The Gospel: Luke 1:39-55
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord." And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever." Prayer: Lord, you have promised that when two or three gather in your name you will be present with them. We depend on that promise today and pray that you will move among us. Lord, we pray that have you inspired Mike's preparation, that you will enliven his presentation and that you will empower our application. Amen The Message: Once again we are in Luke and looking at the Nativity Narrative. Those wondaful words from Mary regarding what is happening to her. I'd like to begin this morning by reading the beginning of The Collect for today. Maybe you would like to turn to the part of the service in the Bulletin and read it with me. "Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself...." There are three wonderful thoughts encapsulated in the beginning of this Collect that I would like to take some time to unpack this morning. I sometimes feel that The Collects, that we read each Sunday, are sort of like the ugly cousins of Scriptures. You know that person who is a part of the family, they are always at the party, but not really part of the party. They kind of sit in the back corner while life goes on around them. They are easily overlooked and generally under-appreciated. We read The Collects because they are there, and we need to, but we don't always stop to examine what they contribute to our Worship experience. One of my Seminary Professors encouraged us to always read the Collect in our Sermon preparation. They said that The Collect is designed to draw together the, sometimes, disparate thoughts and ideas of the readings of the day into a succinct summary with a central promise or message for the readers. As I said, there are three wonderful thoughts encapsulated in the beginning of this Collect. 1. Purify our conscience, Almighty God 2. by your daily visitation 3. that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself. So, briefly, this is an invitation to the Lord to do the work that only he can do. Each of us is very aware I am sure of our own inability to bring about effective and lasting change in our spiritual condition and lives. In this Collect, we recognize that and we petition the Lord to act on our behalf. Purify our conscience, Almighty God. Then we go on to the second point. Do you hear the echoes of the message from last week in this part of The Collect? By your daily visitation. This is not a one-day-a-week proposition. If any of us are going to live up to the potential that is within us we need to be in communication and relationship with the Lord on a daily basis. Do you remember my questions from my message last week? How much time do we set aside for the Lord? How much do we expect that the Holy Spirit will meet with us? Then we get to the major point, in this Collect, for all of us. This is the focus for the words of Scripture that we have heard this morning. It would be easy to skim over this section of The Collect. That when the Lord comes he will find a mansion prepared for him within us. A place prepared for him to rule and reign. Now, this has to be acknowledged as an ongoing work of the Holy Spirit within us. We need to be inviting the participation of the Lord in our lives now. To think that someday, somehow, we will be ready to meet the Lord, if we aren't already in conversation and relationship with him, on a regular basis, seems to me to be a big ask. So as we look at our three readings for this morning we begin with Micah. Micah describes Bethlehem as insignificant and unimportant. It is quite unremarkable in its place among the cities of Israel. Bethlehem as Micah describes it does not have any great reason for pride or great self-esteem in its existence. There is a sense in which Bethlehem is representative of the first section of our Collect from this morning. Bethlehem although small has a clear and pure conscience. When I think of Bethlehem and having a pure conscience I am reminded of David. King David, who also came from Bethlehem, was described as a man after God's heart. That might lead you to believe that he was someone who God would have been happy to do things on behalf of God. He dreamed of building a sanctuary, a temple, a place where people could gather to worship the Lord. But he was prevented from doing this. David wasn't allowed to build the temple because he was a man of war who had shed much blood and some of that blood was murdering Uriah, Bathsheba's husband. Obviously, David's conscience was not pure before the Lord. Micah describes "the one" who will come out of Bethlehem - Jesus - this way:" And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth; and he shall be the one of peace." Jesus is a man of peace, with a pure conscience. That means Jesus is able to be the man of God as he is described in Hebrews. Throughout the Gospels, we see how Jesus set aside time to be in communion with God. There we see the example of the daily meeting with God that is described in The Collect. This is set in stark contrast to the time that Jesus dies on the cross. When he cries out " Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Jesus experiences disconnection from God, at that moment, in a way that he has never experienced it before. Then we come to the Gospel reading for this morning. Luke lays out the story so we can experience it alongside Mary. Now, I have to say that, for me, this section of the Nativity narrative is truly "divine mystery" in process. There are so many questions I want to ask at this point. About Mary, about her relationship with God, about her relationship with Joseph, with her knowledge or lack of knowledge of what is being asked of her. So many questions! But truly here is someone who illustrates the third section of The Collect for today: "that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself." Mary truly is the epitome of a person who is a mansion prepared for the Lord Jesus. Not only that but she is courageous and offers her love and support to Elizabeth. Mary travels to meet with Elizabeth, a journey of 80 to 100 miles, and the two women acknowledge the divine moment that is happening to and through them. Here are two contrasts of the miraculous. Elizabeth, older and for so long a woman unable to bear children, and the young virgin who both should not "be with child." Mary and Elizabeth offer hope to the world in two very different and complementary ways. The stigma of barrenness and the parallel understanding that this must be the result of sin, God's judgment, or God's punishment, is lifted from Elizabeth. So we can all hold out that hope that we too can be reconciled with the Lord. While, at the same time, God can and will do the miraculous in a person's life despite all the reasons to the contrary as he does with Mary. The impossible will become possible to the People of God. And then Mary proclaims the wonder of it all. In those words that so many of us know so well: "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name." So, what might we glean from The Collect and the Scriptures that have been set for us to read and study this morning? Well, one of the clear messages I believe we can continue to engage with is that God is not done with the miraculous. If we are open, as The Collect encourages us to be, then God will come and work in us, he is open to our daily interactions and encounters with him and he is longing to find us prepared and ready when he comes again. A fun slogan I heard and liked sometime back is by Rick Yancy in his book "The Fifth Wave" “God doesn't call the equipped, son. God equips the called. And you have been called.” Or perhaps a different way to look at that is to read Philippians 1:6 "I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ." I think we might actually be back looking at those two questions that keep turning up in my messages: "What is it that you are doing Lord?" "What is my part in it?" But let us end this morning with those wonderful words from Mary: "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name." The Gospel: Luke 3:7-18
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 ax 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." As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. Prayer: Lord, you have promised that when two or three gather in your name you will be present with them. We depend on that promise today and pray that you will move among us. Lord, we pray that have you inspired Mike's preparation, that you will enliven his presentation and that you will empower our application. Amen The Message: You will remember that last week I spent quite a bit of time reflecting on the word "Wilderness." We looked at the people of Israel and their "Wilderness" experiences. The people of Israel journeyed through the "Wilderness" from their time of slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land. They learned to be in relationship with God in the "Wilderness." Then they experienced "Wilderness" again when they went into the Babylonian captivity. In that experience, they had to relearn how to know and to hear God. I talked about how John the Baptist began his ministry in the "Wilderness." He proclaimed his message in the "Wilderness" and people came to hear him. This week, in Luke's Gospel, and we hear the details of John's message. Luke tells us how people come out to hear John, they leave the comfortable and secure setting of the villages and towns, perhaps even the cities and they come to hear this unusual man and his message in the "Wilderness" John could never be accused of being diplomatic in his presentation of his message, or in his response to the people. Within the first few sentences of this morning's reading, he describes the people as "a brood of vipers." He goes on to reject their claim to any kind of theological or spiritual heritage. He rejects their claims to connection to Abraham. He warns that an ax is being laid to the family tree and that any tree not bearing "good" fruit will be "thrown into the fire." What do the people do? I have to say I am surprised. The people don't get angry with John. They don't threaten him. They don't blame their situation on anyone else. They don't argue and reject his claims. They don't pack up their belongings and just go home. What do they do? They ask the question: "What then should we do?" Wow! Now that is some kind of preaching. You use words, descriptions, and threatening language, that in any normal context would be considered insulting and denigrating and the people you are talking to want to know what their response should be. They want to know what they can do to amend their lives. How can they change? What are the next steps they should take? Not very long ago I was asked for a short description of what I thought the role of a preacher or preaching should be? I have heard a wide variety of descriptions, but I have to say that the one that is close to the top of my list is: "Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." I didn't create that description. I am not that clever. But I have to say it encapsulates what I hope might happen on some Sundays when I stand up to share my thoughts on any given passage of Scripture. I know that there are people in the congregation who desperately need to hear something that will bring them comfort and reassurance. I understand that often people come to church looking for what they are familiar with. They feel challenged and sometimes they feel battered by the circumstances of their life. They come to church looking to be reassured, they know that there is a place where they can be reassured. I also know that there are likely to be some people who are feeling fairly settled and at ease in their relationship with the church and perhaps even with the Lord. They are OK with how things are and not necessarily looking for things to be different. I hope perhaps that these people will be a little shaken by what they experience in worship. So, I hope that those who need assurance and affirmation will receive it. While those who need to be shaken up will also receive something they might consider. If on any given Sunday someone was to leave with the question "What should we do?" running through their mind I think I would be happy to have been a part of that. A few weeks ago I said I thought that perhaps I would take some time to talk about the prayer we pray each before the Sermon. I am not going to look at the whole prayer this morning, but I thought I would look at the first and last sections. In the beginning, we affirm that the Holy Spirit will be with us. Then we say that we are depending on the Holy Spirit being active among us. The words we use are very purposeful. I wonder how many of us carry that expectation with us into the week? Do we look for the activity of the Holy Spirit in our everyday lives? Then at the end of the prayer, we pray that the Lord will empower our application. What do we mean by that? Are there things that we will attempt to do differently in the coming week because of the message of the Sermon and the message of the Eucharist? Will we seek to remember what we heard and what we did today on Tuesday or Wednesday? What would it look like if the Lord did indeed empower our application? Now I spoke briefly last week about how we view prophets. What we expect their message to us to be. When the people ask John what they should do he gives them a list of things that they might consider correcting. They ask "What should we do?" This morning I want to take a slightly different approach to John. I believe it is the same message but presented in a slightly different way. I believe that what John is asking of us this morning is that we consider our priorities. To ask ourselves what or who gets preference in our lives? When John responds to each of the groups who ask "What should we do?" he gives them specific answers. When he addresses the crowd he challenges them to be generous with what they have. When he addresses the tax collectors he challenges them to have integrity in their dealings with others. When he addresses the soldiers he challenges them to not abuse the power that they have over others. What do we think that John would say to us in this time and place? Well, I have to think that it would have something to do with how we prioritize our time. How much time in our week do we allow ourselves to consider "the things of God?" Do we make room for the Holy Spirit? Do we expect that we will have moments this week when we are aware of the presence of "the Holy" in our lives? Do we allow ourselves the time to ask the question: "what should we do?" Then do we allow time for the answer to come to us? Brother Keith Nelson shared, in one of the SSJE sermons, this week, entitled Night Life, how Jesus would take time to pray. Jesus would actually spend the whole night in prayer. I find that concept very difficult. There have been times when I have attempted to pray, for a long period of time, but I don't know that I have ever prayed all night. Of course, I don't think that is the point that Brother Keith was trying to make. What he was really trying to do is remind us that we need to make the things of God, of prayer, a priority in our lives. Brother Keith put it this way in his Sermon: "Like sponges, our waking lives become quickly saturated: full of relationships, interactions, activity, stimuli, the expectations of others, the demands we place upon ourselves, the tug of our past and our future. This is a kind of fullness, though unfulfilling without respite. Without some empty space, there will be no room for God to abide. In order to fully live out our callings, to make wise and inspired choices directed by God’s will, to become conduits of God’s healing, or to offer words that reflect Christ’s good news, we must come to know the withdrawal of Christ to the lonely mountaintops, if only from time to time. We must come to know the silence and darkness of night and the curtain of rest it gathers around us. We must come to know a space set apart for God to work in us, and to allow time for such work to unfold without our help or our surveillance." Brother Keith goes on to say that unless we are willing to separate ourselves and spend time with God, we are at risk of missing God. "Otherwise, we are in danger of a bloated, blinding, loud, and supremely self-directed journey with God. Our choices will reflect our own will. Our words to others will be mere self-engineered problem-solving. Our words of good news will become platitudes and well-wishing. Our spirits will be stuck at noonday, and fluorescent bulbs will eclipse the flickering of candle or star. We will be awake from dusk until dawn, as Jesus was. But we will now know the night." What richness we may experience if we are willing to follow Jesus' example. We will be better equipped to answer the question: "what should we do?" " Jesus deliberately withdrew from the actions and encounters that others had come to recognize as sure proof of his special nature and identity. We do not know the contents of Jesus’s nocturnal prayer. But we have come to know that a pure, prodigal love guided him more surely than the noonday sun in his darkest moments, and that the same love – his love in us – burns pure and clear. Such love grows deep and bold in a space apart, swaddled by the night, with no witness but God alone. And then, spent beyond counting, we meet the new day, new joys, new possibilities, spending the fullness that only God can give." |
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