God’s Spirit is the gift to help you turn toward God’s path of life and hope, and stay in it.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Second Sunday of Advent, year A
Texts: Matthew 3:1-12; Isaiah 11:1-10

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 hiked a lot in state and national parks last summer.

There were wonders around every twist of the path. But every path is well marked and maintained, so it rarely feels like exploring. Even where there are forks in the path, there are usually signs.

But a couple times there were uncertain places, which was fun and also a bit concerning. The trail seemingly petered out in a meadow. The forest looked like it had dozens of possible paths. A couple times I walked for about ten minutes and realized I had to backtrack.

We weren’t going to really get lost in a state park, and there was little danger to taking a wrong turn even if we did. Still, if someone at those turning points could’ve kindly pointed the way, that would have been a blessing.

Imagine that your life is a journey.

Some days the path is well-marked, and all is well. Some days you don’t know where to turn, what attitude to choose, what action or inaction to take. And unlike the park systems, if you take a bad turn in life, it could end up as a real problem.

That little activity might, because of your genetic makeup, end up being an addiction in ten years. That minor rift in a relationship could widen over time until you’re so far apart you can’t see a path back. That small unkindness to someone could develop into patterns of cruelty. That slight resistance to being changed could become full-blown, harmful rigidity.

Wouldn’t it be good to have someone who could give you counsel, share wisdom about the path ahead? Who could accurately predict the outcome of what seems like a small decision, one that over time you might regret? Wouldn’t it be a blessing if someone said, “Turn around – you’re going the wrong way”?

That’s John the Baptist.

He shows up once again in Advent crying “repent, for God’s reign is near.” “Turn around, God is coming to you and you’re going the wrong way.” At our best, we feel challenged by John, perhaps shamed, worried, but we want to turn our lives. At our worst, we’re annoyed at his strident, threatening tone that gets on our nerves.

But John is your great gift. He’s the one you need on your life journey. He’s the one saying, “Go to the right at the next tree – it’s a better road.” Saying, “repair that breach in your relationship before you’re so far away you can’t even see them.” Saying, “if that becomes a pattern, a habit, you’ll deeply regret it. And people will be hurt.”

John’s as blunt as a rock, socially challenged, and unaware of the niceties of language. But he’s your life-saver. He will always tell you the truth you need to welcome God with you.

So there is always hope in his message.

John’s words sound like permanent judgment. They’re not.

He calls these leaders children of snakes, because he’s convinced of their hypocrisy. He believes they’ve come to to condemn him, or criticize him, not to listen and perhaps be turned toward God. They’re walking a path that leads to death and separation from God’s love, John believes.

But there is hope for them, and for all who hear John. “Bear fruit worthy of repentance,” he says to them. Even if you’re a hypocrite, there’s hope: just turn around. Go on the path of God. And that will show in your behavior, your words, your living, your loving. Your fruit. There is hope for all: fruit for healing is found in turning to God’s way.

The path of turning bears the fruit of God’s justice and mercy.

Of love of God and love of neighbor. The fruit of giving away excess so all have God’s abundance. Of putting neighbors’ needs above your own. The fruit of non-violence, as Isaiah proclaimed last week, changing our weapons – physical, emotional, or verbal – into life-nurturing tools.

When God reigns in Christ, Isaiah says today, the fruit is that the wolf will take a nap with the lamb, alongside the leopard and baby goat. The basic nature of God’s creatures will be transformed. Predators will be changed to eat differently. The bear will eat grass next to the cow. The lion will belly up to the manger with the ox and snack on straw.

As unimaginable as such scenarios are, the prophet says that’s how it will be for people as well. That’s the fruit. No one will hurt or destroy in God’s reign, Isaiah says, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of God. Everyone will be turned onto the path of love and peace and mercy and grace, and be changed.

Such transformation, such repentance will be hard. And that’s John’s other blessing.

John says he’s not enough. His call to repentance, and baptizing people in the water as a sign they’re turning their lives around, isn’t enough. But there is One coming who will baptize them with the Spirit and with fire. What we really need.

You’ll need God’s Spirit to find the right path, have the courage to take it, and the strength to keep on it. And fire to keep you warm and passionate for the new way. And that’s exactly what God-with-us, Jesus, gives you.

Which is why the Church did the absolutely audacious thing that it did.

The Church born of the Spirit and fire at Pentecost claimed the blessings Isaiah promised to the Messiah.

We said the Spirit of God that was upon the shoot from Jesse’s tree who came to bring healing to all, belongs to all baptized into the name of God, in water, the Spirit, and fire.

I have laid hands on more heads than I can count and prayed Isaiah’s words, “Pour out your Holy Spirit, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.” I have said in that prayer, “as with Jesus, so with this child. So with these confirmands. So with these people of God in this place.” Every young person in this room at their baptism, every confirmand, every one of you, have had this prayer prayed over you as if you were the Messiah, God’s Christ, because you are.

And that Spirit will turn you and guide you on God’s path as God’s Christ.

The Spirit of wisdom and understanding.
Wisdom to discern what’s at stake in your decisions and actions, to see paths of hope and healing and take them. And understanding, to see the point of view of another, to feel their pain and suffering, to grasp your place in the world as one of many beloved, not over anyone.

The Spirit of counsel and might.
Counsel so we can advise each other at crossroads, saying, “turn this way,” to each other and to the greater world. And the Spirit’s power, never power over, but rather empowerment, lifting your heart in courage to endure the challenges on God’s path.

The Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
Knowledge to grow and discover and learn, alongside all God’s children, tempered with the fear of God that tells you just because you know how to do something doesn’t mean you should.

John shows there’s a path to life and healing in God’s reign.

And a path to death and destruction away from it. And he says, “Turn toward God’s path, always.”

And he promises the Spirit of God is coming – has come – to empower and guide your turning, your choices, your actions, your life. To give you all the courage you need not only to choose the right path whenever it opens up, but to walk it and stay the course. And even to help the rest of us find our way, for your healing and the healing of the world.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

We are the second coming of Christ. It’s time to wake up and live that way.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The First Sunday of Advent, year A
Texts: Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14 (adding 8-10); Matthew 24:36-44

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

It’s time we stopped waiting for Christ and started living as Christ.

At this entrance to the Church Year, we always hear words of Jesus calling us to be ready, even in the middle of the night, for Christ’s return. Jesus says today, I’m coming like a thief in the night (hardly a warm image). In the other two lectionary years, Jesus also says stay awake and read the signs in the earth and skies. I’m coming unexpectedly.

Advent, we say, is a time of practicing waiting for that unexpected time, that coming. “Come, Lord Jesus,” we pray.

But we’re past any time for waiting. Christ has already returned. The Second Coming is already here. And it’s you and me and all who bear Christ’s name.

Paul says that it’s time to live that way.

Today he sums that life up for us: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. . . . Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”

And now is the time to live that way, Paul says. There’s no waiting. Now is the day, so live in the light. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, he says, and live in love, now. Rejoice with those who rejoice, now. Weep with those who weep, now. Show hospitality to strangers, now. Wake up and live as the Christ you are, now.

This profoundly changes our Advent. And it’s not just Paul who does.

Advent means “coming.” If we truly heard the Advent Gospels we’d never think that meant waiting for Christ to come again. Because in the next two weeks John the Baptist is going to show up as he always does and call us to repentance and newness of life. He says that in Jesus the reign of God is already here.

That means our Advent prayer needs to be: come, Lord Jesus, in us. Right now. Cover us with yourself, your life, your love. Fill us with your Spirit. So that we can be the coming of Christ right now. Each of us one day will run out of days to serve in this life and will move to the life to come. But right now it’s daytime. Christ is already here. What are we waiting for?

Now, listen to Isaiah again and ask the same question.

“In days to come,” the prophet says, God’s mountain will be lifted up and all people will see it, flock to it. And God will teach all people the way of God’s reign. And everyone will convert their weapons of war into farming implements. They’ll stop making death and start growing life. They’ll stop teaching their children to fight and kill and start teaching them to nurture and love. All will walk in God’s light.

Well, these are those days to come. And you are God’s Christ, anointed to bear God’s mercy into your world. Why would you or I or anyone hear of swords being beaten into plowshares and say, “well, hopefully, some day.” Why do we persist in hearing everything Jesus teaches and saying, “wouldn’t that be nice? But it’s not realistic right now. Some day.”

There’s no “some day,” Paul says. It’s day right now. Even if no one else lives this way, he tells his Romans, you are to live peaceably with all. With everyone.

What are we waiting for? Jesus to return in the clouds and make peace, destroy weapons for us? He’s said that’s not how he operates. God-with-us comes to people and changes them from within, and so changes the world.

But we seem to always hope and wait for a different way of God.

Christians have killed more people in world history than any other group you can name. We’ve spent too much time waiting for Christ instead of being Christ.

The first disciples began the problem. After Jesus rose, they completely misunderstood the cross. They asked Jesus if now he was going to drive out the Romans, lead the rebellion, restore Israel. No, Jesus told them. They would be filled with the Spirit to go as Christ to all the world, vulnerable and loving witnesses. That’s the plan.

Why would we expect Jesus to do anything different now or in some future return? Jesus promised to return, and has. For 2,000 years people have been made into Christ and sent into the world to make peace. To bring mercy and love and grace. To destroy swords and guns, and end violence by living non-violent, passionate lives of peacemakers and love-bringers.

When the Church obsesses over a superhero Christ sailing in on the clouds to fix everything that we can’t be bothered to fix or change or heal, we act exactly as Christ and Paul tell us not to. We become children of the night, seeking power and control. We don’t see our personal lives as relevant to God’s plan of healing all things, and resist change. We start trying to dominate the world and protect our institutions instead of being a little yeast in a large batch of flour, a tiny seed in a massive field. And evil is done, again and again.

Let this be your Advent: pray, “Come to this world, Lord Jesus, in me.”

Night is over, and it’s the day. While you have breath, be the coming of Christ you are meant to be. When you pray “Come, Lord Jesus” that way, things will change.

Because when you and I and all who carry the name of Christ start living as Christ, putting on the Lord Jesus, draping ourselves with love and compassion and patience and hope and making peace in our hearts, in our families, in our world, then Isaiah’s vision would happen now. War would be over. Violence in our families would be done. Attacks in our streets would be a thing of the past. People of faith hating those who disagree with them would be ancient history. Hunger and poverty and oppression all would disappear. All this, Christ says, could be our world right now.

Wake up. It’s already morning, and you are what you’ve been waiting for. Now live it, with the Spirit’s grace, for the sake of all things. And for your sake, too.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

God seeks the reconciliation of all things to each other and God in the cross and resurrection of Christ.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Reign of Christ, year C
Texts: Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43

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

God didn’t need to die on the cross to forgive your sins or mine.

The holy and Triune God who made all things has a heart wider than the universe God created, deeper than the depths of space. The Hebrews whose Scriptures and faith we share witness to a God whose capacity for forgiveness and love is beyond our imagining. Even in the depths of prophetic wrath, God’s forgiveness is announced. God can and does forgive whenever God wants to. The Bible says so. God just has to say, “you are forgiven.”

And today we heard Jesus, God-with-us, offer forgiveness – before he died – to all who were killing him, from priests to governor to soldiers.

But we needed the cross to see God’s forgiveness of us. To see the love of God for humanity and the creation that draws all things into God. We see our forgiveness at the cross because there we finally are convinced of God’s eternal love and mercy, dying for us rather than destroying us.

God didn’t need to raise Jesus from the dead to give you or me or anyone life after death, either.

The almighty and Triune God who made all things invented life. In God’s creation things live and die and new life comes through death. Stars and galaxies and planets and creatures die and produce new ones. If God wants to provide a life in a world to come after our death here, make a new creation, God can. And will. The Bible says so. God just has to say, “let there be life.”

But we needed Jesus’ resurrection to see this truth. Believers began to realize that if Jesus lives, death can’t stop God. So we will live, too. Paul powerfully proclaims this to the Corinthians. Because Christ is risen, without doubt, Paul says, you and I and all creatures now know that we also will rise to new life.

But something God aches and longs for God can’t do by declaring.

The Triune God deeply desires reconciliation in this creation. Between you and me, between all peoples and all nations. Reconciliation between all people and God. A world of harmony and peace with justice that God intended from the beginning. And God can’t simply say, “let there be reconciliation.” We’re involved – our will, our actions, our love.

Paul claims repeatedly in several letters that the purpose of Christ’s death and resurrection is the reconciliation of all things, and all people to God and all people to each other. God needed to die and rise to lead us to this way.

God had to live with us and proclaim it, model it. Jesus, God-with-us, proclaimed a reign of God steeped in reconciliation, where all are valued, all are loved, all are forgiven, all live in love with each other. Where enemies cease being enemies because they pray for each other and love each other. Where no one is driven away or marginalized for any reason. And that life and witness threatens the power of institutions both religious and political who thrive on control and conflict and judging and winning. They always resist.

So Jesus, God-with-us, let us kill him to show that the reconciliation of all things is God’s heart for the creation and God will stick to that heart even if it means dying. Through Christ, Paul says today, God was pleased to reconcile all things to God, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace through the blood of the cross. In dying and rising from the dead for love, God showed the true path to life for all things.

To see it, you need the eyes of our friend hanging on his own cross.

So many didn’t see Jesus as a ruler that day. Not Pilate, not the Jewish leaders, not the soldiers. Even one of the criminals mocked Jesus for not miraculously saving them. But our friend, with little time left to live, looked at Jesus and somehow saw a king.

He didn’t ask Jesus’ forgiveness. He didn’t ask Jesus to bring him to Paradise. He just asked to be remembered when Jesus entered his reign. He somehow saw the truth that in Jesus, this man dying next to him, God’s true reign was found.

The truth that only power that is let go can do anything good. That only love that is vulnerably given up for others can heal anything. That reconciliation comes by the setting aside of power and the giving away of love, by losing, not winning.

This man gave us a great gift: he gave us a chance to truly see Jesus and find the path to the reconciliation God wants so much.

Remember me, our friend said. And Jesus said, today I will bring you into my reign.

For this dying convict, that was a promise of life in the world to come. His life here was nearly done. But for us, who at least have today and maybe more time than that, Jesus promises the same for this life.

If we want Jesus to remember us in his reign, Jesus says, we can be in Paradise today. Because Jesus reigns right here, in this life, in this world. On earth as in heaven, he taught us to pray. This life, this world, can be the Paradise God envisioned at the creation, when all live in the reign of God.

When we love God with all we have and love our neighbors as ourselves. Living that every day, we’ll know the joy of reconciliation with each other and with God. Reconciliation with those people you don’t have it with right now. Reconciliation in our city and nation between all who hate and mistrust each other. The reconciliation of society, when justice comes for those who are oppressed and violated and marginalized. And this world will become what God always hoped it could be.

What do you see when you look at Jesus’ cross, and remember the empty tomb?

Do you see the fullness of God in Christ that Paul proclaims today, through which God is trying to bring about reconciliation between you and me, between all people, and between us and God? Not by power over, by division and destruction and control and winning. But by love willing to die to bring all creation back. By power willingly set aside in weakness to win us all over in peace. Do you dare to follow that same path, that same weakness and vulnerability, to live in God’s reign?

God can’t force reconciliation, but for those who seek God’s reign in Christ, the Spirit of God is always ready to change their hearts, shape their lives, and bring them into the life of reconciliation. Do you dare such life in the Spirit?

God grant you the eyes of our friend hanging next Jesus, so you can see God’s reign even now, and the trust of this same dying man, so you will live in this reign, with the help of the Spirit. Until all things are united under and in and through and with Christ.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Trust God, not institutions, and in that trust, be changed so you can change institutions for the good of all.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 33 C
Text: Luke 21:5-19

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

Recently these apocalyptic words from Jesus have taken new meaning for some of us.

We hear warnings of collapsing institutions and rising opposition to what is good, and no longer think, “it’s different for us.” We hear of threats from legal systems and religious leaders and no longer say, “not here.” Climate change has made shaking earth and threatening storms and even plagues a reality. For many of us, these little forays into the apocalyptic texts in worship each November and early Advent seemed unrelatable. But in the past years, many of us have heard Jesus very differently.

That previous inability to hear Jesus’ warnings as viable is because some of us lived in privileged situations. We weren’t listening to our neighbors, weren’t seeing the pain of our siblings. In this country and around the world, what Jesus describes is consistent with the daily lives of billions. Jesus’ words and hope are deeply relevant to them. It’s part of the sin of some of us that we haven’t been more aware before now. But now we are. So let’s truly hear what Jesus needs to say today.

Jesus warns that institutions are fallible and can’t ultimately be trusted.

His disciples couldn’t have comprehended that the Temple in all its glory would be torn down stone from stone. Ever since this second Temple was built after the return from exile, it stood as an impressive monument to God’s presence with the people of Israel. Throughout 300 years of oppression first by the Greeks and now the Romans, with only about 100 years of independence in the middle, the Temple of God remained. They might not have had their own country and governance, but the Temple stood. Which meant God stood. God was with them. That’s security.

Except, Jesus said, it’s not. As impressive and important the building, they couldn’t trust it for their security, their hope, their life. It would one day be destroyed. And forty years later, it was.

In the past six years, we’ve learned that the temple of our democracy is also fragile.

We never thought that was possible. We thought we built modern democracy for everyone else to emulate. But since 2020, for the first time in our history, international democratic watch groups placed the United States on the list of endangered democracies. We face a very real threat, not from two parties that disagree about policies and priorities, but from people seeking power for its own sake. People who will do anything to keep that power: suppress voting, gerrymander districts, lie about perfectly open and obvious truths, threaten violence. Not to govern, that’s clear, but to control. To enrich themselves. And to destroy their opponents.

After Tuesday, there’s hope. We once again had a peaceful election, something we’ve always simply assumed would be true. So far there hasn’t been another insurrection. But the final results aren’t all in, the actual transfer of power hasn’t happened yet. Who knows what kind of wretched plans are being made.

We couldn’t imagine the end of democracy in America. But we’re still on the edge of that precipice. And Jesus says, “good, I’m glad you understand that. You can’t put your ultimate trust in your political system, even if it is a good one.”

But Jesus also warned about other institutions, not all of them doing good.

He told his disciples they might be arrested and put to death for their faith, threatened both by civil and religious authorities. Institutions that are supposed to do good and promote the common welfare will not always do that. So don’t put your trust in them, Jesus says.

Many of us are late to this realization, too, because of privilege. I am the white son of a man who was first the county attorney and then the county judge. His good friend was the sheriff. The sheriff even won me a stuffed dog at the county fair when I was five. When I was 17, driving to a friend’s house at night, I was pulled over for running a stop sign. I hadn’t – there was a truck at the intersection and I had to wait for him to pass. The officer insisted I hadn’t stopped. But within two seconds of seeing my license in the dome light of his car, he brought it back and told me to go on my way. I’ve never doubted that my name caused him to do that. That’s privilege.

We know there are many in authority who are good people, faithful public servants. But that’s not always the case. Law enforcement, the courts, the legislature, city councils, religious institutions – including the Church – all supposed to work for the common good, do not always do so. Many of my neighbors have the exact opposite experience as mine, with no reason to trust anyone in authority. Jesus says it’s beyond time for some of us to realize the truth about such institutions and put our trust elsewhere.

Now that your eyes are open, Jesus says, here’s what you can trust: God is with you.

Yes, we’d be better if democracy survived. Yes, we need to fix or dismantle any institutions that are doing harm and evil. But the God who has defeated death is with us, giving wisdom to live the life God intends for God’s children, the words to say what needs to be said in the face of evil and oppression. Even if this whole country falls apart, Jesus says, God will still be with you. And you will survive, even if you die.

But hear this: God with us means God with everyone.

In our privileged, safe, secure lives we can’t say, “God is with us,” and ignore billions of God’s children who are suffering and struggling.

God loves all God’s children, without exception. God has no sides. But the Scriptures are crystal clear: God can’t stand it if a single child of God is hungry, or poor, or oppressed, or raped, or abused, or crushed by the legal system, or falsely arrested, or threatened, or hated for what they look like or who they are or what they believe. If those of us who are safe ignore all the rest of God’s children who aren’t, then we’ve created sides. And God will not be on ours.

Institutions that have become corrupt, that harm rather than heal, that break rather than repair, must be changed, and you and I must join with the rest of God’s children to do that. We must have the wisdom that even if good people serve in them, evil can still be embedded and empowered and needs to be excised.

And we need to work for institutions like democracy that do good, even though we don’t put our ultimate trust in them, so they’re sustained and strengthened for generations to come.

Even though the earth shakes and the mountains fall, God is with us.

With all God’s children. That’s our hope in the midst of a fractured world. God is with all of us, giving us wisdom to navigate a complex world, words to bring hope and life to ourselves and our neighbors, grace to heal even our nation’s wounds.

God is with all of us, giving us the command to love, and do all we can to ensure all our neighbors are well and whole. So that all might know the joy of God’s gracious life and love. Even if all this falls apart.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen