Jeremiah 31:7-14
Ephesians 1:3-6,15-19a
Luke 2:41-52

January 5, 2020 Abbey Church Br. Abraham

It has taken two generations of stars to make us humans. In the words of Chrissie Hynde: “we’re special…so special”. But instead of treating ourselves and others and the world around us as the amazing stardust that we are, we so often treat each other like dirt. We don’t even treat our dirt very well. Still, God thinks we are special enough that he became one of us. We share DNA with God! God inhabits the material universe, making all of it a holy temple! Infinity flows throughout finitude! God is transcendent, immanent, and embedded in our world!

And we did not like that, so we killed Jesus. So, God solved that by raising Jesus from the dead, pulling us up into his resurrection. We are special because of creation, incarnation, and resurrection.

We need to remember that, and stop treating ourselves, others around us, and the things in our world so poorly. When we see someone whose life, words, and actions are causing others pain (bullies, business people, political figures, religious tyrants), we need to not only do what we can to stop the wrongdoing, but also have compassion on all involved (victims as well as perpetrators). Dehumanizing and damning the wrongdoer is in itself wrongdoing. After all, they are just as special as we are, and are caught in the same web of fear and sin as we are. They need help escaping evil just as much as we do.

God has wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature. May we take that to heart, and live as if it were true – because it is. AMEN

Isaiah 11:1-10
Romans 15:4-13
Matthew 3:1-12

December 8, 2019 Abbey Church Abraham

In our first reading this morning, Isaiah tells of a golden age of peace and happiness that will come when one of Jesse’s descendants brings righteousness and faithfulness to us. We identify that person as Jesus, and we look to him to bring the golden age to our private lives and the entire world. However, all we need to do is take a quick look around to realize that we are not in a golden age in our private lives or in the rest of the world. It is not here yet, as much as we pray for it and work for it. Paul knows this as he writes to the Christians in Rome, as we heard in our second reading this morning. He tells them to keep living in harmony and to keep believing, and especially to keep hoping.

We also heard from John the Baptist in our gospel story this morning, telling us to not only hope for the golden age, but to do something about it: “repent…prepare…bear fruit…”. John warned the people that the person coming to bring the golden age might not be what they were expecting, and what he was bringing might not be what they expected. John tells the religious people who were coming to him that their piety would not stand up to what the messiah was bringing. We often think of John the Baptist as someone who merely yelled at people whom he considered hypocrites. Maybe we should really think of him as someone who cared about people and so warned them when he thought they were in danger of missing out on the truth.

But still, those warnings would have come as a shock to all the religious people coming to hear him. The warnings would not only be a shock, they would have seemed unnatural and wrong because they weren’t the same as their religious viewpoint told them the way the world should be. The coming of Jesus should shake us up just as much as it shook them up. The things he brings should make us squirm in our smugness and self righteousness. The prophet Isaiah this morning is a good example this: wolves, leopards, lions and bears are not supposed to pal around with lambs, kids, calves, and cows (they are suppose to eat them). Children are not supposed to play around asp and adder dens, because the natural things those snakes are suppose to do is bite children. Isaiah is telling us that the unexpected one will do unexpected things, so it is in our best interest not to have a list of jobs for Jesus to take care of. He will do what he sees fit when he sees fit.

That might sound scary to us because it takes things out of our control. But really, it should make us feel safe and secure, because it means everything is in Jesus’s hands. There is no place safer than that. So, we need to make sure we are in those hands, instead of always trying to escape because we think we know better than Jesus. By trusting Jesus, the golden age is already within us, because with Jesus, every moment is an eternity of heaven. Then in our turn, we can take that heaven and give it to the world around us.

We are not there yet – that could not be more obvious. So, we wait. Tom Petty says: “the waiting is the hardest part”, so as we wait, we also prepare: we hope and pray, and make peace. We take ourselves out of the center of our petty lives and put God in the center (which in turn makes our lives not-so-petty). Jesus comes on Christmas Day. He can also come into our lives everyday and every moment. All of those comings involve unexpected things, but that is good, because it gets us ready for his next coming. AMEN