"Hanging Out with Rahab" Joshua 2: 1-22 and 6: 15-25

Back after the Annual meeting worship service when I did not preach.

Okay, the sermon title is a bit silly.  I couldn't resist the title since Rahab literally lowers the Israelite spies out her window by a rope as they escape from Jericho.

I suppose I could have titled the sermon something like "Life and Death Decisions" to describe how Rahab makes a decision to save the spies because she has heard about what God has done.  It saves the life of the spies; it saves her life and the family's life when the Israelites return to destroy Jericho; it saves her life in the spiritual sense that she has given herself over to God's ways.

Rahab gets mentioned three times in the New Testament:  in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew (one of five women mentioned); Hebrews uses her as an example of how her faith saved her; James uses her as an example of how one's works save.  The inclusion in the genealogy is fascinating, and what a conundrum that Hebrews and James use her on both sides of the argument about works vs. faith (admittedly, Paul is more at odds with James than the Letter to the Hebrews).

We also should not overlook that Israel is saved by the prostitute Rahab, which means God's people are saved by a woman (lower class than a man, right) and a prostitute (not quite a queen, right). What does that tell us?  And the remember that her name is mentioned in the genealogy of the Son of God, and we have this interesting little play on power in the world.

Why did Rahab decide to join forces with the God's people?

I don't think I'm getting into it this sermon, but the fall of Jericho is one of those where God decrees total destruction.  how do we process that?  Some like the image of God who destroys all those who do not believe, but the coming of Christ seems to suggest God works a bit differently than that.

What appeals to you in the story of Rahab?

Reflections on "Dreaming of Heaven" Genesis 28: 10-17; Acts 10: 9-16

Another sermon that I really liked preaching.  I think I'm going to enjoy this series on OT stories.

That being said, I also could have done some different things.  If I preached it again, I might be tempted to do one of the following:

     1.  Start with Aka's statue of Jacob's ladder and move into different interpretations of what the ladder could mean to us and use that as the framework for the sermon.

     2.  Or, tie it more directly in with Martin Luther King, Jr. and his "I Have a Dream" speech.  I did my preparatory work several weeks ago, so I wasn't really thinking about the following Monday being MLK, Jr. celebration.  While preaching the sermon in the Sanctuary, it hit me that I had missed that connection, which led to me adding a sentence at the end.  That theme probably should have had more impact on the sermon.

I also told read the story, told it again in the Time with Young Disciples, and then told it a third time in the sermon.  That repetition is intentional to help people learn the story, but it might be too much.

“Dreaming of Heaven” January 19, 2014; Genesis 28: 11-22; Acts 10: 9-16; OT Stories series; FPC, Troy;

Introduction: are you a dreamer?  I am not. This morning we read about dreams.

First, Jacob’s dream.  A ladder that reaches to the heavens with angels ascending and descending on it.  More than likely, you have seen it as if the angels were dancing up and down on the ladder.

We also read of Peter’s trance-induced dream.  Again, very visual – a sheet being lowered with all sorts of reptiles and four-legged creatures and a voice calling out, “Get up Peter, kill…eat”

I want to focus on Jacob’s dream this morning and reflect on Jacob, the one who has the dream; the place where Jacob dreams; the ladder in the dream; and finally, the God about whom we learn in the dream.

Move 1: Jacob.  Remember Jacob?

            a.  Jacob, the twin of Esau who leaves the womb just a few seconds after Esau.

1. In theory, that means Esau is the older brother who will receive his father Isaac’s blessing and the birthright.

2. But Jacob, who comes into the world pulling on Esau’s heel, is named Jacob because it means literally “heel-puller.”

3.  A term also used to describe a scoundrel or a rascal.

4.  Jacob, who will spend his life living into that name.

5. He’s the kind of guy who makes you check to make sure you still have your wallet and your money after you have met him.

6.  The kind of guy where you better read the fine print of the contract.

7. The kind of guy who will find a way to gain an advantage even if the fine print does not allow it.

b. This story immediately follows Jacob stealing the birthright from his Esau.

1. He has fooled his father Isaac as his father lay sick in the bed.

2. Then in a hard to understand moment, Isaac receives his father’s blessing.

3. We catch up to Jacob as he is fleeing from home to escape his brother’s wrath.

c. Apparently, Jacob has no place to go and ends up in the middle of nowhere.

1.  With no pillow for his head, he grabs a rock.

2. I don’t’ know about you, but I think I might have a restless night’s sleep if I was lying on the ground with a rock for my pillow.

d. His restless sleep includes a dream.

1. Jacob apparently does remember his dreams.

2. In fact, dreaming becomes a family tradition as we recall that his son Joseph will one day have dreams and be an interpreter of dreams.

3. Both Jacob and Joseph have dreams that reveal God.

Move 2: stop for a moment and think about the place where Jacob has his dream.

a.      Dream takes place where Jacob stops for the night.

1.      This is just a spot in the road.

2.      Non-descript, never heard of before place.

3.      No reason for Jacob to be there, except it’s where he stops to sleep.

4.      Nowhere important.

b.      Until the dream.

1.      After the dream reveals God to Jacob, he names the place Bethel.

2.      Bethel, which literally means “house of God.”

3.      Bethel will become an important place in the history of God’s people.

c. Bethel takes on importance because of God’s presence.

Move 3: What about that ladder?

            a. Probably more like a stairway to heaven than a ladder like we would think of one.

                        1. More of a ramp than ladder going straight up.

                        2. As someone who has fallen off a ladder, I sort of like this image of ramp!

            b. Dream has angels coming back and forth between earths.

1. Serves as a reminder that God comes into our midst.

2.  The earth is a place where God is at work.

3.  Earth is a place of possibilities.

4. Too often we look around us and see limitations.

5. The ladder speaks of possibilities for what God can do.

6. The sky is the limit, so to speak, because as the ladder reaches into the sky it brings God’s presence into our midst.

c. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, had an interesting and compelling image of the ladder.

1.  Represents the mediation of Christ.

2. Christ is the ladder. The foot on earth in his human nature, the top in heaven in his divine nature; or the former is his humiliation, the latter is his exaltation. All the intercourse between heaven and earth since the fall is by this ladder.

3.  Christ is the way: all God's favours come to us, and all our services come to him, by Christ. If God dwell with us, and we with him, it is by Christ: we have no way of getting to heaven but by this ladder; for the kind offices the angels do us, are all owing to Christ, who hath reconciled things on earth and things in heaven, Colossians i, 20. (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/wesley/notes.ii.ii.xxix.ii.html)

4. I sort of like that image.

4. We also have the visual image of the metal sculpture that sits outside our church that was sculpted by Aka Pereyma.  

1.      Not a ramp.

2.      Not a ladder like you would use to put up Christmas lights on the house.

3.      an artist’s rendition using metal and welding as her tools.

4.      If you go back far enough in your memory banks, before the new addition, you might remember that the ladder was oriented in a different direction.

5.      Little known story – it now faces the wrong way. 

6.      Jacob’s ladder was originally directed toward the church.  I think it was to symbolize the God who comes into the world comes into the life of the church. 

7.      I sort of like that.  It can preach.  The angels descend into the midst of this congregation to empower us to be the body of Christ.

8.      Turned around.  Architect’s decision.  Not sure it was theological.   But I sort of like that orientation as well.  It too will preach.  The ladder from heaven directing the church into the world.

9.      I was there when the architect and the artist talked.  I heard them come to an agreement about the new orientation.  But later it turns out Aka didn’t really understand what the architect was talking about.  She was not happy with the way Jacob’s ladder now faces.

10.  I sort of like it facing out into the world.  But, I also like knowing how it originally faced as well.

A strong reminder of the God who comes to earth, calls us to be the body of Christ and sends us into the world to serve Christ.

Move 3: The God revealed in the dream.

a.  I read an article recently about how we all live out a script (These theses about rewriting the script were presented by Walter Brueggemann at the Emergent Theological Conversation, September 13-15, 2004, All Souls Fellowship, Decatur, GA., USA]

1. Script typically connected to the worldview.

2. Power, consumerism, self-interest first.

3. Role of God’s Word and the church to rewrite the script.

b.  God rewrites Jacob’s script.

1.  You do not have to steal. I will give you my blessing.

2. You do not have to flee in fear.  I will go with you.

3.  You are not alone in this place.  I am present with you.

            c. Peter’s dream in the Acts.

                        1.  Script was the rules and regulations.

                        2. God rewrites the script and releases Peter to know the freeing power of the gospel and to share that with the world.

c.      The same God who calls us to rewrite our scripts. 

