January 29 -- Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

[Story of Dad taking a picture of Micah yesterday face-to-face with a snake near the Cabrillo Historic Lighthouse in Point Loma.]

Unwilling (or unable?) to look up, smile, and look beyond his immediate situation.

That simple image strikes me this morning as particularly illustrative for our Gospel reading. Except take away the sweet little boy Micah and a harmless garden snake and replace them with a man possessed by an unclean spirit. Eyes and body locked up, like a snake has actually coiled around him. And is squeezing him, and has him crying out strange things. And like Micah, he is unwilling or unable to look up and see anything else.

There was an older woman at a church I used to serve…who had some wonderful gifts for ministry. She was a teacher and a friend of the youth, she was creative and insightful at times. But every time I went out of town, I would get this email from her, that was like another person. Her words were mean and nasty, like venom. It took me a while to figure out that there was some history and chemical dependency and an imbalance of medication in the mix here…that it wasn’t just me causing this outburst. But it was as if something had been punctured, and this deep-seated anger and brokenness inside of her, which she normally kept neatly concealed, was bubbling out all over the keyboard, poisoning the airwaves. Sometimes she’d even copy her notes to others.

When I’d return, I’d immediately make an appointment, but she’d assure me that everything was fine. It had blown over. Sometimes she’d even deny or forgot the whole thing even happened.

But something was gripping her. Something was coiling around her, keeping her from looking up, from seeing beyond, causing her to cry out strange things. [pause]

There was a nation once, whose military industrial complex was unreal. This country made our harbor full of artillery look like nothing. Everything was secure and sound in that nation. Walls were perfectly erected designed to keep out any invaders and foreign contaminants, even biological. Weapons of mass destruction were hidden with strategy and precision inside every mountain and under waterways. And they were always ready for any kind of attack. Ships and tanks and fighter jets were stationed in every town and a patrol officer at every corner. They spared no expense in training their soldiers. In fact, they start training their children when they’re old enough to carry a weapon, so that by the time they’re teenagers they are like Navy Seals. And their intelligence agency was the sharpest the world had ever seen.

But something was gripping that little country. For behind all the weaponry and the walls was a fear. Deep in the caves of the people’s hearts…was a sadness and a pain. For in no God could they trust….only in their machines. Something was coiling around that whole nation, keeping it from looking up, keeping it from seeing beyond, causing it to cry out strange things. [pause]

There was once a young man, who was afraid to speak. He thought he wanted to be a preacher. But he was so overcome with fear and guilt and a crippling self-consciousness that even after he had taken the class and gotten the accolades from his preaching professor, when he climbed into the pulpit for the first time, his mouth went dry. His heart sank to his feet and he was struck dumb. The sweat pounded down from this forehead and onto his manuscript, and his hands shook uncontrollably.

It was as if something was gripping him. Something was coiling around his voice box, keeping him from looking up and crying out beyond himself a Good Word to a people in pain. [pause]

Today Jesus enters the temple, sees a child of God possessed by an unclean spirit, and he crushes that demon!

You have to understand something about the Gospel of Mark as a whole: This book is not gentle spiritual guidance, graceful suggestions for the Christian life, sweet stories of our Lord. No, Mark tells of a Jesus who crushes that demon. Mark reeks of radical in-your-face good-crushing-sin Gospel! We’re only in the first chapter here. And Jesus is casting out a demon in the temple on the Sabbath! Jesus doesn’t gently brush shoulders with challenges, float past opposition like a holy leaf in the breeze, bestowing peace and security and happiness to all. No, Mark is all about Jesus going head to head with the forces of evil.

Jesus actions and words are as swift and as audible as one of our fighter jets tearing across the San Diego sky: Deafening and striking awe in everyone.

Every story in Mark is a cosmic clash with Satan. With those powers in our world that coil around us and deteriorate our hope. That cripple us with fear, anger, pain and sorrow.

Jesus stomps on the snake’s head. He crushes the oppressors rod. A modern-day Isaiah would say that he bends the AK47 into a gardening tool…

So that at last the man can look up.

Jesus reaches out to that angry old woman with her vitriolic words and snaps the neck of the snake that has coiled around her. And she can look up at last.

Jesus reaches out to that warring nation and rebukes the demons, “Come out!” Jesus says, “Be silent, and come out.” And the scripture says that the unclean spirit of a whole people, after convulsing and crying out with a loud voice, finally leaves. And. There. Is. Peace.

