Exodus 34:29-35; Luke 9:28-36

There are some religious sites around the world known as “thin places,” certain geographical places in the world where the earthly and Divine seem to come the closest.  Now, thin places are to be differentiated from mountaintop experiences (as I will speak to momentarily), since “thin places” are actual geographical locations that have been experienced as such.  Some of the most well-known thin places are in Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales.  For some reason, thin places often are associated with wild and rugged landscapes.  Ancient people, especially in Ireland and Britain, were forever designating spaces as sacred, marking them with giant stones and such with the connotation that “this is holy ground.”  Thin places have been defined as “places where the veil between this world and the ‘other world’ is thin, hence the name “thin places.”¹  A place where the veil that separates heaven and earth is lifted and one is able to receive a glimpse of the Sacred.  There is a Celtic saying that “heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in the thin places that distance is even smaller.”

Then there is what is called a mountaintop religious experience – a spiritual experience we cannot explain or a moment in which we feel we are in the special presence of the Sacred.  It can happen anywhere.  I’ve had a few of those in my lifetime.  One such time for me was my visit to the Holy Land in May 2000.  I recall the early Sunday morning devotional service on the Sea of Galilee, with the waves gently lapping at the side of the boat and the morning sun gleaming on the water.  That truly was a moving experience.  I recall sitting under 2,000-year-old olive trees in the Garden of Gethsemane on a beautiful, peaceful, May afternoon—the same trees tradition says Jesus could have prayed under on the night of his arrest.  That, too, was a spiritual experience.  I recall offering a silent prayer at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City; and attending ministers’ conferences and spiritual retreats that were also small mountaintop experiences in their own right.

You, perhaps, could name your own spiritual experiences—a baptism, confirmation, being present at the birth of a baby, wedding ceremony, retreat, special worship service, vacation to the mountains, or some other occasion when you felt you were in the presence of something Sacred.  It was a spiritual high for you, a mountaintop experience.  There are those times every now and then when God seems to enter our lives and speak to us.  As preacher Lucy Pratt puts it, these are “times that belong to the soul.”²  I find it interesting that Kimberly Perry, of the popular country group, The Band Perry, stated that the first time they played the Grand Ole Opry, it was a “holy experience.”

The two scripture readings I read today are accounts of such mountaintop experiences.  Now, we are left wondering how much of these two stories we are to interpret literally and how much is symbolic.  Though these two stories are separated by well over a thousand years, they have something in common at the core.  The Exodus passage recounts one such mountaintop experience that Moses had.  After leading the children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage, Moses felt called to climb Sinai, a mountain associated with God’s presence; seen as a “thin place,” perhaps, in that place and time.  “The glory of the Lord,” the scripture says, “rested on Mount Sinai” (24:16).  It was there, in the presence of God, tradition says, that Moses received the Law containing the Ten Commandments.  When Moses came down from the mountain, it is said that his face was shining from being in the Divine presence.  There was a certain glow about him that had not been there before.  Moses was a changed man.  This mountaintop experience of Moses that he shared with the Israelites was a turning point of sorts in Jewish history and theology.  At this point began to develop monotheism, the worship of one God, a departure from the custom of that time and place.  And at the same time, ethical religion began to take shape.  The mountaintop experience was a pivotal point in his life and the life of his people.

Like Matthew and Mark, Luke recounts a similar experience that Jesus had.  As they tell the story, not long before his death, Jesus took Peter, James and John upon a small mountain or hill where he was ‘transfigured’ before them.  What really happened upon that mountain is hard to say.  And, again, we are left wondering how much of it we are to take literally, and how much was meant to be symbolic.  Since all three synoptic gospels include the story, there must have been some type of experience that proved to be a moving experience for those present.  It is said that while Jesus was praying, “the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white,” reminiscent of the way the face of Moses had shone after coming down from the mountain (Luke 9:29).  Part of the meaning to be drawn from this story, no doubt, has to do with its connection to the story of Moses and his mountaintop experience.  In the eyes of the early disciples, Jesus was the new and better Moses.  The introduction of Moses and Elijah in the story, who appear to be talking with Jesus, serve to link him with the Jewish Law and Prophets.  At any rate, the experience of Jesus and his inner circle on the mountain became a special event for them that changed their perspective on Jesus and who he was to them. 

Mountaintop experiences can become for us times of great personal change and inner growth, if not in fact a drastic turning point in life.  But some may ask the question, “How do we know what is a true sacred experience and what is merely our interpretation that an experience is sacred?”  I might think of a certain experience as being spiritual or Sacred, and you might not at all.  Perhaps the answer is, “Does it really matter?”  Because if an experience moves us, transforms us, enlivens us, and helps us feel a closer connection to the Mysterious Other or that Divine Energy at the center of life, isn’t that what makes it Sacred?  Maybe a mountaintop experience is when we allow our minds and hearts to be hypersensitive, to let what is always there to intrude into our ordinary, everyday lives.  And isn’t it so that the Sacred can intrude in normal, routine, run-of-the-mill moments of life, if we are open to it?  Such as watching a red-bellied woodpecker feed outside your window, or looking at a full moon through the trees.  As Joseph Campbell observes, “Any place where the Mystery breaks through into our consciousness is holy.”  How many moments of grace, epiphanies, and spiritual insights are lost to us because we are in too much of a hurry to notice them?

But one danger of mountaintop experiences is that we may want to make them the norm. Caught up in a spirit of emotion and joy, Peter exclaimed, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” (Luke 9:33).  We’ll just stay here forever.  Peter didn’t want to come down.  But they couldn’t stay up there on the mountaintop.  And neither can we. Though all of us would like for those mountaintop experiences to last forever, we know that cannot be.  If we had read further on in Luke, we would have seen that Jesus and his three disciples descended the mount of transfiguration and returned to a world of sickness and suffering.  No sooner had Jesus stepped off the mountain than the father of a young boy who suffered from epilepsy came to him, begging him for a cure.  The man had taken the boy to the other disciples who were unable to heal him.  The disciples felt all too inadequate for the task.  Moses, likewise, descended Mount Sinai and his religious experience and returned to a world of people and problems.

As did Moses and Jesus, we, too, must eventually leave those mountaintop experiences and return to the world where we encounter people and problems, the poor, lonely and forgotten.  We must return to sick children, difficulties at work, and family disagreements.  And sometimes we, like the disciples, may feel all too inadequate for the task.  But the everyday world is where we are needed.  We must come down and open our eyes and hearts to the sickness and distress around us.  We, like Moses and Jesus and those first disciples, are needed in the real world, a world of poverty, problems and suffering.  This is where God works through us to accomplish the divine purpose.  Christian living doesn’t mean staying on the mountaintop.  It means following, going on, being about living out our faith in the world.  But perhaps spiritual experiences allow us to get back to the real world of demands, problems, and so on and make a greater connection with those around us with whom our lives are so entangled.   

Yes, sometimes we are privileged to have brief spiritual highs where we feel we have touched or have been touched by something Sacred.  We return from such an experience refreshed and renewed.  And we can hold that experience in our hearts and be able to recall it in our minds.  Those rare Sacred experiences and spiritual highs give us grace, strength and determination to do what life calls upon us to do.  Amen. 

¹www.thinplaces.net.    ²Ministers Manual for 2004.

Isaiah 58:3-12 GNT; Selection from A Christmas Carol

 A young man in London aspired to be a writer.  But everything in life seemed to be against him.  With only four years of school to his credit, his father in jail because he couldn’t pay his debts, the young man often went to bed hungry.  At the tender age of 12, he was able to secure a job pasting labels on bottles in a rat-infested shoe polish factory warehouse.  He slept in a dismal attic room with two rough boys from the slums.  The young man had so little confidence in his ability to write, that he sneaked out and mailed his first manuscript in the middle of the night so nobody would laugh at him.  Story after story was rejected.  Finally, the day came when one of his stories was accepted for publication.  He wasn’t paid anything for the story, but the editor praised his work.  One editor had given him recognition, showed appreciation.  The young man was so thrilled that he wandered aimlessly around the streets of London with tears rolling down his cheeks.  That one bit of expressed appreciation changed the young man’s whole life and career.  The story just goes to show how words of recognition and appreciation that we might show to others, especially to young people, might serve to change the whole course of their lives.  So let us not withhold words of appreciation and recognition.  We have the power to changes lives!  But back to the story.  You have already guessed the name of the young man in the story, I am sure.  It was Charles Dickens, one of the world’s most beloved writers. 

