"Called by Name" Isaiah 43: 1-7; Acts 4: 5-14

A few weeks reflecting on our call begins with Isaiah's reminder that God calls us by name.  God also redeems us.

Some initial thoughts about God knowing us by name.

      1. It could be a bit terrifying for God to know us by name.  Sometimes it is safer to keep a low profile and not be noticed.  If God knows us by name, what expectations might God have for us?

     2.  Do we have to claim this relationship?  If God knows us by name, do we have to accept that kind of intimate relationship?

     3. Our sense of call begins with God calling us by name.

What thoughts do you have?

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.

"The Light in the Darkness" Christmas Eve

I had some fun with the sermon tonight.  When the Scripture lesson was finished, all the lights in the Sanctuary went out, except for the Advent candles and the candles in the windows.  I preached the first move of the sermon in the dark.  When I began the second move, I lit my candle in the Christ candle, and the spotlight came on to light the empty cross at the front of the Sanctuary.  For the third point, all the lights came on in the Sanctuary.  It was really cool to preach the first part of the sermon in the dark.  I had a really neat view of the congregation.  I wonder what the congregation saw as they looked toward the front of the Sanctuary and the live manger scene in the dark?

I also preached without a manuscript, so what was preached may or may not be reflected by what follows!

"The Light in the Night” December 24, 20154; FPC, Troy; Christmas Eve; Matthew 2: 1-2

Move 1: Darkness

The dark can be unsettling.

Children are often afraid of the dark.

They go to bed at night and crack their doors so that light from the house filters into their rooms.

Or they have night light.

The light a comfort in the dark.

Even adults can be afraid of the dark.

We leave a light on when we are going to return home at night so we do not have to walk into a dark house.

What's the first thing you do when you walk into a dark room, feel around the wall for the light switch to turn on the lights.

Darkness and its eerie feeling goes back to even before the beginning.

In Genesis we are told that before the world was created, darkness covered the face of the deep – the formless void we call chaos.

The first ting God commanded? “let there be light.”

Light and darkness is a fairly common theme in the biblical texts.

The Gospel of John plays on the image of light and dark – if it's dark, then something bad is going to happen or total misunderstanding is a play.

In the light, good things happen.

We remember that on the night of the Last Supper, Jesus is arrested in the garden under the cover of night and taken away.

In the story of Christ's birth, the shepherds are out in the fields at night. They are there because if a thief wants to steal sheep, he stalks them at night.

Or in less biblical terms, there is a cartoon of Calvin and Hobbes. Calvin is Calvin is sitting in bed, darkness surrounding him, eyes wide open with fright. He says, "I think nighttime is dark so you can imagine your fears with less distraction."
We know what it is like to imagine our fears in the darkness of our lives.

The darkness of death as we imagine our own mortality or grieve the death of loved ones.

The darkness of disease.

The darkness of helplessness

the darkness of our doubts.

The prophet Isaiah said, “The people who walked in darkness...”

We know those people.

We are those people.

Move 2: But into the darkness God sends light.

Maybe just a little flicker.

The baby born in Bethlehem does not look like much.

A baby born to non-descript parents who cannot even manage to find a place to stay except out with the animals.

A baby who is flesh like we are .

A baby who grows up into a man who is not a warrior, but a teacher.

Not a great politician, but a healer.

Not a man who commands others, but a man who acts as a servant.

Not a man who conquers people with power, but a man who saves people with love.

The light that comes to alive in Bethlehem.

The light that the star in the sky will mark.

The light that wise men will travel great distances to see.

The light that will beckon the shepherds from the fields.

The light that comes to expose the darkness of our world.

The light we gather to claim tonight.

Move 3: This fall I read about Jeff and Bridget Tryskoski, a couple in Frisco, TX who turn their home and yard into a light festival every year.

It began when they bought their first home. They bought in a neighborhood with no homeowner association rules about lights; they bought a house with a huge front yard.

Jeff had always wanted to be the one who owned “that house,” the one that everyone came to see before Christmas.

They began in 2001 with 10,000 incandescent light bulbs. IN those days, they could not use the AC or the dishwasher during the four hours people drove by their house because it would blow a breaker.

Now, they have 85,000 LED light bulbs that turn on and off to the music that you can dial in on your FM radio as you drive by the house.

Their goal – to brighten people's lives.

Bridgette tells the story of Tinsel, 45-6, “One time the doorbell rang and a woman stood there. It was late – a half hour after the computer had automatically switched the lights off for the night. She had her kids in her care and the Trykoskis if they'd turn it all back on, just for a little bit. 'Please,' the woman said, 'we've just had the worst day. It would really help.'”

they turned on the lights.

Tonight we light our candles. One by one they will fill this sanctuary with light.

The light will fill us with joy and warm us with that feeling we get each year as we gather here on Christmas.

These candles, like the lights at the Trykoski's house, are only temporary.

But they remind us of the coming of Christ, the light that will not leave us. The light that will not be overcome.

The light shines in darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. Amen.

Advent readings, Day 27: Titus 2: 11-14

Titus 2 11-14  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, 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.

Christmas has arrived.  God has come in flesh.  Amen.

Advent readings, Day 26 - Luke 2: 1-20

Luke 2: 1-20  About that time Caesar Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Empire. This was the first census when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Everyone had to travel to his own ancestral hometown to be accounted for. So Joseph went from the Galilean town of Nazareth up to Bethlehem in Judah, David’s town, for the census. As a descendant of David, he had to go there. He went with Mary, his fiancée, who was pregnant.

While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. She gave birth to a son, her firstborn. She wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in a manger, because there was no room in the hostel.

There were sheepherders camping in the neighborhood. They had set night watches over their sheep. Suddenly, God’s angel stood among them and God’s glory blazed around them. They were terrified. The angel said, “Don’t be afraid. I’m here to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody, worldwide: A Savior has just been born in David’s town, a Savior who is Messiah and Master. This is what you’re to look for: a baby wrapped in a blanket and lying in a manger.”

At once the angel was joined by a huge angelic choir singing God’s praises:

Glory to God in the heavenly heights,
Peace to all men and women on earth who please him.

As the angel choir withdrew into heaven, the sheepherders talked it over. “Let’s get over to Bethlehem as fast as we can and see for ourselves what God has revealed to us.” They left, running, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. Seeing was believing. They told everyone they met what the angels had said about this child. All who heard the sheepherders were impressed.

 Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself. The sheepherders returned and let loose, glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen. It turned out exactly the way they’d been told!

The Christmas story finally arrives after the long wait of Advent.  We are reminded that Jesus came to a real place at a real time in history.  God enters the reality of our world to call us to a new future.  I am always struck by the shepherds who were compelled to race to Bethlehem, and then had to tell everyone else what they had seen.  

The invitation of Christmas is to come to know the God who arrives in the reality of our lives, and then share that story with others.

Advent readings, Day 25 - 2 Peter 1: 16-21

 2 Peter 1: 16-21  For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, my Beloved,[a] with whom I am well pleased.”  We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain.

So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.  First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

An ongoing theme of Advent and Christmas is light, which is picked up in this letter with the image of the lamp shining in the dark place.  

As I am working on my Christmas Eve sermon and thinking about how to make it appealing and inviting, I am reminded the gospel does not need a clever presentation -- what God has done by coming in Christ stands on its own.  The question is not, "how to sell the story?" but "how do I stay out of the way of the story?"

Advent readings, Day 24 - Luke 1: 39-45

Luke 1: 39-45  Mary didn’t waste a minute. She got up and traveled to a town in Judah in the hill country, straight to Zachariah’s house, and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby in her womb leaped. She was filled with the Holy Spirit, and sang out exuberantly,

You’re so blessed among women,
    and the babe in your womb, also blessed!
And why am I so blessed that
    the mother of my Lord visits me?
The moment the sound of your
    greeting entered my ears,
The babe in my womb
    skipped like a lamb for sheer joy.
Blessed woman, who believed what God said,
    believed every word would come true!

Lots of thoughts from this passage.  Notice how Mary immediately seeks out someone else, in this case her cousin Elizabeth, when she becomes pregnant.  A reminder of how we need others in our lives and how we can provide support for others.

But I am particularly struck by the baby in Elisabeth's womb "skipping like a lamb" at the sound of Mary's voice.  Maybe it had been really quiet around the house since Elizabeth's husband Zechariah had been struck mute when he did not believe the angel who said that Elizabeth would become pregnant.  Maybe it was just that moment in the day when baby John in the womb was going to move no matter what else was happening.  But maybe there was a recognition that Mary was carrying the Son of God.  Not a learned argument about the Son of God or a virgin birth, but a visceral response to being in the presence of the one carrying the Son of God. There's something powerful about this immediate response to being in the presence of the Christ-child in the womb.  This story has me wondering about how we respond when we see God in our midst.