Carry You!

Text: Isaiah 63:7-9, Matthew 2:13-23

The scholars who through their books guide poor parish preachers advise us to put aside sentimentality this Sunday. Christmas joy is so yesterday. “Hollow theology,” one said. They berate us because, while the Christmas story is nice and heartwarming, the real world is out there, and we are in it. One scholar says, “‘Be of good cheer’ masks the reality that much of the time life is anything but cheery.” In their argument, they cite the readings for today. They remind us to put things in context.

They remind us about Isaiah. These three verses are full of exuberance. It recounts the fine deeds of God, and sings God’s praises. But the verses have been quoted out of context, they say. “Airlifted,” one says, “out of a chapter thick with divine wrath and human despair.” In Isaiah, chapter 63, from which these verses were picked, we hear about God who is angry, tired, and disillusioned, and a world that fits that mood. We should, we are advised, not be tempted to focus on verses 7, 8, and 9. Lest, I supposed, we are tricked into finding pleasure in God, the world, and God’s works.

They remind us about Herod, the evil king in Matthew’s story of young Jesus and his family. “Nothing sentimental about Matthew’s ‘Christmas story’”—the writer puts that in quotes to reinforce his point. It is set in times—its context—set in times of turbulence and terror. Herod was certainly and truly a bad person. He killed his rivals. He built fortresses all around Israel because he was afraid of being deposed. He murdered his wife and one of his sons. As he was dying, he ordered the execution of all political prisoners so that all the people would mourn. There is no historical record of the slaughter of the innocents that Matthew writes about, but it would have been in character for him. He could and would have done it. The times were wicked.

We give thanks for these scholars. But really, we don’t need any reminders about how the world is. We have our own context. It is more or less the same as the world has always been. We are not ignorant of times of terror and turbulence. We are not strangers to human despair and surprising sorrow, or to unfairness and stupidity and evils. We know too much of cruelty already. We don’t need to be reminded that the peace of the child in the manger, shepherds all around, is not normal. It is extraordinary.

That is the point.

The verses from Isaiah and the “Christmas story” are signs that in the midst of trouble and sorrow, God is still good. Though Herod is as horrible as bad kings can be, the idea of the story in Matthew is that some escape. Though the Israelites may have had a rough go of it in the previous few centuries, they praise God for what God has already done: freed them from slavery, returned them from exile. “I will recount the gracious deeds of the Lord, the praiseworthy acts of the Lord, because of all that the Lord has done for us,” Isaiah sings. Israel reminds itself of the God who was there, who adopted and cared for them, raised them and taught them. The God who is their God. “These are my people,” God says. “These are my children.” In their distress, it says, God, too was distressed.

My niece, when she was a toddler, used to raise her arms to her parents and say “carry you!” Do you want me to carry you? they had asked her so many times. When she was tired. Or when she was frightened. Or when she was surrounded by lots of big adults in crowds. When the forces of her world bore down on her or her own resources were weakened. So it is with us, God’s children. “In his love and in his mercy God lifted them up and carried them,” Isaiah says. Carry you.

It is misleading to call the “Christmas story” sentimental. The context for Matthew is not the evils of the world—though he would agree that are certainly in the world—the context for Matthew is the prophetic history of God’s goodness and hope for the world. The point is not that Herod was a cruel genocidal king. Everyone knew that. The point is the God intervened to save one. Matthew puts the story in context, in the context of God’s work, God’s history, God’s promise, God’s reign. And especially God’s challenge to the other forces of the world which otherwise seem so unstoppable.

We can respond to things of the world with weeping and complaining and being discouraged. And there are plenty of times for that. But not today. Today we remember and respond with praise for all things God has given us. We sing with all the world, following the words of the psalm. Praise God. The sun and moon and stars, the heavens and the seas praise God. The monsters, fog, fire, hail, and wind praise God. The mountains, the trees, the beasts, the birds praise God. The kings and rulers, men and maids. Let us all praise God, for he has raised up strength for his people. Carry you!

If that is sentimental, if that is hollow theology, well then: hooray for that. Praise God and be thankful.

