Summary

Sermon on the Mount – Part 3         Matthew 5:21-32

Jesus speaks in scripture with unprecedented authority that must have been quite unnerving. We have become so familiar with these texts that we lose some of that sense. We are supposed to be unnerved! Unsettled! Startled! And whenever he’s questioned notice how he chooses almost never to answer directly but turns the question back on whomever is asking so that they can go deeper with the issue. There is this provocative quality to his teachings that is intended to make us not only notice what he is saying but to go deeper with our wrestling responses.

But as for our reading today! …whomever feels anger…? Or insults anyone – even privately in their heads? And as for adultery even imagined?

And that whole issue of divorce? Of course we know treating marriage vows with contempt is wrong, but SURELY Jesus isn’t teaching that folks are forever locked into relationships that become soul-destroyingly toxic and destructive? We live in a world where things fail! We fail! Even with the best of our intentions! How on earth is it possible to survive without at times being drawn into any of what he warns against at some stage or other of our lives?

I think the asking of these questions reflects the very human reaction that Jesus was WANTING to generate from within us as his hearers. It’s as if he actually wants us to be stopped by his teachings, to question/wrestle with them and not that we may just mindlessly obey them but that we can go to work on them. We know that it’s in the wrestling that we come to grow in our discipleship and spirituality – not just in our obedience! So let’s wrestle a little with what it is that we are to embrace from this.

As an aside: I understand that there are two different words that Greek uses to describe what Jesus was referring to here – all of which are simply translated into English as ‘anger’. ‘Thumos’ refers to anger as the flame which may come from dried straw: it flares up fast and furious when sparked and dies down just as quickly! We all know that kind of anger, especially when we are tired or provoked. The other is described as ‘orge’: It’s the chronic, (inveterate), ingrained anger that we may choose to live with and worse, to feed.  It is anger brooded over, long-lived. It needs to be nursed in order to keep it alive and hot – and so we do it.

Jesus is condemning the destructive power of all anger in us, but it’s especially that second type referred to here: the type that will not be pacified, that wants revenge! That’s the anger that morphs into prejudice as it calls people RACA[i].We do it! We’re not proud of it, but we do it! And Jesus condemns it! As he condemns so much of what we so easily and instinctively do…

Getting back to our reading and why he would teach these unrealistically idealized things.  He must have known that keeping to the letter of these teachings is virtually impossibly – so why teach them? What’s Jesus’ point? I think that Jesus is wanting us to notice this incredibly high standard of ethical living not in order for us to imagine ourselves ever really getting it right, so much as that we can embrace our own insufficiency EVER to be able actually to achieve it in our own strength!

He wants us to own that the only way we are ever able to live lives that even begin to express the nature of our truest God-given selves is by acknowledging our weaknesses on our own and by allowing Christ to empower us with what we need to transcend our circumstances!

This is a call to what I’m calling TRANSCENDENCE ETHICS[ii]!  Jesus’ point is for us never complacently to decide that we are good enough in and of ourselves! Because we’re not! We may be able to control some of what we say and do some of the time – but as for our thoughts? Christ is implying that instead of trying to be strong and sufficient in and of ourselves we are to look only to Him for everything! He – and he alone – is what is ultimately able to draw us out to be

Summary

Sermon on the Mount – Part 1           Matthew 5:1-10

After Jesus was baptized at the River Jordan and declared by John the Baptist to be the ‘Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’, the book of Matthew tells of his going off by himself into the wilderness for 40 days where he faced some pretty awful temptations. (We’ll be looking at that on March 1, the first Sunday of Lent.) Then, after hearing about John the Baptist’s imprisonment and immanent death we see him heading off towards Galilee, where he began calling his disciples: First were brothers Simon (who became Peter) and Andrew, followed by James and John, known as ‘Sons of Zebedee’.

That’s when his ministry really took off. Jesus began preaching the Gospel of God’s just and gracious love and curing every disease. People came from all of Galilee, Jerusalem, Judea, even Persia, and ‘he cured all who were brought to him’.

Which brings us to the sermon he preached from the side of the mountain above Capernaum, overlooking the Sea of Galilee, known as the Sermon on the Mount. We’ll be looking at aspects of this over the next 3 weeks.

Today’s reading concerns just some of the first verses, a collection of 8 blessings, each of which begin with the Latin word ‘Beati’ meaning ‘Happy’ or ‘Blessed’. As a result these verses are known as the ‘Beatitudes’

It seems that Jesus does have favorites! Just as we all do. Remember how I reminded you of who your favourite child is – that, invariably, it is the one who is currently most needing you. That’s how Jesus is always looking out for those of us who are MOST in need: the poor, those who are sad, in mourning, the meek, the hungry and thirsty: they are always his priority. And if we are properly to be following him, they must be our priority as well!

Of course, that includes ‘the hungry and thirsty’ in all its forms: (Emotionally/ socially/ spiritually) but it’s perhaps ESPECIALLY – those who are physically hungry!

There’s something quite wonderful about Jesus and food! Perhaps that’s why he created the Eucharist sacrament to be all about food! He could have said: whenever you bathe, or whenever you are out walking in nature, or socializing with friends, but no. It’s FOOD! It’s as we eat & drink that we are to THINK OF HIM! Notice too how at the high point of his ministry – when it came to the judging of those who are ‘in’ and ‘out’- the separating of the sheep from the goats[i] – his justification for doing so was based on:  ‘I was hungry and you fed me? / hungry and you did not feed me’  ‘But where did we see you hungry and feed or not feed you?” they asked. And his answer still resonates down the ages:  ‘Whatever you do or don’t do to the least of these, you do or don’t do to me!’

It’s truly not about all our careful religious practices & rituals… It’s about us noticing and caring about the needs of those all around us and then doing something to meet those needs!

Fr Richard Rohr pulls no punches here: Following Christ (he writes) – is not so much a theory or a philosophy as a lifestyle. It’s a way of being in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into an established “religion” (and all that goes with that) and avoided the lifestyle change itself. One (can be ) warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain …and still believe that Jesus is one’s “personal Lord and Savior”

That’s what Christendom was able to do! …The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on Earth is too great.

Catholic News reports that Pope Francis proposed “modern Beatitudes” during his visit to Sweden on All Saints Day in 2016 – they include: Blessed are those who remain faithful while enduring evils inflicted on them by others and forgive them from their heart

Blessed are those who look into the eyes of the abandoned and marginalized and show them their closeness

Blessed are those who see God in every person and strive to make others also discover God with them…

Blessed are those who p

Summary

Psalm 27:1,4,5,7

People everywhere are frightened – all the time! If it’s not of one thing it’s another. All of us! And it’s destructive and it makes us small, much smaller than we actually are! The problem is that it becomes habitual – meaning that we became habitualized to it. Desensitized to just how destructive it is. We begin to think that’s it’s normal.

Of what are you most scared? Do you even know?

For some it may be about issues to do with our health: the possible consequence of some hard diagnosis perhaps. For others it’s more nuanced: perhaps a fear of our growing older, fear of death – our mortality. We fear any and all threats to our security – that ‘outsiders’ may invade our homes, our family structures, our social or religious norms. We fear the loss of our identities…

Modern marketing techniques understand this well. It’s what merchants tap into in order to sell us whatever it is they are peddling: their latest anti-wrinkle creams (NEW! They say, use this and you need not be scared of showing your age), …or their life insurance policies (so we need not fear the inevitability of death and leaving our loved ones in the lurch). How about their latest political candidates (who promise that by electing them all our fears for our futures will be taken care of)? We fear somehow being left behind and so we respond to their offers of the latest model of motor car, or computer operating system, or cell phone…

Get people to identify with whatever fear you are highlighting, offer them your product as the way to address that fear – get them to believe you – and you gottem!

But seriously: …with what fears are you currently living? Perhaps it’s the fear of failure of some kind? Or the fear of being rejected by those whom you long to be accepted?  We fear the lack of significance – especially after retirement. Of course I’m not suggesting that there aren’t very real dangers out there that we do need to be aware of and address, but, my goodness – that’s not all there is! It doesn’t have to define us!!!

Fear is insidious. We fail as we allow its subtle & pernicious invasion of our lives to effect & affect so much of who & what we believe we actually are.    

I came across this piece by author Steven Pressfield who describes one of our greatest fears being: “…to discover that we are more than we think we are. You know, more than our parents/children/teachers think we are. We fear that we actually do possess the talent that our still, small voice tells us. That we actually have the guts, the perseverance, the capacity.

We fear that we truly can steer our ship, plant our flag, reach our Promised Land. We fear all this because, if it’s true, then we become estranged from all we know. It’s as if we pass through a membrane”.

Do you know God actually commands us not to fear, or worry well over 500 times in scripture. Fear not (302) Do not be afraid (33) Be anxious for nothing (1) Do not fear (66) Do not worry (24) I will not fear (3) Whom shall I fear? (1) I will not be afraid (2) Do not be dismayed (99)

…and that’s not even including ‘Be of good courage, be brave, etc.

It is the most repeated command in all of the Bible perhaps because God knows it’s the easiest for us to fail, and the one that MOST incapacitates us![i]

The point of all this is that as people of faith who are responding to the WAY, the TEACHINGS and the PERSON of Christ, we are called to own the fact that we have a God who knows us and understands the destructive effects of fear! …and we are to know this always but ESPECIALLY in dark and difficult times.

This is what our reading from Psalm 27 so clearly affirms:

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

The light by which we see anything radically changes our perspective on whatever it is that we are observing – blocks certain things, highlights others. John’s Gospel speaks of Christ as the light of God:  4 …in him was life, and t

Summary

29 The next day John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! What exactly is the ‘sin of the world?’ We tend to think of different things. Is it the bad things that we do, things that are just wrong like hurting others or being selfish, or is it something specific like road rage or marriage infidelity? But thinking of ‘sin’ like that and of Jesus as the one who constantly takes away the effects of our worst actions has always seemed kind of simplistic to me. Surely, any meaning that implies how in Christ what we do (or don’t do) doesn’t really matter because the consequences are always dealt with, is just too oversimplistic?

