"Daring To Hope." A Sermon for the Second Sunday in Advent

"Peaceable Kingdom," by Edward Hicks.

"Daring to Hope"

Isaiah 11:1-10; Matthew 3:1-12

Here we are, in the second week of Advent.  For a lot of people, there’s so much to do, at home, at church and everywhere else.  There are gifts to be purchased and wrapped...cards to be addressed...cooking and baking to do...the house to clean... and decorating to do.  

            In the background, we have the news feed of our lives.  Mass shootings. Another child accidentally shooting himself with a gun he found in the house. Thousands of migrant children separated from their families and housed in cages. A migrant teenager dying from the flu. Impeachment hearings. Environmental degradation. Huge economic disparities between the uber-rich and those who struggle to provide food and basic shelter for themselves and their families. The list could go on….

            In the midst of all of this, Advent invites us to turn our thoughts to what it means that God came and lived as one of us in our world to show us God’s way?  Advent invites us to wait… to pay attention… to prepare the way of the Lord… and to live in hope. 

           In the Hebrew scripture lesson, we heard the prophet Isaiah singing a song of hope 700 years before the birth of Jesus, in a time when things seemed hopeless.  His message must have sounded as unrealistic then as it does now.

The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie with down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them. . . .
They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain…

            The prophet Isaiah was probably writing in the period of the Syro-Ephramite war, when the dynasty of David seemed like a mere dead stump, compared to its enemies.  The nation had been defeated and humiliated by another national power.  Their government was weak and ineffective, and the people were dejected and demoralized.  In the midst of all that, how do you live in hope?   Isaiah’s words must have seemed terribly unrealistic—as unrealistic as Isaiah’s words seem to a lot of people today.

           Enter the Spirit of the Lord; a new shoot is coming out of the dead stump of the monarchy.  That’s what the Spirit of the Lord does—it brings life where things have been dead.  The Spirit brings forth new green shoots of life.

  

          Isaiah sings of a new kind of king—a king upon whom the Spirit of the Lord rests.  God’s Messiah will use his gifts to serve the people with equity and righteousness. What will the reign of the Messiah will be like?  The enmity that dominates the world is transformed into peace. 

   

         A great theologian of the last century, Reinhold Niebuhr, once wrote: “Do you want peace in this world?  Then work for justice.”  Until there is justice for everyone, there will be no peace.  For even a defeated enemy remains an enemy.  The only hope for peace is not the building up of more power to defeat and control—but power to make our enemies our friends. 

  

          Advent invites us-- dares us-- to wait in hope for the coming of a different kind of King, who will use his power to “rule the world with truth and grace” and transform creation into a world in which every creature can live without fear. 

  

          Can you imagine a world without fear?   No fear in Syria or Iraq or Afghanistan or Yemen…  no fear in Bethlehem or Jerusalem…  no fear in South Sudan.  No fear in homes from an abusive parent or spouse. No fear in our neighborhoods where innocent children have died to gun violence.

           “They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”   This is the promise and hope of Advent.

            But hope is a fragile and fleeting thing. 

            Fast forward seven hundred years or so.  Two hundred years had gone by since the people of Israel had had a prophet in their midst.   They’re living under occupation, with the Roman army enforcing the oppression of the Empire.

    

           Suddenly, John shows up in the wilderness, looking and sounding a lot like Elijah, who was expected to return to prepare the way for God’s coming Messiah.  “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near,” he says.  “Prepare the way of the LORD.  Make his paths straight.”  

            John’s call to repentance and preparing the way is a call to turn around and look for and hope in God’s future, which is breaking in on them.  It’s a call to commit to see our world as God’s world    and our future as God’s future, because that’s what repentance is about.  

            And yet, more than 2,000 years later, amid the moral, religious, and political crises our nation and world are facing, we are still waiting and longing.   

            Every Advent John the Baptist shows up, because God loves us enough to hold us accountable to be who and whose we.  We are living in a broken, hurting world.  The people of Palestine still live under occupation in a conflict that looks hopeless to a lot of us.  Children in Flint and their families continue to deal with the long-term effects of lead poisoning.  In our own communities and communities around our nation, a parent can work 40 hours a week and still not be able to afford nutritious food and other basic necessities for their children. In our nation, consumerism and individualism rule. Our political system is broken.  The gap between the very rich and the poor continues to widen.            

            And so, we still long for a time of righteousness and justice and peace. 

            For a long time, I’ve felt drawn to the images painted by Edward Hicks, a Quaker preacher and artist, who was so inspired by the vision in Isaiah 11 that he painted at least 66 “peaceable kingdom” paintings.  

            A “peaceable kingdom.” Can you imagine it?  A time when broken creation becomes the completely harmonious creation God intended.  Predators-- wolves, leopards, lions, and bears will live in harmony with the domestic animals like lambs, calves, goats, and cows.  Lions will eat straw like oxen, and a little child will play over the holes of poisonous snakes.  The earth will be filled with the “knowledge of the LORD.”  

            Jesus has come to live among us, full of grace and truth, and called us to follow him, living God’s way of love.    

        

So… how are we to live?  How are we to live as a community of faith?  Do we give in to hopelessness and despair?  

            Do we dare to hope?  Can we trust in God’s promises?  Can we imagine a better world?  Can we believe in the possibility that injustice and oppression can be overcome, with God’s help?

            Jesus came and “proclaimed the reign of God: preaching good news to the poor and release to the captives, teaching by word and deed and blessing the children, healing the sick and binding up the brokenhearted, eating with outcasts, forgiving sinners, and calling all to repent and believe the gospel.”[1] 

            To those living under the oppressive regime of the Roman Empire, Jesus taught and embodied a different way of being in the world that allowed even the marginalized and the poor to reclaim their identity as children of God.  To people whose identities had been shaped by centuries of living under exile and oppression of conquering empires, Jesus demonstrated that the empire doesn’t have the power to define who you are.  

            What Jesus proclaimed as a transforming message of hope has been spiritualized and individualized and distorted.   Jesus didn’t come to be a personal savior for individuals, but to be the way, the truth and the life, to show us all a way to live into God’s dream for all of God’s people. He taught us to pray for God’s will to be done on earth as in heaven. 

            When we repent—when we turn away from the ways of the world and the empire-- and turn toward God’s way of righteousness and justice and peace, we find our lives changing.    As our lives are being transformed, we can no longer be content to exist under the old ways of the world.   

            Our faith teaches us that God’s intention is for us to live in Beloved Community together, in righteousness and justice.  But we look around, and we see there is still a gap between the vision and reality.  

            We wait and hope for the time when God will fully bring in the Kingdom… the kin-dom.   In the meantime, we live into the Kingdom of heaven—the kingdom of justice and peace, as we work for a better world that more fully embodies God’s dreams.

            Sometimes it’s hard to see how things can be different… or how the little things we do can make a difference.   But sometimes new life emerges from the most unlikely places, emerging as a tiny green tendril out of a stump that looked dead. 

            We live into hope in big and small ways when we change the life of a family by providing them with a goat or a flock of chickens with a gift to the Heifer Project.   When we shop ethically and buying locally as much as possible and stop using single-use plastics, we make a difference in peoples’ lives and the environment.  Making choices to care for the environment and giving to aid global and domestic causes all make a difference, and they witness to our hope.  

            When we engage the powers and principalities by contacting our elected officials about issues that matter, we are daring to hope that we can make a difference. When we volunteer in our local schools, when we tutor a child or teach an adult how to read, we are living into hope.

            We live into hope because the Christ’s reign is among us now as we live into God’s dream for us, working for justice and peace for all of God’s beloved people.

            In this season of waiting, God comes to us and nudges us: “Look! Look -- there on that dead-looking stump.  Do you see that green shoot growing?”

            Can you see it?

Rev. Fran Hayes

December 8, 2019

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[1] “A Brief Statement of Faith” of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).    https://www.pcusa.org/site_media/media/uploads/oga/pdf/boc2014.pdf

"Jesus' Baptism and Ours." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on Baptism of the Lord Sunday

"Jesus' Baptism and Ours"

Luke 3:15-22

Here we are again, in the season of Epiphany, on Baptism of the Lord Sunday.  Each year the lectionary gives us the story of Jesus’ baptism, as told by Matthew, Mark, or Luke.  This year, it’s Luke. 

Most of the third chapter of Luke follows the story of John's ministry as told by Matthew and Mark.  John is the voice crying in the wilderness… John baptizes hundreds who came out to be baptized. We hear John making it clear that he isn't the Messiah:  "I baptize you with water," he said, "but one who is more powerful than I is coming.  I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."

But then Luke adds a little interlude about Herod being very angry with John, because John had charged him with stealing his brother's wife.  Indeed, Luke tells us Herod was so upset that he shut John up in prison. The lectionary wants to omit these verses. They interrupt the narrative we’re used to hearing, and they complicate how we interpret the story of Jesus’ baptism. But I think Luke included the verses for a reason.

After the little interlude about Herod throwing John into prison, the story goes on. "Now, when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized.

But how could John baptize Jesus if John was in prison? Or is Luke simply writing about something that had already happened before Herod imprisoned John?

If we pay close attention, we might notice that Luke doesn’t say anything about Jesus' baptism. There's nothing here about Jesus going down into the water or coming up out of the water. We probably assume that this happened as the other gospels tell the story, but Luke doesn't seem to be very interested in the actual moment of baptism-- but only what happened after baptism.

What Luke seems to be more interested in is that Jesus was praying when the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove.

There’s another difference in the way Luke tells the story. In the different accounts, we hear John saying, “I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming.”  But Luke goes on to say, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary. But the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

            Now, I know some people’s minds connect the “fire” John talks about to the fires of hell, but that’s not what this is about. Generally, “fire” in the Bible isn’t about punishment, but about purification.  This imagery is about Jesus separating the good grain in our lives from the chaff—which is the husk part that is often thrown away-- and how the chaff would be burned away.
            Luke tells us that, when Jesus was baptized, the spirit in the form of a dove came upon him. As Adam Ericksen points out, the symbol of the Roman Empire was a fierce eagle—a bird of prey. The early Christians had a different symbol: a peaceful dove.[1]
            Luke pictures John the Baptist as an end-time prophet who announced that the world was about to change, that the realm of God was being ushered in—a new world in which all things would live together in love, peace, justice, mutual support, freedom, and dignity.
            When John called people to repent and be baptized, he was calling them to turn away from complicity with the old age and its values and behaviors and to turn toward the coming realm. John announced that the one who was coming would be more powerful, and would bring in the new kingdom and leave the Holy Spirit to empower the community to continue to witness to the realm.

When Jesus was held under the water by John the Baptist, whenever it happened, he showed what baptism is, for Jesus and for us. It’s a sign of what’s already true—no matter what the Herods or Caesars of this world say. God tells us who we are: “You are a beloved child of God.”

            Jesus’ baptism was an epiphany moment—as the Holy Spirit descends upon him… and he and others heard confirmation from God: “You are mine.  Beloved.  I am well pleased with you.” 
            Baptism teaches us who we are – God’s beloved children.   It reminds us of the promise:  God loves us unconditionally.   Baptism reminds us that we discover who we are in relation to whose we are:  God’s beloved children.  We belong to God’s family, and baptism is a tangible sign of that.
            Baptism is about knowing who we are, so we don’t waste precious time searching frantically for an identity that something or someone else can confer on us-- but instead, use our lives to live out our God-given, baptism-shaped identity.
            The same Spirit that descended on Jesus baptizes us!   We can live in confidence that-- no matter how often we fall short or fail-- nothing that we do or fail to do can change the fact that we are God’s beloved children.  This identity is something God gives us—as a gift.
            Maybe you don’t remember, but at your baptism, that voice named and claimed you.   We need to remember our baptism.  So, turn to your neighbor, and remind them.    Tell them, you are God’s child...  God’s beloved.   God loves you and claims you.  [Some people even got out of their seats to share this good news.  There were smiles and maybe a handshake or hug or two.]
            There’s something else we need to remember: at our baptism, God gave each of us the gift of the Spirit.   So, let’s turn to one another and remind one another:  You’ve got the Spirit, because God gave it to you when you were baptized.
[Again, people moved around a bit and made sure everybody was reminded that they’ve got the Spirit.]

Okay, so what does all this mean? 

            Without the rest of Jesus’ life, his baptism isn’t something we can comprehend.  We can only comprehend the purpose of Jesus’ baptism when we look at the days and years that followed that day in the Jordan.  It’s when we see Jesus taking his place with hurting people that his baptism starts to make sense.  Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan foreshadowed his baptism on the cross.  Baptism was Jesus’ commissioning for ministry.
            During the week before his death, Jesus was challenged by the leaders of the temple: “By what authority do you do these things?”
            Jesus answers by referring to his baptism: “Was the baptism of John from heaven-- or not?”  In other words, I was baptized.  That’s how all this started.”  It was in the waters of baptism that Jesus heard the Spirit calling him to speak the truth and to live with grace.
            In baptism, God proclaims God's grace and love for us.  God claims us and marks us as God’s own.  We have a new identity as members of the body of Christ.
            So, we are baptized and begin a lifelong journey with God...  a lifelong process of conversion and nurture that begins at the font and doesn't end until death, until we are at last tucked safely into the everlasting arms of the God who first reached for us in baptism.
            God keeps on reaching out for us throughout our lives.  God isn't finished with any of us yet.  Every day we live out our baptism.  Every day we need to respond to God's gracious gifts in our lives...  open ourselves again to God's work in our lives...  say yes in all the big and little things we do and people we meet and promises we keep throughout the day.
            A major part of God's daily saving work in our lives is God's gift of the Holy Spirit. Just as God's creating Spirit hovered over the waters in the very beginning, the Holy Spirit works in us...leads us daily...tugging at our lives until we are more fully turned toward God. 
            In our baptism, we become part of a royal priesthood, a holy nation, in order that we may proclaim the mighty acts of the One who called us out of darkness, into God's marvelous light.^[1] 
           In our Reformed part of the Protestant branch of Christ’s church, we take our membership in the priesthood of all believers very seriously.  In fact, in the Presbyterian Church, we take this calling so seriously that we ordain our officers for service.  The questions we ask at a service of ordination and installation of elders and deacons-- the questions you'll hear in a few minutes-- are the same questions asked of a Minister of the Word and Sacrament, except one.   The congregation makes promises too:  to support and encourage and pray for those who are serving as officers.              
            Every one of us gathered here has been given a particular set of gifts to use in God's service.  This community of believers is part of God's plan to bring good news of healing and freedom to a broken, hurting world. 
            On this Baptism of the Lord Sunday, we are reminded of Jesus' baptism and our own.  We are reminded who we are...  and whose we are.
            At your baptism, the same Spirit came down upon you as came down upon Jesus at his baptism.   The same Father said to you,  "you are my beloved son"...   or "you are my beloved daughter."  The same Father has continued ever since to hold you...   and to work to empower you for God's work.

How easy it is, in the midst of this life, to forget who you are...  and whose you are.  So, the church is here to remind you that God has named us...  and claimed us...   and seeks us and loves us unconditionally.

This is the gift Baptism gives to us. We are children of God, joined together with Christ to all the other Children of God. 

            So, remember your baptism and be thankful.  For this is who we are.
            Listen attentively for God’s call.  Use the gifts God has given you as a sign of the outbreaking of the kingdom of God.  Take on new challenges in your ministry.  Rely on the Holy Spirit to lead and empower and uphold you. 
            As you go out into the world, be the minister that God has called you to be.
            Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

January 13, 2019

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[1] Adam Ericksen, “Girardian Reflection on the Lectionary: The Baptism of Jesus: Deconstructing the Fires of Hell.” https://www.ravenfoundation.org/girardian-reflection-on-the-lectionary-the-baptism-of-jesus-deconstructing-the-fires-of-hell/ 

"What Should We Do?" A Sermon on Luke 3:7-18 from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on the Third Sunday of Advent.

John the Baptist (an icon from the Orthodox tradition)

"What Should We Do?"

Luke 3:7-18

The third Sunday of Advent has traditionally been known as Joy Sunday.   That’s why we lit the rose candle today and heard the apostle Paul urging the church to “Rejoice always and in everything.”

            Yet, as I meditated on the scripture passages for this Sunday, I kept remembering how painful a season this can be for many people-- people who are lonely, people who are grieving the loss of a loved one, people who are struggling with illness and wondering where God is in the midst of it all…  people who are depressed, people who are trying to maintain their sobriety during a season of parties… people who are too poor to be a part of the festival of extravagance the merchants would have us believe is what Christmas is all about. 

            There are people who are hungry or food insecure...or who are worrying about how they’ll pay their bills.  Then there are terrible events that have filled the headlines in recent weeks. The list could go on and on. 

            We grieve that there’s so much wrong in the world.  We’re still waiting for the kingdom of God, and we yearn for it.  We wait and hope for what we can’t yet see.

            During the weeks of Advent, we’re in a conversation with the Old Testament prophets and John the Baptizer.  In the scriptures, we hear words of consolation and of challenge.   Today, we hear John the Baptist saying to the people who came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Bear fruits worthy of repentance.”               

            What do we make of this blunt talk?  Where’s the good news in it?     

            Apparently, a lot of the people who came out to hear John the Baptizer’s message did hear his message as good news.  Gospel from God.   Some of them even started to wonder whether John was the messiah they’d been waiting for. 

            Things were terribly wrong.  The people were living under the occupation of the Roman empire, and at the mercy of tyrants like Herod… or dishonest tax collectors.  Things were wrong, but they were hoping God was going to do something about it.  

            One of my colleagues suggests that when John compared people to a brood of vipers, he was saying they are like snakes curled up in hiding inside a pile of logs.  When the fire of God’s judgment comes near,  when the light of truth exposes us, we try to slink out from under God’s gaze.[1] 

            “Hey, don’t look at me!  I didn’t mess the world up!” we protest.  “I’m okay.  After all, I’m a child of Abraham.  It’s those tax collectors and Pilate and Herod that are to blame.  It’s those criminals and greedy corporate honchos and crooked politicians… or immigrants…  or [fill in the blank].  It’s those other people who are to blame for this mess-- not me!” 

            We make excuses and look for others to blame precisely because, in our heart of hearts, we know that we are not clean.  We, too, have contributed to the mess.

            I think John the Baptist is right.  “This means you,” he declares.  “Don’t even think about relying on the fact that you’re a child of Abraham…or a good Christian…or whatever, to exempt you.”

            So…how can a message like this be good news?

            I’m grateful to Richard Rohr for some new insights on John the Baptist I found in his book,  Jesus’ Plan for a New World.[2]   Father Rohr, who is a Franciscan priest, suggests that John the Baptist is probably far more important than we have realized.   The beginning of the gospels tells us that John appeared and preached in the wilderness, “proclaiming a gospel of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” 

            John “cries out in the wilderness,” radically questioning the very legitimacy of the existing religious order, and showing how religion needs to constantly reform.  The keepers of the religious status quo kept sending people out to question John.  

            When John preached a baptism of repentance and forgiveness of sins, it was revolutionary.  Jews were supposed to follow the Law—the Holiness Codes of Torah. This upstart was making it too easy to get God to love you and forgive you. 

            The people were filled with expectation.  They were questioning in their hearts, whether John might be the Messiah they were looking for.  But John was pointing to the One who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and Fire. 

            Luke's gospel tells us that, when Mary found out that she was pregnant with the Son of the Most High God, she went to visit her cousin Elizabeth.  When Mary spoke, Elizabeth's child leaped for joy in her womb.

            That child grew up to be John the Baptizer.  God called him to be a witness to the light of God, revealed in Christ.  John knew that a lot of things get in the way of receiving God's love and joy.   That's why John was preaching about getting ready for the more powerful one who was coming.   Prepare the way!  Repent! 

           

            In Charles Dickens' play, "A Christmas Carol,"  Ebenezer Scrooge is London's most notorious miser.  He's a mere shadow of the joyful person he was created to be, hunched up against the world...  stingy and suspicious.  When the Ghost of Christmas Future shows Scrooge his own grave, the reminder that he will die breaks through all the defenses and helps to put things into perspective.  He's overwhelmed with a piercing sense of remorse for how he has been living.  He repents!

            Seeing the light of truth after living in the darkness for so long can be scary.   But what follows his rebirth into new life-- is joy!

           

            This Advent, John the Baptizer comes to us, telling us that we need to change our ways.

            The message of Advent is that God in Christ is coming into the world.  In Jesus, God's Word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth.   What came into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.

            Edward Hicks was an American sign and stagecoach painter in the early nineteenth century.  He’s known almost exclusively for his many paintings of the Peaceable Kingdom. 

            One of these, entitled “The Peaceable Kingdom with Quakers Bearing Banners,” was painted during a time when tension and separation had split American Quakers into two groups.  In the background is a cluster of very somber-looking people.  But in the foreground is a depiction of the peaceable kingdom:  a leopard is lying down with a lamb.  A little child is embracing a lion. 

            Those somber-looking people in the background are connected to the peaceable kingdom by a banner that declares, “Behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy.”  The sinuous ribbon with its beginning in the mists of eternity weaves its way through and among them, braiding them together.

            Our Christian joy and faith aren’t based solely on the evidence we see in the present-- but on the hope of the future.  Our Christian joy comes to us in our experience of God’s presence.   So, how are we called to live?

            Three times in today’s gospel lesson…  “What should we do?”   That’s a question for us today.

            What should we do, as we yearn for God’s peaceable kingdom?  What should we do, to live more fully into the reign of God? 

            I don’t have any simple answers for you today.  But I think our faith is calling us to move beyond the simple answers on either side of important issues, to listen to one another’s perspectives, and to pray together and work together, and open ourselves to the Spirit’s leading.

            One of the challenges we face today is our desire to live in safety, while responding faithfully to the needs of our neighbors near and far.  It isn’t uncommon during an electiAon season for us to hear political rhetoric that plays on our fears.  But we need to learn from history... and be guided by our faith.

            During Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, too many religious leaders and others were silent.  When fear and xenophobia prevail, there can be terrible consequences.

            Over the past few years, some of us have been thinking about historical parallels between the current debate over refugees—from Syria and now from Central America—desperate people seeking safety and refuge in the United States   and the plight of European Jews fleeing German-occupied territories on the eve of World War II. 

            Among the many who tried-- and failed—to escape Nazi persecution were Otto Frank and his family, which included his wife, Edith, and his daughters, Margot and Anne.  The Frank family visa application documents were discovered in a New Jersey warehouse in 2007. 

            As historian Richard Brietman wrote, “Otto Frank’s efforts to get his family to the United States ran afoul of restrictive American immigration policies designed to protect national security   and guard against an influx of foreigners during time of war.”[3]  And so Anne Frank and her family perished in concentration camps. 

            In contrast to those who were silent and passive during the horrors of the Holocaust, an entire town in occupied France sheltered 5,000 Jews at great risk, in a “conspiracy of goodness.” 

             In occupied France, collaborators delivered 83,000 Jews, including 10,000 children, to the Nazi death camps, and only 3,000 returned.  But the residents of Le Chambon and the surrounding area quietly took in and saved as many Jews as their entire population, who came to them for shelter and refuge. 

            The people of Le Chambon were Reformed Christians, descendants of the French Huguenots.   Motivated by their faith and remembering their own history of persecution, they welcomed the refugees and housed them in private homes, on farms, as well as in local schools.   You can read about this in the book, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed.[4]

           

            What should we do?   What do the “fruits of repentance” look like?

            Our scriptures say in various ways that we are to orient our lives to do justice, and to love kindness, and walk humbly with God.

            This Advent, God is ready to be born in the cradle of our hearts and lives, either for the first time or as a renewed birth, as God-with-us reaches new depths within our very souls.  And this, my friends, is reason for JOY! 

            Do you remember what Ebenezer Scrooge was like when he was re-born that Christmas?  He couldn't keep his joy to himself!  He was filled with the joy of new life...   and he just had to share his joy with others!

            When we receive the JOY of Jesus Christ, we're called to proclaim the light that outshines all darkness.  We're called to carry the light out into the world    and be witnesses of the light. 

            God calls us out of darkness-- into the Light that overcomes the darkness.  Our job as we wait for Christ to come again in power and glory is to proclaim the good news of Jesus, who is the light of the world… the Christ who calls us to live lives that reflect his light!  

How shall we live?  We are called to feed the hungry…and minister to the sick… to show God’s mercy and justice in our lives.   In Matthew 25, we hear Jesus saying we will be judged by how we feed those who are hungry, how we give those who are thirsty something to drink, how we visit those whose who are imprisoned, how we welcome the stranger.”[5]   

In the words of one of my favorite hymns, we are called to “live into hope-- of captives freed...  of sight regained...  the end of greed.”[6]  We are called to live as God’s blessed peacemakers.[7]

            On this Third Sunday of Advent, there is good news—joyful news.  No matter how dark things look, we know that darkness does not have the last word.  Jesus, the Light of the world, has come and shines in the darkness.  The darkness does not and will not overcome it.

            So--  let us rejoice always.[8]  Let us live prayerful lives-- lives that show gentleness to all we meet... and embody God’s love for those who are lonely and hurting.   Let us pray without ceasing, and give thanks in everything…  for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for us.

            The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

            Come, Lord Jesus!

            Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

December 16, 2018

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[1] Mary Harris Todd, in a sermon at www.goodpreacher.com.

[2] Richard Rohr, Jesus’ Plan for a New World: The Sermon on the Mount.  (Kindle Loc 1668)

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/11/24/anne-frank-and-her-family-were-also-denied-entry-as-refugees-to-the-u-s/ 

[4] Philip Hallie, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed:  The Story of the Village of Le Chambon and How Goodness Happened There.  Harper, 1979. 

[5] Let it be noted:  there were responses to the “fill in the blanks.”  The people at Littlefield Presbyterian Church are well acquainted with Matthew 25.

[6] “Live into Hope.”  Lyrics by Jane Parker Huber.

[7] Matthew 5, in what we know as “The Beatitudes.”

[8] Philippians 4:4-7