More Than Enough
Children's sermon
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For December 15, 2024:
More Than Enough
by Dean Feldmeyer
Luke 3:7-18
I wear a size 14 shoe, sometimes a 15, depending on the cut and the style. They are not always easy to find.
So, I was intrigued but doubtful when I saw the sign that said: “The Boot Factory Outlet — buy one pair and get two free.”
There’s got to be some kind of catch, right? These outlet places never have my size. And if they do, they’ll be the cheap, poorly made boots that fall apart the first time they get wet.
About that time, a young lady appears at my side and asks if she can help me; I tell her my size and she doesn’t even roll her eyes. She points to the back wall of the store. Something like 100 pairs of boots, all size 14 through 20. (I guess the 20s are in case Shaquille O’Neal shows up looking for boots.) Go ahead, she says, try some on.
Still skeptical, I select a pair of square-toed cowboy boots, a nationally recognizable brand, and pull them on and, oh, dear Lord, it’s like I’m wearing slippers. They’re really comfortable. And the price is about the same as a pair of decent quality sneakers.
I look up and there’s the young lady standing with my wife beside her. I tell Jean how much I like, really like these boots, boots for which I have absolutely no use whatsoever, and the young lady says that if I want them, I should pick out my other two pairs that will be free. Any boots in the store.
So, I now have three pairs of western boots, all of which are size 14, and each pair is comfortable, rugged, and wicked cool. And I’m thinking that I’m pretty cool for having found such a great bargain. And then I read this passage from Luke. What do you do, he seems to be asking me, when you have three pairs of boots and you can wear only one pair at a time?
In the News
Ever since the presidential election in November, TV pundits and news analysts on networks across the political spectrum have been analyzing and philosophizing all over the place and there has been little agreement except on one thing: It was the economy.
Both mainstream political parties seem to agree that the economy is a mess. Some go so far as to say it is a travesty and an injustice — others seem to think it was more of a nuisance or inconvenience but they all that Americans were suffering, SUFFERING because of the economy.
To make this point, they point to the price of eggs, bread, milk, and gasoline. And sometimes beef. It is a miracle, they insist, that people aren’t starving to death in their own kitchens as they slave to scrape together two or three meals a day for their families. They generally illustrate this tragic state of affairs with a brief piece about a single mother of three or a blue-collar dad who has been laid off at the factory.
And tragic as those stories are, one cannot wonder if they really tell the whole story. Let’s look beyond eggs and bread and milk at some of the other things Americans have been spending their money on this past year. I spent about an hour on the internet and thanks to Google, here’s what I found:
Coffee
The most popular beverage at Starbucks is the Iced Brown Sugar Oat Milk Shaken Espresso. Order one in the Venti size, also the most popular, and you’ll spend $5.95, whereas a venti pumpkin-spiced latte is a mere $5.75. So far in 2024, Starbucks’ total revenue has been $35.2 billion, a 1% increase over 2023. In fact, the company’s revenue has increased every year save one for the past decade and that one underperforming year was in the middle of the pandemic.
Rides
Americans purchased 91.4 million new vehicles in 2024 at an average price of $48,401. 52.2 million budget-minded Americans purchased used vehicles for an average price of $25,591. The most popular vehicle in the USA in 2024 was the Ford F-series pickup truck of which 218,000 new units were sold at an average price of…wait for it…$61,777
Entertainment
The most popular amusement park in the United States is Florida’s Disney World. The average cost of a ticket for a day of fun in the park is now $109 - $122. Disney estimates that a “baseline vacation” at Disney World for a family of four will cost about $6,865. Disney Parks Advisor estimates average daily attendance at DW is about 35,000 or about 12.5 million per year.
Or maybe you’d rather spend your entertainment dollars going to a concert. The average price of one ticket to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour was $274. That’s retail and they were very hard to find at that cost. Ticket brokers bought hundreds of thousands of them and resold them for an average price of $500-$1,000. Tickets to the last three concerts on the tour sold for $1922 on average. And last week, tickets to the final concert in Vancouver were selling for about $2,500. And every concert on the tour was sold out.
The average price for a ticket to Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour was $325. Bad Bunny tickets regularly sell for $780. And don’t bother trying to get one. They’re already sold out.
Sports more to your liking? A ticket to an NFL regular season game will set you back an average of $650 for good seats. Great seats will cost about $2,500. Even the worst seats at the Super Bowl are already going for $12,082. World Series tickets averaged about $2,000 each.
The average ticket price for a Broadway show seems like a bargain at only $160. Of course, that doesn’t include round trip airfare to New York, taxis, meals, and a hotel room.
Every year, we Americans spend an average of $1,776 on fast food and $1,992 eating out at fine dining establishments. We spend $1,733 on our pets, $1000 on Christmas presents, $625 on alcohol, $137 on jewelry and $1,392 on cable TV. When we bundle our cable, streaming services, and internet the price averages about $2,724 per year.
So, apparently, it’s not that most Americans can’t afford to put food on the table. It’s that it costs more than we want it to. If we have to spend $2.50 for a dozen eggs the cost of eating might cut into our concert attendance, amusement park visits, new car purchases, and Netflix watching.
In the Scriptures
Today’s reading for the third Sunday of Advent brings us back to John the Baptizer and his prophetic sermon to those who came out to hear him. The gospel of Mark says that “all of Jerusalem” turned out. That’s probably an exaggeration but it underlines the fact that John’s ministry was a popular one. His audience was probably mostly made up of those who could afford to take a day off to go hear what this crazy prophet was all about.
And this is what they heard:
“You brood of vipers! What makes you think you’re going to escape God’s judgment?”
It isn’t exactly the stuff of Hallmark greeting cards, is it? “Wishing you the best of the season…you brood of vipers!” “Hoping you have a blessed Christmas…before God’s wrath burns you to a cinder.” Don’t expect Joel Osteen to open his sermon on his Christmas special with that line.
You brood of vipers! You bunch of snakes. The only reason you’re here is because you think I’m going to tell you that because you are Jews you don’t need to repent. Well, think again! And do they storm off in a huff, all offended and ticked off?
They do not. They stay and hear that the Christ is coming, the Messiah for which they have waited and longed. God’s anointed one is on his way. And they want to be ready for him. They want to be prepared when he gets there. So, they ask John, “What should we do?”
And, wonder of wonders, John has an answer ready for them — not in some vague theological jargon or some evangelical rhetoric — but in plain, simple language directed at their behavior. “Well,” he says, “This is how you prepare for the coming messiah.”
ONE, do not presume upon your nationality or your ethnicity.
TWO, give from your excess to those who don’t have enough.
THREE, don’t abuse the power that life gives you, and,
FOUR, learn to be content with what you have.
In the Sermon
(ONE) John’s audience believed that because they were Jews, descendants of Abraham, living in the holy land, they were better than other people and less in need of God’s grace. John takes pains to disabuse them of that notion.
God, he says, does not give a feather or fig about the color of your skin or the color of your flag. What part of the world you were born in carries no weight in the heavenly court. Your bloodline is of no concern to the creator of the universe. The language you speak, the stories you tell, the clothing you choose to wear, the length of your hair, the tattoos that you get or don’t get, the amount of makeup you wear or don’t wear… make the list as long as you like… it is all as nothing to God.
The prayers you pray, the theology you believe, the hymns you sing, the architecture of your church, the style of your worship, the decorations you hang on the walls of your church — they are all very nice and very interesting, but they are of no consequence to God.
God, John tells us, is rather monomaniacal, even narrow-minded. God is concerned with only one thing, really, because this one thing is the measure of all the others. This one thing is the litmus test of our faith, the plumb line of our ethics, the weight measure of our righteousness.
And what is that one thing? It is this: How do you treat your neighbor?
(TWO) Give from your excess to those who don’t have enough.
If you have two coats, he says, give one of your coats to your neighbor who has none. And do the same with food.
He isn’t asking us to go cold or hungry or even to make a real sacrifice. (Later, Jesus will ask us to do that.) For now, as we are getting ready for Jesus, it is enough to simply give from our excess. To give from what we keep around but, if we are honest, we don’t really need.
(THREE) Don’t abuse your power.
Don’t collect more taxes than is fair. Don’t extort people with physical harm. Don’t use your power to make other people do what you want.
This, of course, requires that we be honest about what power we possess. Most of us like to think of ourselves as powerless victims. Politicians will tell us that we are, and only they can rescue us, but this commandment requires that we be honest. White skin brings privilege and power to those who have it. Athletic ability brings wealth to those who possess it. Physical beauty brings popularity and power to those who are beautiful.
John doesn’t go so far as to tell us to use our power for good. All he asks is that we don’t take advantage of it and use it in ways that harm others.
(FOUR) And, finally, he says — Learn to be satisfied with what you have: your salary, your home, your power, your prestige in the community. Of what good is more in any of these things if more is bought at the cost of our relationships — with each other or with God?
What value is winning if winning costs us our relationships with our brothers and sisters?
What good is it to live at the highest point in the town if the path to that point is paved with cheating, lying, threatening, bullying, intimidation, accusations and violence.
There you go. That’s how you get ready for the coming of the Messiah on Christmas Day. Four simple things. Master those and you’ll be ready.
It isn’t easy, though, is it? Not when your kids are clamoring for that Disney vacation and HBO, when your spouse, whom you love, insists that if he had some new golf clubs, he could improve his score by ten strokes and be the envy of every guy at the club, when you have convinced yourself that you really do need that Venti Iced Brown Sugar Oat Milk Shaken Espresso to get started on your day.
This preparation to which John calls us is climbing a mountain. If it was easy, everyone would have already done it.
SECOND THOUGHTS
The Power of Small
by Katy Stenta
Philippians 4:4-7
In this passage we have Paul reassuring people not to worry. I always find it hard when humans tell other humans not to worry because worrying is such a human thing to do. We might as well tell the sun not to rise. However, here is Paul reassuring the Philippians that every little thing is going to be all right. “Do not worry about anything” he says. “In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” If prayer is a vote that is given legs, then in light of recent elections, we know that people are longing for change. The reason that people give for wanting change is the economy. One such worry is rising energy costs as winter approaches in the United States. One survey says that as many as 78% of people are worried about it. This is also true in the UK, where as much as twelve percent of the population is cutting back on showers and baths to save on their energy costs.
Another big cost, which is not really accounted for in the economic models, is the rising costs of all kinds of insurance: house, car and, of course, the big one in the news with the latest shooting — medical. Many people cannot afford rising insurance premiums. The affordable care coverage exchange provided by Congress (otherwise known as Obamacare) is meant to cover the gap.
If we are supposed to “rejoice in the Lord always,” then what does that mean for those who lack when they need? Are we supposed to sit back and do nothing? I would argue that Paul is encouraging the opposite. What Paul is encouraging here is little acts of trust that our God is sufficient. Picture that on posters: “Come worship the God of Manna, the God of enough, the God of sufficiency.” Though God’s grace is overflowing, our God is preaching the opposite of health and wealth, and instead is encouraging us to rejoice and enjoy a life where living a good life is more powerful than living one of indulgence. This is why Jesus encourages us to give away any surplus food or coats to those in need. God wants us to have enough and to share with those that don’t so that no one else needs to worry either.
Perhaps this is why helping others matters — because God designed it this way. In this model of life, doing small acts of good adds up to much more than big acts of benevolence. Paul is encouraging us to “give thanks always” because the small things matter.
A recent study agrees. Research shows that small acts of kindness and micro-activism can serve as an antidote to hopelessness, create connection, and help to shift attitudes over time. You can read all about this uplifting study in this Fast Company article. This study also bolsters the idea that the opposite of war is creativity and hope. Lived-out peace is not just inaction and quiet but the space to make art. Perhaps this is why music, poetry, and painting speak to humanity in a language that goes beyond our differences. Perhaps this is how we can move from small acts of thanksgiving and hope to the peace of God that “passes all understanding.”
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:
Isaiah 12:2-6
The Great Catcher
The psalmist prays aloud that she will “trust in God and not be afraid.”
Henri Nouwen says that trust is the foundation for our lives with God. "Trust is the basis of life. Without trust, no human being can live. Trapeze artists offer a beautiful image of this. Flyers have to trust their catchers. They can do the most spectacular doubles, triples, or quadruples, but what finally makes their performances spectacular are the catchers who are there for them at the right time in the right place. Much of our lives are flying. It is wonderful to fly in the air free as a bird, but when God isn’t there to catch us, all our flying comes to nothing. Let’s trust the Great Catcher." (from Bread for the Journey)
Isaiah calls us to leap into faith, trusting the Great Catcher.
* * *
Isaiah 12:2-6
Being Afraid
Looking to God’s triumphant future, Isaiah says, “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid.” It sounds like he’s talking to himself, encouraging himself out of his fear.
In a similar vein, Cole Arthur Riley observes, “In Advent, we grant ourselves permission to be terrified. To check beneath the bed. To flinch, to question, to weep. The world is dark. For many of us, in the literal sense, as the days become shorter in winter and the nights begin to stretch on. But also, for many of us, the soul of the world feels dark. Disorienting. Uncertain. Frightening. And in this season, we tell the truth about it. We name the monsters under the bed. We learn how to fall asleep in spite of them.”
Like Isaiah, Cole Arthur Riley lands in the place on the other side of the fear. “And still, the darkness of Advent is never far from the darkness of the womb. A beautiful dark. Advent's origins in the Christian tradition honor the story of a God who dwelled in the holy darkness of Mary's womb. It is a site of the unknown, but it is also a site of formation―growth, rest, waiting.”
She says what Isaiah knows, too. “The dark can be a harbor,” in God’s care.
* * *
Luke 3:7-18
The Setting for Advent
In The First Advent in Palestine, author Kelley Nikondeha reminds of the world John the Baptist spoke to. As John calls on the power of God, other powers surround him.
"The ache of injustice and suffering preceded the first advent. So did world peace. As we connect the dots between antiquity and gospel narrative, this might come as a surprise. But we meet Luke’s account, where he reminds readers that the advent story came within a particular time: it all began in the days of Herod. What was left unwritten, but known to Luke’s contemporaries, was that Herod ruled under the auspices of Rome. At this point in history, Caesar was in control of the region—and much of the world. While Rome ruled Judea and the surrounding provinces, a decisive military victory in Egypt ended decades of war in the Mediterranean and united the "known world under Rome’s banner. Caesar inaugurated the Pax Romana (Roman Peace). No one before had accomplished such a feat. And many declared Caesar the savior of the world, the one who ended the cycles of endless war.”
Into that world, God comes with another vision of peace, and another kind of power.
Nikondeha invites us to consider “how Caesar’s peace had arrived: through crushing victory and control maintained through violence against those subject to his rule. What made some see Caesar as a savior was a kind of peace that benefited the few while exploiting the many; one that usurped land and harvests from the poor…the first advent was God’s critique of what the world called peace. This world of peace was a world of foreclosures, evicting families from their land, often turning them into tenant farmers on their own property. Economic loss separated families, caused malnutrition in children, and left many women widowed and vulnerable. What looked to a few people of means like a world of peace kept most of the population in a constant position of economic stress by imperial design. Another form of violence."
John preaches a different kind of peace with his simple advice.
* * *
Luke 3:7-18
Look to the Margins
Standing in the desert, speaking to the crowds who come, John the Baptist evokes his ancestor, Moses.
Debra Rienstra notes that the exodus stories are the foundation for John’s story, adding, “the church’s tradition draws us back into John’s origin story, to remind us that if we want to see God showing up at hinge points in history, we should look to the margins. Just as with the enslaved Israelites, God opposes empire with the small, the hidden, the seemingly powerless. In the gospel stories, God comes to a young girl and an old woman, members of a colonized people in some Judean backwater. The power of God enables both Mary and Elizabeth to conceive. To underline God’s upside-down ways, God silences even the good-hearted priest Zechariah, so the two women can speak out for a while. According to the gospel of Luke, Mary understands completely what God is up to. She perceives—because she knows the history of Israel—that God works with the small and hidden to overturn the great kingdoms of the earth." (from Refugia Faith: Seeking Hidden Shelters, Ordinary Wonders, and the Healing of the Earth)
The word of God passes by all the notable people in John’s world, and lands with John and his ragtag group of followers out in the desert.
* * *
Luke 3:7-18
Giving Things Away
In the spirit of John the Baptist urging people to give things to others, author Daniel Pink decided to celebrate a milestone birthday by giving a small gift to the people in his life. He loves pencils, so he ordered a number of personalized pencils, and ordered them in pink, a nod to his last name.
He explains that he “drafted a short cover note for the present, explaining how I hoped to use this big birthday to thank people for being part of my life.” Then he chose his recipients, realizing that he has lots of people he’s grateful for (and a few he doesn’t even like.) He and his wife “converted the kitchen table into a fulfillment center. We printed labels and postage, slid three pencils into a sleeve and each sleeve into an envelope. Then, in two ceremonial walks to our neighborhood post office, we dispatched 98 gifts out to the world.” This added to his gratitude on his birthday.
Give away what you can, John tells us, and Daniel Pink found lots of birthday joy in these small gifts, and the connections they made.
* * *
Luke 3:7-18
Doing What You Can
For such a fiery preacher, John the Baptist asks people to do very simple things. Do what you can, he says, in essence. That’s what Amy Wolff did when she noticed the suicide rate in her Oregon town.
Feeling unqualified to help, and yet not wanting to sit around and do nothing, she made twenty yard signs. The signs said things like “Don’t Give Up” and “You Got This.”
“She got in the car with her husband, kids, and twenty yard signs, on a mission to ask residents of Newberg to stick them in their yards. “This is the dumbest, dumbest idea,” Wolff thought as they drove off. She was wrong. All the strangers they approached in Newberg wanted the yard signs. Local social media channels blew up within hours, with new people wanting signs in their yards, too. Wolff outed herself as the sign maker, started a website, and took new sign orders.”
Her small action rippled out, and “messages have poured into her inbox about the positive impact the signs have had. One man was actually driving toward a site where he planned to commit suicide when he saw a sign reading DON’T GIVE UP. He drove home and opened up to his family about his depression. A shame-ridden drug addict saw this “bright, white thing” as he was driving: a yard sign reading YOUR MISTAKES DON’T DEFINE YOU. He booked himself into rehab." (from Infectious Generosity: The Ultimate Idea Worth Spreading by Chris Anderson)
Plant a sign, give away a coat, treat people decently — as we await the coming of Jesus, our small actions ripple out to change the world.
* * * * * *
From team member Chris Keating:
Zephaniah 3:14-20
Sing aloud, O daughter!
Zephaniah’s outburst of joy provides the hopeful ending to the short book’s denunciations of sin and injustice. Chapters one and two are filled with the prophet’s searing proclamations of wickedness: “Gather together, O shameless nation, before you are drive away like the drifting chaff, before there comes upon you the fierce anger of the Lord.” (Zeph. 2:1) The book concludes with this oracle of joy, a fitting text for Advent’s “joy” Sunday.
The text imagines the songs of women whose faith has held them in times of crisis. This is no gaudy giddiness; this is the song of the joy of those whose oppression has ended. It is a song that resembles the experience of Nena Ruiz, a retired teacher from the Philippines and human trafficking survivor.
After retiring from her 32-year elementary school teaching career, Ruiz started a business with a neighbor who soon managed to steal Ruiz’s life savings. An extended relative proposed what seemed to be the perfect opportunity. In reality, the cousin led Ruiz into a sinister trafficking scheme. Within months, Ruiz found herself working in slave conditions for a wealthy California family who stole her passport and managed to keep the retiree in their debt. She worked around the clock cooking, cleaning, and mending clothes.
“Every month, I cooked a large pot of a special Filipino dish of ground beef, rice, tomato, carrots, and broccoli for the dogs, but was fed leftover food that had been in the refrigerator for days. I had to brush the dogs’ teeth, clean their ears, and give them vitamins each day, but I had to sleep on a dog bed in the living room, even though the house was large, with a guest room and music room.” After her visa expired, Ruiz felt trapped by the family’s threats to turn her into US immigration officials, and the growing debt she owed them for everything from shampoo to the cost of her plane tickets from the Philippines. Soon the job of her dreams became a nightmare.
More than a year later, neighbors alerted the police to her circumstances. Ruiz was removed from the home, given access to housing, food, and healthcare. Eventually, she received training to be a certified nursing assistant while her former “employers” faced criminal charges. When her employers were finally arrested and tried, Ruiz said she could finally “work without fear.”
Eventually, she was able to return to the Philippines. Her experience led her to work on behalf of other trafficking victims and enabled her to serve in her home community. “All of this gives me joy and fulfillment,” she writes. “But it still doesn’t compare to the happiest moment of my life. In 2013, years after I left the Philippines, I was finally reunited with my husband, my children, and my grandchildren.” At long last, she was able to find the joy that comes to those who have endured oppression and struggle.
* * *
Zephaniah 3:14-20
I will bring you home
While it is impossible to know the long-term impact of the ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, it’s clear that unbridled joy accompanied this week’s surprising revolution. On Monday, shocked residents of Damascus walked around the streets in a state of disbelief. According to the New York Times:
Some rushed to a notorious prison on the outskirts of Damascus, the capital, desperate to find loved ones who had disappeared under Mr. al-Assad’s brutal reign. Others clambered on top of cars and screamed curses at the Assad family, words that days ago could have meant a death sentence.
* * *
Philippians 4:4-7
Let your gentleness be known to everyone; the Lord is near
Based on her extensive research on the dynamics of shame, famed author Brené Brown wants us to know that the sort of gentleness and joy Paul imagines in Philippians emerges from a place of “incredible vulnerability.” In her book Dare to Lead: Brave Work, Tough Conversations, Whole Hearts, Brown notes that “joy is the most vulnerable emotion we feel.”
When we feel joy, it is a place of incredible vulnerability — it’s beauty and fragility and deep gratitude and impermanence all wrapped up in one experience. When we can’t tolerate that level of vulnerability, joy actually becomes foreboding, and we immediately move to self-protection. It’s as if we grab vulnerability by the shoulders and say, “You will not catch me off guard. You will not sucker-punch me with pain. I will be prepared and ready for you.”
* * *
Philippians 4:4-7
What’s changing is me
Journalist and Pentecostal preacher Paul Prather writes of the ways he’s learned to embrace life’s changes. While Prather does not quote the apostle Paul, his reflections bear a striking resemblance to Philippians 4:6, “Do not be anxious about anything…”
Writing for Religion Unplugged, Prather says that at age 68, he now realizes he’s changed. “It’s not that the world around me is simpler,” he writes, “If anything, it keeps getting more complicated.” What’s changed is him. “Aging tends to cure you of the notion that you have one-size-fits-all answers for everybody else.” Instead, he says, he’s allowed himself to become a bit more humble.
I now mostly decline to let irritations irritate me. I’m slowly learning that getting irritated is a choice. Given that irritation expends my energy, and given that my energy is now finite, I choose not to waste much hard-earned equilibrium on minor daily setbacks or on, for want of a better word, numbskulls.
I now pursue peace. Peace with all creation. Peace with other people. Peace with God. But mainly, peace in my own heart.
I’ll be at peace with you if you’ll let me. I don’t care what religion you follow. As long as you don’t wield it as a weapon against others, I say Godspeed. Feel free not to follow any faith at all. I just don’t care. I’m busy enough sorting out my own soul.
I don’t care if you’re rich or poor, Black or White, educated or illiterate. I don’t care what color your hair is or how many tattoos you have. You’d be astonished, and maybe disappointed, at how little I care who you sleep with. I don’t even care who you vote for.
Prather admits that he’s still working on that one, but that “basically I no longer feel the need to prove myself right.”
* * *
Luke 3:7-18
Cultivating the harvest of repentance
Ayana Mathis’ essay “What can literature teach us about forgiveness?” grapples with the difficulty of true forgiveness.” Mathis, author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, writes that:
The tribulations of the past cannot be undone even as they cannot be excused. The transgressed and their transgressors carry with them the irreversible past, and so we arrive at the vexing question of forgiveness. Most would define forgiveness as a moral good, a virtuous act that requires us to forgo retribution for wrongdoing and extend pardon without conditions. But what about the fact that forgiveness cannot restore what’s been lost to grievous harm? What of the transgressed person’s grief or rage?
Turning to literature, Mathis explores the ways forgiveness emerges as a process that is visionary and revelatory, rooted in a mix of insight, incident, and description. She names the ways literature such as Alice Walker’s The Color Purple or the comparatively recent Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi possesses a moral imagination about forgiveness that remains open in the face of ambiguities and crises. “Forgiveness involves striving — to find new meanings inside older ones, to uncover what we have overlooked, to revise inadequate and indurate conceptions. Forgiveness is not a single act or event but a process.”
* * *
Luke 3:7-18
Teacher, what shall we do?
John’s message of repentance clears a pathway for Jesus’ message. As people are baptized, John calls them to turn from sinfulness to embrace a life modelled on forgiveness. It’s a way characterized by a moral response grounded in actions like sharing and making sure all have enough food and clothing. It involves a turning away from one way of life in order to embrace the life God intends for us.
Arno Michaelis, author of the book My Life After Hate, demonstrates the trajectory such changes might embody. From the age of 17, Michaelis was embedded in a culture of hate. Raised in a home where violence was the norm, Michaelis quickly found acceptance in the racist skinhead culture which saw itself on a crusade to save the white race. “Once I stepped down this path,” he writes, “violence became a self-fulfilling prophecy so the more violence and hatred I put into the world, the more the world gave it back to me, which of course only further validated all my paranoia and conspiracy theories.”
In an account posted on the Forgiveness Project’s website, Michaelis describes how hatred and violence became second nature for him. “With my bare hands, I beat other human beings to the point of hospitalization over the color of their skin, their sexuality, or simply just for the adrenaline rush. Kids trying to emulate me did much worse.”
Sometime after the birth of his daughter, Michaelis began to distance himself from that world. At some point, he encountered communities of forgiveness where he was embraced “and accepted by people who previously I would have attacked on sight.” The change was profound and led him to reconsider the ways hatred and violence had shaped his life. “I’ve come to realize that responding to aggression with compassion is much more difficult than to respond to it with anger and violence.” Today, Life After Hate has become the first nonprofit in the United States dedicated to helping people turn from lives of violence toward lives of compassion and connection.
* * * * * *
WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Surely God is our salvation in whom we trust.
All: God is our strength and our might and brings salvation.
One: Let us give thanks to God and call on the Holy Name.
All: Let us sing praises to God who has done gloriously.
One: Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of God.
All: Great in our midst is the Holy One of Israel.
OR
One: God comes with good news: There is enough for everyone.
All: We celebrate our God who provides enough for all.
One: There is plenty of resources in this world if we but share.
All: We will share from our hearts and with our treasures.
One: We are preparing to celebrate God coming as a poor ones.
All: We will honor him by sharing with poor around us.
Hymns and Songs
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
UMH: 211
H82: 56
PH: 9
GTG: 88
AAHH: 188
NNBH: 82
NCH: 115
CH: 119
LBW: 34
ELW: 257
W&P: 154
AMEC: 102
STLT: 225
I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light
UMH: 206
H82: 490
GTG: 377
ELW: 815
W&P: 248
Renew: 152
Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus
UMH: 196
H82: 66
PH: 1/2
GTG: 82/83
NCH: 122
LBW: 30
ELW: 254
W&P: 153
AMEC: 103
Cuando El Pobre (When the Poor Ones)
UMH: 434
PH: 407
GTG: 762
CH: 662
ELW: 725
W&P: 624
O Master, Let Me Walk with Thee
UMH: 430
H82: 659/660
PH: 357
GTG: 738
NNBH: 445
NCH: 503
CH: 602
LBW: 492
ELW: 818
W&P: 589
AMEC: 299
Dear Lord and Father of Mankind
UMH: 358
H82: 652/653
PH: 345
GTG: 169
NCH: 502
CH: 594
LBW: 506
W&P: 470
AMEC: 344
Pues Si Vivimos (When We Are Living)
UMH: 356
PH: 400
GTG: 822
NCH: 499
CH: 536
ELW: 639
W&P: 415
People, Look East
UMH: 202
PH: 12
GTG: 105
CH: 142
ELW: 248
W&P: 161
STLT: 226
Rise, Shine, You People
UMH: 187
LBW: 393
ELW: 665
W&P: 89
People Need the Lord
CCB: 52
Create in Me a Clean Heart
CCB: 54
Renew: 181/182
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who creates in abundance so that all may have enough:
Grant us the wisdom to seek only what we need
so that all may enjoy the bounty of your loving creation;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you create in such abundance that all your children may have enough to meet their needs. We thank you for your generosity and ask that we may have the wisdom to only seek what we need so that all your children can partake of your abundance. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially when our greediness results in others not having enough.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have taken more than we need of the earth’s resources. We want more and more and grow to think we need what it is that we only want. Our appetites grow large as we consume more and more. We know that while your creation provides all that we need, it cannot produce enough for everyone to have all they want. Forgive us our greed and teach us to do with what we need and to forgo some of the ‘extras’ that we have sought. Amen.
One: God desires us to have enough and plenty to share. Receive God’s abundant grace and share it with others along with this world’s goods.
Prayers of the People
We rejoice in your goodness, O God, who comes to bring us good news. You bring us words that teach us how to live in harmony with you and with one another.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have taken more than we need of the earth's resources. We want more and more and grow to think we need what it is that we only want. Our appetites grow large as we consume more and more. We know that while your creation provides all that we need, it cannot produce enough for everyone to have all they want. Forgive us our greed and teach us to do with what we need and to forego some of the ‘extras' that we have sought.
We give you thanks for all the abundance of your creation. We are in awe of all that this earth produces. We thank you for those who know you and your generosity and share with others. We thank you for the opportunities we have to share your bounty. We are blessed to be drawn together as your children as we share your goodness.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for the needs of all your children. We pray for those who find they do not enough to eat, or to clothe themselves, or to be sheltered because of the greediness of others. We pray for those who are forced to flee their homes and are without the resources that are rightly theirs. We pray for those who place themselves in danger in order to serve the needs of your children.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
Hear us as we pray for others: (Time for silent or spoken prayer.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Rejoice!
by Tom Willadsen
Luke 3:7-18
Have the kids gather where they can all see the Advent wreath. If your congregation doesn’t use an Advent wreath, please find another resource for today’s children’s message.
There should be three purple candles and one rose (not pink!) candle around the outside, with a larger, white, Christ candle in the middle.
Ask the kids “Do you know why we have a special wreath in worship this month?”
If they don’t know what Advent is, tell them: “Christians observe a special season that starts four Sundays before a very special day we’re all waiting for….” By now they should be shouting out “Christmas! Christmas!”
“Yes, we’re waiting for Christmas, getting ready for a very important day.”
Ask the kids what they’re doing and what their families are doing to get ready for Christmas. Putting up a tree, decorating, baking special treats, shopping for gifts, wrapping gifts, maybe they’re even helping with Christmas cards.
In church, Advent is the season when we get ready to celebrate several things: of course, the birth of baby Jesus, but a lot of people also get ready for the love of Jesus to be born in their hearts as they get ready for Jesus’ birthday. Other people use the season of Advent to look ahead and imagine what it will be like when Jesus returns.
There’s a lot of excitement building up as we get closer to Christmas. Are you getting excited? Maybe you’re getting too excited? When I was little my mother told me to walk around the block a few days before Christmas — she told me the house was too small for all my excitement!
So as all this excitement and anticipation builds — it’s a good idea to let some of the excitement get expressed. That’s why on the Third Sunday of Advent we light a rose-colored candle. The special candle reminds us to build some joy — to let some of our excitement get out! So we don’t explode!
Seriously, this Sunday is called “Gaudete Sunday” (pronounced ‘gaw-day-tay’, or find another pronunciation on the internet) and it means “Rejoice!”
Can you say “Rejoice” really loudly?
That means “Joice again.” Really. Isn’t that strange? We don’t have a word for joy-ing, but we have a word for “joy-ing again.”
This Sunday we let some of the joice out, and yelling “Rejoice!” or “Gaudete!” is a great way to do that.
Let’s yell “Rejoice!” one more time!
Thanks for helping me out this morning.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, December 15, 2024 issue.
Copyright 2024 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
- More Than Enough by Dean Feldmeyer based on Luke 3:7-18.
- Second Thoughts: The Power of Small by Katy Stenta based on Philippians 4:4-7.
- Sermon illustrations by Mary Austin and Chris Keating.
- Worship resources by George Reed.
- Children's sermon: Rejoice! by Tom Willadsen explores the Advent wreath and the Third Sunday of Advent.
More Than Enoughby Dean Feldmeyer
Luke 3:7-18
I wear a size 14 shoe, sometimes a 15, depending on the cut and the style. They are not always easy to find.
So, I was intrigued but doubtful when I saw the sign that said: “The Boot Factory Outlet — buy one pair and get two free.”
There’s got to be some kind of catch, right? These outlet places never have my size. And if they do, they’ll be the cheap, poorly made boots that fall apart the first time they get wet.
About that time, a young lady appears at my side and asks if she can help me; I tell her my size and she doesn’t even roll her eyes. She points to the back wall of the store. Something like 100 pairs of boots, all size 14 through 20. (I guess the 20s are in case Shaquille O’Neal shows up looking for boots.) Go ahead, she says, try some on.
Still skeptical, I select a pair of square-toed cowboy boots, a nationally recognizable brand, and pull them on and, oh, dear Lord, it’s like I’m wearing slippers. They’re really comfortable. And the price is about the same as a pair of decent quality sneakers.
I look up and there’s the young lady standing with my wife beside her. I tell Jean how much I like, really like these boots, boots for which I have absolutely no use whatsoever, and the young lady says that if I want them, I should pick out my other two pairs that will be free. Any boots in the store.
So, I now have three pairs of western boots, all of which are size 14, and each pair is comfortable, rugged, and wicked cool. And I’m thinking that I’m pretty cool for having found such a great bargain. And then I read this passage from Luke. What do you do, he seems to be asking me, when you have three pairs of boots and you can wear only one pair at a time?
In the News
Ever since the presidential election in November, TV pundits and news analysts on networks across the political spectrum have been analyzing and philosophizing all over the place and there has been little agreement except on one thing: It was the economy.
Both mainstream political parties seem to agree that the economy is a mess. Some go so far as to say it is a travesty and an injustice — others seem to think it was more of a nuisance or inconvenience but they all that Americans were suffering, SUFFERING because of the economy.
To make this point, they point to the price of eggs, bread, milk, and gasoline. And sometimes beef. It is a miracle, they insist, that people aren’t starving to death in their own kitchens as they slave to scrape together two or three meals a day for their families. They generally illustrate this tragic state of affairs with a brief piece about a single mother of three or a blue-collar dad who has been laid off at the factory.
And tragic as those stories are, one cannot wonder if they really tell the whole story. Let’s look beyond eggs and bread and milk at some of the other things Americans have been spending their money on this past year. I spent about an hour on the internet and thanks to Google, here’s what I found:
Coffee
The most popular beverage at Starbucks is the Iced Brown Sugar Oat Milk Shaken Espresso. Order one in the Venti size, also the most popular, and you’ll spend $5.95, whereas a venti pumpkin-spiced latte is a mere $5.75. So far in 2024, Starbucks’ total revenue has been $35.2 billion, a 1% increase over 2023. In fact, the company’s revenue has increased every year save one for the past decade and that one underperforming year was in the middle of the pandemic.
Rides
Americans purchased 91.4 million new vehicles in 2024 at an average price of $48,401. 52.2 million budget-minded Americans purchased used vehicles for an average price of $25,591. The most popular vehicle in the USA in 2024 was the Ford F-series pickup truck of which 218,000 new units were sold at an average price of…wait for it…$61,777
Entertainment
The most popular amusement park in the United States is Florida’s Disney World. The average cost of a ticket for a day of fun in the park is now $109 - $122. Disney estimates that a “baseline vacation” at Disney World for a family of four will cost about $6,865. Disney Parks Advisor estimates average daily attendance at DW is about 35,000 or about 12.5 million per year.
Or maybe you’d rather spend your entertainment dollars going to a concert. The average price of one ticket to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour was $274. That’s retail and they were very hard to find at that cost. Ticket brokers bought hundreds of thousands of them and resold them for an average price of $500-$1,000. Tickets to the last three concerts on the tour sold for $1922 on average. And last week, tickets to the final concert in Vancouver were selling for about $2,500. And every concert on the tour was sold out.
The average price for a ticket to Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour was $325. Bad Bunny tickets regularly sell for $780. And don’t bother trying to get one. They’re already sold out.
Sports more to your liking? A ticket to an NFL regular season game will set you back an average of $650 for good seats. Great seats will cost about $2,500. Even the worst seats at the Super Bowl are already going for $12,082. World Series tickets averaged about $2,000 each.
The average ticket price for a Broadway show seems like a bargain at only $160. Of course, that doesn’t include round trip airfare to New York, taxis, meals, and a hotel room.
Every year, we Americans spend an average of $1,776 on fast food and $1,992 eating out at fine dining establishments. We spend $1,733 on our pets, $1000 on Christmas presents, $625 on alcohol, $137 on jewelry and $1,392 on cable TV. When we bundle our cable, streaming services, and internet the price averages about $2,724 per year.
So, apparently, it’s not that most Americans can’t afford to put food on the table. It’s that it costs more than we want it to. If we have to spend $2.50 for a dozen eggs the cost of eating might cut into our concert attendance, amusement park visits, new car purchases, and Netflix watching.
In the Scriptures
Today’s reading for the third Sunday of Advent brings us back to John the Baptizer and his prophetic sermon to those who came out to hear him. The gospel of Mark says that “all of Jerusalem” turned out. That’s probably an exaggeration but it underlines the fact that John’s ministry was a popular one. His audience was probably mostly made up of those who could afford to take a day off to go hear what this crazy prophet was all about.
And this is what they heard:
“You brood of vipers! What makes you think you’re going to escape God’s judgment?”
It isn’t exactly the stuff of Hallmark greeting cards, is it? “Wishing you the best of the season…you brood of vipers!” “Hoping you have a blessed Christmas…before God’s wrath burns you to a cinder.” Don’t expect Joel Osteen to open his sermon on his Christmas special with that line.
You brood of vipers! You bunch of snakes. The only reason you’re here is because you think I’m going to tell you that because you are Jews you don’t need to repent. Well, think again! And do they storm off in a huff, all offended and ticked off?
They do not. They stay and hear that the Christ is coming, the Messiah for which they have waited and longed. God’s anointed one is on his way. And they want to be ready for him. They want to be prepared when he gets there. So, they ask John, “What should we do?”
And, wonder of wonders, John has an answer ready for them — not in some vague theological jargon or some evangelical rhetoric — but in plain, simple language directed at their behavior. “Well,” he says, “This is how you prepare for the coming messiah.”
ONE, do not presume upon your nationality or your ethnicity.
TWO, give from your excess to those who don’t have enough.
THREE, don’t abuse the power that life gives you, and,
FOUR, learn to be content with what you have.
In the Sermon
(ONE) John’s audience believed that because they were Jews, descendants of Abraham, living in the holy land, they were better than other people and less in need of God’s grace. John takes pains to disabuse them of that notion.
God, he says, does not give a feather or fig about the color of your skin or the color of your flag. What part of the world you were born in carries no weight in the heavenly court. Your bloodline is of no concern to the creator of the universe. The language you speak, the stories you tell, the clothing you choose to wear, the length of your hair, the tattoos that you get or don’t get, the amount of makeup you wear or don’t wear… make the list as long as you like… it is all as nothing to God.
The prayers you pray, the theology you believe, the hymns you sing, the architecture of your church, the style of your worship, the decorations you hang on the walls of your church — they are all very nice and very interesting, but they are of no consequence to God.
God, John tells us, is rather monomaniacal, even narrow-minded. God is concerned with only one thing, really, because this one thing is the measure of all the others. This one thing is the litmus test of our faith, the plumb line of our ethics, the weight measure of our righteousness.
And what is that one thing? It is this: How do you treat your neighbor?
(TWO) Give from your excess to those who don’t have enough.
If you have two coats, he says, give one of your coats to your neighbor who has none. And do the same with food.
He isn’t asking us to go cold or hungry or even to make a real sacrifice. (Later, Jesus will ask us to do that.) For now, as we are getting ready for Jesus, it is enough to simply give from our excess. To give from what we keep around but, if we are honest, we don’t really need.
(THREE) Don’t abuse your power.
Don’t collect more taxes than is fair. Don’t extort people with physical harm. Don’t use your power to make other people do what you want.
This, of course, requires that we be honest about what power we possess. Most of us like to think of ourselves as powerless victims. Politicians will tell us that we are, and only they can rescue us, but this commandment requires that we be honest. White skin brings privilege and power to those who have it. Athletic ability brings wealth to those who possess it. Physical beauty brings popularity and power to those who are beautiful.
John doesn’t go so far as to tell us to use our power for good. All he asks is that we don’t take advantage of it and use it in ways that harm others.
(FOUR) And, finally, he says — Learn to be satisfied with what you have: your salary, your home, your power, your prestige in the community. Of what good is more in any of these things if more is bought at the cost of our relationships — with each other or with God?
What value is winning if winning costs us our relationships with our brothers and sisters?
What good is it to live at the highest point in the town if the path to that point is paved with cheating, lying, threatening, bullying, intimidation, accusations and violence.
There you go. That’s how you get ready for the coming of the Messiah on Christmas Day. Four simple things. Master those and you’ll be ready.
It isn’t easy, though, is it? Not when your kids are clamoring for that Disney vacation and HBO, when your spouse, whom you love, insists that if he had some new golf clubs, he could improve his score by ten strokes and be the envy of every guy at the club, when you have convinced yourself that you really do need that Venti Iced Brown Sugar Oat Milk Shaken Espresso to get started on your day.
This preparation to which John calls us is climbing a mountain. If it was easy, everyone would have already done it.
SECOND THOUGHTSThe Power of Small
by Katy Stenta
Philippians 4:4-7
In this passage we have Paul reassuring people not to worry. I always find it hard when humans tell other humans not to worry because worrying is such a human thing to do. We might as well tell the sun not to rise. However, here is Paul reassuring the Philippians that every little thing is going to be all right. “Do not worry about anything” he says. “In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” If prayer is a vote that is given legs, then in light of recent elections, we know that people are longing for change. The reason that people give for wanting change is the economy. One such worry is rising energy costs as winter approaches in the United States. One survey says that as many as 78% of people are worried about it. This is also true in the UK, where as much as twelve percent of the population is cutting back on showers and baths to save on their energy costs.
Another big cost, which is not really accounted for in the economic models, is the rising costs of all kinds of insurance: house, car and, of course, the big one in the news with the latest shooting — medical. Many people cannot afford rising insurance premiums. The affordable care coverage exchange provided by Congress (otherwise known as Obamacare) is meant to cover the gap.
If we are supposed to “rejoice in the Lord always,” then what does that mean for those who lack when they need? Are we supposed to sit back and do nothing? I would argue that Paul is encouraging the opposite. What Paul is encouraging here is little acts of trust that our God is sufficient. Picture that on posters: “Come worship the God of Manna, the God of enough, the God of sufficiency.” Though God’s grace is overflowing, our God is preaching the opposite of health and wealth, and instead is encouraging us to rejoice and enjoy a life where living a good life is more powerful than living one of indulgence. This is why Jesus encourages us to give away any surplus food or coats to those in need. God wants us to have enough and to share with those that don’t so that no one else needs to worry either.
Perhaps this is why helping others matters — because God designed it this way. In this model of life, doing small acts of good adds up to much more than big acts of benevolence. Paul is encouraging us to “give thanks always” because the small things matter.
A recent study agrees. Research shows that small acts of kindness and micro-activism can serve as an antidote to hopelessness, create connection, and help to shift attitudes over time. You can read all about this uplifting study in this Fast Company article. This study also bolsters the idea that the opposite of war is creativity and hope. Lived-out peace is not just inaction and quiet but the space to make art. Perhaps this is why music, poetry, and painting speak to humanity in a language that goes beyond our differences. Perhaps this is how we can move from small acts of thanksgiving and hope to the peace of God that “passes all understanding.”
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:Isaiah 12:2-6
The Great Catcher
The psalmist prays aloud that she will “trust in God and not be afraid.”
Henri Nouwen says that trust is the foundation for our lives with God. "Trust is the basis of life. Without trust, no human being can live. Trapeze artists offer a beautiful image of this. Flyers have to trust their catchers. They can do the most spectacular doubles, triples, or quadruples, but what finally makes their performances spectacular are the catchers who are there for them at the right time in the right place. Much of our lives are flying. It is wonderful to fly in the air free as a bird, but when God isn’t there to catch us, all our flying comes to nothing. Let’s trust the Great Catcher." (from Bread for the Journey)
Isaiah calls us to leap into faith, trusting the Great Catcher.
* * *
Isaiah 12:2-6
Being Afraid
Looking to God’s triumphant future, Isaiah says, “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid.” It sounds like he’s talking to himself, encouraging himself out of his fear.
In a similar vein, Cole Arthur Riley observes, “In Advent, we grant ourselves permission to be terrified. To check beneath the bed. To flinch, to question, to weep. The world is dark. For many of us, in the literal sense, as the days become shorter in winter and the nights begin to stretch on. But also, for many of us, the soul of the world feels dark. Disorienting. Uncertain. Frightening. And in this season, we tell the truth about it. We name the monsters under the bed. We learn how to fall asleep in spite of them.”
Like Isaiah, Cole Arthur Riley lands in the place on the other side of the fear. “And still, the darkness of Advent is never far from the darkness of the womb. A beautiful dark. Advent's origins in the Christian tradition honor the story of a God who dwelled in the holy darkness of Mary's womb. It is a site of the unknown, but it is also a site of formation―growth, rest, waiting.”
She says what Isaiah knows, too. “The dark can be a harbor,” in God’s care.
* * *
Luke 3:7-18
The Setting for Advent
In The First Advent in Palestine, author Kelley Nikondeha reminds of the world John the Baptist spoke to. As John calls on the power of God, other powers surround him.
"The ache of injustice and suffering preceded the first advent. So did world peace. As we connect the dots between antiquity and gospel narrative, this might come as a surprise. But we meet Luke’s account, where he reminds readers that the advent story came within a particular time: it all began in the days of Herod. What was left unwritten, but known to Luke’s contemporaries, was that Herod ruled under the auspices of Rome. At this point in history, Caesar was in control of the region—and much of the world. While Rome ruled Judea and the surrounding provinces, a decisive military victory in Egypt ended decades of war in the Mediterranean and united the "known world under Rome’s banner. Caesar inaugurated the Pax Romana (Roman Peace). No one before had accomplished such a feat. And many declared Caesar the savior of the world, the one who ended the cycles of endless war.”
Into that world, God comes with another vision of peace, and another kind of power.
Nikondeha invites us to consider “how Caesar’s peace had arrived: through crushing victory and control maintained through violence against those subject to his rule. What made some see Caesar as a savior was a kind of peace that benefited the few while exploiting the many; one that usurped land and harvests from the poor…the first advent was God’s critique of what the world called peace. This world of peace was a world of foreclosures, evicting families from their land, often turning them into tenant farmers on their own property. Economic loss separated families, caused malnutrition in children, and left many women widowed and vulnerable. What looked to a few people of means like a world of peace kept most of the population in a constant position of economic stress by imperial design. Another form of violence."
John preaches a different kind of peace with his simple advice.
* * *
Luke 3:7-18
Look to the Margins
Standing in the desert, speaking to the crowds who come, John the Baptist evokes his ancestor, Moses.
Debra Rienstra notes that the exodus stories are the foundation for John’s story, adding, “the church’s tradition draws us back into John’s origin story, to remind us that if we want to see God showing up at hinge points in history, we should look to the margins. Just as with the enslaved Israelites, God opposes empire with the small, the hidden, the seemingly powerless. In the gospel stories, God comes to a young girl and an old woman, members of a colonized people in some Judean backwater. The power of God enables both Mary and Elizabeth to conceive. To underline God’s upside-down ways, God silences even the good-hearted priest Zechariah, so the two women can speak out for a while. According to the gospel of Luke, Mary understands completely what God is up to. She perceives—because she knows the history of Israel—that God works with the small and hidden to overturn the great kingdoms of the earth." (from Refugia Faith: Seeking Hidden Shelters, Ordinary Wonders, and the Healing of the Earth)
The word of God passes by all the notable people in John’s world, and lands with John and his ragtag group of followers out in the desert.
* * *
Luke 3:7-18
Giving Things Away
In the spirit of John the Baptist urging people to give things to others, author Daniel Pink decided to celebrate a milestone birthday by giving a small gift to the people in his life. He loves pencils, so he ordered a number of personalized pencils, and ordered them in pink, a nod to his last name.
He explains that he “drafted a short cover note for the present, explaining how I hoped to use this big birthday to thank people for being part of my life.” Then he chose his recipients, realizing that he has lots of people he’s grateful for (and a few he doesn’t even like.) He and his wife “converted the kitchen table into a fulfillment center. We printed labels and postage, slid three pencils into a sleeve and each sleeve into an envelope. Then, in two ceremonial walks to our neighborhood post office, we dispatched 98 gifts out to the world.” This added to his gratitude on his birthday.
Give away what you can, John tells us, and Daniel Pink found lots of birthday joy in these small gifts, and the connections they made.
* * *
Luke 3:7-18
Doing What You Can
For such a fiery preacher, John the Baptist asks people to do very simple things. Do what you can, he says, in essence. That’s what Amy Wolff did when she noticed the suicide rate in her Oregon town.
Feeling unqualified to help, and yet not wanting to sit around and do nothing, she made twenty yard signs. The signs said things like “Don’t Give Up” and “You Got This.”
“She got in the car with her husband, kids, and twenty yard signs, on a mission to ask residents of Newberg to stick them in their yards. “This is the dumbest, dumbest idea,” Wolff thought as they drove off. She was wrong. All the strangers they approached in Newberg wanted the yard signs. Local social media channels blew up within hours, with new people wanting signs in their yards, too. Wolff outed herself as the sign maker, started a website, and took new sign orders.”
Her small action rippled out, and “messages have poured into her inbox about the positive impact the signs have had. One man was actually driving toward a site where he planned to commit suicide when he saw a sign reading DON’T GIVE UP. He drove home and opened up to his family about his depression. A shame-ridden drug addict saw this “bright, white thing” as he was driving: a yard sign reading YOUR MISTAKES DON’T DEFINE YOU. He booked himself into rehab." (from Infectious Generosity: The Ultimate Idea Worth Spreading by Chris Anderson)
Plant a sign, give away a coat, treat people decently — as we await the coming of Jesus, our small actions ripple out to change the world.
* * * * * *
From team member Chris Keating:Zephaniah 3:14-20
Sing aloud, O daughter!
Zephaniah’s outburst of joy provides the hopeful ending to the short book’s denunciations of sin and injustice. Chapters one and two are filled with the prophet’s searing proclamations of wickedness: “Gather together, O shameless nation, before you are drive away like the drifting chaff, before there comes upon you the fierce anger of the Lord.” (Zeph. 2:1) The book concludes with this oracle of joy, a fitting text for Advent’s “joy” Sunday.
The text imagines the songs of women whose faith has held them in times of crisis. This is no gaudy giddiness; this is the song of the joy of those whose oppression has ended. It is a song that resembles the experience of Nena Ruiz, a retired teacher from the Philippines and human trafficking survivor.
After retiring from her 32-year elementary school teaching career, Ruiz started a business with a neighbor who soon managed to steal Ruiz’s life savings. An extended relative proposed what seemed to be the perfect opportunity. In reality, the cousin led Ruiz into a sinister trafficking scheme. Within months, Ruiz found herself working in slave conditions for a wealthy California family who stole her passport and managed to keep the retiree in their debt. She worked around the clock cooking, cleaning, and mending clothes.
“Every month, I cooked a large pot of a special Filipino dish of ground beef, rice, tomato, carrots, and broccoli for the dogs, but was fed leftover food that had been in the refrigerator for days. I had to brush the dogs’ teeth, clean their ears, and give them vitamins each day, but I had to sleep on a dog bed in the living room, even though the house was large, with a guest room and music room.” After her visa expired, Ruiz felt trapped by the family’s threats to turn her into US immigration officials, and the growing debt she owed them for everything from shampoo to the cost of her plane tickets from the Philippines. Soon the job of her dreams became a nightmare.
More than a year later, neighbors alerted the police to her circumstances. Ruiz was removed from the home, given access to housing, food, and healthcare. Eventually, she received training to be a certified nursing assistant while her former “employers” faced criminal charges. When her employers were finally arrested and tried, Ruiz said she could finally “work without fear.”
Eventually, she was able to return to the Philippines. Her experience led her to work on behalf of other trafficking victims and enabled her to serve in her home community. “All of this gives me joy and fulfillment,” she writes. “But it still doesn’t compare to the happiest moment of my life. In 2013, years after I left the Philippines, I was finally reunited with my husband, my children, and my grandchildren.” At long last, she was able to find the joy that comes to those who have endured oppression and struggle.
* * *
Zephaniah 3:14-20
I will bring you home
While it is impossible to know the long-term impact of the ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, it’s clear that unbridled joy accompanied this week’s surprising revolution. On Monday, shocked residents of Damascus walked around the streets in a state of disbelief. According to the New York Times:
Some rushed to a notorious prison on the outskirts of Damascus, the capital, desperate to find loved ones who had disappeared under Mr. al-Assad’s brutal reign. Others clambered on top of cars and screamed curses at the Assad family, words that days ago could have meant a death sentence.
* * *
Philippians 4:4-7
Let your gentleness be known to everyone; the Lord is near
Based on her extensive research on the dynamics of shame, famed author Brené Brown wants us to know that the sort of gentleness and joy Paul imagines in Philippians emerges from a place of “incredible vulnerability.” In her book Dare to Lead: Brave Work, Tough Conversations, Whole Hearts, Brown notes that “joy is the most vulnerable emotion we feel.”
When we feel joy, it is a place of incredible vulnerability — it’s beauty and fragility and deep gratitude and impermanence all wrapped up in one experience. When we can’t tolerate that level of vulnerability, joy actually becomes foreboding, and we immediately move to self-protection. It’s as if we grab vulnerability by the shoulders and say, “You will not catch me off guard. You will not sucker-punch me with pain. I will be prepared and ready for you.”
* * *
Philippians 4:4-7
What’s changing is me
Journalist and Pentecostal preacher Paul Prather writes of the ways he’s learned to embrace life’s changes. While Prather does not quote the apostle Paul, his reflections bear a striking resemblance to Philippians 4:6, “Do not be anxious about anything…”
Writing for Religion Unplugged, Prather says that at age 68, he now realizes he’s changed. “It’s not that the world around me is simpler,” he writes, “If anything, it keeps getting more complicated.” What’s changed is him. “Aging tends to cure you of the notion that you have one-size-fits-all answers for everybody else.” Instead, he says, he’s allowed himself to become a bit more humble.
I now mostly decline to let irritations irritate me. I’m slowly learning that getting irritated is a choice. Given that irritation expends my energy, and given that my energy is now finite, I choose not to waste much hard-earned equilibrium on minor daily setbacks or on, for want of a better word, numbskulls.
I now pursue peace. Peace with all creation. Peace with other people. Peace with God. But mainly, peace in my own heart.
I’ll be at peace with you if you’ll let me. I don’t care what religion you follow. As long as you don’t wield it as a weapon against others, I say Godspeed. Feel free not to follow any faith at all. I just don’t care. I’m busy enough sorting out my own soul.
I don’t care if you’re rich or poor, Black or White, educated or illiterate. I don’t care what color your hair is or how many tattoos you have. You’d be astonished, and maybe disappointed, at how little I care who you sleep with. I don’t even care who you vote for.
Prather admits that he’s still working on that one, but that “basically I no longer feel the need to prove myself right.”
* * *
Luke 3:7-18
Cultivating the harvest of repentance
Ayana Mathis’ essay “What can literature teach us about forgiveness?” grapples with the difficulty of true forgiveness.” Mathis, author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, writes that:
The tribulations of the past cannot be undone even as they cannot be excused. The transgressed and their transgressors carry with them the irreversible past, and so we arrive at the vexing question of forgiveness. Most would define forgiveness as a moral good, a virtuous act that requires us to forgo retribution for wrongdoing and extend pardon without conditions. But what about the fact that forgiveness cannot restore what’s been lost to grievous harm? What of the transgressed person’s grief or rage?
Turning to literature, Mathis explores the ways forgiveness emerges as a process that is visionary and revelatory, rooted in a mix of insight, incident, and description. She names the ways literature such as Alice Walker’s The Color Purple or the comparatively recent Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi possesses a moral imagination about forgiveness that remains open in the face of ambiguities and crises. “Forgiveness involves striving — to find new meanings inside older ones, to uncover what we have overlooked, to revise inadequate and indurate conceptions. Forgiveness is not a single act or event but a process.”
* * *
Luke 3:7-18
Teacher, what shall we do?
John’s message of repentance clears a pathway for Jesus’ message. As people are baptized, John calls them to turn from sinfulness to embrace a life modelled on forgiveness. It’s a way characterized by a moral response grounded in actions like sharing and making sure all have enough food and clothing. It involves a turning away from one way of life in order to embrace the life God intends for us.
Arno Michaelis, author of the book My Life After Hate, demonstrates the trajectory such changes might embody. From the age of 17, Michaelis was embedded in a culture of hate. Raised in a home where violence was the norm, Michaelis quickly found acceptance in the racist skinhead culture which saw itself on a crusade to save the white race. “Once I stepped down this path,” he writes, “violence became a self-fulfilling prophecy so the more violence and hatred I put into the world, the more the world gave it back to me, which of course only further validated all my paranoia and conspiracy theories.”
In an account posted on the Forgiveness Project’s website, Michaelis describes how hatred and violence became second nature for him. “With my bare hands, I beat other human beings to the point of hospitalization over the color of their skin, their sexuality, or simply just for the adrenaline rush. Kids trying to emulate me did much worse.”
Sometime after the birth of his daughter, Michaelis began to distance himself from that world. At some point, he encountered communities of forgiveness where he was embraced “and accepted by people who previously I would have attacked on sight.” The change was profound and led him to reconsider the ways hatred and violence had shaped his life. “I’ve come to realize that responding to aggression with compassion is much more difficult than to respond to it with anger and violence.” Today, Life After Hate has become the first nonprofit in the United States dedicated to helping people turn from lives of violence toward lives of compassion and connection.
* * * * * *
WORSHIPby George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Surely God is our salvation in whom we trust.
All: God is our strength and our might and brings salvation.
One: Let us give thanks to God and call on the Holy Name.
All: Let us sing praises to God who has done gloriously.
One: Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of God.
All: Great in our midst is the Holy One of Israel.
OR
One: God comes with good news: There is enough for everyone.
All: We celebrate our God who provides enough for all.
One: There is plenty of resources in this world if we but share.
All: We will share from our hearts and with our treasures.
One: We are preparing to celebrate God coming as a poor ones.
All: We will honor him by sharing with poor around us.
Hymns and Songs
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
UMH: 211
H82: 56
PH: 9
GTG: 88
AAHH: 188
NNBH: 82
NCH: 115
CH: 119
LBW: 34
ELW: 257
W&P: 154
AMEC: 102
STLT: 225
I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light
UMH: 206
H82: 490
GTG: 377
ELW: 815
W&P: 248
Renew: 152
Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus
UMH: 196
H82: 66
PH: 1/2
GTG: 82/83
NCH: 122
LBW: 30
ELW: 254
W&P: 153
AMEC: 103
Cuando El Pobre (When the Poor Ones)
UMH: 434
PH: 407
GTG: 762
CH: 662
ELW: 725
W&P: 624
O Master, Let Me Walk with Thee
UMH: 430
H82: 659/660
PH: 357
GTG: 738
NNBH: 445
NCH: 503
CH: 602
LBW: 492
ELW: 818
W&P: 589
AMEC: 299
Dear Lord and Father of Mankind
UMH: 358
H82: 652/653
PH: 345
GTG: 169
NCH: 502
CH: 594
LBW: 506
W&P: 470
AMEC: 344
Pues Si Vivimos (When We Are Living)
UMH: 356
PH: 400
GTG: 822
NCH: 499
CH: 536
ELW: 639
W&P: 415
People, Look East
UMH: 202
PH: 12
GTG: 105
CH: 142
ELW: 248
W&P: 161
STLT: 226
Rise, Shine, You People
UMH: 187
LBW: 393
ELW: 665
W&P: 89
People Need the Lord
CCB: 52
Create in Me a Clean Heart
CCB: 54
Renew: 181/182
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who creates in abundance so that all may have enough:
Grant us the wisdom to seek only what we need
so that all may enjoy the bounty of your loving creation;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you create in such abundance that all your children may have enough to meet their needs. We thank you for your generosity and ask that we may have the wisdom to only seek what we need so that all your children can partake of your abundance. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially when our greediness results in others not having enough.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have taken more than we need of the earth’s resources. We want more and more and grow to think we need what it is that we only want. Our appetites grow large as we consume more and more. We know that while your creation provides all that we need, it cannot produce enough for everyone to have all they want. Forgive us our greed and teach us to do with what we need and to forgo some of the ‘extras’ that we have sought. Amen.
One: God desires us to have enough and plenty to share. Receive God’s abundant grace and share it with others along with this world’s goods.
Prayers of the People
We rejoice in your goodness, O God, who comes to bring us good news. You bring us words that teach us how to live in harmony with you and with one another.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have taken more than we need of the earth's resources. We want more and more and grow to think we need what it is that we only want. Our appetites grow large as we consume more and more. We know that while your creation provides all that we need, it cannot produce enough for everyone to have all they want. Forgive us our greed and teach us to do with what we need and to forego some of the ‘extras' that we have sought.
We give you thanks for all the abundance of your creation. We are in awe of all that this earth produces. We thank you for those who know you and your generosity and share with others. We thank you for the opportunities we have to share your bounty. We are blessed to be drawn together as your children as we share your goodness.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for the needs of all your children. We pray for those who find they do not enough to eat, or to clothe themselves, or to be sheltered because of the greediness of others. We pray for those who are forced to flee their homes and are without the resources that are rightly theirs. We pray for those who place themselves in danger in order to serve the needs of your children.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
Hear us as we pray for others: (Time for silent or spoken prayer.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN'S SERMONRejoice!
by Tom Willadsen
Luke 3:7-18
Have the kids gather where they can all see the Advent wreath. If your congregation doesn’t use an Advent wreath, please find another resource for today’s children’s message.
There should be three purple candles and one rose (not pink!) candle around the outside, with a larger, white, Christ candle in the middle.
Ask the kids “Do you know why we have a special wreath in worship this month?”
If they don’t know what Advent is, tell them: “Christians observe a special season that starts four Sundays before a very special day we’re all waiting for….” By now they should be shouting out “Christmas! Christmas!”
“Yes, we’re waiting for Christmas, getting ready for a very important day.”
Ask the kids what they’re doing and what their families are doing to get ready for Christmas. Putting up a tree, decorating, baking special treats, shopping for gifts, wrapping gifts, maybe they’re even helping with Christmas cards.
In church, Advent is the season when we get ready to celebrate several things: of course, the birth of baby Jesus, but a lot of people also get ready for the love of Jesus to be born in their hearts as they get ready for Jesus’ birthday. Other people use the season of Advent to look ahead and imagine what it will be like when Jesus returns.
There’s a lot of excitement building up as we get closer to Christmas. Are you getting excited? Maybe you’re getting too excited? When I was little my mother told me to walk around the block a few days before Christmas — she told me the house was too small for all my excitement!
So as all this excitement and anticipation builds — it’s a good idea to let some of the excitement get expressed. That’s why on the Third Sunday of Advent we light a rose-colored candle. The special candle reminds us to build some joy — to let some of our excitement get out! So we don’t explode!
Seriously, this Sunday is called “Gaudete Sunday” (pronounced ‘gaw-day-tay’, or find another pronunciation on the internet) and it means “Rejoice!”
Can you say “Rejoice” really loudly?
That means “Joice again.” Really. Isn’t that strange? We don’t have a word for joy-ing, but we have a word for “joy-ing again.”
This Sunday we let some of the joice out, and yelling “Rejoice!” or “Gaudete!” is a great way to do that.
Let’s yell “Rejoice!” one more time!
Thanks for helping me out this morning.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, December 15, 2024 issue.
Copyright 2024 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
