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A Journey to Generosity…

04 Wednesday Oct 2017

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bless, evangelism, generosity, giving, God, gratitude, Holy Spirit, idea, inspire, journey, life, light, stewardship, vision

tens_nodate_logovertical (1)I am always amused when I discover the Holy Spirit at work because the discovery usually happens when I am in the thick of executing something I thought I had planned myself.  Ideas come to me, I test out the idea with others, I do the planning to implement the idea – basically the whole process involves a great deal of self-direction.  But when an idea really blows me away is when the idea takes off in even better ways than I planned.  When I finally realize how inspired the idea is, I realize that the idea could not have possibly come from me alone.  The only way those incredible moments of confluence occur is through the Holy Spirit.

I had one of those moments this week.  On Sunday we kicked off our stewardship campaign entitled “Journey to Generosity.”   All sorts of activities are a part of that campaign:  inspirational materials from our Stewardship Committee explaining the campaign, reflections from fellow parishioners, Parish Parties, sermons from the clergy, and meditations from national church leaders.  All of those experiences would be enough to situate us in a place of profound gratitude.  But then other things started happening.

The first has been attending our adult formation series.  The series is about evangelism, so I had expected our energies to be focused on the work of spreading the good news.  But the first sentence from the book we are using says, “Evangelism is your natural expression of gratitude for God’s goodness.”[i]  While I thought our conversations about gratitude and generosity would be limited to stewardship, here gratitude was permeating other areas of church life.  The second thing that happened was welcoming the first of three babies due this month at church.  As I held the first one yesterday, especially after a rough twenty-four hours of mourning another massive shooting in Las Vegas, I looked at that tiny child and felt a profound sense of gratitude for the gift of life.

Our “inspired” idea to talk and pray about our Journey to Generosity has already morphed into something much bigger.  I find myself being grateful not just for the generosity of parishioners who are passionate about our church and support its work through financial giving.  I am also grateful for a community of people who are so enthusiastic about their gratitude that they want to go out and share the good news with others.  I am grateful for a church community so generous in spirit that they can take tragedy and find rays of light and hope all around.  I am grateful for a community whose gratitude is so powerful that they have a vision of making our community a better place:  through our Fall Festival, through our visioning work with our Vestry, and through daily service to others.  What seemed like a catchy campaign slogan has actually been naming a way of life at Hickory Neck:  a life rooted in gratitude and generosity.  Thank you for letting me be a part of this journey with you all.  You inspire me every day and you transform my relationship with God every week.  God bless you on your journey to generosity!

[i] David Gortner, Transforming Evangelism (New York:  Church Publishing, 2008), 1.

On Being Stewards of Dreams…

27 Thursday Apr 2017

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church, cup, dream, God, intergenerational, Lord, ministry, portion, serve, vision

portion and cup

Photo credit:  https://www.pintrest.com/pin/536632111820932245/

“O Lord, you are my portion and my cup; it is you who uphold my lot.  My boundaries enclose a pleasant land; indeed, I have a goodly heritage.”  (Psalm 16.5-6) 

At our Vestry Retreat this winter, we began to talk about the dream we have been tossing around since before my arrival.  Upon reflection of the demographics and needs in Williamsburg, the dream is that Hickory Neck offer a childcare program, adult daycare program, or a combined ministry of the two.  I have been excited about the idea ever since I first heard it articulated.

I had encountered the concept of intergenerational care online (see video here).  What I loved about the video was that the intergenerational care reminded me of what happens at church:  people from all generations finding comfort, care, and a sense of identity and purpose.  In our modern culture, intergenerational relationship is rare.  Families live far apart, people tend to be segregated by life stage, and we value self-sufficiency.  But what we forget in our modern culture is that our young and our old need each other – they teach each other, they bring each other renewed energy, and they help each other learn.  I have always loved that my children have lots of “grandmas and grandpas” at church.

If I had the option of putting my children in childcare that fosters such a rich environment, I would be thrilled.  Furthermore, I know that our geographic area could use more accessible childcare and senior daycare.  As the pieces came together, God seemed to be inviting Hickory Neck into a new phase of its ministry.  This winter, the Vestry agreed that we should start being stewards of this dream the Spirit had given us.  So, for the last month, the Vestry has been having conversations in the community.  The idea is to learn what services are already offered, whether our sense of the needs matches the actual needs, and what potential partners there may be in our community.  We are obviously in the very early stages of this walk, but it is an exciting time!

