Repentance is not frightening, not for Jesus or Zechariah; it is turning into the warmth and light of God’s gut-level love, which transforms you and continues to dawn over the universe.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Second Sunday of Advent, year C
Texts: Luke 3:1-6; Luke 1:68-79 (today’s appointed psalmody, the Benedictus – translation used here is the ELLC text [1990] as sung at liturgy today); Philippians 1:3-11

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

Zechariah’s foretelling of what his son John’s mission will be is breathtaking.

“You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare the way, to give God’s people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins. In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Zechariah envisions his son preparing for the coming of God’s light into a dark world, letting God’s people know their sins are forgiven. John would point to the coming dawn of God’s tender compassion, his father sang.

Somehow John’s actual ministry feels very different.

John is one of the people in the Bible one doesn’t actually dream of meeting.

John’s message is strident, harsh. He calls for repentance, a turning into God’s ways, with a fiery rhetoric that alternately threatens and calls out insulting names. We don’t think of the dawn of God’s light, the hope of salvation and forgiveness of sins, when we think of John the Baptist.

So, repentance as we’re used to hearing it from John is frightening. “Turn back to God, you sinful people, or it will be bad for you.” As we’ll hear next week, John warns of God’s coming wrath, of God’s ax at the foot of every fruitless tree.

John’s preaching carries none of the aching hope of Zechariah, the longing for God’s dawn of salvation that John was supposed to bring.

John’s context may have sharpened his focus, and driven his passion.

Luke anchors the coming of John in historic time. We can date his start of preaching to the year 28 or 29, the fifteenth year of Emperor Tiberius’ reign. Luke insists on reminding us that God’s coming in Jesus happened for real, in datable, recordable time.

But his list in chapter 3 says a little more than that. Luke places John’s preaching in the heart of a number of leaders, people in power, who were feared by the people, some of whom did great wickedness. Pontius Pilate, the oppressive governor of Judea; Herod Antipas, Herod Philip, brothers, and wicked, corrupt rulers both; Annas and Caiaphas, leaders of those who arrested and condemned Jesus. The emperor himself, Tiberius. This is the political landscape when John appears at the river Jordan.

So, Luke says, in an age of tyrants and despots who cannot be trusted, God’s Word came to John, and told him to declare a new reality. Prepare the way, because God is coming into this world that is ruled by such people. Maybe the evil of John’s times fueled his urgency, his fire, his threats. Zechariah’s beautiful vision would have to wait, because a lot of unfruitful, unfaithful people were going to need to change, or be cut down, if the way was to be ready for God’s coming.

But what Zechariah saw happened. Not in his son John, but in the one John pointed to, in Jesus.

The ministry and preaching of Jesus reflect Zechariah’s hope. Jesus showed people God’s salvation, proclaimed the forgiveness of sins. Jesus embodied God’s “tender compassion” as Zechariah sang it. Jesus acted so differently, John began to worry that Jesus wasn’t the One John was sent to prepare the people for.

We don’t want to disregard John’s urgency. The world always lives in an age of corrupt tyrants, and avoiding facing the evil of our day, or participating in it, is not a faithful path for us, any more than it was for our forebears. But we do follow Jesus, not John. We are saved by Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, and Jesus is the face of the Triune God for us.

So as we hear John’s call to repentance this Advent, what if we listened to it through the song of Zechariah? Through the promise that old man sang that did come to pass in the Son of God, God’s Word-made-flesh?

Zechariah promises that out of God’s tender compassion, the “dawn from on high shall break upon us.”

Zechariah is mixing a metaphor here. He speaks of dawn, the breaking of light into the darkness of night, the gradual lightening of the sky before the glorious sun breaks over the world.

But this dawn, Zechariah sings, rises out of God’s tender compassion. And “tender compassion” isn’t strong enough to convey Zechariah’s words. He literally sings of the “merciful heart of God.” Even “heart” isn’t enough. The word is literally “guts, insides, bowels.” The ancients located the center of love in our guts, so true love is gut-level love, love you feel in your deepest insides. God’s dawn, Zechariah sings, is a dawn of the deepest mercy of God for the world.

So, Jesus had John’s urgency to preach repentance, but he did this by declaring this gut-level love and mercy of God, saying, “turn from your sin, to this.”

When you’re in the dark, lost, afraid, and you see a glimpse of light, the relief and joy to turn into the new path of hope is overwhelming. When you’re freezing to your bones, and your blood is ice, and you sense a beckoning fire, leaning toward the warmth is delight. This is repentance.

God’s dawn is the advent of the merciful love of God rising out of the guts of the life of the Triune God, aching to restore the creation, to embrace all God’s children, to heal all things. A love so powerful it will face death to bring the universe back into the inner life of the Triune God. A love that offers forgiveness of sins, restoration into relationship with God, true salvation and healing for all. Repent into that, my friends. That’s where you want to turn.

And this is a true dawn, this gut-level love of God, for it deepens and grows until it is known everywhere.

The love and longing Paul has for these beloved Philippians in today’s reading is overwhelmingly beautiful, pouring out of nearly every verse.

And at its center is this astonishing declaration: “For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus.” It’s the same word Zechariah uses for God’s merciful insides. The same love that is in the guts of Christ Jesus for the universe now is in Paul’s guts, the deepest parts of his being.

That means this gut-level love of the Triune God can spread to others. God’s deepest, internal love gradually dawns over the whole universe by transplanting itself into heart after heart, transforming each into divine love.

You are the dawn from on high coming from the merciful guts of God. You are. Because you have known this deep, abiding love of God in Christ Jesus, you have treasured your forgiveness, your acceptance, your peace of mind that God’s love has given you. And like Paul, that has changed your own insides, so now that love fires your love for others. It overflows, Paul says, because you share the same heart. And the dawn increases in intensity.

The Talmud tells of such a dawn.

“How do we know,” the rabbi asks, “when the night is over and the day has arrived?”

One student replies, “Night is over and day arrives when you can see a house in the distance and determine if that’s your house or the house of your neighbor.” Another responds, “Night is over and day arrives when you can see an animal in the field and determine if it belongs to you or to your neighbor.” A third says, “Night is over and day has arrived when you can see a flower in the garden and distinguish its color.”

“No,” says the rabbi. “No. Night is over and day arrives when you can look into the face of the person beside you and you can see that he is your brother, she is your sister, when you can see that you belong to each other. Night has ended and day has arrived when you can see God in the face of the other.” [1]

That’s when tyranny and corruption and wickedness fall before the dawn of God’s love. When you and I repent, turn from our sin, into the light and warmth of God’s gut-level love and radiate it from our center, our insides. When we love all God’s children with the same love we know from God, and can see all creation as sisters, brothers, can see God’s face in all.

And so the dawn grows, shining over all who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, guiding all feet into the way of peace that comes with the rising of God’s light over a new creation.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

[1] Adapted from Rabbi’s Blog, Temple Sharey Tefilo, https://www.tsti.org/blog-rabbi/?p=49 (original halakhic passage is in the Jerusalem Talmud, Tractate Berakhot, 9b)

 

Jesus gives us warnings and strength for our journey of faith, exactly what we need to survive and thrive as Christ in the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The First Sunday of Advent, year C
Texts: Luke 21:25-36; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13

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

“On the earth [there will be] distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.”

Ever increasing numbers of hurricanes, with ever deepening intensity, with ever greater destruction. Tsunamis and earthquakes seemingly all the time. More than nations are distressed and confused, Jesus. Elsewhere Jesus warns of rising evil, of humanity doing wickedness, of persecution and wars at the end of things, and we see this now. We look at the “signs,” as Jesus calls them, and think the end must be close.

But here’s what’s really confusing. Virtually every generation of Christians since Jesus uttered these words has seen the same things, faced the same anxiety, come to the same conclusions. In 30 years of preaching on these texts, I’ve often spoken of how these frightening times seem upon us, and yet, we’re still here. Virtually every generation has been sick at heart over the state of the world, and wondered about Jesus’ words.

His parable of the fig tree doesn’t help much, either. We can tell with trees, that when buds form, leaves are coming, when the leaves turn color, winter is coming. But we can’t read the “signs” Jesus talks about with anything other than confusion and anxiety. We have no idea what to interpret from these events. It’s more than we can do just to deal with the problems themselves, let alone read future truth in them.

So, if every time looks like the end times, maybe we need to change our approach to these words.

If for 2,000 years we’ve proved we can’t make sense of the “signs,” let’s move deeper into Jesus’ words, and find the one piece of clarity Jesus gives: what to do in the midst of them.

Consider this: if you’re going out on a journey into an unknown land, with unknown risks, and unknown problems, would you rather go out knowing nothing, having no supplies, or go out with words of warning and encouragement, equipped to survive?

When a parent sends their child out as a young adult for the first time, whether to college or a new life, or just on their first journey separate from the family, lots of advice is given. Packing lists are checked, warnings about possible dangers are named, support is given. “Don’t pick up hitchhikers; if your car breaks down, call this number; did you pack underwear?”

That’s what Jesus does today. Ignore the predictions, and hear the tremendous gift of what Jesus actually says. “It’s going to be tough out there,” he says. “You’re going to see things, experience things that are going to terrify you. Don’t be surprised or confused by that. And here’s what to do as you travel, how you’ll survive.”

If every time looks like the end times, “Be on guard so your hearts are not weighed down,” Jesus says.

First: guard that your hearts aren’t weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness. Dissipation means staggering, dizziness, and headache caused by drunkenness. As you journey in a fearful world, Jesus says, don’t deaden yourself with wasteful, empty living, dulling your senses with anything that does what drunkenness does. Your heart needs to face reality with all its wits and intelligence and skills. Whatever it is you consume to distract or deaden or dull yourself, chemicals, entertainment, acquisition of things, whatever – consuming these will cost you.

Also: guard that your hearts aren’t weighed down with anxiety over your daily life, he says. Anxiety can lead to the deadening, dulling choice. But Jesus also doesn’t want you to go the opposite direction and let the worries and anxieties of the world overwhelm you.

If your heart is weighed down by what you’re doing to avoid reality or by your obsession with reality, it will draw you deeper and deeper down. Then as things get harder, you’ll sink under the weight. These things – avoiding and obsessing – are like making quicksand for yourself, Jesus says. They make you paralyzed, unable to move or live.

And since every time looks like the end times, “pray for strength to escape all these things,” Jesus says.

This is the second part of Jesus’ gift: there is help on this perilous journey. Rachel recently got a flat tire and asked me to teach her how to change it on her own, so she’d know how if it happened again. That’s what Christ promises here: help and assistance for how we might live as Christ in the world when we’re out there and it feels like we’re alone. And Paul gives shape to this help.

First, Paul says today, Christ will increase your love for one another and for all, make it abundant, overflowing. On your journey, Christ will expand your heart in love for the others in your community, and even in love for all – all! Your heart will gush with love, the opposite of being weighed down, which will make the path of danger also one with joy and blessing.

And then, Paul says, Christ will strengthen your heart in holiness as you await the coming of Christ. Now that it’s filled with love for each other and all, Christ will shape your heart in holiness, that you live as Christ, for Christ, in the world. You’ll receive the skills, gifts, tools necessary to walk Christ’s path, even in the valleys of shadow.

Last, Paul writes to a community. Jesus creates a community. We have each other, and together we watch the sings in the world, practice our skills, and support each other as Christ on the road.

There’s no point in anticipating Christ’s second coming at the end of time if we miss Christ’s coming in us now to live in the world we actually have.

