The Rev. Jake Miles Joseph
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
Luke 2:41-52
 
“Now every year, his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents didn’t know it.”
 
They grow-up so fast, don’t they?
 
Many of you have Christmas traditions and they are much like the tradition of Jesus family traveling in this story today. They help us mark the passing of time, they are filled with song, and they remind us how short life is and how important it is to love those around us. Christmas stands out among the holidays, for Christians and for secular celebrants alike, because its music, its colors, its symbols remind us of our loved ones, brings us back to our childhoods, and connects us with milestones in life more than any other holiday—for better and for worse.
 
Today, since we are focused on song and tradition of Christmas singing, in lieu of a long sermon, I am simply going to offer a simple reflection on this idea: There is a great importance to traditions like Christmas Carols and songs across different cultures as a way to take care of each other and to create milestones in life that remind us to slow down and to cherish our loved ones. Christmas music, like what we are singing today from around the world, is a deep connection to a sense of time and place.
 
These songs, the hymns of Christmas, serve as important reminders about life, love, and family—because, friends, life is so short!
 
Just a couple of days ago, after all, Jesus was born in a manger in Jerusalem. Just a couple of days ago the angels sang. Just a couple of days ago the Shepherds left their sheep unattended in the fields and went to worship Jesus. Christmas… Christmas Eve, Santa, the commotion, the presents, the tree, the lights, the family visiting. It all feels like it was just yesterday, doesn’t it!?
 
Today’s Scripture passage comes only verses after the Christmas Story, and yet time has accelerated to the point where Jesus has already started to teach, he has already claimed a sense of independence escaping from his parents, and as Scripture says, “Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.” Jesus is growing-up, and we can almost feel the subtext of the anxiety, the hope, the pride, and the many mixed emotions his parents must have had. How many of you are parents and relate to this? Our passage today is, in many ways, one of the human moments in the Jesus story—it is a moment when the Baby starts to turn into the man. It is the moment when all of Mary and Joseph’s joy starts to turn into fear, alarm, and change—fear for the future.
 
The irony or foreshadowing here is that Jesus gets lost teaching in the temple as a 12-year-old in Jerusalem—the very city and place where he will eventually be put to death for doing the very same thing as an adult.
 
Parenting, in my case gay uncling, or even watching your parents get older year after year… frailer perhaps… is part of life, but it is scary. Most of all, it means that we need to hold onto the sacred moments and the milestones in life like Christmas memories.
 
Christmas is different from Halloween, Easter, 4th of July, or even birthdays because it comes so close to the new year and is highly ritualized both by society and the church. Christmas, for better or worse, is how we measure our year and our memories of our loved ones. It is also how we measure our own adulting success. Are my cookies anything like grandma’s? Is my tree as beautiful as the one I remember growing-up?  
 
Watching your kids open their Christmas presents, decorating your first tree with your spouse after getting married, baking cookies with grandma, food, song, culture, family time around the fire are all milestones to help us know the distances traveled in life.
 
There is a great scene in the classical musical Fiddler on the Roof when one of the daughters is getting married and the parents sit and sing softly to themselves a very deep song. The lyrics go like this:

Is this the little girl I carried,
Is this the little boy at play?

(Golde)
I don't remember growing older,
When did they?

(Tevye)
When did she get to be a beauty,
When did he grow to be so tall?

(Golde)
Wasn't it yesterday when they were small?

(men)
Sunrise, sunset (x2),
Swiftly flow the days.

(everyone)
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers,
Blossoming even as we gaze.

(women)
Sunrise, sunset (x2),
Swiftly fly the years,
One season following another,
Laden with happiness and tears.[1]
 
Growing-up, growing old, growing wise, growing tall (in my case short), growing in faith, growing in hope, growing in love… all of the ways in which we grow can be measured from Christmas to Christmas. Whether we love this holiday or resist it, for all of us, Christmas is a time of making, maintaining, and renewing memories.
 
The hymns we sing today, some familiar to us and others new, are for different cultures and people their memory-makers and milestone reminders.
 