1.      To know God’s presence in our midst.

2.      To lay claim to what God calls us to do and to be in our world.

3.      To turn away from the world’s view of things and see things in light of our call to follow Christ.

Conclusion:  Charlie Brown cartoon:  Charlie and Lucy are going through the psychiatrist-patient routine. Charlie asks about his dreams and why they occur. Lucy says, "The dreams  of the night prepare you for the day that follows / at night when you are sleeping your brain is really working / trying to sort out everything for  you / trying to make yourself see you as you really are." Charlie starts to leave saying, "Even my brain is against me."

Jacob dreams;  tomorrow we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King who shared a dream for what this country could be in the 20^th C; we dare to dream;  not to discover that our brain is against us, but to discover the God who is for us.

Again, I have relied on Walter Brueggeman’s commentary on Genesis that is part of the Interpretation series.

"Dreaming of Heaven" Genesis 28: 10-17; Acts 10: 9-18

Another OT story. Jacob sleeps on the ground and dreams of a ladder that goes to heaven with angels ascending and descending on it.

The ladder probably looked more like a ramp to heaven than a ladder.  We also have the visual image of the metal sculpture that sits outside our church that was sculpted by Aka Pereyma.  I have very different images of what ladders might be.

Dream takes place where Jacob stops for the night.  It is nowhere important, but after the dream it becomes Bethel.  Being engaged by God makes the place important.

Dreams shows angels coming back and forth between earth and have, which serves as a reminder that God comes into tour midst.  The dreams shows the earth as a place of possibility, a place where God is at work.

I continue to reflect on the article I read last week (I mentioned it in my blog on Monday) about how God's Word calls us to change the script we are living out from the script of our world to the script of our God.  Not sure if it fits with this sermon, but I can't get it out of my mind when I read this text.

God shares three promises:  presence, action, and blessing.

Random thoughts as I brainstorm on the sermon include the reminder that I have experienced falling off a ladder and the song "Stairway to Heaven."

The Acts passage is about Peter's vision (sort of dreaming while napping) that transforms his position on dietary regulations for Christians.

This story follows Jacob stealing the birthright from his brother Esau, receiving his father's blessing, and then running away to escape Esau's wrath.

Jacob's son Joseph one day will be noted for his dreams.

what are you thinking about this text.

Reflections on "Speaking the Same Language" Genesis 11: 1-9; Acts 15: 1-11

Another sermon I enjoyed preparing and preaching.  I think I'm going to like this preaching series on OT stories (since I picked it, I guess I should!).

I confess that I began the sermon preparation headed toward the idea that God gave multiple languages and scattered the people so that they would not build the tower and get to heaven -- sort of a "the people want to be god" approach.  That, I think, is often the interpretation that we hear.  I was convinced in my study that the approach I used in the sermon is more accurate to the text.  At one point, I admit to thinking, "Richard, why is it that you always seem to find the 'alternate' interpretation that goes against the mainstream thought?"  But, then I ran across some study notes from John Wesley (founder of Methodism) from several hundred years ago, and he was noting the emphasis on "scatter" in the text as well (I use www.textweek.com for different study tools, including historic interpretations of a text).  Apparently, the insights I borught to the sermon are not that recent!

An interesting area that I did not get to in the text.  Some scholars look at this story as an etiology -- that is, a story that is told to explain what the people recognize in the world around them.  In other words, as God's people try to explain the world around them -- in this case, multiple languages and people all over the world in light of things starting out with Adam and Eve -- they tell the story that shows how God caused it to happen.  I find that an interesting approach because many of the stories about God seem to answer the great questions that people might have asked such as how did the world come into being? who is God? how are there so many different cultures?  That approach assumes that the biblical story is more story than literal description of what happened.  

Just this morning I read an article that discussed the need for the church to provide an alternative script to the script the world gives us.  I found the story fo the Tower of Babel to be very counter-cultural because it challenges the very core values that we seem to have as a society -- that is, the desire to build our own thing, control our own world around us, and see our task as creating a permanent place in the world that will last for generations.  The God who "scatters" seems to defy that script.  As I considered my own life and the things I have and way I approach life, I decided that I probably do not want to dwell to much on how the God who "scatters" might be calling me to live my life.  It's hard to give up the "towers" in my life. 

“Speaking the Same Language” January 10, 2014; Genesis 11: 1-9; Acts 15: 1-11; OT Stories series; FPC, Troy;

Introduction: The story of the Tower of Babel is the first of several Old Testament stories we are going to be reflecting on between now and the beginning of Lent. 

Obviously, there are more OT stories than weeks, so I am picking a few of the somewhat well-known stories, or at least stories that should be well-known to us, that also offer important insights about God (or truth be told, stories that I find interesting and want to share – if you have any OT stories you would like to hear, let me know!).

Move 1:  The story of the Tower of Babel is rather straight-forward, or at least at first glance.

a.      The flood and the near annihilation of the God’s people along with all the earth is a distant memory.

1.      In fact, things are going really well with God’s people.

2.      God’s people are united as signified by their speaking one language.

3.      They are satisfied with where they are as signified by their wanting to build something permanent like a tower.

4.      They are working well together as signified by their joining together to build a tower.

b.      We recognize this instinct to build and to go higher.

1.      Give kids some building blocks or Legos, and what do they do? 

2.      They stack them.

3.      See how high they can build the structure before it falls over or is knocked over by someone else, probably an older sibling.

c.       God’s people do not just build any tower, but a great tower that will climb up to the clouds and beyond. 

1.      a tower that will reach to the heavens.

2.      A tower that signifies their capabilities and their permanence.

3.      A testimony to all that they can do in that place.

d.      Easy story to comprehend until we discover God’s response.

1.      God does not want them to build the tower.

2.      In fact, God puts impediments in their way keep them from building the tower.

3.      God gives them multiple languages so that cannot understand each other to work together.

4.      And God scatters them

5.       Why?  Well, that’s when the story gets a little more complicated.

Move 2:  Clash between the human desire to stay in one place and the human fear of extending themselves and God’s desire to “scatter” God’s people over all the earth.

a.      We recognize this collision of human desire and God’s desire when we look at how the text is laid out for us.

1.      Passage is very symmetrical.

2.      First four verses describe what humans want to do – they want to build a tower.

3.      Fifth verse is a connecting verse that brings God into the story.

4.      Last four verses describe what God desires to happen – scatter the people and end the building of the tower.

5.      Bottom line – God’s desire carries the day.  The tower will not be built.

b.  Let’s look a bit closer at the human desire to build a tower.

1.       Some English translations of the story suggest that God does not want them to build the tower because God sees it as a prideful attempt to reach the heavens.

2.       But I believe, along with other scholars,  that careful attention to the text suggests another reason for building the temple – humans want to stay put.

3.      They are satisfied with where they are and do not want to change.

4.      they would prefer to ignore the God who might send them to other places or expect them to change.

                                    5. We hear this desire in vs. 4 (As Eugene Peterson translates the story in The Messenger, the text tells us that the people say “Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower that reaches Heaven. Let’s make ourselves famous so we won’t be scattered here and there across the Earth.”

6.  If they build a great tower, if they really put down their roots really deep, maybe they will be immune to what God desires.

6.      The tower was their security.  Their statement that they are satisfied and settled.

7.      Maybe you recognize yourself in the desire of God’s people.

8.      We collect things and build our homes.

9.      WE cling to what we know and crave permanence and structure of our choosing.

10. As if we can somehow control the world around us.

c.  But the human desire comes in conflict with God’s desire for them to scatter.

 

            1. Notice the repetition of the word “scatter,” in the story.

2.  First, the people think that if they build a tower it will keep them from being scattered.

3. then if vss. 9-9 we are told again that God scatters them.

b.  Not a new idea.

1.  when God makes a covenant with Noah after the flood in the previous story in Genesis, we are told that God’s covenant is with all flesh.  Not just the ones who will gather to build a tower.

2.      Nor does this desire of God’s go away.

3. Christ’s actions continually push his followers to new places and expands the audience to new people.

                        3.  We remember that just before Jesus ascends he gathers his disciples and gives them the great commission –“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…”

4. Pentecost story – another story that plays on the gift of languages;  as the story goes the followers of Christ are equipped with all the languages of the world so that they can go and share the good news with everyone.

5.  When we sing the Christmas carol "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear" after the sermon, listen for how it describes the message of the angels that overcomes the "sounds of Babel."  In other words, the good news of Christ's birth that the angels proclaim transcends the many languages on earth.

c. Reveals God's desire to be in relationship with all the people of the world.

1.      the human tendency is to close ranks, to be easily satisfied with where we are, to keep things to ourselves.