Wandering Brings Us Home

Text: Matthew 1:1-25

We humans are built for wandering. It is no wonder that Moses wandered around in the desert for 40 years. I imagine that when Adam and Eve were ejected out of the garden of Eden, they said “wow! look at all that open space; we can go wandering about in it.” The good news about wandering is that you cover a lot of territory pretty thoroughly. It is good for finding new things and having new experiences. The bad news is that life of wandering can seem a little aimless. The question is, are we getting anywhere?

This is the question of Advent. The season seems at first to be a transition between the past and the future. It is a time of equal parts reflection and anticipation. Where do we come from? Where are we going? We review the past, with its regrets and sorrows, and also its accomplishments and pleasures. And we are pulled forward, hoping for guidance and fulfillment, delight and contentment. In our theological life, Advent lies between Pentecost and Christmas, between the daily and the divine.

Yet in that way, more than in any other season of the church, Advent is a season of the immediate present. It sits looking equally at the past and at the beyond, which is where most of the time most of us sit. Our brains tell us constantly of the stories we have just lived and just as constantly writing new ones, in which we are the hero, or the villain.

That’s where the passage from Matthew sits, too, as long as you remember that the Gospel begins with the “begats.” That’s the word that the old King James version used to tie together the generations: “Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob, …” and so forth. “Begat” is the old word. Our pew Bibles say “Abraham was the father of Issac” and a modern popular Bible says “Abraham had Issac.” But the word in the Bible means more like “Is the origin of” or “Is the bringing forth of.” It is the same root as the words generation, genealogy, and—more significantly—the word genesis, the book of creation.

These men and women that Matthew lists are not just like beads on a string. Each gives rise to the next. The whole process is organic, to say the least. For Matthew, this long rope of generations is a path of constant unfolding and revelation. They are connected by their divine origin. Abraham is miraculously the father of all Israel. And connected by their divine purpose. Jesus is miraculously the point of all this childbearing.

Matthew looks backward, and what he sees is an inevitability. A direct and designed path from the past to now. Abraham to Joseph and then Jesus. Yet even Matthew must have noticed that his list is not just Hebrew father to son, father to son, like a Jacob’s ladder, step by step. There are some side steps through gentile women, and some pieces are missing and names that don’t appear elsewhere in the Bible. But Matthew saw it a perfect. And so did Martin Luther, our denominational namesake. They both see the present giving meaning to the events of the past and linking them together in purpose.

This is, we can no doubt safely say, not how it appeared to those who lived these lives each so concisely encapsulated into a single “begat.” It is difficult to judge the present by its future outcome, almost impossible in even our own lives and never spanning forty-two generations and nine hundred years. There is no way that the meaning that Matthew and Luther gave to these men and women was visible to them.

They, like us, looked back a little and forward a little less. If anything, I suspect they looked back to their immediate forbears with admiration, anger, and grief, just as we do. They looked forward with uncertainly, just as we do.

The mountains of Colorado descend abruptly to the plains of the midwest. The foothills aren’t much to talk about. The mountains are tall, and in a minute they are nothing at all. You travel in the mountains in narrow valleys and over passes. There are just not that many places to go. You are hemmed in by circumstance. But when you come down from the mountain, you are spit out onto vast possibility. You can go anywhere. It can be scary.

More of our lives is lived, it seems to me, on the plains than in the mountains. The plains are made for wandering, and that’s what mostly we do. Not necessarily vaguely or lost, like the wandering Israelites, but without a clear destination. Gradually our purpose—our destination—becomes clearer. But that is only because the time of our lives ahead of us is less and the possible routes become more limited. Until we find ourselves where we find ourselves. How did I get here? I can trace back the path. But how the heck did I get here? How did Pastor Seitz get to Boston, he asked in his sermon a couple of weeks ago. He never thought he’d live here. I once declared that I’d settle anywhere but in Massachusetts. I’ve been here forty years now. So much for declaiming. People’s stories are strange.

There are three histories in the Bible. One is the personal history of each character. People’s stories. Each of those people in Matthew’s genealogy. And by extension, our stories, each of us. Stories that get revealed by our living them. Pointing nowhere, though going somewhere. And the second is the history of creation, starting with Genesis, ending in our Bible with Revelation and in our theology with the end of time. And the third is what people call salvation history. The story of God’s involvement with people, starting with the covenant with Abraham and extending to Jesus and beyond. This is the history that Matthew presents. The story of Mary and Joseph and the coming child is part of all three histories.

For Christians, in fact, the histories are combined in Jesus. The meaning of the three histories are merged. We say that the meaning of the life of Jesus comes out of creation and salvation history, and the point of those histories in turn comes from Jesus. So Paul can write that we are in God and God is in us. And that by living in Jesus we are transformed. And that the death of Jesus changes ours.

We see in short times. We see back more clearly than forward. But God sees differently. God sees the whole of which we see only a part. The sense that Matthew makes of the chain of ancestors, God makes with all of us. It is not that God knows the unknowable, not that God knows the future—I can’t speak to that—but that God sees the whole story as a story producing life and holiness. The whole story, past and future, is to God, I think, ever blooming, blossoming, ever generating life. Whether or not we see how it could be, we are a part of that.

We can see that way—God’s way—too. The God in us, the God in whose image we are said to be made, lets us see that way, too. In days such as Advent, in the rites and meditations and reflections and songs, in the contemplation of the past and in the hopes for Jesus, we are taught how to see that way and we are reminded that we can see that way.

Our paths combine with and become part of the story of God in the world. We are not alone. Immanuel, God with us. We are able to see a little as God must see. To see the intensity of life even in the face of death, to see the combination of the secular and the divine, to know the presence of God among us.

We wander, but not aimlessly, even if our aim is unclear to us. We are in God’s story. God is in ours.

Grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Waiting

This sermon was preached by Craig Simenson

Isaiah 35:1-10 and Matthew 11:2-11

Puddles this morning, but no snow and ice yet. Still, things are changing underneath our feet these days. Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight! This is more or less John the prophet’s refrain. We heard the words last Sunday: One who is more powerful than I is coming after me. The one who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

And, it’s true… looking around recently, in only the past couple weeks, some things in our everyday worlds already seem to be changing. Maybe not with the intensity of John’s fire, but there are little colored lights already strung, “burning,” in the windows and along fence lines. Right in front of us and by our side – and maybe within us, too – there are preparations being made for what is to come in the weeks ahead.

But… we are not quite there yet.

Interestingly, this is exactly where the church calendar begins. Not with a ball dropping or champagne bubbling and a toast, not with noisemakers or the party hats with those little elastic strings, not with a shower of confetti or a college football extravaganza. But with Advent, a season marked more by waiting than by celebration of a new year. A season where the party is not quite here yet. Where instead we’re left to prepare ourselves for what is still to come.

Quite naturally it seems, our rituals this time of year most often revolve around our sense of expectation. Where we’re left waiting for the next candle to be lit on the Advent wreath: Hope, Peace, Joy… Waiting for the next line of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” or maybe “Come now. Come, O Lord Jesus,” whatever the case might be. Waiting for the next little door to be opened on the Advent calendar (hopefully, to some really good chocolate). Left waiting for the day that is close enough but still far away.

And yet, this church season of waiting—this season of what is still to come is, in many ways, a different kind of experience than much of what is collecting around us in our everyday worlds now. Like those songs already playing in the supermarket that we can’t help but sing along to (even if only in our heads, even if we don’t want to). Personally, I so very much look forward to “rockin’ around the Christmas tree.” I just don’t think I’m quite ready yet.

Yes, it’s true… our world, like us, has a hard time waiting. Maybe, it’s because, at its heart, waiting is a somewhat risky practice. After all, we may well be waiting for something that will not come. And if one waits long enough, we might even start questioning what it is we were getting ready for in the first place.

So the disciples of John the prophet, John the baptizer, come to ask Jesus their question:

Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?

Jesus turns their question around though. With the answers that apparently barely need to be spoken, with answers that they apparently already know: Go and tell [about]… what you hear and see.

Jesus turns our questions around, and keeps turning them—so that we might see ourselves more clearly: Who are you waiting for anyway? And what did you go out into the wilderness to look at?

Are you the one who is to come?, they ask him. As if the one they are speaking to, this Jesus, is not already there in front of them.

Perhaps it barely needs to be said by me. More than likely, you already know – that in all of our preparations of this season – in the planning and plane tickets, in the searching and shopping for those perfect gifts – we’re likely to be carried away into the season that isn’t quite here yet. And, in this, it seems that we are in real danger of losing sight of the wonders of this waiting season. In this, it seems we risk forgetting not only what set us out into this wilderness to begin with, but also the holy highway unfurling out before us in everything we hear and see and touch in these waiting moments. We risk losing the chance to truly hold our expectations, aspirations and intentions up for examination:

Who are we waiting for anyway? Year after year, who are we looking for out in this Advent wilderness? And will we know it when it is standing right here in front of us already?

To recognize the way, we not only need to look to where it leads, but also pay attention to the steps as we walk them. And we need to remain present to the ones who are walking beside us—in a wilderness changing underneath our feet.

The one who is still yet to come may very well already be right here in front of us. Waiting with us for the light and new birth to come. Traveling this same highway. Wide open to hear and see and touch all that is already present on this still-darkening road. Waiting in wonder for the illumination of fire and Spirit that is still yet to come.

Letter to Faith

This sermon was preached by Pastor Seitz

Text: Matthew 3:1–12

Dear Congregation of Faith Lutheran Church,

It is under uncomfortable circumstances that I bring this message to you today. The discomfort stems from the fact that this is my last message to you as your Assistant Pastor.

And although it is sad—it is also reason to rejoice. Because although discomfort is unpleasant, it is also a blessing.

I came here under uncomfortable circumstances. I sent here—driven here by the Holy Spirit—really. The proof that I was called to come is in the fact that while I was in college I took a year off to build houses. I decided if I was going to learn a trade in order to earn some money, Carpenter seemed a good way to go. I saved all the money I could for 9 months and I took my earnings and traveled across the country. I had lived in Washington State my whole life and I wanted to drive across the country to explore the West Coast. Being from the Pacific Northwest I decided to head for New England.

In retrospect I think my experience was due, in part, to the liberated attitude I possessed by the time I reached the East Coast. The kind of attitude that comes from taking a risk in order to go exploring and finding that mile after mile and state after state you are more capable than you had previously known.

To make a long story short—Amherst Massachusetts and I did not get along. Upon returning safely to Washington State a few months older and countless experiences wiser, I swore an oath that I would never live on the East Coast. I had a few rowing buddies who lived in Boston and whenever we talked and they shared how great Boston was, I was happy to remind them that although Boston is cool—I will never live on the East Coast. Never.

Had I not broken that oath and lived with the complete and utter discomfort of living someplace I swore an oath I would never live, without a Call in any church lined-up before I moved out here, without knowing whether it would work out or not—had I not through that—I would not know how to rely on Jesus and trust in God the way that I do now.

I would not have the countless blessings of an amazing wife and partner or a beautiful son who has been cared for and nurtured by this community so that church is one of his favorite places to be.

I would not know what it means to put all my trust in God and to know that God is even more present to us when we are uncomfortable. Had I not followed the Spirit into someplace uncomfortable.

In the story of John, when John is baptizing everyone—from Jerusalem to all of Judea and all along the river Jordan—when John is baptizing the masses, it says in today’s Gospel, they were confessing their sins.

It is culturally so radically different from today that it’s virtually impossible to appreciate how different it was in John’s time from today—but just consider life in John’s region as a Jew. A culture and a region where both daily life and religious life were directed by the Law of the Covenant.

John father was a Priest. The Gospel of Luke tells us the story of Zachariah and Elizabeth as one of tremendous faith and obedience to God when God calls us to do things that make us uncomfortable. John was raised in a family that holds the Law of the Covenant up as the highest Law and obedience to the Law as the most effective means of having a relationship with God. The Law would have been the very building blocks of language for John.

The entire Jewish community was focused on the Law of the Covenant and on obedience to the Law. The Law directed not only religious observances but the government and the pulse of daily life. The Law was so strict that just touching an unclean person on the same day you were going to Synogogue made you unfit for the Synagogue. How much more so to commit a sin.

The reality of constant pressure and constant scrutiny is a daily reality in John’s world. The reality of knowing that any sin confessed would require an act of penance, a sacrifice, an offering in order to receive YAHWEH’s pardon.

The act of confessing one’s sins to another person is challenging under the best of circumstances, but in John’s time the act of confessing one’s sins in front of a wild man and one’s entire community would have been painful to point of excruciating. It would have been unheard of, radical, and extremely uncomfortable.

But without the discomfort of going against everything they had been taught and everything that their instincts tell them—without the risk of confessing their sins aloud before God and man and being washed by a wild man in a baptism of repentance—they would not have been transformed by baptism. They would not have known acceptance by God as clean and blameless before the Lord, they would not have known God’s mercy as God’s love.

The Gospel of John the Baptizer is the original Gospel. “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” This is the same message Jesus started his ministry with, his first words when he began preaching—word for word. Jesus preached it and it came from John. The Holy Spirit to me more specific.

Challenge and Acceptance. Repentance means turn away from whatever distracts you from God and turn towards God. Change your life in a way that requires you to rely on God and in turn experience the presence of God. Repent, take a step away from your comfort and be uncomfortable, and receive the blessing of God’s comfort.

Repent, be Uncomfortable, and receive the blessing of God’s support.

The reason the masses came to John is that he preached a Gospel of acceptance. A message of forgiveness. He preached the Spirit of Welcoming.

If someone was in this church 5 years ago and they came back today, they might not recognize too many faces, and they would not recognize the area under the balcony, but I l know they would recognize this congregation.

Because even though many things have changed—the Spirit of Welcoming here at Faith Lutheran Church is the same.

People underestimate the power of being a welcoming church, but have you ever visited a congregation that failed to be welcoming?

And hospitality is one of the most important aspects of Christianity, it is one of the central precepts taught throughout scripture and the throughout the church, and it is a focal point of Jesus throughout his teachings and his direction to his followers.

The reason for this being that hospitality is not always comfortable. Which is good because, in truth, being uncomfortable is necessary for growth.

So even though it is under uncomfortable circumstances that I share this message with you today, the circumstances are also a blessing.

Pursuing a full time call at MIT is a move in response to the Holy Spirit. I am following where the Lord is Calling me. It is uncertain how long it will take to raise the money to sustain a full time call but I am moving forward with the knowledge and the reassurance that the Lord will be with me and once again show me His comfort, His presence, and His blessing.

And although there are uncertainties in life and in our journey with Christ, I am certain of one thing. I know that I could come back in another 5 years and even though I may not recognize many faces, but I would still recognize this congregation. Anyone could recognize it once they have experienced it, the Spirit of Welcoming.

Regardless of where we are we share the connection in His blessing.

And although there are uncertainties in life and in our journey with Christ, I am certain of one thing. I know that I could come back in another 5 years and even though I may not recognize many faces, but I would still recognize this congregation. Anyone could recognize it once they have experienced it, the Spirit of Welcoming.

Regardless of where we are we share the connection in the Body of Christ, through the Holy Spirit, the same spirit that taught the original Gospel to John, then to Jesus, and to us.

We will all grow as a result of this discomfort. I will grow and so will this congregation. Not because of the discomfort itself; but rather, because this is the kind of risk that invites us and calls us to rely upon God—calls us to trust in God for the unknown future.

Repent the Kingdom of God is at hand. Take risks that make you rely on God and know God’s blessing.

When we cease being able to risk we cease being able to grow.

If my first 5 years here in Cambridge are any kind of indicator, I can’t wait to see what the next 5 years will bring.

My Peace I brought to this congregation when I arrived here and first experienced its Spirit of Welcoming, as uncomfortable and uncertain I may have been. My Peace I leave with you—this congregation of Faith Lutheran Church. Serving you has been a blessing.

Father forgive us, Spirit Guide us, In the name of Jesus, Amen