By singing together, like the people did at the Passover Festivals in Jerusalem in Jesus’ time from our story today, we create milestones that maintain our memories and help us to cherish our loves ones even more and even better.
 
Amen.

[1] https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bjthomas/sunrisesunset.html

Advent 4
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson
 
Luke 1.39-55
39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord."
46  And Mary said,
"My soul magnifies the Lord, 

47  and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 

48  for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. 
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; 

49  for the Mighty One has done great things for me, 
and holy is his name. 

50  His mercy is for those who fear him 
from generation to generation. 

51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52  He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, 
and lifted up the lowly; 

53  he has filled the hungry with good things, 
and sent the rich away empty. 

54  He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, 

55  according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever. 

 
It was the fourth Sunday in Advent, 1990. The sanctuary of  Central Congregational, UCC, in Atlanta, GA was decorated with greens, just like ours. It is a beautiful sanctuary the slopes down to the chancel area in ancient Greek amphitheater style. The entire front and side walls are glass looking into the wonder of the North Georgia woods. The Advent candles were lit, just like ours. The scripture text for the day was Luke 1, Mary’s visit with Elizabeth and her song of joy, The Magnificat, like we have just heard. We had a three month old in the nursery and our four year old was safely ensconced with dear friends of our in the pews. We – my former husband and I – had been invited to deliver a version of the scripture in the form of a song. As he accompanied us on guitar, I began:
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; and my spirit exults in God, my Savior. For God has looked upon my lowliness and my name shall be forever exalted.”

There was a slight, disturbing rustle in the pew where the four year old was sitting. But we concentrated on the song. I continued.
“For the Mighty One has done great things for me. God’s mercy exceeds from age to age....”

The rustle grew louder. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw the four year old escape from the pew...OMG....just keep singing, just keep singing....and as we sang the refrain:
“Holy, Holy, Holy is God’s name....”

And then we saw him.....he was lying down horizontally across the middle of the middle aisle....which sloped down to the front of the church and slowly rolling down toward us – just as children roll down a grassy hill – only in slow motion - rolling in time to our music.

What do you do?  You keep singing, you try to “un-see” what you have just seen your child doing and you keep singing...and I must tell you, our harmony was never so focused, so in tune, so precise.

After the service I said to our four year old wonder child...”Can you tell me why you did that? Did you want some attention? Are you feeling neglected because you now have to share Mommy and Daddy with your baby brother?” “No, Mommy! I just liked your song!”

“I just liked your song!” He liked the song so he responded to it with his whole being! His whole body and heart and soul. In uninhibited four year old fashion.

Oh, that we who are way past four years old could remember how to respond to the songs of God with our whole beings, body, heart, mind and soul! Oh, that we could remember how to say “Yes!” to God with our whole selves like the peasant girl, Mary, like the unfettered, freely giving four year old!

Do you think we can?

The late New Testament scholar, Raymond Brown, wrote that all the canticles, the songs we hear sung in the gospel of Luke, including our song of Mary, were songs of a group of first century Jewish Christians who staked their lives on God’s abundance as evident throughout the Hebrew scriptures. Throughout the stories, psalms, history and prophecy of the Hebrew scriptures God calls God’s people to move out of the myth of scarcity and into a lyric of abundance. In God’s providence there is enough for all! If we live in this lyric, we will share all the abundance given to creation and humanity. There is enough for all!

These early Jewish Christians were called the “Anawim,” “the Poor Ones.” While this group may have been physically poor, Brown tells us that their name also came to be associated with “those who could not trust their own strength, but had to rely in utter confidence upon God.”[1]  Living in stark contrast to the Anawim were the literal rich as well as those who showed no need for God through pride and self-sufficiency even if they were not financially wealthy.

Mary’s song is a lyric of abundance, a song of the Anawim, the Poor Ones. Those who rely fully on God. Who respond to God with faith in God’s lyric of abundance with a resounding “Yes!”. Who respond with their whole being like a four year old rolling down the aisle of a church because music stirs his whole being.