This is Jesus’ third gift today. When we see the world like this, Jesus says, that’s when we know God’s reign is near. Maybe we’re not meant to think of that in terms of time. Rather as God’s reign as Jesus proclaims it, God’s rule and presence in our hearts and lives. At the worst of the world, that’s when we know most that God is with us. Now. Here. On the journey.

Maybe the world will end today. Maybe it won’t end for a thousand years. It doesn’t matter. You know your path, you know what to expect now, and you know Who goes with you and blesses you with all you need.

So go and be Christ’s coming in this world. It desperately needs it.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

Truth is not a thing to be grasped or fought over; Truth is the One who is God-with-us, who gives us and the world life when we abide in relationship with this Truth.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Reign of Christ, Last Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 34 B
Text: John 18:33-37 (added 38a)

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

“What is truth?”

Pilate’s question lingers over this story, over Jesus himself.

And it’s a potent question in our day. Today there isn’t even agreement amongst ourselves as a nation about whether facts are static, real, measurable things. People can, and do, shout “Fake news!” any time something is said that is inconvenient or troublesome to their public persona or point of view.

Truth has become relative. No one can stand in the public square and declare, “This is the truth” without many disputing it. Not on the grounds that the truth is something else, but still discoverable, but on the grounds that “that’s not my truth.” The bitterness and spite in our public arena is amplified by each group or person claiming “their” truth is the only truth, while treating the facts and truth others speak as make-believe or personal opinion.

Yet, we gather here each week with a shared understanding. We believe, and we believe together. Coming here we have an expectation of some kind of agreed-upon truth. We might disagree about nuance or interpretation, but our gathering here together, as a community in worship, implies that as a community we seek truth together, that we even find truth together.

So, Pilate’s question is still vital for us. What, indeed, is truth? Well, it depends on what you mean by truth.

For Pilate, truth was a complicated goal.

Already on a short leash from the Roman emperor due to previous missteps in his governance, this prefect of the troublesome province of Judea faced the truth that he might lose his job. What information he had about Jesus’ case is unknown. As we heard, Pilate wants to know if Jesus is the King of the Jews. Which could translate, “King of the Judeans.” Since Pilate was the Roman prefect of the Judeans, the sole authority in the empire for that province, if Jesus was claiming overlordship of that province, Pilate needed to know.

Perhaps Pilate really wanted to know the truth of Jesus’ case. Is he a criminal or is he innocent? Does he claim to be a king or not? Is he a revolutionary threat or a harmless lunatic? What we do know is that after Pilate said, “What is truth?” he immediately went out and told the religious leaders that he “found no case against [Jesus].”

Seemingly he found the truth about Jesus: the charges were unfounded. And yet, he still issued an order of execution for a man he had declared to be innocent. Truth, for Pilate, seems to be whatever will keep him in his job longer.

The truth about Jesus is also complicated for Christians.

There’s likely nothing Christians have fought over, hated each other about, and broken the community of Christ for more, than the truth about Jesus.

Is Jesus God or is Jesus a human being? Is Jesus a king or is Jesus a servant? Is Jesus a shepherd, or is Jesus a sacrificial lamb? Is Jesus a peacemaker or does Jesus bring a sword?

Generally the Church tries to nail down these paradoxical realities of what the Scriptures say about Jesus into an agreed doctrine. So, for example, in the fourth century, long, drawn-out theological battles over the “true” nature of Christ Jesus finally led to the formation of the Nicene Creed we still proclaim. Fully God, fully human, the Church declared, and used carefully chosen theological terms, as if somehow we could parse out the very details of the mystery of the Son of God in meaningful distinctions.

But if we pay attention to Jesus in John’s Gospel, truth is not something to be nailed down.

John’s Gospel weaves the word “truth” throughout, and it’s not about having your facts straight.

In John 1, we hear that “the law was given through Moses, [but] grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” So, Christ Jesus, God’s eternal Word who participated in creation and now has taken on human flesh, brings “truth” into the world.

Then, in John 8, Jesus says: “If you continue in my Word, you are truly my disciples [my followers, my learners]; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Now the eternal Word of God, in human flesh, invites those who would follow him to abide, live, continue in this same Word of God, and find truth that frees.

But in John 14, Jesus makes the truth about truth abundantly clear: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

This is the great wonder: The Truth is in fact the Son of God himself, the Incarnate Word. Truth isn’t something we can grasp or fight over. Truth isn’t something I have and you don’t. Truth is a Someone. “I am the way, the truth, and the life” means we don’t find God by knowing or believing the right things. It means the One who is Truth embodied brings us to God.

The true Truth cannot be controlled, boxed up in a perfect theology, or fought over. The true Truth can only be known in relationship.

This is what Jesus wants Pilate to see.

It isn’t whether Jesus claims to be a king as Pilate defines king. Jesus asks, “Do you say I’m a king on your own, or did others tell you?” Jesus wants to know what Pilate says of him, what he claims. The only ones who know Truth, Jesus says, are “my followers.” The only ones who know the Truth are the ones who live in relationship with the Truth, with Jesus.

“Everyone who belongs to the Truth listens to my voice,” Jesus says. You don’t belong to a thing, to an abstract argument, to a stated fact. You belong to a Someone, to a Person. And in belonging, you hear that Person’s voice and follow.

So too, we find the true Truth, the Incarnate God in our lives, not by argument but by living with the One who is the Truth.

“If you continue in my Word, live in my Word,” Jesus says, “you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. I will make you free.”

True followers live in the Word and in relationship with the One who is the Truth. Is Jesus a king or a servant? Instead of arguing that out, trying to teach the truth, Jesus put on a towel, knelt, and washed his followers’ feet. In relationship, Jesus showed them Truth. And then he said, “Go, do the same. Be like me, live as servant. Be the Truth yourself.”

And Jesus didn’t make a philosophical argument about the kind of King he was, or a theological lecture about self-giving, sacrificial Love. He allowed himself to be arrested, tortured, and executed, and in the power of God’s eternal life, rose from the dead as Ruler of all things. In relationship, on the cross Jesus showed them Truth. And then he said, “Go, do the same. Be like me. Love, as I have loved you. Be the Truth yourself.”

The question isn’t “what is truth?” It’s “Who is Truth?”

And thanks be to God you have met this Truth in Word and Sacrament, in this community of children of God formed by God’s love and grace. Here you live as Truth to each other, and by your lives witness to the undying love of God that fills you and all things. Here you learn to follow, to love, to serve, to abide in Truth for the sake of the world. And for your own sake.

And this One who is Truth truly makes you free.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

God calls us together today and invites us to let go of our anxiety and fear, and, walking in God’s reign, let God center us and make us part of the healing of all things.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Day of Thanksgiving, year B
Texts: Matthew 6:25-33 (adding v. 34); 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Joel 2:21-27

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

Why are we here this morning?

This is the only day on the Church calendar that’s not a Church holy day. Now, the Church strongly approves of giving thanks; our weekly worship is called Eucharist, which means Thanksgiving. But we’re only here today because for over 150 years U.S. presidents have declared a national Day of Thanksgiving, and for nearly 80 years it’s been on November’s fourth Thursday. Otherwise, this would be a normal work day and we’d gather for our weekly Thanksgiving feast next Sunday.

This secular holiday is complicated for us. Nationally, this day is marked by the encouragement of gluttony and joking about that, by the spectacle of parades and football games, by the official launch of the rampant consumerism of the so-called “holiday season”, by pressure on families to get along, and by regurgitating the national myth of benevolent forebears coming to this land in peace, eating a feast with the natives, never mentioning the destruction, genocide, religious intolerance, and suffering that those pilgrims brought with them on their little ships. We like to give thanks to God. But this day is filled with lots of things we’re not thankful for.

