Sermon for Christmas Eve

Day of the Church Year: Christmas Eve

Scripture Passage: Luke 2:1-20

Tonight, I’m in awe of the shepherds.  While to us Mary and Joseph are the shining stars of the Christmas play, a young couple who have been immortalized in countless pieces of art, played by teenagers and adults dressed in cotton robes and head dresses, while to us Mary and Joseph are household names, to the common people of Israel two thousand years ago, Mary and Joseph are no one.  On that dark, silent night, Mary gives birth in a town not her own, with Joseph and perhaps the local midwife at her side.  Children are always a precious gift but this one named Jesus more vulnerable than most with unmarried parents hounded by scandal and born in the elements.  No family, no friends surround the holy family.  But when the angel appears to the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night and tells them: “Good news!  A savior has come!  ...and the savior is a baby,” they don’t seem to flinch.  They go and see the baby, the baby savior.  A baby savior?  The strangeness of the good news does not deter the shepherds.  These hopeful shepherds go and see.

Tonight, I want to travel with the shepherds as they move with haste across the countryside.  Their hope, their excitement, their joy.  As they go, they already know a bit about what they’ll find.  The angel tells them the savior lies in a manger, a feeding trough for animals.  Though the messiah, the one meant to liberate humanity from all that binds us, the one who will defy death and evil and sin, this one lies in a manger, not even a bed, perhaps 21 inches from head to toe.  Whatever they find in the manger astounds them for they go and tell the news of a savior born.  They return to glorify and praise God for what they discover in the manger.  Isn’t it just a baby?

The shepherds live in an occupied Israel with soldiers on the streets.

The shepherds live hand to mouth, hunger and poverty common among the ancient people.

The shepherds live in an age of instability, uncertainty, and violence we struggle to imagine in the 21st century.

The shepherds, along with all the ancient Jews, are eager to receive the messiah, the one sent by God, from the line of David.

But it’s safe to say a baby in a manger is not what they expect to end Roman occupation, hunger and poverty, violence and instability.

But they go anyway.

They go anyway when they hear the news from the angel.

They trust that there might be a different way.

They trust that God might work in ways they’ve never considered, in ways they don’t yet understand.

They go and then they tell and then they praise God.

To us, the good news of Christmas might seem obvious.  Jesus is born!  But the shepherds don’t yet know what will happen, and they will have to wait 30 years to find out, long enough that, by the time Jesus calls disciples, all of these shepherds will be gone.  Yet the shepherds exhibit profound hope—that there might be a different way through the injustice and violence, hunger and poverty of their world, that God might be entering the world in a form they could not have anticipated. 

For us, it’s been a year.  Of highs and a lot of lows.  A year of division and injustice.  A year that began with an insurrection at the capitol.  A continued year of pandemic.  A year of natural disaster and refugee crisis in Afghanistan and at the Poland-Belarus border.  A year of violence.  For many of us, a year of illness and isolation and feeling not quite stable and grounded.  It’s not just been a year of some highs and many lows; the world has changed.  Most of us probably haven’t gotten our bearings.  We may still be wondering when all this will end instead of accepting the change that is happening throughout not just our country but around the world. 

Dear friends in Christ, on this dark, silent night, in a rapidly changing world, God is making a way, a new way, a way for hope and peace, joy and love.  God is making a way into this world, perhaps a way God has never made before.  The world is different, but God is still at work.  The world, our lives, even the church is changing profoundly, but we are people of hope and peace, joy and love.  God is doing something new even now, this moment, making a way out of what looks to us like no way.  We don’t know what is to come, but we know God is here with us because God entered the world in Jesus.  So let’s travel with the shepherds as they move with haste across the countryside.  Let’s go and see what God is doing.  Let’s spread the good news—of hope and peace, joy and love. 

On this strange and unsettling Christmas, a baby savior still brings joy to the world and hope for a new way.  Against all the odds, let’s go and see what God is doing—and then tell the world.  Merry Christmas!  Merry Christmas!  Amen.

Grace Annual Meeting

Members of Grace, please plan to attend the annual meeting to discuss, vote on, and hear updates on the Grace property, the internship program for 2021-2022, pandemic-related protocols, the election of council members, and the 2022 mission plan. Non-members of Grace are welcome to participate in the meeting, but may not vote.

Sunday, January 23, 2022, 10:30 am in Hope Hall & via Zoom

Join via Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86092008706?pwd=cSthTHdUQkxIMnhYVHNQajcxWlpqUT09

Passcode: 348897 

Meeting ID: 860 9200 8706

On Sunday, January 23, we will worship together at one service in the Sanctuary at 9:00 am.

Synod Assembly Voting Members & Council Members Needed

At Grace’s annual meeting on Sunday, January 23 at 10:30 am in Hope Hall and via Zoom, we will elect

3 Grace Congregation Council Members

3 Voting Members for the Grand Canyon Synod Assembly

For those interested in serving on the Grace council, the council meets on the 4th Tuesday of every month, 6:30-8:30 pm. Council members are also asked to attend the Quarterly Pizza & Ministry Nights on the 3rd Tuesdays of April, July, and October, 6:30-8:00 pm, as well as the annual meeting. Terms are three years long. Council members vision for the congregation, tend to the fiscal and personnel matters of the congregation, and decide on policies and some procedures. Council members are spiritual leaders of the congregation and must be members of Grace.

For those interested in attending the Grand Canyon Synod Assembly as a voting member, the synod assembly will be Friday, June 10 and Saturday, June 11 at Love of Christ Lutheran Church in Mesa. Grace will cover the cost of registration for voting members. We may bring 1 man and 2 women OR 1 woman and 2 men to serve as voting members. Voting members receive reports, catch the vision of the synod, connect with members of other Lutheran congregations, tend to the business of the synod, and worship together. Voting members to the synod assembly must be members of Grace.

The GLOW Show: Theological ABCs on Gospel

During fall 2021, we explore Theological ABCs from a Lutheran perspective! Each week, we define and discuss the words that shape our faith and their meanings. Today, we conclude the series by lifting up G for GOSPEL. Enjoy!

Being Church Together

In congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, of which Grace is one, our structure is bottom-up instead of top-down. This means that the typical hierarchical structure found in businesses and non-profits alike is turned on its head. The congregation as a whole makes decisions about its ministry. The decision making structure within the congregation looks like this:

Congregation in Assembly (in congregational meetings)

Congregation Council (elected by the congregation at large)

Executive Committee (elected from within the council)

Church Staff (hired by the executive committee to fulfill a job description)

Pastor (called by the entire congregation)

When we come together for congregational meetings, any member of the congregation is able to share, question, propose ministry ideas, and offer solutions for problems or challenges. On Sunday, January 23 at 10:30 am, we will gather in Hope Hall and via zoom to discuss the ministry of Grace Lutheran Church in our annual meeting. If you believe God is calling us to serve in a particular way or if you would like to offer a solution for a problem or challenge you see us facing, please put your proposal in writing and then reach out to council president Tim Gallen (thegallens08@gmail.com) to let him know you would like to be on the agenda. If you put your proposal in writing prior to January 9 and send it to Tim, we will be able to include it in the annual meeting materials.

Because our structure is bottom-up instead of top-down, the church is the people. If we want Grace to serve in a particular way, that means we will serve in a particular way. The pastor leads and visions, and the church staff organize and tend the ministry as described in their job descriptions. But the work of the church is the work of the people. We are church together for the sake of the world God loves!

Sermon for Sunday, December 19

Day of the Church Year: 4th Sunday of Advent

Scripture Passage: Luke 1:39-55

Seemingly out of the blue, the angel Gabriel visits a young, unmarried Jewish woman named Mary and announces she will bear a son named Jesus, a son who will be called the Son of the Most High, a child who will be Son of God.  Despite the real danger for Mary, being pregnant but not married at this moment in history, Mary responds to the angel Gabriel: Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.  Mary then rushes to the home of her cousin, Elizabeth.  The child in Elizabeth’s womb leaps for joy at the sound of Mary’s greeting for the child Elizabeth will bear will be John the Baptist.  Elizabeth identifies Mary as the mother of her Lord.  Mary then rejoices in God who looks with favor on lowly servants, who humbles the proud, who brings down the powerful from their thrones, who fills those who hunger, who empties those who are wealthy, who keeps promises from generation to generation. 

In this last Sunday of Advent, we hear how God enters the world, and though Mary expects a son of the Most High, a humbler story could not be told.  Though filled with danger for Mary, a more joyous story could not be told.  Though Mary has every reason to question and doubt this strange experience she has with angel Gabriel, she rejoices in God doing a totally new thing-through her!  Instead of stubbornly holding onto her own dreams and plans for her life, she gives her life over to the call of God.  And somehow, she recognizes that by doing so, she enters into a life not of drudgery and pain but a life of joy and abundance—to be chosen by God to contribute to the world in this particular and very special way. 

We are living in a strange time.  In some ways, we have returned to quote-unquote normal even though Covid-19 continues to spread through our community, our nation, and the world.  There is also something very strange going on with the US economy—incredible inflation, a hot job market with so many job openings that many businesses cannot function as desired, and at least here in Phoenix, sky-rocketing rents and home prices.  The economy and the pandemic have only contributed to our own personal questions and challenges and struggles.  The sense of not knowing what will happen is thick.  Truth be told, we actually never knew what the future held, but I think, prior to January 2020, we deluded ourselves more successfully than we can now.  I imagine some of us--maybe many of us--find ourselves asking existential questions in this strange in-between place: now that the world has changed, what should I do?  What am I here for?  What is the meaning of all this?  And maybe most urgently: Will this ever end?  This is the most adventy-Advent we’ve probably ever experienced.  The expectation, the waiting, the holding of our collective breath.  In the big picture of our lives right now, the scandal of God entering human life through the humble Mary is maybe the least of our worries, the most grounding thing we’ve heard this week, the least scandalous thing we’ve heard in a while.  But her acceptance of God’s call to bear Jesus and her joy in the midst of a very strange situation might be illuminating for us today. 

For while the story of the angel Gabriel’s visit to Mary, her eventual pregnancy, and even the birth of Jesus seem commonplace to us, her actual experience of all these events must have been very strange, very disorienting.  It’s hard to imagine how that conversation went with her parents, with Joseph, with the village women.  One day, she was doing the things every woman her age in that place did; the next day, she was to bear the Son of God.  When she rushes to the home of Elizabeth who calls her “the mother of my Lord,” Mary rejoices.  She rejoices.  In a dizzying reorientation of her life, she rejoices—and gives her life over to the call of God.

In my home hangs a piece of art someone who is part of the Grace community gave me a few years ago.  The words printed there inspired for me this Advent poem that, I think, reflects the joy of Mary.

No one has ever become poor by giving.

I puzzle over these words

taking them literally.

Surely, if we give enough,

we reach the end

of our finite resources.

Yet we give more than money

and need more than money.

The oft-repeated lie

of this and many cultures is:

Money is all you need.

But my friend taught me,

my friend who is poor in cash but rich in love,

“It’s just money.”

There is more.

Jesus tells us:

We do not live by bread alone.

Perhaps he meant the eternal,

but I mean love.

We do not become poor by giving.

Somehow, we grow rich

in love, in joy, in purpose.

The oft-repeated lie

isolates

isolates

isolates

until, stripped bare, the one

who had always received

has nothing

and no one.

No one has ever become poor by giving.

So, give your life away.

Give and give and give.

Even in poverty, you will know abundance.

Thanks be to God!  Amen.

The GLOW Show: Theological ABCs on Free Will

During fall 2021, we explore Theological ABCs from a Lutheran perspective! Each week, we define and discuss the words that shape our faith and their meanings. Today, we lift up F for FREE WILL and explore with the help of Reformer of the Church Martin Luther circa 16th century Germany. Enjoy!

Sermon for Sunday, December 12

Day of the Church Year: 3rd Sunday of Advent

Scripture Passage: Luke 3:7-18

John the Baptist tells the crowd, the tax collectors, the soldiers not to rest on their laurels, not to trust only in their heritage, not to assume they are entitled to God’s favor.  Bear fruits worthy of repentance, he warns, for trees that do not bear fruit will be cut down.  John’s declaration in metaphor is fiery enough without explicitly stating his warning.  The crowd, the tax collectors, the soldiers get it, so they ask him: What then should we do?

Repentance is one of those words we bandy about in Christian circles.  When I hear the word “repentance,” what comes to mind for me is Sunday morning worship, the quiet as we consider our sins during confession, the time when I remember how I have fallen short, the space where I feel sad or ashamed or guilty.  While feeling sorry may be part of the process of repentance, it is not the whole of it.  In Greek, the word metanoia, that we translate as “repentance,” means literally turning around.  We have done this here at Grace before.  We have stood and faced the front of the worship space and then repented, turned and faced the back of the worship space.  If we were to walk, we would walk in the opposite direction.  That is repentance, turning around, heading the opposite direction.  And the crowds, the tax collectors, the soldiers appear to understand so intuitively John’s use of the word metanoia that they ask: What then should we do?  Because they know that repentance is not just about remembering their sin and feeling sorry.  They know that repentance includes action. 

I want to be clear: feeling guilt or shame is not repentance.  You may be familiar with the work of social work researcher Brene Brown who, in part, studies shame; her work is all over the internet.  She distinguishes between guilt and shame this way.  Guilt is: I did something bad.  Shame is: I am something bad.  Guilt is focus on action.  Shame is focus on self.  Guilt is usually adaptive; that is, it helps us see what we’ve done and what we want to do differently.  Shame, on the other hand, can destroy us because we believe that, at our core, we are defective.  If shame has gotten a hold of you, hear the good news: you are a good tree.  At our root, we are all good trees.  (Haha)  Jesus will tell us so in the Sermon on the Plain a few chapters later.  Regardless, neither guilt nor shame are repentance.  Feeling badly either about ourselves or about our actions is not repentance.  Repentance is an action that seeks the answer to the very question the crowds, the tax collectors, the soldiers ask: What then should we do? 

By the grace of God, I can now identity when I am in the middle of a shame-storm and can offer myself compassion, which is the antidote to shame, by the way.  That’s a handy tip.  Compassion is the antidote to shame.  But guilt, guilt and I are old friends.  The most mundane example may also be the most vivid and the most common.  I speak of our email inbox, friends.  Perhaps, for you, it’s your voicemail or your to-do list on your refrigerator.  For me, it’s my email inbox.  I have a strict rule about my inbox, no more than 30 emails in my inbox.  I have an elaborate and effective filing system, but in my inbox, there’s usually at least one email, maybe two, that I just / can’t / fully / answer.  It sits there, day after day, sometimes week after week.  To be perfectly honest, the oldest email in my inbox currently is from January 2020.  That was before the pandemic started.  That was a long time ago.  I read and responded to the email initially, of course, but I kept it in my inbox because it requires further action.  And I haven’t taken the action yet.  Obviously, it’s not urgent, but every time I open my email, there it is.  Oh, the guilt, the nagging-at-the-edge-of-my-mind-guilt.  I would like to be a person who doesn’t wait nearly two years to fully answer an email. 

I suspect that, for many of us, there are aspects of our lives a bit like that two year old email just sitting in my inbox.  We don’t want it there anymore.  We bury it under whatever we can so that we don’t have to face it. Whatever the thing is, an unhealthy habit, a grudge, a secret or a lie, we feel guilty about it.  The thing, the unanswered email, is just sitting there.  We feel badly.  We don’t quite know what to do about it.  Because we have felt stuck, ashamed, tangled up in it for so long. 

Later in the gospel of Luke, we’ll hear the story of Zacchaeus.  Perhaps you remember the song about this wee little man, and please join me if you do:

Zacchaeus was a wee, little man,
And a wee, little man was he.
He climbed up in a sycamore tree,
For the Lord he wanted to see.

And as the Savior passed that way,
He looked up in the tree,

(Spoken) And he said, "Zaccheus, you come down,"

For I'm going to your house today.
For I'm going to your house today.

As chief tax collector, Zacchaeus charges those from whom he gathers taxes more than the state requires and pockets the rest.  When Jesus tells him to come down from the tree, when Jesus tells him that he will go to Zacchaeus’ home, Zacchaeus reveals a weight of shame and guilt in his life: his financial exploitation of the people.  To Jesus, he declares he will give half of his possessions to the poor and give back four-fold to anyone he has defrauded.  Repentance frees Zacchaeus. 

Repentance frees us.  When we actually take the action that resolves the problem, when we do the thing that needs to be done, when we repent, we are freed.  The email answered, the unhealthy habit discussed with our doctor, the grudge forgiven, the secret shared, the lie confessed, relationships repaired across the board.  Repentance, taking the action that heads us in the opposite direction, is at once both what God requires and the good news God declares.  Bear fruits worthy of repentance, John the Baptist cries.  Not as a threat but as a promise.

What then should we do?  John the Baptist points the crowd in the direction of generosity, points the tax collectors in the direction of honesty, points the soldiers in the direction of integrity.  And John points everyone in the direction of Jesus, the One who is to come.  Fundamentally, Jesus comes to free us, and so, John paves the way for the One who will douse all our shame with compassion and rouse us to a life of love and service that wakes us from the slumber of inaction...or unanswered emails.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

The GLOW Show: Theological ABCs on Forgiveness

During fall 2021, we explore Theological ABCs from a Lutheran perspective! Each week, we define and discuss the words that shape our faith and their meanings. Today, we lift up F for FORGIVENESS with the help of Pastor Beth Gallen. Enjoy!