2.      this tendency that is highlighted by the desire to build a great tower, is challenged by the God who pushes us into the world.

3.      This tendency leads us away from the God who sends us into the world to share God’s love with all the world. In other words, the God who scatters.

                       

Move 3:  What does it mean to be people whom God “scatters?”

a.      In part, it means we are faced with the difficult challenge of sharing God’s love.

1.              Marj Carpenter:  A Jr. High Sunday School teacher in Oregon asked, “Does going to Sunday School and church make it easier for you to love all people?”  One student answered, “Not particularly.  You want us to love everybody in the world. There are only five in our family, and I have a real hard time even loving that many.”

2. Expanding beyond Babel means extending ourselves and finding the capacity to share God’s love beyond our own little niches in the world that we have created.

b.      There has been quite a bit shared about about Nelson Mandela recently in response to this death.

1.              Christian Century, January 8, 2014 (10-11) Peter Storey, former president of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa and of the South African Council of Churches; obit of Nelson Mandela;

2.               described Mandela as the master of “ubuntu – the awareness that his life was inextricably bound up with the lives of all his fellow man beings, including his enemies…. nothing was too much if we could cajole or charm an opponent into a friendship.”

“this was a man who would not bend an inch in his determination to win freedom for his people, nor bow to the cruelty of his prison guards, yet who said to his comrades as soon as they arrived on the island, ‘Chaps, these Afrikaners may be brutal, but they are human beings.  We need to understand them and touch the human being inside them, and win them.”

3.              He called Mandela  “The Great Includer”

4. Passage from Acts describes the early church's debate over what rules would be required to be followed by new Christians who did not come out of the Jewish tradition.  Ultimately they decided that the desire to spread the Gospel was more important than the enforcing of rules.

4.              Our calling by God is to include, not build towers for ourselves.

Conclusion: The Gospel of John opens with this description of God:  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

We are on notice – language is a lens through which we can see and understand God.

Even as we tell the story of the Tower of Babel and the infusion of multiple languages, we proclaim the God who calls the same language – not English, or German, or Mandarin, or Farsi;

But the language of sharing God’s love in all the world.

*** As I always do when I preach on a text from Genesis, I have consulted Walter Brueggemann's commentary on Genesis (Genesis, from the Interpretation commentary series, pp. 97-104).  This is the best work on Genesis that I have found.

"Speaking the Same Language" Genesis 11: 1-9; Acts 15: 1-11

I am beginning a preaching series on stories in the Old Testament that will last until Lent. We will read some of the great stories of the OT.  This week, we read the story of the Tower of Babel.  I have paired it with the Acts story of the early church debating how to reach out to different groups.

As I always do when I preach on a text from Genesis, I have consulted Walter Brueggemann's commentary on Genesis (Genesis, from the Interpretation commentary series, pp. 97-104).  This is the best work on Genesis that I have found.

The story of the Tower of Babel often gets told as the story of humans trying to reach to the heavens and God punishing them by giving them all different languages so that they cannot work together and finish the building.  Upon closer examination of the text, however, we discover something else is going on in the story.  The real issue is the Israelites desire to stay in place marked by the building of this great tower that is the crowning achievement of their community.  This is a problem because God has previously decreed that the Israelites  should "scatter" to all the world.  It perhaps grows out of God's decree that the covenant made after the flood is with "all flesh" (Genesis 9:8-11).

Of course, if you look at the biblical stories of the OT as stories told by God's people to explain the world around them, the Tower of Babel story reads as one told to explain why there are so many diverse languages in the world.  If everything that plays out is part of God's plan, then there has to be an explanation related to God's plan to account for all the different languages.

We might also note that in some places (Ezekiel 11, for instance) the idea of "scatter" has a negative connotation of being sent into exile.

If we go with the idea that God's desire is to scatter to the world, then the Babel story connects with the Pentecost story in a powerful way. The Pentecost story would be the second example of God providing language to carry the gospel to all the world.  Often the Babel story is told as the anti-Pentecost story because God uses language to thwart humans in the Babel story.

what are your thought about the Tower of Babel?

Reflections on "Bringing Gifts to the Manger" Isaiah 6: 1-8; Matthew 2: 1-12

I did much of the preparation for this sermon while driving home from vacation in TX, which is why I did not have a blog post before the sermon.

The sermon was the culmination of the Advent/Christmas preaching series.  I actually liked the sermon quite a bit.  Each point could have been its own sermon, which means the sermon had more breadth than depth.

“Bringing Gifts to the Manger”  FPC, Troy; 1/5/14; Final Advent series

Introduction:  When the wise men arrive, they probably find an empty manger.    

Christmas pageants have the wise men arrive with the shepherds from the fields, but many biblical scholars believe that the wise men arrived much later.  Perhaps after Jesus was crawling around or maybe even taking his first steps (the decree from King Herod to kill male babies two years or younger suggests that Jesus is no longer a newborn).

The wise men probably bring their gifts to an empty manger

Move 1:  stop there. 

            a. Remember that we began Advent with an empty manger.

                        1. Anticipation of Christ in our midst.

                        2.  Now we proclaim that the Christ who arrived in the manger has left its confines and lives among us.

b.      Empty manger also anticipates the return of Christ

1.       The birth of Christ is not the final chapter

2.        his miracles and teaching are not the final chapter;

3.       his death is certainly not the final answer;

4.      his resurrection is not the final chapter; 

5.      We anticipate the final chapter when Christ will return.

Move 2: Arrive first at Jerusalem

a.      Jerusalem sounds like the logical place for the wise men to go to find the new king.

1.      Jerusalem is the center of power in that area.

2.      Home of King Herod.

3.       Even the religious power has aligned itself with King Herod when it notes that  “all of Jerusalem”

b.      But Jerusalem is the wrong place.

1.       Go nine miles away from the King Herod’s throne;

2.       Go nine miles from the seat of power

3.      Go nine miles from Jerusalem to some non-descript town called Bethlehem that no one has heard of, except for some obscure prophetic utterance from generations before (OT scholar Walter Brueggemann had an article in Christian Century about the wise men that you might find interesting http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2103

c.       Puts the world on notice.

1.      The Savior of the world is not coming to the seat of power, but to other places.

2.       Certainly King Herod realizes.

3.      Christ is in our midst, but look for him in those other places.

Move 3:Gifts

            a.  Wise men brought gifts.

1.      Nice gifts – if you received gold, frankincense, and myrrh, you would probably be happy.  It might take you awhile to figure out what to do with the frankincense and myrrh, but the gold could tide you over until you did!

2.  Not sure what Jesus might have done with them

4.      But we know that the gifts the wise men bring are not for the consumption of the worldly powers.

5.      The gifts are not sent to enhance the worldly powers.

6.      The gifts are not sent to continue the status quo.

7.      The pattern f Jesus’ later life would lead us to assume that the gifts were used for serving others.

b. Begin the New Year considering how you can offer your gifts for god's use.

           

Two thoughts to help you imagine how you offer your gifts.

1.       Armstrong recalls her parents’

experience as African-American visitors in a largely European-American congregation.

“When my parents heard the choir singing an African-American spiritual the first time they visited, they said, ‘The choir sure could use help with that spiritual,’ ” Armstrong says. “My parents were first and foremost seeking a church where they could use their gifts to serve God, but they were also hoping to broaden the church by inviting it to receive diversity.”

Because Calvary Church had extended such a warm and immediate welcome to her parents — and later to all five Armstrong children, of which CC is the youngest — Armstrong always saw it as her calling to extend that same welcome to others.(October  27, 2011, pcusa, news and announcements)

2.      Using their gifts to expand the understanding of who God is and what the body of Christ is called to be.

b. Quote -- "Rings and jewels are not gifts but apologies for gifts. The only true gift is a portion of yourself.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson; quoted in Wooden:  A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court, John Wooden with Steve Jamison (11)

1.    The wise men bring gifts, but perhaps the biggest gift they gave was aligning them with the Christ-child and turning away from King Herod.

2.   We read about the prophet Isaiah who gave himself over to serving God.

3.   Perhaps the best gift we have to give is the gift of ourself.

Conclusion:  The wise men arrive bearing gifts for the Christ-child, and they discover they have another choice.  Do they continue with the status quo and join ranks with King Herod, or do they give themselves over to Christ.

The wise men say, “We will follow Christ.”  What do you say?

Two articles that I read in preparing this sermon: 

http://leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com/2013/01/stars-and-prophets-in-alignment.html

http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Five-Things-You-Didnt-Know-About-the-Magi.html -- interesting tidbits of information about the wise men