Love is our theme for this fourth Sunday in Advent, and that seems like something we shouldn’t have to define, but right now I feel like we do.

I decided to define love by saying what it is not. It is called a negative argument. Love is not violence against someone who has different beliefs or values from us. Love is not violence against when we see our brothers and sisters of any faith or no faith hurt. That is not love. When we see it, and we remain silent, that is not love. Love is not cruel words meant to create hardship or pain for another; that is not love.

Then the scripture from 1 Corinthians came back to me, because we need a little bit of positivity here. “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth.” – 1 Corinthians 13:4-6

Our God has made it quite clear that the expectation of us is that we love. We are to love our God. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves. We are to love the stranger among us. We are to love our enemy, and we are to love ourselves. That is the commandment of God. We are to be people of love doing loving acts for others.

The Isaiah scripture today, Isaiah 7:10-16, was written 3,000 years ago and was written in Hebrew. Then in about the third century BCE, it was translated into Greek.

A lot of people didn’t speak Hebrew; the religious leaders spoke Hebrew, the scholars spoke Hebrew, but the people spoke Greek because that was the language of business at that time. There was a translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek. That was called the Septuagint translation. Sep meaning seven, it was the translation of the 70 because it was translated by 72 translators, six from each of the 12 tribes of Israel. So remember, like that’s still important. The 12 tribes of Israel were still important, so six people from each tribe got to come in, and they translated it, and when they translated it, they wrote, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel.”

However, it wasn’t really accurate to the Hebrew. Fortunately, the NRSV, which is the Bible that you have in your pews, instead of using the Septuagint, went back to the original Hebrew. This is also a whole lot closer to what I have. “Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son.” – Matthew 1:23.

Do you see the differences? One, she’s a virgin. It’s just she’s young. One place, she shall conceive, future tense. The other one, she’s already pregnant a thousand years before Jesus is born. I just told you all of that to say that this is one of the scriptures that Christians, particularly some Jewish people, feel that we have co-opted to make it fit Jesus. Because Matthew used the Septuagint when he wrote, so that is what was in Matthew’s gospel, and they like that to match. People want you to read it in Matthew and then go back to Isaiah and find it.

Scripture’s messy, folks, it’s not clean. It’s precise. But today is Joseph’s day, and I don’t wanna take time away from Joseph. I want you to think for a moment what you know about Joseph.

I’m going to guess that you know Joseph as the one who did what the angel told him to do. He gets lifted as that he gets celebrated. The angel told him not to be afraid, take Mary, and that’s what he did. But let’s give Joseph a little bit more credit. Not that, you know, if an angel shows up, listen to him, but we don’t all get angels. We can all sit and think about what the right thing to do is.

Joseph and Mary were not two teenagers who fell in love, and this was all wonderful. That’s not what marriage was in the first century. Mary was a liability to her family, especially when she was pregnant without being married. But Mary was a liability even before she was pregnant. She was a drain on the family system, so she needed to go. She needed to be married off. Where’s the dowry? Where’s the money for her? Let’s get her out. She’s of marrying age. Let’s get this woman married.

Joseph is portrayed as such a nice, innocent young man. What was good about that was that they did not portray the harshness of how the people lived under Roman oppression. I tell you that, but they depicted it well because the people were really struggling with poverty under Roman oppression.

But I think Joseph really struggled with this as he followed the angel. He looked at this situation, and he said, “What does Mary need?” Mary needs to be protected, and she needs security. She needs safety and security. He realized he could provide that. Joseph knew that he could do that. If Mary were pregnant out of wedlock, she would have been killed. That punishment is stoning. She would not have survived. So whether the baby was God’s or not, he was saving a life by taking her as his wife.

I think he just needs credit. Joseph needs credit for being the kind of man who is willing to stand up and say, I choose family. I can choose to be the earthly father of Jesus, and he accepted that choice.

They chose love. In the midst of fear, they chose love against all odds, and they knew that being together was better than being apart.

We are called to choose love.

As I sat with that, what came to me was how I love the church calendar because it is circular or maybe a spiral. We come around to the same stories, and hopefully we grow a little bit. I read the first verses of John’s Gospel on Christmas Eve and on Good Friday. I know that you probably didn’t pick up on that, so I’ll clue you in to that.

But I went back to see how I was closing my sermons in Lent, and this is what I said in Lent. One of the pieces that I love about the church year is that Lent and Holy Week tie to Advent and Christmas. So to complete the circle, how we treat others matters. What is the most loving thing to do now?

To quote Stephen Sills, love the ones you’re with, and remember from the wisdom of Stephen Sondheim, and maybe this will come back to you. Careful. The things you say. Children will listen. Careful the things you do, children will see. Learn. Children may not obey, but children will listen. Children will look to you for which way to turn, to learn what to be careful before you say, listen to me, children will listen.

May it be so. Amen.

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When I approach scripture, I usually look for what is it that catches my eye, or what draws my attention.

That phrase, catching people, was the phrase that stood out for me. I want you to think about, if I ask you to catch a person, think about what your body would do.

Would you be like the rugby player on the left, where you come in like this and take them down? Or are you going to catch them with open arms like the right? Because to me, that is drastically different.

This is my struggle with evangelism because when we talk about evangelism, when I think about evangelism, my experience of evangelicals is it’s the rugby takedown. They’re coming for me and they’re going to grab me and take me down. They remind me that I need to say that prayer or I’m not.

There was a trust exercise that I learned many years ago, I have no idea how many, so we won’t count. But where you stood in front someone with your arms crossed and you were to fall into their arms. It was with open arms that you were caught, not taken down. Can you feel the difference?

This is the grace of love, right?

To me it is. I think that is who we are called to be. We’re called to be people who catch people with open arms. We catch people who are falling, who are struggling, who need a soft lane. We can come in and help them, help them to find, not even just a lane, we can find life, new life, the life giving water that is available through Jesus Christ.

This story is actually the calling of the disciples, even though it comes out of the fifth chapter of Luke.

You think, wow, by this time we ought to be somewhere further along in the story. But, you have got to remember that Luke is the one that gives us the large birth narrative. So the first two chapters are all about his birth. Then the third chapter is getting started in the baptism and the wilderness. The fourth chapter, he starts his ministry.

Luke is different in that respect. In Luke, he is already teaching and healing people before he calls the disciples. So he’s already active in the community. In fact, he’s already been to Simon’s house. He goes to Simon’s house because Simon’s mother-in-law is ill. You might remember that story because it’s also in Mark. But here, he doesn’t know Simon. He goes because the mother-in-law is ill and he heals her. And I guess he gets to know Simon a little bit.

Then he meets him again at the lakeshore. where Simon’s coming in. This Simon is Simon Peter, or who we know better as just Peter. This is the good news for us. We should love Peter because Peter makes all of the mistakes that we would make. He does it for us. And Jesus never once shames him or blames him. He accepts Peter for who Peter is and loves him just the same. Continues to have him right by his side, teaching him.

So here in this moment, they go out deep. Jesus does this wonderful teaching. Out in the boat, Jesus looks at Peter and says, go out into the deep water and put down your nets. This is where, if this was contemporary, at least in my head, I heard Peter saying, they’ve done that, don’t need to do it again. Right now I’m headed in for a good meal, a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow’s another day. Tomorrow will be good. Tomorrow we’ll catch. Are you kidding me? But that’s not it for Jesus. Yes, that’s not actually written in the book. The author is quite kinder to Peter. I hear more of Peter’s staff than the writer did, but they go out again. Peter says, all right, if you say so, but they go to deep water. That means they go to someplace they haven’t gone before. They go and try fishing in a different spot, not their local hole, favorite fishing hole, which brought them nothing. They’re going to go to deeper water. They’re going to go where Jesus wants them to go rather than where they’re comfortable going.

This is a metaphor, people. I want you to be thinking about the fact that that means that we will be called to go where we may not be comfortable.

Instead of going to all the comfortable places, the places that we like to go, because that’s where the fish, the people are. That’s why I chose this picture, that you got to be fishing somewhere deep to find a fish that big. Right? Look how he’s holding the fish.

Yes, I think about all these things when I take pictures, right? He’s holding it with open arms. He’s not just holding it up. That fish has some weight to it, right? Like this will be a strong man pose, but he’s not trying. He’s not even trying a strong man pose. He’s supporting that fish. I don’t know if that fish is gonna become dinner or not. I don’t know what kind of fish it is. That’s my ignorance. Maybe it’s a fish that you would rather put back into the water. But it’s that support.

That’s where I think Paul’s message (1 Corinthians 15:1-11) comes in too. That it’s not about being perfect. In fact, Paul’s story is that he was the worst. Paul is clear, “I was the worst sinner.” Paul specifically attacked the people who believed in Jesus. He was a Pharisee who went after the people who believed in Jesus and harassed them. Even almost to the point of death. He was a horrible person to the Christians, and Christ came even to him and invited him in to know the love and grace, the forgiveness that was available to even him.

I think that we are called to be those who are out catching people, catching people in that supported way.

But I’m afraid that we get caught up thinking about ourselves and what do we need? What’s wrong with our lives when there are others who are struggling? And need us to turn our attention out to them and maybe to look in places we haven’t looked before. Because friends, there are those among us in our community who are unsure of their housing, who are unsure of where their next meal is going to come from, who are unsure if they’re going to pay the rent or the doctor.

Those people need our support. They need the hope that we have based on our faith. They need to know that someone actually cares about them.

There’s also those with the hidden issues that we don’t see. Maybe their sitting down like this person, we might have a clue that there’s issues. They may have experienced a great loss. They may be struggling with how to move forward in life. They may feel like life is just crumbling around them. They don’t have that support system, and that is who I think we are called to be as we catch people and help them have a safe landing.

So I want you this week to pray about this. I want you to pray about who it is that God wants you to help.

Because when we call on God, when we put ourselves out there for Christ, the spirit will show up and you may be surprised by who it is that needs help. Maybe they won’t be in that deep of a water or that far out of their comfort zone because you may find out that someone’s hiding issues because we’re very good at that.

All of our German ancestry helps us to say, that’s my dirty laundry and I’ll keep it to myself. We come in here strong and proud, and sometimes the world’s falling apart. We need somebody to help us, to hear us, to affirm us. To encourage us to remind us that God still loves us.

I was in a hospital room this week and I said, remember, God is here with you. The person shook their head and said, “I don’t know.” I said, well, I’m here to tell you that I think God is here. Maybe you don’t feel that right now, and maybe this illness is in the way, but God still loves you. It doesn’t mean, poof, you’re cured. Doesn’t work that way. It means you will not be alone through whatever you are going through. You will not be alone.

We are called to come together, to be building the community of Christ, to be helping others know that they are not alone because right now life is hard.

I was in a conversation this morning where thinking about the pressures of the world and how they try to run our lives and we have to stand up for ourselves and determine what’s the priority.

Those are the decisions that we make each day, and God wants to be one of those priorities. Right up there with family.

We come together to remind ourselves of that. So that we can go out into the world and invite others to know that love and support that we have found here because Christ comes to bring new life to all by catching all those fish. They brought new life to the fishermen, to the community. It meant People were going to eat. Bills were going to be paid.

We trust and rely on each other. That is how we live. Sometimes our world and our country has us thinking about other priorities, but the reality is we will live and thrive when we are community and we help others in our community.

We need to think about what is the impact that we’re going to make. May it be so.

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