Merry Christmas from me and Matthew 1

Matthew 1:1-17

An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram, and Aram the father of Aminadab, and Aminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David.

And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Salathiel, and Salathiel the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.

So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah,fourteen generations.

As I end for 2016, I'm finishing with a funny Christmas reading.

Before Matthew gives us Jesus' nativity though the story of Joseph, he does something else. He introduces us to Jesus through his human family. He connects Jesus through Joseph to King David and to Abraham.

Generally in Matthew we get Joseph's version of the Nativity, and in Luke we get Mary's. Yet we also get something interesting of the feminine persecutive here in Matthew's lineage.

In the midst of all these men of Jesus' ancestry, we have four women listed: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Mary.

- Tamar: disguised herself as a prostitute to get her father-in-law to impregnate her.

- Rahab: A prostitute who assisted the Israelite spies to allow the Israelites to sack her home city of Jericho. She and her family avoided the massacre of her people.

- Ruth: A foreigner from Moab, an neighbor and sometimes enemy of Israel. 

- Mary: pregnant, unwed mother.

These are the women Matthew thinks are important to list among Jesus' ancestors.

So perhaps when he is born not in a palace.

Not part of the empire,

but in a backwater town,

as an enemy of the King of Israel,

making his home eventually in Nazareth (where nothing good comes from)...

We won't be surprised.

We will remember that the birth of Jesus does not come in the shiniest, cleanest way.

It doesn't come to a family dressed in their Sunday best with 2.5 children and a dog.

It doesn't come with ribbons, packages, and bows.

Or even with Christmas Carols.

Or feasts.

It comes in as surprising a way as possible.

This is where Matthew starts. This is where Jesus starts.

This is where we will start.

Our greatest blessing comes to us in a way we would never predict or expect.

Or choose for ourselves.

May your Christmas be blessed and may the unexpected capture you this season with the fullness of God's love.

Come Lord of All. Come and show us the true joy of your gift of love. Amen.

Galatians 3:23-29

Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

What does it mean to you that we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian?

Does that feel true for you? Does that feel real?

For me this is one of Paul's most important writings. It captures me every time I begin to fret about "us" and "them" or "who's in" and "who's out."

Or even fret for myself that God is mad at me.

Or that I'm not doing or being as I ought.

In this time of waiting, we are able to begin to practice living into this idea of there being no more human made distinctions. We can begin to practice the idea of being one.

These days it might feel like we are as far from free and being one as we can possibly be.

We are imprisoned still by differences and polarities and genders and racism and just plain needing to be right rather than united.

We are slaves still in so many ways to those things that separate and divide us not just from each other, but from God as well.

And yet, at the same time, we are clothed in Christ. Free from those same divisions that out of fear we still cling to.

And so we wait. We wait for a time when those distinctions are no longer of use to us. But as we wait and and we hope, we also learn to begin to live into that true freedom that is offered to us. That freedom that unites us as one.  We practice it until its truth is revealed in its fullness to us.

Come Lord Jesus and help us to see the reality of your freedom and unity in your name. Amen.

Matthew 8:14-17

When Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever; he touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she got up and began to serve him. That evening they brought to him many who were possessed with demons; and he cast out the spirits with a word, and cured all who were sick. This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah, “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.”

I will admit that for years, it was easy to make a feministic joke out of this text: Jesus just healed Peter's mother-in-law because the rest of the disciples weren't capable of feeding themselves.

And joking aside, there are many women (myself included) who find it difficult to read this without thinking of all the times a woman in our life has served her family while sick or unwell. And it is easy to read into this that she is healed simply to serve the men in this group.

And yet...

Is this not the model for discipleship that Jesus offers all of us? To heal us - in essence to serve us - so that we can then serve others?

There are little things in this text that jump out as worth noticing for me.

First, how intimate this act is. Jesus touches her hand. This tells me that this healing is one of compassion, not simply expedience - to get her back to doing what she's supposed to be doing.

For a man to even touch a woman was a no-no. So Jesus here is valuing her as a person, more than healing her for the sake of tradition or expedience.

He is bringing her back to the life she is called to and undoubtedly loves.

Her first act, as she is healed, is to serve Jesus himself. It isn't to whip up a big meal for the crew. It is to serve her Lord.

This Advent perhaps you are waiting for some kind of healing in your life.

Perhaps you feel you have been stuck - prevented from fully serving as you have felt called to serve.

As we wait for the Light to come into the world, may you find that calling within and may the healing that comes, prompt you forward into a full and abundant life of service and love.

Come Lord Jesus! Come with healing hands and heart! Amen

 1 Samuel 2:1-8

Hannah prayed and said,

“My heart exults in the Lord;
    my strength is exalted in my God.
My mouth derides my enemies,
    because I rejoice in my victory.

“There is no Holy One like the Lord,
    no one besides you;
    there is no Rock like our God.
Talk no more so very proudly,
    let not arrogance come from your mouth;
for the Lord is a God of knowledge,
    and by him actions are weighed.
The bows of the mighty are broken,
    but the feeble gird on strength.
Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread,
    but those who were hungry are fat with spoil.
The barren has borne seven,
    but she who has many children is forlorn.
The Lord kills and brings to life;
    he brings down to Sheol and raises up.
The Lord makes poor and makes rich;
    he brings low, he also exalts.
He raises up the poor from the dust;
    he lifts the needy from the ash heap,
to make them sit with princes
    and inherit a seat of honor.
For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s,
    and on them he has set the world.

Long before Mary praised God for looking with favor on the lowliness of servants, and for lifting up the lowly, Hannah - another mother of strange circumstance - exalted God similarly.

Hannah was the mother of the prophet Samuel, and unlike Mary - a teen who had no expectations of being a mother - Hannah had been hoping and praying for motherhood for years.

One woman young and unmarried. Another older and barren despite being married.

Both, however, finding the surprise pregnancy something worth the wait.

And something that spoke to God's topsy turvy work in the world.

No one expects the single teen to have a child.

Or the barren woman who has been married for years.

Just as we don't expect the powerless or weak to gird on strength.

Or the powerful to fall and fail.

Like Mary, Hannah reminds us to expect the unexpected where God is concerned.

And to sing praises for that.

To be hopeful that our expectations are not always the same as God's.

That God's way will exceed everything we can hope for.

Lord, we wait for you to come in ways that will always surprised us and exceed every expectation we can have. Thank you! Amen

Matthew 24:23-24

Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look! Here is the Messiah!’ or ‘There he is!’—do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce great signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.

It's the season of Advent - the time when we wait for that baby to be born: the baby who will change everything.

And yet in Advent, we get frequent lessons about waiting for the Messiah - a baby no longer - to come again. And those lessons often feel a bit frightening and mysterious and ominous.

And yet also somehow relevant.

As we wait for the baby - the Incarnate God in our midst - we also pause to note all the false gods we wait for and watch for. Those saviors that Jesus warns us of today.

We remember our tendency to look in the wrong places for leadership and guidance.

We remember how we seek power over and over again as the way we shall save ourselves.

Meanwhile, soon we will see that we don't save ourselves.

That power isn't the way.

That our leaders are not saviors.

And that the real savior, our true leader, will come not in might and strength and power.

Not in the White House or the Kremlin or the grandest castle...

...but in fragility and vulnerability...

...amidst cow dung and straw in a place for animals rather than people.

So in Advent we wait. For the babe in a manger.

And also for the life Christ brings to keep coming again and again from this time through end times.

Savior of the world, show us true power. Teach us humility. Give us patience. And help us to be love to a world that needs it even as it waits for you. Amen.

1 Thessalonians 4:9-10

Now concerning love of the brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anyone write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another; and indeed you do love all the brothers and sisters throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, beloved, to do so more and more...

My favorite image of how love works is a visual one. It's the image of a flame. 

Light a candle. Now take that candle and light another candle. See the light spread. Each time you take that flame and light another candle, the light does not diminish. You can't take away from it. You can only make it bigger.

That is how love works.

Love more and more, Paul says.

Because that's what love is meant for. It is meant to be expansive.

Wide.

Broad.

Huge.

It starts small. But if you try to keep it small, you eventually will extinguish it.

There is a prayer that has been attributed to Mother Teresa, that she herself paraphrased from American writer and educator, Dr. Kent Keith. Dr. Keith called this prayer "The Paradoxical Commandments" - and like the original commandments there are ten.

The first one is this: "People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway."

Love more and more.

Start with those near you - especially the difficult ones - and keep expanding, growing, and widening just like that flame.

And imagine how a love not snuffed out, but instead allowed to spread like wildfire, can change the world.

Let your love spread like fire, Lord, starting in my heart and ever moving outward. Amen.

Isaiah 30:20

Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself any more, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. 

Nothing teaches more than pain.

Than suffering.

Than having to rely on hope.

Most of us wish that weren't so, but know from experience that it is.

For the Israelites, it often felt as if God was absent. That the suffering was too much. That God was hiding out. Yet God was always present. Living through the suffering with them.

Where is God when we suffer? Is there any question in faith that is asked more than that one? If so, I'm not sure what it is. And sometimes in the moment of suffering maybe it doesn't occur to us that where God is is with us. Or if it does, maybe it isn't initially helpful.

But later...

Maybe...just maybe, God's presence beside us in our suffering may be the thing that teaches us. 

Gives us hope.

Helps us see the promise in a new day.

God of hope, the road through suffering is hard. But the only way through is through, not around. Walk with me on that path and catch me when I stumble along the way. Amen

Psalm 72:18-19

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
    who alone does wondrous things.
Blessed be his glorious name forever;
    may his glory fill the whole earth.
Amen and Amen.

Seems like a simple verse for the day. A prayer if you will.

We are used to saying things like "God has blessed me" or "I am blessed."

But here, we are telling of God's own blessedness.

We are blessing God.

How does that make you see blessing as an act?

Or as an adjective.

What does naming God as blessed do to you? 

What would your day be like if you began it by blessing God?

How would we see our own blessedness in calling out God's?

Sometimes you may not know what to pray. How to start. Sometimes you may find yourself in a meeting or situation where someone asks you to pray and you feel stuck.

If so, here's perhaps a place to begin. 

Blessed be God and may God's glory fill the whole earth. Amen and Amen.

John 1:19-28

This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.” Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” He said,

“I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,
‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’”

as the prophet Isaiah said.

Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.

I wouldn't be Advent without hearing from John the Baptist.

It's a story we hear every year. It's one that has become cemented with Advent and with the idea of preparation for Christmas.

Each time I read the story of John - regardless of the gospel - I try to see if there is something new I can find. Something that I didn't know before.

And that seems oddly ironic then that this time I zeroed in on John's words about Jesus as "the one whom you do not know."

It makes me wonder: "Do we still not fully know Jesus?"

Each year John the Baptist introduces us to this Jesus who wasn't known to the Priests or Levites. And in each year when he does this, he is also introducing him to us again.

It isn't a story that can be told once.

It's a story we tell again and again so that we can know Jesus more fully.

Because while we know the Christmas story, and love to tell the Christmas story, we sometimes forget who the center of the story is.

We forget that Jesus came not simply to tell about him.

Or even simply to believe in him.

But so that we might know him.

And fully knowing someone takes time. 

And repetition.

And faith.

So listen to John this year. Listen again and let him introduce you to the one who we don't yet know.

So that we might begin to fully know him.

Lord, teach me your story and make it a part of me so that I may fully know you. Amen

Matthew 24:1-5

As Jesus came out of the temple and was going away, his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. Then he asked them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly I tell you, not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”

When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” Jesus answered them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Messiah!’ and they will lead many astray."

It isn't always super helpful to read the Apocalyptic texts in scripture. It especially often sounds disconcerting hearing end times talk coming out of Jesus' mouth.

One thing that is helpful for me to remember about anything related to "apocalypse" talk is that we all have little apocalypses all throughout our lives. End times come not always just at the final end, but at ends of periods or moments in our lives.

As we transition from one stage of life to the next, it can often feel apocalyptic and unsettling. Disorienting. Scary.

Difficult sometimes to imagine resettling or reorienting ourselves.

And yet that is what we are called to do.

It is important to remember that in those disorienting moments we are often most vulnerable to "false prophets" or "false messiahs:" those in our lives who we might go to for guidance, but who may not actually have our best interests at heart.

And that is when we would do well to ask ourselves how our true messiah would guide us.

How would the crucified Christ move us through unsettling times in our lives to a new creation? How can disorienting, apocalyptic times challenge us to grow outside of ourselves?

We need not get overly caught up in Apocalyptic literature in seeing it as relating simply to the end of the world.

It might instead guide us in whatever apocalypse is happening right now in your life. In this moment.

Who is a true prophet you can turn to right now if that is where you find yourself?

Lord of all time, help me discern true prophets in my life to guide me through unsettling times. Amen.

Romans 6:1-4

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

There's some heady theology here from Paul.

But push it away and what do you have?

Under all the talk of dying to sin and being baptized into Christ's death - which admittedly are worthy of some deeper digging into - what are we left with? Where is it all taking us? What is it Paul is really wanting us to see?

Newness of life.

Your life.

Made new.

That's it.

That's what God wants for us. 

For us to live in a new way. For us to see with new eyes. For us to hear with new ears.

To love with a new heart.

For us not to stand in place - stagnant in a life that is turned in on itself (as we might say a "sinful" life is) - and instead walk forward. Living into newness and hope.

Not staying in place.

Not pushing away the change in us as it bubbles up.

Reaching out to others who are also finding their way on this new path.

My hunch is that there is a new life God is calling you to. It might be subtly, and it might not now seem obvious to you.

But peek below the surface of dogma, theology, and even the day to day grind, and it's there, waiting for you to discern it.

Waiting for you to walk in it.

God of new life, open my eyes to your possibilities. Amen.