And to the young man who was struck dumb in the pulpit, Christ comes and opens the mouth of the prophets. To preach release to the captive, hope to the oppressed, forgiveness to all, and love. The demon is crushed and love wins the day.

To you…Christ comes. To you he reaches out and takes your demons and your burdens and your sorrows and your guilt and your anger and your pain…

And he crushes them. Look up. And live. For Love is on our side. AMEN.

January 22 -- Third Sunday after Epiphany

I’m afraid that the quick response of Andrew and Peter, James and John is more a style of Mark the Evangelist than what might have actually happened.

Yesterday morning a small group of us from Shepherd of the Valley – together with a small group from the Calvary Lutheran and their Oromo (Ethiopian) congregation – gathered together and after singing a hymn and saying a prayer…read the entire Gospel of Mark, which is actually quite short compared to the others – only 16 chapters, compared to Luke, John and Matthew which get up into the 20’s. As always it was quite moving, and I was reminded again how precise and quick-to-the-point Mark’s writing is. No excessive verbiage in narrating through all the hesitations and thoughts of the disciples in this particularly story. No, Mark’s text says they “immediately” left their nets and followed…and so we get on with the story…

But I’m afraid it was more complicated that that. And archeological evidence is now helping to confirm my worry: Fishing as a business, although I’ve always tended to think of fishing as a lower class job, stinky and for people without much, archeologists and historians are showing us that fishing was actually quite lucrative. Because of the Roman Empire’s presence there were trade channels throughout the Mediterranean and a fisherman was actually quite connected and well paid. So much so that it was not uncommon to become the family business…like the Zebedee and Sons business that we hear about here today.

I think it would be much easier to follow Jesus if we were really at the end of our respective ropes…

If we didn’t have anything, if we hated our jobs, if our families and friendships were unimportant, and if all our stuff didn’t matter to us.

But as it turns out, I have many things. We all do, in this context. Many nets, many fish, many relationships, money, many a healthy day left. I’m a prime candidate for insurers. Many blessings. Maybe I should title the early part of this sermon “When Our Blessings Become Our Excuses”. So many excuses that frankly make me want to believe it was easier for the disciples because they didn’t have all the things I have. If they did they never would have risked it all. “It was easier for them; they were just fishermen.”

But I’m afraid I’m kidding myself. To leave behind their livelihoods and their families to “follow Jesus” in a political and economic climate as harsh as the ancient Mediterranean world was just as frightening – if not more – than it would be today. Darn it!

What are your nets, excuses, blessings that you’re unwilling to yield? What do you need to drop in order to hear Christ’s loving invitation more fully? Doesn’t have to be just physical things...Do you have obsessions that are getting in the way? Relationships that are unhealthy? Anger at something someone did to you? Anger at God? What stuff is holding you back from letting go and following?

I’d like try something…[ushers]

Write down and answer this question.

It’s easy to say you believe in Jesus, but what is it that is keeping you from following Jesus?

That’s a private question, and rather than wading it up immediately, or bringing it up front or burning it symbolically right now, I’d like you to take it home. Live with that which is holding you a little bit longer. You’ve named it; that’s good. Now live with it, hold it, for a bit more. Acknowledge that it is your companion – it’s probably been walking with you for a long while. Even our unhealthy habits – our anger, our overeating, our destructive relationships – can become friends because they’re what we know.

But in time, maybe later today, maybe later this week or in a month, start to let it go. God will give us the strength.

Let it go.

Sisters and brother in Christ:

Jesus calls us. Jesus calls you from the safety of your nets, from the security of your boats. Jesus calls you from your blessings and your pain, and invites you, invites us to plunge into the deeper waters and rockier roads of ministry. And while it may sound difficult and frightening, and it is certainly risky, this is God’s gift to us. This is God’s love and God’s grace at work in many and mysterious ways.

God is offering us a richer life in following Jesus. (I don’t want to define what following Jesus looks like; that’s what we start to hear when we let go of all the baggage.) A deeper connection with our neighbor, with the earth, with our own bodies. God is offering us our integrity and our health. (The word salvation comes from salvus which is deeply connected to wholeness and health.) So many of us live divided lives. Hidden secrets, immense baggage from past experiences. And we tend to pad that pain with stuff, we tend to busy our lives so much that don’t have to hear Christ’s whispering call. But Christ is here...inviting us today to leave our abundance and our pain, our lucrative busy-ness and all the noise in our lives, our determination to be secure and our anger, Christ invites you this day to come and follow him.

