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"A New Year's Conversation with God" (Psalm 90 - "The Message")

12/31/2017

1 God, it seems you've been our home forever;
2 long before the mountains were born, Long before you brought earth itself to birth, from "once upon a time" to "kingdom come" - you are God.
3 So don't return us to mud, saying, "Back to where you came from!"
4 Patience! You've got all the time in the world - whether a thousand years or a day, it's all the same to you.
5 Are we no more to you than a wispy dream, no more than a blade of grass
6 That springs up gloriously with the rising sun and is cut down without a second thought?
7 Your anger is far and away too much for us; we're at the end of our rope.
8 You keep track of all our sins; every misdeed since we were children is entered in your books.
9 All we can remember is that frown on your face. Is that all we're ever going to get?
10 We live for seventy years or so (with luck we might make it to eighty), And what do we have to show for it? Trouble. Toil and trouble and a marker in the graveyard.
11 Who can make sense of such rage, such anger against the very ones who fear you?
12 Oh! Teach us to live well! Teach us to live wisely and well!

"Please Open BEFORE Christmas"

12/17/2017

Text: Isaiah 61: 1-3, 11 + John 1: 25-27

Today it is better to sit by the manger than stand in the pulpit, and listen to the voice that is bringing big name Jewish leaders from their posts in the Temple in Jerusalem,
and ordinary folks they shunned, judging them to be too common, too irreligious, and, therefore, unclean.

But now the haughty and the lowly are standing amid the rocks in the Judean desert with its jagged rises and deep crevices. They have come to listen to the voice of the hermit-like, last of the Hebrew prophets, John the Baptizer, who when questioned by the Temple authorities and scholars of the Law,
“Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?”
answers,
“I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.”

Here, by the manger, where next Sunday, our children and youth will turn his words “the one who is coming after me”
            into the pageantry of the story of Jesus’ Birth,
here where a toy doll wrapped in a blanket will be laid to rest on this straw-lined bed, and role-playing Mary and Joseph will take their place,
we hear the Scripture lessons read a week earlier, on this Third Sunday of Advent, this rose-colored candle Sunday, inviting us to, “Please open BEFORE Christmas.”

Here, by the manger, where we anticipate spending another Christmas reliving the Story of the Birth of Jesus, we know, for us, it will be a looking back to the One Whose Birth Story is remembered rather than anticipated.

Here, by the manger, we pick up on John the Baptizer’s answer to his critics, Among you stands one whom you do not know,
and know it forces us to ask, “What do I know about Jesus?”

Not the Baby Jesus, but the grownup Jesus, the Jesus we hear the prophet Isaiah saying will be God’s Gift, which when opened, will:comfort all who mourn; …give them a garland
instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.

All the reasons to open the Gift BEFORE Christmas, so that the Gift God intends us to receive in Jesus will be the Gift that affects the way we celebrate Christmas, especially for us and others who are those “who mourn.”

Come, sit by the manger, sit and take Mary’s place, and remember how she came to that first Christmas,
hounded with gossip, suspected as having lived too promiscuously, unmarried with child, saved from being stoned to death as Joseph stepped up and took her as his wife;
            labeled a contriving liar, or a lunatic, telling a story
of an angel announcing she has been blessed to be chosen by God to bring Messiah into the world.

Come, sit by the manger, and open the Gift that has us see what May saw, as she followed Jesus through His ministry, and trial and death; as she came to the tomb and found it empty –
the sight to confess:
“truly God’s Messiah, conquering not only sin but also death”- the promise and the hope waiting to be received by all who come to this Christmas in need of comfort.

The Gift that when opened, helped Wanda Bencke when her disabled teenage daughter had a seizure on Christmas Day and died five days later. During that time of waiting she wrote this poem which in its original form reads:
I see the countless Christmas trees around the world below
With tiny light like heaven’s stars reflecting on the snow.
The sight is so spectacular please wipe away that tear
For I am spending Christmas with Jesus Christ this year.
I hear the many Christmas songs that people hold so dear
But the sound of music can’t compare with the Christmas choir up here…
I can’t tell you of the splendor or the peace here in this place
Can you imagine Christmas with our Savior face to face?
I’ll ask him to lift your spirit as I tell him of your love
So, pray for one another as you lift your eyes above.
Please let your hearts be joyful and let your spirit sing
For I am spending Christmas in heaven and I am walking
with the King.   Copyright 1999 ©Wanda Bencke
A poem that echoes Mary’s song – sung in the key of a forward-looking faith:
  “My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,…” Luke 1: 47
which we can sing in the key of a promise fulfilled in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
            Our reason to “open the Gift BEFORE Christmas.

Another reason was played out in the TV series “Bull,” the PhD psychologist, Dr. Bull, who works in the courtroom setting of clients, lawyers, and juries.
Last week it was a nine-year-old girl who wanted a divorce from her parent. As the story unfolded it was the drama of a child filled with anger projected on her too busy, always absent father, who expected a nanny to take the place of a wife and mother who had died too soon.
When Dr. Bull works to get to the real cause that is unresolved grief, the father confesses his blindness to his daughter’s need of his time for her, the confession that melts the hardness of a child’s unforgiving heart.
Their embrace of each other becomes the gift that brings them back to life, just in time for Christmas.

A scene, though fiction, happening in the real life drama of individuals at war with each other over suppressed grief or guilt or a personal hurt that seems too deep for the offended one to overcome with forgiveness; but then it happens for those who hear and receive the words of the Advent prophet, Isaiah:
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, …to provide for those who mourn in Zion— to give them… the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.

Here, at the manger, open that Gift BEFORE Christmas
and rejoice in what the Advent prophet says of those who do:
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.

Martha Spong, a UCC pastor and blogger reminds us:
“What a gift it is when we remember the Messiah will not
come to congratulate the happy couples, or high-five the winners, or bend an elbow with the successful. He will come to walk with the widow, to comfort the lost, and to (kneel) with the oppressed. Mark this. The prophet promises release, liberty, comfort, rebuilding, binding up of the brokenhearted, and restoration of what has been lost. This is the good news.” (Quoted from “Sunday is Coming, Christian Century for Dec. 17, 2017, Martha Spong UCC pastor, writer, and workshop leader on spiritual practices)
The Gift meant to be opened NOW so the Gift we receive will be the Gift that is given.

Chaim (Hāyem) Potok the American Jewish writer and rabbi, told of wanting from boyhood to be a writer, but his mother would say,
"Son, now I know you want to be a writer. But I want you to think about brain surgery. You'll keep a lot of people from dying. And you'll make a lot of money."
Finally, he cut off his mother with,
"Mama, I don't want to keep people from dying, I want to show them how to live." Susan R. Andrews, Sermons for Sundays: In Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany: The Offense Of Grace, CSS Publishing Company, Inc.

Come to the manger, sit by the manger and open the Gift of the One Who came to give us life and show us how to live,
and today, by the light of the rose-colored candle,
to see to sing Mary’s song (The Magnificat). Amen.

"OUR GIFT TO GIVE TO OTHERS"

12/10/2017

Text: Mark 1: 1-3, 8

We just heard today’s Advent Gospel according to Mark: The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God announcing the original Christmas Gift, for God, for us.
The writer of the Gospel according to Mark, full name: John Mark, gets right to the Gift. He doesn’t wrap it is Matthew’s words that make for an exquisite scene of star, camels, colorfully dressed Eastern scholars who study the sky for signs of world-shaking events; nor in Luke’s wrapping paper printed with a current events with the bold-print headline: “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus…” that fades into the quaint scenes of shepherds, angelic choirs, and a Baby cradled in a feed trough overseen by attentive parents; nor in John’s first-century interpretive art swirling with heavily-colored lines of poetic phrases.

The writer of the shortest Gospel, with which we will spend this cycle in the church’s year, doesn’t bother to wrap the Gift, nor does he even take the time to box it. He hands it to all to read - with no Baby in a manger, no shepherds, no choir of angels, no travelers from the East showing up sometime later…maybe two years later.

Samuel Massey muses (quoted from his book You've Got to be Kidding! )
“…how inconspicuously the Gospel begins according to Mark. All (the writer) offers is John the Baptist, Martha Stewart's worst nightmare, smelling like a camel and calling people to change their ways.” to receive the Gift of the grownup Jesus,
flesh of our flesh, come to live our life from beginning to end, and then give us life beyond death; and in between, show us how to turn God’s love for us into our love for one another.

Like some of the gifts we give, or the cards we open, and hear a recorded message speaking in digitized tones, John Mark, dubs in a voice of John the Baptist, last of the prophets, crying out from a his wilderness pulpit: “Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.”

The Advent cry to remove every obstacle, every barrier or pitfall that keeps God’s Good News Gift in Jesus from getting through to everyone.
            “For God so loved the WORLD, that he gave his only Son…”
                        Jesus, God’s Gift for EVERYONE!

When families began to settle here in the 1800’s, between historic Evansburg to the East and Trappe to the West, Abraham Hunsicker realized there were enough people to have a Christian Meeting house between the two in what was then called Freeland (now Collegeville), and from the beginning there were to be no limitations;
the congregation was to be “a place of worship for all Christians.”
Literally a place along the highway from Philadelphia to Reading where God’s Good News in Jesus would be a Gift waiting to be opened and shared.

A life-changing Gift that has us reading and dramatizing Charles Dicken’s Christmas Carol Christmas after Christmas.
            The heartwarming story that needs to be heard in these hard-
            hearted, cold-hearted times – the cold of Hell, as Dante said its
            center is not the unbearable heat of fire, but the deadening freeze of ice.
The ice-cold heart of Scrooge melted by the horror of his greed that thaws him out
to let himself be adopted by the Cratchit family and give away his hoarded money that has him seeing Tiny Tim healed and well.

Gregory Knox Jones confesses it is a story that warms his heart.
“But more than that, it is a hopeful story. It provides us with the hope that we too can make needed changes in our lives. We can break free from the ruts we have burrowed, and the negative behaviors we have cultivated. We can become kind and compassionate, humble and hospitable, joyful and generous.” (Gregory Knox Jones, An Alternative Future)

Today, we who are members, attending friends of this congregation, and drop-in visitors at Trinity Church – “a place of worship for all Christians,”
            hear John Mark quoting another John, John the Baptizer,
                        the voice crying out to “make his paths straight,”
                        to remove every obstacle within us and around us,
            to receive the Christ Who makes it possible to love ourselves
                        as much as God loves us,
                        and to make that God-love in Jesus
                                    “OUR GIFT TO GIVE TO OTHERS!”
And so, today we purpose to remove any barriers or pitfalls as we enlarge the word “all” in “a place of worship for all Christians,”
            from what that “all” meant in the midst of the religious battles of the mid-
  1800’s and the family-dividing, nation-severing time of the Civil War,
                        to the “all” of this twenty-first century.
The “all” who are loved by God, the “all” to whom God gives the Good News Gift that comes to us through Jesus.

Sue Monk Kidd, the nurse turned devotional writer through reading Thomas Merton, who awakened her to explore the inner life, recalls her childhood when she prepared for Christmas early in December. She would place a wooden Nativity scene under the tree and think deeply about Christmas and the coming of Jesus.
One remembrance was of a visit to a monastery a couple of weeks before Christmas.
As she passed a monk walking outside, she greeted him with,
            "Merry Christmas."
The monk's response caught her off guard as he replied,
"May Christ be born in you."
His words seemed strange and peculiar at the time. What did he mean,
"May Christ be born in you?"
Years later, sitting beside the Christmas tree, she felt the impact of his words.
She discovered that Advent is a time of spiritual preparation.
It is also a time of transformation.
It is "discovering our soul and letting Christ be born (into) the waiting
heart." (King Duncan, Collected sermons, www.Sermons.com)

The Gift we receive and make “Our Gift to Give to Others” as we let others know the word “all” is defined by God's Good Needs in Jesus. AMEN.

"Tuning in to God's Advent Channel"

12/3/2017

ext: 1 Corinthians 1: 8-9; Mark 13: 30 (26, 27)

Two people were talking about keeping up with the daily news by listening to certain channels.One said, “I tune in to PBS.” The other person said, “I tune in to FOX News.” The first said, “You’re too far-right for me!” and the second came back with, “And you’re too far-left!” It seems we’re known and labeled by the channel we watch, and the channel we watch may influence our views and values.
Advent has us tuning in to another channel

that is neither liberal nor conservative, left or right. Call it “God’s channel” which runs on a three-year cycle tied to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, with John appearing throughout the three. A new season begins today, the First Sunday of Advent, with this year’s programs scripted from the Gospel according to Mark.

The pilot show has us hearing a perplexing prediction made by Jesus:
Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.
“These things” being the reference to:
the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.
Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds,
  from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.
That’s what we hear when tuning in on God’s channel.

It’s the prediction which promotes other programmers and writers and film makers to create scenarios of a driver being lifted out of a car – one of the elect marked for eternal life in a new world, and scary scenes of raging fires devouring people on the run, scenes that make for nightmares, tranquilizers, and professional counseling.

But, tune in on God’s channel, and listen and remember the intent of the scriptwriter, John Mark, secretary to the disciple/apostle Peter. He is portrays God’s Good News in Jesus in a format that is like a “Where’s Waldo” cartoon drawn with words. He wants to have readers try to spot, not Waldo, but Jesus, among the people, doing the work/the things of God.

“Do you (YOU – the first readers and all successive readers) SEE these things have taken place? “These things” being the “great power and glory” of God’s intended rule breaking forth in Jesus, “things” seen in His life, and therefore, “things that have taken place.”

All who let themselves be drawn into those “things,” seen in Jesus, become witnesses. The first “generation” being His disciples, the women who were around Him, serving Him, the crowds who followed Him, the community that would later be called His church. And on, generation after generation of followers who see God’s reign made visible in Jesus, and seeing, let Christ live His life through them and become a preview of that glorious Day which is to come, by God’s timing, and God alone.

Dennis Sanders, Pastor of a Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in St. Paul, Minnesota, blogs under the name “The Clockwork Pastor” where his comment on today’s Gospel reads:
‘This passage may be about Jesus’ second coming, but I think it speaks to us also in the here and now. We are called to be on the lookout for the big return, but we are also to be aware of the many ways Christ appears in the present.”
And so, he asks,
“Are we alert to see where Christ arrives, breaking through time and space to be present in our lives and the lives of others? And—more to the point—are we willing to be his hands and feet?”

Edward Gleason tells of a friend who when being interviewed for a job was asked to tell about his walk with Jesus, and he answered, “Everywhere I go, no matter where or when, I find that Jesus has arrived there first. Wherever I go, Jesus is already there." He wasn’t hired. Was the interviewer turned off by the word “Jesus;’
            was it because of today’s reaction to all things religious?

I thought about that as I was making the bed one day last week. It is a daily routine I try to hold to, thinking I never know when someone might stop by and want to take a tour of what we call “ a clone of the 1683 house William Penn had built right above Penn’s Landing and the Custom’s House.”

I want to be ready to show off what my family researched and then followed every details to turn into a true-to-the-original house (with the understanding it does have modern conveniences).

But then, I found myself thinking about today’s Advent Gospel and the words of Jesus: this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. and I found myself asking, “What might a drop-in-visitor see, not of our house, but of Jesus?” A questioning thought that changed my daily routine from having a house ready to show to visitors, to being “alert to see Christ…breaking through to be present…”
  Jesus Who has us confessing: “Everywhere I go, I find Jesus has arrived there first. Jesus is already there." Edward S. Gleason, In the Time of This Mortal Life

And so, we cannot busy ourselves with “end times” charts readily provided in books and some TV channels,
because we are too busy being “this generation” of witnesses who are energized by Paul’s Advent letter that has us claiming the blessing:
He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless
  on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is faithful;
by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Called to be “this generation” that is a witness to the work and word of Jesus,
            the blessed calling we savor and are sustained to live
            as we come to the Advent Table of Holy Communion.
                                                Amen!

"A New Year's Conversation with God" (Psalm 90 - "The Message")

"Please Open BEFORE Christmas"

"OUR GIFT TO GIVE TO OTHERS"

"Tuning in to God's Advent Channel"

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