Sunday, December 29, 2019 – Christmas 1

Christmas 1 2019

Matthew 2:13-23

Our Savior’s La Crosse

 

A philosopher once wrote:

I tried to find out for myself, from the start, when I was a child, what was right and what was wrong—because no one around me could tell me. And now… I realize I need someone to show me the way and to blame me and praise me, by right not of power but of authority, I needed a father.

I thought I knew it, and that I had myself in hand, I don’t know any longer.

            (The First Man by Albert Camus)

 The Nobel prize winning philosopher and writer who share those thoughts was Albert Camus. Camus died in 1960 but his last manuscript was not published until 1994. The book was incomplete, based on a manuscript found in the wreckage of the car accident that killed him. The story is autobiographical, about his childhood growing up in Algeria. The book includes footnotes that are actual notes he wrote to himself about what he was writing. The quote I just read to you was one of his footnotes.

Camus’ father died in a battle in France when Albert was just 1 year old. As an adult, as a husband and as a father of two adolescent children, Camus found himself longing for his father, thinking his father could tell him what he needed to know about right and wrong. He wanted his father to tell him how to live. Apparently Camus was feeling lost. He was trying to figure out the meaning of life and he felt lost.

Feeling lost isn’t uncommon. Most of us feel that way at one point or another. Sometimes we are, literally, lost. Other times, like for Camus, we might be trying to figure out how we ought to live and simply don’t have a clue. Those are the moments when we want someone to tell us, just tell us what we need to know.

Camus was not a religious man. He didn’t have a faith to lean on that would show him the way forward. We do.

So here we are, on the first Sunday after Christmas, our ugly holiday sweater day, reading Matthew’s story about the slaughter of the innocents.

Whenever this text comes up, I wonder why Matthew felt compelled to tell the story. There is no historical proof, no documentation of Herod ever having all of the boys 2 years old and under living in Bethlehem killed. No other gospel records the event. Just Matthew. Which begs the question: why? Why did Matthew make this story part of his telling of the birth narrative? The story of babies being killed is horrible…

Think politically. What kind of king or ruler or leader finds the possibility of another leader taking his place so threatening that he would have every baby boy in his kingdom killed to prevent the future leader from growing up?

 

Maybe Matthew tells the story to remind us, in the midst of our holiday season, what kind of world Jesus was born into. Maybe Matthew tells the story because he wants to remind us how desperately the world needed Jesus, how desperately our world still needs the ministry and the message Jesus brought.

Jesus came into a world that desperately needed to be shown the way. Jesus came into a world that needed to be taught how they ought to live. Jesus came into a world that yearned for an authoritative voice.

We live in a world that continues to need to be shown the way. We need to be taught how we ought to live. We yearn for authoritative voices.

Think about Mary and Joseph and their flight to Egypt with a newborn baby. They were political refugees, traveling because they had been warned that the king was going to kill baby boys. They journeyed to Egypt because they trusted God when God told them to go—and they trusted the land of Egypt to provide them with safe harbor.

There are families around the world seeking refuge in other countries because of the violence in their own homelands. They go, trusting they will find safe harbor.

When God told us that God loved the world, and called us to love one another, God didn’t put boundaries or borders on the love God called and calls us to share. Neither should we.

Each of us, after all, is on a journey. Our journeys may vary. Our destinations may or may not be clear. What we all need to know and to trust is that we are never alone.

God is with us.

God is speaking to us.

God is showing us the way.

Just as God is with every traveler, whatever their reason for traveling.

Amen.

 

December 25, 2019 – Christmas Day

Christmas Day 2019

Our Savior’s La Crosse

Luke 2:8-20

 

There was a man and a woman in a stable behind an inn.

They had a baby that the woman wrapped in bands of cloth. She laid him in a manger.

Pretty ordinary stuff.

Or was it? How many women gave birth to their babies in stables? How many babies were laid in mangers?

I have no idea.

Rather than ordinary, perhaps I should say the birth was basic. Everything was stripped down to the most basic necessities. Two parents. A baby. Cloths to wrap the baby in. A place to lay the baby for it to sleep. A roof over the family’s head. There wasn’t much more than that, at least according to what Luke wrote.