The road will be rocky. The seas will be choppy. But when we are held in the arms of Christ, there is true peace. The peace that passes all understanding. That peace is yours this day and forever. Let go. For God’s got you and God’s peace rains down on you. This day and forever. AMEN.

January 15 -- Second Sunday after Epiphany

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nathaniel asks.

There’s just something about his sarcasm and hopelessness that resonates for me. Do you ever feel like Nathaniel?

Is there anything good that can come out of…[pick your source of pain, your arch rival, or your recurring annoyance]

This person that I can’t stand?

Another death in the family?

Divorce?

This period of joblessness?

--

Going to church again this Sunday?

Same old music?

Some new songs I’ve never heard?

Another one of Pastor’s droning sermons?

--

This election year?

Barack Obama?

Mitt Romney?

This economic depression?

The U.S. military?

The Occupy Movement downtown?

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Can anything good come from a civil rights movement? (MLK)

Can anything good come from having a dream?

Standing up for housing rights? Schooling rights? Religious rights?

Muslim? Atheist?

Can anything good come from Christians?

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth, because we’ve been down this road before…”

I don’t know if I want to give Nathaniel a hug or a high five…

He’s my tragic brother. He’s that voice on my shoulder that whispers, “It can never work, don’t kid yourself.” [Community Garden, recovery of our declining church body, efforts to strike out hunger, cancer, improving education or health care in our nation] “It can never work,” says Nathaniel. There may be some truth to Nathaniel’s sarcasm and cynicism.

And he’s sitting under a fig tree.

And Jesus sees him. What is that about?

I means Jesus sees through all his layers of sarcasm and cynicism and hopelessness. He sees “an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” Jesus sees honesty. And he sees that honesty, that realism holding Nathaniel captive, like a snake coiled around him. And Jesus sees more than that: he sees beneath those layers of cynicism and hopelessness, a child of God, from a member of the family who everyone else looks at and says, “Can anything good come from Nathaniel’s mouth?”

Fig in our backyard with it’s low-hanging branches that hide; figs are what Adam and Eve used to cover themselves.) It’s also, I understand, a symbol for home in the Old Testament – Micah, Isaiah, and Zechariah. Sees through the hiddenness of the fig, sees through all the baggage of our homes our backgrounds. Jesus sees right through it all, and honors and calls his disciple.

That’s interesting news for those of us who identify with Nathaniel. And here’s the other side of it. The text is so rich, in case you’re not feeling Nathaniel: The other side is Philip.

“Come and see” is what Philip says, when he’s challenged.

Philip lets God be God. He’s still searching too, he doesn’t have all the answers, but all he’s saying is let’s just give this Jesus a try. Let’s go and follow him. Let’s let him be God and not try to take on that job. (Interesting how some religious groups feel that the have to defend God.)

Philip is that other voice on our shoulder, when we start getting cynical and hopeless. Perhaps the best voice. Notice: Philip’s voice is not saying, “Hey, it’s OK, everything is going to be alright.” No, the truth is Martin Luther King, Jr. gets shot. Jesus gets crucified. Is that “everything turning out OK”?! No, Philip models two things: 1) an openness to God’s calling, Christ’s invitation, and 2) a commitment to listening in community, a commitment to tolerance of various points of view and issues. Come with me, he says. Community discernment is so important. It’s like Eli and Samuel’s back-and-forth before little Samuel answers. We need each other to discern God’s call. “Where is God calling us as a congregation?” is the question our church council wrestles with in this new year. And it’s yours too. I’ve got thoughts. You’ve got thoughts. But are my desires in line with what God wants. That takes communal prayer and communal discernment. Do our thoughts line up with God’s invitation?

God is calling. God is moving. God is picking you out from under the fig trees, picking us out from our thickets of hopelessness and fear and saying you are my disciples. I need you and all doubts and questions…because I need your honesty. I need your willingness to just giving it a try, your commitment to your community, Christ says. Come and follow me.

January 8 -- Epiphany Sunday

Uh...the computer ate my sermon.

January 1, 2012 -- First Sunday of Christmas

We entrust the future to God.

One of my favorite stories, worth telling again… old Harold….

We’ve had the flame of the good news of Christ passed to us. Perhaps it was long ago, perhaps it was just this morning. But it has been passed to you and to me. We carry it, as faithfully as we can, precariously at times out, into the world, and then we too pass it on from our nervous hands to the precarious hands of those who are younger than us. That is entrusting the future to God. That is being a vessel, letting God’s word and love move though us to be shared. It’s a wonderful image, I think, for us to ponder this first day of 2012. “God let me be a sharer of your light.”

You have chosen to mark this day and start this year, in the temple, in the sanctuary, in a holy place – where we like Harold, like Simeon and Anna, perhaps just as exhausted, but hopeful nonetheless, dedicate our lives, our new year to God. And it works both ways: in the offering we make, in the dedication we make here, God blesses us too. Except it’s not a transaction, like in the market place. It’s the joy of doing church together. It just happens as we are blessing God, God is blessing us even more. Our God doesn’t work in terms of if/ then (if you praise me, then I’ll bless you). No, for God it’s both/and.

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I’ve had the chance to hold 2 newborns since Christmas Eve – my new little niece Sydney and our friend’s Michelle and Tim’s little baby Kate – both 2 weeks old.

I can’t hold these tiny babies, during this season of Christmas, and not think of how incredible it is that God comes to us so vulnerable, so fragile. (If you get a chance – 5 days of Christmas left…J) What a strange gift! (Did you get any strange gifts this year for Christmas?) What a strange gift that God chooses to become so tiny and vulnerable. Our God: nursing every two hours, pooping and sleeping.

And in that strange way, that babies bless us, so God rests in our arms, in our hands at the holy table, in our hearts and our bones though the week. The Word is made flesh, the salvation of the world…it is this strange God, this infant Christ child to whom we entrust our new year.

It is this strange God who Mary and Joseph took to the temple. Nothing but a newborn baby to everyone else – incredibly cute and incredibly vulnerable, nursing, pooping, sleeping… but to Simeon and Anna this baby was even more.

The very, very young is held by the very, very old. And they get it: they get that they are being held too by this holy child! The salvation of the world, the light of life, the bread of heaven, held right there in their wrinkled hands.

They get it, Simeon and Anna do – how important, how fragile, how special this baby is: it is both sheer joy that they express, but also the prophetic acknowledgement that carrying this baby with us means we will be changed and challenged for the rest of our days, that, as Simeon says, “a sword will pierce your own soul too”, that this baby will bring opposition, he will tear down walls that divide, he will lift up the brokenhearted, the ones who the world pushes aside, this tiny one will bring the them to the center.

This baby will turn the world upside down with unconditional love. And that will be upsetting, Simeon says, even to you.

Holding the salvation of the world, as fragile as crumbly bread, we bless God and partake in the joy of Christ. “My eyes have seen at last the salvation of the world…AND the road ahead won’t always be easy. But we hold and bless this Christ child nonetheless…for the one we bless, blesses us even greater!

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Simeon has this amazing line, after he holds this tiny holy baby: He says essentially, “I can die now.” “Lord, now let your servant go in peace.” “I can die now, holding and knowing this Christ is that good!”

As you looking forward to this New Year, what are the things that you’re waiting for, what needs to happen in your life, where you could say, “God, I could die now. Lord, let your servant go in peace”?

I invite you this month to do some intentional thinking about this question. What are the things that matter in your life? People make new year’s resolutions, but I read the other day that 9 out of 10 people have pretty much forgotten them after 2 weeks time.

Consider your past year – highs and lows – prayer of thanksgiving for your highs, places you’ve failed, ask forgiveness and let it go, places of pain and need – name them.

And then write down …what your hopes, dreams and goals for this year.

Hold this day, this year as reverently (as prayerfully), as joyously, and as consciously as Anna and Simeon held the newborn Christ. And then entrust it to God. Pass it over, and live or even die at peace. I don’t want anyone to die, I don’t want to die, but if I do, Romans says, I die in Christ. I die in peace, knowing that salvation has been fulfilled. IN this bread and wine my own eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared in the sight of every people!” I’m struck by the amazing peace that is present in a room both at the moment of new life and at the moment of death. The very very young and the very very old both seem to me to be the very best teachers of trusting…

God is holding us, and always will, through this new year, and into eternity. AMEN.

Christmas Day 2011

Well last night, we heard the familiar Christmas story from Luke, and it kind of goes down like Christmas butter. Familiar and tasty. Perfect for what we need on our cozy evening.

Now this Christmas Day we get some meat from the Gospel of John. We kind of have to put on our thinking caps to conceptualize what John is talking about – the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us. Seems pretty esoteric, man! The Word is Christ, and Christ is the light of the world, who was in the beginning. This passage that we read here on Christmas Day, is where all the meat, about who Jesus is and what Christians believe about him, comes from!

Jesus is God. Jesus was in the beginning. John has us start envisioning Jesus present at the creation story! Not just God, the Father, but God the Son, God the Holy Spirit – all present creating the world, bringing the world into being, and giving light to the world.

Christmas is a festival of lights. Pagan religions celebrate a festival of lights too at the winter solstice, which is roughly December 18-23, because in the Northern Hemisphere, the world is darker at this time, especially way up north. And on those deep, dark days of winter, there are some moments there where Northern farmers, for centuries, who depend on the light for their daily income, longingly wondering if the sun will ever come back to shine on their crops. And the ancient pagan religions began to hold celebrations, that started in the darkness. And then of course, when the light returned, as it always did, it was time to party!

And they would bring out greenery, pine trees, holiday (holly day) trees, with red holly berries, and they would light candles as symbolic and as celebration of the light of the Sun, s-u-n, which had finally returned after the Longest Night of the year.

When Heather and I were in Ireland last February visiting my brother Tim and his wife Caitriona, we toured an ancient Passage Tomb at a place called Newgrange, attributed to such pagan religious groups that probably held such festivals. This particular site dated back to 3200 B.C.! I mean, that’s as old, some say older than the pyramids in Egypt!

It was quite amazing the entrance was this narrow door that faced the rising sun. You had to duck your head to get in, then walk about 100 feet through this tunnel, until you got to this chamber room that was about a quarter of the size of our sanctuary here. Archeologists can only speculate about what exactly that room was used for. But it had to be somehow religious. And the amazing thing was that every year, on the winter solstice, where the sun is lined up with the earth just so, light shines down that narrow passage way and lights up the entire chamber. It only lasts for 17 minutes. And only so many people can fit in that chamber. Today, the people of Ireland enter their names into a lottery in order to be chosen to experience this lighting of the chamber at Newgrange. It’s apparently quite spectacular.

Today I think we take images of light and dark for granted, because of our knowledge of science and our readily available electricity.

But even this past year here in San Diego…remember that one night when our power went out? I’m thankful for that night for our purposes here today because…

We get just a little taste of the fear and anxiety the ancients must have experienced in the dark. No flashlights, or iPod apps, and in damp places even a challenge to get a fire light going…

And these types of celebrations didn’t just happen in Ireland or Northern Europe. They differed obviously from region to region throughout the Northern hemisphere, but the sun, s-u-n, like water is/was the most powerful universal life-force, that was celebrated and reverenced everywhere.

Christians in the 4^th century started to morph and appropriate those pagan winter festivals of light and dark as a fitting celebration time for Christ’s birth. They had the story, so when to share that story... Fascinating! These are the roots of our traditions – they come out of these seemingly simple, yet quite profound celebrations about darkness and light. Christians too then, would bring out evergreen trees, and light candles, but they added new layers of meaning to these symbols. Evergreens symbolized the year-round love and presence of God. And candles…and fire…for Christians, they now symbolized the S-o-n of God, not the s-u-n, who was the light of the world. It was Jesus Christ, who warms the earth, who comes among us as flesh and blood, and who lights our way. So what might seem to us as esoteric, dreamy ideas in John’s first verses had powerful flesh and blood resonances with all those early people who heard John’s Gospel.

Think how many heard it and converted to Christianity on the spot because the images were so rich and compelling…and made so much sense.

Sisters and brothers in Christ, we celebrate this DAY Jesus as the light of the world. Just as we can often take for granted the sunlight, so we can also forget at times the light of Christ which brings so much joy to our lives. John says, so much “grace and truth”. Today we pause, and celebrate Jesus – as both tiny baby, born among the poor and the meek (which was more of the emphasis last night), and today, our celebration expands to cosmic proportions as we name and celebrate and give thanks for Jesus, the very light of the universe!

This far-reaching, unconditionally loving God, this Jesus the Christ, who lights and warms the world with love, also reaches out to you this day, offering you, with all the world the ultimate Christmas gift, which is grace and truth, love and forgiveness, the promise of eternal life. This is why the angels sing, “peace on earth”: because God Jesus, the light of the world, the light of life, fills the earth and you and me with that peace, which passes all understanding. That peace is yours this Christmas Day and always. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Christmas Eve 2011

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We’ve all got something...something about our life that makes it difficult:

Way over weight. Always too late.

Just lost a spouse. Foreclosed on a house.

Children estranged; in-laws deranged.

No real respect. Childhood neglect.

Can’t find a job; crazy Uncle Bob.

Bad heart and bad back; no good in the sack.

Kids are in trouble. Bills just went double.

Secrets so silent. A dad who was violent.

Never got married. A little too “hairy’d”.

So busy you’re head could almost expload.

Car trouble and stranded in rain on the road.

Can’t beat the recession.

Can’t drug the depression.

Some of us have lots of things. But we’ve all got something. Something in our life that cripples us a little or a lot – a painful memory, a tragic family member, an addiction, or just plain bad luck.

I don’t mean to make light of our problems with a little rhyming, except to point out that we’ve all got them. Even those who might get your jealousy boilers rumbling, those who seem to have it all together, carefree and (the great American word) happy, I am sure they’ve got their issue or issues too. We’ve all got something.

And yet here we sit together, this Christmas Eve 2011. To pause for a moment, to peek through the thicket of our “stuff”, to swim through the kelp of our various unfortunate predicaments, to see if we can see, to hear if we can hear, from this Holy Nativity. Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus. We keep telling the story, even though we’ve perhaps heard it a million times we keep gathering around this story. Why? New insight, just plain old family tradition? Longing for hope and peace in a troubled world, in our troubled lives? Why do we gather around this story?

We strain our eyes and cock our ears on Christmas Eve longing for something. We’re like whales coming up to the surface this time each year, from our deep and crazy lives…coming to the surface for a breath. For something new. The airways open, at least for a few moments, for something new, or at least to reclaim something ancient and good and cosmic as air.

What do you take in, what do you inhale, this year from the little Christ-child, from mother Mary, father Joseph, the shepherds, the innkeeper? Is there anything in this ancient text that can possibly speak to our set of issues, our cast of family characters, our global crises, our own deep senses of loss or fear or despair? Give us something, Jesus, because sometimes we feel like we’re drowning in here…

Well, take a breath, Christmas whales. And remember, first, we’ve all got something. Something causing pain in our lives. Something us that makes me feel different from the rest of you. We can all relate to being out in the cold in some way or another. Which means we’re all feeling out in the cold, out in the sheep field or the stinky stable. There’s a strange comfort to knowing that fact. Suffering—like a blanket tossed over all of us, no matter where we are.

And from under that blanket, that thicket, that ocean of pain—we try to hear and see and breathe this story anew.

What strikes me this year, as I come to the surface as I peer through my own “stuff” to see and hear this holy nativity, is that those characters all had “stuff” too. They all had issues and problems, perhaps even greater than ours:

In the cold, with the sheep.

Poverty runs deep.

Mary afraid and Joseph dismayed.

No room in the inn.

Lives soaked with oppression and sin.

The shepherds were lost,

And alone and forgotten.

The innkeeper so busy,

He missed God’s begotten.

Who was born not over our issues or fears.

Who was born right here with us, our problems are near…

To Christ’s very heart. Like a babe in a blanket.

Jesus wrapped in the cloth of our pain.

Sisters and brothers, some of you Christians, some of you dragged along tonight with your faithful relatives. The heart of the Christmas message here, the heart of the story is that those characters in and around that holy stable of the ancient Mediterranean world, were in just as much need and pain as we characters in and around this modern, 21^st century, newly painted, holy stable. And just as Christ came then, Christ comes to us now…JUST AS CHRIST CAME THEN. To share our pain and in fact be swaddled in it, swaddled by our suffering, bands of tear-stained cloth.

Our problems aren’t solved after a magical evening of Christmas worship, our issues run deep. But what we hear tonight—and see, and in a few moments taste—is that our problems and issues, our pains and our fears are shared in Christ, through Christ. And in this deep sharing is the incarnation of God, the imbedding of God’s divinity right smack in the middle of our broken humanity. And Christ doesn’t come for a brief moment, like a whale’s quick visit to the surface. Christ is down in depths of our everyday lives. Showing himself in many and various and sometimes very subtle ways.

For God so dearly loves us and this world, that God chose to become weak and plunge among us, into our oceans of beauty and pain, as vulnerable and as tiny as krill (pause) our God choses to become, in order to BE in our suffering. And to fill us Christmas whales with nourishment. The image is as peacefully as a drifting, feeding whale. Christ feeds us with his own body and blood. It is a strange event. But an offering of peace. For here love is born. And we are made new. AMEN.