In the names given to this Child – Jesus, Emmanuel – we find all we need for new life and refreshed spirits as we begin a new year in God’s care and love.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The feast of the Name of Jesus
   texts:  Luke 2:15-21; Psalm 8; Galatians 4:4-7

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

There’s some confusion (maybe only in my mind) about why we’re celebrating Eucharist today.

For much of the world, today is New Year’s Day. It’s likely the tradition of worshipping at Mount Olive on January 1st was originally a New Year’s celebration. Many German Lutheran congregations in America have long standing New Year’s worship traditions, either Eve or Day.

Today is also the feast of the Name of Jesus. Our liturgy is focused on that, not necessarily New Year’s. This is eight days after Jesus’ birth, the day of his circumcision and naming under Jewish law, as Luke said. For centuries Lutherans and Anglicans called today the feast of the Circumcision and the Name of Jesus. For some reason, in the late 1970s in both traditions the title was shortened (no pun intended) to simply “the Name of Jesus.”

It’s no coincidence there’s a Church feast on the first of January, either. From at least the 7th century today has been a Church holiday. Probably because from the second century BC onward the Romans had a major pagan New Year’s festival on this day, and the Church is always fond of transforming such things rather than banning them. We did it for Christmas, after all.

So are you here because it’s New Year’s Day and you want to begin the new year at worship, asking God’s blessing on the year to come? Or are you deeply inspired and moved by the story of Jesus’ circumcision and naming and must be at worship to celebrate that? Or do you desperately need another festival of Christ even though it’s only been eight days since Christmas?

Maybe we can eat our cake and have it, too. We can take the sanitized title for this day and consider why we might want to celebrate the name given this child, and in so doing might also find grace to carry with us into a new year on this planet.

But we have to deal with one other little confusion. This child was actually given two names.

The feast is called “the name of Jesus,” and Jesus is the name we know best.

Both Mary and Joseph are told to call him this, and Joseph is given the explanation: because he will “save his people from their sins.” The name means, “God saves.”

It’s a good name, but we might have missed the depth of what it means. We talk about Jesus “saving us from our sins” often simply as a transaction, a forgiveness. We won’t be punished for what we’ve done wrong before God. This is good, and it’s our gift.

But this child called “God saves,” the one who will save us from our sins, had a deeper hope for that role. In his teaching and death and resurrection he tried to do more than forgive us. He tried to truly save us from our sins, that is, get us out of the path that was leading us away from God.

The word “save” in Greek also means “heal,” and it is this that gives us life as we begin a new year.

Yes we begin with this grace: all we have done in the past year, anything ill-done, anything sinful, we can lay before God and seek forgiveness. On this New Year’s Day, that’s abiding good news, that any regrets and confession we have, we leave the Lord’s Table clean and ready for a new year of life.

But it is that new year of life that our Lord named Jesus is truly interested in. He would save us from our sins to come as well. By entering our hearts and lives, leading us down his path of self-giving love, healing us our sinful nature, our broken habits. Jesus, “God saves,” wants to walk with us in this new year and truly bring us life, free us, heal us. That has a lot more potential to transform us in the next twelve months than any list of resolutions we might make.

But remember, this child was given another name, too.

Maybe “given” is saying too much. The Gospels don’t record anyone ever actually calling him this name.

It’s only in Matthew’s comment to the birth story that we find it. The angel tells Joseph to call the child Jesus, and Matthew says all this fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy of a child born who is called “Emmanuel.” Which, Matthew kindly translates, means “God is with us.”

Even if no one called Jesus that in his lifetime, at the end of Matthew’s Gospel Jesus promises that it is a true name: “I will be with you always, to the end of the age,” he says. This child brings God to live with us, in person, in the flesh, and in his resurrection and ascension, he is now able to do that.

This name is as important to us as the other.

God is with us.

There is nothing more we need or want to know as we begin a new year than God is with us. In our world of fear and hatred, where seemingly unsolvable problems arise every day, where we grow old and die, where our loved ones suffer and we can’t help, where there’s uncertainty everywhere, the only thing that gives us hope and life is knowing God is with us, knowing we walk our days and sleep our nights in the certain embrace of God’s arms.

We can’t expect this new year won’t involve pain for us or for the world or for those we love. But we know we will never be alone, whatever happens next. Because our God is with us in this child who became a man, who was God embodied in our own flesh.

This might be the point when we echo our psalmist: “what are we, that you should care for us this much, honor us this much?”

And Paul gives us our answer: we are adopted children of God, heirs to this child who is Jesus – God saves – and Emmanuel – God is with us – and who is our Savior. We have the Spirit of God given us as children of our heavenly Father, and we can turn to God in prayer always, because of this child who has brought us into the life of the Triune God forever.

So celebrate the Name – both of them – that this child and Lord bears. In them we have all the life and grace we need. And celebrate the beginning of a new year, hoping for peaceful and quiet times, resolving to live better lives, more faithful lives. In Jesus, our Emmanuel, we will have all the strength and healing grace we need to live such new lives, and be better than we were last year.

It might be a little confusing to articulate exactly why we’re here today. But it’s good that we are. Because so is our God, who saves us, who is with us. And as always, our lives won’t ever be the same.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

We all want to be model disciples, but we are broken people. Our clothing of discipleship is broken, too. It’s ripped. Torn. Frayed. Sometimes there are big holes. But relationships are the only way we can live, and as we practice community, we grow.

Vicar Anna Helgen
   First Sunday of Christmas, year C
   texts: Colossians 3:12-17; Luke 2:41-52

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you and peace, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

We all have stories of getting lost or searching for someone who is lost. A child roams off at Disney World to find Minnie Mouse. A confused man with Alzheimer’s wanders out of his home at night. A teenager makes a wrong turn and ends up in a neighborhood he’s never seen before. We know what it’s like to be lost. Or to worry about someone who is lost.

In my family, we tell a story about a time when I got lost, or, I should say, when I got lost according to my mother. My mom was talking on the phone with a friend while I played by her. I was content and happy, but after awhile I wandered off. My mom didn’t follow me because those were the days when phones were on cords and you were stuck to phone. She could still hear me playing, but wasn’t sure where I was. Well, after a few minutes, she got off the phone and then went to find me to put me down for my nap. But I was nowhere to be found! Panic took over. She searched high and low in all my favorite hiding places–under the beds, in my closet, in the pantry, but she still couldn’t find me. It was as if I’d been snatched into thin air. After a frantic phone call to the police, she found me: curled up in a ball, nestled beneath a huge collection of stuffed animals at the end of my bed, taking my nap. Just where she wanted me to be.  I, of course, was totally oblivious to her search, her phone call to the police, and her feelings. After finding me, her fear and panic subsided. Everything went back to how it should be.

Mary went through something similar when she couldn’t find Jesus after they left the Passover Festival. She searched for three days for her son. Three days! Imagine the agony, the panic, and the terror of not being able to find your child for that amount of time. It’s awful to think about, and yet we can understand what it would feel like because it’s an experience we know.

I wonder how Mary spoke when she scolded Jesus and what sort of response she was looking for. “Child, why have you treated us like this?” 

Did she shout?
Did she whisper?
Did she beg for an answer?

We’ll never know how these words left her mouth, and that’s okay, because this story invites multiple interpretations. And all of them speak truth. Mary acts out of love, but her love is wrapped in anger, fear, and desperation. When Jesus finally responds, it’s clear that he is oblivious to the situation and his mother’s feelings. I’d love for him to be more sensitive, but he didn’t think he was lost!  I like to think of him here as a young boy who got caught up with something that interested him, like a bookworm getting lost in a book for hours without realizing how much time has passed. It makes sense that Jesus would end up in the temple, among teachers, talking their talk. He’s a natural! And they are his people. And yet for Mary, this was quite a different situation. Most parents learn to distance themselves as their children grow into their own and find their identity. Jesus challenges the status quo so things are bound to get complicated! Family dynamics are real even for the Son of God!

And they’re real for us, too. This story speaks to our human experience in the world and the range of emotions that accompany our life together as we live in relationship.  To be in relationship with another person is messy, especially when it involves families–those people whom we are supposed to love, those people to whom we are forever linked.

I find myself reflecting on family relationships after the holidays. I often go into these times of year hoping that everything will go fine, that there won’t be any major disruptions. And then something happens and I find out I’m wrong. I have high expectations, and forget about all the baggage that we each bring with us to holiday celebrations. People disagree. Feelings get hurt. We say things we regret. We forget that there are consequences for our actions. Healed wounds are exposed again, and new ones form. Being with family is stressful! Sometimes I want to use Mary’s line, “Why have you treated me like this?!” And others, no doubt, have wanted to use it on me.

Our relationships with others extend beyond our families though and into our work life, our school life, the places we live, and the places we spend time. These relationships also need tending. Relationships with colleagues, coworkers, and managers. With friends and neighbors. With teachers and social workers. With grocery store check-out clerks, mail carriers,  baristas, and those people we encounter on a regular basis. It’s not an easy job, tending relationships. We get into conflicts over differing opinions, we’re rude when we don’t mean to be, we make mistakes that affect others. We set unreasonable expectations. To live in community, as God intends for us to live, takes time and patience and presence.

Paul paints a beautiful picture of what it looks like to live in community with others. He makes it sound so simple: “Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience…Bear with one another…Forgive each other…Clothe yourselves with love. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. Be thankful.” The image of clothing is helpful, but more often than not, I find that I forget to put on my compassion sweater. Or when I do put it on, I discover it is tattered. My pants of patience are ill-fitting. And my meekness turtleneck is lost somewhere at the bottom of the laundry basket. We all want to be model disciples, we strive for it, but we are broken people. Our clothing of discipleship is broken, too. It’s ripped. Torn. Frayed. Sometimes there are big holes.

The reality is that relationships are the only way we can live, and as we live with one another in relationship, as we practice community, we grow. We grow in compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. We learn more about one another, about ourselves, about the quirks and idiosyncrasies of those we interact with daily, and thus we learn better ways to live in relationship with others. Like Mary, we treasure these experiences and realizations about ourselves and those whom we love, because they help us in our journey together. They teach us how to not just live in community, but how to thrive. How to give up ourselves for others. How to find ourselves when others do the same for us.

Most of all, we grow in our capacity for grace. Jesus grows in divine and human favor, and we too grow in our understanding of God’s grace. We learn to trust the rough edges of relationships. We know when to rip out the seams and to start again. We find ways to patch the holes and practice forgiveness. And over time, we come to better embody God’s grace in our lives. We learn to wear it as clothing.

As the holiday parties come to a close and as the decorations get packed up, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. Trust that God works through you and those around you. And next time you put on your compassion sweater and your pants of patience, don’t worry so much about the wrinkles.

Amen.

Have you heard the news? There’s a new neighbor in town! The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

Vicar Anna Helgen
   The Nativity of Our Lord
   text: John 1:1-14

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you and peace, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Have you heard the news? There’s a new neighbor in town!
He lives on Chicago Avenue–right here in our neighborhood! He loves the Midtown Global Market and hangs out there. He owns a condo in St. Paul, too, down by the river. He likes to watch the people walk and bike on the trails over there. He says it brings him joy.

He travels a lot. All over the world. To Kenya, Brazil, and Cambodia…Syria and India…to Panama, Ethiopia, Australia, Thailand, and Germany…to Scotland, Tanzania, and Norway…and to every place under the sun. He’ll stay wherever there is a place for him: in apartments and cars, mobile homes, shacks, and villages. He likes to stay with friends and people he meets along the way, but he’ll take up a dwelling anywhere because he loves all places around the globe. He loves to sleep outside in a hammock, looking up at the stars. When he falls asleep admiring the constellations, he dreams about all the places of the world that he loves so much.

Have you heard the news? There’s a new neighbor in town!
She’s quite the cook. She’s mastered the art of all types of cuisine! Probably from all the traveling she does. Samosas, kung pao chicken, falafel and hummus, even lutefisk! She makes the best bread, too. Crusty, hot from the oven, sourdough…the kind of bread you want to dunk in a bowl of hearty tomato soup. She prepares each meal just for you, how you like it, with the right amount of salt and pepper, spice, and flavor. But sometimes, when she feels like it, she pushes you to try something new, to take a risk, to be more adventurous. I’m grateful to her for that. Sometimes I can get stuck in my ways.

She has the best dinner parties. She invites everyone, those she knows and those she’s just met, even strangers. All are welcome at her table–the powerful, the ordinary, and those down on their luck.  If you haven’t been to one of her dinner parties, you need to go. Her meals are not to be missed! She has the longest dining room table I’ve ever seen, with these long wooden benches. There’s never a need to fuss about fitting extra chairs around the table! She’ll just say, “Scootch over! We need to make more room!” And there is always room for more.

Have you heard the news? There’s a new neighbor in town!
Everyone has a story about him. My friend told me that he shoveled her sidewalk a few times, after she’d sprained her ankle and was having trouble getting around. He’s very generous, willing to lend a hand when you need it. I saw him help a blind man across a busy intersection one time. Then the two of them got to chatting and ended up sitting in the park for hours, like old friends. He knew all about this man, even before he told him. He’s just like that…it’s easy for him to connect with others. He’s become close friends with his Muslim neighbors who live next door and he’s learned spanish so he can talk with the Latino family while they all wait for their kids to get on the bus. He’ll smile and wave to you when he sees you taking the garbage out. He’s so friendly! And his love for people is contagious!

I’ve seen the neighborhood change since he moved in. People are nicer. They look out for each other. They treat one another with respect and care. He’s a good example for all of us. I’m glad he moved here.

Have you heard the news? There’s a new neighbor in town!
She shows up when you need it most. At your doctor’s office. On the bus. During an intense work meeting. As you sit with your dying mother. While you wait for your friend to call. When you’re being bullied. When your money has run out and your paycheck doesn’t come for another week.

She’s there when hope is lost, when despair engulfs you, when your experience leaves you feeling like nothing will ever be the same. There she is, with tissues, a frozen casserole, and her arms open, ready to embrace you, to hold you, to comfort you, to listen. She’s not afraid of the dark. She’ll stay there with you as long as you need–and then she will return again before you know you need her.

Have you heard the news? There’s a new neighbor in town!
He always has his porch light on and is ready to welcome you. His house smells like my grandparents’ house — it’s hard to describe, yet recognizable, like home. I sometimes go to see him after a long day. He doesn’t say that much, but he listens, and it’s nice to know he’s there and will let me unload. Before I leave, he’ll pat me on the back, and say, “I’m here for you, Anna.” It helps.

Lots of my friends and family go to visit him, too. They share their joys and frustrations about work and life, missed opportunities for forgiveness, moments of despair. The real life stuff that we sometimes wish we could do without. He understands. He’s been hurt by the world, too. He knows what it feels like to experience loss and pain, more than any of us. So he invites the tears and the anger. He welcomes the confused, the broken, and the questioning.

Somehow he is able to carry it all–the anxiety, the shame, the grief, the loss. You never have to worry about what you say to him, or like you have to pretend to be stronger than you are, because he can take it. All of it. The darkness isn’t dark to him. Whenever you leave it’s like a weight has been lifted. There is hope again. The light shines, even if it’s only a glimmer.

Have you heard the news? There’s a new neighbor in town!
She challenges the powerful and the privileged. She stands up for people on the fringes–the ones who linger in hopelessness, who are abandoned by others. She protests when people are discounted by the powerful.  She works to change a culture that allows human beings to be bought and sold. She pushes to see that others are fed, clothed, housed. Her voice can’t be silenced–but lots of people try. She often gets in trouble. She’s ended up in jail a few times, but she always finds her way out.

Have you heard the news? There’s a new neighbor in town!
Today is the housewarming party. Someone made a sign: “Welcome to the world!” it says. You’re all invited to the party and there is no need to RSVP. I’ve heard there will be singing and dancing. Probably another delicious meal, too. Bring a friend if you want, but don’t worry if you come alone. You’ll fit right in: we’re all family here.

Have you heard the news? There’s a new neighbor in town!
His mother gave birth to him under some amazing circumstances–no fetal monitors or doctor or midwife. Sheep, cows, a donkey, and a bed in a feeding trough. Starlight.  He was quite the baby. As she held him in her arms, his mother looked at him, smiled, and treasured this moment in time. “Nothing will ever be the same,” she said.

Have you heard the news? There’s a new neighbor in town!
The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

Welcome, Lord Jesus.

Amen.

All the signs of this story have told us for two millennia the kind of rule God intends to establish on this earth: a rule that is won heart by heart, in the most powerless places, until life is full and abundant for all.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Eve of the Nativity of Our Lord
   texts:  Luke 2:1-20; 1 Corinthians 1:20-30 (not appointed for the day)

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

We should have known. We could have known.

It was always Bethlehem, not Jerusalem.

There was a lot of confusion about it then. Ever since, the Church has often remained confused.
In Jerusalem, in the seat of power, the great Herod fretted over news that another king was born. No divine announcement was made to him, though. In Rome, not even the Emperor knew anything was happening.

But on a hillside outside a tiny little town in the Judean wilderness, bright messengers of the One True God announced to outsiders that a child was born who was the Anointed One, who would rule the world in peace, peace for all, not just a few.

It was never going to be Jerusalem where God would rule.

We just seem to forget that we know this.

Maybe because the Jerusalems, the Romes, the Washingtons, seem to run our world.

They always have. People with power oppress and dominate others to get what they want. The world has worked this way for so long, it’s not surprising this way of the true God gets missed or ignored, even by those of us who claim to follow this Child, this Son of the Most High God.

People like the trains to run on time. We like to be comfortable, not messy. We like order, not chaos. We want to feel safe, and that means people in every generation are willing to let whoever’s running the world run their lives. As long as we think we’re OK, don’t ask too many questions.

Systems get built over decades and centuries that keep the majority of the world’s people in poverty and suffering while a small number prosper. Policies disguised as progress destroy the environment in just over a century, and again, the ones whom it costs most are those already suffering. Colonialism is replaced by capitalism, and those in power remain the same, they just rule in subtler ways than Herod or the British Empire. Demagogues rise in every generation who incite the poor and struggling by giving them someone to hate, someone to blame for their problems, while acting in ways that only exacerbate those problems.

If this Child is the way God is coming to rule this world, it’s hard to see how.

But if we’d been paying attention, we could have known.

From the beginning, it was Bethlehem, not Jerusalem, where God would rule.

It’s interesting, Micah’s prophecy of Bethlehem tells the truth: Bethlehem is one of the little clans of Judah, but from that smallness will come God’s ruler. Matthew seems influenced by the world’s ways and edits that, says Bethlehem is “by no means” the least. Bethlehem actually was small and insignificant, though. That’s the point.

The world’s seats of power, where people run the show, are ignored when God comes to rule.

God comes to a small town, overlooked by the world, and is born among us. The people who come and see are the small people, the ordinary.

This is where the King still truly lives. That’s where we will be, too, if we want to follow.

From the beginning, it was in poverty, not in wealth, in weakness, not in power, that God would rule.

This family from Nazareth is unremarkable. Like the majority of the world’s peoples, they lived day to day, as best they could, in deeply insecure lives, always on the edge of hunger.

The wealthy have built a world that protects their wealth. It’s taken centuries, but the system is running powerfully these days. The wealthy think they’re in charge, and since we’re also among them, sometimes we think the same. We might consider letting go of a little for others. But somehow we never quite do the overthrow it would take to make all people be able to live.

But God chooses the poor, the weak, as the place of coming. God wants nothing to do with people of wealth, who think they control, who won’t let go of what they have while others starve.

The true King is born to a family who has no influence or control, no wealth or power. That’s where we will be, too, if we want to follow.

From the beginning, it was in a refugee family relying on the kindness of strangers, not in secure people, that God would come to save.

This little family is pushed around by foreign powers just before the birth of the child, and treks to Bethlehem. Just after the birth, their own ruler wants the child dead, so they become refugees, fleeing to another country. They are homeless, like so many.

While those in charge rail against such people as a threat, from Herod to today, this is the way God chooses to come to us. To identify with the outsider, the alien, the refugee, and become one.

The true King willingly leaves the refuge of heavenly power, lives as a refugee from earthly power, dies at the hands of earthly power, to show the truth about power, that it’s a lie, and destructive, and death. This is the King’s path, and ours, if we want to follow.

The Triune God reigns in this world upside-down, always.

Looking for where God will reign means looking to the weak, the vulnerable, the lost, the poor. That’s who God became to be our King. That’s where God continues to be, at Bethlehem, not the seats of power.

God’s whole plan of rule is to win over our hearts by coming among us as the least, and showing us that identifying with the least and the last is the way of life for the universe, and for us. When we give our hearts to such a God, such a King, we follow the same path of vulnerability and weakness for the sake of the world. The path that the Herods of today mock as one for losers.

But when we follow such a King, such a God, with all our hearts, the reign of God actually comes to be in this world.

We have known this from the beginning, if we have sometimes forgotten.

One of our brothers in faith told us long ago that people demand signs and wisdom, “but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are.”

God has chosen, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save the world.

A Lutheran theologian in this country recently wrote:

“In this sacred space, on [the] holy ground [of this world], God’s kingdom is realized on earth as in heaven when our hope for a contrary way sends us stumbling, falling towards goodness; we make our haphazard and unsure way through the darkness of human reality towards something hoped for, naively and bravely, in a world which desperately needs more courageous, outrageous love and kindness. . . . Our lives, though they feel small, have the power to change and heal our world, in all our imperfect stumblings through the expansive darkness.” [1]

Our lives, though they feel small, have the power to change and heal our world, in all our imperfect stumblings through the expansive darkness.

Because however small our lives may feel, it’s always to Bethlehem we stumble with the shepherds to see the true King, who became small to save us all.

God only works with the imperfect, the poor, the frail, the haphazard, the unsure, and from there brings life. We could have known this all along; it was always there in this story.

God only reigns in this world as one who wins our hearts by coming to us in all the unexpected and powerless places of the world. One at a time, as people give their hearts to this upside-down King, this ruler of stables and refugees, the world is changed, and we find hope. We could have known this all along, too; our King rules from a cross.

It’s always at Bethlehem, not Jerusalem, where we find the Lord, the King. In small, not great. And slowly, surely, God’s healing life spreads from there to all people.

Because to you, to all, is born this day a Savior who is the Christ, the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find God a little child, lying in a manger.

Go, look for Bethlehem. You’ll see.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

[1] Rachel A. Crippen, unpublished paper, Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota; December 2015.