We have two great passages from Scripture for this Last Sunday after the Epiphany. In 2 Kings, we hear about the prophet Elijah passing the mantel, passing his prophetic authority on to Elisha. In the Gospel of Mark, we hear the story of the Transfiguration, when Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him up a high mountain and Jesus was transfigured before them. I'm going to focus today on 2 Kings, but I will bring the Transfiguration into our discussion.2 Kings inspires renewal in our everyday lives. Let's take a look at the journey that Elijah and Elisha took together. They traveled to Gilgal, Bethel, Jericho, and then the Jordan River. These locations weren't just convenient stops along the way. These places are named because they are theologically significant. The first stop was Gilgal. The Israelites had wandered for forty years in the wilderness, then Joshua led them across the Jordan River into the Promised Land. That night they camped in Gilgal. Joshua directed twelve men, one from each tribe, to take a stone from the Jordan River and bring it into the camp as a memorial. Joshua told the people that the stones will be a reminder for all people that the Lord our God dried up the waters of the Jordan so the Israelites could cross over. Our God is a living God.The second stop on the journey was Bethel. Do you remember the story about Jacob's Ladder in the Book of Genesis? "Jacob came to a certain place and stayed there for the night. ... He dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood beside him and said, 'I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. ... Know that I am with you.' ... Jacob called that place Bethel" (28:10-19). Our God is a living God.The third stop on the journey was Jericho where the Israelites entered into battle for the first time after they crossed over into the Promised Land. God told Joshua exactly how to enter into the battle and he did as he was told. He led the people in marching around the walls of the city for six days with trumpets blaring. On the seventh day, they marched around the walls seven times. At the prescribed moment, Jacob told the people to shout out and they did. Indeed, the walls came tumbling down and the Israelites captured the city. God told Joshua exactly how to make it happen. Our God is a living God.The fourth stop on the journey was the River Jordan. Again, it is through the Jordan that the Israelites crossed over from the wilderness into the Promised Land. Truly, is there a better, more fitting spot for Elijah to be taken up into the heavens, into new life? Actually, there is. Elijah struck the water of the River Jordan, the water parted, and Elijah and Elisha crossed over. They crossed over into an unnamed location - not a famous, historical site - a non-descript, everyday location. From this place, "Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven." Our God is a living God...in our everyday.Next, let's take a look at the theme of silence. To start, let's go back to 1 Kings to remember a powerful story about silence. "God tells Elijah, 'Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.' Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave" (19:11-13). Elijah heard God in the silence. Elisha learned well from his mentor. In today's passage from 2 Kings, a group of prophets in Bethel and a group of prophets in Jericho warn Elisha that the Lord is going to take Elijah away. Both times, Elisha tells them to keep silent. It was not a time to jump to conclusions, to make premature decisions. It was a time to simply be present, to listen in the silence, to let God lead.Here we should take a moment to consider Peter's reaction to the Transfiguration. Jesus takes Peter, James and John and they go up a high mountain. Jesus is transfigured before them, "his facing shining like the sun, his clothes dazzling white." Then, Moses and Elijah appear. Moses lived 1200 years prior. Elijah lived 800 years prior. Yet, there they stood. That would be a lot to take in. Peter makes a rather nonsensical statement: "Lord, if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." On the one hand, what I love about Peter's response, is that he is showing us the fruits of his faith...he knows that these two are Elijah and Moses. Think about that. They lived centuries prior. There were no photos available. He just knew it was them. Yet, his response was nonsensical. When we set his response against Elisha's response requesting silence, we see how Peter was missing out on the significance of the moment: Jesus is being revealed as the Messiah.The story of Elijah passing his prophetic authority onto Elisha encourages us to find time for silence in our every day. In the silence, in setting aside all the details of the day, we make room to hear our living God, the still small voice inside of us that leads us into all truth, gives us the peace to endure all challenges, inspires new beginnings; imbues hope. Don't forget Elisha's persistence. In Gilgal and Bethel and Jericho, Elijah told Elisha to stay there. But, Elisha kept insisting he would not leave Elijah and continued to follow him; he continued until he got what he believed he needed to carry out his ministry. We can persist in making time for prayer, for sitting in the silence, desiring to hear that still small voice that will inspire our life. Amen.

We were grateful to have welcomed Keisha Krumm, Executive Director of Greater Cleveland Congregations (GCC), to the pulpit. Keisha has an MDiv in Christian Community Development from Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary. Watch her sermon on our website.

On this day, we mark the feast of our patron, St. Paul. On

the Church's calendar, our patronal feast falls on the 25th of January, but the

prayer book allows for a patronal feast of a parish to be moved to a Sunday so

that it can be celebrated in a more robust way. We are doing that today in this

combined service, and I am so happy to see the nave so full. What a way to

celebrate St. Paul and this parish named for him that we love so much and are

blessed to be a part of!

After Jesus, Paul might just be the most well-known person

in Scripture. Indeed, Paul claims more writings in the New Testament than any

other author. We would be hard-pressed to find someone who had as much of an

influence on the spread of our faith as Paul did. So, I thought it might be

good- if you'll indulge me- to mark this feast of our patron St. Paul by going

through a top five of his most well-known words.

Our first stop on this top five list of comes from his

second letter to the Church in Corinth. Paul writes that "we walk by faith, and

not by sight." I find this phrase an interesting one, for it was in Paul's own

conversion experience that he actually lost his eyesight. In today's text from

Acts, we hear Paul's call story, but with a few details left out. In a more

full account of the call story in the ninth chapter of Acts, we learn that Paul

was without sight for the first three days after God stopped him in his tracks

and called him to preach and teach the good news of Christ. Paul learned in all

of his trials, on days when things did not make sense, on days when he could

not see any further than to take just one step forward, Paul knew to see with

his spiritual eyes, to trust in God's grace and love to get him through. And we

know that, too. On the dark days, in the dark nights of our souls when it may

be hard to see or feel God's presence, to see God with us and in us through the

eyes of faith.

The second well-known verse I want us to look at is in the

first letter to the Thessalonians, fifth chapter. "Give thanks in all

circumstances, for it is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." And this

wasn't the only time Paul encouraged us to give thanks. Paul admonishes the

early Church to give thanks, to live in a state of gratitude, more than 35

times. Paul knew the power of gratitude. Paul lived a hard life and was even

imprisoned at times for preaching the Gospel, but he knew the power of offering thanks

to break chains - literally break his own chains while imprisoned - and set him

free from his circumstances. And we as St. Paul's Church follow our patron's

call to gratitude by gathering here, week in and week out, to offer thanks to

God as a community for God's work in our midst, on the good days and the bad

days. And that gratitude changes us. It makes us able to do God's work in the

world.

Our next stop on our journey through Pauline wisdom is in

the fifth chapter of Romans. Paul says here that "Hope does not disappoint us,

because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that

has been given to us. If Paul had a firm grasp on gratitude, he had an even

firmer grasp on hope. Paul mentions the word hope over fifty times. And hope

was central to the message of Jesus, too. Though it's not mentioned by word in

today's Gospel reading, the overall theme is indeed hope. Jesus is telling his

disciples that accepting to follow him is sometimes going to be tough. He says

he is sending them out like sheep into the midst of wolves. I love how Jesus

does not mince words here. He cuts straight to the chase and says that this

work is going to be hard. You will be judged, and perhaps even imprisoned. BUT.

When you worry about what to say, what to do, don't worry. Don't fear. Your

hope is in God, who will give you the words to say, give you the strength to

carry on. Your hope is in God, and that can't be taken away from you.

Our fourth stop on our journey is found in Paul's letter to

the Church in Galatia. Paul writes, "As many of you as were baptized into

Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek;

there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all

of you are one in Christ Jesus." In this well-known passage, Paul is pointing

to perhaps the best news in the Good News of Jesus: that we are all one. In

Christ, all division cease, walls that divide us are torn down. We participate

in this reality every week in this space when we come to this altar, to receive

from one bread and one cup. In that one bread, in that one cup, we are all made

one in Christ Jesus. We don't always get it right. We do fail. And that is

precisely why we return week after week to be fed and reminded again and again

that in Christ, we are all one.

Finally, in this list of Paul's greatest writings, his

greatest must be, without a doubt, his treatment of love. In his first letter

to the Church in Corinth, he writes, "[Love] bears all things, believes all

things, hopes all things, endures all things." Love endures all things. At the

end of the world, love is what will be left standing. In all our own trials,

love is what will get us through. When we are confused and tired and don't know

which way is up, love will point the way. In grief and loss and hardship, love

is there to comfort and bless. In the depths of the worst that life can give

us, love whispers hope. Even in the grave, love gives us voice to make our song

alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. At the end of the age, love wins.

Now, I know Paul can be controversial. Paul lived in a time

and place very different from our own, and some of his writings reflect that.

And we are also lucky to be named for this saint who wrote and taught about

seeing through the eyes of faith, offering thanks to God in all things,

clinging to hope, seeing all as our equal, and loving above all else.

A patronal feast can be a time for a parish to take stock of

what has been in the last year and plan for what is to come. I encourage us to

do that work today: to ground all we do in this new year in faith, gratitude,

hope, equality, and love. Thanks be to God for the witness of St. Paul, and

thanks be to God for all of you in this place. Amen.

The Rev. Patricia Rose preached during our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Third Sunday after the Epiphany.

One of the many things I love about The Episcopal Church is that its liturgies bring order to my chaotic life. The predictable pattern of prayer, scripture, and song creates a refuge where I find serenity in an otherwise tumultuous world. Whether it's a service of the Holy Eucharist, or a service of Choral Evensong, our ancient liturgies are both comfortably familiar and always new. This is profoundly true when it comes to our lectionary. That is, the calendar that determines the passages of scripture we read at each service. In some Christian denominations, the pastor selects the readings for worship. But our common lectionary - rather than subjecting us to the whims of an individual pastor - binds us to other liturgical communities around the world, as we all read the same passages on the same day. The Sunday lectionary, the one that determined our readings for this morning, is structured in a three-year cycle: Year A, Year B and Year C. As we live through these cycles, over and over, the readings take on new meaning each time we hear them.Today, for example, is the Second Sunday after the Epiphany in Year B. The last time we heard these readings was the Sunday I preached my first sermon at St. Paul's. On that day, I stood at a lectern right over there and stared into a camera, as the pews sat empty. That day also came right on the heels of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The concerns weighing on my heart that day. The concerns that colored my hearing of these scriptures then, were concerns of political unrest and violence, and the deadly ravages of COVID. Today, as I hear them, there are different concerns weighing on my heart. Today, my concerns are for the young people of our community, because of distressing events that transpired over the last week in local schools.For starters, this past week was a volatile one for the community of Shaker Heights High School. A combination of events including intruders to the campus, physical confrontations, and a 'stay-put' order - all exacerbated by disinformation on social media - meant that by Friday, students were instructed to stay home as classes were conducted online. Meanwhile, at Cleveland Heights High School, the first day back from winter break began with grief counseling and mental health support. Because during the break, a 15-year-old sophomore tragically lost her life to the plague of gun violence. As one parent wrote to me on Friday, "What I'm thinking about most this morning is how [our society has] normalized [all this. Our kids] honestly aren't surprised by any of it anymore and that breaks my heart." Indeed, these events, all too common in the lives of our youth, are heartbreaking. They are sobering reminders that we must pray for the young people of St. Paul's and their school communities. We must pray that their schools might be peaceful, safe havens of learning. And that we, the adults in their faith community, might be never-failing sources of encouragement and support for them.With these concerns for our youth at the forefront of my mind, as I read today's scriptures this time around, I found myself fixated on the young boy, Samuel, from our Old Testament passage. In this story, God calls the young Samuel's name, repeatedly, night after night. But Samuel doesn't realize the voice belongs to God because, as the passage tells us, "The word of the Lord was rare in those days." And the reason the "word of the Lord was rare" is that corruption had become rampant in Israel. In other words, young Samuel had no reason to think God would speak to him because the adults who came before him had made such a mess of things, God had more-or-less stopped speaking! The good news is that God doesn't give up on Israel, despite their corruption. God does not abandon God's people. Instead, God decides to do a new thing. God decides to start over and call a new prophet and priest to inaugurate a new era: this young boy, Samuel. But, in more good news, God doesn't give up on the adults either. The old man Eli has a critical role to play in God's plan. The elderly priest Eli, the one whose "eyesight had begun to grow dim," enables young Samuel to recognize God's voice. Without Eli Sameul would not have been able to answer God's call. He could never have uttered those faithful words, "Speak, for your servant is listening." As one observer notes, "It takes both the attentiveness of the young Samuel's ears and the wisdom of the old priest's heart and mind to birth this new office in the service of the Lord." My friends: this is a hopeful story of communal discernment. A story of what it looks like to listen for God's voice in inter-generational community. And it is a story that affirms the young people in our midst as full participants in the life of our community. It reminds us that God speaks to them, just as God spoke to Samuel. That God calls them to important tasks. The reason we baptized five infants and toddlers last Sunday - the reason we initiate young people into the Body of Christ - is that we affirm their full humanity. We acknowledge that God is working in their lives from the moment of their birth in ways we cannot fully understand. They are not half citizens, but full citizens of the community of the New Covenant.On this Second Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B, perhaps God is calling us, through Samuel's story, to renew our commitment to the young people of our community. To renew our commitment to loving them, supporting them, and nurturing them amid a world that is volatile, unpredictable, and often scary. God calls our young people to participate in his work of redemption. And from time to time, they'll need our help to recognize God's voice. It is indeed good news that God did not give up on Israel. God did a new thing, through the ministry of a young boy. Just as he did when he sent us his Son, Jesus Christ. The One who meets us week after week in the stories of Holy Scripture. Stories that bring order to the chaos of our lives. Amen.

The people along the sand

All turn and look one way.

They turn their back on the land.

They look at the sea all day.

The land may vary more;

But wherever the truth may be--

The water comes ashore,

And the people look at the sea.

What is it about water? This poem by Robert Frost (Neither Out Far Nor In Deep) rings so

true. There is something mesmerizing about water. How many of us have sat on a

shore and gazed out on a lake, or ocean, or sea? Water is calming in the

repetition of the tide; it is captivating during a storm; it imbues peace in

its glassy stillness. Perhaps we are drawn in by the depths because water is so

integral to life and points us to the vastness beyond our selves. Our gaze taps

into our desire to be one with our Creator. "In him we live and move and have

our being" (Acts 17:28).

Today, we are baptizing five young people: at 9, Poppy

Garg, Rosemary Garg, Danica Mersek and Miles Mersek; at 11:15, Walker Mead. We are

welcoming them into the body of Christ, into the community of Christ. We

baptize with water. In the time of John the Baptist, washing with water was

performed ritually as an outward sign of cleansing the inward self. John the

Baptist pathed the way to a more profound baptism when he proclaimed the coming

of Jesus Christ: "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me. I

have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." After

Jesus' death and resurrection, Christians adopted Baptism as a way of

incorporating new Christians into the Church. Holy Baptism is full initiation

by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ's body, the Church.

The film Water, is

part of a trilogy of films, Fire, Earth, and Water, by

acclaimed screenwriter and director, Deepa Mehta. Water is set in India

in the 1930s. The film is based on a custom, drawn from a patriarchal reading

of the Hindu Gospel, of separating women from their families upon the death of

their husbands. Water is the story of

Chuyia, a seven-year-old girl whose husband dies - yes, a seven-year-old girl -

and she is sent to live out her life in poverty among strangers in a widow's

colony. This film, at times challenging to watch, is an achingly beautiful love

story.

But, at its heart, it is a story about water, and worth a

watch to resonate with the power of this theological reality. The widow's

colony is located on the river, Ganga. The river is central to the lives of the

widows' and to the lives of the people in the surrounding village. The film

opens with a person who is frail being helped to drink water. We see people

bathing in the water and being refreshed by the water. We see the water being

used to grow food and vegetation, for cooking and for cleaning clothes. We see the

water being used for transportation and for recreation. And, we see the other

side of water. We see rain pouring down during a storm, a source of death and

destruction. We see bodies being prepared for Hindu burial in the water. In

this film, a life is saved. The weaving of the plot, of love and death and new

life, with the images of water impresses upon us the great power that water

holds over our lives; impresses upon us the theological significance of death

into life through water.

Today, our brief passage from Genesis gives us just enough

of the Creation story to enlighten the Gospel message. "In the beginning, the

earth was a formless void. God said, 'Let there be light.' God separated the

light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called

Night." God took the formless void and brought order out of chaos. We have

Night and we have Day. Just as God delivered the cosmos from chaos, God

delivered the Israelites from the wilderness. They had wandered for forty

years. But, after Moses death, God directed Joshua to lead them into the

Promised Land. From chaos to order, from anguish to hope, from death to life,

the Israelites left the wilderness and entered the Promised Land. And, how did

they cross over? Through water, through the River Jordan. A millennium or two

later, Jesus made a point. "In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee

and was baptized by John in the Jordan." Through Baptism, with water, a

compound so integral to life and death, we die to ourselves and rise to new

life in Christ.

Let's not forget the Holy Spirit! "Just as Jesus was coming

up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending

like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, the Beloved;

with you I am well pleased." After Baptism in water, we seal with Chrism - scented

oil previously consecrated by the Diocesan Bishop - we seal by making the sign

of the cross on the child's forehead. Anointing is the promise of the Holy

Spirit, who nurtures and inspires our lives. This promise is no small matter. We

are being empowered to accomplish the work of Christ, to love our neighbor as

ourselves. We are being empowered to transform the world one day at a time, one

interaction at a time, respecting the dignity of every human being. In the

Gospel of John (16:13), Jesus says, "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will

guide you into all the truth." In Acts 1 (vs. 8), Jesus tells the apostles,

"You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be

my witnesses ... to the ends of the earth." In 1 Corinthians 12 (vs. 7), Paul

tells us, "To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common

good." For the common good. Through Baptism, dying to selfish ways and rising

to new life, we are brought into union with Christ, with each other and with

the Church of every time and place. Recognizing our faith as a life-long

journey, we enter into a bond of unity to love one another, to overcome all

divisions, offering different gifts, skills and perspectives for the common

good. Today, we reaffirm our baptismal vows acknowledging with joy and

gratitude that we belong to God, that Jesus lived among us so that we would

know God in our lives, and that Jesus showed us how to live with one another in

God's love. What is it about water? Belonging...possibility...new life....

The water comes ashore,

And the people look at the sea.

In

the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Word.

Speech. It's the way we know each other- the way I know you, and you know me:

by the words that we use to speak, to describe things and places and thoughts.

The Word, that way we know God (God's things, and places, and thoughts): The

Word was with God. Hidden from us- God, Source of all being- we did not yet

know.

He was in the beginning with God. And has been with

God since the very beginning, since before time and space, since before things

and places and thoughts. Before all things came to be, before the first tick of

a clock, before the first sunrise, before the first day or month or year, God

was, and the Word was, right there with God. In the dark void, the Source of Life

was.

All things came into being through him, and without him

not one thing came into being. And the Source of life, breathed over the

dark void, and out of the darkness was born life and breath; sun, moon, and

stars; sunrises and sunsets; and days and months and years. Time itself was

born from the Source of Life, from divine creation.

What has come into being in him was life, and the life

was the light of all people. And for the first time, the Source of Life had

breath and form, lungs and eyes, leaves and roots, gills and scales, skin and

hair. This life that burst forth was full of so much power and came from a

Source so far beyond our knowing. It was light and love. And light and love

literally lit up the sky and lit up all things that God had made.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did

not overcome it. The dark void does not get the last word. Light speaks to

our fear of the dark, the unknown- that primal fear we first got to know as a

child. It is touched by the warm light of God and is met by the Word who looks

into the eye of the dark storm and speaks the words: "Peace be still. Do not be

afraid."

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. God

did not send a king or a governor or a high priest. God sent an average man

named John, a man who had grasped the life changing love of God and wanted to

share that love with all those who came to him. This man named John pointed to

the Word as someone greater than himself, pointed to the Lamb that would take

away the sins of the world.

He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all

might believe through him. John knew he wasn't the Light. But he had been

called by God to point the world to the light, to the Word- the Word who came

from God and was God. He did this so that all might experience the power of

love to turn a heart of stone into a heart of flesh, to raise up what had been

cast down, to make new that which had grown old.

He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to

the Light. And here is perhaps the best news of Christmas: We are not the Light.

We are made of the Light, but we don't have to be the Light. We don't have to

be the Source. Only God is that. We participate in the light, and we point

others, like John did, to the light. We sometimes fail, and God's love and

light is not overcome by our failures. Our work is simply to show the Light to

the world.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming

into the world. Was coming. Not came. Not comes. But was coming. Movement.

Motion. God was on the move. God's love was breaking through all the walls and

defenses and barriers and self-doubt we put up to keep God's love from changing

us, transforming us. God's love does not rest. It pursues, it heals. It comes

to us week after week in bread and wine, and it comes to us in this season in

the heartbeat of the Christ-child.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through

him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own

people did not accept him. And how could we? The hymn says our hearts were

tuned toward strife and so we refused Love's overture. In Christ, God invited

us into the holy dance of love. And yet, we were terrified of love so pure,

love so sweet. We were made for love and by love, and yet we refused to dance.

But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he

gave power to become children of God. But! This word but, this is the

Word. In Christ, God says, "But wait! There's more!" In Christmas, our hearts

can be tuned to sing God's grace. If we sit in the darkness, in the silence,

God in the Christ-child comes to us, bends down, and whispers in our ears: You

are my child. You are loved forever and ever.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us. God's

speech, the way we know God, became words spoken by THE Word. In Christ, God took

on flesh and skin and hair and teeth and feet and hands. And with all of that

flesh, healed the world. The Word lived with us. An old source says God leapt

from his throne to become one of us. God ran to us. God ran to be one of us.

God lived among us, and God still lives among us.

And we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's

only son. Having seen God in the Christ-child and tasted God in bread and

wine, and heard God in the chirp of a bird, and smelled God in the aroma of a

meal shared with friends, and touched God in the soft fur of a pet or the

embrace of a loved one, we know God. In all that we do, God is with us.

Emmanuel.

Full of grace and truth. In Christ, God has filled the

world. God filled all things. In the gaps where we fall short, God's grace

makes up the difference. In places of darkness, God's truth speaks light. God's

very Word is grace and truth. God's Word, God's speech- how we know God's

things and places and thoughts- God's Word is found in grace and truth. Joy to

the world, the Lord has come, full of grace and truth.

