A Wild Christmas with John the Baptist

 Mark 1: 1-8

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
   who will prepare your way;
the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
   “Prepare the way of the Lord,
   make his paths straight” ’,
John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’

Luke 3 1-13
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
   make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
   and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
   and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” ’
John said to the crowds that 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. Do not begin to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our ancestor”; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.’
And the crowds asked him, ‘What then should we do?’ In reply he said to them, ‘Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.’ Even tax-collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.’ Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.’


Rev. Debra McKnight's Reflection
A wild wilderness man for Christmas? You may be thinking, “Reverend, a man eating bugs and honey in the wilderness is not a Christmas story.” And it’s true, I don’t usually share this on Christmas Eve… I don’t even share it during Advent. John the Baptist comes up in the Advent Lectionary (the three-year cycle of readings), in fact, this year he came up twice. Every year John the Baptist comes up during Advent, preparing the way to Christmas, and every year I think…I’ll pass. I rarely preach on John the Baptist, particularly as we head into Christmas. I always pick the shepherds or the wisemen first, but 2020 felt like a John the Baptist sort of year.

Every Gospel tells his story, but Mark starts right into it. Mark starts a new genre of literature, the Gospel, this isn’t just any old biography, it’s good news. Gospel means good news, but also has roots in good news that comes from a rough place, hence my insistence that 2020 is a John the Baptist sort of year. Gospel is the language of a battlefield report. Good news from the battlefield, good news from the place of struggle and conflict and wounding and worry. Mark doesn’t have time for cute babies in a manger or angels chatting with Mary or Wise Men handing Joseph some super impractical, though expensive, gifts. There is nothing charming about Mark. Life is rough and he gets right to the point.

John the Baptist is out in the wilderness wearing camel hair (which sounds worse than the itchiest wool sweater) and eating bugs, not because he is on a low-carb diet, but because he can be sustained by the land and everything about him points to Elijah. There in the wilderness John (looking and sounding a whole lot like Elijah and quoting some of the greatest prophetic hits like Isaiah) proclaims the drawing near of God, the presence of something new in the midst of this rough landscape saying, “Prepare the way of the Lord.”  

He is on the margins of the community, literally and figuratively. He stands at the Jordan River, which is more powerful in memory and narrative than in presence. In memory, it is the gateway into the promise and out of the wilderness after 40 years of wondering. In presence, it is pretty humble and tame. Jerusalem is not build on the banks of this river that must gorge with water in the rain and trickle in the heat; it’s not developed or domesticated. This humble spot is sacred and John makes it even more so by asking people to be baptized as a sign of repentance.

John says, “Repent” and I said it in a Christmas sermon at a progressive church, which might make you further worried about what exactly we are doing in this text that wasn’t sweet before, but now just got a whole lot worse. But I ask you to stick with me for just a moment. John is out there preaching repentance and folks are showing up. This is shocking to me and perhaps to you, but that is probably because when we think of the word REPENT, we think of some terrible man yelling at students on campus or the people outside of Pride with their “sinners repent” signs…or the people that sometimes protest outside the Abbey for that matter.

But John the Baptist is not that guy and repent isn’t the same in his context. It is about turning towards God, metanoia. And it is not born out of unworthiness and shame, but love. John speaks to people who are children of God, created in God’s image as loving and relational beings with the power to do good. John reminds them of who they are; they are the sacred children of Abraham and they can step it up. We are so beloved we can grow and while growth involves growing pains, we are not alone. And while this may help us all approach this prickly language, I am not aiming to make repentance palatable, but rather powerful.

As people come to John they ask, “what does repentance mean?” and it is not a bunch of moralizing, individual focused rules. He is not some old, self-righteous church person saying, “thou shall not dance or thou shall not drink one drop of wine least ye be a sinner.” He is not the preacher in Footloose and repentance isn’t about some far off afterlife prize, but about this life, right now. In Luke, “soldiers asked him, ‘And we, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.’” John is approached by tax collectors and the gospel says even tax collectors came…which means we are hitting the bottom of the barrel, the most notorious folks around are trying to change and John tells them ‘Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.’ His direction is practical and not at all a mystery, don’t abuse your power whether you are soldiers or a tax collector; and we can probably learn to do the same no matter what our vocation. He tells folks with plenty to share, if you have two coats, share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise. If you have plenty, you should give it away. Repentance isn’t rocket science, all of these instructions are tangible and simple, which is why they are so profoundly hard. Repentance isn’t about getting into heaven, it’s about making earth as it is in heaven, it is about right now acting with a heart for justice and compassion. And because it asks something of us now, repentance makes folks like John pretty unpopular.

