The Real Deal
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In this week’s gospel lectionary text, John dispatches his followers to confront Jesus and ask him: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” In other words, as team member Dean Feldmeyer points out in this installment of The Immediate Word, John wants to know if Jesus is the true messiah, or if he’s just another in a long line of false prophets and hucksters trading on people’s gullibility. Jesus’ response is intriguing -- he simply tells John’s disciples to “go and tell John what you hear and see.” Rather than trying to sell them with a typical spiel, Jesus is content to let his actions speak, and for them to demonstrate his genuineness.
And yet, Dean notes, it is not just John the Baptist and Jesus who are the “real deal.” We too are called to the same high standard of authentic Christian behavior -- for as Jesus pointedly remarks: “Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” Thus, when we enter the kingdom we have surpassed our human frailties and sins. But how can we possibly live up to such a lofty standard? Dean suggests that the answer is to be found in this week’s Isaiah passage, where the prophet tells us that “a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.” God has provided us a roadmap -- one that anyone can follow.
Team member Chris Keating shares some additional thoughts on the epistle passage and its theme of patient waiting. James tells us to be patient, like a farmer waiting for the rains and for his crops to mature. Yet he also implies that this waiting is not to be passive, for in the meantime we are to “strengthen our hearts.” And that, Chris suggests, allows the church to proclaim a powerful message in times of difficulty. Waiting is never easy -- especially in our modern society where time seems more compressed than ever. And yet, by strengthening our faith we condition ourselves to have the endurance to patiently wait for Christ’s coming... even when it seems there is little hope to be found.
The Real Deal
by Dean Feldmeyer
Matthew 11:2-11; Isaiah 35:1-10
“The real deal.” Ask an internet search engine like Google or Bing for a definition of that phrase and you’ll get a handful of entries that, when put together, look something like this: An American idiom used to describe people or things that are genuine, real, legitimate, or authentic; possessed of all of the characteristics attributed to them; genuinely superior or impressive in some regard and therefore worthy of appreciation or respect. Synonym: “The real McCoy.”
John the Baptist heard about this Jesus guy, some claims about miracles, some stories about healings. There was even some conjecture that this guy might be the messiah, the anointed one of God. John wanted more than just hearsay, though. He wanted eyewitness testimony. He wanted it straight from the horse’s mouth. But he was in jail, so he sent his disciples to find out: “Is this guy the real deal?”
So they tracked him down, and not the sort to hem and haw around, they walked right up to Jesus and asked him: “Are you the real deal? Or are you another fake, a poser, another counterfeit prophet, telling people what they expect to hear for an easy buck?”
Jesus is not offended by the question. He answers it clearly and straightforward, frankly and honestly. His answer, and the question that occasioned it, are as important today as they were the first time they were uttered.
Was he? Are you? Am I? If not, how do I become “the real deal”?
In the Culture
We may not always be able to define it, but we know it when we see it.
It’s what we’re all looking for, especially in the people who represent or lead us.
The president-elect, for instance. Even his most ardent supporters don’t know if he’s the real deal. They may admire him as a businessman. They may agree with his opinions in The Art of the Deal. They may see in him much potential. But they don’t know. And they won’t know until he’s actually been in office and had time to do something.
His detractors are no less clueless. Will he undo the eight years of work that President Obama has done? Will he dismantle the Affordable Care Act before he has created something else, something better to replace it? Can he handle the subtleties and nuances of speech and demeanor that are required for statecraft and foreign relations?
Does he play chess or does he play football? Can he switch from one to the other?
Can he be the president of all the people, as he promised in his victory speech? Can he bring this sorely divided country together?
Is he the real deal?
The truth is that we just don’t know. We can speculate. We can guess. But until he gets into office and starts doing things, we can’t know.
Of course, the search for the real deal isn’t one that takes place only at the level of national politics. We want to know that about our local leaders and representatives as well, don’t we? Do they have our best interests at heart, or do they just like the idea of being in office? Is their desire based on what they can do for their neighbors, or what they can do for themselves?
And what about that new boss? Is she the real deal? Is she going to care about the workers as much as she cares about the company and her own golden parachute? Will she lead from in front or from the safety and distance of the rear guard? Will her attempts at motivation come with positive feedback or threats and fear?
Whether the people under consideration are our children’s teachers, the new pastor, the neighbors who just moved in, or the guy our daughter is dating, the question is always the same: Is this person the real deal?
And even more important, am I?
Am I the real deal? Is the person whom I present to the world the same person who lives inside my skin? Am I authentic? Am I all that I claim to be? And if I am not the real deal, how do I become so?
In the Scriptures
Messiahs were a dime a dozen back in those days.
They stood on street corners, they ranted and raved at the city gates, they preached, they healed, they made threats and promises, and they insisted that they were the one.
And for almost everyone who claimed to be the messiah, there were a bunch of people ready to follow and vouch for the veracity of their favorite prophet.
John the Baptist wasn’t so sure.
This, remember, is Matthew’s version of John, the same John who we saw last week calling the Sadducees and Pharisees a “brood of vipers” and screaming “Repent!” at everyone within earshot. He is the same John who told the Jews that being a Jew didn’t cut them any slack where God’s judgment was concerned, that God could raise up Jews from stones so God didn’t have any real need for this particular crop.
Matthew’s John the Baptist does not suffer fools gladly, and he doesn’t accept anything at face value, as witnessed by the fact that he is now in jail for insulting the wife of the local potentate. His jail experience has not humbled him, however.
Hearing about Jesus, he sends his disciples out to find out if he’s the real deal.
The disciples of John track Jesus down, come right up to him, and ask him to his face: “Are you the real deal, or should we take our business elsewhere?”
It’s not a great question, because who’s going to say “no”?
If the person is just a con artist or a grifter, he certainly is not going to say: “Oh, okay. You got me. I’m just a fake. I’ll leave now.” He’s going to say: “You betcha, buddy. I’m the real deal.”
Interestingly, Jesus says neither yes nor no.
He tells them to judge for themselves. “Look at what is happening,” he says. “The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are healed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” So you decide. Am I the one or not?
In verse 7, John’s disciples leave, probably shaking their heads and asking each other what just happened. As they go, Jesus turns to the crowd of people around him and turns this into a teaching moment.
John the Baptist, he says, is the real deal.
You go out into the desert to see a prophet, and you don’t expect to see someone in a $1,000 Armani suit and handmade Italian loafers. You don’t expect to see some weak, wishy-washy milquetoast whose favorite phrase is “on the other hand.”
No, you go to the wilderness to see a prophet -- and you see John the Baptist looking and sounding for all the world like Elijah. You expect to see someone who’s long on insight and hard on sin. You expect to see someone confidently shouting “Thus saith the Lord...”
And what do you know? There’s John the Baptist doing everything and being everything a prophet is supposed to do and be.
When it comes to prophets, he’s the real deal! And there’s never been anyone and there’s never going to be anyone more so than him.
And yet... (and this is important) the lowest, least person in the Kingdom of God is greater than John.
In the Sermon
The Indicative
John the Baptist was the real deal. He was what he represented himself to be. He took Elijah as his role model, and he followed in that great prophet’s footsteps -- even when it landed him in jail, even when it cost him his life.
Jesus was the real deal. Indeed, he was the ultimate real deal. He was not just a representative of God or a spokesperson for God, as were the prophets (including John the Baptist). He was more. He was God in human form. You want to see God, look at Jesus. That’s the best picture you’re going to get.
But how do we know? How do we know he’s the real deal?
His answer is reminiscent of the “know the tree by its fruit” axiom. What do you see, Jesus asks. The answer to whether or not he is the real deal is found in his behavior and the things which spring forth out of it: those who are blind, see; those who are lame, walk; those who are dead, live; those who are hopeless have hope.
And the one who makes this happen is the real deal.
The Imperative
Inevitably, the question works its way through John the Baptist, around and through Jesus, until it lands squarely on us.
Are we the real deal?
Do we live the religious faith that we espouse? What kind of fruit do we produce, literally and metaphorically?
Do we help to bring dead people back to life? What does it look like when we do that?
Do we help those who are paralyzed walk? How?
Do we help those who are blind see? What do I see when I see you doing that?
Do we give hope to the hopeless? Comfort to the afflicted? Direction to the lost? Food to the hungry? Education to the ignorant?
And how do we go about doing these things?
Here is where this week’s Old Testament lesson comes into play. Isaiah paints a lovely verbal picture of what it is like to return home to Zion, the place where God lives, God’s kingdom. And he reminds us that making this trip is not that tough. God has prepared a way for us.
Indeed, in verse 8 (my favorite) he says that this pathway that we are called to follow is not a pathway at all; it’s a highway! It’s wide and well-paved and easy to walk upon. And it’s so easy to follow that even stupid people, the ones who are always getting lost, can’t get lost on this road.
In other words, being the kind of people God wants us to be isn’t rocket science or brain surgery. Anyone, yes anyone, can do it.
And what is it that we are called to do?
Isaiah has told us in metaphor -- but if metaphors don’t play for us, Tony Campolo and Shane Clairborne have spelled it out in a recent op-ed column they wrote for the New York Times. They argue that American evangelical Christianity has become the religion of old, white men. It has been co-opted by politics and political parties, and has become identified by young people as the “anti” religion.
“By the mid-’90s, the word had lost its positive connotations with many Americans,” Campolo and Claiborne argue. “They came to see Christians -- and evangelicals in particular -- as anti-women, anti-gay, anti-environment, and anti-immigrant, and as the champions of guns and war.”
They argue that the reputation of evangelical Christianity has been so irreparably damaged that a new ethos must be created if evangelical Christianity, or any Christianity for that matter, is going to communicate to the world that we are the real deal.
And that they say can be found in the words of Jesus which are printed in red in many of our Bibles. It is by returning to those words, those lessons, those relationships, those commandments that are found in those red words, that we become and remain the real deal.
But...
But even that will not earn you a reserved seat in the sunshine of God’s love and favor. Those things are given to us by grace, as gifts. We can’t earn them.
Even the real-est deal-est person you ever meet is considered no higher than anyone else in God’s kingdom.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Strength Conditioning
by Chris Keating
James 5:7-10
Most of us are not good at waiting, and that is especially true at Christmas.
The cultural vortex surrounding the holiday pushes aside Advent themes of preparation and endurance. The gravitational pull of Christmas propels us beyond the wilderness, leaping for joy straight into Bethlehem’s labor and delivery suite. People are itching for Christmas, and have little time for eschatology or John’s prophetic declarations.
There are, after all, things to get done. There are Hatchimals to be purchased (if you can still find them), lights to be strung, cards to be mailed, and kids to be outfitted in bathrobe shepherd’s costumes. Who has time for this patience?
Lo, the days are hastening on -- and so are we. Preacher, don’t even speak to us about being patient. While James’ description of a farmer patiently waiting for the blades of tender seedlings to erupt through furrowed ground sounds quaint, we tend to be more familiar with slow-moving checkout lanes and post office lines.
I remembered this last week while waiting to register my car. An ordinary task took on the feeling of a biblical epic. You could almost hear the narrator’s booming voice: “And it came to pass that a decree had gone out from the state that the car should be registered. Everyone went to be registered, each to their own city.”
The good news is that when I arrived at the DMV, there were only four people in line. I guessed I’d be in and out in 15 minutes. The bad news is that I greatly underestimated the state’s efficiency. The licensing office had just replaced the old reliable pull-a-number system used since the days when Quirinius was governor in favor of a high-tech text messaging system. I entered my cellphone number, and looked for a place in the inn.
My phone vibrated, cheerfully welcoming me to “the line.” “Thanks for using the new waiting system! There are four people ahead of you! Your estimated wait time will be 68 minutes!”
Didn’t they know I was a busy pastor, and this is Advent? Who has 68 minutes to spare at the DMV in late November? My patience was waning.
“Be patient, therefore beloved,” James urges. I am certain that James never registered a car in Missouri. James never had to stand in an airport security line. He didn’t become impatient while waiting for an older person struggling to use a debit card. James never wrangled with a smartphone or a software upgrade.
However, James did understand just how difficult it is to wait for the Lord. Waiting for your name to be called at the DMV is one kind of waiting; waiting for the coming of Lord is quite a different matter. James instills in his readers a call to faithfulness and watchful attentiveness. Writing to those enduring persecution, James offers specific instructions. As they await the Lord’s coming, James urges them to remain focused and disciplined to “strengthen their hearts” (v. 8).
The church’s well-toned cardiac muscle efficiently pipes the lifeblood of faith throughout the body’s arterial system. Healthy ventricles pump out justice for the poor, gush prayers for the ill, and empower faithful witness. Like a farmer who knows much needed rains will come, disciples whose hearts are strong wait with the assurance of God’s faithfulness.
Patient endurance is a key theme in James’ epistle. It’s the sort of endurance observed by refugees waiting for asylum, or the child in Aleppo who endures round after round of bombing. Bana Alabed, a 7-year-old Syrian girl, has captivated social media with her tweets and real-time war updates. On Monday, Alabed’s mother Fatemah posted this desperate plea: “Under attack. Nowhere to go, every minute feels like death. Pray for us. Goodbye - Fatemah #Aleppo.”
It is possible that those who live under the most desperate circumstances offer insights into what it means to wait. The death of Fidel Castro has provided a glimpse into the capacity of Cubans to wait. That nation’s well-honed ability to wait, said BBC correspondent Will Grant, has been in particular view as crowds lined up to mourn Castro -- a leader both beloved and despised.
Miles-long lines formed in Havana to pay respects to Castro. Under the careful watching of state security officers, crowds moved past an altar dedicated to Castro. Despite having endured years of abuse, the crowd found no room to register dissent against Castro’s regime. While the Cuban diaspora in Florida celebrated Castro’s death, inside the country reactions were varied. Many observed that his legacy was complicated, but otherwise demurred from open criticism.
One young engineer noted: “Old people and young people, we all have something to thank him for. We have free education, we have free medical care, we have free social assistance thanks to him.”
Cubans living off the island -- those not under the omnipresent watch of security officers -- saw the Marxist leader differently. Carlos Eire is a Cuban-born theologian and Yale University professor who fled the nation years ago. Eire wrote that “millions of Cubans who have been waiting impatiently for this moment for more than half a century will simply ponder his crimes and recall the pain and suffering he caused.”
For some, Castro’s death is a long-hoped for opportunity for change. One university student told a reporter: “People here are so tired. He destroyed this place.”
James would understand. Advent waiting requires patience that is empowered by the Holy Spirit. Dirk Lange points out that such patient endurance stems from our deepest assurance that God will return. As the community of faith lives out its witness together, its collective heart is strengthened.
This is the hope which James invites the church to proclaim. Times of testing produce endurance (1:3), and that the one who endures is blessed (1:12). Echoing Paul’s understanding of endurance, James calls the church to its singular vocation of waiting “until the coming of the Lord.”
On this Sunday, the church gathers to light three candles, and then join in Mary in declaring our expectation that God’s mercy will extend from generation to generation.
Many years ago, Thomas Long noted in a sermon that “It is never easy to wait for anything of importance -- for Christmas, for the plane carrying the one we love, for the morning to relieve the sleepless night, for the healing word in a bitter argument, for the toilsome task to be done, for the labor to be over and the child to be born, for death. It is never easy to wait” (Shepherds and Bathrobes [CSS Publishing, 1987], p. 45).
Waiting is not easy, but it is possible for those whose hearts have been strengthened.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:
Matthew 11:2-11
Sending a Message
The gospels give us John the Baptist as a messenger, heralding the coming of the messiah. John’s message comes as people flock to hear him speak in the wilderness, but a modern-day John would have had a hard time getting people to listen. A University of Michigan study says (no surprise!) that people now “communicate via social networks or e-mail about as often as they speak face to face.” There are hazards, though, and “you’re more likely to be misunderstood and perceived as unsociable -- even ill-tempered -- when you rely on electronic communication, says communication specialist Miti Ampoma, author of The Innovative Communicator. (Just think about that coworker who returns your call with an e-mail, or straight-out rejects your meeting requests.) Worse yet: If you let Facebook replace face time, your confidence suffers when you actually interact in the flesh, Ampoma says.” Even when we’re rushed, there’s no substitute for speaking to someone face to face. No one ever misunderstood what John the Baptist had to say!
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Matthew 11:2-11
Signs of the Kingdom of God
John the Baptist isn’t quite sure what he’s seeing in Jesus -- is Jesus the one he awaits, or should he pin his hopes somewhere else? Jesus answers with the evidence of what is happening: “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” John has to wait for the complete fulfillment of what he announced to people on God’s behalf. Writer Parker Palmer observes that all leaders have to wait for a true community, like the realm of God, to emerge: “There is a name for what leaders experience during this prolonged period of patient waiting. It is called ‘suffering’ (which is the root meaning of the word ‘patience’). Suffering is what happens when you see the possibilities in others while they deny those same possibilities in themselves. Suffering is what happens when you hold in trust a space for community to emerge but others lack the trust to enter the space and receive the gift. Suffering is what happens while you wait out their resistance, believing that people have more resources than they themselves believe they have.” Palmer adds that this kind of suffering is part of waiting for anything that’s coming to fullness: “But leadership for community will always break our hearts. So if we want to lead this way, we must help each other deal with that fact. We might begin by viewing the problem through the lens of paradox, that spiritual way of seeing that turns conventional wisdom upside-down. Here, ‘breaking your heart’ (which we normally understand as a destructive process that leaves one’s heart in fragments), is reframed as the breaking open of one’s heart into larger, more generous forms -- a process that goes on and on until the heart is spacious enough to hold both a vision of hope and the reality of resistance without tightening like a fist.”
*****
Matthew 11:2-11
Seeing What We’re Waiting For
Jesus offers John the Baptist a vision of the realm of God, enacted in the people around him. He lets John imagine God’s kingdom from the things he already sees happening. Civil rights icon John Lewis recalls getting a glimpse of a non-segregated world as a young child. “When I was 11 years old, I traveled one summer with an uncle and aunt and some of my first cousins from rural Alabama to Buffalo for a visit, for a trip. I had never been outside of the South. And being there gave me hope. I wanted to believe, and I did believe, that things would get better. But later I discovered that you have to have this sense of faith that what you’re moving toward is already done. It’s already happened.... And you live as if you’re already there, that you’re already in that community, part of that sense of one family, one house. If you visualize it, if you can even have faith that it’s there, for you it is already there.”
Lewis adds that the civil rights movement itself became a small version of the world they were hoping to bring to life. He says that “during the early days of the movement, I believed that the only true and real integration for that sense of the beloved community existed within the movement itself. Because in the final analysis, we did become a circle of trust, a band of brothers and sisters. So it didn’t matter whether you were black or white. It didn’t matter whether you came from the North to the South, or whether you’re a Northerner or Southerner. We were one.”
*****
Advent
Waiting
Columnist Omid Safi believes that most of us have “the disease of being busy.” Our lives are so full that there’s no time to reflect, to watch for God, or to be with the people we love. He asks: “Whatever happened to a world in which kids get muddy, get dirty, get messy, and heavens, get bored? Do we have to love our children so much that we overschedule them, making them stressed and busy -- just like us? What happened to a world in which we can sit with the people we love so much and have slow conversations about the state of our heart and soul, conversations that slowly unfold, conversations with pregnant pauses and silences that we are in no rush to fill? How did we create a world in which we have more and more and more to do with less time for leisure, less time for reflection, less time for community, less time to just... be?”
Different faith traditions give us an antidote for this dis-ease. For Christians, Advent gives us time to pause, and to be still. Safi is a Muslim, and he says: “In many Muslim cultures, when you want to ask [people] how they’re doing, you ask: in Arabic, Kayf haal-ik? or in Persian, Haal-e shomaa chetoreh? How is your haal? What is this haal that you inquire about? It is the transient state of one’s heart. In reality, we ask ‘How is your heart doing at this very moment, at this breath?’ When I ask ‘How are you?’ that is really what I want to know.” We need to look past our busy-ness to the state of each other’s hearts, and Advent calls us back to that.
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From team member Robin Lostetter:
James 5:7-10 (Patient Waiting)
A Cry for Help; A Response of Hope
In her “3rd Sunday of Advent (Looking into the Lectionary for Dec. 11)” commentary in the Nov. 29, 2016, issue of the Presbyterian Outlook, Jill Duffield compares the texts for December 11 with a recording of a 911 call; “all three give me a sense of a calm stranger on the other end of a panicked plea for help.”
She continues: “We have heard those recordings of two disparate voices, one laced with fear and pain, the other methodically asking questions, staying on the line, giving instruction, reminding the traumatized other that someone is on the way to intervene, to bring assistance, to rescue or save. These readings bring forth those intense emotions: danger is present, but we aren’t left alone to face its wrath. All three offer the reassurance that as desperate as the situation may be, help is right now on the way, so hang on and hang in and don’t lose hope.”
In contrast to the eager excitement we usually associate with the weeks before Christmas, Duffield suggests that we might better think in terms of the desperate waiting of those praying for healing after a last round of chemo has failed, or when we send a drug-addicted loved one to rehab; “the kind of waiting that comes when your son or daughter is deployed to a war zone. The kind of waiting that comes when the biopsy has been sent off but the results aren’t back. Advent has a word to speak into that kind of waiting too.”
And yet, the prophet speaks of hope, encourages strength -- words we might say to those being evacuated from the wildfires in Gatlinburg, or refugees fleeing their war-torn homes in Syria, or parents wondering if they will be able to feed their families, let alone have something under the Christmas tree this year. “The sense of desperate waiting is palpable from those in prison, wrongly convicted, wondering if a stay of execution will come. This kind of waiting is Advent waiting too.”
“Hang on, hang in, don’t lose hope. Help is on the way.”
And yet, the reality is that John the Baptist was executed. “The calm words of the 911 operator don’t always mean that the ambulance or police or firefighters arrive in time. Sometimes our desperate waiting is not rewarded with the outcome we desperately wanted. We need to speak this truth too, lest our proclamation ring hollow to the many of our hearers who’ve begged for relief that did not come. Don’t insult them with cheap grace.”
*****
James 5:7-10 (Patient Waiting)
Release after 33 Years of Waiting
A wrongly-convicted Virginia man was finally released earlier this year after 33 years of waiting. Here is a description of his travails from a local television news report:
Keith Harward opened the door of the Nottoway Correction Center in Burkeville, Virginia, and walked out a free man. He had spent the last 33 years of his life serving time for a murder and rape he did not commit.
“It hasn’t really hit me. I explained to them earlier, it’s not real," Harward told reporters outside of the prison, shortly after his release.
In 1986, Harward was convicted of murdering a Newport News man and raping his wife in their home. In the years since then, he has been actively waiting, using his time in a disciplined attempt to right the wrong perpetrated upon him. And after exhausting nearly all of his options, he heard about the Innocence Project. He wrote to them in 2006.
“I would tell people my story... there are no fingerprints, no eyewitnesses, none of that stuff,” said Harward. “So I just wrote them a letter, and said ‘here is the deal.’
“Several years later, it got pulled out of a file, and off it went. These are the kind of people you want in the justice system,” he said, gesturing to his team of attorneys and family members standing beside him at the media conference. Earlier this week, Virginia’s Attorney General Mark Herring said DNA testing, which was not available at the time the case went to trail, exonerated the Greensboro man.
Stunningly, Harward says he does not blame the victims nor the man police say was actually responsible. In fact, that man is believed to have died in an Ohio prison in 2006.
“It is a bad thing that he did what he did,” said Harward, “but he did not put me in prison. I mean, he could have come forward, but criminals do not do that. Those criminals in Newport News put me in prison.”
His greatest regret is that his parents, who always fought for him, died before they could see him a free man. Harward knew how much this hurt his parents, who believed in his innocence -- and he wasn’t even able to attend their funerals.
*****
James 5:7-10 (Patient Waiting)
Christ’s Love in Action
Wilson Davis reports in the Presbyterian Outlook on a moving demonstration of waiting rewarded by Christ’s love in action -- a kind of waiting that we all can address.
Davis notes that the “National Kidney Foundation (NKF) reports that there were 17,878 kidney transplants in 2015 -- 12,249 from deceased donors and 5,628 from living donors. NKF figures also show that, as of January 1 of this year [2016], 100,791 people were awaiting kidney transplants, and the median wait time for a first kidney is 3.6 years. In 2014, NKF reports, 4,761 patients died while awaiting a kidney transplant, and another 3,668 became too sick to receive a kidney transplant. Over 3,000 new patients are added to the kidney waiting list each month. The two men in this story want to use their experience to encourage others to become living donors, as well as organ donors at their deaths.”
The “two men in this story” that Davis refers to are Hugh Black and Scott Greene, who met at the North Carolina Presbyterian Pilgrimage (NCPP), which is “known for its grace-filled, spiritual renewal weekends. It dates from 1990, and was adapted from the Roman Catholic Church’s Cursillo movement. Within the last couple of years, the NCPP community has had a special opportunity to show Christ’s love in action. When one of its members, Scott Greene, needed a kidney transplant, 18 other members offered Greene a kidney, and all filled out the necessary medical paperwork.”
Proving to be the best match, Hugh Black, from Westminster Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, donated a kidney to Greene, from First Presbyterian Church in Reidsville. The procedure, originally planned for August, was moved up to May 31 because Greene’s kidneys deteriorated to the point that he had to go onto dialysis several times. The surgery went well and both were discharged after only a few days.
“Without a new kidney, Greene said, he faced the prospect of being on dialysis four hours a day, three days a week for the rest of his life. ‘I can never thank Hugh enough,’ Greene said. ‘He saved my life.’ ”
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From team member Ron Love:
Matthew 11:2-11
A friend shared with me that at a children’s church Christmas concert he recently attended there was an amusing but thought-provoking mistake in the play. A group of youngsters lined up along the front of the stage, each holding a letter. On cue, each turned over their letter one by one, intending to spell CHRISTMAS LOVE. One little boy, looking down at his letter “M,” saw it correctly displayed in front of him. But when he turned it over to face the audience, he flipped it upside-down so that it became a “W.” So what the children spelled for the congregation instead was CHRIST WAS LOVE. When Jesus tells his disciples to tell John what they have witnessed, John will know, as we do today, that the message of Christmas is CHRIST WAS LOVE, and still is love today.
*****
Matthew 11:2-11
John while he was in prison, pondering if he would be executed, wondered if Jesus was really who he said he was. In order to give John some peace the disciples came and told him all that Jesus was doing. The message, of course, is that Jesus is who he claims to be. A contemporary documentary looking at the life of superstar Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt helps us to explain John’s predicament. Before Bolt would agree to the film, he required that film crews follow him through his entire day and not just focus on the fastest man on earth’s exploits on the track. Then people will see the man who can be a showman on the track, but also the serious man who begins an exercise routine at 5:30 a.m. each day and adheres to serious healthy diet restrictions. We come to understand a person, especially Jesus, when we understand the entirety of his life.
*****
Matthew 11:2-11
The recent documentary on Usain Bolt, titled I Am Bolt, follows the sprinter throughout his day, as Bolt would not allow the film to focus only on his track exploits as the fastest man on earth. Some people have called Bolt an actor since he actively participated in many of the scenes that were later projected on screen. But Bolt refuses to accept the title of actor, as he was not acting but just being himself. Bolt said, “I wasn’t an actor. I wasn’t trying to push a different person forward.” As we know, the message that was shared with John was that Jesus was not acting; what the disciples witnessed was real.
*****
James 5:7-10
James calls his Christian followers to “be patient.” And patience is the message of Advent as we await the coming Savior. We are aware of the persecution suffered by first-century Christians and their need for hope and deliverance. The trauma of their trials and tribulations may have a different cause than ours today, but the same emotional distress still results. The song “Where Is the Love?” by the Black Eyed Peas expresses this need to be patient amidst uncertainties. The song discusses all the problems in the world and questions how such pain can be present. Then in an Advent plea, one lyric reads: “Father, Father, Father help us / Send some guidance from above / ’Cause people got me, got me questionin’ / Where is the love.”
*****
Luke 1:46b-55
Tiger Woods has had his golfing difficulties over the past years. Most of them have been related to health problems that have resulted in countless surgeries. During the last 15 months away from golf, Woods was not even sure he would ever play again. Recently Woods returned to competitive golf, but he is not measuring success on the scorecard but rather by being able to be on the field of play. In measuring his current level of success, Woods said, “I’m playing again.” Mary, the mother of Jesus, measured her success by, after years of being disenfranchised from society, being on the field of play, though that field is a lowly manger.
*****
Luke 1:46b-55
The plane carrying the Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense crashed into a mountain a few minutes before reaching the intended airport. All but six of the 77 individuals on board died, and almost the entire team perished. What made a sad story even sadder is that the Chapecoense team was regarded as a Cinderella story; after just two years in Brazil’s top flight they qualified for the finals of the Copa Sudamericana -- a continent-wide competition. In an act of sportsmanship, teams across Brazil have offered to loan players to Chapecoense in order for them to rebuild. In a public statement, the participating teams said: “It is the minimum gesture of solidarity that is within our reach.” Somehow, the story of Mary has become a Cinderella story of solidarity for all of us.
*****
Isaiah 35:1-10
Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt wasn’t ready to retire from the sport until he accomplished the so-called “triple-triple” -- winning three gold medals at three consecutive Olympic Games. Having accomplished his goal at the Rio Olympics by winning the 100 and 200 meter dashes and anchoring Jamaica’s victorious 4x100 meter relay, Bolt will retire after his next world competition. Isaiah wanted his people to understand the meaning of the triple-triple -- that is, the future would be good for them. The people would accomplish their goals, the triple-triple, and the “desert shall rejoice and blossom.”
*****
Isaiah 35:1-10
Supersonic passenger air travel has never been successful because of the expense of flying the plane. The Concorde used so much fuel that a round-trip ticket from New York to London cost $20,000. But supersonic air travel may soon be back. Boom Technology is developing a new plane that will carry fewer passengers and use advanced rocket technology -- making for a 1,451 mph, three-hour flight across the Atlantic Ocean for a price of $5,000. Realizing that planes today, with the exception of the Concorde, are flying at the same speed as they did in the 1950s, Boom contends that technological advancements have now made it possible to change that. Isaiah wanted his people to know that the future is coming and it will be better.
*****
Isaiah 35:1-10
The White House has completed its Christmas decorations, placed on display for the public. The traditional gingerbread house weighs 300 pounds. More than 700,000 ornaments have been used to decorate the holiday tress. This year, the last Christmas the Obamas will be in the White House, the theme is modeled on the three initiatives Michelle had as First Lady: military service, education, and health. One tree is decorated only with gold ornaments, in honor of those servicemen who died in battle. Another tree has ornaments with the word “girl” written in 12 languages, to promote the education of girls. Mrs. Obama said of the display: “This year’s holiday theme is ‘The Gift of the Holidays.’ We’re going to be celebrating our country’s greatest gifts, with special decorations celebrating our military families.” Isaiah wanted his people to be able to celebrate their great gifts -- that “the dry land shall be glad.”
*****
Isaiah 35:1-10
On November 30, 1951, Ann Elizabeth Hodges had a unique experience as she was napping on her couch. An 8-½ pound meteorite came crashing through her roof, bounced off the radio cabinet, and struck her on the head. Perhaps Isaiah wants his people to be knocked on the head to realize the blessings that are falling upon them.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: Happy are we whose hope is in our God.
People: Our God made heaven and earth and all that is in them.
Leader: Our God is the one who keeps faith forever.
People: Our God executes justice for the oppressed and gives food to the hungry.
Leader: God lifts up those who are bowed down; God loves the righteous.
People: God, our God, will reign forever.
OR
Leader: Come and worship the God who is unity and truth.
People: We praise our God who is the Complete One.
Leader: Let us look to Jesus, who lived as God’s child on earth.
People: We turn to Jesus to learn how to live as God’s children.
Leader: Reach out to others in the truth of who we all are.
People: We will help others find their true selves in God.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
“Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise”
found in:
UMH: 103
H82: 423
PH: 263
NCH: 1
CH: 66
LBW: 526
ELA: 834
W&P: 48
AMEC: 71
STLT: 273
Renew: 46
“Praise to the Lord, the Almighty”
found in:
UMH: 139
H82: 390
AAHH: 117
NNBH: 2
NCH: 22
CH: 25
ELA: 858, 859
AMEC: 3
STLT: 278
Renew: 57
“Tell Out My Soul” (based on the Magnificat)
found in:
UMH: 200
H82: 437, 438
W&P: 41
Renew: 130
“My Soul Gives Glory to My God” (based on the Magnificat)
found in:
UMH: 198
CH: 130
ELA: 882
“I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light”
found in:
UMH: 206
H82: 490
ELA: 815
W&P: 248
Renew: 152
“Spirit of the Living God”
found in:
UMH: 393
PH: 322
AAHH: 320
NNBH: 133
NCH: 283
CH: 259
W&P: 492
Renew: 90
“O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright”
found in:
UMH: 247
PH: 69
NCH: 158
CH: 105
LBW: 76
ELA: 308
W&P: 230
“Dear Jesus, in Whose Life I See”
found in:
UMH: 468
(While this is only in the United Methodist Hymnal, I have included it because the words are a perfect match for the major theme this week. At only two stanzas, it could easily be read as a poem or sung during the sermon.)
“Arise, Shine”
found in:
CCB: 2
Renew: 123
“Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus”
found in:
CCB: 55
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: 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
ELA: 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 always acts in accord with your essence: Grant us the grace to follow in Jesus’ path of living an authentic life as a child of yours; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you are always true to your nature. You sent Jesus to us so that we could learn how to live authentically as your children. Send the light of your Spirit upon us so that we may discern who we are and how we are to live. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins, and especially our failure to be true to our nature of being children of the Most High.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have been created in your image and filled with your own life and Spirit, but we fail to live up to who we are. Instead of being the children of light and love, we are too often the people of darkness and hate. We are too quick to exclude, to ridicule, and to judge. Forgive us, and reform us into the image you had in mind at our creation. So fill us with your love that others will find you when they encounter us. Amen.
Leader: God still desires us to be the image and reflection of the Most High. Receive God’s love and grace, and be filled with presence and Spirit of our God.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord’s Prayer)
We worship and adore you, O God, for being the true One in the midst of so much deception. You are truly our guiding light.
(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 been created in your image and filled with your own life and Spirit, but we fail to live up to who we are. Instead of being the children of light and love, we are too often the people of darkness and hate. We are too quick to exclude, to ridicule, and to judge. Forgive us, and reform us into the image you had in mind at our creation. So fill us with your love that others will find you when they encounter us.
We give you thanks for all the ways in which you help us to live out our lives as your children. You have given us scripture, and you came among us in Jesus of Nazareth. Even today, there are those who walk the Holy Way and show us how to be disciples of Jesus.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for all your children as we struggle to be true to ourselves and to you. We pray especially for those who do this while dealing with sickness, poverty, death, and grief. We pray for those who are dealing with poverty, want, oppression, addiction, and violence. As you send your light upon them, help us to reflect that light for those around us.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father . . . Amen.
(or if the Lord’s Prayer 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 Starter
Have a wrapped Christmas present, and ask the children to guess what is in it. Then open it up to reveal nothing but trash: old candy wrappers, etc. That isn’t what we expected, was it? We are all made in the image of God. We are all given God’s Spirit to live within us. We don’t want to be filled with the trash of hatred and meanness. We need to be filled with the Spirit of God’s love. Just as we expect good things in our presents, God expects good things in us, in how we speak and act.
CHILDREN’S SERMON
by Beth Herrinton-Hodge
Matthew 11:2-11
Gather the children and ask them if they’ve ever heard of John the Baptist. Invite them to tell you what they know about him. Fill in the details that will allow you to link John the Baptist with the coming of Jesus: John the Baptist was Jesus’ cousin. He was born before Jesus’ birth, and he started his work/ministry before Jesus began his. John is called John the Baptist because he baptized people to get them ready for the coming of Jesus. He even baptized Jesus!
When Jesus became an adult, he helped people. What kinds of things did Jesus do to help people? (Healing the sick; helping people to walk, to see, to hear; telling people about God; showing people how to live good lives and to follow God’s ways.)
One time, John the Baptist asked Jesus if Jesus was the Messiah, the one who would come to save people for God. Jesus answered “What do you hear? What do you see? The lame walk, the blind see, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to new life, the poor receive good news.” What do you think Jesus meant when he said that? (receive whatever responses are offered).
When I hear these words from Jesus, I look around and see the good things Jesus has done, and the good things that are done in Jesus’ name, and I think “This must be Jesus at work.”
The people who knew and saw and listened to Jesus teaching and helping others... they got to see Jesus at work with their own eyes and hear him teach with their own ears.
We get to hear about it and read about these things in the Bible.
We get to see Jesus at work through the hands and hearts of people all around us.
We get to do the things Jesus told us to do, and what he showed us to do... and in this way, Jesus is made known to others.
Prayer: Jesus, as we wait for your birthday, remind us of the good news that you have already come! We see your love and care for us where we see people being healed, being helped, being loved. Help us to follow you and to show your love to one another, even as we wait for Christmas. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, December 11, 2016, issue.
Copyright 2016 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.
And yet, Dean notes, it is not just John the Baptist and Jesus who are the “real deal.” We too are called to the same high standard of authentic Christian behavior -- for as Jesus pointedly remarks: “Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” Thus, when we enter the kingdom we have surpassed our human frailties and sins. But how can we possibly live up to such a lofty standard? Dean suggests that the answer is to be found in this week’s Isaiah passage, where the prophet tells us that “a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.” God has provided us a roadmap -- one that anyone can follow.
Team member Chris Keating shares some additional thoughts on the epistle passage and its theme of patient waiting. James tells us to be patient, like a farmer waiting for the rains and for his crops to mature. Yet he also implies that this waiting is not to be passive, for in the meantime we are to “strengthen our hearts.” And that, Chris suggests, allows the church to proclaim a powerful message in times of difficulty. Waiting is never easy -- especially in our modern society where time seems more compressed than ever. And yet, by strengthening our faith we condition ourselves to have the endurance to patiently wait for Christ’s coming... even when it seems there is little hope to be found.
The Real Deal
by Dean Feldmeyer
Matthew 11:2-11; Isaiah 35:1-10
“The real deal.” Ask an internet search engine like Google or Bing for a definition of that phrase and you’ll get a handful of entries that, when put together, look something like this: An American idiom used to describe people or things that are genuine, real, legitimate, or authentic; possessed of all of the characteristics attributed to them; genuinely superior or impressive in some regard and therefore worthy of appreciation or respect. Synonym: “The real McCoy.”
John the Baptist heard about this Jesus guy, some claims about miracles, some stories about healings. There was even some conjecture that this guy might be the messiah, the anointed one of God. John wanted more than just hearsay, though. He wanted eyewitness testimony. He wanted it straight from the horse’s mouth. But he was in jail, so he sent his disciples to find out: “Is this guy the real deal?”
So they tracked him down, and not the sort to hem and haw around, they walked right up to Jesus and asked him: “Are you the real deal? Or are you another fake, a poser, another counterfeit prophet, telling people what they expect to hear for an easy buck?”
Jesus is not offended by the question. He answers it clearly and straightforward, frankly and honestly. His answer, and the question that occasioned it, are as important today as they were the first time they were uttered.
Was he? Are you? Am I? If not, how do I become “the real deal”?
In the Culture
We may not always be able to define it, but we know it when we see it.
It’s what we’re all looking for, especially in the people who represent or lead us.
The president-elect, for instance. Even his most ardent supporters don’t know if he’s the real deal. They may admire him as a businessman. They may agree with his opinions in The Art of the Deal. They may see in him much potential. But they don’t know. And they won’t know until he’s actually been in office and had time to do something.
His detractors are no less clueless. Will he undo the eight years of work that President Obama has done? Will he dismantle the Affordable Care Act before he has created something else, something better to replace it? Can he handle the subtleties and nuances of speech and demeanor that are required for statecraft and foreign relations?
Does he play chess or does he play football? Can he switch from one to the other?
Can he be the president of all the people, as he promised in his victory speech? Can he bring this sorely divided country together?
Is he the real deal?
The truth is that we just don’t know. We can speculate. We can guess. But until he gets into office and starts doing things, we can’t know.
Of course, the search for the real deal isn’t one that takes place only at the level of national politics. We want to know that about our local leaders and representatives as well, don’t we? Do they have our best interests at heart, or do they just like the idea of being in office? Is their desire based on what they can do for their neighbors, or what they can do for themselves?
And what about that new boss? Is she the real deal? Is she going to care about the workers as much as she cares about the company and her own golden parachute? Will she lead from in front or from the safety and distance of the rear guard? Will her attempts at motivation come with positive feedback or threats and fear?
Whether the people under consideration are our children’s teachers, the new pastor, the neighbors who just moved in, or the guy our daughter is dating, the question is always the same: Is this person the real deal?
And even more important, am I?
Am I the real deal? Is the person whom I present to the world the same person who lives inside my skin? Am I authentic? Am I all that I claim to be? And if I am not the real deal, how do I become so?
In the Scriptures
Messiahs were a dime a dozen back in those days.
They stood on street corners, they ranted and raved at the city gates, they preached, they healed, they made threats and promises, and they insisted that they were the one.
And for almost everyone who claimed to be the messiah, there were a bunch of people ready to follow and vouch for the veracity of their favorite prophet.
John the Baptist wasn’t so sure.
This, remember, is Matthew’s version of John, the same John who we saw last week calling the Sadducees and Pharisees a “brood of vipers” and screaming “Repent!” at everyone within earshot. He is the same John who told the Jews that being a Jew didn’t cut them any slack where God’s judgment was concerned, that God could raise up Jews from stones so God didn’t have any real need for this particular crop.
Matthew’s John the Baptist does not suffer fools gladly, and he doesn’t accept anything at face value, as witnessed by the fact that he is now in jail for insulting the wife of the local potentate. His jail experience has not humbled him, however.
Hearing about Jesus, he sends his disciples out to find out if he’s the real deal.
The disciples of John track Jesus down, come right up to him, and ask him to his face: “Are you the real deal, or should we take our business elsewhere?”
It’s not a great question, because who’s going to say “no”?
If the person is just a con artist or a grifter, he certainly is not going to say: “Oh, okay. You got me. I’m just a fake. I’ll leave now.” He’s going to say: “You betcha, buddy. I’m the real deal.”
Interestingly, Jesus says neither yes nor no.
He tells them to judge for themselves. “Look at what is happening,” he says. “The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are healed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” So you decide. Am I the one or not?
In verse 7, John’s disciples leave, probably shaking their heads and asking each other what just happened. As they go, Jesus turns to the crowd of people around him and turns this into a teaching moment.
John the Baptist, he says, is the real deal.
You go out into the desert to see a prophet, and you don’t expect to see someone in a $1,000 Armani suit and handmade Italian loafers. You don’t expect to see some weak, wishy-washy milquetoast whose favorite phrase is “on the other hand.”
No, you go to the wilderness to see a prophet -- and you see John the Baptist looking and sounding for all the world like Elijah. You expect to see someone who’s long on insight and hard on sin. You expect to see someone confidently shouting “Thus saith the Lord...”
And what do you know? There’s John the Baptist doing everything and being everything a prophet is supposed to do and be.
When it comes to prophets, he’s the real deal! And there’s never been anyone and there’s never going to be anyone more so than him.
And yet... (and this is important) the lowest, least person in the Kingdom of God is greater than John.
In the Sermon
The Indicative
John the Baptist was the real deal. He was what he represented himself to be. He took Elijah as his role model, and he followed in that great prophet’s footsteps -- even when it landed him in jail, even when it cost him his life.
Jesus was the real deal. Indeed, he was the ultimate real deal. He was not just a representative of God or a spokesperson for God, as were the prophets (including John the Baptist). He was more. He was God in human form. You want to see God, look at Jesus. That’s the best picture you’re going to get.
But how do we know? How do we know he’s the real deal?
His answer is reminiscent of the “know the tree by its fruit” axiom. What do you see, Jesus asks. The answer to whether or not he is the real deal is found in his behavior and the things which spring forth out of it: those who are blind, see; those who are lame, walk; those who are dead, live; those who are hopeless have hope.
And the one who makes this happen is the real deal.
The Imperative
Inevitably, the question works its way through John the Baptist, around and through Jesus, until it lands squarely on us.
Are we the real deal?
Do we live the religious faith that we espouse? What kind of fruit do we produce, literally and metaphorically?
Do we help to bring dead people back to life? What does it look like when we do that?
Do we help those who are paralyzed walk? How?
Do we help those who are blind see? What do I see when I see you doing that?
Do we give hope to the hopeless? Comfort to the afflicted? Direction to the lost? Food to the hungry? Education to the ignorant?
And how do we go about doing these things?
Here is where this week’s Old Testament lesson comes into play. Isaiah paints a lovely verbal picture of what it is like to return home to Zion, the place where God lives, God’s kingdom. And he reminds us that making this trip is not that tough. God has prepared a way for us.
Indeed, in verse 8 (my favorite) he says that this pathway that we are called to follow is not a pathway at all; it’s a highway! It’s wide and well-paved and easy to walk upon. And it’s so easy to follow that even stupid people, the ones who are always getting lost, can’t get lost on this road.
In other words, being the kind of people God wants us to be isn’t rocket science or brain surgery. Anyone, yes anyone, can do it.
And what is it that we are called to do?
Isaiah has told us in metaphor -- but if metaphors don’t play for us, Tony Campolo and Shane Clairborne have spelled it out in a recent op-ed column they wrote for the New York Times. They argue that American evangelical Christianity has become the religion of old, white men. It has been co-opted by politics and political parties, and has become identified by young people as the “anti” religion.
“By the mid-’90s, the word had lost its positive connotations with many Americans,” Campolo and Claiborne argue. “They came to see Christians -- and evangelicals in particular -- as anti-women, anti-gay, anti-environment, and anti-immigrant, and as the champions of guns and war.”
They argue that the reputation of evangelical Christianity has been so irreparably damaged that a new ethos must be created if evangelical Christianity, or any Christianity for that matter, is going to communicate to the world that we are the real deal.
And that they say can be found in the words of Jesus which are printed in red in many of our Bibles. It is by returning to those words, those lessons, those relationships, those commandments that are found in those red words, that we become and remain the real deal.
But...
But even that will not earn you a reserved seat in the sunshine of God’s love and favor. Those things are given to us by grace, as gifts. We can’t earn them.
Even the real-est deal-est person you ever meet is considered no higher than anyone else in God’s kingdom.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Strength Conditioning
by Chris Keating
James 5:7-10
Most of us are not good at waiting, and that is especially true at Christmas.
The cultural vortex surrounding the holiday pushes aside Advent themes of preparation and endurance. The gravitational pull of Christmas propels us beyond the wilderness, leaping for joy straight into Bethlehem’s labor and delivery suite. People are itching for Christmas, and have little time for eschatology or John’s prophetic declarations.
There are, after all, things to get done. There are Hatchimals to be purchased (if you can still find them), lights to be strung, cards to be mailed, and kids to be outfitted in bathrobe shepherd’s costumes. Who has time for this patience?
Lo, the days are hastening on -- and so are we. Preacher, don’t even speak to us about being patient. While James’ description of a farmer patiently waiting for the blades of tender seedlings to erupt through furrowed ground sounds quaint, we tend to be more familiar with slow-moving checkout lanes and post office lines.
I remembered this last week while waiting to register my car. An ordinary task took on the feeling of a biblical epic. You could almost hear the narrator’s booming voice: “And it came to pass that a decree had gone out from the state that the car should be registered. Everyone went to be registered, each to their own city.”
The good news is that when I arrived at the DMV, there were only four people in line. I guessed I’d be in and out in 15 minutes. The bad news is that I greatly underestimated the state’s efficiency. The licensing office had just replaced the old reliable pull-a-number system used since the days when Quirinius was governor in favor of a high-tech text messaging system. I entered my cellphone number, and looked for a place in the inn.
My phone vibrated, cheerfully welcoming me to “the line.” “Thanks for using the new waiting system! There are four people ahead of you! Your estimated wait time will be 68 minutes!”
Didn’t they know I was a busy pastor, and this is Advent? Who has 68 minutes to spare at the DMV in late November? My patience was waning.
“Be patient, therefore beloved,” James urges. I am certain that James never registered a car in Missouri. James never had to stand in an airport security line. He didn’t become impatient while waiting for an older person struggling to use a debit card. James never wrangled with a smartphone or a software upgrade.
However, James did understand just how difficult it is to wait for the Lord. Waiting for your name to be called at the DMV is one kind of waiting; waiting for the coming of Lord is quite a different matter. James instills in his readers a call to faithfulness and watchful attentiveness. Writing to those enduring persecution, James offers specific instructions. As they await the Lord’s coming, James urges them to remain focused and disciplined to “strengthen their hearts” (v. 8).
The church’s well-toned cardiac muscle efficiently pipes the lifeblood of faith throughout the body’s arterial system. Healthy ventricles pump out justice for the poor, gush prayers for the ill, and empower faithful witness. Like a farmer who knows much needed rains will come, disciples whose hearts are strong wait with the assurance of God’s faithfulness.
Patient endurance is a key theme in James’ epistle. It’s the sort of endurance observed by refugees waiting for asylum, or the child in Aleppo who endures round after round of bombing. Bana Alabed, a 7-year-old Syrian girl, has captivated social media with her tweets and real-time war updates. On Monday, Alabed’s mother Fatemah posted this desperate plea: “Under attack. Nowhere to go, every minute feels like death. Pray for us. Goodbye - Fatemah #Aleppo.”
It is possible that those who live under the most desperate circumstances offer insights into what it means to wait. The death of Fidel Castro has provided a glimpse into the capacity of Cubans to wait. That nation’s well-honed ability to wait, said BBC correspondent Will Grant, has been in particular view as crowds lined up to mourn Castro -- a leader both beloved and despised.
Miles-long lines formed in Havana to pay respects to Castro. Under the careful watching of state security officers, crowds moved past an altar dedicated to Castro. Despite having endured years of abuse, the crowd found no room to register dissent against Castro’s regime. While the Cuban diaspora in Florida celebrated Castro’s death, inside the country reactions were varied. Many observed that his legacy was complicated, but otherwise demurred from open criticism.
One young engineer noted: “Old people and young people, we all have something to thank him for. We have free education, we have free medical care, we have free social assistance thanks to him.”
Cubans living off the island -- those not under the omnipresent watch of security officers -- saw the Marxist leader differently. Carlos Eire is a Cuban-born theologian and Yale University professor who fled the nation years ago. Eire wrote that “millions of Cubans who have been waiting impatiently for this moment for more than half a century will simply ponder his crimes and recall the pain and suffering he caused.”
For some, Castro’s death is a long-hoped for opportunity for change. One university student told a reporter: “People here are so tired. He destroyed this place.”
James would understand. Advent waiting requires patience that is empowered by the Holy Spirit. Dirk Lange points out that such patient endurance stems from our deepest assurance that God will return. As the community of faith lives out its witness together, its collective heart is strengthened.
This is the hope which James invites the church to proclaim. Times of testing produce endurance (1:3), and that the one who endures is blessed (1:12). Echoing Paul’s understanding of endurance, James calls the church to its singular vocation of waiting “until the coming of the Lord.”
On this Sunday, the church gathers to light three candles, and then join in Mary in declaring our expectation that God’s mercy will extend from generation to generation.
Many years ago, Thomas Long noted in a sermon that “It is never easy to wait for anything of importance -- for Christmas, for the plane carrying the one we love, for the morning to relieve the sleepless night, for the healing word in a bitter argument, for the toilsome task to be done, for the labor to be over and the child to be born, for death. It is never easy to wait” (Shepherds and Bathrobes [CSS Publishing, 1987], p. 45).
Waiting is not easy, but it is possible for those whose hearts have been strengthened.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:
Matthew 11:2-11
Sending a Message
The gospels give us John the Baptist as a messenger, heralding the coming of the messiah. John’s message comes as people flock to hear him speak in the wilderness, but a modern-day John would have had a hard time getting people to listen. A University of Michigan study says (no surprise!) that people now “communicate via social networks or e-mail about as often as they speak face to face.” There are hazards, though, and “you’re more likely to be misunderstood and perceived as unsociable -- even ill-tempered -- when you rely on electronic communication, says communication specialist Miti Ampoma, author of The Innovative Communicator. (Just think about that coworker who returns your call with an e-mail, or straight-out rejects your meeting requests.) Worse yet: If you let Facebook replace face time, your confidence suffers when you actually interact in the flesh, Ampoma says.” Even when we’re rushed, there’s no substitute for speaking to someone face to face. No one ever misunderstood what John the Baptist had to say!
*****
Matthew 11:2-11
Signs of the Kingdom of God
John the Baptist isn’t quite sure what he’s seeing in Jesus -- is Jesus the one he awaits, or should he pin his hopes somewhere else? Jesus answers with the evidence of what is happening: “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” John has to wait for the complete fulfillment of what he announced to people on God’s behalf. Writer Parker Palmer observes that all leaders have to wait for a true community, like the realm of God, to emerge: “There is a name for what leaders experience during this prolonged period of patient waiting. It is called ‘suffering’ (which is the root meaning of the word ‘patience’). Suffering is what happens when you see the possibilities in others while they deny those same possibilities in themselves. Suffering is what happens when you hold in trust a space for community to emerge but others lack the trust to enter the space and receive the gift. Suffering is what happens while you wait out their resistance, believing that people have more resources than they themselves believe they have.” Palmer adds that this kind of suffering is part of waiting for anything that’s coming to fullness: “But leadership for community will always break our hearts. So if we want to lead this way, we must help each other deal with that fact. We might begin by viewing the problem through the lens of paradox, that spiritual way of seeing that turns conventional wisdom upside-down. Here, ‘breaking your heart’ (which we normally understand as a destructive process that leaves one’s heart in fragments), is reframed as the breaking open of one’s heart into larger, more generous forms -- a process that goes on and on until the heart is spacious enough to hold both a vision of hope and the reality of resistance without tightening like a fist.”
*****
Matthew 11:2-11
Seeing What We’re Waiting For
Jesus offers John the Baptist a vision of the realm of God, enacted in the people around him. He lets John imagine God’s kingdom from the things he already sees happening. Civil rights icon John Lewis recalls getting a glimpse of a non-segregated world as a young child. “When I was 11 years old, I traveled one summer with an uncle and aunt and some of my first cousins from rural Alabama to Buffalo for a visit, for a trip. I had never been outside of the South. And being there gave me hope. I wanted to believe, and I did believe, that things would get better. But later I discovered that you have to have this sense of faith that what you’re moving toward is already done. It’s already happened.... And you live as if you’re already there, that you’re already in that community, part of that sense of one family, one house. If you visualize it, if you can even have faith that it’s there, for you it is already there.”
Lewis adds that the civil rights movement itself became a small version of the world they were hoping to bring to life. He says that “during the early days of the movement, I believed that the only true and real integration for that sense of the beloved community existed within the movement itself. Because in the final analysis, we did become a circle of trust, a band of brothers and sisters. So it didn’t matter whether you were black or white. It didn’t matter whether you came from the North to the South, or whether you’re a Northerner or Southerner. We were one.”
*****
Advent
Waiting
Columnist Omid Safi believes that most of us have “the disease of being busy.” Our lives are so full that there’s no time to reflect, to watch for God, or to be with the people we love. He asks: “Whatever happened to a world in which kids get muddy, get dirty, get messy, and heavens, get bored? Do we have to love our children so much that we overschedule them, making them stressed and busy -- just like us? What happened to a world in which we can sit with the people we love so much and have slow conversations about the state of our heart and soul, conversations that slowly unfold, conversations with pregnant pauses and silences that we are in no rush to fill? How did we create a world in which we have more and more and more to do with less time for leisure, less time for reflection, less time for community, less time to just... be?”
Different faith traditions give us an antidote for this dis-ease. For Christians, Advent gives us time to pause, and to be still. Safi is a Muslim, and he says: “In many Muslim cultures, when you want to ask [people] how they’re doing, you ask: in Arabic, Kayf haal-ik? or in Persian, Haal-e shomaa chetoreh? How is your haal? What is this haal that you inquire about? It is the transient state of one’s heart. In reality, we ask ‘How is your heart doing at this very moment, at this breath?’ When I ask ‘How are you?’ that is really what I want to know.” We need to look past our busy-ness to the state of each other’s hearts, and Advent calls us back to that.
***************
From team member Robin Lostetter:
James 5:7-10 (Patient Waiting)
A Cry for Help; A Response of Hope
In her “3rd Sunday of Advent (Looking into the Lectionary for Dec. 11)” commentary in the Nov. 29, 2016, issue of the Presbyterian Outlook, Jill Duffield compares the texts for December 11 with a recording of a 911 call; “all three give me a sense of a calm stranger on the other end of a panicked plea for help.”
She continues: “We have heard those recordings of two disparate voices, one laced with fear and pain, the other methodically asking questions, staying on the line, giving instruction, reminding the traumatized other that someone is on the way to intervene, to bring assistance, to rescue or save. These readings bring forth those intense emotions: danger is present, but we aren’t left alone to face its wrath. All three offer the reassurance that as desperate as the situation may be, help is right now on the way, so hang on and hang in and don’t lose hope.”
In contrast to the eager excitement we usually associate with the weeks before Christmas, Duffield suggests that we might better think in terms of the desperate waiting of those praying for healing after a last round of chemo has failed, or when we send a drug-addicted loved one to rehab; “the kind of waiting that comes when your son or daughter is deployed to a war zone. The kind of waiting that comes when the biopsy has been sent off but the results aren’t back. Advent has a word to speak into that kind of waiting too.”
And yet, the prophet speaks of hope, encourages strength -- words we might say to those being evacuated from the wildfires in Gatlinburg, or refugees fleeing their war-torn homes in Syria, or parents wondering if they will be able to feed their families, let alone have something under the Christmas tree this year. “The sense of desperate waiting is palpable from those in prison, wrongly convicted, wondering if a stay of execution will come. This kind of waiting is Advent waiting too.”
“Hang on, hang in, don’t lose hope. Help is on the way.”
And yet, the reality is that John the Baptist was executed. “The calm words of the 911 operator don’t always mean that the ambulance or police or firefighters arrive in time. Sometimes our desperate waiting is not rewarded with the outcome we desperately wanted. We need to speak this truth too, lest our proclamation ring hollow to the many of our hearers who’ve begged for relief that did not come. Don’t insult them with cheap grace.”
*****
James 5:7-10 (Patient Waiting)
Release after 33 Years of Waiting
A wrongly-convicted Virginia man was finally released earlier this year after 33 years of waiting. Here is a description of his travails from a local television news report:
Keith Harward opened the door of the Nottoway Correction Center in Burkeville, Virginia, and walked out a free man. He had spent the last 33 years of his life serving time for a murder and rape he did not commit.
“It hasn’t really hit me. I explained to them earlier, it’s not real," Harward told reporters outside of the prison, shortly after his release.
In 1986, Harward was convicted of murdering a Newport News man and raping his wife in their home. In the years since then, he has been actively waiting, using his time in a disciplined attempt to right the wrong perpetrated upon him. And after exhausting nearly all of his options, he heard about the Innocence Project. He wrote to them in 2006.
“I would tell people my story... there are no fingerprints, no eyewitnesses, none of that stuff,” said Harward. “So I just wrote them a letter, and said ‘here is the deal.’
“Several years later, it got pulled out of a file, and off it went. These are the kind of people you want in the justice system,” he said, gesturing to his team of attorneys and family members standing beside him at the media conference. Earlier this week, Virginia’s Attorney General Mark Herring said DNA testing, which was not available at the time the case went to trail, exonerated the Greensboro man.
Stunningly, Harward says he does not blame the victims nor the man police say was actually responsible. In fact, that man is believed to have died in an Ohio prison in 2006.
“It is a bad thing that he did what he did,” said Harward, “but he did not put me in prison. I mean, he could have come forward, but criminals do not do that. Those criminals in Newport News put me in prison.”
His greatest regret is that his parents, who always fought for him, died before they could see him a free man. Harward knew how much this hurt his parents, who believed in his innocence -- and he wasn’t even able to attend their funerals.
*****
James 5:7-10 (Patient Waiting)
Christ’s Love in Action
Wilson Davis reports in the Presbyterian Outlook on a moving demonstration of waiting rewarded by Christ’s love in action -- a kind of waiting that we all can address.
Davis notes that the “National Kidney Foundation (NKF) reports that there were 17,878 kidney transplants in 2015 -- 12,249 from deceased donors and 5,628 from living donors. NKF figures also show that, as of January 1 of this year [2016], 100,791 people were awaiting kidney transplants, and the median wait time for a first kidney is 3.6 years. In 2014, NKF reports, 4,761 patients died while awaiting a kidney transplant, and another 3,668 became too sick to receive a kidney transplant. Over 3,000 new patients are added to the kidney waiting list each month. The two men in this story want to use their experience to encourage others to become living donors, as well as organ donors at their deaths.”
The “two men in this story” that Davis refers to are Hugh Black and Scott Greene, who met at the North Carolina Presbyterian Pilgrimage (NCPP), which is “known for its grace-filled, spiritual renewal weekends. It dates from 1990, and was adapted from the Roman Catholic Church’s Cursillo movement. Within the last couple of years, the NCPP community has had a special opportunity to show Christ’s love in action. When one of its members, Scott Greene, needed a kidney transplant, 18 other members offered Greene a kidney, and all filled out the necessary medical paperwork.”
Proving to be the best match, Hugh Black, from Westminster Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, donated a kidney to Greene, from First Presbyterian Church in Reidsville. The procedure, originally planned for August, was moved up to May 31 because Greene’s kidneys deteriorated to the point that he had to go onto dialysis several times. The surgery went well and both were discharged after only a few days.
“Without a new kidney, Greene said, he faced the prospect of being on dialysis four hours a day, three days a week for the rest of his life. ‘I can never thank Hugh enough,’ Greene said. ‘He saved my life.’ ”
***************
From team member Ron Love:
Matthew 11:2-11
A friend shared with me that at a children’s church Christmas concert he recently attended there was an amusing but thought-provoking mistake in the play. A group of youngsters lined up along the front of the stage, each holding a letter. On cue, each turned over their letter one by one, intending to spell CHRISTMAS LOVE. One little boy, looking down at his letter “M,” saw it correctly displayed in front of him. But when he turned it over to face the audience, he flipped it upside-down so that it became a “W.” So what the children spelled for the congregation instead was CHRIST WAS LOVE. When Jesus tells his disciples to tell John what they have witnessed, John will know, as we do today, that the message of Christmas is CHRIST WAS LOVE, and still is love today.
*****
Matthew 11:2-11
John while he was in prison, pondering if he would be executed, wondered if Jesus was really who he said he was. In order to give John some peace the disciples came and told him all that Jesus was doing. The message, of course, is that Jesus is who he claims to be. A contemporary documentary looking at the life of superstar Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt helps us to explain John’s predicament. Before Bolt would agree to the film, he required that film crews follow him through his entire day and not just focus on the fastest man on earth’s exploits on the track. Then people will see the man who can be a showman on the track, but also the serious man who begins an exercise routine at 5:30 a.m. each day and adheres to serious healthy diet restrictions. We come to understand a person, especially Jesus, when we understand the entirety of his life.
*****
Matthew 11:2-11
The recent documentary on Usain Bolt, titled I Am Bolt, follows the sprinter throughout his day, as Bolt would not allow the film to focus only on his track exploits as the fastest man on earth. Some people have called Bolt an actor since he actively participated in many of the scenes that were later projected on screen. But Bolt refuses to accept the title of actor, as he was not acting but just being himself. Bolt said, “I wasn’t an actor. I wasn’t trying to push a different person forward.” As we know, the message that was shared with John was that Jesus was not acting; what the disciples witnessed was real.
*****
James 5:7-10
James calls his Christian followers to “be patient.” And patience is the message of Advent as we await the coming Savior. We are aware of the persecution suffered by first-century Christians and their need for hope and deliverance. The trauma of their trials and tribulations may have a different cause than ours today, but the same emotional distress still results. The song “Where Is the Love?” by the Black Eyed Peas expresses this need to be patient amidst uncertainties. The song discusses all the problems in the world and questions how such pain can be present. Then in an Advent plea, one lyric reads: “Father, Father, Father help us / Send some guidance from above / ’Cause people got me, got me questionin’ / Where is the love.”
*****
Luke 1:46b-55
Tiger Woods has had his golfing difficulties over the past years. Most of them have been related to health problems that have resulted in countless surgeries. During the last 15 months away from golf, Woods was not even sure he would ever play again. Recently Woods returned to competitive golf, but he is not measuring success on the scorecard but rather by being able to be on the field of play. In measuring his current level of success, Woods said, “I’m playing again.” Mary, the mother of Jesus, measured her success by, after years of being disenfranchised from society, being on the field of play, though that field is a lowly manger.
*****
Luke 1:46b-55
The plane carrying the Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense crashed into a mountain a few minutes before reaching the intended airport. All but six of the 77 individuals on board died, and almost the entire team perished. What made a sad story even sadder is that the Chapecoense team was regarded as a Cinderella story; after just two years in Brazil’s top flight they qualified for the finals of the Copa Sudamericana -- a continent-wide competition. In an act of sportsmanship, teams across Brazil have offered to loan players to Chapecoense in order for them to rebuild. In a public statement, the participating teams said: “It is the minimum gesture of solidarity that is within our reach.” Somehow, the story of Mary has become a Cinderella story of solidarity for all of us.
*****
Isaiah 35:1-10
Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt wasn’t ready to retire from the sport until he accomplished the so-called “triple-triple” -- winning three gold medals at three consecutive Olympic Games. Having accomplished his goal at the Rio Olympics by winning the 100 and 200 meter dashes and anchoring Jamaica’s victorious 4x100 meter relay, Bolt will retire after his next world competition. Isaiah wanted his people to understand the meaning of the triple-triple -- that is, the future would be good for them. The people would accomplish their goals, the triple-triple, and the “desert shall rejoice and blossom.”
*****
Isaiah 35:1-10
Supersonic passenger air travel has never been successful because of the expense of flying the plane. The Concorde used so much fuel that a round-trip ticket from New York to London cost $20,000. But supersonic air travel may soon be back. Boom Technology is developing a new plane that will carry fewer passengers and use advanced rocket technology -- making for a 1,451 mph, three-hour flight across the Atlantic Ocean for a price of $5,000. Realizing that planes today, with the exception of the Concorde, are flying at the same speed as they did in the 1950s, Boom contends that technological advancements have now made it possible to change that. Isaiah wanted his people to know that the future is coming and it will be better.
*****
Isaiah 35:1-10
The White House has completed its Christmas decorations, placed on display for the public. The traditional gingerbread house weighs 300 pounds. More than 700,000 ornaments have been used to decorate the holiday tress. This year, the last Christmas the Obamas will be in the White House, the theme is modeled on the three initiatives Michelle had as First Lady: military service, education, and health. One tree is decorated only with gold ornaments, in honor of those servicemen who died in battle. Another tree has ornaments with the word “girl” written in 12 languages, to promote the education of girls. Mrs. Obama said of the display: “This year’s holiday theme is ‘The Gift of the Holidays.’ We’re going to be celebrating our country’s greatest gifts, with special decorations celebrating our military families.” Isaiah wanted his people to be able to celebrate their great gifts -- that “the dry land shall be glad.”
*****
Isaiah 35:1-10
On November 30, 1951, Ann Elizabeth Hodges had a unique experience as she was napping on her couch. An 8-½ pound meteorite came crashing through her roof, bounced off the radio cabinet, and struck her on the head. Perhaps Isaiah wants his people to be knocked on the head to realize the blessings that are falling upon them.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: Happy are we whose hope is in our God.
People: Our God made heaven and earth and all that is in them.
Leader: Our God is the one who keeps faith forever.
People: Our God executes justice for the oppressed and gives food to the hungry.
Leader: God lifts up those who are bowed down; God loves the righteous.
People: God, our God, will reign forever.
OR
Leader: Come and worship the God who is unity and truth.
People: We praise our God who is the Complete One.
Leader: Let us look to Jesus, who lived as God’s child on earth.
People: We turn to Jesus to learn how to live as God’s children.
Leader: Reach out to others in the truth of who we all are.
People: We will help others find their true selves in God.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
“Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise”
found in:
UMH: 103
H82: 423
PH: 263
NCH: 1
CH: 66
LBW: 526
ELA: 834
W&P: 48
AMEC: 71
STLT: 273
Renew: 46
“Praise to the Lord, the Almighty”
found in:
UMH: 139
H82: 390
AAHH: 117
NNBH: 2
NCH: 22
CH: 25
ELA: 858, 859
AMEC: 3
STLT: 278
Renew: 57
“Tell Out My Soul” (based on the Magnificat)
found in:
UMH: 200
H82: 437, 438
W&P: 41
Renew: 130
“My Soul Gives Glory to My God” (based on the Magnificat)
found in:
UMH: 198
CH: 130
ELA: 882
“I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light”
found in:
UMH: 206
H82: 490
ELA: 815
W&P: 248
Renew: 152
“Spirit of the Living God”
found in:
UMH: 393
PH: 322
AAHH: 320
NNBH: 133
NCH: 283
CH: 259
W&P: 492
Renew: 90
“O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright”
found in:
UMH: 247
PH: 69
NCH: 158
CH: 105
LBW: 76
ELA: 308
W&P: 230
“Dear Jesus, in Whose Life I See”
found in:
UMH: 468
(While this is only in the United Methodist Hymnal, I have included it because the words are a perfect match for the major theme this week. At only two stanzas, it could easily be read as a poem or sung during the sermon.)
“Arise, Shine”
found in:
CCB: 2
Renew: 123
“Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus”
found in:
CCB: 55
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: 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
ELA: 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 always acts in accord with your essence: Grant us the grace to follow in Jesus’ path of living an authentic life as a child of yours; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you are always true to your nature. You sent Jesus to us so that we could learn how to live authentically as your children. Send the light of your Spirit upon us so that we may discern who we are and how we are to live. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins, and especially our failure to be true to our nature of being children of the Most High.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have been created in your image and filled with your own life and Spirit, but we fail to live up to who we are. Instead of being the children of light and love, we are too often the people of darkness and hate. We are too quick to exclude, to ridicule, and to judge. Forgive us, and reform us into the image you had in mind at our creation. So fill us with your love that others will find you when they encounter us. Amen.
Leader: God still desires us to be the image and reflection of the Most High. Receive God’s love and grace, and be filled with presence and Spirit of our God.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord’s Prayer)
We worship and adore you, O God, for being the true One in the midst of so much deception. You are truly our guiding light.
(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 been created in your image and filled with your own life and Spirit, but we fail to live up to who we are. Instead of being the children of light and love, we are too often the people of darkness and hate. We are too quick to exclude, to ridicule, and to judge. Forgive us, and reform us into the image you had in mind at our creation. So fill us with your love that others will find you when they encounter us.
We give you thanks for all the ways in which you help us to live out our lives as your children. You have given us scripture, and you came among us in Jesus of Nazareth. Even today, there are those who walk the Holy Way and show us how to be disciples of Jesus.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for all your children as we struggle to be true to ourselves and to you. We pray especially for those who do this while dealing with sickness, poverty, death, and grief. We pray for those who are dealing with poverty, want, oppression, addiction, and violence. As you send your light upon them, help us to reflect that light for those around us.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father . . . Amen.
(or if the Lord’s Prayer 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 Starter
Have a wrapped Christmas present, and ask the children to guess what is in it. Then open it up to reveal nothing but trash: old candy wrappers, etc. That isn’t what we expected, was it? We are all made in the image of God. We are all given God’s Spirit to live within us. We don’t want to be filled with the trash of hatred and meanness. We need to be filled with the Spirit of God’s love. Just as we expect good things in our presents, God expects good things in us, in how we speak and act.
CHILDREN’S SERMON
by Beth Herrinton-Hodge
Matthew 11:2-11
Gather the children and ask them if they’ve ever heard of John the Baptist. Invite them to tell you what they know about him. Fill in the details that will allow you to link John the Baptist with the coming of Jesus: John the Baptist was Jesus’ cousin. He was born before Jesus’ birth, and he started his work/ministry before Jesus began his. John is called John the Baptist because he baptized people to get them ready for the coming of Jesus. He even baptized Jesus!
When Jesus became an adult, he helped people. What kinds of things did Jesus do to help people? (Healing the sick; helping people to walk, to see, to hear; telling people about God; showing people how to live good lives and to follow God’s ways.)
One time, John the Baptist asked Jesus if Jesus was the Messiah, the one who would come to save people for God. Jesus answered “What do you hear? What do you see? The lame walk, the blind see, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to new life, the poor receive good news.” What do you think Jesus meant when he said that? (receive whatever responses are offered).
When I hear these words from Jesus, I look around and see the good things Jesus has done, and the good things that are done in Jesus’ name, and I think “This must be Jesus at work.”
The people who knew and saw and listened to Jesus teaching and helping others... they got to see Jesus at work with their own eyes and hear him teach with their own ears.
We get to hear about it and read about these things in the Bible.
We get to see Jesus at work through the hands and hearts of people all around us.
We get to do the things Jesus told us to do, and what he showed us to do... and in this way, Jesus is made known to others.
Prayer: Jesus, as we wait for your birthday, remind us of the good news that you have already come! We see your love and care for us where we see people being healed, being helped, being loved. Help us to follow you and to show your love to one another, even as we wait for Christmas. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, December 11, 2016, issue.
Copyright 2016 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.
