When I sat down to write this sermon, I was on the All Church Retreat, with a view of snow whipping across the Cape Cod marsh as children burbled from the other room, “I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!”

This morning we’ll continue our Living the Questions sermon series.

We have two readings from the lectionary this Sunday, the First Sunday after Epiphany.  Both about the start of something new. Let us now hear the word of God.

Today is the tenth day of Christmas. The wise ones are almost there—they’ll get there in two more days. Gertrude Stein once said there’s no THERE there, but we know she’s wrong, because we know where THERE is. Bethlehem. The stable place. The Messiah. Wonder, and certainty, that we are finally face to face with God.

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A week from Wednesday, we will gather in this sanctuary to celebrate that the God who made us is getting made Herself: Jesus, the light of the world, is God coming to get as close to us as possible.

The reading this morning, the second Sunday of Advent, comes from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 1, verses 26-38.  Let us now hear the Word of God:

It’s the fourth and final Sunday in our stewardship series on Holding All Things in Common. Each week we’ve talked about the early Christian church, and how we can be more like them, making sure that there is no needy person among us, because of how willing we are to share our treasure, be that our physical possessions, our money, our white privilege and other forms of privilege; and our willingness to take responsibility for the treasure of our scripture and religious tradition, because we are the spiritual descendants of progressive Christianity—we are the ones who keep it alive.