John is a prophet and the important thing about prophets isn’t what they say but what they do. Their work may involve words, but they are not fortune-tellers, they are truth-tellers. They assess the present with an eye to the future and a sensitivity to the past. Prophets hold this sacred role of remembering and reminding folks who they are and then imagining what could be. Prophets, I propose, are akin to the second Ghost in The Christmas Carol, saying, “if these shadows remain unchanged” to the newly woke Scrooge. If these shadows remain unchanged; if Tiny Tim doesn’t access health care, if Bob Cratchit doesn’t earn a living wage, if the world remains unjust…Christmas day will not matter. The prophet tells the truth with a sensitivity to evil and brokenness in the world around them and they tell the truth in love. This is risky work and they take that risk in the hope that it changes everything. Prophets speak truth in the hope that it matters. That is the only reason to be a prophet, because it does not put you in good standing with the powerful and breaks your heart over and over again. John didn’t know Gloria Steinem, but I think he would like her quote, “The truth will set you free but it will ‘make you mad’ first.” And he would probably use the language that I am not (which is only because I don’t want to be the reason Max says it to his Kindergarten teacher).

A world without truth-tellers is a world in danger. A world without truth-tellers means crucifixion abounds, it means “I can’t breathe” meets zero accountability, it means the rich crush the poor with their greed, it means good leaders lose their jobs for speaking up, it means sidelining science for political gain and tear-gassing your way to a Church. A world without truth continues to mine the resources of the earth, dump chemicals into our water and pump death into our air. A world with out truth-tellers leads us to crucifixions named Ferguson and Sandy Hook, it means concentration camps and detention centers and for-profit prisons, it’s Jim Crow-old and new, it’s trans-women of color terrorized on our streets, it’s sweatshops and medical debt and schools crumbling. A world without truth-tellers means profiting from human pain, abusing power and dehumanizing our neighbors.

It is into this deep darkness that John proclaims the coming of Christ’s light. There was in his day, just as in ours, every reason to despair and yet he says, “Prepare the way, prepare the way of the Lord, prepare the way for Love to pour down.” The world looks bleak in his day and in ours and he bears witness to the profound and powerful truth of God’s all-loving call in our lives. Christmas is about this hard truth and a hard-earned hope. Everyone in the Christmas narrative has a rough Christmas and they have nothing to brag about in a cute card. Christmas asks us to look heartbreak in the eyes and whispers to our hearts, “be not afraid.”

Christmas needs truth, even if it’s not very jolly. Without the truth, it is sugar and spice in the bakers’ hands, it’s as predictable as Hallmark and means nothing. Without truth, it twinkles without light, gets consumed and used up, and that sweet, vulnerable baby gets packed away with all the other charming nativity characters for one more year and we leave the dark shadows unchanged. Without the truth, Christmas is meaningless because it has no power to change us.

Christmas looks the despair of the world in the eyes and says, God is here. Christmas looks at our brokenness and our inhumanity and says, Emmanuel, God is with us, in us and through us. This year the systems have been laid bare before our very eyes, the old structures must be cleared for a new path. The old structures of privilege and domination are failing us all and this moment calls for us to make a new way. Listen, the voice crying out in the wilderness, “Prepare the way.” This Christmas calls us to be a part of the hard truths that we might mend our broken hearts and live into God’s all-loving dream.

May we have the courage. May it be so. Amen.

Mary's Badass Blue Christmas Guide

Rev. Debra McKnight's Reflection   --   Scripture: Luke 1

 

Blue Christmas could have been the theme for Advent this year. We find ourselves in a year we never imagined, a global pandemic, for which we were woefully unprepared and our national response has laid our broken systems bare before our eyes and the world. It is a year of grief upon grief, because as the pandemic rages we experience our human heartbreak. The vulnerabilities of sickness and loss are with us always. Perhaps your heartbreak has a name like Pam or Cecil or Jon-Jon or Paul, the name of one you love whose death wakes that place of ache for their presence within you very soul. Perhaps your heart break is in relationship, divorce, separation, loss or tension. This is a season when our relationships have to endure not only the normal tenderness we carry and the heaviness of the world. The never ending election drama might just be enough to put us in a blue Christmas mood but we also have a seasons where dreams and plans are on hold. Folks have lost jobs, businesses have closed or many still wait for that new opportunity to open up after their graduation. Milestones have been hard to mark and celebrations are a little more Zoomtastic than ever and it is makes us all at least a little blue.

Perhaps this season is hard and perhaps you have experienced hard holidays before. Maybe you have moved home and put up your Christmas tree in your parent’s basement hoping your soon to be ex-husband would change his mind and show up “Love Actually” style with cards and “Carol Singers” to profess his love for the future you planned, maybe that was just my 26 year old experience. Perhaps you sang Blue Christmas and really meant every word. Perhaps you have had a year that you don’t want to talk about in a Christmas card and maybe putting up your tree has been an act of determination in the face of every reason to just curl up in a ball. If this is your Christmas, you are not alone. If you don’t feel shiny or jolly this year remember this is how Christmas started. The first Christmas was blue, and I mean dark blue. So we gather in good company even if it doesn’t feel good. When I think of how do we show up when there is every reason to be afraid, how do we show up when our hearts are broken and our dreams are on hold, I think of Mary.  

As we approach Christmas of 2020 with resilience and courage in the face of every reason to give up, I think of Mary. She was pregnant when she shouldn’t be in a world where the danger wasn’t just rude comments and economic disadvantage, but ending her life was a real possibility and her best option was a man dismissing her quietly…whatever that entailed. Mary’s story is singular and powerful in so many ways. An Angel appears to Mary and says, “Do Not Be Afraid.” Which is pretty much what angels are always saying in scripture. Every time they show up they have to say don’t be afraid or fear not, which raises some questions about their aesthetics! Perhaps they are not actually the stuff of Hallmark Cards or Precious Moments.

Anyway, Mary encountered this terrifying creature, was not afraid, asked what sort of greeting is this and then got some really terrifying news… you are going to be pregnant in a world where that is dangerous. And Mary responded, “Here am I.” This is a badass prophetic response, there is no other way to say it. She is almost singular in this response to God’s big ask, almost all of the other prophets negotiate with God. Jeremiah wasn’t up for it. Jonah said no and then got in a boat going the opposite direction until he ended up in the belly of a great fish. Moses, the hero, went on and on spilling a lot of ink in his objection to being a part of God’s work. Mary responded, “Here am I.” She didn’t negotiate the incursion of God’s call, she didn’t try to arrange it so it would be more palatable or fit her plans. She didn’t say, “sure, can we wait six months until I finish this degree program” or “have you met my cousin…you would love her.” She didn’t ask if this comes with benefits or superpowers or if God had worked some things out with Joseph. She just says, “Here am I” like a total badass. She is a prophet, which is not how we often see her, she looks so quite, looking down in our nativity scenes. We have dressed her up in pastels and made her more mommy than prophet, more lullaby than power ballad, more meek that badass, like she can’t be both. Mary looks fear in the eyes and says, “Here am I.” How did she do this?

I believe there is a hint and a guide for us in her song, the Magnificat. It is a song from her faith. She cultivated a life of faith, a life of reading the scriptures and studying the words of the prophets, singing the songs of her tradition. She learned to look with Moses for the burning bush in a world of shrubbery, she imagined God as a mother bear protecting her young, she read psalms of heartbreak and resilience, and she practiced the song of gratitude and learned to sing it even when things looked bleak. She cultivated a life of faith, she knew her resilience and her strength, and when the world suggested every reason to be afraid, she was not. So she sang this song of her tradition; it wasn’t just her song. It had also been on the lips of Hannah at the start of Samuel. Hannah was a woman who longed for a child and dwelled in a world that judged her worth as based only in how many children she birthed - and the more sons the better. She knew her worth, she could say to her husband, “Am I not worth 12 sons to you?,” but the answer didn’t stop the hurt hurled her way from the community around her. Hannah sang this song of gratitude, even after all of this hurt and even after having a child and then gifting him to the work of the community - she still sang a song of Thanksgiving. 

I imagine Mary learning that song from her Auntie Elizabeth, which is the second key learning from Mary: take time to be with the people who love you. Mary goes to see her Auntie Elizabeth and commentators for generations have made this about Jesus meeting his cousin, John the Baptist. But most of those writers didn’t grow up being terrified by the idea of being a pregnant teenager or the knowledge that when you are scared you might go find your favorite aunt. Mary went to her Auntie Elizabeth and received a blessing immediately. She did not go to the Aunt that said, “Oh your future was so bright…how disappointing” or “this baby is going to be expensive, I’ve clipped you some extra coupons.” Mary went to the one who loved her, who blessed her without conditions. Elizabeth knew Hannah’s story mirrored her own. I imagine her in her years of waiting for a child blessing the little ones in the family around her, teaching them songs and telling them stories. Mary knew Elizabeth was a safe space in this risky time and so she went to be with her, to take refuge and comfort as she prepared for the work ahead. This safe space and deep love, I believe, does wonders for our souls and our resilience. Mary leads by example, with her very life she tell us to take time to soak it in. This Blue Christmas we must find the people who love us and soak in their presence. This Blue Christmas, if we are able, we must find moments to be that presence to others, to be Mary’s favorite Auntie and say, Blessed are you to a hurting heart.  

One final learning I want to lift up from Mary and her song is the first line. It says, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” I help you see God - this pregnant woman who shouldn’t be pregnant says, “I help you see God.” This woman is incredibly vulnerable in a world that despises vulnerability, says I help you see God. She was not ashamed she was sacred. She was not alone; none of the work was her work it was God’s work with her. She took courage that the path was one she should take with God’s love in and around and through her.

Christmas is a testament to our resilience. A testament to a hard earned hope and joy that is not cheap or easy. Christmas has always been a glimpse into the hard spaces where God is at work in us and through us in the world. Hard spaces are sacred. We must name them, claim them and honor how they help us see God in each other and the world. So this season, cultivate a life of faith like Mary, check in with your favorite Auntie (even if it's on Zoom) and know that you are beloved and beautiful, you, in all of your imperfection help us all see God. We in our vulnerability and our imperfections point towards the divine love, may we have the courage to look. 

May we have Mary’s Courage. May it be so. Amen.

Advent: Prayers of the People

 

Prayers of the People                                      Rev. Debra McKnight    

 

God of Hope that doesn’t always float but is much more likely chased, grasped and caught, hope in the face of every reason to despair, hope that is audacious and hard earned but worth the work. Hope that moves us all beyond what is to what could be, hope that roars with change in her trembling voice and teaches us a determined dance of life; life abundant and life abundant for all. 

(Please name aloud or in the comments your prayers of hope.)

 

 

Prayer Response    What Child Is This   Florence, Kurtz, McKnight                                    

This, this is Christ the King

Whom Shepherds guard and Angels sing

Hast, haste to bring him laud

The Babe, the Son of Mary

God of a Peace in a world that is restless with activity You still the storm, You calm the chaos and You center us in a world of noise. You call us to place others over egos and common good over agendas and schemes. You are the peace that does not come by threat or force, power or might, the Peace that surpasses all understanding and calls us to grow into a better world, a better self and travel a better way home. 

(Please name aloud or in the comments your prayers of peace.)

 

Prayer Response         What Child Is This   Florence, Kurtz, McKnight                              

This, this is Christ the King

our hope to raise our hearts to sing. 

This, this is Christ the King 

who liberates and frees us.

God of Joy inspire us beyond forbidding and foreboding, beyond the silly and the slight, beyond the quick fix and the cheep grasp that does anything but satisfy, sustain and renew. Joy that can’t be bought, packaged or wrapped. Creative God, You call us to show up despite the worries and threats and the vulnerabilities we don’t even want to name, with our breakable hearts and our strong back to give thanks and claim a life dappled with gratitude.

(Please name aloud or in the comments your prayers of joy.)

 

Prayer Response         What Child Is This Florence, Kurtz, McKnight                              

This, this is Christ the light

who opens eyes and gives us sight.

This, this is Christ the Light,

the one who shows us Love’s way.

God of Love beyond platitudes and cute notes and cut flowers, love in the long nights and the wee hours, love in each shaky step towards God’s dream. Love both tender and tough, love resilient in heart break and determined to mend. Love that makes all things new, grant us the courage to grow in your tender grace and proclaim your resounding, table turning Yes! 

(Please name aloud or in the comments your prayers of Love.)

 

Prayer Response         What Child Is This Florence, Kurtz, McKnight                              

This, this is Christ the change,

who enters life that once was strained.

This, this is Christ the change,

to open hearts and shape us.

 

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom

come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.  

Give us today our daily bread.  

Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. 

Save us from the time of trial, and deliver us from evil. 

For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and for ever.  Amen.

Comfort, Wilderness and Wise Wonderers

Scripture Isaiah 40: 3-5 

A voice cries out:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
    make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 

 Every valley shall be lifted up,
    and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
    and the rough places a plain. 

 Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
    and all people shall see it together,
    for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

 

Rev. Debra McKnight's Reflection: 

 
The second Sunday of Advent invites us to explore peace not only by lighting a candle, but within our own searching, seeking, work and world. This passage from Isaiah, this second part of Isaiah (the middle of the Isaiah trilogy) is spoken to people in distress. It is spoken to a community in the midst of their deep grief and great sadness, absolute uncertainty. And it begins, “Comfort, O comfort my people.” The prophet places those words in the mouth of the Divine, “Comfort, O comfort my people.” 


On this year we gather, I think, seeking that same comfort, perhaps more than ever before in recent memory. We gather, acknowledging a global pandemic that has laid bare the shortcomings and the brokenness of our structures, we come together acknowledging our exhaustion, and we come together aware, more than ever before, how we are touched by this global pandemic. At this point most of us know someone who has experience Covid-19, even if we ourselves have not, and we likely know someone who has died or experienced the loss of an aunt or uncle, a grandparent, a sibling, a friend. Beloved people of our community are perishing, our medical professionals are weary and we all wish the world was different. We are witnessing days when more Americans die of Covid-19 than in the attacks of 9/11 or Pearl Harbor. It is a gruesome, exhausting, grief-filled time and so we gather, to hear these words, “Comfort, O comfort my people.”


This language is spoken to the people of Israel when they are in  Babylon. They are in captivity following a forced march and utter destruction. And they know the trauma, so the prophetic books of Isaiah don’t rehash it.  The first part of Isaiah is written as the regional political tension is brewing, the likelihood of a Babylonian invasion is a real and present danger. The descendants of David cannot seem to muster a response to meet the challenge of the day. Perhaps the Babylonians just had so much power, capital, and might there is no other way forward. But the prophets keep saying, “justice,” they refuse to give up and they say the path is justice, justice for the widow and the orphan, the poor, justice for the whole community … this is the path they proclaim as the way forward. 


Isaiah 40 starts with, “Comfort,” it doesn’t rehash the trauma. There is no need. They still remember the sheer violence of the Babylonian empire, they lived it or they heard the stories of the ones who did. They know the Psalms of lament and weeping by the river, they know the temple, God’s very home was leveled. They live, some of them in captivity and some of them dwell in the land that has been devastated. True masters at violence and terror, the Babylonians waited until Passover when the city was teeming with people and the temple treasury was full for the plundering and then they rained down complete and utter destruction. The land still remembers the destruction, archaeologists dig deep into the land and they find a charred layer of Jerusalem. This is the setting into which Second Isaiah speaks, “Comfort.”  


“Comfort, O comfort my people,” the Divine speaks to a deviated people. A voice at the table of God cries out in the wilderness, “prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain shall be made low, the uneven ground will become level, the rough places made plain.” This passage is about the wilderness, but the people will not wonder for 40 years. God is meeting them, guiding them, regrading the mountains, smoothing out the rough spots. God shows up in the wilderness, and there is no obstacle - it is not a stony road, it is not uphill both ways, it is smooth and easy and the Divine meets them there.


The prophet continues, placing the voices of our mortality and God’s loving presence on these sacred lips, gathering to listen to God’s call. God’s comfort and love is to be proclaimed and not just from anywhere, but from the highest hill on the mountain top, so her voice can be heard everywhere. People in despair hear the message and are reminded that God is strong and that that strength is used in restraint. The poetry does not continue to say, “God is really strong and he’s gonna get those mean Babylonians.” It says, “The Lord comes with might, his arms rule for him, his reward is with him, he will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom and gently lead the mother sheep.” God’s power and might is displayed in this intimate tenderness of sweeping up, drawing close the most tender and vulnerable. We can imagine the shepherdess holding the lambs, carrying them across the uneven ground, protecting them from all manner of predator or elements or struggle. We can imagine the shepherd with rod and staff to help right the sheep when they fall down. “Comfort, O comfort my people,” that is the message of tenderness and love, strength that does not wound, but builds up and guides through the wilderness to dwell with God. 


I invite us to lean into them today. We look at the world around us, the struggle around us, the brokenness around us, the death and destruction around us and we cry out for this comfort. As the numbers of folks who experienced Covid-19 and even perished by it rise, we are in conflict with the most dangerous enemy, our own inhumanity. The solutions that could save lives are not actually difficult. There are technical solutions that buy us time to for the adaptive solutions. There are small steps that would make us all safer. The solutions are not technically hard except they seem impossible. We grow weary of being asked to stay home and wearing a mask has been branded not only as a sign of fear, but as a form of oppression, somehow worthy of protests. This moment calls us to the attentiveness of who we are and how we are in the world. Where are the values we proclaim to hold? Our values of equity and justice, our values of community and our love of neighbors that makes Nebraska the Good Life? This moment lays bare this kind of dichotomy within our reality, which is, as we might explore this verse in Isaiah from the point of the folks seeking comfort, oppressed in Israel, we must also acknowledge our reality as the Babylonians, too. We resemble them too, even if we wish we didn’t. We have our fair share of might and power and capacity and capital and courage. And we have used this for good, there have been times in our history where we have mustered our utmost and rallied them for a greater good. We have reshaped the social framework. We have invested in one another in the great depression and after WWII. We have never done it perfectly, but there have been moments when we have made social investments that lifted the very bottom and lifted us all. There have been moments when we have rallied our values to stop the spread of Nazi Germany and Fascism in Europe. There have been moments where we show up and bend the arc of justice and move to an evermore equitable country and world. 


But we have probably not had our fair share of reckoning and we are reluctant to see how much we resemble Babylon. Our sins as a nation have not been laid bare on the international stage. There have been no international trials about our interactions with the first peoples of this land. We have yet to make reparations for the folks enslaved in southern plantations and beyond. We have so much work to do. We’re in this season that feels overwhelming and the choices before us are large. Will we rise to meet the challenges of our day with our values or will we continue to flounder while our neighbors perish? 

It feels like the wilderness and I lean into this invitation from God to join us there. The wilderness can feel nerve-racking. It is not a place that all of us are used to being and, frankly, we don’t spend much time there. This pandemic reminds us that other epidemics have touched us ever so lightly, if at all. It reminds us that we have so much work to do for healthcare access, education, and a sustainable economy.  And so here we are in the wilderness.  


The Womanist Theologian, Delores Williams, invites us to open our eyes to the wilderness, that maybe folks with a lot of privilege who are used to streets laid out in a grid and are relatively at peace with the status quo, find the wilderness scary. But the wilderness hasn’t always been scary for everyone. For those enslaved or those oppressed, wilderness has been a place of safety, a place of freedom from the watchful eyes of the oppressed, and a place to love your being. The wilderness has been this space of liberation, this journey out of the impossible. 


The wilderness in our biblical tradition is a space of transformation. The people of Israel journeyed through the wilderness not just after the Babylonian captivity, but after slavery in Egypt. Through 40 years they emerged a people seeking a new promise. Jesus spent time in the wilderness between his baptism and the launch of his ministry and so we gather in the wilderness, too. This Advent season I think that the mirror for us, the most powerful reflection in the story of Advent, might just be the three kings - those wisemen, the magi. See, they take this wilderness journey and while they technically don’t come into the lectionary until after Christmas, I wanted to invite us to hear them now because they probably challenge us the most. We may not have much in common with the shepherds or even Mary, but we probably have a lot in common with these Three Kings.  And you may be saying to yourself, “well, Debra, I’m not a king.” And I say, “well, neither were they.” That’s probably just poor translating paid for by a Christian king… who wouldn’t mind at least one decent king in the opening chapters of Matthew. I realize magi isn’t really in our vernacular and no one has it as a job title these days, but if we unpack it a bit, it helps us get closer to understanding their identity. I’ve said this before and I’ll probably say it every year, we might do well to imagine them as research scientists. They’re folks who study and learn. There is some privilege in their role, even if they are not the king. They know the sky and the history and when they see something new on the horizon, they know they have to follow it. 


For ancient folks, powerful leaders have their birth proclaimed in the heavens, which is why Matthew made sure we explored this story. But for us this really isn’t about a bright star, but rather the illuminating discipleship and faithfulness of three magi/research scientists. They pack it up, they go, maybe they had projects and grants to tend to or a sabbatical coming up, but they go. And while wealth affords a certain amount of ease, these journeys could be anything but easy or safe and, at the very least, it might have messed with their allergies. They journey through the wilderness to meet the horizon before them - hopeful, uncertain, and determined. And like good research scientists, they know to show up at the palace in Jerusalem with gifts fit for a king (not for a baby). 


This is where they really enter the wilderness because they have baby presents for the newborn king, but there hasn’t been a baby shower at the palace and no one is rocking a bassinet. King Herod, who is notoriously ego-driven, concerned primarily about his self- image and notoriously volatile (I know that’s really hard to imagine in a leader) responds with fear.


He invites his wisemen, his scribes, his priests, his learned folks, his magi, and they say, “oh yeah, there is that prophecy about Bethlehem.” It will always astonish me that none of these men follow-up, ask more questions or think maybe we should go meet this baby. They do nothing and they keep the little bit of peace they think they have. So Herod tells the three wisemen where they can find the baby and, with all of the sincerity of the Grinch to Cindy Lou Who, he says, “And when you’re done, come back and let me know so I can go pay homage.”  


They go and they encounter Jesus, this powerless, peasant family in the middle of nowhere, and they experience awe and joy. Joy that is hard to contain and overwhelms. They respond with generosity, these extravagant gifts fit for a king and for building strategic alliances (totally useless for a baby) and the experience moves them to act. Their response to Jesus is an act of civil disobedience. They don’t go back to Herod, even if it risks their mission of connecting kingdoms and building relationships, even if it risks their life and even their work. They go home a different direction. Maybe they know what a tyrant looks like, maybe they caught the vibes in the palace or maybe they didn’t and so the Divine made a neon billboard/dream that said out right, “GO HOME A DIFFERENT WAY!” 


Jesus will survive to become a refugee in Egypt, other children will parish and the gifts, I like to imagine, help pay for the trip to Egypt. We are asked to this life of faith, just like the magi, with our degrees of privilege and preparation, how will we respond to Christmas? They don’t change everything, Herod is still King and Caesar is still on the coins, but they make a difference in whatever way they can. The risk is no match for the draw of the new horizon. They experience Jesus and they are the first to follow him into the wilderness and into the work of justice, compassion and peace. Where they are planted, they are blooming with a different kind of peace, a peace that surpasses all understanding, a peace that invites us to travel a new path. May we have the courage to lean into God’s presence, to seek God’s comfort, to offer it to one another and to do what it asks of us even if the journey is hard. May it be so. Amen.

Sheep, Shepherds and God the Great Appreciator

 Scripture: Luke 15:1-7


Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them."  So he told them this parable: "Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?  When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.  And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.'  Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. 


Rev. Debra's Reflection
We are in a season of sheep and shepherds, a season of good news coming first to the very margins, as Angels illuminate a vast midnight sky. Shepherds happen to be a go-to metaphor of Jesus and likely of the folks that followed him…even today when most of us have less direct knowledge of sheep and shepherds than ever. This scripture is one of a trilogy of lost things, a lost sheep and a lost coin culminating in a lost son. But the parables are not really, I believe, about what is lost as much as they reveal the nature of the one who seeks. 


In the Gospel of Luke, the one who seeks the lost does their searching regardless of cost, there is no ROI, there is really this prodigal God who breaks all the rules searching and all this searching brings the herd or the coin collection or the family back to wholeness and always ends in feasting. There is in Luke, some conversation of turning with intention toward God, metanoia. This allegory of a lost sheep is also found in the Gospel of Matthew, where rather than the sheep being lost…perhaps wandering off at the sight of a good looking shrub, the sheep is deceived, it is tricked away…though I imagine someone still using a tasty shrub. So rather than a story told to explore repentance, or turning around or the greek word metanoia…it becomes an exploration of being deceived or trying not to deceived by bad theology and cruel people. 


In the Gospel of Thomas, which you may rightly say, Pastor Debra, that’s not in the Bible (it did not make it into our cannon but it still exits) the story has the sheep owner search after the sheep because he notices it is gone…not out of deception or even because it was lost, but the owner notices the biggest sheep is gone, finds it, and than names how it was the most important sheep because it was the biggest. Which I’m going to say is a little complicated to unpack as there is really no moral to the story or value of community and perhaps why Thomas didn’t make it in the cannon. But I include it, because you can see that this sheep illustration must have been commonly used by our wandering Rabbi Jesus and a diversity of voices that followed him almost immediately. 


There have been a diversity of ways that folks write about and interpret this moment which brings us to a friendly Anti-Anti-Semitism PSA for the day…Jesus is in conversation with the religious leaders of his day. The Pharisees are often in conflict with Jesus and that conflict is between people who love their tradition and their people, and we watch forgetting they are discussing their own identity politics, the meaning of their own faith tradition in community, and they are doing this under the oppression of the Roman Empire. We often love narratives about Jesus annoying religious leaders, as through he would be having a different conversation with modern Christians. I have heard adult Christians name that the Old testament was all about laws and Jesus was all about love so we are superior, like Jesus is some Great deregulator and Christians have never made a rule. This is one of those stories that can lead to a misapplication.  


According to Amy Jill-Levine, In Short Stories by Jesus, there are commentators that suggest Jesus is making the Pharisees mad just by bringing up shepherds and women…despised classes of people. Well, gender politics is still complicated today. The mediterranean world is not always kind to shepherds, they work a risky and vulnerable job; exposed to the elements and with poor wages and not a 401K in sight. They care for animals that literally cannot survive without them and they stink, both the sheep and their caretakers. But, Jesus and the Pharisees alike, are part of a tradition where being a shepherd is practically leadership development in the Hebrew Bible. Every great leader tended flocks, Moses spent time tending flocks, Rachel tended the herds, Jacob on his way to being re-named Israel, tends animals and David, the greatest King in Israel’s history was a shepherd. So we can’t get too excited about this passage, as Jesus offending the Pharisees in every way possible or that he eats with Sinners and Tax collectors that would have been excluded from every aspect of Jewish religious life. Sinner is not thrown around in the way that we might hear it today, not like someone yelling it at you from across the campus or holding up a sign at Pride Parade saying “Sinner Repent.” It’s an actual group of people that are outside the law and that law is about love. Being outside of the law meant not caring for the widow and the orphan, vulnerable people, foreigners, immigrants and people outside of the law were allowed in the temple, contrary to some of our modern imaginings they were included in the life of the community even if the relationship was strained and complicated, but Jesus is taking a step closer…perhaps seeking them out, longing to sway, include and love them…or at the very least enjoying their dinner company. 


So here we are in this story, invited to be a part, just like Jesus invited the Pharisees, when he said, “Who among you having a hundred sheep.” We as modern people don’t often deal in sheep every day. And so it’s important to remember that Jesus is presenting a person of means, the woman with her 10 coins has a lot of resources…probably like the women who funded Jesus’ ministry. Owning a flock of 100 sheep is owning a large flock. Jesus is talking about one with enough seeking out what is lost or the one that is missing, not out of desperation but out of abundance. The owner of the sheep realize one is missing, sets out to search, recovers the sheep and brings the flock back to completion; makes it whole again. The woman with the coin lights the lamp, gets a broom and goes to work searching. And both of them at the end invite friends to rejoice. Which is code for party…and hopefully they killed the fatted calf rather than serving lamb chops. Regardless of the menu the point of “rejoice with me” is extravagant celebration in honor of finding what was lost. 


Fred Rogers’ loved this text and imagined God as the searcher, looking for us, no matter the cost or duration of the search and no matter the place or state in which we might be found. He said, “God continues to try and find us,” like the woman and the sheep owner, “God never gives up. God looks for what is best in us, not for what is worst.” See some people throw this parable around to talk about sin, and sinners needing to repent, which a sheep needing to repent for just being a sheep is sort of where the allegory breaks down to begin with. And maybe that was part of what Rogers’ liked about it. Rogers’ disagreed with the self-righteous religious leaders that built up walls between any person and God, set limits on God’s love or suggested that people needed to anything to be worthy of God’s love. Once he was walking between his morning swim and the studio when a person, trying to convert his co-workers, asking them to repent, recognized Fred.  He pulled him in saying, “Tell these people there is only one way to God.” Fred Rogers’ responded, “God loves you just the way you are.”

God loves you just the way you are. God, to Fred, was not judge and jury, sentencer of damnation. God was the Great Appreciator. His radical notion of love and grace lay up and against a popular Christianity that built barriers, questioned worthiness and utilized fear. In contrast to Fred Rogers’, Billy Graham was preaching a message with a lot of ifs and buts by God’s love. God loves you but God would really love you if you confess your sins, God loves you but would really love you if you seek forgiveness and would really really love you if you would accept Jesus as your savor and then God would love you enough to let you out of a tortuous pit of eternal damnation. Rogers’ was weary of this theology, the fences it made, the limits it placed on God’s love. “God the Great Appreciator cannot help but find us good, valuable and lovable…When we hear a word that we are not lovable, we are not hearing the word of God.”

Rogers’ believed in a radical loving God. The Great Appreciator, loving us as we are. He preached come and be loved and we will grow from there. See this growth might be like metanoia…greek word for repentance. but this is not repentance or transformation or turning around towards God that is born out of fear of God’s punishment and wrath. This is born out of God’s great love. We are so loved we can grow. We are so valuable we can heal our broken spaces and honor the wounds in the world. Can you imagine the world if our faith began from a place of love, singing songs celebrating God the Great Appreciator? This theology makes people nervous and it should. It might seem oh so sweet and kind on the surface but if you really think about it, it requires a lot of us. 


We get God as judge, we are pretty judgmental. We get having to earn our worth, we took a beautifully season like Christmas and made a Santa Claus to judge if we are nice enough for a present. We love judgment, we get it, we have felt it and we have done it. What we don’t understand is appreciation. Have you ever been to a conference where they ask you to name your three strengths or your gifts? I remember thinking this is the worst and then realizing its the worst because we never think about this, we have no practice with it. We have a hard time loving ourselves let alone loving anyone else…at least very well. God the Great Appreciator asks us to love, radically. To be like that woman searching out what was lost and celebrating, to be like the shepherd setting out on an adventure to find what was missing and to be like the father, with his eyes to the horizon, who throws a party and gives out jewelry. Ponder your gifts this week, write them down. Ponder the gifts of others, tell them. Write a note, say thank you, notice big and small. To love ourselves and to love others just the way they are changes everything about the way we live and work and care for one another. May we have the courage.  

 

• What does God as the great appreciator mean to you?


• What does this scripture mean to you? How do you experience it? God searching for and finding, looking for what’s best in us; how does that make you feel?


• What does it mean to be loved just the way you are? What does it mean to be loved and grow from there?

• What makes being loved hard? What makes that hard to extend to yourself and others?