Mark 1:9-15

9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.

10 And just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
  12 And the Spirit immediately drove Jesus out into the wilderness. 13 Jesus was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by the Accuser; and Jesus was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on Jesus.
  14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the dominion of God has come near, repent, and believe in the good news.”

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Please pray with me this morning, church:

Holy Wisdom,

Sometimes the wilderness feels endless.

Sometimes it’s all just too much.

Find us, this morning.

Find us, and lead us, and don’t leave us there.

Remind us of your nearness.

Amen.

—————

“I never thought my emergency preparedness or wilderness survival skills would be useful in the suburbs…”

How many of you had that thought this week?

Be honest…

Some of you know, I’m an Eagle Scout, and so while I’m thankful that I didn’t have to resort to pulling that far back in the skillset, I suppose it’s a comfort to know I could if I needed. I just…who would have thought that those kinds of skills would be useful or even needed in a time and a place like this? I mean, we have these hundreds of thousands of dollar homes, every creature comfort we could want, security systems, fireplaces, Egyptian cotton sheets… All reduced to naught…from a winter storm…

Wilderness survival, indeed.

We talk about Lent that way…wilderness, I mean.

It’s one of my favorite ways to talk about Lent actually…” a journey through the wilderness”…

We’re familiar with wilderness.

Maybe not camping, or backpacking, or sub-zero sleeping bags and MREs and starting fires with flint and steel…but we know wilderness. You know what it’s like to feel directionless.

You know what it feels like to feel so completely overwhelmed that you don’t even know if you can lift up your foot, much less which way to start traveling. You know what it feels like to have the icy blast of grief and hurt make its way all the way down your spine. You know what it’s like to expend more calories than you put in, working yourself to the bone, pouring so much out of yourself without ever pausing to receive and be filled up. You know what it feels like to lose your map, that thing in your life that no matter what else, that thing……or that person……would always tell you where you need to go…you know what it feels like to lose that…to not have them anymore…

Yeah…we know wilderness.

What are our survival skills? What helps you through those wildernesses?

In this season of Lent, what sustains you?

Church, to be completely honest, this whole pandemic event has felt like in some ways, Lent never really stopped. It feels like one long Lenten season.

And so you add a crisis on top of a disaster, and it becomes really hard to see your way through this wilderness…

And so in this season…in this wilderness…in this long Lent…what has sustained you? What has kept you going?

One of the first things I notice in our readings from Genesis and Mark this morning is the catastrophes. Maybe that’s true for you, too. Something about our news cycles that have us more tuned in to the bad stuff than the good. But the first things I notice are the flood, the loss of life, the temptation, the wilderness.

I’m initially kind of drawn to this negative part of the story, instead of what I notice on a second or third reading…God’s covenant, God’s promise, God’s declaration, God’s provision.

Isn’t that sometimes how it happens? Sometimes it’s only on a second or third reflection, only in hindsight, sometimes it’s only with some distance…that we’re able to see God present in those wilderness times.

Our theme for this season of Lent this year comes to us from a sanctified art and it’s called Again & Again: A Lenten Refrain. The theme reminds us that again and again, suffering and brokenness find us. Again and again, patterns of injustice, violence, hurt, and anger seem to win the day. Again and again is a familiar refrain, an unfortunately familiar pattern.

But even in the midst of that wilderness, our theme begs us to remember that again and again, God shows up. Again and again, God keeps God’s promises. Again and again, God chooses you, names you, claims you, and loves you back to life.

Again and again, God reminds us of God’s presence.

The covenant God made with Noah was a promise of presence. “I establish my covenant with you that never again shall all flesh be cut off…” Never again, will God’s people be cut off from God. God promises to remain. It’s a promise of presence.

God’s promise to Jesus in the Jordan is a promise of presence. “You are my Son, the Beloved. With you, I am so, so pleased.” God names Jesus, and God names you, as a beloved child. It’s a promise of presence.

“Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted. Jesus was with the wild beasts, and the angels waited on him.” The angels served Jesus. It’s a promise of presence.

“The reign of God is near, it is imminent, it is close.” It’s a promise of presence.

Who needs your presence this week, church?

Who can you reach out to and check in on during this wilderness season?

We’ve heard so many stories this week, church, of you, stepping up and reaching out. So many stories of you showing up as the hands and feet of Christ in our community this week. I talked about it on Ash Wednesday, but when we put out the call this week that we had folks in our community without water and power, we had so many more offers to help than we had need.

You are the angels sent to serve in the midst of this wilderness, church.

You are the ones baptized and named beloved by God and sent out to live and love like Jesus in our hurting world.

Time to put those survival skills to work.

Yours is the presence we need in this wilderness.

Mark 1:21-28

21 Jesus and his disciples went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, Jesus entered the synagogue and taught. 22 And all who were gathered were astounded at Jesus’ teaching, because Jesus taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. 23 Just then there was in their synagogue a person with an unclean spirit, 24 and the spirit cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”

25 But Jesus rebuked the spirit, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” 26 And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of the man. 27 They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and the spirits obey him.’ 28 At once Jesus’ fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

—————

Please pray with me this morning, church:

Holy One of God,

The truth can be a scary proposition.

Sometimes the truth can hurt.

Remind us again, the truth about us.

That we are called to follow.

We are beloved.

We are yours.

Amen.

—————

It always feels weird to say out loud, but I enjoy the time I get to spend doing ministry in hospitals and other healthcare settings. Like, pastoral care, and particularly visitation ministry is always a really filling thing for me. I’m filled up when I get to visit with folks who are going through some medically distressing stuff.

And so this whole pandemic thing has really drained me on quite a few different levels, but not least of which is because I haven’t been able to do any hospital visits in almost a year.

Now, we’ve also had fewer people in the hospital this year, which is a tremendous blessing, but still, there have been a couple of moments this past year that I really would have liked to be there.

I know this sounds bonkers, and please don’t hear my affinity for hospital visits as encouragement to find ways to spend more time in the hospital…that would not be good…but one of the reasons that I enjoy hospital visits so much, is that it’s just so raw. Everything is so real.

All the façades and veneer and cover-ups are stripped away and you’re left with just a really bare sense of reality…of the truth about things… I think hospitals and healthcare facilities and the scares that led you to be in those places have a really powerful way of getting past all the stuff…all the crap…all the baggage…and cutting right to the heart of things. I think they reveal truth…

I think we’re confronted…with truth…

And quite honestly, sometimes that truth is really scary.

This is why I also find those moments to be very holy.

Because there’s a comfort in having someone there with you whose only job it is to sit there…with you…in the scary stuff. Whose only job it is to sit there and say, “I hear you…and I agree…this is really scary… And…I’m here with you… So we’ll do this whole scary thing together, ok?”

We also often hear difficult truths expressed in hospital rooms. Doctors and nurses and healthcare staff have the unimaginable task of delivering sometimes crushing news to folks. Words like “inoperable”…”terminal”…or even just that look in their eye… Have you seen that before? Do you know the one I’m talking about?

Those are the truths we have difficulty with. Those are the truths we don’t want to accept. But it doesn’t make them less true.

The truth is sometimes hard for us to hear.

Especially when they’re words we don’t agree with. Or words that challenge our worldviews, or our opinions, or our preconceptions. All of us have bias, we can’t help it, it’s part of being human…the question is the extent to which we allow our bias to influence our behavior.

We like our worldviews. We like our opinions. We like our preconceptions.

If we didn’t like them, we probably wouldn’t hold them. Those biases make us feel comfortable. And so when those words of truth challenge our biases—our worldviews and our opinions—that’s a tough thing to hear. We don’t like to hear that we may have been wrong. Or that maybe we learned incorrectly, or that someone we trusted a great deal didn’t know any better and so may have taught us incorrectly…because if they were wrong about that…what else were they wrong about…? You see this discomfort here, yes?

Sometimes the truth is hard to wrestle with.

Like the words of a prophet described in Deuteronomy, “’I will put my words into the mouth of the prophet,’ says the Lord, ‘who will speak everything I have commanded them. And anyone who does not listen to the words of the prophet that I send, I will hold them accountable.’”

Prophets speak difficult words.

That’s kinda the role of a prophet. They speak the tough words from God to the people. Prophets speak truth to power. Prophets call God’s people to account. It’s why all the stories about biblical prophets are about reluctant prophets. Who wants to be called by God to deliver a not-so-great message to God’s people? Not me… Not Moses. Not Jonah, or Micah, or Amos, or Joel, or Isaiah… Truth-telling is hard business. “A prophet is never welcomed in their hometown.” Remember those words from Jesus? There’s a reason they tried to throw Jesus off a cliff in Nazareth.

The truth is sometimes hard for us to hear.

But truth-telling, dear people, is what leads to healing.

The person with the unclean spirit is the one to tell the truth about Jesus, “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” It’s interesting to note that the ones proclaiming the truth about Jesus are all the so-called “wrong” ones you’d imagine. It isn’t the disciples or the religious authorities, and in fact, in the Gospel of Mark, the identity of Jesus as Messiah is this big secret. You’ll hear over and over again in Mark “And he strictly ordered them not to tell anyone.” But it’s all the wrong people you’d imagine who get it. It’s ha’satan—or the accuser—when Jesus is in the wilderness…it’s this unclean spirit…it’s the Roman centurion in Mark 15 who says “Truly this was God’s son.”

And it’s through this truth-telling that Jesus heals this person with the unclean spirit. But it’s a messy business, right? The spirit convulses this person and then cries out, and then is finally exorcised.

Another thing I find often in hospitals is that healing is tough work and it doesn’t come easy. When cleaning a wound, you have to scrape the wound and clean out everything in there that could cause an infection. You don’t get to healing without a deep cleansing and a good amount of painful scraping. Which also sounds uncomfortable, and it is. It’s meant to.

Friends, I’ve watched over the past years as we as a people have become more divided and more polarized than ever. Leaders stand up and love to grandstand and call for unity, but time and time again, fail to offer any real substantive steps forward, much less an alignment between the words they love to shout and their actions.

This is the uncomfortable truth about who we are. We are broken. We are a fractured people. We are disunited, disjointed, and dissociated. We are far more interested in being “right” than we are concerned with the well-being of our neighbors. We are more interested in proving our moral and intellectual superiority over our friends and family than we are in listening to the pain, hurt, and anger they express.

We are possessed. By the demons of self-righteousness, self-importance, and self-centeredness. There are real evils in our world. Racism, bigotry, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, sexism…all these upheld and perpetuated by fear.

What are you afraid of?

My sense is that we’re afraid to deal with those biases I mentioned earlier. James Baldwin said, “I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.” Pain is one of the primary drivers of our fear.

But if we can expect pain…if we can expect pain and we can endure it, with help from one another, we can use it as a deep cleansing on our way toward healing.

Because there is another truth about us, too.

This is the truth attested to by God and all who speak for God in these pages… Another truth about us that in spite of all our nastiness, we are still beloved by God. God desires to set us free from all the stuff, all the garbage, all the trash, that keeps us imprisoned and bound up, and all the stuff that possesses us. Our self-righteousness and self-centered ways of living. Our worldviews and prejudices that end up keeping others down so that we might get a leg up. Our dualistic ways of thinking that pit “us” against “them”, “me” against “you”…instead of we. All that stuff that binds you up and entangles you and keeps you from reaching out and truly loving and embracing your neighbor.

God’s desire is for you to be free, dear child.

Let God help us do the work of unbinding, of loosening, of cleaning, of mending, of bandaging, and of healing. We have to do the work, make no mistake…but we can let God help us. We can begin to build bridges and tables of sharing. We can begin to heal. With God’s help.

There’s one last truth to be told this morning, church.

The truth that truth-telling leads to hope. The truth that despite all the gloom—and Lord, we know there’s a lot of gloom—despite all the gloom…there is still reason for hope.

Church, this morning, I see hope in a met budget. In spite of this global pandemic, you stepped up and made extra contributions this year, and even apart from our Payroll Protection Program loan, we ran a $4000 surplus in 2020. And we’ll celebrate that at our Congregational Meeting this morning.

I see hope that in spite of this global pandemic, we had extremely generous folks contribute leading gifts to our Capital Campaign, and we have projects being completed as we speak. We replaced 2 non-functioning air conditioning units with one cohesive, centrally-controlled unit on the southside of our Community Center…the side with our Sunday School classrooms, and where most of the groups in our Camp Hope occupy. Right now, in this Sanctuary, installation is happening of an audio and live streaming project that will allow us to continue to reach beyond these walls to unthought of corners of the world with the good news of Christ’s love for all God’s creation.

It’s been a tough year, absolutely. But in spite of all the difficulty, God’s love is still being shown. Through acts of love and service, volunteer efforts with our partnership with Armstrong Elementary, the Human Needs Ministry, and Family Promise. Hope are the shrieks and giggles I hear at the park down the street from our house…mostly which are my kid… Hope sounds like young ones having faith conversations on Zoom on Sunday mornings. Hope sounds like prayers being lifted up together in virtual community.

Here’s what’s true:

Joy does come in the morning.

Hope does come from the gloom.

Healing does come from the hurt.

Mark 1:14-20

14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to the Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God,

15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the reign of God has come near; repent, and trust in this good news.”
  16 As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon Peter and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea—because they were fishermen. 17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19 As Jesus went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and James’ brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 Immediately Jesus called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired workers, and followed Jesus.

—————

Please pray with me this morning, church:

God of Hope,

You invite us to enjoy the riches

Of your abundant goodness.

Help us to invite others to encounter your grace.

Give us words to share.

Amen.

—————

I have a tricky relationship with fishing.

I guess I always kinda have.

My problem is that I’m just not very good at it. Like, I think that I just don’t, like, get it. It’s not really my speed.

Right. That’s the one. It’s not really my speed.

And truthfully, I am not taking anything away from those of y’all that like to fish. I’m glad for you. I’m glad you like it. I’m ecstatic that it’s your thing. It’s just…it’s not mine.

It’s not really my speed because I don’t exactly have the patience required, I don’t think. I get antsy after a few minutes. But like, this is not fishing’s fault…I had the same problem with baseball when I was little. I tried to like baseball…I really did…I just got bored standing out there in right field. I’d drift away, daydreaming about something else, and totally just miss the very catchable and very playable ball that would land like, right beside me. I was kind of like Smalls from The Sandlot. Coordinated, but just not there. I’d lose interest. …Soccer was more my speed…

But it’s important to know that what we think of as a leisure activity was not what Simon, Andrew, James, and John were doing. These are 2 very different types of fishing. Rather than fishing for enjoyment, these folks along the Sea of Galilee are fishing for their livelihoods. This is the clothes on their backs and the food on their tables. This is their work. And so when Jesus calls them away from that…particularly James and John, being called away from their father, Zebedee, and the other hired workers…Jesus isn’t just messing with their work and their money…Jesus is sticking his nose into the family business…Jesus is mucking things up for Zebedee and his fishing enterprise…this is a problem…

And the way they were fishing was different, too. We think of bait and hooks and sinkers and bobbers. Fishing for fun is about the leisure of it…kicking back and taking your time, no rush… Fishing for your livelihood is about getting as much as you can as quickly as you can. They were using nets, dragging the water, trying to get as much fish as they could get. There’s skill involved, but honestly, it’s kind of ham-handed…you throw the net out, and you bring the net back in…then you throw it out again and bring it back in again, over and over. Hardly leisure.

It was back-breaking work, and so it’s not really a big surprise that Simon, Andrew, James, and John take Jesus up on his offer. “Yeah, sure…I’ll leave this behind to go and follow you, doing whatever it is you’re doing. Seems reasonable…”

But Jesus still extended the invitation. It wasn’t that Jesus was just so charismatic and people were just drawn to him…Jesus extends the invitation to these fishers, “Follow me.” Like we heard last week, “Follow me.”

God’s reign is at hand…repent…turn around…and trust…and follow…

In my heart of hearts, I wish it were that simple.

I wish invitation were that easy. I wish that the work of church were as uncomplicated as turning, trusting, and following a new way.

I wish it were quick…like throwing a net off a boat and hauling in a bunch of fish. I wish it didn’t require me to have patience.

I struggle with patience…as you probably heard me say earlier… I want this pandemic to be over with. Like, yesterday. I want to go to restaurants and travel and gather together with people again. I struggle with the fact that things sometimes take a bit longer…

Church is slow work. It takes time and care. C. Christopher Smith and John Pattison in their book Slow Church talk about the need for churches to be rooted deeply in their places. And that rootedness takes time. It takes time to grow deep roots that extend far outward. It takes time to nurture relationships in your community. It takes time to cultivate meaningful ministry in your neighborhood.

I want church growth to be a quick thing…like there’s some kind of switch I can flip and all of a sudden we’ve got hundreds of new members and a gajillion new ministries…just like that… But that, too, takes time.

And it also requires invitation.

I wonder, church…who invited you to New Hope…?

Think back…think about when you came to New Hope, whether it was 40 years ago or 4 years ago or 4 months ago when you joined us online…who invited you?

Unless you’re one of the very few who have been here as long as New Hope and you were invited by Pastor Ed Steinbring or Pastor Steve Quill, it’s much more likely that you were invited by someone else. A friend. Someone you trust.

And you accepted that invitation because you trusted that person.

And you’re still here…

43% of visitors to church came because someone invited them. A personal invitation from someone they know and trust.

Less than 10% came because they saw an advertisement. Over 90% visited your website before either showing up at the Sanctuary or joining you for worship online.

The overwhelming majority of people found their way here because someone invited them.

So who have you invited, church?

This isn’t a rhetorical question, think about it, write it down, pray about it this week: Who have you invited?

And who might be waiting on an invitation from you? Who can you invite?

Because here’s the thing, I can make cold calls through the phone book all month, but they don’t have a reason to visit because they don’t know me. Your friends and neighbors know you, church. Your invitation means something.

It’s slow work…it’s work that is formed out of trusting relationships…but you are called to this work of invitation. If you want to see new people, you have to invite them.

And truthfully, it’s never been easier. Invite your friends to worship with you…I say it every week in my announcements…it’s literally as simple as sharing a link on your Facebook page or in an email. Better yet, set up a Zoom meeting or a facetime…and worship together. Sing together, pray together, share a meal together… Be the church, church.

I know folks who, when the chance comes up, on their neighborhood Facebook page, they make it a point to tell people where they go to church and what they’ve found at New Hope—what they enjoy about New Hope.

What have you found here at New Hope, church?

Who are you going to share that with?

“But all my friends already go to church, PC. It’s no use inviting them.”

You never know until you extend the invitation. Maybe they do…but maybe they’re open to looking… Simon, Andrew, James, and John weren’t necessarily looking either…but they still followed…

I know you don’t like the “e”-word, but it’s just true, church, you are all evangelists. You are the ones sent out to do the inviting. You are the ones sustained, uplifted, encouraged, and sent out into the world to be the hands and feet of Christ…to invite the whole world to experience that same freedom and healing and restoration that you’ve found here.

It’s guaranteed to be slow work.

But you’d be surprised what happens when you start casting your net.

Mark 1:4-11

4 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He proclaimed, “After me the one who is more powerful than I is coming; the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
  9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.

10 And just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

—————

Please pray with me this morning, church:

Holy God,

You drew near and named Jesus as your “Beloved”.

In our baptism, you name us, too, as “Beloved Child”.

Make us instruments of your love.

Help us and guide us as we seek to share your love with our world.

Amen.

—————

Preachers all know that we are just one big news story away from having to edit our sermons. Sometimes the breaking news fits nice and neat into what you’ve already written. Other times, a complete rewrite of the entire sermon is needed.

Under normal circumstances, it’s the Saturday night news stories you want to watch out for. In these pandemic times, when I’m writing my sermon on Wednesday and Thursday, and preaching it on Thursday afternoon (night…), I don’t get to include those late-week stories, but the Wednesday afternoon ones…

Like many of you, I was glued to the news watching the events that unfolded in Washington D.C. on Wednesday afternoon, January 6. A day when the church officially celebrates the Festival of the Epiphany of Our Lord. And certainly, this Epiphany, on January 6, 2021, we certainly had our own eyes opened…

It’s not my role to stand here and say this thing or that thing about what you should think about what happened on Wednesday afternoon, but it is my role to stand here and talk about where our faith intersects with the world around us.

Hopefully, you’ve heard me quote the great Lutheran pastor and theologian Karl Barth who said that the preacher must always preach the Gospel “with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other.” That is, our faith always has something to say to the goings-on around us. Our faith is the lens through which view, and move, and live, and exist in the world. If our faith doesn’t have something to say to our actual, real-life, shared experiences…what good is that faith?

Our faith informs how we understand and act in the rest of the entire world.

Our faith is that foundational principle. Above all others.

Which is why when folks ask me why I get political in my sermons, my question in response is “How do you even separate the two?” If politics is simply the structures and norms that guide our shared life together, how is that different than the Gospel which sets out, through the teaching and ministry of Jesus, how we are to live together? It’s the exact same thing. How do we live together?

It’s the fundamental question asked of you in your baptism.

Who are you—what role do you have—in this Christian life, this life you share with all others and with all of creation?

Who are you?

What role do you have in this life we all share?

(I told you, sometimes they fit nicely…)

The gospel writer of Mark tells us, John the baptizer was out in the wilderness outside of Jerusalem by the Jordan River baptizing people for the forgiveness of their sin. This has largely been understood to be a form of washing associated with Jewish purity rituals. But John is careful to draw a distinction between his baptism and the baptism of the one coming after him: “I baptize you with water, but the one coming after me, the one who is more powerful than I, will baptize you with the holy spirit.”

For a really really really long time it was taught that our Christian baptism had something to do with forgiveness of sin, also. But even here in the gospel, we have John drawing the distinction between the baptism for the forgiveness of sin and Jesus’ baptism, a baptism with the holy spirit. For so many—honestly, myself included, for a really long time—baptism had some sort of implication on our salvation. Like, we needed baptism to make sure we got into heaven or something like that. Even Luther hints as much in the Augsburg Confessions, so we got the idea honestly, but the thing is, in the very same document, and in our theological understanding, as Lutherans, we believe and we confess that we ourselves have nothing to do with our salvation. Salvation is God’s work, and God’s alone, and we are recipients of that salvation through the death and resurrection of Christ, justified and made to be in right relationship with God, a gift that has been given to us as grace, undeserving and unworthy as we are. (By the way, this is like, almost the entire thrust of Lutheran Confirmation…Congratulations, you’re all basically Confirmed Lutherans now if you weren’t already…)

So then, what use is our Baptism?

Well, as we do in our Rite of Holy Baptism and in the Affirmation of Baptism we do occasionally, we make promises, either ourselves or have promises made on our behalf. Things like promising to worship and pray and study scripture and participate in the Lord’s Supper… And learn; we promise to be nurtured in faith and to nurture faith in others. And we make promises to proclaim Christ through word and deed…to care for others and the world God made…and to faithfully work for justice and peace in all the world.

And it’s these last few that I think we hear so often at church that we honestly kind of gloss over them. Because they sound so familiar to, like, everything else we talk about at church. But I want you to really hear these promises because I think they speak really profoundly to this moment that we’re all in.

In your baptism, you promised to proclaim Christ through word and deed.

In all you do and in all you say, your life is to point to Christ. A Christ who, as we just sang about not 3 weeks ago, whose law is love and whose Gospel is peace.

How are you doing there?

In your baptism, you promised to care for others and the world God made.

In all your interactions with others and with creation, your posture is to be one of care and compassion. In these divisive and so highly-charged times, you are to be a voice of healing and unity.

How do you receive and interact with others who view things differently than you? How do you treat others who look, speak, think, act, vote, and believe differently than you? Do you seek out common understanding? Or do you write people off as nothing more than their voting record? (I’m especially convicted by this one, by the way… I can do this so much better…)

In your baptism, you promised to faithfully and tirelessly work for justice and peace in all the world.

In situations of oppression and injustice, your call is to stand and work with those who are vulnerable, oppressed, and marginalized. Those on the outsides. Those who do not have power and privilege. Those whose power and privilege and voice are trying to be taken away from them. Your “side” is to be with God, doing the work of lifting up the lowly, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, visiting the lonely, releasing the captive, and proclaiming the peace—the shalom—of God.

Where do you stand in situations of injustice?

The truth is, church, in all of this, our baptism most clearly shows us just how connected and how dependent on each other we all are.

Church, baptism is belonging.

The heavens were rent apart and the Spirit descended like a dove, and voice from the heavens said, “You are my child…my beloved…with you, I am so so pleased…”

Words not only reserved for Jesus. In your baptism, too, dear one…God drew near…the very same voice that swept over the waters and called forth life proclaimed you “Beloved”……a beautiful child of God……in you God is so so pleased……

And if that’s true of all of us, how does that change how we receive and view and interact with all those other people…all those folks we disagree with…? Are they, too, Beloved? Are they deserving of your love and care and compassion?

Baptism is belonging.

We are given to and for one another.

We are responsible for one another.

Perhaps if we understood this better, scenes like this past Wednesday might not have happened.

Perhaps if we understood this better, wearing a mask and avoiding gatherings wouldn’t be seen as a political statement, but rather as an act of care and concern for our neighbor.

Perhaps if we understood this better, we might more easily be able to overcome this pandemic because we would see that what is best for our neighbor is ultimately best for us. We would see that our lives really are tied up together, caught up in that inescapable network of mutuality.

Baptism is belonging.

And in this belonging, who are you?

What role do you have in this life we all share together…in this belonging to one another?

You…are beloved.

And you are called…to love.

Mark 1:1-8

1 The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 2 As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
 “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
  who will prepare your way;
 3 the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
  ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
  make straight the paths of the Lord,’ ”
4 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He proclaimed, “After me one who is more powerful than I is coming; the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I have baptized you with water; but the one who is coming will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

—————

Please pray with me this morning, church:

God of Peace,

Stir up your power,

And break in to our world.

Settle our spirits with your peace.

Help us reflect and embody peace

To our neighbors.

Amen.

—————

Where do you find peace?

What is it that settles deep in your spirit and calms all the storms going on in your life and brings you that heavy and abiding peace?

What does a broad sense of peace look like to you?

I’ll confess to you, friends, that not much feels peaceful in my life these days. I feel like I’m internalizing a lot of the external anxieties in our world…and it’s exhausting. The silent nights seem to have been replaced by groans and bickering. The calls for waiting and patience fall very differently on our ears this year…we who have been under some form of quarantine or lockdown for 9 months…or 267 days since we shut down…but who’s counting…?

Patience is wearing thin…right?

It’s in the midst of such an unsettled world that these words from Isaiah and from Mark are hitting me differently this year. Instead of words of warning, I think I’m receiving these verses from Isaiah in the comforting spirit they were intended when they were written. Instead of a casual introduction to a narrative story about an itinerant preacher from Nazareth, I think I’m hearing Mark’s very first words as a promise.

“Comfort…O comfort…my people……says your God…”

“The beginning…of the good news…of Jesus…the Anointed One…”

In a world that often doesn’t feel very peaceful, I have to remind myself of the words of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr., “Peace is not the absence of tension…but the presence of justice.” In a world that feels so divided, so at odds with each other…true peace isn’t simply that those tensions aren’t felt, right? Because we know that even though we might not feel that tension, that tension can still be present, percolating just below the surface, waiting for a moment to come bursting forth.  But true peace…that abiding, lasting, deep-settling peace…that comes from justice. God’s justice.

And that’s on us. It’s not simply our call to sit back and wait around and expect God to do something. Prayer’s part of it, but we are not called to stop with prayer. Prayer is always followed by action. Prayer necessarily leads us to act. You want peace? You’ve got a part in bringing about that peace.

And that part is what both Isaiah and John the baptizer call out for: “Prepare the way for the Lord.” The Lord is coming, so start making things ready.

The Lord has already come and is arriving.

So what does it mean to make pathways smooth? If the Lord is arriving, couldn’t the Lord make the paths direct and smooth without our help?

Well, certainly…God can do whatever God wants. But then what’s our role in God’s work?

If we’re simply part of making the mess and leaving it for God to clean up, we abdicate our responsibility to live as the people God has called us to be.

Church, we are called to be people who actively work and prepare for God’s arrival…and we’re called in ways to live as if that arrival is already a reality. The coming of God is both a present and a future truth. It’s not just to rescue us for some time on down the road, but is meant to impact and change how we live in this time and in this place.

Under normal circumstances, that is, when we’re not in the middle of a global pandemic when you would invite people over……remember parties? Remember having people over and sharing cups of cheer and gifts and good stories and laughter…? Hmmmm…….I miss those days… We’ll get back there soon… I promise……but remember when you would invite people over for a party? No one would ever invite folks over, then give them a mop or vacuum cleaner as they walked in the door and tell them to get to work. You don’t do that, right?

Advent is a little like that. Preparing the way for God, making rough places smooth and curvy paths direct means doing what we can with what we have to prepare and announce God’s arrival to a hurting world in desperate need of a savior.

And sometimes that work is incomplete, right? We’re not God; we don’t have all the tools and utilities and best ways at our disposal…but we do what we can with what we have. And sometimes the work looks pretty shoddy. Sometimes making rough places smooth for us looks like filling potholes with off-brand asphalt, using shovels and trowels instead of a paver and a steamroller. But it’s still our work to do.

Our work is incomplete and imperfect. But we still have a responsibility to live as the people God has called us to be.

Church, I know this time feels like wilderness. Believe me, please believe me…it is for me, too. I don’t enjoy this. This isn’t fun for me. It feels as if at some point we left the wilderness of Lent and turned right into the wilderness of Advent, and I’m not exactly sure when that switch happened, but all I know is that this has always felt and still feels like wilderness.

But I trust that the wilderness is where we’re called to be.

It’s where the prophet and John are calling us to and where the Lord is supposed to arrive.

So I trust that’s where we’re supposed to be.

And friends, the good news is that the wilderness is where God is.

God meets us in the wilderness, but God doesn’t leave us there. In the wilderness, in a backwater town is where the manger is laid. The cross stands in the midst of the wilderness, pointing to the empty tomb, proclaiming that death is not the end, that death does not have the last word, and that through the resurrection of Christ, God has taken away the power of death and has overcome it.

Ultimately, all these stories…our stories…are about coming through the wilderness.

The hope and the promise of Advent is that in this time of waiting and anticipation when it seems like the wilderness is all there is and will never end, that the light of the world is being born in our midst. The dawn is breaking through the night.

The promise is not how long the wilderness will be…it might be 40 days…it might be 267 days…it might be 40 years. The promise is not how long…the promise is that regardless of how long you find yourself in the wilderness, that God is right there with you…traveling with you, supporting you, holding you, guiding you, loving you, embracing you, and carrying you. 

Emmanuel…God is with you. Even when…especially when…it’s hard to see God.

Church, that’s a peace I can work for.

That’s a peace that settles deeply over my spirit.

May it be for you, too.

Amen.

Mark 13:24-37

[Jesus said:] 24 “In those days, after that suffering,
 the sun will be darkened,
  and the moon will not give its light,
 25 and the stars will be falling from heaven,
  and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
26 Then they will see ‘the Son-of-humanity coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. 27 Then the Son-of-humanity will send out the angels, and gather the elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.
  28 “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. 29 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the Son is near, at the very gates. 30 Very truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. 31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
  32 “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only God. 33 Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. 34 It is like someone going on a journey, who leaving home and putting the servants in charge of their own work, commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. 35 Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the lord of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, 36 or else coming suddenly, the lord may find you asleep. 37 And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

—————

Please pray with me this morning, church:

God of Hope,

Stir up your power,

And break in to our world.

Restore hope in our hearts.

Help us embody that hope

To a hurting world.

Amen.

—————

What do you hope for?

What’s giving you hope?

When things are really, really bad…when it feels like things can’t get any worse…where do you find hope…?

On this 1st Sunday of Advent, we’re being brought into explorations of hope. And I have to be honest with you, hope is one of those things I struggle with. Not because I’m a particularly distressed or despairing person, but because I try to view the world honestly. Like, I’m an optimist, but I’m also a realist, and sometimes my realist side takes the driver’s seat for far longer than it should.

Hope is something I struggle with because I tend to take an unvarnished view of the world, and truthfully, friends, I often don’t like what I see… And I suppose maybe that’s just the world we live in.

But it’s hard. And it weighs you down sometimes, right?

Maybe this is true for you, too.

It’s true for most of our world and for most of our history. Because while we humans are capable of great beauty and good, we’re also responsible for some of the most horrific and ugly chapters in our global story. And it can be really difficult to muster up even just a bit of hope in the face of so much hurt and pain.

That’s really true in the biblical narratives, too, by the way. Our verses from Isaiah and the Gospel of Mark are both written to a people and communities experiencing tremendous hardship and a profound sense of lost hope.

Isaiah 64 comes from the 3rd block of writing under Isaiah’s name, probably written 200 years or so after the original prophet Isaiah, but is written to an Israelite people who had recently returned from their exile in Babylon. They had returned to Jerusalem to find that the city they left was no longer the city that remained. They were now the outsiders. Their practices and their customs and their ways of worship were the ones being called into question. They had been forcibly removed from their home, made to live in exile in a foreign land for at least a generation, and now they were allowed to return only to find that they weren’t the ones in power anymore. They had their agency taken away from them.

And the gospel of Mark, the earliest written gospel account, is written in the immediate aftermath of the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem. And if you’ve still got your Bibles open or the Bible apps on your phone pulled up, take a look at the first part of Mark chapter 13:

“As Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Rabbi, what large stones and what large buildings!” Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.” And when Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to take place?”

This whole chapter in Mark is talking about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, and the temple was the center of religious and social life, so its destruction would have felt like the end of the world to Mark’s audience. And so the people in these 1st-century Christ-believing Jewish communities are left wondering if they’re next, right? Like, if the temple—if God’s dwelling place on earth—can so easily be toppled, what chance do God’s people…what chance do any of us…have to possibly avoid the same destruction?

Things were utterly hopeless.

And maybe…as you look around you today…as you watch and read the news…maybe you feel the same…

I’ve learned a new term in this pandemic: doomscrolling. Doomscrolling is when you obsessively scroll through your Facebook and Twitter feeds consuming article after article after quick-bite after update of negative and doom-and-gloom news. It’s like the trainwreck or car wreck you can’t look away from. You know the stats. You know the case numbers and death rates. You know the negativity. But still, you scroll. And it barrels you into a really unhealthy mental space and kind of a despairing place.

It can leave you feeling so hopeless…

The verses we heard from Isaiah this morning are some of my favorite in the whole Bible. From the very 1st verse: “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down!” (Your bible probably says tear open the heavens, but sometimes only the King James translation says it just the right way for this old soul…)

I love this word rend. The Greek word is schizo; it’s where we get schism.

It’s the same word used to describe when the prophets rend or tear open their garments in distress and mourning. It’s the same word used later in Mark to describe the curtain of the temple at the moment of crucifixion. Interestingly, it’s also the same word used at the beginning of Mark to describe the heavens opening up at Jesus’ baptism…

It means a shredding of something. To rip something beyond the ability to repair it. It’s a permanent fracture. You can put a thing that’s been rent back together again, but it won’t ever be repaired…it won’t ever be the thing it was before…at least not in the same way.

It’s a completely new thing.

In these verses, the prophet gives voice to our own pleas. We implore God…we beg God…to rip apart, to tear to shreds the very fabric between earth and heaven…

We beg God to violently enter our world because if God’s entrance isn’t violent, isn’t unmistakably noticeable, we might miss it for all the violence, death, and destruction we’ve already got going on in our world.

There’s a sense in which only God can save us from this mess that we’ve got. Maybe you feel like that. Have you sat back at any point during the past 8 months and thought, “Well surely things can’t get any worse…” and then things totally get worse? Have you sat back at any point during the past 8 months and thought, “Well, I hope Jesus is coming back soon, because that’s the only way we’re getting out of this mess!”

Rending…tearing apart…is a sign of ending, of distress and mourning and fracture and brokenness…but along with it, we carry the hope and promise of what comes next, church.

God specializes in repairing brokenness, in wiping tears from eyes, bringing newness from things that are worn out, and most certainly in bringing life from death.

God is doing a new thing…if we have eyes to see it.

It’s precisely into these moments where all feels lost that the prophet and Jesus try to speak a word of comfort.

“Keep watch,” Jesus says. “All of these things—the suffering, the gloom, falling stars, and shaken powers—these are the warning signs. But pay attention…when you see these things, know that the Son of humanity is near…”

And that noticing is almost imperceptible. You have to really be looking for it. “Learn a lesson from the fig tree,” Jesus says. “Just as the branch becomes tender…and the leaves start to bud…”

For all of our doomscrolling…for all of the negative and end-of-the-world news we consume…how much time do we spend looking for those tiny signs of hope?

Hope is small, dear friends.

It’s not always big and flashy. We don’t always get the glaring neon sign proclaiming: Hope Found Here!

If hope is something to be noticed, it stands to reason that we need to be looking.

Advent is a time for waiting and expectation, but we don’t wait idly or passively. We know what’s coming in a few short weeks, church. The Christ—the Light of the world—will once again break through the night and be born again in our midst. How are we preparing? What are you doing to make the world ready to receive this incredible gift again this year?

Practice awareness and attentiveness with me this season, church.

Practice nurturing hope with me.

What is God doing here in this place? Where are the bright spots that God is calling New Hope to live into? In a time of such great need, we know that the opportunities for generosity will be exceptional. How will you practice generosity this season, church?

How can you create hope this season?

Notice the light breaking through the cracks of night.

It starts small, like a tree just starting to blossom, but the light will soon burst forth like the dawn.