the girls with a place where they feel safe and can grow with their dignity intact. In Floreser, the girls continue with their studies, receive individual therapy, and are provided with outlets allowing them to develop to their full potential while living a healthy life full of possibilities. depends upon your continued help.

The woman selling the hand sewn items told me about her new-found purpose in life.  She volunteers at the home and wakes up each day knowing that her contributions are important. She saw a need, knew she had gifts to share, and was overwhelmed with feelings of the joy of service.  It just bubbled out of her.  Not an “important” person, but a gifted one, equipped and strengthened for service.

We find our purpose by looking around us to identify the greatest needs and how they fit with our skill set and our particular God-given gifts.  Vincent Van Gogh once said Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”  Even if you’re only here in Mazatlan for a few weeks or a month or two your input can make a difference and bring a better future for others.  It can make a difference in your own life too. 

Annie Dillard said, the way we spend our days is the way we spend our lives.  Jesus asked the disciples who came to follow him:  What are you looking for?  Come and See—he invited them.  We are invited likewise—come and see what God has planned for you.  Claim your identity as God’s chosen ones, strengthened and empowered for service, enriched in every way.  

Beloved; Matthew 3: 13-17; ICCM; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson; 1/12/20

John and Jesus were cousins.  When Mary found out she was expecting a child she went to her relative Elizabeth who was pregnant with John.  In today’s gospel those babies are all grown up.  John has been out baptizing and preaching about the coming of someone greater than he who will fulfill the expectations of the prophets. 

I wonder what family stories the two of them grew up with. Did their mothers tell their sons about the dreams foretold their birth? Did they share the songs they had sung about them?  Did Joseph tell Jesus about his dream that told him to name him Jesus because he would save the people from their sins? 

Jesus embraced his own purpose and shaped the goals of all the others around him. Joseph’s life purpose had little to do with carpentry.  It was raising the child called Emmanuel–God with us, that gave his life meaning.  It was the same for Mary, of course.  John’s purpose had to do with Jesus too. He was out there in the Jordan wilderness, dressed in camel’s hair and leather, eating honey and chapulines—locusts.  John prepared the way for his cousin, by preaching change and calling people to repentance. 

When Jesus came to John it didn’t fit with John’s own identity—You should baptize me—he protested.  All his life John had heard that Jesus would be the more important one.  But notice what Jesus did—he said No—This is how it is!  John had a vital role to play too.  Jesus needed John’s service and he validated his cousin’s life work.  Then—the heaven’s opened for Jesus and Jesus saw the Spirit descending like a dove and landing on him.  A voice proclaimed, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased!”   What an impact that must have made on Jesus!  Through the Holy Spirit he was able to see his status as God’s child, the Beloved, with whom God is pleased! 

Our identity rests in God’s relentless tenderness for us. We, too, can define ourselves radically, as those beloved by God. That is our true self. Every other identity is illusion.  It’s not just Jesus who has a life purpose, or a proclaimed identity as God’s beloved child.

In John’s gospel Jesus prepares his disciples for his leaving, the night before his death by promising that God will send the Spirit to empower them to do his work.  Jesus says, Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and in fact, will do greater works than these! As the Father is in me so I am in you.  The Spirit of truth abides in you and will be in you! The Spirit will teach you everything.  Those are daunting worlds, until we claim them and live in them.  There is purpose in each of our lives, in each of our days. When we open ourselves to the Spirit’s presence we are led and empowered.  

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2: 9-10, God has prepared things for those who love him that no eye has seen, no ear has heard, or that haven’t crossed the mind of any human being. God has revealed these things to us through the Spirit. The Spirit searches everything, including the depth of God. This is huge!

I believe my life purpose is about serving the poor.  I’ve only spent 17 years of my working as a pastor, so far.  I was ordained when I was 29. Then 11 years later I left parish ministry. As a newly single mother, I knew deep in my heart, that my first purpose was to be the best mother I could be to my children who needed me more than ever.  I found other work for 12 years. I went from preaching about serving the poor—to serving the poor directly. 

For over 8 of those years I led a company that helped people with mental illness, chemical dependencies, lack of education, or criminal histories find work.  It was a secular agency—but I knew the work was ministry.  Our clients needed to find their purpose; identify their gifts, talents, and passions; and they needed to believe in their own agency, their own abilities and value.  One of the biggest challenges s had to do with self-image.  Many of them had internalized the messages they had heard- “You’ll never amount to anything. Who would hire you?  Why bother even trying—you don’t even have a high school education?  You’re going to be just like your father.” So many self-fulfilling prophecies stood like brick walls in their way. 

Changing what we believe about ourselves changes what we can do. To find success our clients needed to visualize themselves having already achieved bigger dreams than they had aspired to before.  It was totally amazing to see them find hope and reach toward new dreams.

We all carry lies in our souls that can become our truth and shape our reality.  Retirement can bring its own identity challenges.  We may think we are too old, too shy, too bold, too tired. Or we may believe we are not smart enough, not secure enough, not adequate in some way.    

Listen to the prophet’s Isaiah’s words: Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen , in whom my soul delights , in whom I have put my Spirit, who will bring forth justice… The prophet’s words were claimed by and for Jesus.  The spirit descended on him and he was empowered to serve, yes. But listen:

Thus says God, who created all things, who gives breathe to the people and spirit to those who walk on earth—I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you. I have given YOU as a covenant to the people… to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon! 

Those words are given for all who walk the earth, all you breathe!

Paul says the same thing- God gives various gifts. God’s purpose is to equip God’s people for the work of serving and building up until we ALL reach the unity of faith and knowledge of God’s Son.  God’s goal is for us to become mature adults, to be fully grown, measured by the standard of the fullness of Christ! Wow!

The purpose of being a Christian is not to go to church.  I heard someone quote Joyce Myers the other day. Evidently, she says that sitting in a garage doesn’t make you a car any more than sitting in church makes you a Christian. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m very glad to see each and every one of you here today.  I hope you invite a friend to come with you next week. I think coming to church is important.  But God’s purpose for us is to use our various gifts to equip people, to serve and build and mature until we grow into the fullness of Christ! 

We discover our purpose and direction through a connection with the Holy Spirit.  That’s what happened in our gospel today.  There in the Jordan the heavens opened, and Jesus saw the spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him.  He was open to more than he could ask for or imagine. He was touched by God’s claim on his life, he accepted the call and continued until he finished what he was sent to do.

We see this pattern not just in Jesus’ life but in the lives of nearly all the people in the biblical story.  Jacob wrestled with God on the riverbank.  In his dream there he climbed a ladder with God at the top.  The heavens opened, so to speak, and he heard God’s claim on his life.  The voice said, Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and I will bring you back, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. Jacob became Israel there.  With his new identity he pledged his life to God and through him God accomplished what was meant to be.

Moses, in his encounter with the divine before the burning bush, was called to lead a people out of slavery—of course he protested, Who am I?  What gifts do I have for such an audacious task?  But God’s claim was on him.  Moses had seen the greatest need around him, the bondage and destruction of a whole people.  And it happened, he led them to freedom.

Saul, a Jewish persecutor of the early Christians, received a calling on the road to Damascus.  The heavens opened, so to speak.  Saul became Paul the evangelist to the Gentiles.  In Galatians 1 he describes himself as an apostle who is not sent from human authority or commissioned through human agency, but sent through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead.”  How did he know?  He didn’t read it in the Bible or learn it in Seminary. He went to Jerusalem with Barnabas and Titus 14 years later, and because of a revelation, he found his mission.  He never met Jesus—it came through the Spirit’s working.

Steve and I had a chance to get to know Peter and Melinda Gebraad better last week over dinner one night.  They are the founders of Gems of Mazatlan, a Canadian charity that distributes tax deductible donations to 6 of the orphanages in Mazatlan, including the Salvation Army Children’s Home, whose residents sing here for us each year during Advent.  For Pete and Melinda the heavens opened, so to speak, when they met the SACH kids in 2014 and fell in love with them.  They weren’t looking for a life purpose, but they found one.  They never dreamed this would become their passion and give such meaning to life. 

Their careers allow them to work remotely and devote 6 months a year to improving the lives of children through stabilizing the facilities and systems in the various orphanages here.  They saw a need, identified how to meet the need, and used their own gifts to further the mission given to them.  Those three steps are vital to figuring out a life purpose. 

Pete works as a pyrotechnician, producing shows as big as the Olympics.  Pyrotechnics is not his mission.  But the skills and talents he used in that work, organizing, publicizing, recruiting, managing—are put to use, now, in the service of the orphans of Mazatlan.  Melinda works as an accountant—but that’s not her life mission.  She uses those skills though in the financial management of the charity they founded. 

I listed a website in the bulletin today: beyondbeaches.ca  It includes a directory of charities that are looking for volunteers.  If you’ve got time to give and the skills to fix things, or mow grass, or make sandwiches, or give rides, or hold the hand of a child who has to go the dentist for the first time—they can hook you up.  Who knows how the Spirit will work in your life.

The Spirit equips us for service and calls us to serve.  It’s through our God-given talents that we are built up into mature Christians, fully grown and measured by the standard of the fullness of Christ.  It doesn’t have to be showy or public.  There’s all kinds of quiet ministry and service going on too.

My prayer for each of you is the same as Paul’s prayer.  Now to the one who by the power at work within us, is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to that One—to God, be the glory in the church, now, and through all generations!

Open yourselves to the Spirit’s power. Let the heavens open and hear the words “Beloved” “Child of God” “The one with whom God is pleased.” Amen

ICCM; January 5, 2020; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson; Epiphany

I’ve been thinking about two of Mary Oliver’s poems.  The first is called The Summer Day, it’s closing lines go like this:

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

What am I, what are you going to do with this one wild precious life?  At first it seems like a question for a young person setting out in life—choosing a career, establishing an identity, achieving goals. After all, we here have all done something with our life already.  We are a bunch of retired people living the dream.  We get to spend our winters in Mazatlan, savoring the sights and sounds of life here, the waves, the sunsets, the flowers, birds, and geckos and the colors and the music.  Most of us know how to be idle and blessed to stroll on the beach if not the fields.  But the question remains, What is it that each of us plans to do with the rest of this our one wild, precious life?

It is the first Sunday of a new year, and of a new decade. It’s a good time for a sort of assessment.  One of my extended family members just retired.  She has always been highly organized and goal oriented.  For years now she’s lived by the ideas outlined in the book Younger Next Year.  Throughout her very successful career she utilized the principles of Jim Collins’ book Good to Great, where he encourages leaders to figure out their Big Hairy Audacious Goals.  Now in retirement she’s using the Blue Zone principles to make her annual goals. 

Perhaps you’ve heard of the Blue Zones—researchers have found 5 places where people regularly live into their 100’s with good health.  The Mountainous highlands of inner Sardinia, A Greek Island that also has one of the world’s lowest rates of dementia, the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica, a Seventh Day Adventist community in Loma Linda, California, and Okinawa Japan.  I’ve looked at the 9 principles the researchers discovered that are common to these varied groups. 

1.They move naturally instead of joining gyms or running races.  2. They have a life plan. They know their purpose. This alone can add 7 years to your life.  3.  They have routines that shed stress including prayer, rituals, happy hour, or napping.  4.  They stop eating when they are 80% full and eat their bigger meal mid-day or in early evening and do not eat after that.  5. Their diets are mostly plant based.  6. Those who consume alcohol do so in small amounts, drinking with friends or family and with food. 7.They belong to a faith-based community. Attending services can add 4-14 years to your life. 8. They put their families first. 9 Finally they live in social circles that support healthy behaviors. 

That sounds like a great recipe for living the dream. Participating here in this worshiping community, knowing our purpose, prayer patterns, that’s 3 out of 9 blue zone practices right off the bat. Many of us move more naturally here than we do at home too—walking instead of driving.  Many of us are involved in some kind of service—at the Salvation Army Children’s Home, at the Quilting Shop, making sandwiches for the residents of the Dump, organizing Christmas hampers, giving rides to church, caring for our friends and neighbors, giving to the work of this Blue Church.   

I took a little test online related to the Blue Zones after hearing about her annual review and planning.  According to the test, I’ve got about 35 more years of this wild precious life to fill with purpose and meaning.  Wow!  That’s a lot of time.  Many of you have less time than that. But, as long as our hearts are beating, God has a purpose for our lives.  We are not here to Live The Dream in the usual sense of that phrase.  Retirement, as seen through faith, is not just about strolling on the beach, improving our golf score, or learning to paint—those are some of my favorite things to do, by the way, I’m not suggesting we quit those things.  The answer to the question of what we’re going to do with what remains of this one wild precious life will differ for each of us. 

I recently heard the inspiring life story of a centenarian named Dr. Leila Denmark.  She was born in 1898 in Portal Georgia.  She originally trained to be a teacher and only decided to attend medical school when her fiancé was posted overseas by the US State Department and no wives were allowed to accompany their spouses to that post. She was the only woman in her medical school graduating class in 1928.  She started treating children that year, evidently inviting each next patient to the examining room by saying, “Who’s the next little angel in my waiting room?” 

Denmark devoted a substantial amount of her professional time to charity and was an active member of a Baptist church, even while working at a hospital, baby clinic and in her own private practice.  So many of her patients were dying of Whooping Cough that she conducted research in the diagnosis and treatment of the disease, eventually creating the vaccine that protects us all.  She was an author, finishing her last book in the year 2002 at the age of 103, the same year she retired, because her eyesight was getting too weak for more involved tasks, such as examining children’s throats. Dr. Leila Denmark was one of the first doctors to suggest not smoking around children, and the importance of a healthy diet.  She died in 2012 at the age of 114 and 2 months.  In think she exemplified all 9 of the Blue Zone Principles. 

Now, I’m not suggesting that we all need to be like Dr. Denmark.  The story is told of Zusha, the great Chassidic master, who lay crying on his deathbed. His students asked him, “Rebbe, why are you so sad? After all the mitzvahs and good deeds you have done, you will surely get a great reward in heaven!”

“I’m afraid!” said Zusha. “Because when I get to heaven, I know God’s not going to ask me ‘Why weren’t you more like Moses?’ or ‘Why weren’t you more like King David?’ But I’m afraid that God will ask ‘Zusha, why weren’t you more like Zusha?’ And then what will I say?!”

Living God’s dream for us means identifying our individual life’s purpose, sharing in healthy community, and service to others.  Jeremiah 29: 11 says, 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. 

In a minute we’ll be singing the words of a 1960’s folk song based on a Christmas poem by Howard Thurman, “I am the light of the world, you people come and follow me, if you follow and love you’ll learn the mystery of what you were meant to do and be.” John 20: 21 gives us the same message in Jesus’ words—As the Father has sent me, so I send you. 

We are not meant to retire to idleness.  Psalm 71: 17-21 explains it perfectly:

God you taught me when I was a child, and I am still proclaiming your marvels.

I am old, and now my hair is gray.  O God, do not forsake me; let me live to tell the next generation about your greatness and power, about your heavenly justice, O God.  You have done great things.  Who, O God is like you?  I have felt misery and hardship, but you will give me life again.  You will pull me up again from the depths of the earth, prolong my old age, and once more comfort me. 

I grew up with excellent role models.  About 10 years ago, my mother was voted into the City of Moorhead’s Hall of Fame.  In her acceptance speech she said, “I learned that all of us want to do well, but if we do not also do good in our community or in the world, then doing well will never be enough. I’ve learned how important it is to give back, especially for those of us who have been so richly blessed.” 

I started with a part of a poem by Mary Oliver.  I want to close with another, in When Death Comes she wrote:

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

Amen.

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.