Mary sings:
"With all my heart I glorify the Lord! In the depths of who I am, I rejoice in God my savior.  Because “God has scattered [and is scattering] those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations. God has pulled [and is pulling] the powerful down from their thrones. God has lifted up [and is lifting up] the lowly. God has filled [and is filling] the hungry with good things and has sent the rich away empty-handed.” And God shows this mercy from one generation to the next.....all this has happened, is happening and will continue to happen. My friends, given Mary’s song, we have good reason to say “Yes!” to God with our whole selves.

We have good reason AND it is through our saying “Yes!” that God works in our world. I believe God’s lyric of abundance persists in spite of us, in spite of the our being stuck as a people, as a culture, as the whole of humanity in the myth of scarcity. However.... God’s lyric of abundance multiplies, spreads like wind through the trees, like sun on the water, like the fertility of the earth in spring when we say “Yes!” to it with our whole beings! Then we are co-creating with God.

Poet and musician, Leonard Cohen, God rest his soul, echoes the voices of the Poor Ones and of Mary in his book of contemporary psalms, The Book of Mercy:

“Take heart, you who were born in the captivity of a fixed predicament; and tremble, you kings of certainty: your iron has become like glass, and the word has been uttered that will shatter it.” (Leonard Cohen, The Book of Mercy)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Listen my friends to Leonard Cohen, to Mary, to the Spirit of the Living God! “Take Heart,” my friends of God here at Plymouth, “Take Heart! We are so often stuck in our world views of not being, not having enough. We get stuck in our insecurities, our inadequacies, our sense of futility in resisting the darkness of the world’s greed and its myth of scarcity. We unconsciously live in the certainty that the world is ONLY as we see it on CNN or MSNBC, etc, etc, etc. But that is not the whole of reality, even the tip of the iceberg of reality. God’s lyric of abundance for ALL IS the reality!

It is the reality our world craves. And it is within our power to say “Yes!” with abandon and joy and love to God’s abundance in the world. For our own souls and also for the sake of those who are truly poor, homeless, in refugee and immigration detention centers, in war zones. Like the first century “Poor Ones” who did not “trust their own strength but relied in full confidence on the strength of God”, like Mary, we can say “Yes!”

Each time we say “yes” with our whole selves to a ministry opportunity here at Plymouth, to a volunteer position, no matter how small, to a work of advocacy for the marginalized, to the work we are called to do in the world, to the call of parenting and grand-parenting, to friendship and intimate relationships we are tapping into God’s Big Ultimate Yes to the world! Is it always easy? No, it is not. It was not easy for Mary in any way, I imagine. Childbirth, parenting, the unjust death of your son by the government....these are not easy. It has not always been easy for that 4 year old who rolled down the aisle of Central Congregational in Atlanta. At 32 this has not been an easy year for him. You all know that it is not easy to say “Yes” to God. However, because despite the tears and struggle that life brings, saying “Yes” brings Joy in the deepest sense for it is participating in Love which is God which is Source and which makes all things possible. Even the impossible possible.

As we finish this Advent season today and look toward Christmas Eve tomorrow...let us take a risk and say “Yes!” in ways we have not yet imagined. Who knows what opportunity will knock that can open up our lives to deep Joy and Love? May we let our wildest imaginations pray for, intend, plan for our full participation as individuals and as a community of faith in God’s lyrically abundant justice-making Love in the new year. Remember the joy and wild abandon of saying yes to life with your whole being as you rolled down a grassy or snowy hill fully trusting the commitment? That’s it! Say “Yes!" to God! Amen. And Amen!
 
© The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson, 2018 and beyond. May be reprinted with permission only.

[1] Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, The Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York, NY:  Doubleday,  1993), 351.

Luke 3.7-18
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado

There is a part of me that wonders why the Senior Minister always has to wear the black hat…why I always seem to get the tough passages…Last week, Jake gets the song of Zechariah, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited and redeemed his people.” And next week, Jane Anne gets the Magnificat: “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit doth rejoice in God my savior.” So nice. And what do I get this week? [cue theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly] “You brood of vipers!” I actually realize that part of my call at Plymouth sometimes is to tell you things you would rather not hear…it just goes with the territory, even though I don’t always get to use the theme from the Clint Eastwood’s The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. 

So, when you hear about this fella, John the Baptizer (unlike Jane Anne’s family, he wasn’t Baptist; he was Jewish), he often gets to wear the black hat. He is out there in the wilderness, subsisting on a diet of locusts and wild honey, clothed in a rough garment of camel’s hair (very scratchy in all the wrong places), and probably smelling a lot like a camel as well. Perhaps that’s why he was so into ritual bathing in the Jordan…it wasn’t just sin that he was trying to wash away.

John gets to challenge those who have followed him out into the wilderness -– a place of danger and testing, as we know from the biblical narratives –- to move out of their comfort zones and not simply to rely on their Abrahamic ancestry, but to “bear fruit worthy of changed hearts,” changed minds, and changed lives. John is out on the margins, living a physically and mentally difficult, rigorous, ascetic life, which strips away the less important aspects of life to get down to the basics: to live a fruit-bearing life. 

He challenges those who are there who have two coats to give one to the poor…this does not mean just bringing an extra coat in the back of your front hall closet and donate it to Homeward Alliance like I did two weeks ago. It means if you have two houses, give one to somebody who hasn’t got one. [Cue The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly theme.]
​
John’s message and ministry were distinct from that of Jesus, and as you learned last week from Jake’s sermon, John was the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth (Mary’s cousin), so Jesus and John were first cousins once removed. And Jesus was initially a follower in the John movement, but after John lost his head and Jesus went into the wilderness for 40 days, Jesus started a new movement that was focused on healing and  proclaiming the kingdom of God. 

I had never been a big fan of John the Baptizer. He was rough around the edges and seemed obsessed with purging people of their sins by washing them away ritually. And I have seen Jesus’ primary message as different. But in reading this text, the three examples of repentance that John spells out all involve economic justice. Giving your coat to someone without one. Tax collectors should only take the amount prescribed by the government (which was not the general practice). Roman soldiers should not extort money but be satisfied with their wages. 

​Sometimes, you have to look harder to see how figures of the past might emerge. About six years ago, I was with Dom Crossan and Marcus Borg on a pilgrimage in Italy, and one of my favorite places that we visited is far off the beaten tourist path outside the town of Nola near Naples. After wandering through the tiny village of Cimitile and attracting surprised stares from the local residents, we arrived at a Paleo-Christian church. (Paleo-Christian is not a diet plan…it just means that it’s very early…from the 4th century.) Going through the complex we saw ancient frescoes of early Christians, who seemed to look out at us postmoderns from a different millennium. Even through the disrepair of these ancient frescoes, their eyes of our Christian brothers and sisters seem to convey a longing to connect. And as we moved to a different part of the room we saw a few remaining representations of different saints and biblical figures, including this one of John. 

You cannot see his eyes or his facial expression, but you can see the coarseness of his hair, and that fits in with the impression we have of John: the wild man who lives on the fringe of society who has a message to proclaim in the wilderness. And you can also see the Latin inscription, “Johannes Precursor,” literally John the forerunner.
​
I’ve noticed that there is something of a visual trope...

...​in paintings of John, as the bearded guy with tousled hair and a doleful expression on his face. And one of the things this does is to project an image of John as a real, full-blooded human being (and unlike some beatific images of Jesus, looking fully divine, but not-quite-human). John looks like he’s carrying an emotional burden, as if the cares of the world are on his shoulders. For me that makes him more than a guy who wears the black hat and more of a real person who sees what is wrong with the world he lives in and tries to do something about it. John is the challenger, the confronter, the voice crying out in the wilderness. 

This John is perhaps a little more like us, one who understands God’s justice and sees the disconnect between that vision and the world-as-it-is. Jesus was part of his cousin John’s movement. And though it is only in Mark’s and Matthew’s accounts, the death of John the Baptizer comes after he called out Herod, saying that the king’s marriage to Herodias, his brother’s wife, isn’t legitimate. And the wife and daughter of Herod literally request John’s head on a platter, and Herod delivers.

Criticizing the empire and its petty kings is dangerous business. John is the precursor, the forerunner, the messenger who proclaims that the messiah is coming. John’s demise led Jesus to reframe John’s message and to recast it into a proclamation of an alternative vision for the world: the kingdom of God. And as we know, the demand for economic justice is at the center of that realm that Jesus proclaimed, the kingdom that he said is within us and among us.

The call to a change of heart is central to message of both John and Jesus. It is a call away from the narrowness of self-interest and into something far greater than our own lives. It is a call to give of oneself and to become part of a world order that is grounded in faith, in hope, and in self-giving love.
John offers each of us a challenge this Advent, in terms of how we can help live out economic justice, which is especially important in our current political reality. It is a challenge to ask ourselves how we can contribute to the realm of God, rather than simply to ask, “What’s in it for me?”

As we walk through these final days of Advent, I leave you to consider the question that the crowd around John asked him: “What then should we do?” What can you do to help as a cocreator of God’s realm today?

Amen.
 
© 2018 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. All photos by the author. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.
 

​The Rev. Jake Miles Joseph
Plymouth UCC, Fort Collins, Colorado
Second Sunday in Advent: December 9, 2018
Luke 1: 68-7

Sometimes the best theological tools come from the most unusual of places. Not a theologian, but definitely a great singer of the 1960s, Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette (better known by her stage name, Dusty Springfield), accidentally developed a shorthand for how we should actively engage the practice of Advent Anticipation. Advent practice in a nutshell is, “Wishin’ and Hopin’ and Thinkin’ and Prayin’ and Planin’ and Dreamin’.” [1] The six forms of active anticipation that Dusty Springfield identifies in her classic song might be the most useful memory tool for Advent practice of all time. Let me tell you how, but first, I have to leave you in anticipation.
 
Would you join me in prayer? May the stirrings of our hearts, the musings of our souls, and the words of all of our lips all be harbingers and signs of peace for our world, for our families, and for ourselves. May I not fail you, God, in speaking a word of truth with your people. Amen.
 
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel!” Benedictus Dominus Deus! With these words Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, starts his great song of praise, of hope, and of peace known throughout the Church Universal and all time as the Benedictus. It is the great Invocation of all of the Gospel good news to follow. Today, our Scripture is invoking the very essence of good news for peace in our world.
 
The Benedictus is used in the Matins (morning worship) of monks and nuns, Communion Liturgies of almost every Christian tradition, and as the most ancient recorded liturgical way to begin worship services. In all, this beautiful poem exclusively found in the middle of the First Chapter of the Gospel of Luke, symbolizes the hope for peace in all of Christian traditions across difference, time, and place.
 
It communicates two things. The first half is a summary of the prophesies of the past and God’s continued presence and promise of peace from generation to generation. The first half is looking backwards in praise and accounting. Then the second half from verse 76 and following looks forward with anticipation. We hope that God will guide our feet in the way of peace forever and ever amen. It is this latter part, the hope for peace, that I think we need to focus on today. This latter point that calls for a time, soon approaching and already breaking upon us, where we are guided in the way of peace must be the topic of our thinking today. Moreover, it raises a big moral, ethical and theological question for us:
 
How can we, in a time of so much verbal, emotional, physical, psychological, technological, and even internalized violence. dare speak the word "peace"? How can such a brave word be spoken? How can we do this and not make ourselves liars or make God out to be the same? It is dangerous work—this work of speaking about peace because it produced anticipation and expectation. Disappointment and disillusionment is always sure to follow.
 
The word I would use to summarize the Benedictus, the reason that it is so effective as a call to worship, the reason it is an essential part of traditional Eucharist liturgies can all be summarized with that one word: Anticipation. Now, anticipation is a word that typically means a preconceived idea of what will be. We think of it as being a neutral state of passive hope. I anticipate that it may snow. I anticipate that I will get Christmas presents. I anticipate that we will continue to be a great church. I anticipate world peace. Our Scripture today is the very definition of anticipation. Unfortunately for us, anticipation has been incorrectly defined from an etymological perspective since the 1800’s, so what does it really mean to anticipate peace? Is it really a passive act?
 
In actual fact, the real meaning and history of the word anticipation and what it meant until the mid-1800’s was “the act of being before another in doing something.”[2] Anticipation has more to do with being avant garde than simply hopeful. Christians are called to start walking the walk and to anticipate that the world might could catch-up. This means that rather than just imaging that it may snow, that you get your snow boots out. Rather than just hoping that God will bring peace to us on Christmas, that we actually start living peace right this second. It is cliché, yes, let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me. Anticipation is not a passive state of hope or the art of gracefully waiting. Rather, it is the act of being before others…preparedness for what God has promised.
 
Now, a trick question. How many of you think the Benedictus in context in the Gospel of Luke is about Jesus and/or the birth of Christ? In fact, it has almost nothing to do with Jesus. It is actually a song sung by John the Baptist’s father, Zacharias, about his son who will prepare the way for peace to come.
 
John the Baptist is sort of an overlooked figure in the shadow of Jesus, but he is the "Wind Beneath [Jesus’] Wings." He anticipates the peace of Christ and, in many ways, makes it possible. In many ways, anticipation is the business of John. If Christmas is the celebration of Jesus Christ’s birth, then in many ways Advent is the celebration of the birth of John the Baptist. It is about the very real and intentional work of making a way for peace even when it seems impossible.
 
The Benedictus is our song—it is your song. It is the song of all of those who are called in every time and every place to make a way for the Peace of Christ in the world. It needs to be reclaimed, for perhaps more than any other character in the Advent-Christmas-Epiphany story (as fun as it is to dress up as Sheep, Three Kings, Shepherds, Mary, Joseph, and Angels) we are really meant to be John the Baptists. That is our real role in the Christmas narrative.
 
Today, we are all John the Baptists. The work of anticipation—of creating ways and practices of peace is our job in both this short season before Christmas and really every day of our lives. We are called to the work and to lives of anticipation. 
 
I am against preaching and not leaving you with some kind of a concrete spiritual practice. How are we supposed to actively anticipate the peace of Christ and help make it happen like John the Baptist did? How do we learn to sing our own Benedictus of hope for this day and age through our Advent living?
 
Remember Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette (better known by her stage name, Dusty Springfield)? She wrote what is the very best unintentional Benedictus and description of the Season of Advent ever. Better than the Church Fathers and Mothers, Dusty wrote a song that describes the meaning of active anticipation. It is really a six-point to do list for this season of the church year. It goes like this:

Wishin’ and Hopin’ and Thinkin’ and Prayin’ and Plannin’ and Dreamin’
 
We need a new Benedictus more than ever! Each of the six practices at the beginning of that great song of 1962 is a different way to participate active anticipation. Each one is its own spiritual practice. Here they are:
 
Wishin’ for peace. A wish is defined as "a desire for something thought unattainable." Sit and set your intention for peace in the world. Wishing for peace means that you align every cell in your being with what seems impossible. Remember when you were a kid and all you wanted for Christmas was a pony or a Tonka truck, or an iPhone? Remember the intensity you put into your letters to Santa or to what you would say to Santa at the department Store? I’m thinking of A Christmas Story. I want that same level of wishing and motive put into the wish for peace. I want each of you to write a letter to Santa this year as a spiritual practice and put that childlike willpower for a wish into the letter written for peace. Wishing is an act of utter rebellion against the tyranny of possible.
 
Hopin’ for peace. Hoping is a much more delicate practice than the willpower of wishing. Hope is allowing yourself to not let go of what you wished for even after the wish has failed time and time and time again. Even if it is your fifth year wishing for a pony, hope is writing that letter again. Hope is more delicate like a snowflake in the palm of your hand. It has to be observed. Don’t be careless with you hope. Name it and claim it and whisper your hope for peace in yourself and in the world. Hope is like a wish but more personal and more enduring. How can peace become your hope again? How do you protect it?
 
Thinkin’ of peace. We need to spend time thinking and brainstorming new ways to create peace in the world. We cannot give into narratives of tyranny that say that everything good has ever been thought of. We are called to spend time thinking and innovating for peace. New frameworks are always needed. What can you think of?
 
Prayin’ for peace. Thoughts and prayers have become cliché. After every mass shooting, murder, tragedy, people tweet or post that they are offering thoughts and prayers. I am convinced that nobody who publicly announces “thoughts and prayers” through Facebook or Twitter actually is praying at all. If they were, then God would have already moved their hearts to change policy. Amen? If they were, then war would be no more. Don’t just say you are going to pray, but actually pick a chair (prayer chair) in your house for prayer and spend five or fifteen minutes a day praying for peace. It is one thing to say that you think and pray—it is another to actually do it.
 
Plannin’ for peace. What happens if we actually start to plan for peace? Take a pen and paper and draw the world in a peaceful state. If you are keener on prose, wrote a short story or a poem about what the world looks like when peace has come. Learn to visualize it again. Develop a master plan for peace in your own life, in our community, and in the world. If we cannot plan for peace in a real way, how can we ever hope to move towards that vision? Plan for peace.
 
Dreamin’ of peace. This is the art of letting go. It is the art of finding a meditative practice that helps you find peace. You cannot control your dreams, but you must find a way to create a peaceful heart in your own person. Then and only then can God anticipate using you to help create peace in this world and peace on earth. If it cannot start in you and in your deepest dreams, then how do you expect to actually help create peace elsewhere?
 
We are all John the Baptists in the Advent-Christmas-Epiphany Trilogy. We are the ones called to set the stage and to wish for, hope for, think about, pray for, plan for, and dream peace into being. The Benedictus is our song. It was sung at your birth. In this season, if you don’t know what do to do or how to anticipate Christ with intention and purpose, just think of the opening line of the song:
 
Wishin’ and Hopin’ and Thinin’ and Prayin’ and Plannin’ and Dreamin’[3]
 
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel!” Benedictus Dominus Deus! To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Amen.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAdTsAKvVTU
[2] https://www.etymonline.com/word/anticipation
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c74BSImG4xM

Jeremiah 33.14-16
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
 
I’m going to let you in on a secret…when we offer silent prayers, the shortcoming I confess most is impatience. I wonder if God gets tired to hearing “Lord, help me to be more patient” from the occupant of that chair behind me. I am not someone who is great at waiting, anticipating, and knowing that things will fall into place in due course. And maybe you’re like that, too.

Our consumer culture is based on faster technology and immediate results, and short-term profitability. Immediate isn’t always better…think about how communications and diplomatic relations might improve if someone in the West Wing took the president’s Twitter account and said that any messaging had to come through consultation with the cabinet or communications office of the White House. Immediate isn’t always better. Sometime delayed gratification yields greater rewards.

Back in the last millennium, when I was working with Apple as a communications consultant, there was a huge shift in corporate culture when Fidelity Investments became a major stockholder in Apple, and they wanted to show positive earnings each and every quarter, which meant that Apple was more risk averse and didn’t take as many chances. When Steve Jobs came back as CEO, Apple shifted their vision to risk short-term profits for longer-term gains. The long-game has worked out pretty well for Apple. And as Christians, we play a v-e-r-y  l-o-n-g game.

The other message our culture sends us is that “it’s all about me.” Look at the first-person pronouns in trade names of apps: MyHealthConnection, MySwimPro, MyFitnessPal, MyRAC, iPhone…and those are just what’s on my smartphone! It’s all about me and my needs and wants. If you want to do an experiment, see how many apps start with “my” and how many start with “our.” You’ll see my point.

So, you and I find ourselves on this first Sunday of Advent in a culture that says fast is good and immediate is better and that it’s all about me, my needs, my wants. And we find ourselves in a spiritual tradition that says emphatically that it’s not all about me — it’s about all of us — and it’s a tradition that especially during Advent relies on waiting, anticipating, longing, yearning for a promised future and a change in God’s world.
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Martin Luther King, Jr., quoting Theodore Parker, said, “The arc of history bends toward justice.” But, dear God, does that arc bend slowly!

The text from Jeremiah comes from a period when many of the best and brightest of Judea were taken captive and exiled in Babylon. Jeremiah, though, stayed in Jerusalem, but eventually fled to Egypt. The Babylonian exile is a story about refugees, immigrants, and exiles, and a prophet who declares that things will get better. (I know that sounds totally unfamiliar…) Jeremiah conveys the words of God in declaring, “The days are surely coming, says, YHWH, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” Jeremiah is adamant; there are no “mights” or “maybes” in his prophecy…the days are surely coming!

The characteristics of this new ruler from the lineage of King David will be justice and righteousness, which are nearly synonymous. That rootedness in the Davidic line must have seemed like dreamy wishful thinking to some of the Israelites, perhaps like the vision of the kingdom or realm of God seems unattainable to some of us.

You and I find ourselves in a nation that seems quite different that it did even five years ago: a nation in which truth gets branded as false news, in which journalists are labeled as traitors, in which demagogues abroad are seen as friends and our closest allies are treated as enemies, in which federal immigration agents have shot tear gas across the border at refugees and children. This is not the America many of us know and love. And the death of President George H.W. Bush on Friday underscores the contrast. We yearn at the core of our being for something different than what we currently have.

“The days are surely coming, says the Lord,” when we will get a new branch of the Davidic line, who will be a voice for justice and shalom. That new branch stems from the root -– radix in Latin, from which we get the English word, “radical” –- that stem is Jesus…that’s why Matthew’s gospel has that enormous unpronounceable genealogy of Jesus –- to show that he has descended from David. Jesus came to proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom, a realm of righteousness and shalom, an alternative reign to the empires of this world. That is a radical notion.

Sometimes, you hear me use a phrase, “the kingdom of God, here and now and still unfolding.” The kingdom we pray for twice in the Lord’s Prayer was initiated by Jesus and was central to his teachings and his presence with us today, even though that kingdom is not there in its completeness. The kingdom is still unfolding.

I grow impatient for the coming of the fulfillment of the reign of God. I see too much injustice, too little peace in the world. Too much greed, to little generosity in the world. Too much violence, too little love in the world.

I spent a night last week at a Jesuit retreat center near Denver to have some quiet time to reflect and write about Advent, and I found the words of a wonderful Jesuit who died in the 1950s, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and it helps me to balance my sense of urgency with these words of wisdom:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something new.
And yet it is the law of progress that it is made by passing through some stability --
And that it may take a very long time.

Really meaningful, isn’t it? Yeah, well, Teilhard was a paleontologist, and using his timeframe, Jeremiah’s prophecy seemed like it was just yesterday and Jesus was born this morning. Impatient people like me have a lot to learn from paleontology.

I yearn deeply, I long for, a day when families no longer have to sleep in churches, because everyone has a home; when teens no longer sleep out on the front lawn of Plymouth in the winter, because there is no homelessness to make people aware of. And in the meantime, those hosts and cold teenagers give me hope.

What do you yearn for, long for most deeply this Advent?  What do you long for to come about in God’s world and with your help? I invite you to reflect on that in the time you spend in prayer this week: What are your deepest longings?

The kingdom coming requires our faith to know “it is surely coming.” It requires our full participation…every one of us…it requires our hands, our voices, our prayers, and our imaginations. We need to be able to envision a new world order that Jesus proclaimed is we are to be co-creators for the new realm, a kingdom radically rooted in Jeremiah, in Isaiah, in Jesus, in God, and in you.

As we begin walking through Advent together, I leave you with these words of longing and waiting from UCC minister and theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr:

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime;
therefore, we must be saved by hope.
Nothing which is true or beautiful or good
makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
therefore we must be saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone;
therefore we must be saved by love.
May it be so. Amen.
 
© 2018 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.