sermon – Page 11

Even the Sparrows

February 2, 2025 By Pr. Joseph Crippen

God’s freedom and redemption are meant for all people, and we’re called to be a part of it.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Presentation of Our Lord
Texts: Psalm 84; Luke 2:22-40

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

We once had a bat in church in a former parish.

Bats are wonderful, but swooping down over worshippers’ heads, veering around the altar, these behaviors raise anxiety. So Psalm 84, which began our liturgy, is confusing. It delights in finding refuge, healing, and hope in God’s house, like finding an oasis in the desert. But then the psalmist gushes: “even the sparrow has found a home [here], and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young, by the side of your altars, O God.”

I’ve never met an altar guild who’d be thrilled at a bird’s nest adorning the side of the altar. Having birds take shelter in here isn’t an obvious sign to us of God’s love and care.

Maybe it should be. Here we find refuge and healing, sanctuary from a world of fear and danger. Here we find community and welcome, a place to rest, to pray, to be with God in God’s house.

But this psalm says our refuge in God is refuge when everyone has it. Even birds find safe harbor in the Temple, that’s how you know it’s God’s house. No one’s safe until everyone is safe.

Today we celebrate Jesus’ presentation in that Temple.

This coming to the temple wasn’t about refuge. It was a normal thing for Jewish families then, honoring tradition and God’s law. But two servants of God meet this new family and everything changes. One, Simeon, declares this baby to be God’s Christ, God’s Messiah, a light to non-Jews, and the glory of Israel. Simeon says that in Jesus all peoples are in God’s care. No one is left behind. And Simeon rightly says this means Jesus will cause problems, will be opposed, will expose people’s inner thoughts about God and the world.

Then Anna speaks about this child to “all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem,” Luke says. Naturally. She’s spent decades living in the Temple, centering her life on the God of Israel. But she seems to affirm only half of Simeon’s promise: this child will be the one to free Jerusalem. The glory of God’s people Israel, as Simeon said.

But Anna’s saying something very different, that, once we see all Jesus did and taught, will challenge us to re-think the whole idea of redemption and freedom. What it looks like, how God will accomplish it.

Throughout Jesus’ ministry, and if we’re honest, throughout Christian history, there’s been tragic confusion about God’s intentions and plan.

Anna’s people, “those looking for the redemption of Jerusalem,” could’ve hoped for to overthrow Roman occupation and politically free God’s people. This hope dogged Jesus even after the resurrection. When the Emmaus couple talk with the risen Jesus unawares, they sadly say, “we’d hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” To free us. In Acts 1, the disciples still asked if now he was going to restore the nation.

Christians have followed this path far too often. Whenever we get political power, Christians and Christian leaders try to cement control over it, assuming if we’re running things in Christ’s name it’s all good. But it’s usually led to destruction, oppression, slaughter, discrimination, inquisition, war, violence. Inevitably in world history if Christians make Jesus a political Messiah, trying to rule in his name, we’ll be doing some kind of evil.

Including today. Right wing Christianity in this country barely acknowledges the teachings of Jesus, the center of his mission and call, favoring making him a god-mascot whose image gives them permission to be in charge. To control others in his name, to do whatever benefits them with impunity and with the passion of believing God on their side. What they’re doing is an old, old game, using Christ as permission to act as power-hungry people, to cover up well-known human desires and need for control.

But at Emmaus Jesus doesn’t answer the couple, “Now I’m alive, I’ll take over.”

He opens their hearts to the Scriptures instead, to show what God’s plan actually is. And when the disciples want him to restore Israel he says to wait in the city for the Spirit to come upon them. Not so they can control others. So they can witness to God’s mission and love for the world.

The mission and love that is evident every time you open God’s Word. God’s care for those who are poor and oppressed fills the words of the whole Bible. God’s welcome to all who are outsiders, aliens, strangers, outcast, is everywhere. God’s healing grace for all who are broken, sad, grieving, sick, in pain, is central to God’s will throughout the whole of Scripture.

That’s what redemption means for God. The redemption of Jerusalem, Anna’s proclamation, is always only part of God’s promise. In the Torah, in the prophets, in the psalm today, in Simeon’s words and Jesus’ ministry, Israel is the start and all God’s people are the final goal.

And it’s not political freedom or power God promises. It’s freedom, redemption, to be the loving people God made in the first place. People who embody God’s care, God’s welcome, God’s healing grace. Who have the same no boundaries approach to any who are in need. Who are shaped by the Spirit to the same self-giving, vulnerable love the Triune God has repeatedly shown to the world.

