A Humble Start

Matthew 1:1-17

Even the most stable family Christmas celebration has the potential to call to mind a Dickens’ novel, and I don’t mean A Christmas Carol. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Let’s be honest. Family is LOVELY, but family is hard. The people who are closest to you, who can bring you the greatest joy and comfort and solace, are also the people who can bring you the greatest frustration or sadness or despair. Family is LOVELY, but family is hard. Family is messy, and in the truth of that statement is another case of “nothing is new under the sun.”


Jesus’ genealogy testifies to the fact that family is messy; it reads like a modern soap opera. It has its high points for sure. There are the early patriarchs of the faith, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Toward the middle we here about the family of God’s chosen first king over Israel, David with his father Jesse and his son, the wise king Solomon. Later in the generations are men with names like Zadok, meaning “righteous,” and Eliakim, meaning “the one who God will raise up.” It was the best of times!

But also tucked in there among the great heroes of the faith, it was the worst of times. Jesus’ family tree isn’t always one that a king would want publicized. In fact, it’s surprising that Matthew would even bother with the genealogy at all with some of the stories that turn up in the list. Jesus’ family isn’t squeaky clean. Whose is? In Jesus’ ancestors there are affairs and abuse, marriages to women from “the wrong side of the tracks” and marriages based on lies and trickery. Yet even still Matthew chose to write it right here at the beginning of the telling of the Jesus’ birth, and maybe even more confusingly, I chose to read it right here on Christmas Eve.

Unlike Luke’s nativity story, which is probably more familiar, there isn’t an obvious dramatic flair in Matthew’s telling. Luke has an older barren woman conceiving her first child; her husband a righteous prophet doesn’t believe the news and is struck mute until the baby, another important prophet, is born. Then on the other end of the spectrum a young girl, betrothed but not married also conceives a child. She sings her heart and God’s out with inexplicable joy. There’s a journey, a birth, a whole heavenly host of angels.

Luke has all this, but Matthew starts his book a completely different way. Without heralding angels or a worldwide census, he gives us a little family history. He isn’t first concerned with Jesus’ worldwide impact in his telling of the birth; instead he sets out to tell a family story. So to begin his nativity story, Matthew tells us from where Jesus comes. He tells us what Jesus was getting into. Jesus didn’t come into a perfect family, as if the perfect family even exists. But by laying out all his family secrets, by airing out his familial dirty laundry, Matthew shows us exactly what Jesus does. He does what the angel says his name declares - -Jesus saves.

Jesus saves. The Messiah, the chosen one of God, comes into the world shrouded in secrecy and confusion, mystery and shame. He humbly comes into the world born as a baby into a family full of all the stuff that families are full of, and from within this family, the human family, Jesus saves us all. He gives life to the lifeless. He rescues those in danger. He redeems the most scandalous stories of Scripture by coming directly out of them.

Very few of us, I’m guessing, have lives that are picture perfect. Very few of us, I’m guessing, can say that everything is going exactly the way we had hoped and dreamed and planned. Life just tends not to work that way. Sickness gets in the way, tragedy gets in the way. The economy gets in the way; broken relationships get in the way. And even if right now it seems like things are going smoothly, and if that’s the case fully enjoy it and live into it, but even if right now it seems like things are going smoothly, Jesus’ family tree reminds us that there are the best of times and the worst of times. Yet into all of these times, Jesus comes.

Jesus comes right into the middle of our very messy lives. Jesus is born right in the middle of our celebrations and our scandals, our prosperity and our pain. Jesus is born right in the middle of it all in order to bring God’s love and God’s grace to us right where and when we need it. Jesus is born right in the middle of a messy messy family situation, but his birth is God’s sign and God’s promise the be present in and redeem the messiest of them all.

This is the promise of Christmas. No matter how confusing and painful our lives may be, or on the other end of the spectrum no matter how joyful and ecstatic we are feeling, we are never outside the reach of God in Jesus our Christ, Jesus who was born to save us. He took on the human condition, even to the smallest detail of birth as a humble, helpless child, and in becoming one of us he has redeemed all of us. For this we give our humble thanks and praise. Amen.

A Social Network Christmas

This video has been a little bit of EVERYWHERE the last few days, and I finally bothered to click on it and watch. The techie-minded among us will like it most. Enjoy!!

Mary's Song, Mary's Sermon

Luke 1:39-55

Our kids love playing with the Little People nativity set that my parents gave them during Advent a couple of years ago. Unlike the Little People farm and castle and even the Little People Noah's ark, the figurines and the stable for the nativity set can't be found littering our house year round. They are kept packed away in boxes with other Christmas items, not just the ornaments and decorations, but many of the children's Christmas books and music, pulled out only for a special 6 weeks of the year. When the stable and figures come out there is hardly a day that goes by when the story isn't told and the people aren't moved around into another tableau depicting the birth of Jesus.

But some of those tableaus aren't your traditional arrangements. Sometimes characters from other of the world's favorite stories show up to see the baby in the manger. You shouldn't be surprised to see Cinderella or Spiderman at the Anthony family creche. A few Nebraska football players have even lined up, leading us, one year, to snap this ironic picture of Lord visiting the Lord.

Earlier this month, though, this was the picture I took of the nativity set. The pieces weren't gathered in their usual spot, in the stable topped with the angel. Instead they were fixed around another favorite toy in our house, the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, which gave a stage-like setting to the whole picture. Karoline saw me looking at what was apparently her creation, taking pictures of it, and told me what was going on here.

"That's Mary preaching, Mom," she said. (Only a pastor's daughter, right?) "That's Mary preaching, Mom, and Baby Jesus helping when she's telling them all why Jesus was born." Out of the mouths of babes, right? Mary probably never imagined herself "preaching," but in the beautiful song she sings to her cousin Elizabeth she proclaims the good news of God's salvation as passionately, joyfully, and graciously as any of the world's greatest preachers past, present, or future.

We heard a couple of weeks ago about Joseph, and I shared how I totally understand why he was afraid about the news he received concerning Mary. Afraid, and I imagine and understand, also angry. Well, if Joseph's fear is understandable, even more would we expect fear from Mary. Joseph had his future to worry about; Mary's LIFE was at stake. She could have been left on her own without the protection of a husband or father at best, or at worst stoned to death, because of her pregnancy.

Fear and confusion, and because she was a much stronger woman than I would ever be in that situation, gratitude carry her to the house of Zechariah and Elizabeth. She is pregnant, apparently by the grace and blessing of God, but she is unmarried. She has been allowed to live, but her life most likely came with ridicule and bullying. It's a situation that begs for an escape to the hill country, but even in the middle of all this, somehow Mary can sing, and somehow Mary can preach.

She preaches as one who has been made lowly by her life situation. She preaches from her experience as one who is at the bottom of the social ladder. She preaches as one who is unjustly poor. She preaches as one who hungers for companionship and protection. She preaches as one who needs help, has begged for mercy, and whose life depends on the very promises of God that she recites to the rest of us, the promises she knows God will keep even in her own lifetime.

And for that reason while her preaching is on the one hand passionate and joyful and grace-filled, it is on the other hand utterly subversive, even revolutionary. That's not the image we usually have of Mary, a revolutionary, because often we spiritualize what she sang. We take the wind out of her sails by softening her song. We turn her declaration of her own lowliness into a statement about her spiritual humility, but it is nothing of the sort. It is an honest assessment of her political and social humiliation. We make the meaning of her words match the popular images of her, a delicate porcelain-skinned, blue draped figurine, soft and gentle, passive and subtle.

But there is nothing passive or subtle about what Mary says to Elizabeth. From her experience and her memory she tells us that God has a heart for those who have nothing. God's way is to lift up those who have been cast aside by society and scatter those who think too highly of themselves over other. God feeds those who are empty and sends away those who come greedily seeking more of what they already have while others are lacking. God pulls powerful oppressors out of power, and supports and empowers those who are weak.

Mary declares in full voice that God has biases. God is on the side of the poor. That's why this is so revolutionary. The reigning theory that material wealth is a sign of extra blessing from God, a closer relationship to the divine is not a 21st century curse. It was the usual understanding even in Mary's time. The idea was and too often still is that God rewards with money and protects those whom God loves the most. But Mary sings and preaches the complete opposite. She sings of revolution.

