Sermon: "Expectations Defied: Home", Luke 2:1-5 (December 13, 2020)

(This is the third of five sermons in our Advent series about our expectations around the holiday season. The first and second can be found here and here.)

-------------------------------------------

“Oh, there's no place like home for the holidays/'Cause no matter how far away you roam/When you pine for the sunshine of a friendly gaze/For the holidays you can't beat home sweet home.” In just a few words, Perry Como is able to embody a seemingly universally human sentiment: home is a place of comfort, joy, and belonging. Home is where you can let your hair down and be yourself. Home is where we should be at Christmas, because home stands for everything that Christmas is.

Sermon: “Expectations Defied: Nostalgia”, Isaiah 64:1-9 (November 29, 2020)

(This is the first of five sermons in our Advent series about our expectations around the holiday season.)

----------------------------------------------

So. Here we are again. Thanksgiving is over, and we’ve officially begun the Advent season. Outside of these walls, though, it’s better known as the Holiday season, or even the Christmas season. I do tend to be a stickler about not letting Christmas creep into worship early (because the Advent season of waiting is essential to understanding the joy of Christmas), but outside of the sanctuary, I’ve already had Christmas music playing since about Halloween, and every year, it’s all Nick can do to keep me from setting up the Christmas tree before Thanksgiving. Believe me; I can relate to that urgent need for the comfort and joy of Christmas as soon as socially acceptable (possibly even earlier).

Life and Love out of Darkness (Maundy Thursday)

Each year, our community combines Holy Week services with another local church, Southminster Presbyterian Church. We alternate who takes point on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday--this year, we were up for Maundy Thursday. 

Now, Maundy Thursday is known as "the day when we wash each other's feet" in many communities, but in many others, the thought of touching another person's bare foot is enough to turn them atheist. You may recall that two years ago, we did a ritual involving broken pottery that was both beautiful and profound (from my perspective, at least). This year, since our Lenten focus was on symbols, I wanted to make sure we did something significant that tied into our theme.

Jumping into the Fray

On the radio today, I heard a DJ getting sassy because, from his point of view, saying "Happy Holidays" is TECHNICALLY accurate since Christmas is a holiday, but why wouldn't we say "Merry Christmas" since everybody knows we're celebrating Jesus' birthday?

Therefore, I give to you: some reasons to say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas", from a Christian clergyperson to other Christians, especially the ones who are upset about this:

...Indeed!

Friends, the impossible has happened. Christ is risen! Thanks be to God!

If you read my last post, you remember the ritual that we did involving washing dirty pottery shards. We invited people to take their pieces home as a reminder of our call to serve others, but several people chose the alternative of leaving the pottery that they washed with us. Well, it may not surprise you, but God is able to take the broken and make them new.

For the Love of Symbols

So, in case you didn't know, today is (was) Maundy Thursday.

Traditionally, Maundy Thursday is the day during Holy Week that we commemorate Jesus washing his disciples' feet and commanding them to do the same to others ("Maundy" comes from the Latin word for "command"). Many churches do this by washing one another's feet.

My church does not.

Sermon: "Every Step", Exodus 15:1-7/Numbers 14:1-4/Luke 19:28-40 (March 20, 2016)

3/20/16

(Video of this sermon)

Andrew and I obviously had nothing to do with scheduling Palm Sunday where it sits in the liturgical calendar, but it fits so nicely with the themes we’ve had this year that I’m tempted to try and take credit. First we had the stewardship campaign, where we talked about being “all-in” as our community travels together into the future. Then the “Journey to Bethlehem” that we undertook in December, tracking the miles that we walked, biked, and swam so we could experience the distance trekked in order for our Messiah to be born. And now, during Lent, we’ve walked the path of our worship together, reminding ourselves why we do what we do every week, and where we go from there. Journeys, all of them. And now, today, we talk about yet another journey—a shorter one, perhaps, but one just as significant. All four gospels recount this story of Jesus’ triumphant journey into Jerusalem, during which he’s met with the cheers and jubilation of the people—and yes, of course, palms. There are some grumbles from the religious authorities—some of them even have the audacity to try and stifle the celebration—but nothing on earth can stop the holy procession.

Sermon: "ADVENT-ure: Being Divinely Defined", Luke 1:39-56 (December 6, 2015)

12/6/15

(Video of this sermon)

When Andrew asked me who I’d like to preach on during Advent, I said, “Well, why don’t I preach on Mary, so she can be preached from a woman’s perspective?” He looked at me, surprised, and said, “Okay…that’s fine…I guess you haven’t gotten to that point in your career yet where you’re sick of being expected to preach ‘a woman’s perspective’ whenever the scripture’s about a woman…”

Frankly, it never occurred to me that I should ever be sick of preaching from a woman’s perspective. I mean, that’s the perspective that God has given me, so why should I ever see things any other way? But I get his point. It can become tedious when you’re only ever asked your point of view as a token, a representative of your entire gender, race, sexual orientation, economic level…you get the idea. When people only care about what you have to say if something new and different happens, and you’re suddenly expected to speak up and give voice to an entire population. Tedious and exhausting.

Sermon: "Holy Spirit 101", Acts 2:1-21 (May 24, 2015)

5/24/15

One of the primary reasons that I love getting to work with kids and youth is that it gives me the opportunity to learn new things all the time. Well, not necessarily “new” as in “I’ve never thought of that before”; I mean new as in completely reexamining old ideas that I’d long assumed I understand. This is one of the coolest things about being a Pastor. Lifelong spiritual formation is so central to who we need to be as Christians, and kids have a way of reminding you that there’s always more to learn. I suspect that this is why so many people are nervous about teaching Church School for the first time, and also why so many people, once they’ve actually overcome these fears, are profoundly glad that they did. Anyway, I am deeply grateful for the young people—both here and at the churches I’ve worked at in the past—who have helped me remember that my role as rabbi, teacher, begins with the posture of a student.

Sermon: Holy Monday, John 12:1-11 (March 30, 2015)

3/30/15

Do you ever feel like the Revised Common Lectionary gives us the most difficult texts to wrestle with over Holy Week? I’ve found that my faith is never challenged quite as much as it is during Lent, and especially during Holy Week. I suppose if you passively let the scripture wash over you without making an effort to actively engage it, you could downgrade this classification from “difficult” texts to merely “confusing,” but I think that approaching Scripture in this way, especially during Holy Week, is doing ourselves and our faith a great disservice. I think we’re supposed to struggle with it.

Sermon: "Garden or Clockwork?" John 1:1-18 (December 28, 2014)

12/28/14

Merry Christmas!

So I know I might be preaching to the choir here, so to speak, but I feel like my first responsibility as a pastor is to remind you all that this is not the first weekend after Christmas, but the beginning of the actual liturgical Christmas season, which lasts until Epiphany on January 6th. It’s really easy for us, as Americans, to buy into the idea that Christmas begins the day after Thanksgiving and ends on December 25th. But as Christians, we know this isn’t the case. Our culture often looks at December 25th as the culmination of something. But our God isn’t about endings. Our God is about beginnings.

Sermon: Holy Wednesday, John 13:21-36 (April 16, 2014)

4/16/14

During Holy Week, one of the things that I find myself reflecting on most often is the humanity of Jesus. Yes, Jesus is fully divine, and affirming this is a vital part of our Christian identity. But that’s not the whole story, and besides, the idea of God taking on flesh and walking the earth is so theologically loaded that it can become exhausting trying to make sense of it. I find that the passion narrative becomes much more vivid for me when I meditate especially on Christ’s humanity: when I imagine his grief…his pain…his fear…his loneliness. The sacrifice becomes so much more than just words on a page; it becomes relatable, dramatic, and real.