In case you missed it, the world celebrated (February 7) Charles Dickens’ birthday this past week.  Or the 200^th anniversary of his birthday, at least.  Now, I need to disclose that I am not a Dickens expert.  I have read some of his 15 major novels, but certainly not all of them.  My favorite Dickens work is A Christmas Carol, a story that helped change the way the Christmas holiday is celebrated yet today.  But A Christmas Carol, as we shall see momentarily, is not really about Christmas customs; it is about something much deeper and much more important.  As an aside, Dickens wrote that as A Christmas Carol unfolded as he wrote it, “he wept and laughed, and wept again” as he “walked the black streets of London fifteen or twenty miles many a night when all sober folks had gone to bed.”

There is some more interesting trivia about Charles Dickens that you might be interested in knowing as I lay the foundation for what it was about him (in my opinion, at least) that makes him such an important literary figure.  No other writer has inspired more movie, TV, and stage adaptations of his works.  More than 320 movies—dramas, musicals and cartoons—have been inspired by Dickens’ novels.  All of Dickens’ work was adapted for the stage during his own lifetime, and often he was in the cast himself.  When Dickens came to America for his first reading tour in 1842, he drew huge crowds.  Ticket scalpers worked his appearances like they do today at rock concerts and Super Bowl games.  People flocked around Dickens like he was an idol.  His second American tour attracted more than 100,000 people at his 76 public readings, earning him $95,000, which is equivalent to about $1.5 million in today’s money.  Dickens’ works continue to be reprinted and reprinted, selling in the millions of copies.  In 2010, Oprah Winfrey chose his A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations for her book club.¹

But what was it about Dickens the man and his novels that make him sermon worthy?  That is really the question you are asking, isn’t it?  In a nutshell, Dickens was a social reformer in the spirit of the 8^th century BCE Hebrew prophets (Amos and Hosea), Isaiah, and in the spirit of Jesus.  As a biblical aside, the 8^th century BCE Hebrew prophets preached during troubling times.  There was political unrest, religious idolatry, the wealthy taking advantage of the poor, and so on.  And whoever wrote the passage that I read from Isaiah 58 was also a social reformer who prophesied after the Babylonian captivity and exile and the Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem.  Isaiah believed that his people would be blessed for being careful to see to the needs of the poor, oppressed and downtrodden.  And I suspect he believed that the reverse was just as true: any nation or people that condones or blatantly allows gross oppression or injustice to continue cannot long be blessed.  Eventually that nation will reap the fruits of its injustices.  If nothing else, the downtrodden and oppressed masses will eventually rise up in rebellion and overthrow the government, as has been happening recently in various countries around the world.  So the prophet advocated for the downtrodden and the poor, and spoke out against injustice and oppression.  He was tired of empty religiosity; repeating nice religious words and going through the motions of religion such as prayer and fasting, when at the same time the actions of daily life took no regard of, and even inflicted suffering upon, fellow humans.  Isaiah’s phrase, “you pursue your own interests and oppress your workers” could just as easily have come right out of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Which leads me back to Dickens.  Dickens sympathized with and advocated for the poor and oppressed.  He never lost his interest in and never stopped advocating for those in prisons (remember, his father had been in debtors’ prison), orphanages, and institutions for the insane.  When traveling through the southern United States, Dickens was appalled at the sight of southern slavery and became an outspoken voice for abolition.  And Dickens’ advocacy and efforts to change social injustices and inequities come through in the novels he wrote. 

For instance, as I hinted earlier, A Christmas Carol at the core is not really about Christmas customs.  It is about something much deeper.  A Christmas Carol was a call for society to consider the plight and working conditions of the poor and unlearned.  One of the key passages in A Christmas Carol is early in the work when the ghost of Scrooge’s deceased business partner appears to him.  Scrooge says to Jacob Marley’s ghost, “But you were always a good man of business, Jacob. . .”  To which Marley’s ghost replies, “Business!  Mankind was my business.  The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business.” 

And then when the Ghost of Christmas Present prepares to leave him, two children, a boy and a girl, are revealed from underneath the Ghost’s robe.  The children are wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. “Spirit! Are they yours?” Scrooge asks.  “They are Man’s,” said the Spirit.  “This boy is Ignorance.  This girl is Want.  Beware them both.”  In other words, the passage is a call to social reform to see to the needs of the world’s children who are victims of ignorance and want. 

And then the concluding message of A Christmas Carol is a call for the reader to examine his or her own life and make sure that Christmas is being celebrated in the heart and demonstrated through acts of charity and benevolence to the poor.  In the concluding paragraph, Dickens writes, “it was always said of him [Scrooge] that he knew how to keep Christmas well . . .  May that be truly said of us, and all of us!”  Two of Dickens’ other famous quotes are “A day wasted on others is not wasted on one’s self,” and “Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door.”

Well, what can we learn from the life and writings of Charles Dickens?  Could it be that he can serve as an inspiration for all of us to be an advocate for the poor and oppressed wherever we see them?  As Dickens observed the plight of the American slaves in the pre-Civil War South and became an outspoken opponent of slavery and supporter of Abolition, how might we speak out in the spirit of Dickens, and of the prophet Isaiah, today? 

I think that one of the tasks of the church and of religious people is to be able to see social injustices and keep pushing for needed reform until the ideal becomes reality.  That is one of the beauties of the separation of Church and State in our country.  While it is important for the Church to distance itself so that it does not get so enmeshed in the government, the Church can (and often has) push the government to make needed social reforms.  A good example is how churches pushed for needed civil rights change in the 1950’s and 1960’s.  (By the way, as another aside, I often refer to New England Congregationalists, since my ministerial standing comes from within that tradition.  One of the things I appreciate about the Congregational tradition is that the American Congregational Churches have a history of being on the cutting edge of needed social reform—the abolition of slavery, equal education for women and minorities [they founded many colleges to that end], welcoming women into the ordained Christian ministry, equal rights regardless of sexual orientation, and so on.) 

But what the question boils down to for us is how can we as one congregation, and how can we as individuals, be inspired by and live out the social reforming vision of Isaiah, Charles Dickens, and most importantly, Jesus?  There are no easy answers.  And I don’t intend to give you any easy answers today.  But that is the question I would like to leave with us to take home and ponder.  In what places are injustice and oppression most obvious, and where is social reform most needed in our own day?  Amen. 

 ¹Some information gleaned from USA Today, Jan. 31, 2012.

Philippians 3:12-14 GNT

God, it appears, has found a prominent place on the football field.  But taking God onto the football field, or at least the blending of religion and football, is not really a new thing at all, is it?  Praying before a football game has long been an American tradition.  You may have heard about the Super Bowl quarterback’s wife who sent out an email this past week to some of her friends asking that they pray for him in today’s game.  The email went viral.  And in some American communities, football—whether it be high school, college, or pro-football—can almost become a religion in itself.  Anything to which we devote our chief allegiance and/or our deepest passion can become a god to us.  And for some, football comes pretty close. 

And football players kneeling and bowing their heads to whisper a prayer of thanks after a touchdown certainly is nothing new.  But the practice has taken on a whole new life with the success of Denver Broncos quarterback, Tim Tebow.

Now, I realize that Tim Tebow will not be playing in today’s Super Bowl game.  However, I thought that since today is Super Bowl Sunday, it would be an appropriate time to think about the Tebow phenomenon that is sweeping the country by storm.  The Tebow phenomenon, dubbed “Tebowmania,” causes us to ask why he has become so popular.  If you keep up with football in the least, then you have heard the name Tim Tebow.  If you don’t keep up with football, allow me to enlighten you just a little.  Twenty-four-year-old Tim Tebow is one of the most popular football players in America.  He was voted America’s new favorite athlete in an ESPN poll.  A Heisman Trophy winner, Tebow is good-natured and polite, known for clean living and genuine goodness.  A good, all-around American boy. 

But the thing that really sets Tim Tebow apart is his very public Evangelical Christian faith.  The son of Christian missionaries, Tebow is using his position as the Bronco’s quarterback to promote his Evangelical faith.  Following a touchdown or victory, Tebow genuflects on one knee on the football field, a practice that is being imitated the world over, what Time Magazine calls “Tebowing Round the World”—on the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, at the Parthenon in Athens, and various other places around the world where people are photographed posing in the exact same way that Tebow does.  Tebow’s Twitter feed spreads his Evangelical message to some 800,000 followers, and his Facebook page reaches about 1.3 million subscribers.¹  In an interview aired this week, one news commentator stated that if you Google Tim Tebow, he is more popular than Jesus Christ—on Google, anyway.  Again, Time Magazine refers to Tebow as “perhaps the most significant Evangelical Christian in the country.”  In one game recently, Tebow threw for exactly 316 yards.  Now, 3:16 has long found a place on posters in football stands.  John 3:16 is a hallmark of Evangelical Christianity—“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  So when Tebow recently threw 316 yards in one game, it was taken by many to be a divine sign and gave new life to 3:16.  Tebow himself etched 3:16 in his eye black during a University of Florida game.

Now, I realize that I need to proceed with caution today.  Because it certainly is not my intent to offend anyone with anything I might say.  I think Tim Tebow is a great guy.  But since most people in America are thinking about football today, and since the Tebow phenomenon is such a hot issue right now, I just thought it would be a good opportunity to raise some questions about the intersection of religion and football, and sports in general.  Questions such as:

Does God, the Creator of the universe, have any interest in, take any notice of, or get involved in football?  Or in any type of sports event for that matter?  The larger question, of course, has to do with how we understand God’s involvement in our lives in general.

Is it appropriate for Tim Tebow to use his position for such a public display of his faith?

Is Tim Tebow being blessed with success in his endeavors because of his outspoken Christian testimony, or is Tebow being successful simply because he is using to the best of his abilities the personal gifts and talents that come naturally to him?

What does it say about Tebow being blessed by God when he fails to play a good game or when his team loses? 

Okay, first the question as to whether God has any interest in, or takes notice of, or gets involved in sports, or in our lives in general.  The Knoxville News Sentinel picked up a column by Reg Henry, who writes for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  Henry writes (and these are his words, not mine), “Does the Almighty not have better things to do than decide NFL games, even when one of the quarterbacks goes on bended knee?”  Referring to how the Broncos had defeated his favorite team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, Henry quipped, “It puzzles me further that the Almighty, in his wisdom, might favor the Broncos over the Steelers, who have some excellent praying players of their own.”  Henry raises some good points.  Does God really care who wins on the football field? 

Or switching gears (no pun intended), does God really get involved in another one of America’s quasi religions—stockcar racing?  I am not a racing fan, but I know they used to have prayer before the race began.  And the prayer often included a petition that all the drivers be kept safe from harm.  I have always thought that to be a bit odd.  That men would purposely drive 200 miles an hour, knowing they are putting their own life and the lives of others in mortal danger, and then pray that they be kept safe.  But I digress.  The question is, Is it in the nature of God to take sides or get involved in sports and other such affairs of men and women? 

Could the tendency of some to pray for God’s favor, perhaps even victory, at sporting events and in other arenas, be a carryover from the ancient days of religion when God was seen to be a tribal deity that accompanied a people into battle?  This is sort of the way we want to think of God, isn’t it?  As being on our side—whether that side be in a sporting event, in politics, in religious affiliation, on the battlefield, or anywhere else.  But anytime battle lines are drawn and God is claimed to be on one side or the other, not-so-good things can happen.  Once you claim to have God on your side, you run the risk of feeling justified in doing whatever it takes to accomplish your goal.  But if you see God as being equally concerned and loving toward everyone, then that changes not only how you can accomplish your goals, but what those goals might be.  It is much more difficult to view God as a universal God, who is on everyone’s side.

Second question, Is it appropriate for Tim Tebow to use his position to promote his faith in such a public manner?  Now, as always, there are two sides to the issue.  The first is the side of free speech.  Some say that Tim is just exercising his right of free speech and freedom of religious expression.  But then on the other side, what if Tim Tebow were a Muslim, for instance, and prostrated him as Muslims do when they pray, toward Mecca?  Would that be as acceptable?  Would Americans be as supportive and enthralled?  As a recent article in Sports Illustrated pointed out, Tebow has become “a centerpiece of debate.”  “There is a certain unease [among many] with displaying religious beliefs as outwardly as doth Tebow.”²  But perhaps the greater question is, At what point does the display of religious faith become questionable?

Third question, Is Tim Tebow being blessed with success in his endeavors because of his outspoken Christian testimony, or is Tebow being successful simply because he is using to the best of his abilities the personal gifts and talents that come naturally to him?  As the Sports Illustrated article points out, a recent poll “inquired of fans far and wide and found that 43% of them believed that ‘divine intervention’ had played a role in Tebow’s triumphs.”  In other words, it appears that many believe that Tebow’s game is being blessed because of his faith.  But surely there are other football players who are just as dedicated in their faith, maybe not just as public about it.  So I lean toward the idea that Tebow is successful because he is using to the best of his abilities the personal gifts he has, and maybe because of his positive, can-do attitude.

And the fourth question, What does it say about Tebow being blessed by God when he fails to play a good game or when his team loses?  If God is blessing Tebow because of his public demonstration of faith, then what does it mean when Tebow suffers a loss, as did the Broncos suffer a 45-10 playoff loss to the New England Patriots, who will be playing in today’s Super Bowl instead of the Broncos?  The broader question for all of us is, If God is for us, then why do we suffer trouble and defeat in life?  How do we deal with that?  One wonders if Tim Tebow continues to offer praise, like righteous Job we considered last Sunday, following a defeat as well as a victory.  According to an interview aired this weekend, Tebow claims to be the same person whether he wins or loses.  If that is so, he is to be commended.

So, the questions surrounding the intersection of sports and religion are many, aren’t they?  What I would like to do is draw some conclusions from a broad, religious perspective.  For instance, as noted earlier, we do well to stay away from the idea that God is always on our side.  Regarding speaking publicly of our faith, all of us, I think, probably could stand to do a little more of that.  When I first came here, I was told that one of the mindsets of Oak Ridge is you don’t talk about your faith.  You keep it private.  Well, that’s no way to grow a church.  At the same time, we don’t want to make such a public display of our faith that it makes other people feel pressured or uncomfortable.  From Tim Tebow we can learn the lesson of developing and using to the best of our abilities those personal skills and talents we have been given, as well as having faith and faith in ourselves.  Finally, I think we can learn that even though God is for us—for all of us, none excluded—we can’t always expect God to intervene in our lives to make everything go the way we want it to.  Life just doesn’t work that way.  We don’t always “win the game.”  What each of us can do, as Paul so eloquently puts it in this letter to the Philippians, is do our best, have faith in ourselves, and run with patience and perseverance toward the goal that we set before us.  Amen.                               

1Time Magazine, Jan. 16, 2012.    2Sports Illustrated, Jan. 23, 2012.

Job 1:1, 6-11; 2:1-10

The character Job is a paradigmatic figure.  That is, Job serves as a paradigm or an example or model for all of us.  I am Job; and you are Job.  Most of us, while enduring what seemed to be undeserved suffering or trouble, have felt like Job.  And there is no greater challenge to religious faith than undeserved suffering.

The Book of Job has always been one of my favorite books of the Bible.  It is a philosophical book that raises a lot of philosophical and theological questions that all of us wrestle with.  And one of those primary questions is, Is it possible to be religious and live a good, ethical life (as religion defines it) with no strings attached?  Can men and women be in relationship with God altruistically, without ulterior motives?  Can humans be good for nothing?

It is easy for many to feel good about their relationship with God when things are going well in their lives.  A family is happy and prosperous.  Both partners have good-paying jobs they love.  The bills are paid and there is plenty to eat.  The children are healthy and doing well in school.  Life is good.  So it is easy for such to feel good about their relationship with God and go to church with a smile on their faces.  It is easy to be confident in our religious beliefs and rejoice when things are going our way. 

At this point enter the argument of the accuser in the story of Job.  Now, you know that we are not to take this story literally.  We are not to believe that there was an actual time when the heavenly council came together and God gave Satan the go-ahead to bring all kinds of trouble upon Job.  The meaning is deeper than that.  The name “Satan” means accuser, by the way, and the Satan character in the Book of Job should not necessarily be equated with the Satan we see in the New Testament.  But in today’s story Satan accuses Job of honoring and serving God because of the earthly wealth God has made possible for Job to accumulate and the good health and prosperity he enjoys.   “You have always protected him and his family and everything he owns,” the accuser rails.  “You bless everything he does” (1:10 GNT).  Of course Job (or any man or woman for that matter) can live in loving relationship with God when he is abundantly blessed, when everything is going well for him.

Some are motivated to be in relationship with God with an eye on future benefits.  When God makes mention of the faithfulness of Job, Satan replies, “Would Job worship you if he got nothing out of it,”  (1:9) and if he didn’t hope to get something in the future?  If you take away all his earthly gain and blessings of life and hope of future gain, Job will surely curse you and turn his back on you.

There were those of ancient times who said that obedience and faithfulness to God’s precepts, or keeping the covenant, would bring prosperity, health and safety.  We see this in some of the other wisdom literature of the Bible.  And one reason that Job may have been written was to be a counter-argument to such a line of thinking.  Much contemporary T.V. preaching still makes this claim: honor God and send in your tithes and you will be blessed with worldly goods.  If that were unequivocally true, it would be easy to always be in a comfortable relationship with God, wouldn’t it? 

Many people (whether knowingly or unknowingly, spoken or unspoken) operate on the assumption that God is bound to protect them from tragedy and trouble because they have been good.  Religious faith or attending church is seen as another form of life insurance—a way to be protected from sickness, suffering and trouble.  If faith does not protect us from life-threatening disease, or tornadoes or hurricanes or senseless violence, then what is faith good for?  Such goes the thinking of many.  But the Book of Job questions the line of thinking that one should be “good for God” (for lack of a better term) on the basis of the benefits it might bring to us.

Consequently, maintaining our religious beliefs with no hope of gain or when times are tough can be a much greater challenge for some.  How many people can respond as righteous Job did who said, “When God sends us something good, we welcome it.  How can we complain when” we receive trouble (2:10)?  “I was born with nothing, and I will die with nothing,” Job said.  “The Lord gave, and now he has taken away.  May his name be praised!” (1:21 GNT).

The accuser’s argument is that Job is willing to stay loyal to God, but only up to a point.  Job is even willing to leave this world penniless, with nothing.  But if Job’s body were harmed—if those medical tests come back bearing the worst of news—his faithfulness would go flying out the window.  But both God and Job’s wife characterize him as one who “persists in his integrity” (2:3, 9) in spite of all that has befallen him.

Could we identify with that?  Even in the lowest times of despair, when everything has gone wrong, when the bank account is in the red, when everything is falling to pieces, would our relationship with God or our religious beliefs stay intact?  Not for the hope of financial gain and not for the trouble God might keep away from us.  But simply because of who God is and what God has done in creating the universe and giving life and because of the relationship we have with God? How many of us have reached the point of religious maturity when our view of God and our beliefs about God and life remain stable in spite of life’s circumstances?  Why is it that undeserved suffering is such a challenge to religious faith?  Could it be because God often is seen as a Being that is constantly passing out rewards and punishments?  Or because God is believed to be the All-Powerful problem fixer?

Many years ago a farmer had an unusually fine crop of grain.  Just a few days before it was ready to harvest, there came a terrible hail and wind storm.  The entire crop was destroyed.  After the storm was over, the farmer and his little son went out to the field.  The little boy looked at what was formerly a beautiful field of wheat, and then with tears in his eyes he looked up at his dad, expecting to hear words of bitterness or despair.  Instead, his father started to sing, “Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee.”    Years later, after the little boy had grown to manhood, he said, “That was the greatest sermon I ever heard.”

What we really believe becomes evident when we face a challenge or crisis. Whether to be good for nothing, and to be in relationship with God for nought, is a question that everyone may wrestle with. 

In the year 1770, a unique English preacher by the name of John Murray landed on the New Jersey shore and began to preach a new gospel.  It was the gospel of Universalism.  Actually, the doctrine of Universalism is as old as the Bible itself; there are verses in the Bible that support it.  Some of the early church fathers, such as Origen, held Universalist beliefs.  But for centuries Universalism was virtually invisible.  But in the 18^th century, the gospel of Universalism reappeared in large part in reaction to the harshness of hyper-Calvinism, which predestined most people to hell.  [As a sidenote, for church history buffs, in the early part of the 20^th century the Universalists and Congregationalists seriously considered a merger].  At any rate, one of the primary teachings of Universalism was that God would not cast into hell—a lake of fire—any of the creatures that God had made.  The God as revealed by Jesus Christ is a God of love, mercy and grace.

Well, when John Murray and others like him began preaching their Universal gospel, it didn’t set well with mainline denominations, because they were preaching hellfire and brimstone.  Consequently, Murray and others were often persecuted for the faith they proclaimed.  One of the main criticisms against Universalist teaching was that you can’t take away the idea of hell.  If you take away the threat of hell, why people will just go wild and do anything they please.  The whole world will fall into mayhem.  If you dispense with the threat of hell, there will be no reason for people to believe in God and do what is right.  But the Universalists replied, “Not so.  People can and should be good just for goodness’ sake, simply because it is the right thing to do.”  And it is true.  One of the statements the Book of Job makes is that “disinterested piety, a full unconditional love of God, is both possible and commendable.”1

One of the big questions of Job is, Do we seek an experience with God or the Sacred and strive to live a good, ethical life, not because of what we might hope to gain from it, but simply because we long for a relationship or experience with the Sacred, and because living a good, ethical life (as religious teaching defines it) is the right thing to do?  When we truly have an experience with God-the Sacred, it really has nothing to do with getting rewards or avoiding punishment.  It is about being connected to God, the Sacred, the Source of all life.  It’s about stepping outside the smallness of our humanity and becoming engaged with something larger, more wonderful, that Sacred at the heart of the universe.  The answer that the book of Job gives is, Yes, we can be good for nothing.  Amen.

 1New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, vol IV, p. 354.  

Ecclesiastes 1:1-11

You know, the Christian Church has not always been kind to its best, most gifted, and most forward-thinking members.  As you probably know, some of the best and most brilliant minds have been ignored, silenced, imprisoned, persecuted, even burned at the stake.  And all because they saw a better way, a more enlightened way, and spoke out against the status quo.

Take, for instance, Galileo, that 15^th and 16^th century Italian astronomer and physicist who is often called the “father of modern physics.”  Albert Einstein called him the “father of modern science.”  Yet, Galileo was branded by the Church as a heretic, and he was ordered to go to Rome to stand trial where he was interrogated.  He was threatened with torture if he did not change his views and tell the truth.  He was sentenced to formal imprisonment, but then his sentence was changed to house arrest, which he remained under for the rest of his life.  His writings were banned and publication of any other works he might write was forbidden.  On top of that, Galileo was ordered to read the seven penitential psalms once a week for three years. 

And what was Galileo’s great crime that branded him as a heretic and caused him so much trouble?  He defended heliocentrism , the theory that the sun, and not the earth, is the center of our solar system.  Previously, the accepted view was that the earth was the center of the universe and the sun revolved around the earth.  After all, doesn’t the Bible say “the sun rises and the sun goes down”? (Ecc. 1:5).  In beautiful poetic fashion, Psalm 19 states that “in the heavens God has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy, and like a strong man runs its course with joy.  Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them;” (Psalm 19:4-6).  So, you can see the problem.  For Galileo to have claimed that the sun, and not the earth, was at the center of our solar system was contrary to the teachings of the Bible, which in the 15^th and 16^th centuries was a big problem.

Now, the fact is, Galileo was not the first to believe that the earth was not the center of the solar system or universe.  From your elementary science days, you may remember that Copernicus had already formulated some years earlier a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology which displaced the earth from the center of the universe.  The earth revolved around the sun, Copernicus taught, and not the other way around.  But evidently, Copernicus did not go to the lengths that Galileo would to defend the idea.  By 1616, the attacks on the ideas of Copernicus had reached a head, so Galileo went to Rome (the center of Christendom) to try to persuade the Catholic Church authorities not to ban Copernicus’s ideas.  What resulted was a decree declaring that the idea that the sun stood still and the earth moved were “false” and “altogether contrary to Holy Scripture.”  And thus, Galileo was decreed to be heretical in his views and punished accordingly. 

Now, here is the point: there has long been tension between religion and science.  When science and new discoveries have called into question long-held religious beliefs, all kinds of trouble often have followed.  In the beginning, religious ideas and natural experiences were pretty much blended into one.  Religion sought to understand and explain natural phenomena.  But as science grew and could explain natural occurrences, religion and science began to diverge.  But as religious-minded humans, often we don’t want our religious beliefs tampered with.  If I have to give into the possibility that the earth is not the center of the universe, or the idea that the earth is not at the center of God’s attention, as the Bible would seem to indicate, then what other beliefs might I need to call into question as well?  Such is the way human minds tend to work. 

Well, where is all of this going? you may be asking.  I got to thinking about all of us because of recent astronomical discoveries.  I don’t know if you caught it or not, but since early last year the Kepler space telescope has detected about 2,000 potential planets that are circling our own sun’s starry neighbors.  It is thought that a number of those potential planets fall within their star’s temperate habitable zone where oceans could persist, which means they are capable of supporting life.  Geoff Marcy of the University of California-Berkeley, a Kepler investigator, stated “This is a phenomenal discovery in the course of human history” (USA Today, Dec. 6, 2011).

Now, if we accept the fact that there may be other planets out there similar to our earth and capable of containing life, how might that alter our idea of God and possibly our faith?  After all, don’t we tend to think of humans as the center of God’s attention?  What if there are other like beings on other planets in other solar systems?  Would such mean that we are any less special or any less important in the overall scheme of things?  Or, would it merely indicate that God is so much bigger than we may have previously fathomed?