It was the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer who stated, before he was killed by the Nazis, "The song of Mary is the oldest Advent hymn. It is at once the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy, Mary whom we sometimes see in paintings....This song is not one of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols. It is instead a hard, strong, inexorable song about collapsing thrones and humbled lords of this world, about the power of God and the powerlessness of humankind." (quoted in the sermon "Mary: Prophet of the Poor" by Rev. Dr. Byron E. Shafer preached Dec. 21, 2003 www.rutgerschurch.com/sermons/sermon122103.html; referencing an article by Elizabeth A. Johnson, C. S. J., "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary" in U. S. Catholic, Dec. 2003)

Mary's words are not tender and mild words from a sedate and compliant expectant mother. These are words of challenge, words of engagement; these are words of revolution intended to bolster those who are pushed down, ignored, and tossed aside. They are words meant to rally sentiment and support, words meant to inspire action to change the world. It's no wonder, then, that in the 1980s the government of Guatemala prohibited the public reading of the subversive Magnificat.

They understood the power of Mary's words. They understood the threat of her ideas and preaching to their position of authority. Her words and God's bias are against them, powerful oppressors. If Jesus is Lord, and that's the Christmas message, then the kings and emperors of this world are not. Merciless and greedy governments and leaders of this and any day and age are not the final authority. According to Mary, God is NOT on their side.

Like Karoline said, Mary preaches to tell us why Jesus came. Mary testifies to what God has done for her in her child Jesus, and she magnifies that, she expands that to tell us that what God has done for her, God will do for the world in her child Jesus. In Jesus God will lift up those who are considered lowly. In Jesus God will bring down the powerful, the oppressors, those who lord their authority over others. In Jesus God will show us that true authority comes not from power that is misused and abused, but from service and love and freedom. In Jesus God will fill up the hungry with food that is long overdue and send away those who have kept it from them. In Jesus God will free the people of this earth that are bound up and gagged and silenced by culture expectations and ungodly prejudices. In Jesus, Mary sings, God has done this for her. In Jesus, Mary sings, God will do this for the world.

What we have done when we have softened Mary's words, toned them down to fit our image of the round yon virgin, is that we have taken away their call to action. We have taken away there sense of urgency that is meant to push us into the service of THIS God, God who lifts up the poor and helpless, God who fills the hungry, God who crashes down authorities who don't do the same. What we have done when we have softened Mary's words is give ourselves an excuse not to get involved, when really what Mary is singing about, what Mary is preaching about and God is calling us to is complete involvement.

The Guatemalan government realized something important. They realized Mary's words had power. They realized the poor of their naition might hear these words and believe what is true, believe what seems impossible - - that God is on their side, God has come to save them. And in realizing this the Guatemalan government realized that the converse must also be true. They were the ones God would bring down from their powerful thrones. When we soften Mary's words, when we spiritualize them and strip them of their revolutionary power, it's my guess that we do it because deep inside we have figured out on what side of this we are find ourselves.

Most of us are not hungry with the kind and depth of hunger about which Mary sings. Most of us are not poor to the extent she was. Most of us are not so oppressed that laws have to be repealed in order for us to live and serve openly and freely before one another. No most of us here today are not on THAT side of Mary's song, and so Mary's sermon becomes particularly important for us.

It becomes for us a wake-up call. It becomes for us a call to action, a call to transformation, even a call to repentance. It becomes a sermon in the style of that better known Advent preacher, John the Baptist. Repent, he says, for the kingdom of God is near. Make straight your paths. The Lord is coming. The Lord is coming and he is on the other side. Jesus is coming and Mary is urging us to get on the right side - - the side of the hungry, the side of the oppressed, the side of those who are pushed aside and ignored and imprisoned.

Later in our service we're going to sing a hymn about "Gentle Mary." I had my reservations about picking that hymn, or any of our hymns about Mary. They stylize her in way that is very different from the words she sang to Elizabeth. Instead of showing her as a fearless advocate of the poor and oppressed, they depict her as a subdued, pious mother, doting on her newborn son. But in the end I think the paradox of these two images is appropriate. For the God who has brought down the powerful from their thrones and filled the hungry with food is the God who was born of a human woman, the God who came to earth as a helpless child. If it can be true about God whom she worships and magnifies, it can also be true about Mary. Out of the same love and passion she bore for her baby, she sang with love and compassion for the helpless of the world. Gentle Mary who lovingly and tenderly cared for her infant son, is also the bold and revolutionary Mary who calls for justice, true justice, and righteousness, for the up-ending of world systems and the lifting up of the poor. This is the Mary who preaches to us, sings to us, and invites us to share in her prayers and actions for the world.

So, yes, I debated about whether we should sing about "Gentle Mary," since I think the word she preaches is anything, but gentle. However, we will sing it because before we sing it, we will sing Mary's not-so-gentle words. We will sing her words of power, her words of revolution, her words of a world that will be changed and turned upside down by the child she carries in her womb. We will sing her sermon and in singing it we will magnify her words, we will magnify her God and our God, and preach along with her what God does in Jesus, our Christ, Jesus our Lord.

Together let's make Mary's song our own. As you are able, please stand and sing Hymn #600, the Song of Mary.

Christmas Words

Christ
Hope
Renewal
Incarnation
Savior
Truth
Messiah
Alleluia
Servant

These are words that reflect for me the true meaning of Christmas! In some cases the words refer to the season, in others they refer to Jesus himself, and in a few cases they can even refer to both. I am not going to tell you which ones are which-I’ll let the words themselves do the “talking.”

What is the true meaning of Christmas for you and your family? What words come to mind when you think of Christmas? I encourage you to try the above “exercise” and share your words with your family or friends. If you would like to share them with me I would love to see them!

May your Christmas be filled with joy and love!

Looking for Light

I downloaded some new Christmas music this year because my old CDs are who knows where in our house. Even if I found them, it's time to update my collection a little and find some new favorites. I discovered a new carol from one of the albums that I bought, but I didn't know much about it. Jody helped me do a little research about this song, "The Cherry Tree Carol."

It's a folk carol really. It's history is a little murky. Some date it back to the 15th century, but others claim its from the 18th. I learned that the roots of the story in the carol are actually more ancient than either of those dates, though, coming from the first few centuries of the church's existence, from a gospel account that is not contained in our Scriptures. In the carol Mary and Joseph are traveling to Bethlehem where she will eventually deliver her child. Along the way the expectant mother Mary is hungry and asks Joseph to stop and get her a cherry from an orchard they are passing, for the baby. Joseph snaps back bitterly, telling her to let the child's father get him a cherry to eat.

It's a sweet sounding carol when you hear it, but when you listen to the words.... Well, there's a lot of anger and bitterness in them really. And I don't know about you, but I get that. I get a depiction of Joseph as angry about the situation in which he found himself. He was a righteous man. He hadn't done anything wrong. He was respecting the betrothal period, waiting for Mary to become his wife. He was doing everything exactly right when suddenly, out of the blue, he is told his fiancé, the woman he was SUPPOSED to be marrying, is pregnant, and he knows it's not his child. Anger like that in "The Cherry Tree Carol" sounds about right.

Anger and fear. Who would believe him? Would the men at the synagogue still trust him? Would those who counted him among the righteous now look down their noses at him, dismiss him, disrespect him? Would they even do business with him?

And what were his choices? The law said he could be rid of her, divorce her if he's nice, even have her stoned if he so desired. So even if he was rid of Mary, would they let him back in their circles? Was he already marked as a weak man? And if he stayed with her would they look at him as stupid, taken advantage of by his wandering wife? Would he ever have a place in the community again?

Do not be afraid. "Right," Joseph must have thought when he awoke from his CRAZY dream. Do not be afraid. Don't be afraid! It's just your fiancé who is pregnant. Don't be afraid! I know it's not yours. Don't be afraid! It's just a baby made by God. Don't be afraid! Keep your wife; keep your baby. It'll all work, and he'll even save the people. Don't worry. Don't be afraid. Right. Sure, he must have been thinking.

Well, of course, he was afraid. He was scared out of his mind. Who wouldn't be? His life was a mess. Nothing was the way he imagined it would be. Nothing was going according to his well thought out, his well deserved plans. His relationships were a mess. His place in the community with his friends was uncertain. His ability to work, to provide for himself and this family, if he were to choose to accept it, was in complete jeopardy. His life was in utter turmoil; he was being consumed by the suffocating darkness of fear.

When I am at a beach, I like to go out in the ocean past the place where the waves break. Some people like to wait for waves and ride them in on boards or their bodies, but I like to swim past them and just ride the big swells while they are gaining energy, before they spill over into the crashing white froth. But to get out to those rolling waves, you have to go past the crashing ones, and that isn't always easy.

At least once every visit to the beach a wave will get the best of me. Either I don't jump early enough or I don't duck under it all the way, and the wave will catch me and toss me violently under the water. When that happens you lose all sense of direction. Salt water seeps into your eyes that are squeezed tightly shut. It drips into your mouth and rolls around on your tongue. It burns as it sneaks up your nose and down the back of your throat. The rush of water tossing you around fills your ears, and worst of all, there is total darkness, total disorientation, and no matter how many times it has happened to you, no matter how many times you have survived this momentary nightmare, there is this gut-grabbing fear.

This Advent world we live in is like this, too. It's like Joseph's world. It's an uncertain place. It's a world where relationships are messy, even painful. It's a world where our jobs are insecure. It's a world where betrayal breeds mistrust, where the ones we hope are righteous seem careless, where people make decisions out of anger and fear. People are going hungry. People are tossed around systems and cities, cold, disoriented, and lonely. People are at war with one another. It's a world, where like winter, the days only seem darker and darker as they pass, suffocating us with worry and anxiety.

It is a panicky situation. Disoriented, its hard to figure out which way is up, which way will take us back to the surface. Thrown about by powerful tides it's difficult to know which way to turn to put the sandy ocean floor below our feet again. It's terrifying, facing these violent days that threaten our comfort, our security, our faith.

Yet, like Joseph, we are challenged to hear the angel's words, "Do not be afraid." While he tossed and turned in his restless sleep, he was reassured by a divine vision, "Do not be afraid." Like a child stumbling around in the dark, trying to find his way to his mother's calming arms. Like a swimmer opening her eyes, even just a crack, letting the salt water sting for just a little while she peeks looking, hoping for a glimmer of light - - "Do not be afraid." The light tells you which way is up. The light reorients you, gives you the direction to go. The light carries you to surface where there is air and freedom and life.

Joseph was a righteous man. He was a human man. He wasn't above anger. He wasn't above fear. He was a human being facing his worst nightmare, and his first response was completely understandable - - get out of here. But then he saw the glimmer. In his darkest night he saw the light of God's love shimmering even in the middle of his pain. Even in the middle of his deepest fears, he opened his eyes, opened his life to the light that would bring him up to the surface, the light that would save him carry him from despair.

Do not be afraid for the child is Emmanuel, God with us. Do not be afraid because he is God's presence, God's life. Do not be afraid because every pain you feel, every loss you mourn, even anxiety you experience, you will experience with him at your side. Do not be afraid. You are not alone. We are not alone. The world has not been abandoned, left to suffer in darkness. Do not be afraid because God sends a savior to accompany us, to heal us, to carry us into God's marvelous light. Do not be afraid. God is with us.

Dwelling in Advent

Hands down, Advent is my favorite time of the Christian year. Traditionally pastors and churches will focus their Advent celebrations on the themes of hope, peace, joy, and love, but I think most of all I get caught up in the hope more than the others.

Christmas is a glorious celebration, but the commercial version of it has gotten superficial; it has become inauthentic in many ways. The commercial version of Christmas paints a picture that is rosier than many people face. It’s a round-bellied, chortling man who gives us any wish we can dream. It’s a table full of good food and scrumptious smells, joyful carols in the background. It’s a sweet-cheeked chubby baby cooing and gurgling in the hay.

The commercial version of Christmas forgets that there are bellies that will not be full. There are places in the world where food is scarce and water is dangerous to consume. There are babies who aren’t warmly received into their families, abused or worse. The commercial version of Christmas has little important to say to these realities of life.

That’s why I love Advent. In Advent there is room for the tragedies of life. In Advent there are people crying out for God’s justice, God’s intervention. In Advent there are questions about who God is and what God will do, but there are also answers. And in the answers there are promises. Advent is a season of hope.

It is a time when we recognize that right now the world is not a perfect place. Right now there is pain and suffering and sighing. Right now things aren’t going the way we would like, but there is still hope. As unlikely as it was for that young mother Mary to become pregnant, keep her betrothed, travel to a new city, give birth in a stable, and raise her child under Roman oppression, by the grace of God it all happened. As unlikely as it was for him to preach, teach, minister and heal, speaking and acting out against the religious and civil leaders, by the grace of God it all happened. As incredibly unlikely as it was for him to be humiliated, killed, but then rise again from the dead, by the grace of God it happened, and because of this we can have hope.

We can have hope, confidence in the promises that are yet to be fulfilled, that God is conquering poverty, hunger, and injustice. We can have hope that God is defeating oppression and sin, even sin in our own lives. We can have hope darkness cannot overcome the Light of the world, Jesus whose birth we celebrate this year. Dwell this year in Advent for a little while. Face the realities of life around us with hope in Christ our Lord.

The 'S' Word

Isaiah 58:6-14
1 Peter 4:8-11

The believers were a minority in their communities. To fully practice their faith they had to make difficult decisions about their priorities. The world didn’t stop because the followers of Jesus wanted to get up before dawn on Sunday, a regular workday, to celebrate the resurrection. Some of them met in secret out of fear of physical or social harm. Not too many people were making the kind of commitment they were making with their lives and their livelihood.

Taxes were due, there were bills that needed to be paid, hungry mouths to feed, yet still there was this expectation among the people of this faith at least some of their money would be pooled together to take care of people in need. It was probably viewed as downright foolish to turn over what you rightly owned to share it with others, even send it off to some other place for some other people. They were likely mocked, criticized by their neighbors for blindly giving what they earned to someone speaking some nonsense about new life, new birth, and grace. It was like they didn't even belong to the same world.

Earlier in his letter, the apostle Peter tries to encourage them in their difficult position saying, "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy." Yet the difficult truth comes out when he continues, "I urge you as aliens and exiles."

Some say there isn’t a huge difference between the communities that received Peter’s letters and our own. We, too, are resident aliens. We live in this geographic place and this historical time, but our spiritual citizenship is of another world. When we choose to live according to the rules of God's kngdom instead of the false rules set by the culture, there are plenty of people who will look at how we live and what we believe as complete foolishness. We are living in a world that in some ways isn't all that different from the era of the early church. And the instruction that Peter gave them for living as strangers in their own land is important instruction for us, too.

Peter uses a familiar institution, the household, to teach about this new and foreign life of discipleship. The minor problem is what we call a household and what Peter calls a household aren’t necessarily the same. To Peter a household is more than just a couple or a family and maybe some pets. To him a household is a family, even more extended than we would usually consider, with a clear head or authority (usually a man, but not always) and ALL of the people, relatives, servants, slaves, and contract workers who work for the single head of household. The workers are under the authority of the head in more than just business matters. In the Acts of the Apostles when entire households are baptized, converted to the Christian faith, this includes those workers in the house who may not be related to the master. The workers are more than just employees; they are part of the household. Their success and failure is wrapped up in the success and failure of the whole household.

Peter’s instructions for discipleship in a foreign culture reiterate that our household is not of this world. Our citizenship is in another world. Our household is the household of God, and in it we are called to be, in the Greek, oikonomos. In English it breaks down to mean house manager. Our Bible translation uses the word "steward" in this case. Be good stewards, good managers in God’s household. Not owners, but managers, looking over and caring for the property of the master.

Important to the understanding of our call as stewards is the understanding that while stewards have a VERY important job of management and in Jesus' parables even the job of investing and growing the property of the master, stewards are not the owners of that which they manage. We have a lot of responsibility for that what is in our care, but our job is not to care for it according to our own desires and wishes; our job as stewards is to carry out the mission and will of the true owner, our master.

As Christians we are called to be the stewards of God’s gifts of grace in the world, gifts that manifest themselves in many different ways. Traditionally, the church often talks about gifts of time, talent, and treasure. Although we talked about it with different language, much of last winter and spring our congregation was engaged in discerning how we would be good stewards of God's gifts of time and talent, both as individuals and as a congregation. Together we learned that God has placed particular gifts and graces in our midst and calls us to be stewards of them for divine purposes.

Now it is time for us to look individually and as a community at the gifts of "treasure" that have been placed in our hands. This is when we all start to squirm in our seats, right? The "S" word is about to be uttered. It's that stewardship season, that stewardship sermon and someone's going to get up there and start talking about money!

At some point in our cultural development it became taboo to talk about money in polite circles. And at some point in that same development the church became, at least in theory, a "polite circle." I have heard more than one congregation boast about the fact that "you will never hear anyone talk about money in our church." As a pastor trying to live out my call I have felt pressure to be one of those who keeps the financial talk to a minimum. I confess that I have fallen to that pressure, and I think it is at a disservice to God, my call, and the people I am called to serve.

Money is never off limits as a topic of spiritual concern in Scripture. Directions for offerings for a multitude of reasons are all over the Old Testament. There are offerings for when a child is born, when a disease is healed, when crops are brought in, when seeds are planted.

There are offerings to thank God for blessings that have come and curses that have stayed away, thank offerings for prayers answered and pleas that have been heard. Isaiah, probably the most familiar prophet, especially in this Advent season, talked about offering in a different way in this morning’s reading. He talked about giving for the good of the community, giving that brings pleasure to God, as a fast, a sacrifice, that is also good for the spiritual life of the giver.

And in the New Testament, Jesus probably talks about money more than any other single topic throughout the gospels. Paul and the other apostles in Acts and the various letters also talk about the blessing and responsibility of giving money to God's greater purposes. Yet at some point, our understanding of God's call on our finances was lost. The church and members of it, like the culture around us, started to see money as a private matter - - maybe a matter between each of us and God, if God was involved in the equation at all. The mainstream church became quiet on the subject, and almost all sense of each of us as stewards of God's grace was virtually lost.

In a forum for pastors that I was reading recently, I learned how one expert suggests that pastors of churches should work to end this silence and lead by example. He says pastors should tell their congregations exactly what they give. Now I don't think it's just the culturally-influenced silence that will keep me from doing that today. I simply don't know what our household's dollar amount will add to the conversation, but what I do want to share, and so you know, Phil has agreed to let me share this with you, is how we figure what we will give and why.

We are not yet biblical tithers, meaning we don't yet give a full 10% of our combined incomes to the church and other places where God is at work in the world. However, we do consciously and prayerfully discern our pledge and our giving as a percentage of our incomes, making steps to increase that percentage each year, whether or not we receive raises in our jobs. And although we give in other ways and to other organizations throughout the year when we feel led by the Spirit, we have decided, for a time, to eliminate any pledges to groups outside of the church in order that we can focus on increasing our stewardship in the place we feel God is calling us right now.

We do this not because it is our duty and not as a payment for services rendered. We do this because it is a spiritual discipline. It is something that brings us closer to God because it is a way to continually reestablish our dependence on God, reacknowledge God's sovereignty over our lives and all that is in them. Thinking about our pledges in terms of a percentage of the total gift we hold in trust for God makes stewardship of our money less intimidating and helps us make steps each year to grow in our giving and in our faith in significant and measurable ways.

You may have noticed on the pledge cards that have been prepared this year a chart to help you think about percentage giving. I encourage you, as a spiritual discipline, to figure out where you are on the chart as you are discerning your pledge this year. Where is God calling you to be in your pledge for the next year? Is it possible God might be challenging you to further dependence on God, calling you to give one percentage point more?

Yes, many mainline congregations have lost their voices when it comes to talking about the role of the faithful as God's stewards who manage the gifts of God for the purposes of God, the spiritual nature of seeking God's purposes with the money entrusted to us. But we can't let that continue to happen. And I don't say that because this or any congregation has a building to pay for and a budget to balance. Truly, I don't. I say it because it is a part of who we are as God's people, as a holy nation, living under the authority of the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. It is a part of what we do as God’s children, called to make sacrifices that God chooses, sacrifices that give shelter to the homeless, share food with the hungry, and clothe the naked.

I say it because we have been created by God to be a part of God's mission and work in the world. All that there is around us and within us is part of God's creation, is owned by God. All that we are and all that we have is not ours, but is God's. Our days, our abilities, our minds, and our lives, yes, even our money - - it isn't ours at all; it is God's. We have just been given it to manage for a time, to invest and spend on God's purposes for us and for the world.

This is why we give. All of it comes from God. All of it belongs to God. We give because it is a part of our full commitment to Christ who by being born on this earth displayed his full commitment to us. By his grace, we are called to be stewards in God’s household. We honor our master by returning a portion of what is hardly ours to keep, by committing it to God's work in the world.

This isn't the kind of giving that, as they say, wins friends and influences people. This isn't the kind of giving that helps us fit in with the mainstream culture. Our culture is one that values independent decision-making more than shared discernment, personal advancement more than compassionate communities, and ownership more than just about anything else. To treat God's graces of time, talent, and treasure as anything other than ours is going to raise a few eyebrows and point us out as what Peter already knows we are - - resident aliens, in this world, but not of this world. Yet it is what we are called to do as the people of God, those who lived in a land of deep darkness, on whom a light has now shined.

It is what we can do to maintain love for one another and all of God’s children. It is how we can show our gratitude to God who comes to walk among us, even to be born as helpless child, dependent on the gifts and hospitality of others. It is what we are called to do, and when we do it, when we live as good stewards of the grace of God, it is not because of our own strength, it is because of the strength God supplies through Jesus Christ. To him belong the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen