What do you think joy is?

We heard from the kids. It was pretty clear that joy was connected to happiness for them. Is there anything that you could add to that?

I think joy is more than happiness. I think it’s different, even, than happiness. It’s connection, love, being home, a big smile, something that can be found, the feeling after helping someone and the absence of fear.

I don’t know how many of you have seen Inside Out. Inside Out’s a cute Pixar movie about the emotions that go on within us. They’re animated and that is a picture of Joy. Joy is just happiness on steroids. And part of the storyline is that Joy tries to run this little girl’s life, and she finds that the little girl is absolutely miserable because Joy won’t let her experience anything else except ultimate joy.

That’s not the way life is. You know, when someone hurts you, your feeling is not joy like that. The little girl on the right also can have joy, but is expressing it very differently.

When I think about joy, joy is a deeper emotion for me. It’s not just about being happy.

There’s connection and it involves doing something for someone else. It involves something that makes us feel like home. Something that is deeper, that we can find within us. Not something exterior, but something interior. Happiness is a feeling about us. You can be happy because you have a bowl of ice cream, but that’s not this deeper joy.

The deeper joy often comes from doing something selfless. Something that’s directed towards someone else. You can be grateful because you can help someone and it’s not all about us. Whereas, I think happiness is very self driven. Very, “this is what makes me happy.” But, this is what gives me joy, when I’m doing things for others, and when I’m focused on somebody other than myself.

I think that’s how Joy ties in to Philippians 4:4-7. Think about how is this directing us?

“Love one another with mutual affection; Outdo one another in showing honor. Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; practice hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you. Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.” – Philippians 4:4-7 Abbreviated.

Is that about us or is that about others? To me, that’s about others. It’s about the experience of others. Although prayer could be about us too, right?

Now I want to talk about Luke 1:26-38 which sets us up for Mary and trying to understand who Mary was. That’s part of our challenge today.

If we look at the scripture, it doesn’t really give us a lot. It tells us that she was young, but young was of marrying age at that time. It tells us that she was engaged or promised. I almost hate using the word engaged, because when we think about engagement, we think about two people who have found each other and love each other and whereas promised, I think gets a little bit closer to what relationships were still like at that time. Marriages were still more contractual. Love probably wasn’t involved. But at that time, that wasn’t as important as having a male heir to inherit what one has, leave one’s legacy, one’s name, those kind of things.

We know also that Mary has a cousin, Elizabeth. Elizabeth is the one that she runs to after this encounter with the angel Gabriel. Whether that’s because she wants to have somebody to talk about this experience with, someone that might understand. But, it also raises questions because there’s an absence of information.

Quite a few years ago, I did a sermon from Mary’s perspective, and I wrote it that Mary’s parents were not pleased. They were not keen on this whole, “I’m pregnant by the Holy Spirit” piece. But, this week I heard two ideas. They’re just things to help us open our minds.

One said that Mary was an orphan. I never thought about that. But, maybe that’s why there’s no mention of Mary’s parents. Maybe Mary didn’t have parents. We don’t know that. We don’t know why Mary was alone and went only to her cousin. We don’t know.

It was an imperfect situation with Mary. She’s young. She’s not married. This could really mess her up. But, she also is a person of faith. So, she does say yes. That was the other piece that I read, was that it had to be a woman who wasn’t married yet, unlike Elizabeth. Because a woman who’s married at that time would have had to ask her husband for permission before she said yes.

I think that’s a powerful piece that we don’t think about. A woman at that time would not have been able to make that decision on her own. But Mary was. And Mary did have faith in God. Mary did believe. And if Mary was alone in the world, I could see where wanting to be loved and needing someone to love is a strong reason to say yes to something that others would say is crazy.

Would you say yes if an angel came to you tonight and told you that you could become pregnant? Males, how would you feel if your wife came to you and said, “the spirit has come to me and told me that I’m going to bear a child.” That’s not an easy thing to put your mind around.

But I remember being a teenager who felt alone, who needed to be loved, who needed someone to love. When we look at our teenagers, we need to be thinking that way, too.

We need to make sure that they feel loved. That they feel accepted for who they are and remind them that they are children of God. That God loves them just as much as God loves everyone else.

So, Mary said yes. Mary said yes to living because living doesn’t mean it’s going to be all happy and joyful. The joy of living means going through the hard stuff, but knowing that you don’t go through it alone. Even if you physically appear to be alone, God is with you. The spirit is with you and it takes an inner sense of knowing. Looking deeper than the physical circumstances around us to know that, but it is in knowing that where we can find joy.

We’re living through an interesting time where there’s a lot of people who are not feeling joy right now. There is a lot of fear, a lot of worry and anxiety about the future on many levels in many different ways.

We are called to be that light and to share that joy that we know that comes from our relationship with Christ. We are called to be the light in the darkness right now.

I was in two rooms with people near death, and I was in conversation with someone. Who is telling me that if this one thing doesn’t happen, then life isn’t worth living. I’m trying to say, there is more to living.

This one thing may not work out, no matter how hard you pray. And they are praying with all their might. But sometimes we have to just rest in the joy of knowing that we are loved because life has hard spots and we are called to be the light in the darkness.

May it be so. Amen.

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On this second Sunday of Advent, we’re talking about waiting. I’m wondering, how well do you wait?

Think of the places and times you’ve had to wait. How good are you at that? At waiting in long lines? Waiting for news about a test? Waiting for something to happen? I know there’s quite a few young people among us who are waiting for a special day this month.

We all wait differently, but I think our ability to wait has a lot to do with how much patience we have. When I was thinking about patience, I realized that patience is directly correlated with peace. It’s very difficult to find peace if one is not patient. They go together.

One of the paradoxes of Christianity is that we believe Christ has been born and is the Messiah, and yet we don’t fully realize what that means.

Because we haven’t as a world found peace. We’re in this in between space. This paradox is actually the tension between Christianity and Judaism, because we say the Messiah has come. They say, if the Messiah had come, there would not be injustice anymore. There would not be hatred. There would be peace on earth. We have this tension there. What does this peace on earth look like? How do we make that come about?

One of the scriptures that is used this Sunday is about John and the Baptist. One of the pieces that he talks about with the messiah coming is that is that “Every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain and hill made low; the uneven ground shall become level and the rough places a plane” – Isaiah 40:4.

It’s this evening out that is supposed to happen with the messianic age. We don’t have that yet. We’re still on our way towards that.

While we are in this time of waiting, let’s talk about Zachariah a little bit. I think Zachariah and Elizabeth can be a model for us on how it is to wait.

When I think about Zachariah and Elizabeth, for me, it brings up Abraham and Sarah, an older couple who thought that they were beyond childbearing, who suddenly are going to bear a child, because of what God is doing. God is in the midst of this. And he can’t even talk about it. He has to wait in silence, so to speak.

He is able to write, because I wondered about that. I thought, well, can’t he just write this all down? It appears that he doesn’t write anything down until John is born. He writes down his name will be John and then his speech is returned.

But can you imagine having that kind of wonderful news? Maybe a little scary too, right? Could be a little fear in there. Some of us in here are beyond childbearing years. How about if somebody told you you were going to have a child? I enjoy having that grandson that I love to death and then I give him back to his mother.

That’s where they were. They were in this expectancy. Imagine it. This almost but not yet. The paradox.

Then we have Romans 12:18-27. ‘Let love be genuine; hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good; 10 love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not lag in zeal; be ardent in spirit; serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; persevere in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; pursue hospitality to strangers. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another; do not be arrogant, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18 If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”

It’s so important that I would challenge you to read it every single day this week. Just keep reading it every day because it is the heart of Christianity. It’s about focusing on love and how can we love others in a better way.

How do we do that? It starts with let love be genuine. It’s not about putting on a mask and being kind. It’s about really being kind, wanting to do that from your heart and reminding yourself each day, what that’s about.

The part we didn’t read the next verse, Romans 12:19, goes into “vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” God will take care of all the other stuff. Our role is to love others, to not get caught up in our stuff, so that we can see the needs of others.

The words we used in raising our children were helpful, thoughtful, and kind. That was their goal. Every day you needed to be helpful, thoughtful, and kind. If we just took that to heart, we would be closer. But I want to encourage you to sit with that.

I know that right now life is difficult. There’s a lot of us that are grieving for many different reasons that life just feels overwhelming. So, I want to share with you this meditation practice. It’s called RAIN.

RAIN is an acronym and it was created by Tara Brock. These are the four steps.

Recognize: What’s going on? Recognize the situation and how you are reacting to it. Recognize, look at your feelings. When something happens, notice your body. Are you clenching up? Do you feel all jittery? What’s happening? Just notice it because in noticing it, it gives you some space to then allow it.

Allow: This is the let it be and let God by allowing it, noticing it and allowing it. We give room for the spirit and the spirit has space and time to work with us. There’s another phrase that says, what we resist persists. So don’t resist it.

Investigate: Be curious, go for it. That will take you from a place of maybe anger or frustration. Be curious, go into that wonder. What’s this about? Why am I feeling like this? What’s going on here?

Nurture: Be kind to yourself too. Give yourself grace. Forgive yourself. Allow God to speak to your heart. Listen to your heart. Because that divine, I often talk about the little bit of the divine that is in each of us. We can learn to hear it. When we practice listening to it. Let’s practice that. Let’s work on those muscles.

When I was preparing last week’s sermon, there was a lot about the muscle of hope. Well, I think there’s a muscle here too, because we only experience peace when we practice peace. We will only find it elsewhere when we have it first within us. If we go looking for peace outside of us. We’re not going to find it.

It has to start here.

So I encourage you to think about that this week. Pay attention to how you’re feeling in the different situations. Allow God and the spirit within you to take care of you so that you can be there for others.

May it be so. Amen.

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This is our week to begin this period of waiting and watching.

This period is where we look for what new thing is God doing in this world. How is God breaking into our world today? What hope, peace, love, and joy is God bringing?

The thing I was sitting with was this idea of what are we longing for right now? And as I was writing this sermon, my dog came up and pestered me. I thought, I know what she wants. She wants fewer people. It’s been a busy week. She wants fewer people in the house, fewer dogs in the house, and a little bit less noise. Let’s go back to normal, right? Let’s have that normal life again, that simpler life.

But the reality of normal is that we’re using those rose-colored glasses. What we think is normal is more of a dream that probably never existed anyway. We paint everything and smooth out all the edges so that we only remember the good parts and forget all the hard parts. But life is hard. That’s a reality.

We need to remember that the point of coming together is so that we support one another in all of the hard stuff. It can be nice to support one another in the fun stuff and the good stuff. We all like that. But we need one another in the hard stuff and when life gets real.

So, I was thinking about, based on our vision and mission, what are we longing for?

What came to me was compassionate care for creation. Our scripture today (Luke 2:1-3 & Romans 8:18-25) is about creation, and we’re looking to give that compassionate care and to share that with one another, with the world, and with our community.

To try to be there for one another. What does that look like? Well, back in early November, I read this article by Guy Sayles, who is a pastor in Western North Carolina. He wrote about the experience of Hurricane Helene, where the mountains of North Carolina never experienced anything like that before.

What he talked about first was a quote from Mr. Rogers that Mr. Roger’s mother always told him when things were going wrong, “Look for the helpers. There are always helpers.”

Who are the helpers and what are they doing? He started looking around at what was happening in his community, which was devastated. Hurricane Helene was a leveler or an equalizer of sorts. I don’t mean that in a good way. But, it brought the helpers. It brought the religious and the other non-profit volunteers to help. It brought FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers. It brought the North Carolina National Guard and the state and local agencies.

But more than that. It brought neighbors out to help one another. A woman who had rain barrels started tapping off the water so that people had water to flush their toilets. Another neighbor who had a generator put it in their driveway and set it up as a charging station so everybody could come and charge their phones or other devices. Neighbors who had freezers that no longer had electricity started handing out the food because it was going to thaw and go bad.

Guy said people would sit around the generator as their devices were charging and they got to know one another. They learned to trust one another. They became a community. They gave each other hope in the middle of this disaster. They were there for each other. That’s where our hope can come from.

So today we have this letter from Paul.

If you are a regular attendee, you know that I struggle with Paul because he has this circular logic that he uses and you can get very confused. But before I get to that, I do want to talk about the fact that this is Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome. I usually say to the churches in Rome, and I’m afraid that I might be misrepresenting that to you. They didn’t have cathedrals and the Vatican didn’t exist, this was before that.

At the time of Paul’s letters people were gathered in homes and they were of all ages and all economic groups. They were the merchants, the slaves, and even the destitute. They all came together, just like in Acts. They talk about everyone came together and shared as there was need. Kind of like that story about the hurricane. Same idea. These communities would come together and the message of Jesus’s love, the available salvation, and this equalizing love. Everybody was included. It was this inclusiveness that attracted the people and the reason Christianity grew.

So to them, Paul is saying the difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. Some of us know what it’s like to be pregnant. It’s uncomfortable and it’s challenging, but it’s not only around us, it’s within us. I think right now, when I look at the world and I look at us, we want something new. We want something new to come out. We want more justice for people. Not less. We want more inclusivity. We want more freedom, not less. We want more liberty, not less.

Imagine a pregnant person, how we get larger. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us, but that is our hope. That is this thing that God is building among us. But, the longer we wait, the larger we become and the more joyful our expectancy. So something is coming. A real justice with peace that we don’t know what that looks like yet.

But it’s going to be hard to get there. It’s going to involve pain and it’s going to mean that we have to come together and work together to survive it.

As I was walking the dogs yesterday morning, another dog walker had lost his gentle leader.

So this morning I brought him a gentle leader and handed it to him. He said I feel like other dog owners are supporting me. And I said, well, isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? That’s being community. I have something that I no longer need and you need it. Why would I not give it to you? I don’t need anything. You don’t need to buy it from me. I can just give it to you.

Our materialistic consumeristic culture starts to program us where we think that we have to pay for everything and we think that if we own it then it’s worth something and we ought to get something for it. Maybe we can just share this idea of justice.

So do we really long for a better world? Do we really want to figure out more of what this hope that’s coming is about?

Advent is a reflective season where we’re called to think. It’s not by chance that this hits in December as the trees have now let go of their leaves. They’re going into this dormant time. The nights are getting longer. We’re to rest more and take more time to slow down.

And what do we do instead? Fill everything with lights, loud music, and bright colors as we try to ward off the darkness. But if we can accept some of the darkness, we can light a candle. We don’t have to be in the pitch dark, but if we can take the time to stop and to give thanks to God, then to think, to reflect on our days.

Where was I merciful? Where was I loving and where did I fail? Because we all have those moments that aren’t our best.

It’s good for us to think about these and then to listen to our hearts because that’s where the still small voice of God is speaking. That’s where Christ meets us, in the quiet and the listening.

Can we give ourselves some time to do that? To listen deeply for what Christ is calling us to hope and long for. Then watch and wait with patience.

May it be so. Amen.

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As I said our theme for Advent will be “Through the Eyes of a Child”, where we’ll focus on the awe and the wonder.

Because as I listen, I hear a lot of people who are still really struggling in life. We have a lot of grief, whether from a multitude of losses, even just the changes within the church, there’s still this grieving. The way to work with the grief is not to ignore it, but to also focus our minds and our hearts on awe and wonder.

So I wanted to start by getting you to think about the beauty of children. It might be a little easier today since our children’s choir got up for the first time in a long time and sang for us. But before you go to any kind of sentimental thoughts about the children, I want to emphasize a child’s ability to stay in that place of expectation, especially the younger ones, they wake up expecting to have a good day. For the most part, they’re expecting good things to happen, surprises, because they may learn something new that they didn’t know before. They may have an experience they’ve never done before. They live in this perpetual awe and wonder.

But I think as we get older, we lose track of that. And in the NRSV, more than in Peterson’s, what wasn’t there was this word, worry.

The NRSV focuses on our worry and letting go of our worry because that worry gets in the way of seeing the things that God is doing around us. It stops us from being amazed at the wildflowers, as Peterson puts it. Or at the traditional language that you might be used to is “consider the lilies and how they grow” – Luke 12:27

When we’re worrying about whatever, then we miss all the rest. We miss that other part. It gets in the way of our ability to be grateful, to give thanks. So trying to turn our minds maybe a bit towards gratitude, towards what we already have.

So like this person, sitting at their computer and they can’t figure out their password. Sitting with that aggravation. Whereas we should just be grateful that there are such things as computers. Or maybe we should be grateful for ways to communicate other than computers, right? The computer doesn’t have to be the be-all and end-all of our lives.

I read a story this week about a man who came into church and during the songs he got up and started dancing and clapping and singing.

Then during the sermon he continued and during the prayers. People were looking at him because that’s not the way we behave in church. The ushers tried to escort him kindly out of the room. And after church, they did like all good church people do. They had a meeting, a committee. A committee got together and said, “What do we need to do about this man who was dancing and singing during worship?” They decided they would go out and visit him and help him to understand.

When they got there, he was plowing his field. They said to him, “you know, that thing you did on Sunday?” And he said, “Absolutely!” He said, “Look at this land. God gave me all this land to work and provide food for my family and income to help provide for us. I am so grateful. I have so much to be grateful for. Look at my family. God gave me this family and they are wonderful. I am so proud of them. They share so much love with me and I’m able to share with them. I’m just bursting with thanks for God. Where else should I go with that? But to church on Sunday.”

I wonder how we would react if someone started dancing and singing through worship. I’m afraid we might act more like the ushers and elders in the story, more like the Pharisees, maybe of the stories of Jesus saying, “You don’t do that on Sunday.” We want you to be grateful, but not that grateful.

Do we stop people in there having some awe and wonder at the grace, love, and provision of God?

Something to think about, because this scripture (Matthew 6:25-34) was meant to be a blueprint. It was meant to say enjoy life.

This particular little piece is about relaxing and appreciating what you have. Notice it. Maybe even have some fun with it. When was the last time you played dress-up? I don’t do that anymore, except maybe with my grandkids. They’ll get me to act goofy. But we have to remember how to have fun, to relax, and to give thanks.

I learned this week that there is this whole thing called FOMO. I didn’t know that was a thing. That shows my age. So FOMO is the fear of missing out. People have a fear that they’re missing something in life. That might be who we are. We just didn’t know it. We didn’t know it was called FOMO.

But when Jesus was talking to these people, he knew that they lived under the oppression of Rome. He knew that they didn’t have a lot of clothing or food, but they also probably weren’t starving. They knew how to be a community. They knew how to come together and share. So that everyone would have what they needed. That’s what Acts tells us they did in the beginning. So they came together and they shared as every one had needs.

Today, I want to invite you to become like children. And there are two verses that stuck out for me.

In this one from Matthew 5:44, Jesus says, “But I say to you, love your enemies.” This is a really hard one. “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. So that you may be children of your father in heaven.”

God wants us to be like children. In Matthew 18:3, Jesus said, “Truly, I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom.”

So an invitation as we get ready to start the advent season, I know. 30 days till Christmas. Today’s the 24th. It did dawn on me that we are a month ahead in planning because we already are planning the music for Christmas Eve this week because we try to stay a month ahead with the bulletins. It is a month from today that will be here for Christmas Eve and that month will go very quickly. This is that time of year when we start focusing on all of the other things, the clothing, the packages, and the food.

I’m going to invite you to stop at least once a day and be grateful. Just stop and take time to breathe and be grateful. All that you already have, all that you already are, and all that we can do together.

This is how I learned about FOMO. This came in my calm app. There’s only one reason why you’re not experiencing bliss in this present moment. And it’s because you’re thinking or focusing on what you don’t have.

So know that here, no one is bad, no matter what. That’s the things that we tell ourselves, or that we tell each other. We have differences of opinions, but All Are Welcome. All are part of us, and we will work through the differences. That’s life. Life never goes the way everybody wants it to. Joys and sorrows are part of life, but we are here so that we can do this together. This thing called life to support one another, to encourage one another, and to remind one another of the love and the grace that we have through Jesus Christ. Our savior. Amen.

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I would like us to think about what God’s love looks like.

How does that feel if you had to describe God’s love? What would you say about it? I’m going to invite you into a little bit of theology with me because I think you know more than you realize.

Think of a Bible story that you know. Whatever comes to mind. How was love present in that story? Now, I need the extroverts to talk.

The way the widow gave all that she had, she did not hold back. So that’s what love looks like. Love looks like giving what you have and being generous with what you have. That’s God’s love.

The good Samaritan. I love the fact that we have this whole window on the good Samaritan. If you didn’t recognize that before, that is the good Samaritan window where the person helps. God’s love is reaching out to those who are in need and helping. Jesus says, “Go and do likewise.” – Luke 10:37

Matthew 25:40, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” It’s about reaching out and doing something. It’s not just this ethereal peace.

When is God showing us a love that calls us to be more than what we are or who we are at this moment? I think there’s this balance between the God who loves us and says that we are loved and worthy just as we are in this moment and the God who wants us to know that we have the potential to be more than that, to be better than what we are, to be more loving.

It is in the scripture from 1 John 4:8, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

What do we do with that? What does that look like? What is striking to me is that this scripture is meant to be an encouragement, but it’s also meant to tell us that everyone who loves then knows God, whether they put it in that kind of language or not.

It’s a very inclusive love. It’s not God loves these people because those are the people we love. And these people over here they’re not that loving so God must not love them either. What I hear in the scripture is God loves period and we’re the ones who want God to hate our enemies. But I don’t think that’s what this says.

This says God loves. God is love.

We’re the ones who play these childish games and want people to be out of God’s love. This is hard. It’s simple and hard. It’s simplistic, we are to love everyone. Some people are not very lovable and that’s hard work, but that is God’s expectation on us.

I mentioned in the Come Sunday that I’ve been sitting with who we are to become with our new vision and mission.

We’ve been living into that now for a year. So what are we becoming? Well, I think we’re becoming the beloved community. We’re to be about building a beloved community. So, that means we need to be love. Does that make sense? In order to be beloved, we need to be love. So how do we be love? How do we love others?

Well, one of the things that came to me as I sat with that was to show up and listen. That’s how you love. You love by showing up and listening rather than telling others what they need to do. But if we listen to them, if we help them, if we ask them questions, they probably know what they need.

It’s about listening, really listening. I think there are so many people in this world who are hurting because they feel like no one’s listening. I mean, they’re saying the pandemic of this year is loneliness. We can be all together and yet we’re lonely because we don’t let anybody else know those dark things that circle in our brains, those places that we don’t like to share.

Last week, Craig Gross was here with you. I know Craig well and Craig calls it his drawer. He said he has this drawer of dark things that he only opens so much. Then he closes it again because nobody else needs to see the dark things that are in the drawer.

Here in Lancaster County, we like to put a lot under the rug and we hide things there. We were taught to hide things. You don’t talk about your dirty laundry. You keep things private. You put on this stiff upper lip, right? Hold your chin high. Even if your world’s falling apart, unless we find a safe space to let ourselves fall apart, we’re all just a hot mess and we have to be able to create that safe space, which is part of our vision, creating a safe space for those who are vulnerable or afraid.

The reality is we’re already sitting here. Some people aren’t here who need a safe space now more than ever. So we need to be clear about who we are.

When we get to the annual meeting today, I put together an overview of what has happened over the past year and where we’re going.

As I was doing that, I was struck by the fact that my brain wanted to say the outreach commission did this and the property commission did that and the education commission did this and the parish life commission did that.

I stopped myself and I realized that’s the way we have defined it a lot of the time. Instead of saying, we did this and we did that. Do you hear the difference? I heard the difference. I felt the difference when we go from this group and that group to being one group. What have we done and what will we do next?

That’s what this morning is about. It’s about going out and being love.

But I’ll tell you, as I said before, this is hard work. There are two things that you need to do to do this. You need to love. To go places that feed you or do things that feed you and that fill your cup. Go places that inspire you and bring out life in you where you feel invigorated rather than drained wherever that is.

Last Sunday I went to Longwood Garden. It’s gorgeous. The new conservatory is beautiful. Take time, put yourself in places where you see beautiful things, wherever that is.

We all have different things that do that for us. So think about what it is for you and make sure you’re including that in your life and remind yourself that to be love involves our faith and faith is risky. It’s scary sometimes. Faith is about believing in something that we can’t prove. Hope. We have to hold hope. Hope is about thinking something is going to happen that hasn’t happened yet. And love is about holding people in our hearts, even the people that are hard to hold.

This is from Facebook. It was posted by a book company, which turns out was Celtic Spirituality Book Company. I felt very good sharing it.

May it be so. Amen.

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Sermon by Rev. Craig Ross

This is a time of the year when we often think a lot about the word freedom, right?

Elections are a corporate event that virtually demands a pause in life. We can reflect on the blessings and privileges of freedom and what it offers to us in our country and how we might best embrace this blessing through our choice of leaders.

Change of seasons we experienced in these later months of the year also leads some to migrate to different parts of this magnificent globe because we have the freedom to travel, to embrace the rich diversity that our nation offers us. From sea to shining sea and beyond. Increasingly, individuals have the freedom to live their lives in ways that reflect the identity that they believe God has sewn into the very fabric of their lives and souls.

Freedom is one of the themes of today’s lesson from the gospel.

As Christians, we’re pretty comfortable defining the gospel of Jesus in a variety of ways, right? We all have our sort of mini gospels that we carry with us. We use words like salvation, maybe grace, maybe forgiveness, maybe life. If we took a bit of time this morning, we could add additional words that would describe this gospel as we experience it in our uniqueness, in our communal ways, and everywhere in between.

In our lesson today, we’re called to embrace one word. One word that might not always be on the tip of our tongues when we think about the gospel, and that’s this word, freedom. Today, Jesus adds freedom as another way to describe the gospel.

Think about it. The images we use to describe salvation typically assume some need that we have. One has to value salvation because one knows one needs saving. One to whom grace is important and is aware of the need for grace. Forgiveness implies sin, so you get the picture.

No wonder those who engage Jesus in our lesson today are offended. Because Jesus says to persons who already believe in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” – John 8:31-32. The promise of freedom, awesome! Except it’s not. At least not to those whom Jesus makes this promise. They’re pretty much the opposite of excited or grateful for Jesus’ words as they offer their answer. “We are descendants of Abraham and we have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying you will be made free? – John 8:33.

No thank you, Jesus. No praise God, and definitely no awesome. Instead, those that Jesus addresses are offended. “What do you mean” is all they can offer in response to this teaching and this assurance. The modern way of saying that might be, who do you think you are anyway, Jesus, to talk like that?

Now we have the luxury of a couple of thousand years of reflection on this scripture. So to me it makes sense.

But it is a challenging encounter that Jesus offers us today because by offering them freedom, Jesus does imply that they are not free. And as is the case with most of us, we get backed up into a corner, we pull out our tried and our true responses that are usually pretty defensive responses. These Jews here do the same. We are descendants of Abraham. We have never been slaves to anyone, they say.

We’ll time out here for a moment. Admittedly, none of us here are Old Testament Bible scholars, including me. But we know the problem in this response, right? This problem is embedded in what the Jews say. Did the Jews somehow forget their slavery in Egypt? Or the Assyrian captivity? Or the Persians? Or any of those who have taken over Jewish life and enslaved them for periods in history. What about the Romans? They’re not exactly your friends here in first-century Judaism.

As the old saying goes, denial is not just a river in Egypt. But before we judge our first-century brothers and sisters in faith, shouldn’t we ask the question, aren’t we at some times just the same?

How good are we at naming and admitting our own needs, our own hurts, our own brokenness?

How comfortable are we in naming those things that enslave us as individuals, as families, and sometimes as churches? This enslaves us in the sense of honesty admitting that we’re not perfect, we have problems, and that we are enslaved by things. It’s hard to do, but Jesus’ presence and Jesus challenging us throughout his various teachings and stories and all those with whom he engages reminds us that through admitting our lives being imperfect, we have a little bit of breathing room, not just for growth improvement, but also for help.

Maybe big words like repentance and forgiveness. It’s not easy to do. It’s sort of my business and I’m not good at it all the time. I’m good at talking about it, really good at that, and advising other people about it. But, you know, in my friendship circles, in my family, in close connections I have with folks, I’m not too easy to own my bondedness to things that I don’t want to let go of.

Today, it seems for me at least, it’s harder than it used to be because there’s so much cultural pressure to act as if we have everything together.

Great life, great job, great relationships, great future, great Facebook and Instagram pages, great everything, right? There’s such pressure. Our lives to the point where they shine. And as we buy into that illusion, we contribute to our own bondage.

For a while social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (Now X) have proven a great way to keep in touch with people we love and cherish, no question about that. But they also have proven to be vehicles that demand greater attention and effort and ultimately pretense as we try to convince the world that we’re living our ideal lives.

Maybe I should be a little better than they are. I can make that happen on social media. That pretense takes a toll, of course. We know that. We’re honest with ourselves. We don’t claim descendants from Abraham but by our acts and our loyalty to God. We might not claim descendants from Washington or Luther either. We might admire Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey, or Beyonce. One way or another, we name them as our apostles. And then we cry out, or we should cry out, that we have never been slaves to anyone.

I don’t honestly know what a United Church of Christ community might do in this situation. Maybe look to James O’Kelly, Abner Jones, the former Baptist, or Barton W. Stone as the early formers and followers of the United Church of Christ movement. You might know more modern ones. Who is thinking closer to home? The Right Reverend Katherine Kuhn? We have persons we look up to, and we ask them to help guide us in deciding what makes us authentic, and what gives us a sense of purpose in our lives. But I don’t know those persons as well as many of you do.

So I’m going to go to the one that Lutherans know, Martin Luther, and his earliest seminal, and of his theology, the 95 Theses.

I can’t read much of Luther, it’s too long and gobbledygook, but I can understand the 95 Theses they’re short and they’re tight and I can remember even a few of them.

But the first of his 95 Theses is about repentance. When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, repent, he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance. In our softer and more gentle times, we’re not all that big on the word repentance. It’s pretty harsh, but I think our reticence around embracing repentance is that we might misunderstand what repentance really means. Luther says that when calling for repentance, he’s not talking about confession and penance as administered by clergy. Luther never saw repentance as an inward, cathartic, feel-good, or feel-bad kind of moment. For Luther, true repentance is a kind of truth-telling that allows you to be honest about how you are deceiving yourself or letting yourself be deceived by the world.

And that, Luther suggests, gives you an opportunity, a moment. To think, speak, and act differently. To put it another way, that gives you an opportunity to live in freedom.

Jesus’ invitation from freedom demands an act of repentance as truth-telling before it hits home and does that saving work for us.

Because it demands that we become clean about our needs, which isn’t easy for self-made women and self-made men to admit. Just as with Jesus, earlier conversation partners, the truth of which Jesus speaks is two truths. First, a truth about us, and then a truth about God’s response to us.

God’s news is that we’re always sinners, God’s fallen, and at times flailing around confusedly, always imperfect. And in the face of that fallen grace that characterizes our lives, God then chooses to love us anyway. Hope that divine love in time will change us, transform us, and redeem us.

Gloria Simon was known for repurposing an old Alcoholics Anonymous saying when she struggled in her life, she would say, “The truth will set you free, but first it will make you feel miserable.”

The truth with which Jesus confronts us, that we are sinners. God’s fallen, at times flailing, regularly confused, and always imperfect children from birth to death is true. But, and here is the second, I won’t say more important, but certainly equally important truth that does sound like good news, that we are also those sinners who are simultaneously God’s beloved children.

Those sinners who God calls blessed and holy and perfect. Those sinners whose futures are not determined by our regrets and our mistakes, but by the possibilities created by resurrection every day of our lives. Those sinners who God loves above anyone else. We are not perfect. We don’t have to be in order to be loved because only God is perfect.

We are granted the privilege of hanging on to God’s coattails until that day when we die and have the chance to see what it looks like up close and personal.

In closing, I offer a final word of David Lowes, one of our bright Lutheran voices of hope.

We are sinners. Sinners that no amount of indulgences, good works, intentions, status updates, or creative social media posts can redeem. But, here is the second truth which finally sounds like good news, we are also those sinners who are simultaneously God’s beloved children.

Those sinners who God calls blessed, holy, and perfect. Those sinners for whom Christ died. Those sinners who make mistakes but by the possibility created by resurrection, those sinners whom God loves above all else. We are not perfect, and we don’t have to be in order to be loved by God.

Amen to that!

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I thought it was worth noting, that this is a very different scripture than what we have been studying the past two weeks.

We were looking at scriptures coming out of the Gospel of Matthew, and our scripture today (Galatians 3:23-29) from Paul. This was actually written prior to Matthew’s gospel, and it was written to a very specific group of people.

Just as we talked about the context of Matthew’s gospel, it’s important to understand the context of this letter to the churches in Galatia. This was written probably around 48 to 50 AD. It is coming out of Paul’s experience, knowledge and understanding of what it means to be a Christian.

Christian. They didn’t quite have that concept yet. That word wouldn’t have been in their speech yet, but that’s what they were trying to do. They were trying to figure out how do we now live as followers of Jesus. And they had within them both Jews and Greeks or Gentiles, people who were not Jewish.

Unfortunately, Paul feels someone came and told them that those who were not raised Jewish and were not following Jewish law weren’t fully part of the body unless they chose to do so. They had to follow all the Jewish laws or they weren’t really accepted. Paul does not believe that, so Paul challenges that thinking saying, “once you are a member, a follower of Jesus, you belong. We don’t have different categories. This is not separate, but equal. This is together.”

In fact, that is what made the church of the first century different than the community.

Because the community had divisions. There was the class system, there were many ways in which people were divided, but when they came to church, they were equal. Most specifically, around the table because, in other scriptures, Paul reminds people the rich had the ability to get to the table first. Paul says, “wait a minute, you don’t get to eat until everybody comes to the table.” Because, the rich would eat, they would eat the communion. Then, when the poor people got there, there wasn’t anything left. That’s not how the church is meant to be. That’s why when we have communion, everybody comes together and we do it together.

Galatians 3:23-29 is a really important scripture for those first churches.

It’s a scripture of inclusivity. It’s saying you don’t have to follow the Jewish law. The Jewish law was our initial teacher, but now Jesus Christ is our teacher and that’s who we’re going to follow.

That is part of our vision and part of our mission to be an inclusive and generous body to welcome all people. You don’t have to prove your worthiness based on following certain laws. Paul says it’s about all of us coming together and showing the rest of the world, how we can be one body, how we can cooperate with our differences, how we can work things out together because of the faith that we have in Christ Jesus.

It is not about us being able to do any of this on our own. It is about what God does. God is the one who brings us together and will help us work through our differences so that we know the right thing to do together.

That whole idea of being heirs of Abraham. That meant because Abraham was, God gave Abraham land, God promised that humanity will continue and God gave them Identity. That’s our promise that we will have a place to be, that we will be a people that we will continue, and that we will have this special name which now we know as Christian.

I want to read this scripture again for you. I’m going to read it out of the contemporary English version because it sounds just a little bit different and maybe you’ll hear something that you didn’t hear before.

“The law controlled us and kept us under its power until the time came when we would have faith. In fact, the law was to be our teacher until Christ came. Then we would have faith and be acceptable to God. But once a person has learned to have faith, There is no need to have the law as a teacher. All of you are God’s children because of your faith in Christ Jesus. And when you were baptized, it was as though you had put on Christ in the same way you put on new clothing. Faith in Christ Jesus is what makes each of you equal with each other, whether you are Jew or Greek, slave or free person, man or woman. So if you belong to Christ, you are now part of Abraham’s family, and you will be given what God has promised.” – Galatians 3:23-29

May it be so. Amen.

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If I would ask you, who are those in our culture you would name as blessed?

Think about that. Who does our culture say is blessed? I think about people who have extravagant materialist things such as houses or cars. People who have a good stock portfolio. People with large incomes. People who have achieved their dreams. Those are the people that our culture lifts up as blessed.

But who do we as the church name as blessed? Well, the word Makarios in Greek means blessed or to receive God’s favor. So, who is it that God prefers in the world? Well, God prefers the poor, the widow, the orphan, the stranger in our midst. Those are the people God tells us over and over and over to care for. That’s who God prefers. God is looking for us to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned, and welcome the stranger.

So, let’s remind ourselves again about who Matthew’s audience is.

Because remember, we’re not in Mark, we’re in Matthew. Matthew is writing to this specific group of people who are Jewish and believe in Jesus. Scholars believe that they lived in Antioch of Syria in about 90 AD, which means they know that the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed.

They are still under Roman occupation and will be for another almost 400 years. There’s not much sign of that changing. They are living in a time where they are doing too bad. It’s believed that they’re not the destitute, but they know the destitute. They see it. They know of the people who are in need. And they, in trying to find God, are also trying to figure out how they still live obeying the Jewish laws and following what they know of Jesus.

Matthew Chapter 5 is written to help them know more about Jesus and what Jesus calls for. They try to stay in their synagogues and they get forced out. They don’t have a place to be. They are literally forming the first churches. They’re trying to come together and form churches and they still carry that Hebrew Bible belief in blessings and curses. That idea from Deuteronomy choose life or death. God wants us to choose life, but if we choose badly there are curses that come with. Like last week with the sheep and the goats, you either choose well, or you don’t choose well.

This was still the time that Jesus lived in, and it’s the time that Matthew’s audience lives in, even though it is 60 years later. They are under an authoritative regime that is taxing them so that the wealthy can maintain power and have their extravagances and others are losing everything. Because, once you don’t have the ability to pay your taxes, then they start taking your land, your cattle, your animals, and your property. If you speak out against the empire then you’re arrested, and the penalty for speaking against the empire is crucifixion. Don’t miss that, because that’s important in Jesus’ story. That’s why Jesus is crucified, because he was a threat to the empire.

Yet, Jesus starts his first teaching in Matthew with this long sermon, and it goes on into chapter seven.

I don’t know how many of you watch the series on Amazon Prime called “The Chosen’, but “The Chosen” has a great scene about this. Their interpretation is that they have the character of Jesus say, “I’m giving them a map to know where to find me.” Matthew 5:1-11 is a map. Think about that.

Jesus is saying he is going to be with the poor, with the grieving, with the humble, with those who seek justice, with those who show mercy, with those who are listening for God, with those who make peace, and those who are harassed for being themselves, that’s where Jesus is.

Then, that last line, Matthew 5:11, if you follow me, if you look for righteousness, if you hunger for righteousness, then you also will suffer. But your reward will be great in heaven.

My friends, I think that we need to be honest about where we are in this time and place.

We are living in a time when there is authoritarianism that is trying to rule our lives. They are trying to gain power from the very bottom in Hempfield School District, who doesn’t have a contract for teachers. All the way up. They want to take away freedom.

We are exhausted and afraid. We just need to admit that. Life right now is hard. Admitting your problem is the first step in healing so we need to name that we are exhausted and afraid. The antidote for being exhausted and afraid is awe and wonder, so we have to shift our focus from the stuff we hear on tv to god. Remember that, Jesus First.

We need to shift our focus and realize that we too are loved no matter what you are dealing with in your life, you are loved and you are worthy. You are accepted and you are welcome here. This is a safe space for you. We claim that in our vision that we want to be that safe space for people to be themselves. We want to offer comfort and strength, not because we have answers, but because we are on a journey ourselves for our own answers. We will walk eachother home.

Now, I want to invite you into a few moments of peace. I have the most awesome pictures from the James Webb telescope.

I’m going to begin with the words of God to Job. “Then God said to Job, ‘Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you know. Who set its measurements? Surely you know. Who stretched a measuring tape on it? On what were its footings sunk? Who laid its cornerstone while the morning stars sang in unison and all the divine beings shouted? Can you bind the chains of the Pallades or loose the cords of Orion? Can you lead forth the Maserath in their season or guide the bear with its children? Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth? Can you lift up your voice to the clouds so that a flood of waters may cover you? Can you send forth lightnings? So that they may go and say to you, here we are. Who has put wisdom in the inward parts or given understanding to the mind? Who can tilt the water skins of the heavens when the dust runs into a mass and the clouds cling together?'” – Job 38:4-7

“Then Job answered the Lord, ‘I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore, I have uttered what I did not understand. Things too wonderful for me, That I did not know here and I will speak. I will question you and you declare to me I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye see you. Therefore, I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” – Job 42:1-6

From Psalm 104 “Bless the Lord. Oh, my soul. Oh, Lord. My God. You are very great. You are clothed with honor and majesty, wrapped in light as with a garment. You stretch out the heavens like a tent. You set the beams of your chambers on the waters. You make the clouds your chariot. You ride on the wings of the wind. You make the winds your messengers. Fire and flame your ministers.”

I invite you this week to take some time in nature.

Take a few moments and watch the leaves fall. Appreciate the colors. Put yourself in a place that feeds your spirit.

I’m attracted to running water. So, Brubaker Run makes a beautiful sound. Or if you can walk down the path at Doorworth Park, walk down to the Little Conestoga. Just listen to it or appreciate all that you see, all that our natural world, all the ways that our God is showing us that we’re going into a cycle of death.

That is true, but joy will come in the morning and there will be a resurrection in the spring.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

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Let me begin by saying that this was one of the hardest sermons I have given in a very long time because it does not support my theology.

When I think about God and who God is, I believe in a God of compassion and grace. While there is compassion in our verse today (Matthew 25:31-46), there is no grace—none. And so it challenges us to consider that possibility.

But I want to start with compassion. When I look at the life of Jesus, I see one who was compassionate. Compassion is used four times to describe Jesus, how Jesus felt, and it’s when he’s looking at a crowd of people and he has great compassion for their needs. The word in Greek actually means a lot of feelings inside stirred internally because that’s where they thought that feelings resided, they were internal things. Our definition of compassion is a feeling of sorrow or deep tenderness for one who is suffering or experiencing misfortune. It comes from the Latin calm being with or together pate to suffer. So it’s a suffering with.

When I look at Jesus life, that’s what I saw. I saw one who went with the people, who suffered with the people.

He wasn’t looking for privilege. He wasn’t looking to be in a place that had luxuries or he wasn’t even looking for power. When people started to come in mass, he left. He traveled with the people and went to the people that were hurting, he sat and ate with them. That’s how I see Jesus. That’s the part of God that I think Jesus was showing us.

So what do I do with Matthew 25:31-46? Well, I’ve got to look at the Gospel of Matthew first.

I wanted to talk about compassion, so where’s the compassion in this text? I think that’s the part that makes us love this text We love to hear, you should feed the hungry and you should give drink to those who are thirsty. You should welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, and visit the sick and imprisoned. We want to do that. Yes, that’s our rallying cry.

I associate this with the Outreach Commission. That’s what we want to be.

But the larger context of this is that it’s an apocalyptic scene about the end time and how things are going to end. So let’s look at Matthew’s gospel. To look at Matthew’s total gospel, we have to pay attention to who is the intended audience. Matthew is writing to people who are Jewish but believe in Jesus. They’re trying to figure out how they live that out. There aren’t Christian churches at this time for them to just go over to the Christian church. That didn’t exist. They had been in synagogues. And they were probably either asked to leave or told to leave. They were no longer welcome because they believed, because this is Matthew’s gospel, that Jesus was the Messiah.

So the Messiah had come. Think of the very beginning of Matthew’s gospel. The Messiah in the Jewish faith needs to come, be a human being, and come from the lineage of David. Do you remember how Matthew starts his gospel with that gray lineage and how he is connected to David? He goes back to Adam and Eve. But, he’s connected to, so he’s of the lineage of David. He’s mortal and divine. But he is a human being. In that first scene with Joseph, the angel tells Joseph, this is Emmanuel God with us, this is the one, this is the Messiah.

The whole gospel of Matthew is about Jesus as the Messiah. So Jesus knows the Jewish scriptures well. These people know the Jewish scriptures. They know the traditions and they’re trying to figure out how we continue to observe our Jewish traditions when we’re not allowed in the synagogue.

One of the things that comes with the Messiah is the end times.

When the Messiah comes, so there will be a third temple built in Jerusalem. This is hard because Matthew reads as if the second temple is still there. But it was written after the second temple was destroyed. So, there’s going to be a new temple in Jerusalem. And all the Jews from all over the world are going to be called together. And all people are going to be judged. And those who are evil and sinful will be sent, and Matthew loves the phrase, “to wailing and gnashing of teeth” or you’re going to be with God and you’re in eternity with God. You’re in heaven and everything’s wonderful.

This comes from a church and in the center, it shows Christ the king. So first of all, and our worship commission talked about this. What’s the difference between the son of man and the king?

On Jesus’ right, all are happy and everything’s good. They’ve got crosses and halos around their heads and life is good. Then on his left, which is where the goats go, there’s this beast that’s going to eat them and they look like they’re just in misery. So that’s the wailing and the gnashing of teeth for Matthew.

Matthew puts this as Jesus’s last teaching before his passion. Before Jesus leaves the teaching, he’s got to talk about the end. And because Matthew is probably Jewish and, and he’s talking to a Jewish audience, he lives out this messianic vision of what is going to happen. He’s not going to give up on that.

So, we have three parables that start at the end of the 24th chapter.

The first one is about the bridesmaids. Do you remember the parable of the ten bridesmaids? Where five remember to get oil and five do not. And the five who remember their oil when the bridegroom shows up. They’ve got oil and they go off into eternity. They go off to the wedding feast with the bridegroom. But for the five who do not, the doors are shut and you are not welcome.

Then it’s the parable of the slave owner, the master, and the slaves with talents. A talent is a weight that is worth money. They are given, we talk about talents as gifts, but they are money. It is about money. And the slaves are given different amounts of money. The ones who took the money and did things with the money are congratulated and the one slave who’s afraid takes the talent. He only gets one. He gets his talent and he buries it in the ground and he gets punished because he has done nothing with the money he was given. He hoarded it and did nothing with it.

Again, this idea of the good receives a reward. Those who do wrong receive a punishment. And now, we have this scene where all the people come and Jesus divides them. Christ the King divides them into the sheep and the goats. The sheep are rewarded and the goats receive eternal punishment.

The compassion in this story, because I like compassion and I’m using compassion more than love because I think love has so much we don’t understand what it means to love another person.

But what do we need? We need to be looking out because if we don’t, if we don’t look out, we never see the need of the other. I think we need to take the justice element seriously.

So anytime we have a parable, there is always a surprise. And you might think that the surprise is the fact that the goats are punished. But I’m going to argue that’s not where the surprise is.

And I had a list of them. I mean, I started with children at the border. I went to the border patrol website, the official government border patrol website, cause I don’t trust anybody else’s numbers. I wanted to know how many children came to the border because, to me, those are who we need to be concerned about.

But I also started thinking about the LGBTQ community. Especially how transgender and non-binary people are being picked on. Particularly transgender. And how about women and reproductive health? I could have gone there.

But the reality is, it’s not for me to pick. The surprise in this parable is that neither the ones who did it right or the ones who did it wrong knew that they were right or wrong. That my friends should give us a reason to pause on all of the things that we think we know and all of the people that we are being told need to be controlled.

We need to remember that Christ calls us to compassion. So if there is someone who is suffering, we need to suffer with them. I do think we still look for those who are being picked on, for those who are being denied rights, for those rights that are being taken away, or we’re being told they need to be taken away. We need to be careful.

God is the one who will judge.

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Whenever we hear the words from first chapter of Genesis, we think about the master plan of God’s creativity out of chaos, out of an ugly world of nothing.

God created our world. Genesis paints a marvelous picture of how God did this. In the first chapter of Genesis, we listen to the likes of, “n the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God created light and sky and water and dry ground and God filled it up by creating habitats for animals and plants.

Then, finally, God created human beings and when God was all finished, what did God say? It is good.

You’re all familiar with this story. God made humankind to be like God. Created to reflect the very nature of God. Did you ever stop and wonder why? Why did God bother? Was God bored? Was God lonely? What was God’s motive in all of this creating? Well, to find an answer to this question, we go searching the scriptures to find out a little more about God.

I read to you today from Psalm 19. Listen to what the psalmist tells us about God.

“The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day, they pour forth speech. Night after night, they reveal knowledge. Yet they have no speech and they have no words. No sound is heard from them yet. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the end of the world.” Psalm 19.

I believe God is revealing God’s self through the action of creation. God’s omnipresence, God’s all encompassing presence is revealed in God’s artistic act of creation. God’s spirit surrounds us in the air and the sea and the mountains, even though you hear no words.

The sounds that you do hear are the very presence of God.

Have you ever perched yourself on the edge of a cliff and the wind blew through your hair onto your face? Or have you ever sat on the sands of the beach and listened to the rhythm of the waves crashing onto the surface? Or have you ever lingered in your garden watching the movement of the bees and the butterflies and the birds? What did you feel in these moments when you were surrounded by God’s creation? Did you feel peace, tranquility, comfort?

I would like to suggest what you were feeling is love. The Bible clearly tells us God is love. We see it from the very beginning. It’s always been about love. In all of creation, God created love.

Why? Because as scripture tells us in 1 John, God is love. Love. It’s just who God is. I’m here to tell you, love is how we were created to be. We are children of God and that makes us children of love.

The scripture test for today says God created human beings. He created them to be godlike. He created them to reflect God’s image. You my friends were designed by love you were designed by love in God’s image thus you were made to be loving.

Genesis is pretty clear That God created us for a very specific purpose, we’re to be like God. We are to be a reflection of God’s image. In other words, we are to look like God.

And how do we live up to God’s expectation of us being God’s image bearers? What does a loving God, a loving image person look like? What are we to look like?

First of all. According to Eugene Peterson, God made us to be responsible for tending God’s created world. We are to love our planet, and we do that by tending to the fish in the sea and the birds in the air. We are to be intentional in preserving life. We are to ensure all God’s critters and grasses are preserved. This is a declarative act. Call to action by God. The words we heard today say we are responsible for the planet.

Other biblical versions use harsher language that say humankind is to rule over all of creation. Some say humankind has been given dominion over the critters and the trees, but a loving interpretation, the one Peterson uses says we are to be stewards of the planet. We are to care for it.

The creation story clearly tells us that we have been given a responsibility to nurture creation.

But secondly, and in my opinion, even more importantly, the creation story tells us we are to love creation. Again, taking on an image of God means we are to be loving.

What does that look like? We know that love is a word that has multiple meanings. What images come to your mind when you hear the word love? We can love ice cream. I know I do. We love our siblings and our children. But that’s a different kind of love than what we have for our spouses.

Love is beautiful. Love it evokes the best in us and also the fiercest in us. I believe what the scripture is telling us to do is to love like God loves.

If we are to be like God than we must imitate God, but here’s the thing God doesn’t love like we love. We humans love in what is more a reactive manner. When we love, it’s because we find the object of our love pleasing to us. I love a Dairy Queen Blizzard with all its candy and ice cream blended into a tasty treat. I love them. Because they tantalize my taste buds. We humans love by our senses. When we see or smell, taste or touch something that is pleasing, we love it. You may have fell in love with your spouse because of his or her beauty, or because he or she was a good cook. This is the way humans love. Human love is reactive. We respond to our environments, but God’s love is different.

God’s love is not a reaction to the senses, rather God’s love is transformative. God’s love is creative. You see, here’s the thing about love. It’s not static. Love is an action word. God was busy during the creation week. God started off with nothing. Just chaos and God got busy creating land and sea and critters and plants. Then, the most marvelous act of his love was when God created us.

God created humankind. God was so busy that week that God got tired, didn’t he? So, what did he do? He rested. He set aside a day of all of this busy work so that we can rest, revive, refresh, and reflect. God needed a day of rest because creating is hard work.

Loving can be exhausting. You know that’s true. It’s not always easy to love. It’s especially hard to love like God loves. It’s not easy to create goodness from the ugly, but that is what God did. And that is what God commands us to do. Therefore, we are also called to do just as God loves.

God’s creation story is a call to action. We are called to transform lives.

We are not just to slumber and bask in the comfortable, peaceful, sunny meadows of life where we love to hang out watching those wildflowers sway in the breeze, birds flying in the air and the wind moving the clouds around in those remarkable shapes. We are to be busy. We are to always be on the move.

We are to be instruments for God’s creative and transforming love. See, here’s the thing, you know, God never stops creating. God created the world and God continues to create the world as an act of love. I know this and you know this because you and I can see it in the face of a newborn baby, in the blossom of a flower, in the metamorphosis of a caterpillar to a butterfly, at the dawning of each new day, and we are offered the opportunity to be awakened and changed because God loves us.

When we invite God’s love, we too can create something lovely out of the chaos of this world, when we too become agents for change. Daily, my friends, we walk through the muck and mire of the “isms” of this world. Racism, sexism, ageism, and all forms of hate. We must be agents of change and create love.

When we tend to the social soils with loving hearts, chaos that accompanies violence, hatred, anger, while it’s transformed because love transformed. Those things are transformed to the likeness of kindness and justice and mercy. Love in action creates a world of beauty that blossoms into abundance.

Change begins with each one of us.

You may feel small and insignificant, but remember, God created you with love to be love. It’s in your DNA. Do not get comfortable. Today is the day to love God’s people and by loving, I mean nurture, inspire, revive what God has already initiated. Go forth from this world and be an agent of love and make change happen.

You can do that right where you are. Even you, my friends, can make a difference.

Now that is love is an amazing love. Amen.

This Sermon given by Rev. Katherine Seiler

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