But a funny thing happens when the Church adopts a day into the calendar. Drawing this national, secular holiday onto the calendar meant the Church did what the Church normally does: gave this day readings from Scripture, three years’ worth.

And suddenly today has the same reason to worship as every day on the Church calendar. God’s Word tells us what we’re about, defines why we’re here today, not presidents or the marketplace or the parade announcers.

And it turns out we actually have important reasons to be here.

For this lectionary year, we’re drawn here for a simple message from God: don’t be anxious or afraid.

Joel first beautifully addresses the earth’s soil, saying, “Don’t fear, O soil, be glad and rejoice, for God has done great things for you!” Then he says to the animals of the field, “Don’t fear, for the pastures are green, the trees are bearing fruit!” Last, the prophet tells God’s people to rejoice and be glad, for God is providing abundant rain and harvest of grain and oil and wine.

Jesus doesn’t directly address the non-humans. But he portrays the lilies of the field and the birds of the air as models of ones who have no fear, no anxiety, who trust in God’s abundant care. From their model, Jesus says to the people, “Don’t worry about what you’ll eat or drink or wear, be like the birds and the flowers and trust God will provide.”

A national Day of Non-Anxiety. That’s worth gathering for. So, we give thanks, and we hear God’s prophet and God’s Son invite us to release our worries and fears and rejoice in God’s abundance.

But then we think about the world.

And we realize the soil, the animals of the field, the birds of the air, and the flowers have much to fear.

When we consider our world, we want to restate Joel and Jesus and say instead, “Be afraid, O soil, for the people of this world are dumping their toxic waste into you, stripping you of your nutrients, and exploiting you until you are incapable of supporting life. Be afraid, you animals and birds and flowers, for the people of this world are consuming the resources of your abundance, polluting your habitats, dangerously and rapidly heating up your planet, and blithely ignoring the disappearance of millions of your siblings and species.”

Joel couldn’t have imagined this. Jesus could have, but didn’t speak of it. But in our age we can’t simply look at the natural world and rejoice in God’s abundance. The human race has been systematically exploiting God’s abundance, without care or concern for any of our fellow inhabitants, the soil, the animals, the birds, the plants. We’re equally dismissive and destructive of our fellow human beings, creating systems of oppression and violence and indifference which, on top of our destruction of the climate, harm the most vulnerable of God’s children.

How can today be a Day of Non-Anxiety with the world as we’ve abused it for so long? And then, the writer of 1 Timothy urges today that we give supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving for everyone, including kings and all in high positions. So, we’re commanded to pray for current leaders who do this horror not with well-meant ignorance but with malice and purpose.

What can we do here today that is at all faithful?

First, breathe for a moment. And then return to Jesus’ words.

Jesus doesn’t deny our reasons for anxiety and fear. But for those who follow him, who hear his voice, he says, “Change your focus. Don’t worry about what might or might not happen, about what is wrong with the world, about all the things that make you anxious. Instead, focus on God’s reign and God’s righteousness.”

Seek God’s reign. For Jesus, this means focus your life on following God’s way as Jesus has taught it. Beginning with love of God and love of neighbor, this is a way that Jesus invites you to follow with everything you have. It’s the way of the cross, the way of self-giving love. Let your heart be ruled by that, Jesus says, and you’ll find peace.

And seek God’s righteousness. To be righteous is to be in tune with your true self, the way you were made. A car that is finely tuned, that has all its parts oiled and working correctly, is righteous, what it was created to be. So, Jesus says, seek God’s true-ing of you, making your heart and soul and mind to be what they are meant to be. God’s clearing out blocks and hindrances, shaping you into Christ, your pattern of righteousness.

God’s reign and righteousness are our path out of our anxiety into trust.

Knowing that we are loving as God is, walking where God is, and shaped to be God’s people we were made to be, gives us peace of mind in the worst of the world’s evil and pain.

