Sermon - Christmas 2016 by the Rev. David M. Stoddart

Richard Wurmbrand was a pastor who for years helped organize and sustain an underground church in Romania during the time of the communist dictatorship there. Wurmbrand paid a heavy price for helping keep the Christian faith alive in his homeland: he was imprisoned for over fourteen years and tortured frequently. He wrote a book, In God’s Underground, where he recounts his life in prison. It was outwardly a miserable existence, and yet at one point he writes, “Alone in my cell, cold, hungry and in rags, I danced for joy every night  . . . sometimes I was so filled with joy that I felt I would burst if I did not give it expression.”

When was the last time you danced for joy . . . in public or in your heart? Have you ever felt like you would burst if you did not give expression to the joy within you? Have you felt joy recently at all? On the Third Sunday of Advent, the pink Sunday which is called Gaudete or Rejoice Sunday, I asked the kids during the children’s homily what joy is. And one of them said it is when you feel really, really happy. That is true to a point, except that happiness in our culture is often tied to circumstances: we feel happy if we have a good meal or a pleasant visit; we feel happy if we get a raise at work or if our family behaves during the holidays. But that also means happiness can be pretty fragile: circumstances can change in a moment. I have been reminded of that in numerous ways just this week, as I have ministered to those who have been hurt in serious car accidents or have suddenly fallen very sick. I have seen in the last few days how feelings of happiness can disappear in a flash when life takes a tragic turn or we read about some new horror, like the massacre at a Christmas market in Berlin. Whatever joy is, it must be durable enough to survive any of that; robust enough to inspire a prisoner to dance alone in the cold darkness of his cell.

I think that joy is what we are seeing in the story of the shepherds. Now, it’s easy for us to romanticize these guys. We envision cute, fluffy sheep and men dressed in picturesque clothing cradling lambs in their arms under clear starry skies. But there is nothing romantic about them. They had a dirty job and were considered to be dirty people, at the very bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. Today they would be like minimum wage laborers working the graveyard shift because they have no choice. They were subsistence workers, just barely making it. For most of us, their circumstances would be decidedly unhappy. And it’s not like they are treated to a happy show, either. According to the narrative, when the angel appears to them in glory (and we have no idea what that actually looked like—it’s not described), there’s obviously nothing pretty about it: the shepherds are terrified. What finally leads them to utter words of praise, what unleashes joy, is seeing this child and realizing that God has come close to them.

Put simply, joy is a God thing. It is not an emotional state we can somehow manufacture, not a feeling we can try to make ourselves feel. It is rather the direct result of experiencing the closeness of the Holy One. The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, says that joy is a fruit of the Spirit, something which naturally occurs when we let the Spirit of God live within us. As such, joy does not depend on our circumstances at all. We can be rich, healthy, and surrounded by loved ones—and experience joy. We can be financially strapped, terminally ill, and grieving the loss of loved ones—and experience joy. The shepherds experienced it while at work in the middle of the night. Richard Wurmbrand experienced it in the misery of a Communist prison. You and I can experience it today.

And we don’t need a perfect Christmas for that to happen. We don’t need to give or receive just the right present. We don’t need alcohol or mood-enhancing drugs. We only need to open ourselves up to the truth and let it wash over us: God. Is. Here. The Creator of the Universe is closer to us than the blood flowing through our veins. Not only has God become human in Jesus, but the Spirit of Jesus fills our humanity—not as a conqueror but as a lover. He was born defenseless and vulnerable, and so Christ comes to us now: with gentleness and kindness, with unending mercy, with a love that is infinitely patient, infinitely enduring—and thus all-powerful. He can outlast and overcome anything, even death. That’s what those shepherds encountered that night, a Presence awesome and compassionate ad beautiful beyond words. Of course they left praising God in joy: no other response that would suffice.

And if all that all seems like pious claptrap to you, then please hear me when I say that I am not trying to sound religious at all. Did you notice? There is no temple and there are no priests in the Christmas story. There’s not even a hint of organized religion. The truth of the Incarnation, the Word becoming flesh, is bigger than any church. The reality that God was born among us cannot be contained within these walls, within any religious institution, within any nation. Love has come for all of us, from bishops to atheists, from wealthy Americans to starving refugees. I don’t care how many times you have been in church in the last year or how many times you have failed this week or how you feel right now. Love has come for you and for me. That’s why we’re here: not just because we hope to go to heaven someday, but because heaven has already come to us. And as C. S. Lewis so rightly observed, joy is the serious business of heaven.

I want to wish you joy this Christmas, but I don’t need to wish that for you. Rather I wish for you the simple assurance those shepherds knew, that Christ has come and God is with us. If you get that, joy will just happen―you can’t help it, you can’t stop it― and then it truly will be a merry Christmas, no matter what.

SUNDAY SERMON 12/18/16 ~ THE REV. KATHLEEN M. STURGES

Several years ago, Washington state experienced significant flooding in the western farmland area. While filming the disaster, a TV crew spied a lone, cold, shivering cat anxiously perched on top of a farm outbuilding that was surrounded by water. And for some reason this TV crew decided that they would come to the rescue and save the poor cat. But as they began to approach in their small boat with lights and noise and splashing of water, what the cat saw was not good news of salvation, but imminent doom - and the cat responded accordingly.

One camera recorded this kitty’s great escape as it leapt an amazing distance across the water to land on another metal outbuilding. Then, still in a panic and against all odds, this cat scurried up at least twelve feet of aluminum siding until he reached the peak of the roof where he felt he was far enough away and safe from his would-be rescuers. In total darkness and feeling utterly defeated, the TV crew turned the boat around and left. Checking the next day they found the flood waters had receded and the desperate cat had disappeared.

It’s not just cats, though, who find themselves fleeing or fighting against saving rescue attempts. We too sometimes behave in similar ways. I’m sure any lifeguards in the congregation, past or present, remember their training - when attempting to rescue a drowning victim, one must approach very carefully and cautiously because in their panic the one who is drowning may push the rescuer underwater in an attempt to save themselves. However, such action only leads to the demise of both.

For it’s just plain hard to be saved. Because in order to be saved one must be willing to surrender, to let go of the attempt to save oneself. Instead the one to be saved must trust another to do something that can’t be done on one’s own. In order to be saved a person has to live with some degree of uncertainty in regards to how the saving process will go. Being saved really isn’t an easy at all.

2000 years ago, it was God who launched the biggest saving mission of all. It begins in Matthew’s gospel like this, “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way…” As the familiar story goes, Mary is found to be pregnant before she is married. The gospel of Matthew introduces us to Joseph in the middle of this personal crisis. Whatever Joseph’s plans were, his hopes, his dreams for the future, they have all been dashed. The only thing that Joseph can do now is to simply cut his losses. And being a good and righteous man, he decides to dismiss Mary quietly. However, before he can put his plan into action an angel of the Lord comes to him in a dream with news: Do not be afraid, do not flee, do not run from taking Mary as your wife. The baby she is carrying is of the Holy Spirit. It is a boy and you are to name him Jesus (which is Greek for the Hebrew name Joshua, which means, “God Saves.”) for this child will save his people from their sins.

It would have been quiet easy and understandable for Joseph, like the poor cat, to panic and run. Did the angel’s news really sound all that good or saving? But to Joseph’s great credit, he recognized that this news was actually a life ring tossed from heaven and he decided to grab hold. Upon waking from his dream, he took Mary as his wife knowing that the saving way for both him and Mary was found in trusting God. Even in the womb, before his human birth, Jesus was good to his name - God saves.

Now in some Christian traditions salvation is talked about quite a bit. “Are you saved?” can be shorthand for asking, “Are you sure that you are going to heaven when you die?” That is one aspect of being saved, but the salvation that Jesus comes for is bigger than that. God’s salvation is about the fullness of life - in this life and in the life to come. God's salvation is about healing and wholeness in its richest sense. In the children’s homily, Fr. David explained to the kids, “God saves us from anything that hurts us.” And quoting from theologian Marcus Borg, Salvation is: “Light in our darkness, sight to the blind, enlightenment, liberation for captives, return from exile, the healing of our infirmities, food and drink, resurrection from the land of the dead, being born again, knowing God, becoming “in Christ”, being made right with God (“justified”).” The usual understanding of salvation is included in this list, but it certainly isn’t the only thing. The truth is, is that there is more than one way to be saved and more than one thing we need to be saved from so that we are fully healed and made whole - not just as individuals, but as a community, a country, and a world.

God saves: that’s what the name of Jesus means. That that’s what Jesus is all about. He comes to save Joseph, to save Mary, to save all his people - all of us, from darkness, from brokenness, from our sins. It’s a bold and daring rescue mission indeed. That’s what we will celebrate on Christmas, but even more glorious than that it’s what we are invited to be a part of each and every day.

But sometimes allowing Jesus to do his work of salvation in us is easier said than done. The process of being saved may look and feel just as scary to us as a boat full of loud, but well-meaning, TV reporters did to that poor cat and we too may be tempted to flee. Brave Joseph allowed himself to be rescued and saved so that he might become Mary’s husband and Jesus’ earthly father. Did he know the whole plan? Unlikely. Was it an easy path? Absolutely not. Did he sometimes wonder if God really know what God was doing? Perhaps. And yet it was God’s way of salvation for him.

Our way will be different for sure. Still, no matter how we are allowing Jesus to save us is risky. For being saved means letting go of attempts to save ourselves. Being saved means trusting another to do what we cannot do on our own. Being saved means being OK living with uncertainty, with not having all the answers about how the salvation process will go. But being saved is worth the risk. So like Joseph, no matter whether we are in the midst of a personal crisis or blissful calm, may we recognize the heavenly life rings that are thrown into our lives and be willing, be brave enough to take hold trusting in the one whose very name proclaims the good news of our wholeness and healing - Jesus: God saves.

SUNDAY SERMON 12/11/16 ~ THE REV. KATHLEEN M. STURGES

Last week in our reading from the gospel of Matthew on the 2nd Sunday in Advent, our hero, John the Baptist, was out in the wilderness - and that’s a good thing because that is just where he wanted to be eating yummy locust and honey, dressed in camel’s hair. To which I say, to each his own. What’s particularly great is that he is doing what he was born to do - getting his people ready for the coming of the Messiah, preparing the way of the Lord. The One for whom Israel has been waiting. The One who, John proclaims, will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. The One who has a winnowing fork in his hand, separating good from bad, wheat from chaff. That’s where our reading ended last week, but immediately following that the One comes, Jesus, the Messiah. The wait is finally over and John baptizes him. It’s the culmination of all that John hoped for, worked for, was born for. John has fulfilled his purpose - a job well done!

This morning we have John again, but he’s different. He’s no longer where he wants to be doing what he wants to do. That big, bold talk about the Messiah has landed him in King Herod’s prison where he sits and waits, listening to reports about what Jesus is doing. And it seems that something must not be quite right for John sends word through his disciples with a question, “Are you the One who is to come? Or are we to wait for another?” Are you the One? How could John ask such a thing? He was the one who boldly, confidently told everyone that Jesus was the Messiah. How did he get to this place of doubt, of questions? Jesus, are you really the One?

Perhaps the question arose from the possibility that Jesus was just not acting like a Messiah was supposed to act. Where was that Messiah of Fire? God’s Messiah was to come in a mighty way to set things straight, which would include a military Messiah that would set Israel free. From the reports that John was getting coupled with his own situation locked up in Herod’s prison, clearly this was not happening. Seems natural that John would start to wonder, to question.

We can sympathize, can’t we? Don’t we want a Messiah who will come and act in a mighty way? We want and pray for God to heal, to protect, to save, to change things in our own lives and in the lives of those we love. We pray that suffering will stop, that justice will come. We, too, want God to set things straight and make things right. But when God does not act as expected we may, like John, wonder. His question may become the question of our own hearts: Jesus, are you really the One?

So what’s Jesus’ answer? Go tell John what you see and hear: the blind see, the lame walk, the leper cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead raised, the poor have good news. You know, probably John and the rest of us would have preferred a simple yes or no answer. But maybe a simple yes or no would not really answer the question. The answer Jesus gives is bigger than that. His response, I’m sure, would ring familiar to John and perhaps to us as well as we hear the echoes from our first reading in Isaiah where the prophet is giving the Jews and us a glimpse of the age to come. An age where Israel’s wounds and all the world’s ills are healed. Jesus’s answer seeks to enlarge John’s vision, his expectations about the Messiah who may not always operate in the expected ways.

Now back when John was out in the wilderness he particularly pointed fingers and called out the Pharisees and Sadducees telling them that when God’s Messiah came they would need to change. You know though that when you point a finger at someone there’s one finger pointing at them and three pointing back at you. When God comes into the world and into our lives it’s not just the religious leaders or other people that are called to change, but us too - even John the Baptist.

Last week Fr. David reminded us that God’s way is always the way of love. And that how we experience the fire of God’s love - whether it will burn or baptize, undo us or uplift us depends on how open, how willing we are to let it change us. John was experiencing that fire of God’s love and it was calling for change - to expand his understanding, his expectations, his acceptance that Jesus the Messiah would indeed fulfill all the prophecies, but in a different, fuller way than John originally had in mind.

It’s rather remarkable that our Scripture includes this type of epilogue to John the Baptist’s story. It would have been much easier, much simpler, and rather two dimensional to stopped the story last week - letting our hero stay on the mountaintop of faith basking in the glory of Jesus’s baptism with a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment. However, John is more complex than that. We are exposed to not only his passionate commitment to his faith and call, but also his struggle, his doubt, his question. And it’s not just John, is it? I imagine his story is ours as well and that is why it is in our Scripture because a life of faith is complicated.

So on this third Sunday in Advent, as we wait for the coming of God, Jesus the Messiah, into the world and into our lives, let us like John in the midst of the complexity of faith be willing to open ourselves up to the fire of God’s love. May we let it change us, baptize us, make us bearers of that loving fire so that we might share with the world in both word and deed the good news that Jesus truly is the One.

SUNDAY SERMON 12/4/16 by THE REV. DAVID M. STODDART

In Les Miserables, Jean Valjean spends 19 years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread. When he’s finally released, he breaks parole and flees to a new town where he is taken in by a kindly bishop. He returns the kindness by stealing the bishop’s silver. He’s caught, but when the police haul him before the bishop, the bishop tells them that he gave the silver to him as a gift. It is a pivotal moment of mercy, of undeserved love, that changes Jean Valjean, who goes on to become a very admirable character. But he’s always on the run for violating the terms of his parole, and he is pursued with a vengeance by a police officer named Javert. Javert is a by-the-book person: everything is black and white, right and wrong. Crime must be punished, and criminals are beyond redemption. No one can change. His worldview is crystal clear and merciless. Well, in the great upheavals of 1832, Valjean is helping some of the leaders of the uprising when they capture Javert. And then Jean Valjean has his great chance: he can kill this man who has pursued him for years and cast a shadow over his whole life. But just as that bishop showed mercy to him at a critical moment, he shows mercy to Javert and in a pure act of loving his enemy, lets him go.

But the results are not the same. Javert is not changed: he refuses to be. He cannot comprehend how any person can show such love. He will not let it in. It actually throws him into despair: he can’t live with the idea that his life has been granted to him as a gift by this “criminal.” So he leaps to his death from a bridge, but right before he does he sings these words:

            And must I now begin to doubt,

            Who never doubted all these years?

            My heart is stone and still it trembles.

            The world I have known is lost in shadow.

            Is he from heaven or from hell?

            And does he know

            That, granting me my life today,

            This man has killed me even so?

Now, I want to ask, “How could anyone ever perceive a heavenly love as a hellish reality?” but I know better. I have done it myself, and I have listened to many, many people do the same. The reality is that it is hard to be loved, to let God’s love really penetrate our being. For some people, it threatens their very sense of self: they don’t feel like they are worthy of such love. The story they tell themselves is that God’s love may be real, but it’s for other people. They are somehow outside the reach of it. Others are just too busy and too focused on the daily grind: they don’t want to deal with a God who is real and close and loves them personally and passionately. They just want to check off the church box and then get on with doing their job, taking their kids to soccer, and just trying to make it through the week. And then others need to be in control: they want to feel like they earn whatever they get, even heaven, and not be beholden to anyone, even God. But underlying all of this, I believe, is the deep realization, which we may not even consciously admit to ourselves, that if we allow ourselves to be that open, that vulnerable, if we really let God love us, then it will change us in ways we cannot predict or control. And, like Javert, we don’t like change: that is what makes God’s love so scary.

And that is what makes John the Baptist so scary. He wants people to actually experience the life-changing nature of that love. He uses the imagery of fire: Jesus will baptize people with fire, instilling new life and power within them. But the chaff, John says, he will burn with unquenchable fire. The message is not that God will treat some people well and others poorly. That is not true: God is always love. The key is remembering that the fire which baptizes also burns; the love which uplifts us also undoes us. How we experience the fire of God’s love depends on how open we are to letting it change us. That’s why John criticizes the Pharisees and the Sadducees: they want to go through the motions of repentance without ever allowing God to change anything about them. For all their religious posturing, they don’t want the divine fire to mess around with their lives at all. And so for them, that fire can only feel destructive. Only those who are really open and willing can know what it is like to be baptized by the Spirit and be led to richer, fuller life in Christ.

I am better dressed and more polite than John the Baptist, but my message today is essentially the same as his. If we are just here to light candles and listen to pretty music, then whatever else we may be doing, we are not preparing for the coming of Jesus Christ into our lives. The outward forms of Advent are only beneficial to the degree that they help us open our hearts and minds to the love of God which Christ seeks to pour into us.

So here is my Advent challenge to you: If you fully accepted that God is real, that Jesus is alive, risen from the dead, and that the Holy Spirit is actually within you; if you fully accepted that God knows you thoroughly and loves you unconditionally, what would change in your life? If you were vulnerable enough to let the whole truth in, what do you think would happen? Are there destructive behaviors you could finally let go of? Would you forgive others more? Would you worry less? If the love of Christ filled your being, do you imagine you would spend more time on the people and activities that really matter and less time on trivial things that frankly don’t matter at all? And how would that love affect your relationship with money and status symbols and worldly success? But most important: when I ask you questions like that, where do you feel resistance, where do you feel yourself digging in? Because that is exactly where your Advent and my Advent needs to happen — right where we are most guarded, unable to trust and unwilling to change. That’s where we most need to let God’s love in. When John the Baptist calls us to repentance, that’s what he’s talking about.

I’ve said it before, and I will say it again. The great paradox of our faith: God loves us just the way we are, but loves us too much to leave us that way. And every Advent we are confronted with the same question: are we prepared to be loved like that? If the answer is yes, then we can honestly pray the great Advent prayer: “Come Lord Jesus, come.”