All Saints Episcopal Church

If like Peter, we take what we see at first glance, if we rely on our perfunctory attempts at building relationship and don't truly commit to knowing a person and allow ourselves to be known, then like Peter we might find we have hugely misinterpreted our work in the world and find ourselves building dwellings to honor prophets, instead of listening to God who is standing right in front of us.

When we are moved, with pity, with compassion or with awe, it is not just good, it is GOSPEL to pass it along, to take that movement and make something. When we are moved, it is right and good to reach out our hands, as Jesus did, to enter the space of another and draw them out of the darkness and isolation and bring them into the light of the community, the light that we have come to know as God.

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Evil often is loud and in your face. It wants to look big and permanent. Evil will try to subdue your psyche. There are many pockets in the world with intractable problems: poverty, crime, abuse. These and other problems cloud our vision and make us forget what we heard in the Gospel today, that Jesus drives away the loud demons, Jesus has authority over evil. Evil can obscure the good right in front of us. However, if we stick with it, we will be reminded. We will be fed. God will open our eyes, sometimes in the most unexpected places through the most unexpected people.

As we recognize the grace of God, so we are invited to turn toward this new thing, to repent and live into this new and graceful way of living.

God is always ready to do a new thing when the circumstances call for it, and God has many, many ways of acting within the context of human history.

The heavens have been torn open and so has the curtain in the Temple. We have been shown Jesus as God's beloved and we have been shown him in his saving work of dying that we might know ourselves judged for all the ways in which we victimize others and then disallowing us the status of victim any longer because we are forgiven and loved and freed for new life.

Who is your star? Who got you here? The short answer, for many of us, is Jesus. But even for the lifelong believer. Jesus isn't the whole story. So who got you here? What bright star did you follow that lead you, defying all astronomical rules, to believe in this unbelievable story? We all got here somehow. What about you?

Having experienced the incarnate word in the child Jesus, we now are charged with being witnesses to the light. Witnesses who will carry that light out into the world outside those doors. And so, with thankful hearts for the gift of God incarnate among us, we are drawn back out into our lives in the world, to scatter the darkness for others, to be witnesses to the light.

The incarnation, both in its announcement to the world and in its execution by God is counterintuitive to our notions of power and authority. We generally idealize people with a pedigree, position of authority, or wealth and overlook those who are on the margins. We generally praise the self sufficient and scoff at those who are in need. Yet God chose to work through the outcasts and the marginalized.

In a little while we will sing of the hopes and fears of all the years meeting in the child whose birth we mark this night. Our hope is for a life freed from fear and our fear is the progenitor of violence and victimization. Gratitude is both the fruit of real hope and the antidote to fear and we see the seeds of that truth in the Christmas story, the glad tidings of great joy that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us --all of us-- full of grace and full of truth, the first gift of God's self giving love which brings universes into being and opens to us the way of abundant and everlasting life.

What if we refuse this year to let Christmas end? If we were to live in a way that reflected God's generous incarnational love to us all year, would we begin to remember that however beautiful, the end of Christmas carols is not the end of the story?

The Incarnation requires more than God breaking into the world, it requires human participation. God in humankind is half the incarnation. The other half requires humankind to be in Christ, to participate in God's action in the world.

I know how bleak things can seem in exile, but I also know that Christmas does come, that love conquers all and that the One who calls us is faithful. In mourning, in anxious times or when we simply long for justice to be made manifest in this world I urge you to put your whole trust in God's grace and love and watch for the first signs of grace when you are granted real connection with others.

John was heralding the coming of God almighty, the maker of heaven and earth. John was not making God's presence happen, John was making God's presence known. John was giving us those of us willing to listen fair warning that world as we knew it was about to change, would never, never be the same. John was instructing us to get ready for the change, but in no way did John make us think that God would wait for our preparations.

Keep awake, or we will miss God's presence.

God has given us so much. God has blessed us time and time again, over and over and over. Even so, God wills more for us. God wishes to have a deeper relationship with us and to create something new in us. God wishes to make us well. We can float through life, and mark our holidays with fond memories and moments of angst. We can take our blessings, and not acknowledge them fully. Or, we can engage in a meaningful relationship with our creator, through Christ, out of which more blessings flow. We do not need anything elaborate in order to foment this relationship, only simple faith. I am thankful that God has given us so many blessings. I am thankful God is offering us so much more.

How do we regulate our anxiety so we can be a gift to others?

This parable is like Jesus saying this world will tell you that you are only valuable when you can consume and when you have money. Woe unto you if you lose your job, or if life does you wrong, or if your retirement accounts lose their value. But wait. That is not the message of the Reign of God. In the Kingdom you are of infinite value because you are created by love for love and you will be judged not on how much you consume but on how you treat the weakest among you.

We like to think of Jesus as loving us all, regardless of how much oil we have, how peaceful we are in our hearts, how deserving we are of that love. That is what the resurrection was about, right? And I still think that's true. But we still have to be prepared. I think that we have to be prepared to receive that love we are so generously offered or we'll miss it altogether. We will not be any less loved, but we will be totally incognizant of it.