And as people trued to God’s pattern, walking God’s path, we are agents of God’s healing of this broken, sinful world ourselves. So we become the ones who protect the soil, who look out for the animals of the field. We become the ones God uses to keep the flowers clothed in beauty and the birds of the air safe in their nests. We rejoice in the abundance we still see God pouring on the earth, and ensure that all are included in its grace. This also lessens our anxiety.

And, we become witnesses of the truth of God’s undying love for all things. We witness to the God who, 1 Timothy also says, “desires everyone to be saved – healed, rescued – and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” That’s why we pray for everyone, even “kings and all in high positions.” Because God will not rest until all are drawn into the life-giving reign of God and are made righteous. Until all are saved, and know God’s truth.

Whatever reason we have for coming here today, the Church in her wisdom has said, “focus on this: Don’t be anxious or afraid. God’s abundant love is healing all things.”

God’s pleasure, God’s desire, God’s dream is to have the whole creation blessed with abundance and fullness. And we get to be a part of that dream, bringing healing and wholeness in our very lives as Christ, and calming not only our anxiety and fear, but that of our siblings in this abundant creation, from humans to all God’s creatures.

So today, let’s join the soil, the animals of the field, the birds of the air, the flowers, and all God’s children in singing praise and thanksgiving to the Triune God, whose love brings calm and trust in an anxious and frightened world.

Focus on that today, Jesus says. Leave tomorrow in God’s hands.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

The suffering creation is being brought to new birth in God’s grace in Christ: hold fast to this hope even while participating in that new birth.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 33 B
Texts: Mark 13:1-8; Hebrews 10:11-25; 1 Samuel 2:1-10 (psalm for the day)

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

The disciples were a lot more optimistic than we are these days.

They’re rubes in the big city, gawking at the massive Temple and the beautiful buildings in Jerusalem. They’d be taking selfies with these buildings if they lived today.

Jesus throws cold water on their awe, saying that all these buildings will be thrown down, and hard as it is to believe, not one stone will be left on another. Forty years later, that’s exactly what Rome did to Jerusalem. All that seemed so permanent was wiped off the face of the earth.

But Jesus doesn’t need to throw cold water on us. We’re not looking in awe at our world, thinking it will last forever. In the daily chaos of our reality we wonder if our massive institutions of democracy, checks and balances, decency, and care for the common good, can survive the next two years, or more. We worry whether there is irrevocable damage to our democracy, to voter rights, to structures that keep people from starving, or that provide good medical care, to countless things we’ve valued as a nation. Abraham Lincoln’s hopeful words at Gettysburg, “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth,” seem more and more a tenuous hope.

But instead of cold water, Jesus says something beautifully mysterious to us about this falling apart of the world we face: “this is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”

This is a birth process, Jesus says!

There might be wars, earthquakes, famines, persecutions, cruelty, oppression. Times, Jesus says here and elsewhere, when people despair at this world’s falling apart. But something is being born in that chaos. God is creating a new reality.

Paul says the same in Romans 8: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now,” he writes, and God is working through this painfulness to bring forth new life.

Birth pangs are a wondrous image for the pain of this world. Contractions and labor, indescribable pains to those of us who haven’t experienced them, have a purpose: they move the baby through the birth canal, bringing new life into existence. So, too, God is working within the suffering creation to bring about new life. It’s no less painful. But there is hope for what comes at the end of it.

And Hannah sings that hope, what that birth, will be.

She joins her sister Mary, Jesus’ mother, whose Magnificat echoes Hannah’s song, and declares that in this world of injustice and cruel hate, where those in power crush those beneath them, where those who have nothing to eat starve, her heart exults in The One Who Is, the God of Israel.

This God, Hannah sings, will break the weapons of the mighty, and the feeble will find new strength. Those who were full will sell themselves as slaves to buy bread, while those who were hungry grow fat. Those who are poor are lifted from the dust, the pile of ashes, and sit in places of honor.