I hope you will join us this Sunday as we gather for our quarterly Rector’s Forum.  We will be talking about this vision, as well as the many other tremendous ministries of Hickory Neck.  We indeed are blessed by a goodly heritage at Hickory Neck.  I look forward to celebrating the ways that our Portion and our Cup are leading us!

Sermon – Habakkuk 1.1-4; 2.1-4, P26, YC, October 30, 2016

02 Wednesday Nov 2016

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anger, argue, bold, celebration, cry, dreams, God, Habakkuk, joy, lament, listen, plain, pledge, Sermon, stewardship, vigil, vision, watch, write

I don’t know about you, but there are times when I have to tune out from the world.  I binge watch HGTV or find a mindless comedy and I just zone out.  In part, I do this because my psyche, my spirit, my soul feels overwhelmed.  I cannot listen to one more story of natural disaster – of floods, of famine, of destruction.  I cannot learn of one more part of the world where humanity seems lost – of genocide, of systemic violence against women, of the taking of land from its rightful owners.  And lately, I cannot absorb one more barb by a political campaign – of slander, of innuendo, of plain meanness.  And if I am not trying to hide from the world around us, sometimes I find I need to hide from the world right in front of us – from awful diagnoses, to life lost, to relationships broken.

While one common response is to relieve tension through mindless activity, the other alternative is to do what Habakkuk does today:  cry out to God.  “How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen?”  The reading from Habakkuk today starts with what is called a lament – something commonly seen in the psalms,[i] but known by us all because at some point in our lives, we have all cried out a lament to God.  In this particular lament, Habakkuk is angry with God because the world is crumbling around him.  Violence is on every side and those supposed to enforce justice are perverting justice.  You can hear the sense of betrayal in Habakkuk’s voice – as if God has abandoned him and the rest of God’s people.  And so, Habakkuk does what God’s people have done from the days of Abraham – he argues with God.[ii]  He demands a response.  He calls God to task – demanding that God not let this ungodly world continue on its ungodly path.

If you are ever in a crisis, one of the things you will learn about me is what I love about our God:  God can take our anger, our righteous indignation, our arguments.  Our people have been engaging this way with God from the beginning – not victim to an all-powerful God who demands our obedience, but in relationship with a God who can handle all of our “stuff.”  Lord knows God has gotten an earful from me over the years – every time a child is lost, fellow citizens die from senseless violence, or life just seemed too much to bear – God has heard from me.  Sometimes I cry out in a lament, sometimes I cannot even find the words I am so angry.  I learned a long time ago that the good news is God can take it.

After his lament, Habakkuk does something that is quite familiar to me as a parent of young children.  Habakkuk stomps his feet, crosses his arms, and stares in silent indignation, daring God to respond.  Of course, one could certainly label this as the conclusion of Habakkuk’s temper tantrum.  But an alternative may be to see something else in what Habakkuk is doing.  In the face of great sorrow, anger, and despair, Habakkuk does not flee.  Though he feels abandoned, he does not abandon God.  Instead, he demands God’s presence and will not be satisfied until he hears a word from God.  And so he waits.  He waits, and watches.  He keeps vigil, listening for God to speak.

Several years ago, Hickory Neck was thriving and heading toward what looked like a tremendous time of growth and change.  The community rallied around creating this new worship space to house the community that was bursting at the seams.  We even have plans for how to expand this building into phases two and three when we expected we would be bursting at the seams again.  But a few years ago, we hit a bit of snag.  Our pastor became ill and eventually took a new call.  Though we had an interim priest, we had interims without the interim.  I would not say that things ever got so rough that we called out in lament to God like Habakkuk.  But we did take a play out of Habakkuk’s book:  we stood in wait, keeping vigil, listening for God to speak a new word to us.

And slowly, God did just that.  God began to speak.  God began to whisper new dreams, new visions.  We began to dream about mission trips, increased local outreach, repurposing building or building new spaces to house ministries for the growing population of both retirees and young families in our area, and meaningful worship and growth.  God began to open our hearts to what new clergy might join us, and what new visions we might build together.  We began to do what God tells Habakkuk to do today.  When God finally speaks to Habakkuk, God says, “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it.”  Now there is a little scholarly debate[iii] about what the vision is God is communicating – one of promise or one of condemnation – one to be rejoiced or one to be feared[iv] – but the clarity is what strikes me.  Write the vision; make it plain.

A little under a year ago, your Vestry engaged in just that kind of work.  They looked at the state of Hickory Neck, they talked about their dreams for Hickory Neck, they looked at the finances, and then the wrote a vision.  They knew what everyone here knows:  that Hickory Neck is a special place that has been challenged to grow in new and exciting ways.  We have all experienced the power of worship in this place, the transformative nature of formation and prayer in this place, the radical commitment to hospitality in this place, and the passion for Christ’s call to love our neighbors in this place.  And so, the Vestry did what may feel a little like that line from a Field of Dreams, declaring “If we build it, they will come.”  But the Vestry did not just wait for “them” to come.  They soberly looked at finances and decided they would not only fund a rector, but also a curate.  They named their vision to make our buildings not just useful to us, but useful to our communities:  through Winter Shelter and outside guests, but maybe eventually to a preschool or day center for seniors.  The Vestry committed to not just waiting for “them” to come, but employing tools to invite, welcome, and connect seekers into our community.  They wrote the vision and they made it plain.

When I first came on board with Hickory Neck in April, the Vestry began to ask me under what vision we were going to operate.  What I told them is what I will tell you:  we are already operating under a vision.  Now, there are certainly dreams I have for where we will be 5 to 10 to 15 years from now, but for today, for next year, we already have a vision.  Now, being pragmatists, the Vestry wanted me to make it plainer.  And so, we worked in reverse.  We sat down and we mapped out the entire calendar from August to August.  We wrote down everything we normally do and everything we hope to do.  And then we stepped back and said, “Is this us?  Does our calendar reflect who we are and our vision for this place?”  You see, our calendar was just a tool to mark our values and vision.

We have been engaging in that same conversation in our homes, in small groups, and as a community these last four weeks.  As we laid out a vision of being a community that lives generously, we took stock not of our calendars, but of our checkbooks.  We sat down and looked at where our money was going and whether that cash flow reflected our values and vision.  For the Vestry, our budget involves some commitments that are hefty, but reflect a vision of who we want to be.  Each Vestry member went home and engaged in a similar exercise at home, looking to see if their budgets reflected a vision of who they want to be as individuals.

The Vestry and Stewardship Committee have written a vision and made it plain.  Instead of scaling back and being tentative, we have committed to being a parish who boldly is ready to seek and serve Christ in all persons and to share the Good News of God in Christ.  As the Prayer Book says in the Catechism, our vision is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ, as we pray and worship, proclaim the Gospel, and promote justice, peace, and love.[v]  Those are bold promises that will require all of us to succeed.  Today, we are talking about how our treasure is needed to bring that vision to fruition; in January, we will also talk about how our time and talent will bring that vision to fruition.  But because our vision is living generously, this is not a call to sacrifice and struggle.  No, this vision is an occasion for celebration and joy.  I look forward to marking that celebration and joy with you today as we bless our commitments to live generously, eagerly helping Hickory Neck to shine its light on the hill for all to see.  Amen.

[i] Bryan Spinks, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 242, 244.

[ii] Theodore Hiebert, “Habakkuk,” Neil M. Alexander, ed., The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 7 (Nashville:  Abingdon Press, 1996), 632.

[iii] Karl Jacobson, “Commentary on Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4,” November 3, 2013, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1875 on October 26, 2016.

[iv] Corrine L. Carvalho, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 247.

[v] BCP, 855.

Sermon – Luke 7.11-17, I Kings 17.8-24, P5, YC, June 5, 2016

08 Wednesday Jun 2016

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Sermons, Uncategorized

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Elijah, eyes, God, heal, Jesus, look, miracles, mundane, see, Sermon, suffering, vision, widow

The scene that day is pretty chaotic.  Two parades collide – a parade of life and a parade of death.[i]  The parade of life includes Jesus and his disciples, high off the sermon on the plain and the healing of the Centurion’s slave, Jesus’ followers are full of hope and optimism.  People are beginning to talk about who this Jesus might be and the enthusiasm is palpable.  Meanwhile, another parade is underway – a widow has lost her only son.  Widows were already at risk in that day due to their lack of financial stability and support from a husband.  Having a child, especially a male child provided a slight assurance that all hope was not lost.  Not only would the son be able to provide for his widowed mother, he is also the legal heir of his father’s inheritance.  But when he too dies, not only does she mourn his loss, but her safety net is totally gone.  She and the mourners with her wail their way to the cemetery.

Two groups full of noise and energy, but their energy could not be more different.  Into this chaotic scene of wails and cheers, people struggling to carry the lifeless body of promise, and people struggling to lay claim on the messenger of hope something tremendous happens.  The text says, “…the Lord saw her.”  That simple phrase may not sound like much.  The Lord saw her.  But surrounded by a growing crowd of faithful, Jesus could have been distracted by the hype.  On a long journey of travel, Jesus could have seen the coming commotion and steered another way.  Or Jesus could have been in deep thought about the next phases of his own journey.  But in the middle of the chaos, as if in a movie that screeches into slow motion, we see Jesus’ eyes lock on the grieving widow and mother.  The noise of the surroundings disappears and all that is important in this moment is that Jesus sees her.

On Memorial Day, my family and I went out for lunch.  We were managing our own little bubble of chaos:  multiple orders; hungry, cranky children; and the looming, necessary nap time.  As I stepped out of our bubble to throw away a pile of trash, I noticed a veteran sitting by himself at the table beside us.  He was silently sitting with his meal, seemingly in moment of deep quiet.  Seeing him almost made me stumble into halted motion.  I wondered what his story was.  I wondered if he was remembering those who had died by his side while he fought for our country.  I wondered if he was one of the veterans who managed to have reentered after war relatively unscathed or whether he was struggling to get by.  I wondered if Memorial Day meant something more to him than Memorial Day meant to me.  But my seeing him and wondering about him was not the same as Jesus.  You see, I was looking at him, but I was not seeing him – not with the same eyes as Jesus.  I couldn’t even get up the nerve to talk to him that day.

That is what is so profound to me about this story in our gospel lesson today:  Jesus’ ability to see the childless widow.  We actually get two very similar stories about widows in our readings today.  But despite the similarities, the contrasts are more informative about what is powerful about Jesus’ encounter.[ii]  In the lesson from first Kings, the widow of Zarephath also loses her only son.  Her son is also revived by Elijah, but the encounters with the widows have a lot of differences.  First, the encounter between the widow and Elijah is passionate.  The widow in that story accuses Elijah of being at fault for her son’s death.  She is outraged and Elijah panics, pleading with God to save the boy and the family from whom he has taken so much.  But the widow in our gospel lesson and Jesus have no such encounter.  The gospel widow does not talk to Jesus and does not plead her case.  She does not blame others around her – in fact, she does not speak at all in the story.  Were it not for Jesus seeing her and stopping the procession, we can only presume this woman would have slipped into dangerous oblivion.

Next, in the Elijah story, Elijah knows the son who dies.  The three have already bonded over the miracle of food.  So Elijah is intimately familiar with how precarious the family’s situation is.  But Jesus does not encounter the widow in his story until her son is already dead and being processed for burial.  Jesus’ saving action then comes not from relationship, but from seeing the grave nature of the widow’s loss.  No one introduces Jesus to the widow, no one whispers to Jesus that the grieving woman is a widow in addition to being a grieving mother – Jesus manages to see all of the complexity of this woman’s life in one glance.

The final contrast to the Elijah story is the healing itself.  Elijah has to stretch himself over the boy three times and cry out to the Lord for help.  His healing requires great effort and exertion.  Meanwhile Jesus simply touches the funeral bier and commands the young man to arise.  The immediate response of the boy sitting up and speaking demonstrates the extent of Jesus’ power.  Healing comes not by a request from God but from Jesus himself.  Jesus is not simply a prophet through whom God speaks – he is the long awaited one who is to come – the Messiah.[iii]

The differences between Elijah and Jesus teach us something about God.  Jesus’ teaches us that God sees us – sees us when we are most vulnerable, without us ever having to speak or ask for help, and is actively compassionate toward us.  Now that reality may leave us wondering today, “Well then why doesn’t Jesus see my suffering and offer me compassion?  I wanted things to go differently for me and they did not.”  That is why I find those words so powerful today.  “Jesus saw her.”  I do not think the story of the widow today is about how Jesus rescues us from our deepest pain and suffering.  This story is about how Jesus sees us when we are suffering and invites us into a similar vision.

“While we wish for signs and wonders, for the parting of the seas, for the lightning bolt of a Damascus road conversion, we risk missing the miracle of the mundane, says Thomas Lynch.  We miss seeing our friends and family who show up when we need them, ‘the ones who have known us all along.’  [Like those friends of the paralytic who lowered their paralyzed friend down to Jesus], or the widow who helped Elijah, these ordinary, obscure, and unsung people…, ‘do their parts to get us where we need to go, within earshot and arm’s reach of our healing, the earthbound, everyday miracle of forbearance and forgiveness, the help in dark times to light the way; the ones who show up when there is trouble to save us from our hobbled, heart-wrecked selves.’”[iv]  Today’s lessons about healing are not meant to make us question why we cannot receive similar healing.  Today’s lessons encourage us to see God in all the tiny miracles around us every day – the miracles that come in less dazzling forms.[v]  To see as Jesus sees.

When we attempt to see with the eyes of Jesus, something shifts dramatically for us.  What is so powerful about seeing as Jesus sees is that Jesus does not see without action.  When Jesus sees he also acts.  Once we have honed our better sense of vision, Jesus’ invitation to us is not just to see with the eyes of compassion, but to use those compassionate eyes for the service of God.  I have already begun to see the ways in which Hickory Neck is a place where that kind of active vision is in place.  You already see that the homeless man does not simply need food or money – you throw in a pair of socks because you know how hard life is without the decency of clean socks.  You already see the indignity of prison and see how a homemade cookie, while seemingly trivial, provides that miraculous glimpse into the tender care of Christ.  You already see how unexpected medical costs can push a struggling family over the edge and how free, compassionate, quality healthcare gives more dignity than we can imagine.  That is our invitation today:  to see the mundane miracles around us every day and to be reinvigorated to see as Jesus sees – with the eyes of compassion and insight that offer tangible, sometimes small acts of compassion to our brothers and sisters who struggle.  My guess is that when we offer that compassion to others, we will see more clearly how we receive that same compassion from Christ every day in similarly small, mundane, and yet profound ways.  Amen.

[i] Gregory Anderson Love, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 120

[ii] Steven J. Kraftchick, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 117, 119.

[iii] Kraftchick, 121.

[iv] Dan Clendenin, “The Miracle of the Mundane,” May 29, 2016, as found at http://journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay on June 2, 2016.

[v] M. Jan Holton, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 120.

Sermon – Matthew 3.1-12, A2, YA December 8, 2013

13 Friday Dec 2013

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Advent, anxiety, dreams, hopes, John the Baptist, re-orientation, repentance, Sermon, vision

Today we are going to do something a little different.  We are going to try an exercise I found recently.[i]  I want you to pull out your bulletin or a scrap of paper, and grab the pencil in your pew or a pen you brought with you.  Next, I want you to make a quick “to do” list for Advent.  I want you to put all the things you need and want to get done:  maybe shopping for gifts, decorating the Christmas tree, sending those Christmas cards, or attending the kids’ school Christmas concert.  Maybe you want to make some end-of-year charitable contributions, or need to get those Christmas Eve services on your calendar.  I want you to put all the things on the list and feel free to be fairly exhaustive about what you want to get done in these next two and half weeks.  I am going give you a second, as I imagine your list is probably as long as mine.  And this is probably the only time I will ever encourage you to make a to-do list during the sermon, so enjoy!

Now, I want you to take a deep breath, clear your mind a bit, and I want you to daydream about what you hope Christmas will be like this year.  Think about the kind of day you want to have or maybe the kind of relationships you want to be a part of your life.  Think about what kind of world you want to live in this Christmas, and maybe even beyond Christmas Day.  Your hopes can certainly be about your immediate wants and needs, but they can also include your larger families, communities, and the world.  If you want, go ahead and take just another moment to write a brief sentence below your other list that captures your hope for your life and the world this Christmas.  As you are thinking about the kind of world you want to live in, think about the passage we heard from Isaiah today:  a world where the wolf shall live with the lamb, the cow and the bear graze together, and a nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp.  Perhaps this kind of harmony and peace is a part of your Christmas hope and can certainly be a part of your dreaming today.

Okay, now that you have your to-do list and your Christmas hope in mind, I want you to work backwards.  Look at the to-do list you made and circle those tasks that might contribute directly to your own deep hopes and longings about your life and this world.  Certainly, there are going to be some items on your list that are important in the short-term, but maybe do not contribute to your larger vision and hope.  Here is where our invitation lies today.  Perhaps this Advent can be a time of putting things in perspective and channeling our energy and resources to those things that matter most to us, to our families, to our communities, and to God.

Of course, that invitation may not have been what you initially imagined when you heard John the Baptist’s words today in our gospel lesson.  His words of repentance and judgment are honestly more scary than comforting this time of year.  I have many times wondered why we have to hear John’s words now, as we approach that blessed holy night, as opposed to some other text about happy anticipation or blessed expectation.  But John does not mince words, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

I have been reading a lot these last couple of weeks about the season of Advent and people’s varying opinions about whether Advent is a penitential season or not.  I have been part of parishes that have insisted that Advent is not a mini-Lent, and refuse to take on anything that resembles the penitential nature of Lent.  But I have also been a part of parishes who see the themes in our collects this season and hear words like John the Baptist’s words today and cannot help but to claim the penitential nature of Advent.

Part of the challenge is that we all get a bit hung up on the fact that we think of repentance as being about guilt, inadequacy, and unworthiness.  We imagine that repentance is about our standard of moral worthiness or about our feelings of remorse.  Barbara Brown Taylor explains, “The kind of repentance most of us shrink from is all about us, in case you hadn’t noticed.  It is all about me, me, me, the miserable sinner.  No wonder it is so revolting.”  But, Taylor suggests that there might be another way to look at repentance.  “The other kind of repentance, the healing kind is far more interested in God.  It spends more time looking at the kingdom than the mirror.  It has more faith in God’s power to make new than in our own power to mess up.”[ii]  In fact, some have argued that repentance is about God’s desire to realign us with Christ’s life, God’s hope to transform us into Christ’s image.[iii]  Real repentance is not about our failings, but about God’s desires for us.

I think many of us want to avoid texts like our gospel lesson today, because the last thing we want to hear as we try to struggle through those Advent to-do lists is that we need to repent, and think about the kingdom of heaven coming near.  But John is not trying to push us to feel bad about ourselves this Advent season, or even to wallow in apologies.  Instead, repentance is about “re-orientation, a change of perspective and direction, a commitment to turn and live differently.”[iv]  Our gospel lesson today is not trying to get us to limit our hopes or define ourselves by our ancestry or piety, but to dream bigger dreams, and to work toward those bigger hopes on that Christmas hope list you just made this morning.  This is what John means when he says to bear fruit worthy of repentance.

Now if you imagine that I am saying that you have more work to do this Advent season, you are partially right.  I am inviting you to take up the work of living into your bigger hopes and dreams this season.  But I am also giving you permission to let go of those things on that to-do list that are not allowing you to focus on the real joy of this season: the joy of a life of repentance – of re-orientation.  Now you may not be able to get out of that party or those Christmas cards, but maybe your presence at that party will be marked by your new Advent re-orientation.  Maybe those cards will have a different message than you originally planned, or your approach to completing them may be full of love and compassion instead of obligation and annoyance.  John’s words for us today are a wake-up call, but not the wake up call that fills us with dread and self-criticism.  John’s wake-up call is a reminder of the hope of this season – the hope that is ours to claim when we are ready.  Amen.


[i] David Lose, “Hoping for More,” as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2901 on December 2, 2013.

[ii] Barbara Brown Taylor, “A Cure for Despair: Matthew 3:1-12,” Journal for Preachers, vol. 21, no. 1, Advent 1997, 18.

[iii] John P. Burgess, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 46.

[iv] Lose.

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