Reflections on "The Raid Tree" Titus 2: 11-15; Psalm 148

One of my daughters was liturgist this morning for both services.  After the sermon in the second service, she leaned over to me and said, "That was a really different sermon than in Chapel."  I didn't really know it had been different.  Because I was not preaching from behind the pulpit in the Sanctuary service, I referenced my notes less, so maybe that was the difference.

The sermon had a really good conclusion in the Sanctuary service, but I could not remember the exact wording when I loaded the sermon on this blog.  it was a fun story to finish, which helped make it a good finish. 

I am not preaching next week, so my next blog entry will be the around January 8th.

“The Raid Tree” 1^st Sunday of Christmas; 12/27/2015; Psalm 148; Titus 2: 11-14

Introduction: The day after Christmas.

Turn on the radio and those stations that have been playing Christmas music since November are now back to greatest hits from the 70s and 80s.

The day after Christmas – exhausted from the rush of Christmas; resting now that it is all done.

The day after Christmas – the recycling bin is overflowing with boxes and Christmas wrapping paper that had been sitting under the tree 24 hrs earlier.

Tinsel after Christmas:

In Frisco, TX, Recycling, the state-of-the art recycling truck has big red lips on her grille and is batting green eyes with mascara lashes. For Christmas she has a red bow atop her driver’s cab. travels the alleys and streets in the days after Christmas collecting the 38 extra tons of recycling in December than they do any other month of the year (Tinsel, Hank Stuever, 266).

remember the woman who decorated homes for Christmas? She does not take down any of the decorations – once Christmas day has arrived, it's as if she wants no part of Christmas (Tinsel, 279.

Jeff and all his lights – one button turns it all off; no more music, no more lights, no more Christmas.

Carroll, the woman who started Christmas in the Best Buy parking in the early hours of Black Friday, goes back to church where there glorious Christmas pageant had taken place, and see the stark metallic gay set for the new preaching series entitled “Church Royale” a take-off from James Bond's movie Casino Royale and comments, “It's almost like Christmas didn't happen.” (Tinsel, 273)

Our sanctuary has an empty manger scene, a little hay strewn across it. Probably some candle wax here and there on the pews from the candle lighting of Christmas Eve.

The rush to Christmas that we so often speak of before Christmas is really a slow parade compared with the haste in which we move past Christmas.

What do we do now that Christmas has come and gone.

Move 1: Praise God

a. Christmas celebration of Christ's birth is part of the celebration of what God has done.

1. Christmas is not the one thing that God has done, but an ongoing part of how God has acted in love since God acted to create the world.

2. We praise God for coming Christ as part of our praise for all the God has done.

b. Psalm 148 involves all of creation praising God.

1. The psalm describes two distinct places that praise God – from the heavens and from the earth.

2. Reminiscent of the wonderful Christmas carol Isaac Watts gives us: “Joy to the World, which includes the phrase “Let heaven and nature sing!”

What do we do after Christmas? Praise God for all that God has done.

Move 2: Remember what God has done.

a. the letter to Titus is written to the early church, inviting them to remember the story of Jesus.

1. “The grace of God has appeared”

2. This passage evokes memories of Jesus’ birth and invites the community to remember God’s first appearance (vs. 11) and its hopes for his second epiphany (vs. 13).”

3. “In This Corner” by Marj Carpenter: A group of first grader got together and presented their own version of the Christmas story. Shepherds and Joseph and all were there, except Mary. But they could hear somebody moaning behind the bales of hay. A doctor arrived I a white coat with a stethoscope. Joseph led him behind the hay. Soon the doctor came out smiling and announced, “Congratulations, Joseph. It’s a God.”

4. this story of God appearing in Christ should not be relegated to Christmas Eve, but becomes foundational to our understanding of what God is doing in the world.

5. Eugene Peterson translates vs. 11 as  “God’s readiness to give and forgive is now public.”

b. Remember how Christ's birth fits into the rest of God's story.

1. John McCoy in a sermon preached:Cartoon that has Santa reading to a baby a book “the Christmas Story.” Santa looks puzzled as the baby asks, “how do does the story end?” Background has a silhouette of a cross.

2. Lorraine, the woman with cancer who received the

the free house decoration, dies a few days after Christmas (Tinsel, 278)

3. Carol, whose daughter was pregnant as they celebrated Christmas, has her baby two months early, it has heart issues, struggles to live for several months, and then dies.

4. As the author writes about the child's death, he notes that this is another story about a man, a woman, and a baby, but it's not the kind of Christmas story we want to tell (Tinsel, 293).

5. But the power of the Christmas story does not end in the magical candle lighting of Christmas Eve, but continues as it speaks to us as we face life and death.

c. Christmas is about transformation.

1. Robert Kruschwitz notes that Christ comes to “expose the darkness of our hearts,” so that we might be transformed. Christian Reflection A Series in Faith and Ethics Robert B. Kruschwitz, the author of this study guide, directs the Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University. He serves as General Editor of Christian Reflection. © 2011 The Center for Christian Ethics

2. baby Jesus is not about self-help, not a feel-good story that makes us do better for a day or two.

3. the coming of Christ is about God's power to transform our lives and the invitation be new creations. but transformation.

d. The community participates in the transformation.

1. The community rejects the curriculum, or paideia, of the Empire.

2. Embracing the Christ child’s story means rejecting “ungodliness and worldly passions” (vs. 12).

3. The Letter to Titus gives us a glimpse of how the early Christians gathered week after week “to be shaped around a common identity in Christ and to be taught how to live the Christ life,” Shiell concludes.

4. Our work as the church begins after Christmas as we try to teach and help each other be transformed into the living body of Christ. (http://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/159251.pdf; “When Grace Appears” Robert B. Kruschwitz, the author of this study guide, directs the Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University. He serves as General Editor of Christian Reflection. © 2011 The Center for Christian Ethics

We remember that God has come in the Christ-child, and then work together to be transformed.

Move 3: Finally, we tell the world.

a. The letter to Titus tells us to “declare these things.”

b. Like the shepherds who came to Bethlehem, saw the Christ-child, believed in him, and then told everyone they met on the way home what they had discovered.

conclusion: one of our family traditions here in OH has been to cut down our Christmas tree. At least, until we moved to our newer house and the Christmas tree in the main room was too close to where we all gathered and allergies set in for one of my daughters.

Part of our annual Christmas tradition. All our home videos and Christmas photo albums have two rounds of Culps at the Valley View Farm – the first when we tagged the tree; the second, when we cut the tree and brought it home

(usually one round of photos had everyone smiling; one round recorded an obvious spat among the girls)

One round usually involved cold weather with heavy jackets and often snow on the ground; the second set was usually warmer.

Except one year. One year it was warm in the photos when we tagged the tree and it was warm when we cut the tree down and brought it home. In fact, that year, it didn't really get cold until after Christmas.

Not being tree people, we did not understand the consequences of not having a cold spell before cutting down the tree. The bugs were still alive all through tree.

I received one of those emergency phone calls at work. Bugs were everywhere – in the tree and in the room where the tree was. Stop everything and get home. But I couldn't get home fasts enough. My wife and daughters had solved the problem.

They had found some Raid bug spray in the garage and sprayed the tree from top to bottom. Although it seemed like a good idea to my wife and daughters, it began a daily transformation of our Christmas tree from pretty green to very dry light green to brown to rapidly shedding pine needles.

We generally waited a few days after Christmas to take down the tree, but not that year. Dec. 26^th arrived and the ornaments were removed. The ornament removal process created a cascade of falling brown pine needles, leaving a tree with bare limbs.

The stark contrast between Christmas and the day after had never been greater.

Titus reminds us that our calling is not the brown tree but the Christmas story that comes alive every day.

Titus 2: 11-15:  For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly,  while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior,[b] Jesus Christ. He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds. Declare these things. Exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one look down on you.