Hannah, like Mary after her, envisions a Magnificat world of grace and mercy for all people, where no one is in need, all live in love, and all are safe and whole. It is an overturning, because those on top aren’t going to give up their seats easily. But even for them, even for us, this new reality of God could be a blessing and a hope, once all are equally cared for and blessed in God’s abundance.

Hannah sings after she gives birth to Samuel; she knows the joy of the outcome of painful labor. Mary sings while still pregnant with Jesus; she, like us, lives in hope of what will come through the pain and suffering ahead.

This is what God is doing. This world will be made new, even in this life. But right now, we’re in the midst of the birth pains.

So our writer to the Hebrews encourages what we can do while God’s birthing continues.

For ten chapters, some of which we’ve heard these past Sundays, this writer has encouraged a group of Jewish Christians in their journey of faith, their pilgrimage, by naming Jesus, the Son of God, as their pioneer and guide for that journey. Jesus has suffered all they have, so he’s a faithful and knowledgeable guide. Jesus is also their new high priest, and as God’s Son, offered the ultimate sacrifice to end all sacrifices: God’s own self, offered for the world. This is God’s new covenant, we heard, written on our hearts forever, a covenant of forgiveness, even of forgetting of sins, and of new life as God’s people.

Then our author writes a glorious word: “Therefore.” “Therefore,” since Jesus has opened the Holy of Holies with his body and blood, since Jesus is our great high priest giving us full access to God’s inner life and grace, “therefore,” let us live in these following ways.

Let us approach God with a bold, true heart, we heard.

We have nothing to fear because Jesus, God’s Son, has opened the way to God. In the midst of the birth pangs, the struggles of this world, a door is opened into the heart of God. Let’s go boldly into the Holy of Holies, Hebrews says, fully assured in faith, with baptismally washed hearts and bodies, to be held by God.

And let us also “hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering.” Let’s cling to this hope of God’s undying love as to a lifeline in a hurricane. God’s love will be with you now, giving you courage and strength to live in the birth pangs of the changing creation. And God’s love in Christ Jesus’ death and resurrection promises hope of a life to come in the world beyond death. Hold tightly to this, Hebrews says.

And last, let us “consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.”

Because, my dear friends, this is exactly how God is creating a new creation. Through the love and good deeds of God’s children. That’s why it’s taking so long. That’s why the forces of evil seem to run unchecked, why chaos seems to be in charge, why the labor pains are lasting for centuries. Because God’s not magically making a creation that appears and fixes everything. God’s painstakingly – literally taking pain to do this – painstakingly making a new creation such as Hannah and Mary proclaim, through the love and good deeds of all God’s children. Through yours. Through mine.

So let’s consider how to provoke each other to this, Hebrews says. Isn’t that lovely? “Provoke” means exactly what you think: irritate, annoy, even anger. Let’s be pests to each other, gnats who sting each other to love and good deeds. To do that, Hebrews says, we can’t neglect to meet together. But when we do meet together, let’s prod, poke, even annoy each other to be a part of the new creation with love and good deeds.

This is our good news: the world’s suffering is birth pangs, leading to a new creation birthed by God.

Since they’re birth pangs, that means God’s reign is certain. It will arrive. There will be a restored creation. And Christ Jesus, God’s Son, who made this birth process possible by all that he did, will be our midwife, the world’s midwife, guiding us through this process.

Therefore. Therefore, always remember what is coming, what God is birthing. That will give you hope in the darkest times.

Therefore, remember that you are safe in God’s arms now, and always, and that you can come right into God’s heart and find that love. That will give you strength in the most frightening times.

And therefore, remember because of what Jesus has done, in that confidence and hope, you know what to do: love and good deeds, the work of the birthing process that belongs to you and me. That will bring about God’s new birth more and more even in the times when it is most impossible to see.

Let us do all this, unwavering in trust and hope, until the birth happens and the universe rejoices.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen