Why Do We Worship?

If you were to answer the question, "Why do you worship?" what would you say?  If you read Isaiah 61: 10 - 62: 3, you hear prophet Isaiah, answer the question with his description of his joy in God, his appreciation for God's creation, and his gratitude for God's saving grace and God's delight in him.  Isaiah says, "I sing for joy in God...[and] I can't keep my mouth shut."  (61:10; 62: 1)

Psalm 148 is one long ALLELUIA! for God.  For the psalmist, worship is praising God.

Luke 2: 22-40 is the story of senior citizens Simeon and Anna who have worshiped their whole lives while waiting for the birth of the babe.  As each takes Jesus into his/her arms, they praise God for allowing them to live long enough to realize he is their salvation and the light of the world, who will bring God's glory to God's people.

It's all about worship.  A life of faith begins and ends with worship.  Franciscan priest, Richard Rohr writes, "Every day we must make a deep choice for gratitude, abundance ("there is enough"), and appreciation, which always de-centers the self and its cravings.  It is the core meaning of worship.  Your life is pure gift, and it must be based in an attitude of gratitude" (R. Rohr, Center for Action and Contemplation daily meditation, 2011).

In our January sermon series on Worship, we begin with the question about why we worship and then explore what it means to gather together as a family to worship and why one of the earliest elements of worship is to confess our sins, ask for forgiveness, and celebrate with alleluias God's grace and mercy.

Grace and Peace,
Pastor Shelley

What Earthly Good is Jesus?

Christmas Eve is an evening when much (but not all) of our normal day-to-day activities pause as we anticipate the birth of the Babe of Bethlehem. Christmas Day is a great big celebrative time-out for most of us. But what difference does it make for our Mondays (post hoopla) when we read Luke 1: 26-38 and consider Mary and Joseph's story of giving birth in a stable (or cave) to Jesus?

1st, we can contemplate our reactions to the birth of any sweet baby.  New babies break our hearts open - usually filling us with loving feelings and thoughts.  When it's the Son of God breaking our hearts open, not only do we contemplate the world through our eyes of love; but we also often can now see the realities of the destruction we wreak on our planet and the destruction we wreak on each other through violence or abuse or broken relationships.  When our hearts are broken open, we can see more clearly - both the wonders and the woefulness of the world.

2nd, we realize that Baby Jesus is a real earthly person like each of us.  Jesus will experience childhood, adolescence, and adulthood as we do.  Jesus will experience hunger, anger, sadness, and happiness.  Jesus knows what it is like to be us, because Jesus is us in our humanness.  As a part of the trinitarian Godhead, Jesus can relate to us and our trials and tribulations as well as our triumphs.  Jesus knows us in an intimate way, unmatched by even our mother or spouse.

3rd, Jesus is God-come-to-earth.  After trying kings, judges, prophets, and all kinds of messengers, God decides to send Jesus to show us who God is.  Jesus walking/preaching/teaching/healing among us says, "Here I am.  This is what God looks like.  This is how much God loves us that God would send God's Son."  When we yearn to know God, Jesus says, "Look over here.  I Am...."

What earthly good is Jesus?  We celebrate the birth that changes the world.  The birth is the beginning of Jesus growing up and initiating God's kingdom on earth in a whole new way.  Jesus' birth matters because Jesus is one of us, living in this world in a particular time and place.  We too live in this world in a particular time and place, with specific needs and hungers haunting our lives and the lives of our community and beyond.  Because Jesus knows us so well and dwells among us, we live into the hope of the kingdom, both now and not yet, of which we can be a part beginning tomorrow and carrying us into our Mondays and beyond.
                                                                                 May your Christmas be filled with blessings,
                                                                                 Pastor Shelley

Walking, Waiting, Watching Alongside Mary

I wonder if the rhythm of riding a donkey toward Bethlehem mimicked the motion of the babe in Mary's womb or the rhythms of her labor in a stable or the rhythms of rocking Baby Jesus to sleep before placing him in the manger - a feeding trough filled with straw for the animals? Almighty God chose a young peasant woman of faith to carry God's Son - doing what is impossible for us. But in Mary, we have a very real woman giving very real birth to a very human baby. This is an experience most of us can share whether we are women who have labored toward birth or we are men standing by a woman's side in the labor room or whether we are the proud and anxious grandparent or sibling or aunt/uncle awaiting anxiously for the birth and our turn to hold the new baby.

"Carols and Lullabies" by Conrad Susa is Trinity's musical worship this Sunday focusing on Mary as a central figure in this well known Christmas story. "The Magnificat", Luke 1: 46 -55, is Mary's response to God's call to her to bear the Babe of Bethlehem. In this hymn of praise, Mary magnifies the Lord and rejoices in God's call to her, knowing that it is a significant challenge, full of unknowns. Mary recognizes that God has blessed her as a servant of God and that her holiness is dependent on God's own holiness and God's choice of her. Mary reminds us that God has a pattern of selecting the lowly ones to shame the powerful, whom God will scatter in their arrogance. Mary reminds us that God's pattern is to fill the hungry with good things and to send the rich away empty. Mary praises God for the Almighty's mercy which has been God's pattern from the time of Abraham onward.

Where and how are we challenged by this story? Are we too rich with things to be hungry enough for God to choose and challenge us? Are we so powerful in our lives that we're threatened to be the ones who are brought down from our thrones?

Where and how are we blessed by this story? Can we turn toward trusting God as fully and faithfully as Mary does? Can we be as obedient as Mary when we hear God faintly or forcefully calling us? Can we praise God loudly enough with our words and actions for our neighbors to hear?

Someone recently said to me, "Christmas is primarily for children." I disagree. The presents under our trees may be primarily for children. But the story with its challenges to us is for ALL of us. This story is full of promises for us to continue living the story with our lives.

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Shelley

We Are Not the Light

Have you tried to tell someone who you are by saying who you are not? In John 1: 6-8, 19-28, John the Witness confesses to the religious authorities who grill him: No, I'm not the Messiah. No, I'm not Elijah. No, I'm not the prophet. Instead, with great understatement, John identifies himself as the one called to point us toward the coming of Jesus Christ - to witness to him. John says of himself that he cries out in the wilderness and that he's unworthy to untie the thong of the sandal of the one who is coming. Like us, John waits in the dark for the coming of the Messiah, who will bring light into the world's darkness. John's "I am not" self declarations contrast to Jesus' later "I am" statements.

John's self understanding arises out of his relationship to Jesus as the coming Messiah. Who John is and what he's called to do (witness to the coming light) depends totally on belonging to Christ. One way to think about our own relationship to Jesus is that Jesus is both sun and Son. We are the moons which circle around the sun/Son, reflecting the light of the sun/Son.

This distinction helps us understand that we're neither the Christ, nor are we God. God is Creator and we are God's creatures. Like John, our call - our work - our service - is to prepare the way so that Christ's light might shine out into the world where darkness seems to prevail.

Hebrew Bible Prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 61: 1-4, 8-11 draws a powerfully poignant picture of the kingdom here on earth that will come to pass where people respond to God by:

• preaching good news to the poor
• healing the heartbroken
• proclaiming freedom to captives
• releasing prisoners
• comforting those who mourn.

Isaiah pictures the year of Jubilee in which land is returned to original owners, debts are cancelled and slaves are freed. Anticipating slates wiped clean is accomplished through the light of the world shining in the dark, never to be extinguished by the darkness. Jesus Christ is the bringer of eternal Jubilee.

While we wait, we can witness to the slivers of light and the bounteous light that we see whenever and wherever we serve in Christ's name. What good and great news this is!

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Shelley