Our National Parks are magnificent. Two of my favorites are

Arches and Bryce Canyon, both in Utah. The stone formations in Arches National

Park are 65 million years in the making. The longest arch has an opening of 300

feet; the tallest arch has an opening of over 100 feet. As you hike up to these

immense stone formations, the views through the arches are stunning. Once you

arrive and walk through the arch, you feel somehow absorbed into the limitless

sky. Bryce Canyon is a whole different geological wonder. The elevation is over

8,000 feet. The stone formations in this park remind me of sandcastles. When I

was young, we often went to the beach for vacation. My sisters and I would go

down to the water's edge, fill our pails with water and then scoop in some

sand. Perhaps you recall doing the same. You reach into the bucket, pull out a glob

of wet sand, and then let it drip-down onto the dry sand, building up a cone

shape. That's where my mind goes with these spectacular stone structures in

Bryce Canyon. They are sandcastles in blazing color: orangey-red spires soaring

into the sky.

Many of us feel a connection to the divine in nature. The

most powerful experience I have had, beyond the beauty of Arches and Bryce

Canyon, was in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River in Yellowstone

National Park in Wyoming. The moment I walked up to the rim of the Canyon

overlooking the waterfalls, I was overwhelmed by the expansive beauty. At that

moment, there were no words, only awe for the existence and wonder of our

Creator; a moment when we are keenly aware that the world is just so much

bigger than our individual selves. The majesty of the Divine in nature is

powerful. The intimacy of the Divine in our heartache is lifesaving. Jesus is

our Savior.

Madeline L'Engle, the beloved author, writes in her poem First

Coming

:

"He did not wait till the world was ready, till men and

nations were at peace.

He came when the Heavens were unsteady, and prisoners cried out for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time. He came when the need was deep and great.

He dined with sinners in all their grime, turned water into wine.

He did not wait till hearts were pure. In joy he came to a tarnished world of

sin and doubt.

To a world like ours, of anguished shame he came, and his Light would not go

out."

Jesus was born into an oppressive society. King Herod the

Great was in power, appointed by Rome to rule Judea, Samaria and Galilee as a

police state. He was a murderer: ruthless and vindictive. In addition, he

imposed burdensome taxes on the people, largely boosting the wealth of the rulers.

Herod's brutality was a shroud over Jerusalem at the time of Jesus' birth. Jesus

entered-into our brokenness.

Some of our most intimate experiences with the Divine are in

difficult times. I know this is true for me. Certainly, I experienced some uncertainty

and anxiety as I made a turn from a consulting career to parish ministry. Before

I even realized I was discerning a change, I had a prescient dream directing me

down this new path. In the dream, I was in a storm and trapped in a town where all

the streets were flooded; there was no way out. Yet, I had this sense of

urgency that I needed to find a way out as soon as possible. For three days, I

frantically searched, but all the streets were impassable. Then, on the third

day, seemingly suddenly, I found a way out, one clear road that would take me

out of town, though all the other streets were still flooded. This one way out

was now so obvious - I couldn't believe that I hadn't seen it before. Dreams

are an avenue of inspiration from God. Once I made the "aha" connection, Jesus'

presence during this career transition was comforting.

Jesus is with us through uncertainty and anxiety, and Jesus

is with us through loss. I cried through the months leading up to my divorce and

through the months following, and Jesus' compassion gave me the courage to look

to a new day. Jesus is with us through grief. One year ago, I lost a dear

friend to cancer. My last visit with her one week before her death was both

beautiful and heart-rending. That night, I woke up at 3:30 in the morning and I

was filled with God's presence and somehow, my friend was there with us. I

experienced perfect Love, perfect Peace. Jesus was born into an oppressive

society, into heartache. He came into our brokenness and lived fully in his

humanness. He gets us; he lived our emotions. He continues to enter-into our

brokenness, with empathy for the human condition. What is your sadness? With

compassion and unceasing love, Jesus enters-into our heartache. He journeys

with us through the healing process; he comforts and gives us the courage to see

a new day.

On the night of Jesus' birth, an angel of the Lord appeared

to the shepherds in the fields keeping watch over their flock. "The angel said

to them, 'Do not be afraid; for see--I am bringing you good news of great joy

for all the people.'" Good news...of great joy...our Savior has come. Jesus

shepherds us through all of life, helping us to endure and thrive. So, we give

thanks, by loving as we are loved. Through our healing, we are able to care for

and enrich the lives of others. Creation is inherently revealing God through

the grandeur of nature and the intimacy of relationships. We are forever

companioned, forever loved...with God's grace, forever loving. And, so, we come

before the Christ child, in wonder of the Divine Love, and we sing out, "Joy to

the world! The Lord is come." In her poem

First Coming, Madeleine

L'Engle concludes:

"We cannot wait till the world is sane to raise our

songs with joyful voice,

For to share our grief, to touch our pain, He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!"