Until everyone is safe, no one is safe. Until everyone knows God’s love, no one knows love.

And you know that, even when you come here to God’s house for refuge and healing. Even though you wish some days you could just make sure you were OK and didn’t have to think about all who are hurting and being hurt. Because as a pastor once said to me, “Once you know the grace of God is yours, how can you live knowing there are others who don’t know this for themselves?”

Even birds are welcome to nest in God’s house. All God’s creatures need to know God’s love. Only then can God’s dream of justice, love, and peace for all come to be.

What this will look like for our ministry here together, or for your own walk in Christ we need to talk about and listen and discern in these hard days. The answers will not always be obvious, but they will come. They won’t always be easy, but we are assured God’s Spirit will guide us and hold us in all things.

And little step by little step we’ll see with wonder how God’s home is broadening and embracing more and more into life and hope and justice and healing. Until our eyes, like Simeon’s, are able to see God’s salvation come into being.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Ligaments

January 26, 2025 By Pr. Joseph Crippen

Christ’s love ligaments us together as one Body, inseparable by us or anyone else, with diverse gifts and realities sent by the Spirit in mission to the world to bring healing and life.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Third Sunday after Epiphany, Lect. 3 C
Texts: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a (adding 13:1-13); Luke 4:14-21

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

Religion isn’t much in favor these days.

With so much violence and hatred levied by religious people in the world, including lots of Christians, many simply reject the idea of being a part of any religion. For awhile now polls have shown a growing number of people who identify as “spiritual, not religious.” Given the history of how religious people have acted, created destructive institutions, and harmed so many, it’s hard to blame anyone for walking away.

And yet here we are, openly Christian people, gathering to worship a God who created and loves all things. We’re clearly part of a religion, and yet we’d say we’re also spiritual. How is our faith practice life-giving for us – and, we hope, for those we care for in Christ’s name – if it’s part of a religion?

Maybe we should start with the word.

The root origins of the word “religion” are unclear, and there are various ancient theories. But in the third and fourth centuries Christian teachers St. Augustine^[1] and Lactantius^[2] argued that it derives from re-ligio, literally to “reconnect.” (Ligio gives us our word ligament.) Religion calls us to re-ligament, to remember what binds us to God, connects us to each other and to the world.

And suddenly we’re talking like Paul today. What if the word “religion” reminded us of this Body of Christ, of the ligaments that make us inseparable from each other and from God? Doesn’t that sound very different, maybe hopeful?

That’s the power of Paul’s vision of the Body of Christ.

The eye can’t say to the hand “we don’t need you,” or worse, the ear can’t say to itself, “I don’t belong in this body.” Paul says none of us can exclude ourselves or others from Christ’s Body. A body can’t be separated and still exist.

And Paul doesn’t mean “don’t separate yourself or exclude someone else.” He means “you can’t. I can’t.” It’s impossible. The Spirit has joined us together in this Body in baptism with each other and all Christians, and Paul’s promise is that in Christ we cannot separate ourselves, even if we wanted to.

And Paul envisioned a unity of this Body transcending diversities within the Body.

We see him call all his congregations to understand this vision. A unity that doesn’t wash away the diversity, melting it down into sameness. No, the diversity of the members is critical to the life of the Body, and needs to be honored, delighted in, respected. And it’s more than just diversity of spiritual gifts. Often that’s all we hear in these verses. You’re good at some things, I’m good at others, we’re all needed. And of course the varied gifts we have that differ are important.

But there’s an existential diversity deeper than that, which is what caused problems with this vision in all Paul’s congregations. In verse 13 of chapter 12 Paul reminds that in one Spirit they were all baptized into one body – Jews, Greeks, slaves, free. It’s not just their gifts that differ. It’s their culture, their language, their traditions, their political status, their ethnicity. Eyes, in Paul’s example, are completely different from ears. Hands and feet have different structures and realities. The diversity in the Body goes to the root of who you are, who I am, no matter the category. Today we might add gender fluidity and diversity of sexual orientation to Paul’s list, among others. And in his letters Paul repeatedly says those differences are beautiful and vital to the whole Body.

But over all this diversity is our oneness in Christ. Never can our diversity cause us to split away, to exclude others, or to assume we don’t belong.

And it’s because of the ligaments that bind us, the word religion says.

And the ligaments are Christ’s love.

The love Christ Jesus repeatedly commands of us as the fulfilling of all God’s law. The love of the Triune God Christ revealed at the cross and empty tomb. That’s what joins us. That’s how Jews and Greeks can be one together and still be Jews and Greeks. How straight and queer folks, trans and cisgendered folks, can belong to each other and rejoice in each other’s reality. How people of all colors and cultures are joined together while embracing and respecting each other’s beauty and grace.

Christ’s love ligaments us together. A love that doesn’t erase another’s truth but embraces it. A love that joins astonishingly different people into one Body, one mission, one grace, one hope for the world.

A non-negotiable love in this Body that is patient and kind. Never boastful, arrogant, or rude. Never insisting on its own way. Rejoicing in the truth, not in things that are wrong. A love that bears, trusts, hopes, endures all things.

These ligaments bind you and me together in this community, and bind us to the Body of Christ around the world. And because ligaments also help the body move, these ligaments of love empower what this Body of Christ is meant to be in this world.

The same Spirit Jesus claims today is the Spirit poured out on you and me that ligaments us into one Body.

So our mission is the same as Jesus’: to bring good news to those who are poor, proclaim release to those who are captives, help those who cannot see to see, and free those who are oppressed.

This won’t be easy. As our sister Bishop Mariann Budde found, when you ask for mercy, love, and graciousness to those most vulnerable, you face criticism, scorn, and hatred. In these days we should expect that if we act as Christ’s Body to protect the vulnerable and the fearful, to stand for those who are being trampled, we will also face blowback. Jesus anticipated that, saying that you are blessed if “people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad – they always do that to the prophets,” he said. (Matthew 5:11-12)

See that’s the other grace of being in the Body: the ligaments of Christ’s love that bind us to people like Bishop Budde, to each other, to all those protecting and offering mercy and hope, cannot be broken by anyone else, either. Together, in Christ, in the power of the Spirit, with all our diverse truths, realities, and gifts, we can do amazing things as one Body for the healing of God’s world.

And if that’s a gift that the word religion can remind us of daily, I’m not so eager to let go of it.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

[1] St. Augustine (354 – 430 CE), City of God X.4 (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120110.htm)
[2] Lucius Lactantius (c. 250 – c. 325 CE), Divine Institutes, IV.28 (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/07014.htm)

The Best Stuff

January 19, 2025 By Vicar at Mount Olive

We are the water turned into wine; the abundance of God poured out for the world. God transforms our hearts and minds and equips us with gifts to be essential pieces of the healing of the world.

Vicar Natalie Wussler
The Second Sunday after Epiphany, Lect. 2 C
Texts: Isaiah 62:1-5; Psalm 36:5-10; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11; John 2:1-11

We have a problem, the wine has run out. The vats have run dry and there is nothing left. And today is only the third of seven days of partying, joy, and hosting guests. We’re less than half way through and are in a bind that is sure to be the talk of town. The bridegroom’s and his family’s reputations are on the line, with the threat of being remembered as “that family that hosted the wedding where the wine ran out.” And how would the party go on without the wine? What would people say? Would they leave the celebrations and go elsewhere? This family and their entire staff of servants must have felt the impending looks and comments about their now-dry wedding. Left empty and embarrassed. This family’s situation hits home for me today and as a bride in about 5 months, myself, I cannot begin to explain the anxiety spiral I’d be in if the wine at my wedding gave out.

But right when the wine runs dry, Jesus steps in. Albeit with a little encouragement from his mother, who knows what he’s capable of. And so he tells servants to fill jars to overflowing. And that they did, and Jesus changed the water into wine. These jars held about 175 gallons of water each, so a little napkin math tells you that these 6 jugs would have produced close to 1000 bottles of wine, far more than was needed. And this wine was the good stuff. The best stuff, the kind of stuff you would only pour for very special occasions, not at the end of a wedding when guests have had their fill. It’s the wrong time for the best stuff.

And at this time in history, the servants at these weddings, who were at a lower economic class, would not get to enjoy the party until the last few days, when all the good wine had run out and they were on to the cheap stuff. And now, Jesus included them in this best stuff at the wrong time. They were able to experience what abundance tastes like. Not only that, but they were the first people to bear witness to Jesus’ first sign. This is the grace upon grace that John tells us about.

And we love this text, this story. We’re assured that Jesus fills us to the brim when we feel empty. This wedding gives us a snapshot of what our life in Christ can be–abundant, joyful, and like a party you never want to stop. But how does this story sit with us on days like today? This beloved story of the good wine for all to drink… it feels far away from our reality. Because even though Jesus transforms this situation from lacking to abundance, he doesn’t take that feeling lacking and emptiness away forever. We still feel empty, we still feel like we’re running out. running out of time, out of money, out of patience, out of hope, out of energy to get through our days. And the running out causes us to worry. Or maybe, you do feel like the world is overflowing, but it’s overflowing with vinegar and bitterness instead of the good wine. Sometimes we overflow with pain, or anxiety or despair, and it makes it hard to see what God’s up to in us and in our communities, so much so, we feel like we’re drowning with no way out. We’re only able to see the bottom of the wine barrels or the overflow of bitterness, and we can’t see Jesus standing beside changing our despair into abundance. And in all of this we want so desperately for Jesus to change our water into wine, to change our weeping into dancing, to change our pain into laughter, and to change oppression into liberation. And when we don’t see the inbreaking of God like we thought, we become discouraged.

But Jesus is still in the business of changing water into wine. And it starts with us. We, the church, are the water turned into wine poured out for all the world. In our daily dying and rising into new life with Christ, God changes us. We are God’s best stuff, and we are essential pieces of God’s love shown to everyone, God’s delight, according to Isaiah. God walks with us through our fear of what lies ahead shows us hope that a way will be made. Day after day, God changes our hearts and our minds to reflect the love of God, focuses our mind on showing compassion to others, doing justice in this world, and, in all we do, working for the common good. And as beloved children of God, we are promised in John 14, we will do greater things than Jesus did here on earth. We have always been God’s plan for the renewing of the world. You are the abundance of God, a sign to everyone around you that God still cares and is invested in the healing of the world. God takes our ordinary lives and gives us a new calling, so that wherever we are, we pour out God’s love and healing, changing emptiness into overflowing abundance.

Friends, there’s a lot of emptiness in this world. And there’s a lot of places that are overflowing with pain, hardship, and corruption. We’ve got a lot of work cut out for us. The gravity of all that is broken and hurting in the world can feel too heavy to bear. But you are equipped to pour out into the spaces that feel empty. You are able. And that task sounds daunting–being God’s good wine in a world where so much pain exists–but we are not alone. As a transformed child of God, the Holy Spirit abides inside you, guiding our steps as you live as the best wine for a thirsty world, giving us the courage we need. And Paul writes that we are each given unique gifts and individual roles to play in the healing of our world, in the water turning into wine. And we’re sent out into all different contexts with different talents and gifts to be the overflowing love of God made flesh.

And as we spend tomorrow reflecting on Dr. Martin Luther King, jr. ‘s legacy, we see these different gifts and talents in action, because the Civil Rights Movement was far from just Martin Luther King. Women and men took up the mantle to become community organizers, musicians who wrote songs about justice. There were people who financially supported the movement, and lawyers who argued key cases in high courts. And there were families who provided comfort and encouragement to people who had their boots on the ground. People using their gifts and talents, their ordinary, everyday lives to pour out into the common good. Their lives and their legacy can be encouraging to us–that just as you are, right now, you are God’s best stuff in this world, especially to the places and people on the margins who are written off and forgotten about. You are the spilling-over love of God in a way that is unique to you. And this world needs it. This community needs it.

We are all a part of this abundance. No one is excluded. You are needed in all your particularities and quirks, all your insecurities and doubts. You have gifts, talents, and a story of God’s faithfulness that no one else has. Our collective, yet individual gifts sustain each other so that we can face whatever life throws at us. We can be encouraged by the abundant love we see in each other, knowing we reflect that same love and encouragement back. We’re not doing this abundance thing by ourselves. We have each other and we have the Holy Spirit guiding our steps, as we all discover what it means to be God’s best stuff, God’s top-shelf wine poured out for all to taste and see that God is still with us, and still changing water into wine.

In the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

But With the Holy Spirit

January 12, 2025 By Pr. Joseph Crippen

The Spirit of the Triune God is in you and giving you the gifts to be and do your mission as God’s Christ in your world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Baptism of Our Lord, First Sunday after Epiphany, Lect. 1 C
Texts: Luke 3:15-22; Acts 8:14-17; Isaiah 43:1-7 (and referencing Isaiah 11 as well)

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

Pentecost changed everything for the Church. That’s obvious.

The Church came to birth that day. But what isn’t as obvious is how deeply those first believers expected Pentecost to be repeated for any who came to trust Christ for life.

So, when those who heard on that first day asked what they could do, Peter invited them to repent and be baptized, receiving forgiveness, but also promised they’d receive the Holy Spirit. As the book of Acts unfolds, the early Church watches for the coming of the Spirit, names where they see the Spirit moving, and lives with confident expectation that the Spirit would continue to bless the Church, and individual believers. What we heard in Acts 8 today became the pattern: baptize, then lay on hands and pray for the Holy Spirit.

From the beginning this was always the promise of our baptism.

John the Baptist was clear: His baptism was an act of repentance, a symbolic washing. But Christ would bring a baptism not only with water, but into the very Spirit of the Triune God.

So when the early Church read Isaiah 11, which promised how the Spirit of God would come upon the Christ, they said, “That’s what happened at the Jordan with Jesus. And that’s what happened to us at Pentecost. And that’s what we see happening with all who come to follow the way of Christ.”

So they prayed Isaiah 11 as a prayer, and so do we, at baptisms, at confirmation, and today when we affirm our own baptism once more: “Stir up in your people the gift of your Holy Spirit:” we pray. “The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of God, the Spirit of joy in your presence.”

What if this Spirit was and is your gift, your truth? What if you joined the early believers and expected, trusted that Pentecost was also your reality?

Somehow as the Church we lost our way with Baptism over the centuries.

Baptism became sometimes a talisman, sometimes a way to control whom God loved and chose, sometimes a way to guarantee a seat at the heavenly table after death. It caused fear if someone died without it, as if God was somehow bound by our inability to get the rite accomplished. It was often something to be done and then for the most part forgotten.

That meant the Spirit life expected by John and Jesus and the early believers as part of baptism, the mission that comes from baptism in water and the Spirit, was kind of dropped by the wayside. Many of us weren’t taught that our baptism was the beginning of our mission as God’s Anointed, just as with Jesus.

So what if we take the early Church seriously? They saw God’s Spirit active in Jesus, empowering and gracing. Everything he did, taught, shared, lived, came from the Spirit of God that was evident in in him.

Pentecost showed them that as with Jesus, so it would be with them, and even with those who were drawn to the community of Christ but weren’t at Pentecost. And the world was being changed.

The Spirit is frightening to contemplate, though.

It’s easier to believe in a God you can control. Get all your teaching straight, get the simple answers you want, and you’ve got God in hand. Once you introduce God’s Spirit blowing, moving, filling, fiery and changing, all bets are off.

You can’t control who thinks the right thoughts about God and what those right thoughts are when the way the Triune God lives and moves in the world is through the Holy Spirit, who can’t be controlled, or predicted, or stopped. The Spirit blows wherever she wills, Jesus promises in John 3. We can only see where the Spirit has been, we have no control. So to pray this prayer is to relinquish illusion of control. To trust that God will do what God will do and be open and willing to receive that movement from God. Willing to let go of our need to define God or the boundaries of God’s action in the world.

It’s scary. But it’s also the good news: if the Triune God is who Scripture says, who we claim God to be, God’s already doing everything without our say so. There’s nothing at stake in relinquishing except our stubborn clinging to an illusion that isn’t real anyway.

So what could your life be like if you expected these gifts of the Spirit?

Trusted the Holy Spirit is in you? Watched for signs of the Spirit’s moving in your life? What if you expected you’d be given wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and fear of God, and joy in God’s presence? What would such gifts do in your life, your relationships, your service?

If you don’t think you’ve seen such gifts in you, ask someone who knows you well. We see things in others we often can’t see in ourselves. It may be that others might have seen gifts in you already.

But here’s your mission: expect the Spirit’s gifts and be ready to move.

Washed in God’s waters and given forgiveness and life, God has called you by name, and you are God’s beloved child; God is well pleased with you. And now God’s Spirit lives, and moves, and breathes, and loves in you. Name that. Watch for it, and expect to see great wonders.

Because Pentecost changes everything. And Pentecost is already your truth.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Wisdom finds her home

January 5, 2025 By Vicar at Mount Olive

Often we might feel hopeless when we look at the state of the world; but throughout time Wisdom has searched for her home and found it amidst similarly hopeful and bleak times. Wisdom has made her home in us and transforms our hearts and minds to see hope where it appears there is none.

Vicar Natalie Wussler
The Second Sunday of Christmas, years A, B, and C
Texts: Sirach 24:1-12; Wisdom 10:15-21; Ephesians 1:3-14; John 1:[1-9], 10-18

Beloved in Christ, grace to you and peace in the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

When we’re faced with hard times, conventional wisdom says to batten down the hatches. To disregard hope for restoration and goodness for all and to focus on what we had control over.

Right now, that kind of wisdom makes sense. it doesn’t feel like there’s much hope for restoration and goodness. There’s not a lot of faith in our country. And everyday, trust in our fellow humans degrades more and more. Just look at our first few days of 2025 and the war and terrorism, the increasing violence and discrimination we bear witness to. We’re still anxiously anticipating the kinds of terrors our country will endure in the next 4 years and beyond. And each of us are still going through our own pains–like grief, loss, insecurities. We each are constantly being faced with lofty problems with no easy solutions, and we can start to feel powerless. Like the Israelites standing at the banks of the Red Sea, we’re terrified of the roaring waves of chaos and brokenness and sometimes see no way forward. It’s paralyzing and isolating and sometimes we just want to throw in the towel and give up.

But that’s where God’s Wisdom comes in most powerfully. Because God’s Wisdom gives us the hope to take steps forward when the path is unclear. Wisdom helps us make sense of the world and how we play a role in its healing. Wisdom is a force that pushes us forward when it all feels like it’s too much, that makes a way where there appears to be no way. Wisdom gives us vision to see the world like God sees the world.

So it begs the question–how does God see the world? Going back in Sirach, Wisdom searched high and low to find a home, from the vaults of heaven to the depths of the abyss. No spot was a resting place until Wisdom found the Israelites in the wilderness, an underdog kind of people searching for their home, too, in a time where the threat of empires loomed large. These people were starting to understand who they were as God’s holy people, and getting it wrong more often than not. But Wisdom saw the Israelites as a worthy place to pitch a tent and the Spirit of God rested in the tabernacle, dwelt with the people, and poured out love.

And then, this Wisdom became flesh and dwelt as a person. God put on flesh. God dwelt, literally pitched a tent, amidst us. Tabernacling amongst the people in flesh as God once did in a tent in the wilderness. The Word and Wisdom of God, which existed with God at creation, became a human in a world that was broken, experiencing the crushing grip of the Roman empire, where the poor and vulnerable were marginalized. God saw this world for what it was–all its flaws and all its suffering, all its proclivities toward greed and violence, and still saw a world worth taking on flesh and all it means to be human; a world worth deep and personal love and sacrifice. And through living and dying as a human, Jesus made a way for the Holy Spirit to dwell within each of us. Out of God’s fullness and love for the us, we receive grace upon grace that is the Holy Spirit. Through our baptism, God freely gives us the Holy Spirit, who pitches her tent within us. And this same Wisdom that rested in the tabernacle and was enfleshed as Jesus now abides within each of us. In all our brokenness and suffering, in all the ways we believe we are unqualified bearers of God’s Spirit, in all the ways we believe we don’t measure up, God sees us as worthy homes for the Holy Spirit. We are each tabernacles of God’s Spirit and Wisdom, and everywhere we go, the Spirit and Wisdom of God also goes.

Instead of giving up hope, Wisdom gives us hope. Despite all the brokenness we witness, Wisdom still sees people who are worth loving and who are worth the risk of living. And Wisdom chooses each of us to do this work. And when we let Wisdom change our hearts and our minds, we see this world, yes, for all its pains and its bleakness, but we also see people worth loving, we see places worth healing, and good work worth doing. As mini tabernacles, we are bearers of healing and love to our weary world. And just as the Word became flesh, each time you act in love, compassion, justice, you are now making simple words flesh. You’re embodying the Wisdom of God in your life, in this community. Wherever you pitch your tent and dwell, you are enfleshing God’s Wisdom and you are bearers of self-sacrificial love. You bring the reign of God we all seek a little bit closer.

And there will still be days that feel hopeless, days where it feels like the powers of evil, greed, and destruction have the upper hand. Days where we believe we aren’t good enough to be bearers of God’s love and Wisdom and days where the love we bear hurts. And on those days, we can rely on the Wisdom that’s made its home in us to carry us, to catch glimpses of hope, promising that the painful things are not the last things.

And in those moments we’ve been given this Holy community. It’s not a coincidence that the writer of Sirach says Wisdom’s glory is found in the midst of her people. We need each other. We need each other’s stories and we need to hear about the wisdom each of us have learned through our individual journeys of faith. These stories are sacred and they are medicine to a tired and weary soul. Our shared wisdom creates resilience. It gives us the vision to see the roaring seas in our way, and the hope to believe that a path will be made and that God will meet us there. And when we as communities full of wisdom come together, share our stories, and spur each other toward love, we become the enfleshed hope we all crave. A hope that can heal a world worth loving.

In the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit.