Thieves and Scammers

  For Christmas this year, we received a number of gift cards.  Almost all had been purchased at Safeways around the country, and all of them had been tampered with.  All had already been used, all had been “scammed” in that someone had gone into the store, scanned the numbers on the cards, put them back into the envelopes so that once they were “activated” they were picked up immediately and put into someone else’s account.  The amount of money lost in this way to us personally ended up being around $500.  That was just in our own family.  I wonder how many other people lost money in this way, and I wonder how much money others were able to obtain by “stealing” these gift cards in this way.

Then, after Christmas, we ordered some supplies from Walmart using a bonus card David had received from his work.  (We don’t usually buy from Walmart, but again, this was a card we were given). This card was delivered digitally and so it “worked” for us in that we were able to order the supplies using the card to pay for them.  However, we received a notification that they had been delivered to our house at a specific time, and they never were. The total spent was about $100.  Fortunately, we now have REO cameras installed and we could see that no one had stolen anything from our porch: these items were simply not delivered, despite the company saying they were.  My guess is that these were stolen by the delivery person, though it is possible that they were delivered to the wrong address.  Either way, when we have packages wrongly delivered to us, we take them to the right address.  The fact that this never happened makes it clear that someone took something that was not theirs at some point in the process of delivery.  On another note, we tried to follow through with Walmart as well as the gift card companies.  David spent probably 10 hours on this, but Walmart made it impossible to contact them or to file a complaint. We still tried, not that this will make any difference.  Walmart is a billion-dollar company who does not care about the little amount we lost and will suffer no consequences for failing to make it right. (This is just one of the many reasons we don’t normally shop there!)   

I have several thoughts about all of this.  The first is that scammers and thieves seem to be more numerous than ever, at least in the United States, at this point in time.  Why?  Perhaps it is the general depression, anxiety and despair that so many are feeling that leads them to stop caring about morality or doing what’s right.  Perhaps it is the rising hatred and anger that is also leading to these choices.  Perhaps it is the huge increase in poverty that we are experiencing, the swallowing up of the middle class as the rich become richer and more greedy. Maybe it is that it is so easy to steal in these ways, and there is little consequence to doing so.  It is difficult to find those who have stolen packages, and the police generally won’t waste their time on small thefts or small vandalisms, even as they add up.  We know this because our church has had a number of thefts as well as vandalism lately and the police have admitted that they will not act until the amount stolen or the damage done in each instance is over $1000.   Whatever the cause, if you plan to give gifts this year, I’d encourage you to think through how you choose to do that, considering ways your gifts might be scammed and perhaps choosing the old-fashioned route of purchasing the gift itself and delivering it directly to the recipients.

My second thought was to remind myself that while we “lost” a total of about $600, that all of it was from gifts, things we did not earn, things we did not save for, money that was not expected or needed.  We have enough.  We have always had enough.  My own theology says that nothing we own is ours, anyway.  All of it is lent to us by God to use for the good of all people.  And while it is not ideal that it is scammers who took the money and the items we ordered, perhaps they are people who needed those resources.  I don’t know, and I never will.  The point is that this is something I need to let go of.  The things we received that didn’t work and the things we didn’t receive were gifts.  And it is the energy and care that went into the choosing of gifts and the giving of gifts that matters, not the receiving of more things that we don’t need anyway.

My final thought is that I feel like our lack of connection to others is also a huge part of the issue.  We have forgotten that we belong to one another, that we are deeply connected, that we are all children of God and as such siblings to one another, and that what effects one of us, at some deep level effects all of us.  The more that we can practice our connectionality and the more we can be kind to one another, even those who are very different from us, even those who we don’t necessarily agree with or like, the more we can change the world for the better.  Also, it is harder to scam people when you have come to care about them. I am reminded that it is my job to get to know those people I don’t usually interact with, including delivery people and the shady people I might see in the grocery store.  It is my job to get to know the unhoused persons who are damaging our church, to talk to them and find out their stories.  It is my job to tear down the walls that protect me from others and to reach across them to make connections instead.  This is our job as human beings.  It might not make a difference today, it might not change the number of scammers who are out there tomorrow.  But I have to believe that each effort for good that we choose matters in the world, and that all our efforts for good can add up, just as all the efforts that do damage have been adding up as of late.  It has to start with me.  It has to start with you.  And it has to start today.

Christmas All Year

Luke 2:1-20

Every year we celebrate Christmas on December 25^th.  Does anyone know how we came to pick this date to celebrate Christmas?   It was not picked because people actually believed Jesus was born on December 25^th.  We don’t know when Jesus was actually born, but the historical guesses range from spring to late fall.  We do know that the birth of Jesus is an important event and worth our celebration.  And we know that Advent, too, is a time worth our attention, a time of focus, preparation and waiting.  But December 25^th is a random date, picked originally to compete with the Winter Solstice celebration, and later this date was emphasized as an important time for the stimulation of our economies.  Because there are these other reasons for the December date, when we do celebrate Jesus’ birth on December 25^th, the celebration is often confused and complicated by other factors vying for our attention – buying gifts, decorating our houses, planning parties, putting up lights.  And we therefore miss the true and focused celebration of this incredible and miraculous event of God coming to be with us, incarnate among us as a helpless baby.

The truth is, Christmas is a celebration that can take place any time of the year.  We should be able to celebrate the wonder and miracle of God incarnate with us all year round.  Just as we celebrate the resurrection of our Christ, the overcoming of death, every Sunday of the year, any time is a good time to remember the wonder and gift in God coming to be with us as one of us, as a helpless baby, as a vulnerable human being who lived and loved and celebrated and suffered just as we do. 

Even so, even so, we don’t want to forget or miss the fact that God coming to be with us incarnate is amazing and surprising every single time.  The gift of the good, arriving in the midst of the darkness – the gift of God showing up in unexpected ways and with unexpected gifts for us in the midst of despair, depression, and night – this is just a part of what Jesus’ birth means for us, but it is what I would like to focus on today.

I’d like to start by asking you to remember a time when you received a wonderful and unexpected gift. I encourage you to think about something that might not have seemed like a gift at the time that none the less brought you wisdom, growth, new friendships, greater insight: a gift that at first was not a gift, but has become one in hindsight.

Gifts in the unexpected:

I walked a mile with Pleasure;

She chatted all the way;

But left me none the wiser

For all she had to say.

I walked a mile with Sorrow,

And ne’er a word said she;

But oh! The things I learned from her,

When Sorrow walked with me.” – Robert Browning Hamilton

            Sometimes the greatest gifts we receive are things we don’t want, don’t like, don’t value at the time, but in hindsight they bring us the greatest learning, and the greatest growth.  They often bring other unexpected gifts too: friendships in unexpected ways, support in unexpected ways, insights into ourselves that we didn’t have before.  Jesus’ coming as a baby, to a poor and unwed mother in the middle of a time of chaos, the tax census, was such a gift.  Not looked for because all chaos was happening.  Not expected in this way because, well, we expect God to be among the mighty.  But within all of that this great gift came. 

The greatest gift of Christmas is the understanding that God loved us so much that God came to be with us, as one of us, walking with us, talking with us, taking time to be WITH us in this place, here and now.  That God loves us so much that this continues to be the case. 

From Tattoos on the Heart (Gregory Boyle. (New York: Free Press, 2010) p19)

“My touchstone image of God comes by way of my friend and spiritual director, Bill Cain, S.J.  Years ago he took a break from his own ministry to care for his father as he died of cancer.  His father had become a frail man, dependent on Bill to do everything for him.  Though he was physically not what he had been, and the disease was wasting him away, his mind remained alert and lively.  In the role reversal common to adult children who care for their dying parents, Bill would put his father to bed and then read him to sleep, exactly as his father had done for him in childhood.  Bill would read from some novel, and his father would lie there, staring at his son, smiling.  Bill was exhausted from the day’s care and work and would plead with his dad, ‘Look, here’s the idea.  I read to you, you fall asleep.’  Bill’s father would impishly apologize and dutifully close his eyes.  But his wouldn’t last long.  Soon enough, Bill’s father would pop one eye open and smile at his son.  Bill would catch him and whine, ‘Now, come on.’ The father would, again, oblige, until he couldn’t anymore, and the other eye would open to catch a glimpse of his son.  This went on and on, and after his father’s death, Bill knew that his evening ritual was really a story of a father who just couldn’t take his eyes off his kid.  How much more so God?  Anthony de Mello writes, “Behold the One beholding you, and smiling.’  God would seem to be too occupied in being unable to take Her eyes off of us to spend any time raising an eyebrow in disapproval.  What’s true of Jesus is true for us, and so this voice breaks through the clouds and comes straight at us.  ‘You are my Beloved, in whom I am wonderfully pleased.’  There is not much ‘tiny’ in that.”

God cannot take God’s eyes off of us.  The greatest gift anyone could ever give us is time.  

And God gives that eternally, endlessly, always.  The friend, Ben, didn’t want his dad to stay awake: and yet, the gift of that memory: of being loved so deeply and so dearly, that is a gift indeed. 

Richard Rohr, “The Lord comes to us disguised as ourselves.”

That is Christmas.  Christmas began with a hardship  – an unwed pregnant girl, forced to travel in this last stage of her pregnancy, finally going into labor with no place to stay or give birth except a stable.  There in the darkness, there in the tragedy, there in the unimaginable, Jesus is born.  God comes, incarnate among us, where it is least expected.  We encounter the miracle of incarnation, the gift out of the dark, the presence of God fully and vulnerably among us and as one of us when we look with eyes open, when we stay open to the unexpected and amazing, when we keep a true Christmas spirit within us.  Amen.

Christmas in July: Christmas as News

Luke 2:1-40

             We come again to our Christmas in July celebration.  For those who have not experienced Christmas in July before, we do this because Christmas in December has frankly become extremely commercialized.  Christmas in July is a way of actually focusing on the story of Jesus birth as a baby, helpless, innocent, poor, a refugee, displaced; not born in the way we expect or in the way we would WANT a lord, a king, a leader to be born, but in the worst of circumstances to the most unexpected people. 

             I found myself reflecting on an article by Krista Tippett entitled, Why I don’t do Christmas.

             We do Christmas in July as a way to avoid many of the issues that she mentioned in her article.  But still the question could be asked, what makes this new or news for us today?  How does this apply to us?  So today I extended the Christmas story to include the part about Simeon and Anna, and I want to talk about this a bit with you this morning.

               Both Anna and Simeon, in seeing Jesus, declare they have seen the face of God.  Simeon then asks God to release him: to let him go.  He is done, he has fulfilled what he wanted in this life and can go now in peace because he has seen God in person.  This is the event he had been waiting for in order for his life to feel complete, whole.  And now that it has happened, that he has encountered and met the Christ in person, he can let go of life, and move “home”. 

What about for us?  When we hear the story of Christmas at its normal time, in December, when we have gone through Advent, when the parties have all taken place and the gifts have all been given and opened, when the decorations are put away and we can “get on with normal life” are we then satisfied with having experienced Christmas?  Are we ready to be dismissed in peace as soon as we celebrate the birth of Christ?  At what point do we say that we are satisfied, or filled in our life, that God has given us what we came here for, or we have done what we were meant to do, and that we are ready to “go home” or to rest, or to be at peace?

               I am reminded of an Ann Weems Poem: It’s Not Over

"It is not over,

this birthing.

There are always newer skies

into which

God can throw stars.

When we begin to think

that we can predict the Advent of God,

that we can box the Christ

in a stable in Bethlehem,

that's just the time

that God will be born

in a place we can't imagine and won't believe.

Those who wait for God

watch with their hearts and not their eyes,

listening

always listening

for angel words."

We have our seasons and they are important.  We move from a waiting on God’s coming, waiting on the birth, to a celebration of the birth.  Then we move into a memory of the baptism of Jesus as we celebrate our own baptisms.  We go into lent, a time of internal reflection, of repentance, of recommitment to God.  Then we enter Holy week, the passion narrative and finally Easter with its celebration of the resurrection and all that that means for us.  All of these seasons, these memories are important.  We go through the church calendar as a way to remember and to live out all of these very important pieces of our faith journey. 

But in the midst of all of these liturgical pieces, I sometimes feel that I fail to carry with me throughout the year the deep message of Christmas – of Emmanuel, of “God with us” in a tangible, human, and humble way.  This is a message I need all year round – that God is not just above us, wiser and more expansive, loving and caring.  That God is not just in the wind and breath of the Spirit, moving within us and around us, in thoughts and in feelings, in deep sighs and in strong inclinations.  But God is also with us as one of us, coming first as a fragile child, and then as one who has experienced all the pain the world can hand out, as well as joy, breath, friends, family, community, eating, drinking, BEing in this world. 

One of my favorite movies, and one we’ve shown here for our Faith and Film night is Steve Martin’s Leap of Faith.  Steve Martin plays a revivalist, Jonas, in this movie.  In one scene Jonas has just told those who have come to one of his revivals – an entire tent full of hopeful, searching, hurting people that that he was born in Appalachia, born with a caul about his face, which has given him a “second sight” or ability to see into other human souls.  Jonas had declared himself to be a very special and unique individual.  His nemesis Will (played by Liam Neeson), was a police officer who believed Jonas to be a con artist.  Will showed up at the revival to confront him.   He started by challenging the very story that Jonas told about himself.   Will had done his research. And he announced to the crowd that Jonas was not who he said he was. Officer Will had discovered that in fact Jonas was born in the Bronx, not in Appalachia; that he did not attend church, as he had claimed, and that he did not know his mother, as he had claimed, but had instead grown up in an orphanage.  Will then went on to say that Jonas ran away from that orphanage at age 15 and began a life of crime: stealing cars, shoplifting, taking drugs.  Jonas had also sold fraudulent art works and passed bad checks.  Will ended his rant by saying that Will was obviously not a man of God. 

But what I then found most interesting in the movie is that Jonas was able to turn this around.  He pointed out that what Will said about him was in fact true.  But that who would it be better to listen to?  A person who had done nothing but had always been a saint?  Or a person who, in fact, had really lived, had done wrong, had “walked with Satan” as he himself said, but then was turned around by his faith?  As he said, “if you want to give up sin, who can lead you off that crooked road? Only a sinner of such monumental proportions that all your sins wrapped up in one couldn’t possibly equal the sins of this king of sin! Because as you know, if he can walk that righteous path, If he can go from grit to grace, from sin to sanctity, from lowliness to holiness, then you, with all your everyday sin, can rise up like an angel and ride that golden elevator to God’s own penthouse in the sky!”  And what was interesting is that despite the fact that he had lied to the people, they liked him better, respected him more, gave to him more, for having heard this story of his past, for being human, for being real, for being able, as he claimed, to turn himself around because of God’s grace.

I have to say that I can understand at some level what the character of Jonas experienced in this breaking down of the false image of himself.  Of course we all want to look our best.  But there is a price for it.  From my own personal experience, when I am with a group of people who know what I do for a living, if anyone swears or expresses a foul or judgmental thought, they inevitably look at me and apologize.  People are on guard around me when they believe that my life is somehow more holy – a belief they base on nothing other than my profession.  However, when people come to know some of our family’s history, some of the struggles and tragedies that we have faced, people relate to me differently.  After our family went through such a huge and public crisis in Ohio, my parishioners there opened up to me in a very different way, sharing their own life experiences at a much deeper level.  They saw, first hand, that I could understand their pain because they knew I had suffered my own.

I did not share with you the story from Leap of Faith because I believe that Jonas and Jesus have anything in common, except their humanity.  But what I am trying to say is that humans need others with whom they can relate, who can understand them and their struggles.  Jonas’ congregation, instead of rejecting him because of his past, embraced him even more fully when they knew he had a human background, that he could relate to their suffering and struggle.  We find value in having someone who understands us that we can talk to, and be with.  Jesus, coming to us as a baby, to a poor family, in a humble situation, was God vulnerable and God able to relate to us.  That is the value of God incarnate.  We are not alone, we are not alienated, we are not travelling our journeys here in this life with a God who can’t understand what it is to be human, to be lonely at times, vulnerable at times, to suffer, to struggle and fear and hope and pray.  We need that.

We need to remember, all year round, that God is not so distant as to fail to understand what we experience, that God is not so omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, omni…whatever to fail to be with us or to fail to know what we experience.  The wonderful message of “God with us” is a message we need not only at Christmas, but daily.

For this reason I keep a nativity up all year round in my office.  I need that reminder, I need the visual sign of God with us.  And my invitation to all of you is also to keep out some reminder of “God with us” this year.  I’m not recommending you put up all your Christmas decorations for the whole year, but rather than you put out some small reminder of God’s presence here as a vulnerable one of us, a human born in struggle and challenge.

For Simeon, meeting Jesus was what he needed to make his life complete.  For the rest of us, we continue past Christmas, living, moving towards whatever it is that that will bring wholeness, shalom for us until the time we can go home, too.  As we walk that journey, may we continue to carry “God with us”, this year, this day and every day.  Amen.

What did you ask for, for Christmas?

What did you want for Christmas this year?  I’ll admit I had a pretty extensive list of wishes for things that I can’t really afford, don’t need, and am just fine without.  But as I moved  through Advent I found in reading so many scriptures that tell us that the coming of Christ looks like nothing other than a turning of the world on its head, and which challenge us to love neighbor truly and fully as self, that my true wish list, my deep wish list, was not for objects or material possessions, but for more important things.  For my neighbors I wish for relationships that are honest, real, whole, healthy, positive, and life-giving.  For the people of our community I wish for healing from physical, emotional or spiritual distress.  For the world I wish for peace, compassion, generosity, understanding, grace, wisdom, courage, justice and discernment.  And then I found that I was wishing for these things for myself, too.  I wish for the relationships in my life to be honest, real, whole, healthy, positive, and life-giving.  I wish for healing for myself, my family, the church, the community from distress.  I wish for clarity in decision making, and the strength to make necessary decisions and necessary changes.  I wish for the serenity to accept the things I could not change, the strength to change the things I could and the wisdom to know the difference.  I wish for courage, justice, grace, compassion, and forgiveness both towards others and towards myself. These gifts – the real gifts that we yearn for, wish for beyond all else, these gifts come from God. 

And so this Advent and Christmas I was more intentional about praying for the things I believe we are called to pray for, for our neighbors, for the world and for myself.  And when I did, when I sat in silence, asking God for God’s guidance and reign of love to come for all people, and then listened, I found guidance.  I am not always given the strength right away to act on that guidance, but God’s timing is better than my own.  When I continue to pray, when I continue to ask, when I continue to listen, when I continue in relationship with God, the directions that I am given that I sometimes feel I lack the strength to follow, eventually become…well, not easy, but doable, necessary, inevitable.  I find myself doing the very thing that days before I knew was impossible for me to do.  I find myself stepping towards wholeness when I was certain it could not be found.  I have a little more patience with the people in my family who need my attention and care.  I have a deeper appreciation and respect for those who are trying, as I am, to live their faith to the fullest.  I see needs I never saw before, and more, I see ways to respond to those needs.  And finally I find I am able to step away from hurtful or destructive things that I cannot change, trusting God to take care of them, to heal them, to transform them into new life. 

This Advent we again offered Monday evening Taize services as a time for intentional prayer and meditation.  I am so grateful for those times of prayer and meditation and to those who joined me.  I am even more grateful to God, who also shows up every time I pray to listen, to communicate, to be present, to be in relationship with us.  Our relationships with God are the beginning of the answer to all of the desires on my real Christmas wish list.  And for that I am eternally grateful.

The Good News is Coming

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

John 1:6-8

Today is the third Sunday in Advent and so we continue the process of waiting, of looking, of searching to see God coming anew into the world.  But today I want to focus on how we witness this for others, how we share the Good News of Advent with a world that has a hard time seeing the Good News, and certainly doesn’t want to spend the time waiting and looking, but instead jumps into Christmas – this year even before Halloween.

Today’s New Testament passage talks about John as a witness to the light.  As I just read, “John came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.”   

That is our call, too.  And again, especially during this time of Advent, of preparing, of looking for God’s coming anew, we are called to witness, to prepare a world for God’s entrance, to help people to walk with eyes open to seeing God’s coming.  That’s not to say that bad things don’t happen, too.  But as Christians, as Advent people, we are to look for and usher in the Good News.  Our focus needs to not be on what is going wrong in the world, except in our commitment to changing and confronting it.  But instead, our focus is ushering in the Good News, announcing the Good News that has come and that is coming anew.  Our job is to make the joy of Christ among us real for the world around us.

But how do we do that?  I don’t think it is enough to just talk about our faith with others.  I do not believe that we witness to Christ’s coming simply by saying that we are Christians.  I also don’t believe that we witness to the Good News by trying to scare people into faith with the threat of hell.  That’s not really Good News, first of all. How could the idea of an angry, wrathful God who punishes with hell be Good News for anybody? But second of all, and more importantly, fear based faith is not permanent – it is only as strong as the fear.  When another voice offers a bigger fear, a bigger threat, and offers a different faith as a solution, a fear based faith will alter course to what feels “safest.”  Third, and most importantly, perhaps, every time in scripture that an angel of God appears, the first words out of the angels mouths are “fear not”.  Our relationships with God is not supposed to be about fear.  I posted on FB a wonderful article that talked about how the Peanuts Christmas special has a profound moment in it in which Linus is reading from the beginning of Luke.  He is reading the Christmas story.  Linus, as always has his blanket, his security, his source of comfort with him.  But at the moment in which he reads, “And the angel said, ‘fear not’”, he drops the blanket.  He lets go of his physical security and instead rests, without fear or the need for those material securities, in the love of God.  Fear has been misused a great deal lately to try to push through decisions that are hateful, that are unjust, that are damaging to “the least of these”.  But our faith is clear about this: there is no room in Christian faith for that fear. So preaching a gospel of fear to people is not what we are called to do.

No, to really bring people to the light, we have to show them what that light is.  And that has to start, not from a place of fear, but from a deep place of gratitude that comes from faith.  We are called to show the world that that light makes a genuine difference in our lives, frees us to live lives where we can risk radical LOVE, and calls us therefore to act and live in the world with actions of care for others. Isaiah shows us what that looks like.  According to Isaiah, the coming of God looks like the oppressed being lifted out of that oppression, the brokenhearted being supported and healed, captives and prisoners being released and freed, those in mourning experiencing comfort.  That is what the Good News looks like – that is what we are to witness to, and to bring about through our lives and through our actions.  Isaiah continues, “they shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair ruined cities, the devastations of many generations. Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, foreigners shall till your land and dress your vines.”  In other words, God’s entrance is radical.  It is not calm, it is not quiet, it is not unimportant and it is not ineffective.  It makes a difference – a big difference – in the lives of strangers as well as friends, in the lives of enemies as well as those we consider our own.  We are called to be part of that, by being God’s hands and feet in the world, by sharing it, by reflecting the Good News of God with us. 

The children have a wonderful book that I shared at our Christmas Day service and that I want to tell you about this morning as well.  It is called the Fourth King, and it tells the story of another Magi who didn’t end up making it to the stable.  He set out, like the other Wise Men, following the star with presents for the newborn king.  But as he traveled on his journey he heard a little girl crying out in a sand storm for help.  So he stopped and carried her through the sand blizzard until he found her parents.  He started out again, but came across a merchant caravan, lost without a map.  He led them across the desert and to safety, but then found himself even further behind in following the star to Bethlehem.  Next he came across a wall that was being built by a tyrant using child slave labor.  And he stopped to try to free the children, ending up becoming one of the slaves himself until the wall was completed and he was able to help the children escape.  Finally, he ran into some shepherds who told him about Herod’s plan to kill all the children.  And when he met  a family trying to escape from Herod’s devastation, he could not help but stop and help the family to safety.  At every crisis that he met, he realized he had a choice.  At every juncture he said “What was I to do?  What was I to do?” Should he go see the baby, the thing that his heart most desired?  Or should he help the people in front of him – God’s people, in need.  At every step he chose to follow in the way – not the way that he wanted – not the way that led him to actually meet the baby Jesus in the stable – but the way of God, the way Isaiah talks about.  In the end, he did finally make it to the stable and he found it empty.  The book continues, “We were too late!  Our journey had been in vain.  I fell to my knees and wept.  And then, in the depths of my despair, the most wonderful thing happened.  I heard a voice speak softly, ‘King Mazzel, you have not come too late!  You were always with me.  When I was lost, you showed me the way.  When I was thirsty, you gave me water.  When I was captive, you freed me.  When I was in danger, you saved me.  You were always there when I needed you, and I will be with you forever.’ ”

Lyle shared with me a story that Michael Piazza wrote about.  He wrote about Bishop Leontine Kelly’s father, who also was a Methodist preacher, and who was assigned to an inner-city church in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Apparently, the church was an amazing, Gothic structure building with stained glass windows and a huge crystal chandelier. The parsonage was also amazing and included an old, huge boarded up cellar. As the children were exploring this cellar one day, they found a hidden passage that led to a tunnel which they shared with their father. The tunnel, it turned out, ran under the church and then led off toward the Ohio River, which flowed just five blocks away. Apparently, these tunnels had been part of the Underground Railroad and had been used to help move escaping slaves to freedom.  Bishop Kelly’s father said, "Children, I want you to remember, as long as you live, that the greatness of this church is not this huge Gothic building, but those tunnels. We are on sacred ground because these people risked their lives to do something great for God and good for our people."

We don’t have to do big things or feel that if we can’t do big things that it is all, somehow in vain.  One day a terrible fire broke out in a forest - a huge woodland was suddenly engulfed by a raging wild fire. Frightened, all the animals fled their homes and ran out of the forest. As they came to the edge of a stream they stopped to watch the fire and they were feeling very discouraged and powerless. They were all bemoaning the destruction of their homes. Every one of them thought there was nothing they could do about the fire, except for one little hummingbird.

This particular hummingbird decided it would do something. It swooped into the stream and picked up some drops of water and went into the forest and put it on the fire. Then it went back to the stream and did it again, and it kept going back, again and again and again.

All the other animals watched in disbelief; some tried to discourage the hummingbird with comments like, "Don't bother, it is too much, you are too little, your wings will burn, your beak is tiny, it’s only a drop, you can't put out this fire."

And as the animals stood around disparaging the little bird’s efforts, the bird noticed how hopeless and forlorn they looked. Then one of the animals shouted out and challenged the hummingbird in a mocking voice, "What do you think you are doing?" And the hummingbird, without wasting time or losing a beat, looked back and said, "I am doing what I can."

John 14:6 says, “Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  Notice that this does not say we come to God through belief.  Jesus says he is the way, the truth, the life.  And we are called to come to God by following in that way, by living in the way.  It is through our following in the way – through our ushering in of the way of Christ, a way of setting at liberty the oppressed, raising the valleys and making the mountains low, by feeding the hungry and visiting the sick, this is how we know God, this is how we live the Good News, and this is how we witness to the light for all those around us. 

We will be saying this poem as a prayer of confession in a couple weeks,written by Ann Weems, but I want to read it to you now because I think it very much applies:     

“What concerns me, what lies on my heart, is this: that we in the church papered and programmed, articulate and agenda-ed are telling the faith story all wrong, are telling it as though it happened two thousand years ago or is going to happen as soon as the church budget is raised.  We seem to forget that Christ’s name is Emmanuel, God with Us, not just when he sat among us but NOW, when we cannot feel the nail prints in his hands.”

We are called to witness to that truth of Emmanuel, God with Us, now, as we look to the coming of Christ through this Advent Season.

Christmas All Year Round - sermon

Luke 2:1-14

               Last year we celebrated Christmas in July for the first time together.  And I talked to you about how and why this was started.  To refresh your memories: there are several reasons we have this practice.

               For one thing, Christmas in December has become extremely commercialized.  It has become very focused on presents, on decorations, on cards, on parties, cookies, on buying, buying, buying and spending, spending, spending.  In church, our focus on Christmas Eve is on children’s pageants and singing.  As I mentioned last year, these are not bad things: these are very good things.  There should be a place and time when we are about giving gifts, receiving from one another.  There should be a time and place for focus on family, on parties, on decorations. It is wonderful that we have this beautiful celebration with Christmas pageants and candles and music.  I love all of that and wouldn’t change it for the world.

But I’m also aware that in the midst of all of that the real meaning of Christmas gets lost.  Christmas has become a gigantic commercialized and pretty secular event for all of us, and, as I’ve said before, an exercise in those who have too much already giving more to others who also have too much already, rather than a focus on what God’s coming to us as a poor, displaced baby is really about.  And while we love that Jesus came as a baby, because we love babies and we love children, our delight in our clean and pressed children, in our songs beautifully sung and our choirs trained to do their best music, often takes us away from the reality of what that messy, chaotic, noisy, confusing first Christmas was really like.  More, it takes us away, again, from the deeper message of God coming to us, to be with us, as one of us.  God did not come in the form of a king, not in clean clothes and rich surroundings, not in a comfortable home or hospital, not surrounded by extended and loving family bringing new baby clothes and a crib and car seat that are up to code, not with sterilized bottles and diapers; but in a stable, far, far from home, in a messy, poor place, away from family and friends, out in the cold, without doctors or nurses or midwives or attendants of any kind, without women around (and this was considered women’s work at the time), without warm water and clean towels.  God came to us messy into a messy world.  God came to us as a baby, and not, as the song would tell us, a baby that “no crying he makes” but a real baby who hollered and made messes in his diaper, who spit up at times (all babies do) and who probably threw his toys at times and got mad at his siblings as they came along and who wanted more of this and less of that, who undoubtedly disobeyed his mother at times.  A child.  A human who got cuts and bruises and scrapes.  Who knew what it was to have conflicts with other kids and other adults.  A poor child, who did not have riches and special athletics and music lessons and luxuries. 

This is the God who came to us. I think about the Joan Osborne song, “What if God were one of us, just a slob like one of us, just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home.”  For some unfathomable reason, this song was very controversial.  It is unfathomable to me because that is our Christmas story: that God WAS one of us, just like one of us.  And not, again, a rich and clean king, but a real and dirty infant.

It was scandalous.  And I think that if we did not white wash the story, we would find that it is scandalous still.  And that, to me, is the even deeper message of Christmas.  It isn’t that God came, once upon a time, into this messy and dirty and unkind world.  It’s that God still comes, even now, even with the chaos, confusion, anger, distress, extremes, alienation and isolation of today – God still comes into this place, every day, to meet with us.  And that, too, is scandalous.  God is with the poor and the suffering and the hungry.  God is with those experiencing injustice.  God is with those who are hurting.  God is with those who you are angry.  God is with those who’ve been hurt and those who hurt others.  God is with us when we’ve done something awful and when we are lost and searching.  God is with us when we are afraid.  God’s love for us meets us where we are, in this place, in the trenches of war, in the middle of divorce, in an argument with our children.  That is the message of God’s coming to us as one of us.  God’s love does not come to you after you become the one God wants you to be.  God meets you wherever you are as you are, and that love invites us to become the people we were created to be.

After World War II, as people began to care for so many children orphaned by the war, they noticed that, even though the children had three meals a day, they still were restless and anxious and had difficulty sleeping. It seemed the children had great anxiety about whether or not they would have enough food the next day. One relief worker came up with an interesting solution. Each night the nurses placed a single piece of bread in each child's hand. The bread wasn't meant to be eaten; it simply was intended to be held by the children as they went to sleep. Almost immediately, the children's anxieties were calmed, and they were able to sleep.

Jesus coming was meant to be that slice of bread for each of us to hold in our sleep.  Jesus, or God with us, reminds us of a love that is so deep that created and creator are no longer separated, no longer isolated and alienated from one another, that the sun will come up tomorrow and that we will be okay, whether we live or die, we will be okay. 

Christmas, whenever we celebrate it, is an opportunity to be grounded in that experience of God-with-us.  Are any of you familiar with Simon and Garfunkel’s version of Silent Night?  They sing beautifully the Silent Night that we all know, but in the background you hear a faint talking sound that gradually becomes louder and more attention-demanding.  Eventually, you hear the words that are being said and they are the 6 o’clock news broadcasting over the top of Silent Night.  All terrible, tragic, messy, ugly stuff.  Accompanied, throughout by the song Silent Night.  Every time I hear it, it moves me to tears.  These two Jewish men who wrote this song showed unbelievable depth and understanding about what we believe as Christians about a God who meets us where we are in this broken and hurting world.

I think God is profoundly present with us in this world, present as children are, in the here, in the now, in the real.  Amy Grant wrote a piece that we have shared at the last two Longest Night services called “Better than a Hallelujah”.  The words are:

God loves a lullaby and a mother’s tears in the dead of night

Better than a hallelujah sometimes

God loves a drunkard’s cry, a soldier’s plea not to let him die

Better than a hallelujah sometimes

We pour out our miseries, God just hears a melody

Beautiful the mess we are, The honest cries of breaking hearts

are better than a Hallelujah.

              

A woman holding on for life, a dying man giving up the fight

Are better than a hallelujah sometimes

Tears of shame for what’s been done, the silence when the words won’t come

Are better than a hallelujah sometimes

We pour out our miseries, God just hears a melody

Beautiful the mess we are, the honest cries of breaking hearts

are better than a Hallelujah

Better than a church bell ringing,

Better than a choir singing out, singing out

We pour out our miseries, God just hears a melody

Beautify the mess we are, the honest cries of breaking hearts

Are better than a hallelujah.

God is with us in our reality, in the reality of all that we are.  And while God loves our worship and praise and singing and adoration, what God wants more is a real relationship with you.  God wants to hear your pain, hear your hopes, hear your dreams and your fears.  And so God came to be as one of us, to have that kind of close relationship with us that we humans have with one another.  He came as child, as sibling, as friend, as master.  And he loved and walked and cried and raged and laughed and lived so that we might know that we could talk to God as one who understood, as one who understands. 

Sometimes I think we hide from God in the way we celebrate Christmas.  We focus on the joy, we focus on giving and parties and celebration.  Again, all of that is good.  But if the point of Christmas is that God is real, that God comes to us in a real way, as a real human being, then shouldn’t we also strive to be more open, honest and real with that God? But we hide in our rituals of faith even, making them perfect and beautiful and sweet when God’s coming was anything but those things.  I’m reminded of the musical Sound of Music.  Maria is scared of her feelings so she takes off and runs to the convent.  The wise mother superior though gentle says to her, “these walls were not meant to keep out our problems, Maria.”

           Father John Powell, professor at Loyola University in Chicago wrote about his encounter with one of his more rebellious students, Tommy, who was an atheist challenging everything Father

Powell was teaching in this theology class.  At the end of the semester, Tommy approached the Father and cynically asked, “Do you think I’ll ever find God?” to which the Father replied, “No, but I am certain that God will find you.”  A few years later, Tommy was diagnosed with terminal cancer.  He came to the Father and told him that he had been searching and searching for God without luck.  But one day he gave up on looking for God.  Still, he remembered something the professor had told him, “The essential sadness is to go through life without loving.” And he decided he needed to tell those people in his life that he loved them. 

Tommy said, "So, I began with the hardest one, my Dad. He was reading the newspaper when I approached him.

"Dad."

"Yes, what?" he asked without lowering the newspaper.

"Dad, I would like to talk with you."

"Well, talk.”

"I mean. It's really important."

The newspaper came down three slow inches. "What is it?"

"Dad, I love you, I just wanted you to know that." Tom smiled at me and said it with obvious satisfaction, as though he felt a warm and secret joy flowing inside of him.

"The newspaper fluttered to the floor. Then my father did two things I could never remember him ever doing before. He cried and he hugged me. We talked all night, even though he had to go to work the next morning."

“It felt so good to be close to my father, to see his tears, to feel his hug, to hear him say that he loved me."

"It was easier with my mother and little brother. They cried with me, too, and we hugged each other, and started saying real nice things to each other. We shared the things we had been keeping secret for so many years."

"I was only sorry about one thing --- that I had waited so long."

"Here I was, just beginning to open up to all the people I had actually been close to..

"Then, one day I turned around and God was there.

"He didn't come to me when I pleaded with Him. I guess I was like an animal trainer holding out a hoop, 'C'mon, jump through. C'mon, I'll give you three days, three weeks."

Apparently God does things in God’s own way and at God’s own hour.

"But the important thing is that God was there. God found me! You were right. God found me even after I stopped looking for God."

God is not a private possession, a problem solver, or an instant consolation in time of need, but rather by opening to love..

           

            Jesus was unexpected and my experience throughout scripture and personally is that every time God shows up it is in some unexpected way.

But, as Richard Rohr puts it, “there is no authentic God experience that does not situate you in the world in a very different way. After an encounter with True Presence you see things quite differently, and it gives you freedom from your usual loyalties and low-level payoffs--the system that gave you your security, your status, your economics, and your very identity. Your screen of life expands exponentially. This transformation has costly consequences. Moses had to leave Pharaoh's palace to ask new questions and become the liberator of his people.” 

Pastor Jeremiah Steepek transformed himself into a homeless person and went to the 10,000 member church that he was to be introduced as the head pastor at that morning. He walked around his soon to be church for 30 minutes while it was filling with people for service, only 3 people out of the 7-10,000 people said hello to him. He asked people for change to buy food - NO ONE in the church gave him change. He went into the sanctuary to sit down in the front of the church and was asked by the ushers if he would please sit in the back. He greeted people to be greeted back with stares and dirty looks, with people looking down on him and judging him.

 As he sat in the back of the church, he listened to the church announcements and such. When all that was done, the elders went up and were excited to introduce the new pastor of the church to the congregation. "We would like to introduce to you Pastor Jeremiah Steepek." The congregation looked around clapping with joy and anticipation. The homeless man sitting in the back stood up and started walking down the aisle. The clapping stopped with ALL eyes on him. He walked up the altar and took the microphone from the elders (who were in on this) and paused for a moment then he recited,

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

'The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

After he recited this, he looked towards the congregation and told them all what he had experienced that morning. Many began to cry and many heads were bowed in shame. He then said, "Today I see a gathering of people, not a church of Jesus Christ. The world has enough people, but not enough disciples. When will YOU decide to become disciples?"

 He then dismissed service until next week.

The realization of God being with us, and especially of God choosing to be with us as a poor person, as a displaced person, as one of the “least of these” should transform us, should make us willing and able to take risks to stand up for those who are oppressed or poor or treated unjustly. 

Christmas is a time of blessings and celebration that God is with us.  It is also a call to be with those we usually don’t see and often dismiss.  It is a challenge for us all.  But in those people we would dismiss, we will find God-self.  Amen.

Sunday's Sermon - What's the Point of Christmas in July?

Isaiah 9:2-7, Luke 2:1-20

            When you think about Christmas time, the season of Christmas, what comes to your mind?  I want as many answers as you can give me.   When I think about Christmas, a lot of different images and ideas come to my mind: the birth of Jesus, angels, shepherds, magi…stable, inn, donkeys, manger….lots of images that are an important part of Christmas.  But also, cookies, presents, buying, holiday songs, decorations, buying, parties, family, buying, Christmas cards, …and oh, yes, did I mention buying? 

These are not bad things.  It is good to buy presents, though I have to admit that my yearly Christmas list includes some people that I only see once a year and for whom buying a present is not only difficult, but not very heart inspired.  Still, when my heart is in a joyful, generous, grateful place, I really enjoy being able to give presents to others.  Decorations and songs and parties are uplifting and God wants us to celebrate – hence Jesus turning the water into wine at the wedding in Cana… celebrating is a gift from God and a good thing, too.  Spending time with family – this is very important: making and taking the time to remember that God has blessed us with our families, celebrating with them, eating, feasting.  All of these are good things.  But I think in the midst of that, it is difficult to actually focus on the birth of Christ and what that means for us.

            We might say, “Well, we do that at church on Sundays and on Christmas eve.”  Okay.  But I’ll tell you the truth.  In my A-personality way, I have a data-base of every sermon I’ve ever written and preached in the 20 years now since I’ve been an ordained pastor (and also included are the ones I preached during seminary as well), and I realized that not one time have I preached a Christmas sermon at Christmas.  The only time I preach on Christmas is on Christmas in July Sundays.  During Advent we are focused on Advent, which means preparing, repenting, making way for what is coming.  Usually the Sunday after Christmas, in which we are actually in the Christmas season, pastors take off on vacation since these are typically the least well attended Sundays of the year.  And Christmas Eve?  Well, in the churches I’ve served, the Christmas Eve message has always been presented by either a children’s pageant or a service of lessons in carols or both.  And these are good ways to present the Christmas Biblical passages…the Biblical passages tell us the Christmas story and it is good to hear them again and again.  It is also a wonderful time to affirm the gifts of our children in encouraging their participation in the presentation of the Word, to affirm the gifts of music and of our choirs, to celebrate again with something a little different. 

            But as Presbyterians, we value the “interpretation of the Word” as well, and this just plain doesn’t tend to happen with Christmas itself.  We value this because it helps us to look more deeply at the scriptures, to hear them in a new way, and to spend time really reflecting on the message in a particular passage, even when we disagree with what that particular preacher’s words or message may be.  Taking time to communally study these passages is an important part of our life as Christians, as Presbyterians.

Additionally, sometimes people get stuck in thinking that Christmas is only a birthday celebration for Jesus and has no deeper meaning than that.  It is a birthday celebration for Jesus.  But it is so much more than just a big birthday party.

            It is for these reasons that many churches around the country are now practicing “Christmas in July” or setting aside a Sunday as a time to focus really and truly on the birth of Christ, without the distractions of decorating, feasting, writing cards, celebrating and buying, buying, buying. 

At the same time, it amazes me how quickly even this has been followed by a commercial response.  As I was studying and preparing for today, I googled “Christmas in July” and was truly horrified by the number of web-sites that popped up that were saying “Christmas in July sale!” or “Christmas in July – buy your presents now!!” 

            It amazes me how quickly commercialism sets in whenever and wherever it can.  And I invite you to work hard to truly focus  - whether it be now or in December – on Christmas, on incarnational theology or the presence of God with us, among us, as us, coming as an infant, as an innocent, as a helpless , precious and newborn baby.  And that is what I want us to do today.

            For us as Christians, the birth of Jesus is significant because it is the story of God’s presence with us.  It is the story of God being with us, not just as a Spirit or as a Parent from afar, but as another human, as one who has experienced all we have experienced, and as one who stands with us as friend, as brother, as teacher, as companion - all of these things.  We can delight in these.  But there are other aspects of Jesus’ humanity that we think about less often, or even that are less comfortable.  And these are shown to us most particularly when we think of Jesus as a person who was first a child, first a baby.  God, in Jesus, has also experienced what it is to be taught by humanity, to be cradled in human arms, to be loved by human people, to be scolded and corrected, no doubt, by human parents and teachers.  Incarnational theology, or the belief that God has been with us as another human, requires as much faith as does belief in the resurrection.  To believe that God is really truly with us, has lived a human life and therefore understands our pain, our sorrows, our joys, and yes, our desires, our temptations and even our anger…that God has lived and felt these things, too - this can require just as big a leap of faith.  What is it like to look into the face of another human and see God dwelling there?  What must it have been like to look into the face of an infant and see God there, amid the baby tears, amid the toddler temper tantrums, amid the pre-teen and teen rebelliousness?  Can you see God in the midst of these human behaviors?

            Today this can be harder for us.  We don’t have the baby Jesus to look at, to see the reflection of God’s face.   For us, then this means that we need to spend concrete and intentional time remembering that God has been incarnate in humanity.  And it means we need to both look harder for that incarnation in those around us, and be that incarnation as often as we can be for one another.

            A dear friend of mine, whom I’ll call Daniel, grew up in a very large, and yet very poor family.  When he was only seven he caught pneumonia.  His mother took him to the doctor who gave him a prescription for penicillin.  This was about seventy years ago and at that time penicillin was very expensive. My friend told me that his prescription cost about as much as his father’s take home pay for a week.  When they arrived at the pharmacy the pharmacist refused to fill the prescription.  Daniel told me that he remembered cowering at the base of the counter while the pharmacist berated his mother for not paying more on her bill.  Finally they had to leave without the medicine. 

About a week and a half later the doctor, upon arriving at 7:00 a.m. Sunday Mass, was asked by Daniel’s teacher when he would return to school since he had already missed many class days.  The doctor told her that Daniel should have been back to school by now.  So she relayed what she had heard from Daniel’s brothers and sisters, that he was still quite sick at home.  Immediately the doctor left church, even though it was very early in the morning and he would miss mass, and he went to Daniel’s home.  Daniel told me that he vividly remembered the image of the Doctor trooping down the stairs to his bed, medical bag in hand, with Daniel’s mother following close behind insisting that he needn’t have come.  She could not comfortably accept charity to the point where she had said her goodbyes to Daniel and had come to accept that he would die.  But the doctor pushed through.

He found Daniel with a high fever and fluid in his lungs.  On recalling the story, Daniel couldn’t remember too much else about the visit except for the very cold stethoscope and later being rolled over and given a shot.  The Doctor stayed there for a long time, until well into the afternoon, nursing Daniel back to strength.  Daniel’s mother was very embarrassed and continued to insist that the Doctor needn’t have come.  When he left he went to the pharmacy and returned with the filled prescription and a strict admonition that Daniel was to take every pill as instructed and was to come to see the Doctor the next morning at his office.  He insisted that if Daniel needed a ride he was to call the Doctor who would come to get him.  As Daniel said in his own words, “Years later, when I was grown, I spoke to the Doctor about it.  He acknowledged that I had been a very sick child.  That I had nearly died.  When I thanked him for coming (especially since I now knew that he didn’t get paid for the many visits we made to his office) he said, “I didn’t do anything special.  I only did what my God would have me do.”

            These stories – these are modern examples of God incarnate, in those moments, in those faces, at those times.  We don’t get to see Jesus as a baby, born into this world, fully human and fully Divine.  But we are given glimpses of that God incarnate when we look into the faces of those who would serve God, would choose God, who would follow God with their whole beings.  This is the meaning of Christmas.  This is what it is to see Jesus born among us as one of us.  It is our call then, both to look for God among us every day (not just at Christmas time!) and to strive to be God’s children in every day (not just at Christmas time!).

               

Sunday's Sermon - The Spirit of the Lord is Upon Us

Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 12:12-31
Luke 4:14-21

          Which part of the body are you?  Are you the eyes, seeing everything that goes on, observing, and through that seeing, helping us to be guided forward as a church, as a people, into the future?  Are you the ears, hearing the concerns and hearing the gifts, hearing the wisdom but also the concerns?  Are you the feet, leading the body of the church into the world to do the work of serving people?  Or are you the shoulders, holding up those who have burdens to bear?   Are you the guts of the church, keeping it going in terms of numbers and finances?  Are you the brains of the church, called to make decisions about the direction of the church?  Maybe you are the mouth, called to speak up about injustices, or to speak God’s Good News to one another and to the world.  As you reflect on this, I want to remind you that being humble, walking humbly with God, is NOT about denying God’s gifts to you.  Instead, it is about recognizing that all talents are gifts from God and that one talent is not more worthy or more honored by God than another.  My gifts are not more valuable than yours in the service of God and God’s people, the gifts God has given me do not make me a better or more beloved person.  Each of our gifts is a gift God has given us for the purpose of serving God in the world.  All jobs are needed, all gifts are needed.  Recognizing that is humility.  When we deny God’s gifts to us we are being ungrateful to the God who has gifted us with our talents.
But I think one of our biggest challenges is simply figuring out what our gifts are.  And I would challenge you to consider that everything about who you are is a gift to the community.
          I want to share with you about a person who was one of the members of another church in which I worked.  This is a person who was - well, annoying.  Some might have said he was abrasive.  But whatever you want to call it, he was a difficult person in the church.  He always questioned every idea that came forward, never satisfied with simple answers, never just saying "let's do it!"  He spoke his mind and when he didn't like something, he spoke out, which was often.  When he heard someone say something with which he disagreed, he challenged it right away.  He also came with his own ideas, but these ideas challenged the norm, challenged the status quo at every level.  "Let's try this kind of music."  "Hey, I'm going to start an anti-gang program here at the church.  Anyone want to join me?"  "I think we should go out every Friday evening with a big sign about our church and stand on the street corner at the mall talking to anyone who passes by about what we do here."  He didn't go through the right channels and he was always a pain in everyone's life.  Do you know people like that?  People who are part of your communities who irritate and cause your life to be difficult?
          Eventually "Jason" got called away to a job out of the area and he had to leave the church.  It was only after he had left that we realized the huge hole he had left in his leaving.  He had brought so many gifts to our congregation.  He had challenged us to grow and to expand our thinking.  He had challenged us to be clear in our explanations of the visions and ideas that we had.  He had called us to think through our positions and to be open to differences.  He had challenged us to be open to the movement of the Spirit in a new way, one that didn't go through the long chain of committees, but instead moved into ministry and action without fear and with a great deal of true and deep faith.  I don't know if Jason was aware of his gifts.  I don't know if he recognized that he was in so many ways the head of our body, thinking, dreaming, leading us forward.  I do know that he realized that for many of us he was a pill, he was a challenge.  I know he knew that he wasn't the most popular guy and that people hid when they saw him coming.  I can only hope that he also came to see that the things we all struggled with the most in him were the deepest gifts he had been given by God.  And that his sharing of those gifts brought all of us spiritually, and faithfully deeper and more genuine in our relationships with each other and with God.
            C.S. Lewis in the second book of his space Trilogy, Perelandra, wrote, "Don't imagine I've been selected for ...any task...because I'm anyone in particular.  One never can see, or not till long afterwards, why any one was selected for any calling.  And when one does, it is usually some reason that leaves no room for vanity.  Certainly it is never for what the ...person...themself would have regarded as their chief qualifications."
          We don't see all of the gifts God has given to each of us ourselves.  And we don't see all of the gifts God has given to those around us.  Sometimes we fail so completely to see those gifts that we limit their expression, how much good God can bring out of them, how much we allow others to help us grow in our spiritual journeys.
Everything that you are is a gift to the community.  That means that even our great differences, not only in terms of gifts but in terms of perspectives, are gifts to the community.    Unity of the body, working towards the same goal of furthering Christ’s body in the world does not, for example, mean that we see the world, the church, our faith, any of it, in the same way.  The perspective of the feet is going to be different from the perspective of the head.  They are in different places and therefore see the world very, very differently.
I want to share with you a poem:
It was six men of Indostan, to learning much inclined,
Who went to see the elephant (though all of them were blind),
That each by observation might satisfy his mind.

The first approached the elephant, and, happening to fall
Against his broad and burly side, at once began to call:
"I see," said he, "the elephant is very like a wall!"

The second, feeling of the tusk, cried, "Ho! What have we here?
So very round and smooth and sharp? To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an elephant is very like a spear!"

The third approached the animal, and, happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands, thus boldly up and spake,
"I see," said he, "the elephant is very like a snake!"

The fourth reached out his eager hand and felt about the knee:
"What most this wondrous beast is like is mighty plain," said he,
"'Tis clear enough the elephant is very like a tree!"

The fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, said, "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most. Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an elephant is very like a fan!"

The sixth no sooner had begun about the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail that fell within his scope,
"I see," said he, "the elephant is very like a rope!"

And so these men of Indostan disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion exceeding stiff and strong,
though each was partly in the right, and all were in the wrong!

So oft in group endeavors, the members of the team
Rail on in utter ignorance of what each other mean,
As if it were an elephant not one of them has seen.

We don’t often see the whole picture.  And the perspectives and gifts of others help us to get a greater glimpse of the whole, when we stay open.  Others’ visions and insights help us to grow, to see, to be closer to God.  It is not completely clear whether Paul was writing the passage from Corinthians to a group of people who were putting each other down, refusing to value equally the gifts, talents, and perspectives of one another, or if he was writing to a group of people who were insecure about their own gifts.    But in most of our congregations I think we tend much more towards the latter problem, refusing to acknowledge our own gifts, let alone honor them as valuable.
        Marianne Williamson said, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
I think about the gospel story for today and why the people got upset with Jesus proclaiming, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And then saying, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”  Why did people get upset about that?  Because they felt it lacked humility?      No doubt.  But the truth is that this call is for ALL of us.  God calls each and every one of us to proclaim good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  This is all of our call.          Each of you could say today, “this scripture is being fulfilled now” as you do this work in the world, in your lives, in your personal relationships.  We are all called to do this.  Claiming that call, owning that call, naming that call as FOR YOU is not lacking in humility.  It is recognizing that God has called you to a task and that you have chosen to accept that call and to answer it with a “yes”.
We do have different gifts.  So we answer that call in different ways.  But the call to follow Jesus, the call to live in this way, the call to be the people of God – that is a call for each and every one of us!
I would like to encourage all of us to think beyond what we normally identify as our gifts, to be open to the possibility that God can and does use our differences but also, will use our hidden gifts if we stay open to seeing what they are, towards the furtherance of God’s realm.  You are valued in the body of Christ.  And your gifts are valued.  You are more worthy than you know as you contribute to the body just by being you.
I want to end with another poem, this one by Howard Thurman:
"When the song of the 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 people,
To make music in the heart.
That is what our gifts are for.  I pray that we might all use them well.