It is helpful for me to visualize a diagram with a circle in the middle, and where everything within that circle represents Science, data, the Known, and everything outside that circle represents Faith, spiritual experience, and the Unknown.  Can you visualize that with me?  Visualize an endless, blank sheet of paper with a circle drawn in the center.  Inside that circle is the Known, Scientific fact, provable data.  Then everything else outside the circle on the remaining endless sheet of paper represents the Unknown, Faith, spiritual experience.  The more we learn through Science, the larger the circle of the Known grows.  But at the same time, that which lies outside the circle—the Unknown, unprovable spiritual experience, Faith—continues to grow as well.  Also, the more we know, the more we realize we don’t know.  So as scientific discovery grows and changes, so does the realm of Faith and our conceptions of God.  Science shows that the truth—natural and religious—may be larger, grander, more mysteriously beautiful than we could have ever imagined.  The pre-Copernicus Christian Church could not have fathomed thousands of solar systems like our own with multiple planets like Planet Earth.

Some people are not able to embrace such radical changes in the way they view reality.  And hence, the tension between science and faith.  For some, if there seems to be a discrepancy between science and faith or the Bible, then faith wins out.  It is interesting how, as intelligent people, we can check our brains at the front door of the church.  Then others give up faith altogether, giving sole allegiance to science, unable to see the value of faith even if the Bible shouldn’t always be taken literally. 

Galileo had the right idea almost 400 years ago, contending that the Bible and science are not contrary one to the other since the writers of the Bible were operating from a terrestrial or earthly worldview.  And most often, the verses in the Bible where the sun is pictured as revolving around the earth are poetical in nature and weren’t intended to be taken literally. 

So, regarding the question, “Where in the universe is God?”, the answer is a lot more than we may once have thought.  As our knowledge about the universe continues to grow, so do our ideas about God or the Sacred at the heart of the universe.  Or to put it another way, as our knowledge and understanding change, including how they are informed by science, we are also forced to grapple with our religious understanding.  But the fact that there may be more planets in the universe similar to planet Earth shouldn’t change the way that we feel about God—or that God feels about us—in the least.  We’re just learning that the power, majesty and grace of God extend much further than we previously thought.  And our discoveries can lead us to greater beauty, a greater experience of the Divine-Sacred-God than we could have ever imagined.  Amen.

Luke 2:22-33

A few days ago, my wife and I were taking down and boxing up our Christmas decorations.  Each of us sort of has our particular jobs when it comes to taking down the decorations.  One of mine is packing up our nativity sets.  We have several nativity sets that we have collected over the years, from very small miniature ones to standard size ones.  Well, I was sitting in the floor packing up the last of our nativity sets, the largest one which is composed of white porcelain figures.  The last piece that I wrapped in tissue paper was the baby Jesus in the manger bed.  As I started to place the baby Jesus figure in the box, I spied an empty space in the corner of the box that seemed to fit just right.  So carefully I tucked baby Jesus away in the corner of the box until next year.

And then it hit me, like an epiphany (we are still in the season of epiphany, you know, so it’s most appropriate).  What an apt metaphor for life and faith.  We go through the Christmas rituals.  We celebrate the birth of the Christ Child, the Bethlehem Babe.  And then when Christmas Day is over, we more or less tuck Baby Jesus away in the boxes of our hearts until next December rolls around. 

Now, Christmas encourages the best in us.  In spite of the economic crunch, in spite of the already numerous demands upon our time, we are encouraged during the Christmas season to be generous with our time and money, to set aside our own priorities and focus on others who are less fortunate.  And we do so with glad hearts.  The outpouring of time and gifts by our United Church members is heartwarming.  We gave food to the poor.  We gave Christmas gifts to needy children.  Several of our members worked at the Ecumenical Storehouse in the month of December.  And in addition to that, we may have contributed to the Salvation Army kettle or Knoxville Area Rescue Mission or some other charity.  And we may have done it in the name of and to honor the Baby Jesus whose birth we celebrate on December 25. But now that the Christmas season is over, our other priorities have pushed their way back into our lives.  And those priorities aren’t trivial, by any means.  We all have job or family or community responsibilities that must be seen to. 

But then along comes Epiphany.  The season when we are called to get serious about our faith and take the Christ Spirit into the world.  The Christmas season is filled with sentiment and glitter and wrappings and all kinds of stuff that stir our emotions and stir up visions of what the world should be and could be—peace, brotherhood and sisterhood, goodwill toward all, and so on.  And we may resolve in our hearts during this time that we are going to take steps to change our lives for the better and do things to help make the world a better place.  But then, by the time Epiphany rolls around, all the ornaments and glitter and wrappings have been put away or discarded.  And all of our emotions and visions of what the world should be, and our good intentions to take steps to make a difference, may be packed up as well, along with the Baby Jesus in the corner of the box, as we return to the priorities of everyday living.  But the truth is, our hopes and visions during the Christmas season are too beautiful to pack away.  If we handle them carefully, perhaps they need not fade away.

And so, Epiphany serves to remind us that the work of Christmas is not over.  Indeed, the work of Christmas has only just begun.  Epiphany is about manifesting to the world what the Christ and what being a “Christian” is all about.  But unlike the romantic scene of wisemen offering gifts to a baby, surrounded by an adoring mother and father and sheep, camels, and a donkey, we must meet the adult Jesus head-on.  Epiphany is the time when we find practical ways to make visions of what the world should be become reality.  Epiphany is the time to figure out practical ways to make peace, brother and sisterhood, and goodwill come to pass.  Epiphany is the time to think about long-term changes that will result in the world being a better place.  If we don’t, then we stand to lose the vision.

Who better an example to think about today than Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who not only had a vision of how to make the world a better place, but devoted his life to making that vision become reality?  Equal rights for all.  Better working conditions for all.  Justice for all, as Jesus intended it.  Now, I think I have said it before: all of us can’t be Martin Luther Kings.  And most of us probably wouldn’t want to be.  I don’t think any one of us longs to be thrown in jail, chased by viscious dogs, have rocks thrown through our windows, and be taken out by a bullet at a young age.  The struggles and ultimate sacrifice that Dr. King made are sobering.  Any cause that finds itself in sharp conflict with the status quo, that goes against the power structure, is wrought with struggle and sacrifice that few people are prepared to make.  Nevertheless, we can be inspired by Dr. King’s passion for bringing about needed change and the way he pursued a cause to make a positive difference in the world.

But, thankfully, the options are not just to give everything or nothing.  Each of us can do something as we identify some issue or cause in the world where change is needed and where we can contribute at least a small part to making a positive difference in the world.  In the words of poet Mary Oliver, “you too have come into the world . . . to be filled with light, and to shine” (“When I Am Among the Trees”).

There are numerous causes that provide opportunities to us to get engaged and make a difference: food for the hungry, the homeless, meals for the homebound, the environment, people who need someone to listen, children and adults who need to learn how to read, the list is endless.  Thus, we can direct our passion toward volunteering at a local food bank, or the Salvation Army or Habitat for Humanity, or delivering meals, or lending our support to stop mountaintop removal mining, or volunteer for CONTACT Helpline, or become a reading tutor, or lend our financial support to any number of world charities like our Sunday school children have admirably done through Heifer International.  They raised close to $300.  In some ways, I feel I am preaching to the choir, as they say, since a number of our members are already committed to giving their time and talents to different volunteer activities in our community.  You know who you are and what your passion is.  And you know you are making a positive difference in the world.  That’s what Epiphany faith is all about.

There is a beautiful piece by another African American, Howard Thurman, titled “The Work of Christmas.”  It goes:

When the song of angels is stilled,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flock,

The work of Christmas begins:

to find the lost,

to heal the broken,

to feed the hungry,

to release the prisoner,

to rebuild the nations,

to bring peace among the brothers,

to make music in the heart.

So, let’s not tuck Baby Jesus away in the dark corners of our hearts and forget about all the warm, fuzzy feelings and visions we had about making the world a better place until next Christmas.  Epiphany is the season of “What if. . .”  What if we didn’t tuck Jesus away, but encountered him head on?  What if we took baby steps toward our vision of a better world, as each one of us identified and lent our passion and energies to at least one community or world issue throughout the coming year?  And by so doing, we could continue the good work of Christmas and help make the world a better place for all.  Amen.

Matthew 1:18-25

What’s in a name? as they say.  Well, a whole lot when you stop to think about it.  For a name sticks with a child his or her whole life long, for good or for ill.  Our name impacts us all of our lives, and we have no control over it.  The late Johnny Cash sang a song about “A Boy Named Sue.”  Now, the name “Sue” is a good name.  We have some wonderful Sues in this congregation.  It’s a beautiful name.  But maybe not the best name for a boy.  The ballad told of all the troubles the young man had because of his feminine name.  You wonder sometimes what parents are thinking when they give their children such odd names that are sure to cause them problems.