"Who are you?" This question that the crowd asks of John the

Baptist in today's gospel is one that I have asked myself many, many times over

in the last ten or so years as I have discerned a call to ordained ministry. It's

a question that on some days I have been able to answer with certainty, and

other days the answer has not come with such confidence. You see, I have lived

most of my life with a stutter. I still have it. I've done a lot of work on it,

and some days my speech is more fluent while other days my stutter is more

pronounced. There's more to the story, but just know for now, my stutter has

been a cause for pause. In answering the call to serve God and the Church as a

priest where speaking occupies such a central part, I have tried to answer the

question "Who are you?" with every other option. "God, I can't possibly do this

work. Let me do anything else!" But when God calls us to something, God pursues

us. And no matter how many times I have answered the question "Who are you?"

with a shaky voice as I have discerned this calling, God has always answered

the question with confidence. "I have called you, and you are mine."

This idea that God calls people to service who we might least

expect is common. While we don't know any of John the Baptist's call story, I

do wonder how John may have responded the first time God called him. "John, I

am calling you to baptize and call people to repentance. This work will prepare

the way for my son who will come into the world, a person who is greater than

you." I imagine John may have told God "No!" a few times himself, or said "Please

let me do anything else!" After all, John had his life planned out. He would

spend his days eating locust and honey and sew his own clothes made from camel

hair. These days, we might call John "crunchy". He'd probably be wearing socks

with his Birkenstocks. I wonder how John might have wrestled with God when God

called him to wilderness work.

Whether or not, we know how John initially answered God's call to baptize

and preach repentance, we know that John did answer the call. And we hear in the

gospel this morning, not John questioning his own call, but the crowd. They ask

him "Who are you?'' And the real questions behind the question is "Where are

your credentials?" "What gives you the right to baptize and teach and preach

repentance?" "Are you the prophet?" "Are you Elijah?" You see, the priests and

Levites sent to question John did not expect someone like him to be performing

rites of purification and teaching. These were jobs left usually to Temple

professionals like themselves. John's type was the last kind of person they

expected to be doing the holy and important work of God.

And John answers them, "I am not the prophet. I baptize with

water, but the one coming after me, (who John already knew to be the Christ),

is someone you won't recognize either. If we go back a few verses in John from

the ones we heard in our Gospel today, we read "He was in the world, and the world came into being through

him, yet the world did not know him. He came to what was

his own,and his

own people did not accept him." God sent God's son into the world, and the

world did not know him. The world did not recognize God made known to us in the

person of Jesus. In the person of Jesus, God did something new. God is always

doing something new. God is always challenging our perceptions. God is always

asking us to find God's self in places we don't expect.

And God is always stirring. The collect for today, the Third

Sunday of Advent, begins "Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come

among us." And I can't think of a text that embodies this stirring up more than

the Song of Mary. She says that God has shown God's strength, but not how we

might expect. He has scattered the proud in their conceit and honored those who

are humble. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones of power and saved

and given special place to those who are usually left out. He has sent the rich

away empty and given the resources of the rich to those in need. In all of

this, God has flipped the world as we know it upside down. And God did this in

the person of Jesus, who John the Baptist points to as the one who will come

after him.

Part of our work in this season of Advent is to prepare our hearts

to be stirred by God's power so that we may receive Christ when he comes- so

that we don't miss Christ at Christmas when we might be looking for someone or

something else. So, where do we find God? We look to the places that make us

wince. The places that stand out. The places that are different. Next week, we

will find God on a cold, silent night in a trough made to feed barn animals,

wrapped in strips of spare fabric. We will find God in Christ not in strength,

but in the weak, helplessness of a newborn child. God will come to us in our

beautiful church, yes, but also in a barn, bugs flying around, mice nesting in

the corner. We will find God tended to not by hired help, but by shepherds-

field hands who have heard the call of God to come and find God's self in a

place they least expected. God's love drew them to that place on that holy

night, and God's love still draws us go to places where we might at first say

no.

As we prepare for Christmas, are we open to finding Jesus in a

stinky, bug-infested barn? Are we prepared to answer God's call to us even if

we feel unprepared? Are we prepared to allow God's spirit to call us and equip

us for the work to which we are called?

Stir up your power, O Lord, and come among us. Transform our hearts

and help us to receive you in places where we expect, and in places where we

least expect. Call us to those places and save us in those places. Amen.

I love the season of Advent. It's probably my favorite season of the liturgical year. But this year, the Advent calendar is causing me a bit of stress. As you may have noticed, Christmas Day falls on a Monday this year, as it does every six or seven years. As a result, the Fourth Sunday of Advent and Christmas Eve both fall on December 24 - which presents a challenge to churches that want to keep both observances. At St. Paul's, we will celebrate the Fourth Sunday of Advent at one 10 a.m. service, and Christmas Eve beginning in the afternoon at 4 p.m. If attendance data from the last time this occurred is a reliable guide, very few people will keep Advent 4, and most will opt to come only for Christmas Eve. But this year, I'd like to challenge you, the faithful people of St. Paul's, to prove history wrong. Let's pack the church for the last celebration of Advent at 10 a.m. on December 24! After all, on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, the Blessed Virgin Mary is the star of the show. And I am sure you will agree that it is meet and right to dwell with the Mother of our Lord for an hour or so, before she gives birth to the Savior of the world.Indeed, it is a shame when Advent gets cut short, because our society already pushes us to move right past Advent and begin celebrating Christmas in November. To repeat a statistic I shared with you last year, according to one music streaming service, the song "All I want for Christmas is you" by Mariah Carey had already been streamed 5 million times the day after Thanksgiving. But in an act of counter-cultural defiance, we liturgical Christians insist on walking the way of Advent before we celebrate Christmas. And as my favorite preacher in the whole world Fleming Rutledge reminds us, the season of Advent "begins in the dark." By this she means that, before we embrace the light and joy of Christmas, we confront the world's darkness in Advent. In the season of Advent, we look squarely at the problem evil without flinching and acknowledge the suffering in our world - the wreckage of wars, poverty, and natural disasters. Advent calls us to confront the dire consequences of sin and our participation in it. In the words of this morning's Collect, in Advent we pray for God to "Give us grace to heed [the prophets' warnings to repent and] forsake our sins." At this point, you may be thinking that rushing straight to Christmas doesn't sound like a bad idea after all! You may be wondering: what's so great about a season that focuses us on the world's brokenness? What is to be gained from such an honest look into the dark? And the answer, Advent tells us, is nothing less than our freedom and liberation. Recall the very first words we prayed in today's worship service: "Blessed are you, holy and living One. You come to your people and set them free." This promise of freedom means that we do not have to live in denial. We can confront the world's brokenness, not with despair, but with hope. Because the good news of the gospel - the good news of Advent - is that God is coming to set us free from all that holds us captive. In Advent, we hear the voice in the wilderness calling us to make a straight path through the desert, because God is on the move. This voice, this herald of good tidings, announces that God is about to solve the dilemma of human sin once and for all. In Advent, we prepare ourselves for God's rescue operation - the "once and future coming of Jesus Christ." His first coming in the manager at Bethlehem, and his future coming in power and glory.This story of God's intervention is announced each year in Advent by a locust-eating, camel hair-clad prophet named John the Baptist. And every year, we meet John the Baptist on not just one, but two Sundays (yes, he'll be back next Sunday for part two!). John the Baptist, you could say, is the star of Advent. Although the actual John the Baptist would resoundingly resist being called the "star" of anything because, as he says over and over, his role is to prepare the way for the real star, which is Jesus. This John, the greatest among prophets, speaks of himself only by pointing away from himself - to the One whose sandals he is unfit to untie. "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me," he says. To quote my favorite preacher again, Fleming Rutledge tells us that this wild man John the Baptist is defined by his location. And John's location, she writes, is on a frontier: "a frontier of ages." Yes, John bridges two ages: the gap between the Old and New Testaments. He straddles two worlds, proclaiming judgment on the former age while also pointing toward God's redemption in the age to come. Rutledge reminds us that John is both the last and the first: "the last and greatest of the Hebrew prophets but the first person to belong to the arriving age of the Kingdom of God." And today, on the Second Sunday of Advent, this frontier dwelling prophet invites us to repent. To turn away from sin and toward a promised future of liberation and freedom. John's message about the inbreaking of God's kingdom is a message of profound hope and promise, but even as he preaches hope, John refuses to let us off the hook. In his call to repentance, he reminds us that whether we realize it or not, we too are part of systems of suffering in the world. In a moment, in our Confession of Sin, we will acknowledge this when we pledge to "repent of the evil that enslaves us," including "the evil done on our behalf," those systems that benefit us while oppressing others. And even as we affirm sin's hold on us, we cling confidently to the Advent hope that God can and will deliver us from this evil that enslaves us.Today, the great herald of hope John the Baptist calls to us from his place on the frontier between two ages, as he announces God's rescue operation. Much like John, we are an Advent people defined by our location. And our location is a on a border between Christ's first coming and his second. And on this Advent frontier, we live not in despair, but in confidence and hope, that Jesus, the Messiah, the One John the Baptist came to proclaim, will indeed come again. So, get ready. Prepare the way! God is on the move. Amen.