Then there were shepherds, working at night to protect their sheep from predators. Their work was ordinary. Basic.

What happened next was anything but basic, anything but ordinary.

An angel appeared in the sky.

The angel’s appearance was sudden, it was bright, and it was terrifying.

The angel spoke to the shepherds, bringing the shepherds “good news of great joy for all the people” (Luke 2:10).

A Savior was born, the angel said.

The messiah, the Lord.

The angel told the shepherds where to find the newborn baby, and then the angel was joined by a “multitude of the heavenly host” (Luke 2:13).

Again, it happened suddenly.

Suddenly, the multitude was saying

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace…” (Luke 2:14).

 

The shepherds went to Bethlehem. The shepherds found Mary and

Joseph and their baby. The shepherds told Mary and Joseph what the angel had said about their baby boy.

Luke tells us “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

 

The shepherds’ words were a lot to ponder. For Mary. For us.

Every day Jesus comes to us.

Every day Jesus is born in our hearts.

Every day Jesus arrives, in our hearts and in our minds, silently slipping into our world of joys and sorrows, pains and pleasures.

Jesus enters our lives and fills us.

We are ordinary people. The presence of Jesus in our hearts and minds, in our daily lives, is a brilliance of love, grace, forgiveness, and peace.

This is good news.

This is glorious.

In his own Christmas sermon the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther wrote that Christ took our birth from us and absorbed it into his own, making us pure and holy. He wrote that this occurred so that we might “rejoice and glory in Christ’s birth as much as if [we ourselves] had been born of Mary” (“Christmas Day” in Sermons of Martin Luther volume 1, Baker Book House Press, 1988, p. 144).

And so this morning we celebrate that Jesus was born.

We celebrate that Jesus was born, knowing that because of his birth, on this and every day, we are born again.

Amen.

Wednesday, December 25, 2019 – Christmas Day

Christmas Day 2019

Our Savior’s La Crosse

Luke 2:8-20

 

There was a man and a woman in a stable behind an inn.

They had a baby that the woman wrapped in bands of cloth. She laid him in a manger.

Pretty ordinary stuff.

Or was it? How many women gave birth to their babies in stables? How many babies were laid in mangers?

I have no idea.

Rather than ordinary, perhaps I should say the birth was basic. Everything was stripped down to the most basic necessities. Two parents. A baby. Cloths to wrap the baby in. A place to lay the baby for it to sleep. A roof over the family’s head. There wasn’t much more than that, at least according to what Luke wrote.

Then there were shepherds, working at night to protect their sheep from predators. Their work was ordinary. Basic.

What happened next was anything but basic, anything but ordinary.

An angel appeared in the sky.

The angel’s appearance was sudden, it was bright, and it was terrifying.

The angel spoke to the shepherds, bringing the shepherds “good news of great joy for all the people” (Luke 2:10).

A Savior was born, the angel said.

The messiah, the Lord.

The angel told the shepherds where to find the newborn baby, and then the angel was joined by a “multitude of the heavenly host” (Luke 2:13).

Again, it happened suddenly.

Suddenly, the multitude was saying

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace…” (Luke 2:14).

The shepherds went to Bethlehem. The shepherds found Mary and

Joseph and their baby. The shepherds told Mary and Joseph what the angel had said about their baby boy.

Luke tells us “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

The shepherds’ words were a lot to ponder. For Mary. For us.

Every day Jesus comes to us.

Every day Jesus is born in our hearts.

Every day Jesus arrives, in our hearts and in our minds, silently slipping into our world of joys and sorrows, pains and pleasures.

Jesus enters our lives and fills us.

We are ordinary people. The presence of Jesus in our hearts and minds, in our daily lives, is a brilliance of love, grace, forgiveness, and peace.

This is good news.

This is glorious.

In his own Christmas sermon the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther wrote that Christ took our birth from us and absorbed it into his own, making us pure and holy. He wrote that this occurred so that we might “rejoice and glory in Christ’s birth as much as if [we ourselves] had been born of Mary” (“Christmas Day” in Sermons of Martin Luther volume 1, Baker Book House Press, 1988, p. 144).

And so this morning we celebrate that Jesus was born.

We celebrate that Jesus was born, knowing that because of his birth, on this and every day, we are born again.

Amen.

Tuesday, December 24, 2019 – Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve 2019

Our Savior’s La Crosse

Luke 2:1-14

 

We were standing in total, complete darkness, underground.

Our guide had just turned off the only light—a single light bulb suspended from the ceiling.

We were crowded into a small space, maybe eight feet by twelve. There were 20 or so of us standing. In the dark.

It was the root cellar of a house in Memphis, Tennessee.

The house was built by Jacob Burkle, a white man who operated the stockyards in Memphis. He began harboring runaway slaves in his cellar around 1855, continuing to shelter them until the abolition of slavery. His was one house of many that constituted the Underground Railroad (slavehavenmemphis.com).

As I stood in the darkness I tried to imagine what it must have been like for the people fleeing slavery, what it must have been like to hide in the dark, to move from place to place under cover of darkness. To fear being seen in the light of day.

Darkness is not evil.

During the time of slavery, darkness brought cover, darkness brought safety, darkness led to freedom. It was the light that was feared.

Imagine hiding in a dark cellar—and someone turning on a light. Back then, it would have been someone lighting a candle or a lantern. Imagine the panic that would have ensued. Or, if not panic, imagine the deflating, deafening feeling of defeat.

In that region there were shepherd living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid…” (Luke 2:8-10a).

The shepherds were keeping watch in the dark. Their darkness wasn’t “city-dark,” like what we have at night here in La Crosse. The shepherds worked in the darkness of night without light.

When the angel came, it was the glory of the light that shone around them that the shepherds feared. The angel’s light was sudden. The angel’s light was terrifying.

We use the language of light and dark loosely in our Christian tradition, and in our society. We make darkness evil. We make light good. We fear shadows. We celebrate what is luminous.

Darkness is not evil. What happens in the dark can be. Just as light is not inherently good. What happens in the light can be.

What happens in the dark can be good. What happens in the light can be evil.

In the gospel of John it is written that Jesus said “I am the light of the world” (8:12). But the good news of his birth, the good news that the angel brought to the shepherds, that good news came in the dark of night.

According to the gospel of Luke, according to our gospel reading tonight, Jesus was born in the light of day. The news of his birth came to the shepherds at night.

In the darkness of the night a message of love came to the world. In the darkness of night a song of peace came—a song of peace on earth. In the darkness of night glory was sung. And that glory shone around the shepherds. And they were afraid. Of the light.

This evening we celebrate the stillness, the darkness of the night. We celebrate the shepherds who, in spite of their fear, traveled to Bethlehem to see the child Jesus, wrapped in cloth and lying in a manger.

We celebrate the birth of Jesus, grateful for his love.

Amen.

Sunday, December 15, 2019 – Advent 3

Advent 3 2019

Our Savior’s La Crosse

Matthew 11:2-11

 

John was in prison.

John heard what the Messiah was doing. He couldn’t believe his ears.

He sent his disciples to Jesus to ask Jesus “Are you the one to come or are we to wait for another?” (Matthew 11:3).

John was the one about whom it was written ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ (Matthew 11:10).

Jesus said of John: “among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11).

John was in prison.

John received the call to be a prophet before he was born, while yet in his mother’s womb. John dedicated his life to preparation, preparing the way for the Lord. John was arrested for provoking religious authorities. His vision of the ministry of the coming Messiah challenged their comfort, challenged their authority, challenged their leadership.

John was in prison.

He began to doubt.

“When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” (Matthew 11:2-3).

He was behind bars. He was in a shadowy place, maybe feeling some despair.

Can you sense the pain in his message: “Are you the one?”

 Was John questioning everything he spent his life doing? Did his life seem to him to have been futile? Did he think he wasted his time? Was he disappointed? Was he feeling betrayed?

When John’s disciples asked Jesus “Are you the one?” Jesus’s answer was swift and clear: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them” (Matthew 11:4-5).

The blind receive sight.

The lame walk.

The lepers are cleansed.

The deaf hear.

The dead are raised.

The poor have good news brought to them.

Actually, the blind, the lame, the lepers, the deaf, the dead and the poor all received good news. They received healing. They received cleansing. They received new life.

This is what Jesus himself said he brought to the world. This is what Jesus brings to our world. Healing. Cleansing. New life.

Since the time of Jesus and before his coming, people have had their own ideas about what his coming would look like and what he would be able to do. Often what people longed for or are longing for was or is rooted in what they believe they need.

Our expectations are born out of our needs.

What happens when our needs aren’t met? Not even by Jesus?

Do we like John, ask “Are you the one?”

In his sermon for this third Sunday in Advent Martin Luther wrote:

“In order to keep your faith pure, do nothing else than stand still, enjoy its blessings, accept Christ’s works, and let him bestow his love on you….

After this, think of nothing else than to do to your neighbor as Christ has done to you, and let all your works together with all your life be applied to your neighbor. Look for the poor, sick and all kinds of needy, help them and let your life’s energy here appear, so that they may enjoy your kindness” (Sermons of Martin Luther, volume 1, p. 110-111).

Luther is telling us, rather than waiting to be healed—go and heal others.

Rather than waiting to be cleansed—go and cleanse others.

Rather than waiting and watching for new life—go and give your life’s energy to others.

Then see, see what happens in your own life and heart.

Then stand still, enjoying Christ’s blessing.

Stand still, letting Christ’s love be bestowed on you, not because of what you have done for others, but because of what Jesus’s love does for you and through you.

For, where there is Christ there is love.

Where there is love there is hope.

Where there is hope there is peace.

Amen.

Sunday, December 8, 2019 – Advent 2

Advent 2 2019

Our Saviors La Crosse

Romans 15:4-6

Matthew 3:1-12

Ash Wednesday (1930)

Because I do not hope to turn again

Because I do not hope

Because I do not hope to turn

Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope

I no longer strive to strive towards such things

(Why should an aged eagle stretch its wings?)

Why should I mourn

The vanished power of the usual reign?

(T. S. Eliot Selected Poems Harbrace Paperbound Library 1930, p. 83)

I know, it is unusual to use a poem entitled “Ash Wednesday” on the second Sunday of Advent. But, the poem is perfect for our Advent season.

Let me read the first three lines of the poem again:

Because I do not hope to turn again

Because I do not hope

Because I do not hope to turn

The repetition of the words “I do not hope…” is breath-taking.

St. Paul wrote to the Romans: “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4).

Advent is our season of hope. Hope is the word we name today as part of our faith foundation. Jesus came to the world bringing hope.

In this day and age, Advent may seem more a season of preparation than a season of hope. We have prepared our church building for Christmas. We are preparing our homes and yards for Christmas. We are preparing for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day—buying gifts and planning menus and choosing hymns and checking on candles…

More authentically, historically, Advent was and is a season of hope, a time of anticipation, a time when people were hoping for and anticipating the 2^nd coming of Christ. Most specifically those first generations of Christians, like those St. Paul wrote to in Rome, expected Jesus to return to the world soon.

With that hope for the return of Jesus came a bit of anxiety—anxiety rooted in the knowledge that, when Christ returned there would be judgment. As John the Baptist told the Pharisees and Sadducees: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (Matthew 3:7).

I don’t know. Do we get the anticipation of the season? Do we know the fear, the anxiety? Do we wonder: how will we be judged? Are we, like Eliot expresses in his poem, hopeless?

Because I do not hope to turn again

Because I do not hope

Because I do not hope to turn

As I said, the Romans believed Jesus would return soon. They hoped his return would happen in their lifetime. Some believed it would be any day…

Two thousand years later it is difficult to hold onto that “any day” kind of anticipation, let alone the anxiety it might have caused. Do we even believe Jesus will come again?

Do we ask as Eliot asked:

Why should I mourn

The vanished power of the usual reign?

 The kingdom of God may well seem like a vanishing power to us.

Which is precisely the point of the day.

John the Baptist reminds us: “I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up the children of Abraham…” (Matthew 3:9).

Our God is able!

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King once preached: “The ringing testimony of the Christian faith is that our God is able” (“Our God is Able” in Strength to Love, by MLK, Pocket Books, 1963, p. 124).

Later in his “Ash Wednesday” poem T. S. Eliot wrote:

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly

But merely fans to beat the air

The air which is now thoroughly small and dry

Smaller and dryer than the will

Teach us to care and not to care

Teach us to sit still.

(Eliot p. 84)

In the stillness of this hour we learn again and again to care, we learn again and again to hope, we care and we hope believing Jesus will come again to the world.

Until that time, we turn, we turn again toward God, trusting in the God who is able.

Amen.

Sunday, December 1, 2019 – Advent 1

Advent 1 2019

Our Savior’s La Crosse

Isaiah 2:1-5

 

We will never have peace if we cannot imagine what peace looks like.

If we cannot believe peace will come than peace will not come, because peace has not yet been imagined.

We need to be able to articulate—to tell others—what we think peace looks like. If we can imagine what peace looks like, we can take steps that lead toward what it is we see.

Just so, in the 2^nd chapter of the book of Isaiah, the writer of the book imagines the house of God. The writer imagines a house high on a mountain where God reigns, where God lives as a teacher.

Imagine this:

People streaming toward the house of God—a pilgrimage of people.

As the people journeyed toward God’s house on a hill, they said:

“Come let us go to the house of God.” (Isaiah 2:3)

Or was it a chant? Or was it a song? Or was it a spoken hope?

“Come let us go to the house of God, that God may teach us God’s ways…” (Isaiah 2:3).

I don’t often imagine God as a teacher. We might imagine God as an old person. We might imagine God as a warrior. We might imagine God as Creator. We might imagine God as a judge. But as a teacher?

In this reading God sounds like a professor of Ethics, God sounds like someone who is teaching the people who come to God’s house how they ought to live. Specifically, God is teaching them God’s ways to live…

And then, the writer says the people said, or they chanted, or they sang:

“Come let us go to the house of God so that we may walk on God’s paths…” (Isaiah 2:3).

The writer of the verses is saying: God will teach us. (Isaiah 2:4).

The writer concludes that the people journeying to the house of God, after learning from God, beat “their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks” (Isaiah 2:4).

Nation stopped lifting their sword against nation. They learned war no more (Isaiah 2:4).

Their vision of peace: an agrarian society. Farming.

This is what peace looks like, the writer writes. This is what peace looks like.

How do we imagine peace looks?

We cannot have peace if we cannot imagine what peace looks like. If we can imagine what peace looks like, we can take steps that lead toward what it is we see.

James Douglass began the first chapter of his book The Non-Violent Cross (Macmillan Publishing 1966) with these words:

To see reality in our time is to see the world as crucifixion. To see reality is to cut through the blindness of self… To see reality is to be wholly present at the crucifixion of the world; to live reality is to enter into that crucifixion, but to do so, in the phrase of Albert Camus, as neither victim nor executioner. The life of living is a suffering with the world, yet not as a passive victim but  suffering in resistance and in love, experiencing the darkness of crucifixion without surrendering the hope and strength and revolution of resurrection (p. 3).

As Christians, if we want peace to take its place in the reality of our time, we need to root our image of peace in both the crucifixion of Jesus and in his resurrection.

As we say, or chant, or sing our hopes for peace, as we say, or chant, or sing

“Come let us go to the house of God, that God may teach us God’s ways…”

we must listen, we must turn our hopes for peace into a call and response dialog with God.

We call out to God, longing for peace.

God reminds us, God brought Jesus to the world to be our Prince of Peace.

We call out to God, begging for an end to violence and war and suffering; God responds, telling us that in all suffering there is hope. With every death there is resurrection.

God’s responses are not intended to placate us; God’s words are not intended to ignore the pain of the sufferings we see and we experience and we know—

God’s responses are intended to remind us of what peace looks like, so we can begin to imagine peace. Then we can take steps that lead toward what it is we see.

We don’t have to imagine suffering and death, those things surround us.

Our Advent call is to imagine resurrection—to imagine new life.

We imagine new life now, in these moments we are given.

We imagine new life that is eternal, life with God where there is only peace, where there is only love, now and forever.

Amen.