And then the flip side of the issue is the fact that other parents go to great lengths to choose just the right name so that the child’s life will be blessed.  When it comes to choosing a name for their child, some parents-to-be agonize over the name for weeks, or for months even.  This point was driven home to me yet again a few weeks ago by an article in USA Today titled “What’s in a name choice?  Major pressure” (Dec. 1, 2011).  The article noted that some parents spend a lot of time googling possible names to make sure a name they have chosen does not match some serial killer somewhere.  The article also listed the top boy names and top girl names for the year.  Are you interested in hearing the top baby names for 2011?  The top five girl names of the year are Sophia, Emma, Isabella, Olivia, and Ava.  The top five boy names are Aiden, Jackson, Mason, Liam, and Jacob.

Yes, what a privilege it is, and what an awesome responsibility, to name a child.  So it was with our good friends Mike and Sherri, co-pastors of a church in NY.  After finally being able to conceive, they agonized for months over what they would name their child.  In a two-page announcement that they mailed to friends and family following the birth of their first baby, a boy, Mike and Sherri explained the choice of the name they had chosen.  They explained that as pastors they felt it was their duty to give their child a name with a positive meaning and a name that had positive associations.  They wanted a Hebrew name.  After long consideration, they settled on the name “Samuel.”   Samuel means, “the Lord has heard.”  You may remember that Samuel was one of the ancient Hebrew prophets and judges.  Like Hannah, Samuel’s mother who had been barren and who prayed for a son and felt that God had heard her prayer, Mike and Sherri felt that God had heard their prayer and that their son’s conception and birth was a miraculous gift.  But there is more to the story.  Years ago, when Mike and Sherri first started dating, they attended an international missions conference.  As they walked and talked together, the first five people they met were named Samuel.  They started making jokes that when they got married, they would have to name their firstborn Samuel.  As it came time for them to actually name their child, they said goodbye to a dear friend named Samuel.  And then they realized that they had never met a Samuel they did not like.  And so, Mike and Sherri believed that all the signs pointed to the fact that Samuel was to be the child’s name. And so it was.

The Bible in general, and Matthew in particular, invests great power in the act of naming.  The Hebrews often chose names for their children based on the child’s character or appearance, or the circumstances surrounding the conception or the birth.  The naming of Mary’s baby is an important part of the gospel reading for the day.  But as Matthew tells the story, Mary and Joseph didn’t have to agonize over what to name their baby.  According to the story, before the baby was born an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him what the name of the child should be.  “You are to name him Jesus,” the angel is reported to have said.  Jesus—not an unfamiliar or unusual name of the day.  On the contrary, Jesus was a very common name; it was the Bob or the Bill or the Jim of first-century Palestine.  Josephus, the famed Jewish historian of the day, mentions no fewer than 20 different men named Jesus.  So in receiving a name common to that time and place, Jesus identified with the common people of the world.  To distinguish him from other boys named Jesus at the time he would be referred to as Jesus of Nazareth, or Jesus the Son of Joseph, or Jesus the Son of Mary.

But while Jesus was a common name, it was not a name void of meaning and power.  The importance that Matthew attaches to the name Jesus is attested by the fact that he mentions the name Jesus well over 150 times in his gospel.  Jesus, or Yeshua in the Hebrew form, means “God is salvation” or “God saves.”  As Matthew saw it, his name was to be his destiny—to save his people.  His name would be a constant reminder of the grace of God at work in his life and in the world.  As one who would save, Jesus would point toward the grace of God and show how to embrace life abundant, and how to be spared an aimless, self-centered, hopeless life.

But then Matthew took it upon himself to give Jesus a second name, a symbolic name or nickname, if you will.  “They shall call him Emmanuel,” which means “God is with us.”  Matthew, of course, based the name Emmanuel upon that passage of scripture in Isaiah 7:14 where the birth of one who would be called “Emmanuel” was predicted.  “God is with us” is a message the world needed to hear 2,000 years ago.  And it is a message we need to hear today.  Our world is filled with trouble and violence.  The problems and stress of living press down upon us until sometimes we think we will be crushed.  The ever-present hope of humanity is that we are not left alone in a dark world.  But rather, that there is a loving, caring God who is ever-present with us to help us along the way.  Such was the early church’s experience of Jesus, one in whom they experienced “God with us.”  In fact, Emmanuel, or God with us, frames the entire gospel of Matthew.  It tells the story of what God is about.  Matthew’s gospel begins with a baby who is Emmanuel, God with us.  In the life and teachings of Jesus, as recounted in Matthew’s gospel, people encounter God and experience God’s grace and loving, healing presence.  Then Matthew’s gospel ends with that same child (now crucified and resurrected) promising he will always be with us.  “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” are Jesus’ final words as Matthew closes his gospel.

And so, these two names—Jesus and Emmanuel—would say a lot, not only about the child born to Mary and Joseph, but also about the nature of God.  Jesus revealed a God of love and a God who is with us in our daily struggles.  That’s the good news of Christmas.  If we miss out on that, then we have totally missed out on the message of Matthew’s gospel and what Matthew believed the birth of Jesus was all about.

I love that great African American hymn that says,

“Mary, Mary had a little baby, uh-huh, a pretty little baby,

Yes, pretty little baby, glory be to the newborn King!

Oh, Mary, what you gonna name that pretty little baby,

Pretty little baby, pretty little baby?

What you gonna name that pretty little baby?

Glory be to the newborn King.

Some call Him Emmanuel, think I’ll call Him Jesus!

Uh-huh, yes, think I’ll call him Jesus,

Yes, pretty little Jesus,

Glory be to the newborn King!”  Amen.

Isaiah 2:1-5; Matthew 4:12-16

One of the highpoints of my life and ministry occurred in May 2000 when I stood on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, the spot where the great Jewish Temple used to stand.  The Temple Mount is a spot that is sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike.  Abraham is said to have been willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac, there on a large rock.  Jesus was most certainly there time and again.  And Muhammad is believed by Muslims to have ascended to heaven from the same rock.  One of the things that fascinates me about the Temple Mount is that people from all nations of the world go there, in at least partial fulfillment of the prophet Isaiah’s words:

“In the days to come [the prophet predicted]

the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains . . .

and all the nations shall stream to it.

Many peoples shall come and say,

‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord. . .’” (Isaiah 2:2-3).

The words of the prophet are being fulfilled, but at the same time they are not yet fulfilled.  Of course, there is no Jewish Temple there now.  But also, as he thought about the possibility of the peoples of the world streaming to Mt. Zion, with a passionate plea, the prophet summed up his dream: “Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”  But what does that mean—to walk in the light of the Lord?   

For the prophet, to walk in the light is to live by the spiritual guidance that has been given us.  It is to live our lives within God’s realm as envisioned by the prophets and later by Jesus.  For Isaiah, walking in the light of the Lord includes a commitment to peace.  This passage is nothing less than a “magnificent prophecy of peace.”  It is a “longing for peace with justice among nations.”¹  Isaiah envisioned a time when the nations “shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; [and when] nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (2:4).  Plainly put, the prophet dreamed of a time of universal disarmament and the end of warfare.  Tools of destruction would be reshaped into tools for food production.  Yet, we continue to live in a world affected by war.  And God only knows how many nations and terrorist groups are plotting destruction.  Watching the evening news sometimes causes one to believe that the whole world has gone mad.  In all these thousands of years, humanity has learned very little about how to get along and the things that make for peace.  Ironically, these words from Isaiah (which are also recorded in the prophet Micah) that call for peace are engraved on a sculpture at the United Nations Building.  The world has not yet learned how to make for peace.

Isaiah’s vision also included a time when the best of religious teaching and religious impulses will be recognized by all the world’s peoples.  He dreamed of a time when all the world’s peoples would have a hunger to learn spiritual laws that make for justice and peace.  Many peoples will come and say, the prophet envisioned, let us go to the house of God “that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths” (2:3).  “Come,” the prophet cried, “let us walk in the light of the Lord.”

Such is what we are about during the season of Advent: seeking to walk in the light of the Lord (to use Isaiah’s metaphor)—learning spiritual ways and committing ourselves to the things that make for peace.  “The life of man,” someone has observed, “is a constant struggle from darkness toward light.”² 

As an aside, you probably are already aware that light has been a spiritual symbol for many religions for thousands of years, especially for this time of year.  Earth-centered religions have celebrated light around the time of the winter solstice.  The Jews will celebrate Hanukah, their season of light, this week.  It should not be surprising, then, that during the season of Advent one of our primary means of celebration is through lights.  Each Sunday we light the candles of the Advent Wreath—the candles of hope, peace, love and joy.  On Christmas Eve we will have a service of lessons and carols with candles in the windows.  In the center of the Advent Wreath we will light the one white candle—the Christ Candle—which symbolizes that the Light of the world is born.  Many of us decorate our homes with candles.  We string electric lights on our Christmas trees and our front lawns.  We may plan a family trip to see the Christmas lights.  In all these ways and more, light becomes central in our Advent and Christmas celebrations.  And at the heart of it all is the message, for Christians at least, that Light has come in the person of Jesus Christ, born in a manger of a maiden named Mary.  “I am the light of the world,” Jesus is said to have proclaimed from that same Temple Mount, some 600 years after Isaiah.  No doubt but what Jesus was standing in the Temple area when he spoke these words during the Festival of Booths.  Great golden lamps in the Temple were lit during this festival.  Perhaps Jesus pointed to one of the lamps as he proclaimed, “I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).  As light of the world, Jesus shows us how to worship, he teaches us the way of faith, and he instructs us about how to live in peace with one another.  In orhter words, he instructs us on how to walk in the light.

It is said that Helen Keller, who was both blind and deaf, once attended a Quaker Meeting.  Keller stood up to commend the Friends for the good relief work they had done following World War I.  Then Keller told the Friends this story: Once there was a little girl who was shut up in utter darkness and unbroken silence with no real life, no world, no hope, no future.  Then someone came who, with patience and tenderness, brought her into contact with the world out there beyond her, and opened in her undreamed of capacities of communication with that new world of life and thought.  Even with closed eyes she learned how to look out on a world full of beauty, hope, and possibility.  “So you,” Keller continued, addressing the Friends’ Meeting, “so you have had the privilege of helping men, women, and children to discover a richer life and a deeper love and sympathy than they knew before.  They have found through you a world before unknown.  You have shot through their darkness with an unexpected light.”  That is what it is all about, isn’t it?  “You have shot through their darkness with an unexpected light.”  That is the way Helen Keller described the impact that Annie Sullivan, her patient and tender teacher, had had on her life.  And even more vividly, that is the way Keller described the impact of the Friends in their relief of suffering following the First World War.  Isn’t that what we are called to do as well?  To shoot through the darkness with an unexpected light?³  To walk in the light of the Lord and share that light with others?

Sue Monk Kidd tells of when her daughter was small she got the part of the Bethlehem Star in a Christmas play.  After her first rehearsal, she burst through the door with her costume, a five-pointed star lined in shiny gold tinsel designed to drape over her like a sandwich board.  “What exactly will you be doing in the play?” Sue asked her daughter.  “I just stand there and shine,” her daughter said.  Sue observes, “I’ve never forgotten that response.”  That’s a nice story.  We need to shine, for sure.  But as adults, we know we have to do more than just stand there.

Our challenge is to try to find active ways to make God’s light visible to a dark world.  We allow God’s light to shine through us by what we say and do, by the way we live our lives and put our faith into action, and by the things we do daily to make for peace—forgiveness, understanding, empathy, patience, mediation, going that extra mile to avoid an argument or fight.  One practical thing we can do is extend a hand of friendship to those of other religions—Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc.  Walking in the light is a daily choice we all have to make.  So, as we conclude this Advent season and look toward Christmas, may we heed Isaiah’s call and renew our commitment.  Let us strive to learn God’s ways.  And let us commit ourselves to living in peace and love with one another and the world. 

We may not be able to change what is going on in Iraq, Iran, Korea, or any other world power, but we can change our day-to-day worlds.  In a world of war and madness, let us determine that we will be makers of peace.  In other words, “Come, let us all walk in the light of the Lord.”  Amen.

¹New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, VI, p. 66.

²Thorstein Veblin.   

³Adapted from James W. Crawford, Ministers Manual for 1998, pp. 75-76.

Matthew 3:1-12

When I am questioned about my theology, I sometimes label myself as a liberal New England Congregationalist.  Because that is really where I am, in practice and liturgically, at least.  As you may already be aware, New England Congregationalists trace their roots back to the Plymouth Pilgrims, whom we celebrate as giving us the original Thanksgiving holiday.  But New England Congregationalists also trace their roots to the New England Puritans.  With that having been said, I must confess that there are some things about the Puritans that I really don’t like very much.  Including their attitude toward Christmas celebrations.  Because the truth is, the Puritans did not celebrate Christmas—at all.  It has been stated that the Puritans didn’t “celebrate” much of anything, but they were particularly firm about not celebrating Christmas.  Many of the Puritans came from England and Scotland.  In Scotland, reformer John Knox put an end to Christmas in 1562.  In England the observance of Christmas was forbidden by an act of Parliament in 1644.  When Oliver Cromwell was Lord Protector, Puritans declared Christmas to be “an extraeme forgetfulnesse of Christ, by giving liberty to carnall and sensual delights.” So the House of Commons sat on Christmas day and sheriffs were sent out to require merchants to open for business.  Pro-and anti-Christmas factions rioted.

The Puritans who came to America by and large brought with them their disdain for Christmas celebrations.  The celebration of Christmas was made a crime in Massachusetts in 1659, and the Massachusetts’s Puritans for a time fined anyone caught observing the holiday. Connecticut also enacted a law forbidding the celebration of Christmas, and even baking a mincemeat pie was forbidden!

But it may be somewhat of a shock to learn that in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, most Pennsylvanians did not celebrate Christmas either.  Pennsylvania’s Puritans and those with Puritan sympathies—which included the Quakers, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists, as well as the Mennonites and some other groups who were Puritans in spirit—shared New England’s aversion to paying a special honor to the 25th of December.  As late as 1874, Congregationalist Henry Ward Beecher, America’s most prominent preacher at the time, said, “To me, Christmas is a foreign day.”   Because of the Puritan influence, the festive aspects of Christmas, including the tree, were not accepted in New England until about 1875.

Why were the Puritans so dead set against Christmas celebrations?  Well, there are at least two factors that led to their reasoning.  The first had to do with the low point to which Christmas celebrations had sunk.  In “Merrie England,” from the 11th to the 17th century, Christmas had become increasingly the great festival of the year with observance from Christmas Eve to Twelfth Night (January 6). It had become a rollicking good time in which drinking, reveling, and so on prevailed.  So the wild license of these celebrations, with no semblance of the inner vision and true meaning of Christmas, came under the disfavor of the Puritans.

And then another reason the Puritans objected to Christmas celebrations had to do with the origin of the date of Christmas and many of the customs that accompany it.  No one really knows when Jesus was born.  The early Church Fathers established the holiday around a pagan celebration, perhaps for easy remembrance by the poor but also to try to replace the pagan holiday with the Christian one.  Set during the winter solstice when days grow dark early, Christmas coincides with the Roman holiday Saturnalia.  December 25 marks the celebration of the birthday of the Unconquered Sun by the Romans.  And such customs as the Yule log, use of some evergreens, mistletoe, and so forth were adopted from pagan religion.  Puritans believed these customs were inappropriate for the celebration of Christ’s birth.  And so, for these reasons Puritans chose not to celebrate Christmas.  Well, so far there hasn’t been much good news, has there?  But hold that thought; we’ll come back to it.

In turning to today’s gospel reading, I am inclined to believe that John the Baptist might have been right at home with the Puritans.  In fact, we might even say that the Baptist was a forerunner of the Puritans.  For like the Puritans, John had that separatist Puritan spirit.  John separated himself by living and preaching out in the wilderness.  He was unique in his dress and his diet.  Like the Puritans, John lived a simple and austere life.  Like the Puritans, John called for a radical reorientation of life.  John preached that we must get rid of the things in our lives that are not in keeping with the way of God.  Like the Puritan movement, John’s movement was quite significant.  John’s movement continued long after the death of Jesus and well into the early decades of the Christian community.  In fact, at times John’s movement competed with the Jesus movement.  And like the Puritans, I don’t believe John would have gone for excessive feasting and celebration in the name of religion.  Yes, John was a “Puritan” at heart.  And as such, I suspect that had he lived 1600 years later, he would have felt right at home with the Puritans in disdaining many of the customs and celebrations surrounding the birth of Jesus.

It is easy to conjecture what John and the Puritans would have to say about some of the ways that Americans celebrate Christmas today.  They probably would roll over in their graves.  Angry, cursing drivers circling like vultures in shopping mall parking lots in an effort to beat other angry, cursing drivers to the next empty parking spot.  Thoughtless shoppers trampling over other fallen shoppers to get in the door for the early morning Black Friday “door buster specials.”  Putting ourselves in massive credit card debt in order look good in the gifts we give.  Attending Christmas parties where so much drinking takes place that innocent lives are taken by drunken drivers afterwards.   Making gluttons of ourselves around holiday tables so that we have to diet the next 11 months. These are just a few of the common ways that Christmas is sometimes celebrated today.  (I probably have gone from preaching to meddling, right?)  But I am sure that John and the Puritans would have something to say to us about such “Christmas celebrations.”

Well, I don’t think that any of us want to go to the extremes of the Puritans in completely doing away with our Christmas celebrations.  After all, all of us love to eat good Christmas food and receive nice gifts and enjoy beautiful Christmas decorations like we have in our Chapel and you probably have in your home.  But perhaps there are lessons to be learned from John and the Puritans.  And there must be a good middle ground, an acceptable balance when it comes to Christmas celebrations.  Everything in moderation, as they say.

We do well to remember that Christmas is about a reorientation of life, a “life change.”  As Eugene Peterson’s The Message translates John’s message, “What counts is your life.  Is it green and blossoming?” (Mt. 3:10).  Christmas is about living our lives in response to the birth of one called Emmanuel, “God with us.”   Christmas is about sharing love and forgiveness.  It is about giving to the poor and it is about social justice.  It is about kindness and nurturing loving relationships with others.  Christmas is about being peacemakers in the name of the Prince of Peace.  And life in general should be about moderation in all things.  It is good to enjoy good food and drink and to give and receive gifts with our loved ones and to decorate our church and homes.   But we do well to do so in moderation and not go to extremes in eating, drinking, partying, or spending.  And finally, I don’t think it really matters on which day we celebrate the birth of Jesus or what ancient, borrowed customs we use, as long as we celebrate in the proper spirit.  Borrowing customs from other religions has been the way with Judaism and Christianity from the beginning.  That’s okay.  It is important to think about and teach our children why we are celebrating the holiday and the Christian meaning we attach to the symbols we use to do so.

As we think about all these things and how we will celebrate Christmas this year, we can draw some real wisdom from a great philosopher—Charlie Brown.  I think the Puritans would concur.  In the animated A Charlie Brown Christmas, right after Linus reads Luke’s Christmas story in the children’s Christmas pageant, he tells Charlie Brown, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”  And Charlie Brown says to himself, “Linus is right; I won’t let all this commercialism ruin my Christmas.”  Christmas is not about commercialism or going to extremes.  It is about something much more, something much deeper. The Puritans may have missed the mark in some ways.  But they had it right in some respects, at least.  Amen. 

Note: Some introductory material about the Puritans was gleaned from various Internet sites.

Luke 1:26-45

Are you expecting?  Now, that could be a delicate, even inappropriate, question couldn’t it?  Some of us may have asked that question, or one very similar—When are you expecting?—only to realize that we had committed a big faux pas.  There was no pregnancy, no expecting at all.  Such makes for quite an awkward encounter, doesn’t it?

Today when I ask the question, Are you expecting? I am asking an Advent question.  Are you expecting spiritually speaking in the Advent sense of the term?  For, you see, expectation is one of the key themes of Advent.  And as we consider the story of Mary, the theme of expecting becomes even more appropriate.  When we take time to think about it, we realize that expecting is a most appropriate topic for this season.

When Mary discovered that she was expecting, what kind of thoughts, feelings, and emotions do you think she might have been experiencing?  We tend to look back on those events romantically.  But for Mary and her family, it was real life.  I have noted in sermons in years past how that for a teenage girl to become pregnant out of wedlock in that day and time was a scandal of the highest order.  Joseph, the one to whom she was engaged, had legal rights.  He could have caused a big scene.  According to the law at that time, her very life could have been in danger.  So we can just imagine some of the feelings and emotions that Mary was experiencing—fear, confusion, insecurity.  Perhaps these are some of the reasons, when Mary learned she was pregnant, that she left her home village Nazareth—“went with haste” as the text says—and headed for the hill country to stay with her relative Elizabeth for three months.  What was Mary’s purpose in going off to the hill country?  What was Mary thinking during those three months?  What kind of conversations did she and Elizabeth have?  Mary must have questioned herself, as most expectant parents do, about her ability and fitness to mother the child she was going to have.   Was she up to the task?  Was she prepared for what lay ahead of her?

On the other side of the issue, we want to believe that Mary experienced the positive feelings and emotions of expecting as well.  For instance, there is the anticipation that comes with expecting a baby.  The wondering.  When you are expecting, you have a general idea of what you’re expecting.  But your expectation is somewhat vague and there are a lot of unknowns.  Will the baby be a girl or a boy (remember, there were no ultrasounds in those days).  What will he or she look like?  How big will he or she be?  Will he favor his mother or his father?  Will she be a happy baby?

There is also the feeling of joy because of this baby to come and the joy that it will bring to the home.  There is no more joyous blessing in the world than to see a baby smile or hear a baby laugh.

There is expectation excitement as the time draws near for the baby to be born.  The it’s-almost-time jitters.  When will it actually happen?  Will the baby decide to come in the daytime or the middle of the night?  Will we make it to the hospital in time?  Or will the doctor or midwife make it to us in time? 

And expecting a baby leads one to behave in certain ways.  The mother eats healthy foods, visits the doctor regularly, takes pre-natal vitamins, reads baby books, buys baby clothes and furnishings, studies books of baby names, and so on.  In expecting something to come to pass, we align our behavior in certain ways to enable it to happen.

Well, the season of Advent holds similar kinds of expectations.  Advent invites us to be in an expectation frame of mind.  The seasons of Advent and Christmas call us to expect something good to happen.  Advent offers renewed expectation that something wonderful could happen.  Of all seasons of the year, Advent is the one season that holds out the most promise that things can be different in our lives and things can be different in the world.  Advent holds out hope that love can triumph.  That peace can prevail.  That old grudges can be put aside.  That the plight of the less fortunate can be addressed and lives can be made better.  Advent invites us to expect hearts to be softened as we all ponder the birth of the Bethlehem Child and what promise that holds, if we would but follow the teachings he grew up to share.     

Advent expectation is accompanied by a sense of joy.  We have something to learn from children at this point.  Young children get very excited and joyous in the days before Christmas.  They believe that something good is going to happen.  Our culture teaches children to expect the impossible, so children believe in the magic of Christmas.  Our culture conditions children to believe that Santa Claus can fly all the way from the North Pole and visit every house in America in one night with a bag of toys.  You can see the joy in their eyes.  But it should also be that way with us adults.  At the same time that children are conditioned to expect Christmas magic, we adults may be conditioned to not expect anything wonderful or magical or out of the ordinary at all.  We get to where we don’t really expect any radical change to occur.  We don’t believe we can change the status quo.  But Advent calls us to not listen to the negative voices that would tell us we cannot make a difference, that we cannot bring about change, and that we should not expect Christmas miracles.  Advent says there is something in this season and its message that we should be expectantly joyous about.    

 Consequently, Advent expectations should influence our behavior in practical ways.  Just as expecting a baby causes expectant parents to modify their behavior, the expectation that Advent invites from us can lead us to behave in ways that will bring to pass those ideals we celebrate—the triumph of love, the increase of the reign of peace, the making of a better world, especially for the needy and lowly, the reconciliation of those who are apart.  Advent encourages us to live, to behave, in certain ways so that our Advent hopes and dreams might actually become reality.  The hope for such a better world seems much closer during Advent than any other time of the year. 

I am reminded of those words by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that evolved into that beautiful Christmas hymn.  Written during the Civil War, Longfellow reflected on how the bells on Christmas Day rang out the message “Of peace on earth, goodwill to men.”  Then he says,

And in despair I bowed my head: “There is no peace on earth,” I said,

“For hate is strong, and mocks the song Of peace on earth, goodwill to men.”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: “God is not dead: nor doth He sleep;

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, With peace on earth, goodwill to men.”

But we all know, and Longfellow would have agreed, I believe, that if the wrong does fail, and if the right does prevail, and if there is greater peace on earth, it will only happen because humans like you and I help make it so.

The Advent question for each of us to consider is what are our personal Advent expectations, and in what ways might our expectations influence or change our behavior during these coming days?  Do we expect more love?  More joy?  Greater peace?  A better world?  Whatever our expectations, what can we do to help make our expectations become reality?  I also am reminded of that famous quote by Gandhi: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”  As I read Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel, and especially the Beatitudes, I think he said the same thing; that was his message through and through.  We must be the positive change we want to see in the world.  If we want greater peace, we need to be peacemakers.  If we want to see more forgiveness, we need to forgive.  If we want to receive, we need to give.

So, during this Advent season, are we expecting?  If so, what are we expecting?  And how will our expectations alter our behavior and lead to positive change in our own lives and in the world?  Amen.