Our various English Bible translations translate different words as ‘SIN’, each with their own particularly nuanced meanings: Two of the most used are AMARTAN and PLANA[i]. AMARTAN is mentioned some 43 times in scripture and comes from a root ‘to miss the mark’. PLANA occurs some 39 times and implies a straying off, a roaming away from safety,truth, or virtue – describing a going astray, a deceiving or being deceived, an erring, a seducing or a being seduced away from something good. Putting that altogether: our sin appears to be the extent to which we fall short of the excellence for which we have been created! The extent to which we fall short of, stray away from that beauty for which we are created.

And so when we confess Jesus as the One who ‘takes away the sin of the world’we are confessing our faith in Christ’s work of enabling us and all of creation to be brought back into that place of original blessing that God has always intended for us!

31 …but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.”

John the Baptist is explaining how the whole point of his lifeis that the essence of Jesus might be revealed for others through him! Johnsaw his main task as bringing clarity to who and what Jesus actually is doing in creation as opposed to obfuscating him/ making Christ cloudy and inaccessible! My goodness! Don’t you LONG to be used like that?

…35 The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, 36 and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” 37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.

This describes the beautiful point of all our witnessing! As the result of what we do, those around us are to acknowledge Christ’s presence with them but not only that, they are also to begin following him – living according to the Way that Christ intends for them! This is about something so much more beautiful and inclusive than mere proselytizing. What we are talking about is our lives becoming what we’ve been made by God by God in Christ to be. That’s what following Jesus actually means! It’s not about us becoming ‘fans’ however adoring. Following Jesus is about him drawing out an awareness of the best of our truest selves. And then about us becoming useful for others also to come into that awareness for themselves.

38 When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?”

Isn’t that just SO challenging! I suspect we all have our personal agendas for following Christ: some good, probably some not so good. Sometimes we follow because we think of Jesus as our personal Genie always ready to grant our very whim and desire.

They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher),“where are you staying?” 

39 He said to them, “Come and see.”

Those are our marching orders – having glimpsed Jesus, we are simply to follow! …and we are to do so with opened eyes!

I WONDER WHERE WE COULD FIND OURSELVES BEING LED THIS YEAR, IF ONLY WE WOULD ALLOW OURSELVES TO ‘COME & SEE’.

Imagine what that could actually look like – the difference we could make in a world that is so filled with angry polarizing ideologies as we begin truly to live into all of what we have been given to be and to do as Christ followers… Imagine

Summary

(Matthew 3:13-17)

As a people of faith who say we believe in God, and who are at least trying to follow Christ – we long to know that who we are, and what we are doing, is actually somehow God’s will, or that we are at least pleasing God! Is that true for you? Have you ever really thought about that? How would we know when we are in fact pleasing God?

I love the raw honesty of that famous prayer of Thomas Merton’s where he confesses how difficult it is for him to know God’s will[i].

But I suspect that we are not always quite as ignorant about God’s will as we like to pretend.

I suspect that most of us DO actually have some very real sense of what God wants of us – what our ‘good & Godly living’ probably looks like… It’s a life where we get to care a little less about ourselves and a little more about others! It’s a life where we know our God-given task is to draw closer to God by looking both inward and then reaching outwards: looking inwards by caring for ourselves & one another, and outwards by caring for all people and all creation, especially the most hurting and marginalised…

In a recent blog post Brian McLaren describes God’s will for us. He writes how, in our faith communities, we know we need people who are trained in, validated for, and encouraged to do all sorts of KNOWN things:  to make home and hospital visits; to do hospice work and jail ministry; support immigrants and refugees; help with soup kitchens or food pantries; offer counselling couples before, during, and after marriage; share child development resources with families; offer ministries of emotional, sexual, and relational healing; help with financial counseling; helping to build low-cost housing; take care of the elderly; running thrift centers…

All of that we know is God’s good work through us – but what we don’t always know is whether it is what God wants US to be doing. How do we know when it’s something given to US to do and not just a good idea? 

And so we revisit our reading from Matthew…

13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 

Remember what John the Baptist was doing at that time? He was entirely consumed by pointing to Christ and by preparing people to acknowledge and receive him. And so that’s where we are told Jesus chose to reveal himself! By identifying himself with John’s good work Jesus was signalling his most profound approval – the alignment of himself – with what John was doing. Asking to be baptized was his endorsement of what John was doing. I think He still does that. Whenever, wherever people are doing things that reflect Christ’s character – acts of loving justice, mercy compassion, care – they are pointing to Christ – and is where Christ himself is being baptized.

14 John would have prevented him, saying, NO! “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” And I think that THAT is also typical of our reaction!

It’s as if we don’t WANT Jesus to come to where we are! We want instead to be elevated to where He is! What? You come to me to be baptized? NEVER! I must surely come to you! Kind of like Peter’s objection when Jesus was wanting to wash his feet[ii]… I wonder how we do that?

15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. Jesus insists that THIS IS how it works – how HE works! If we are to engage Christ in any meaningful way in our lives we must engage him where we are – recognizing him in our contexts – or else we may miss him altogether! He chooses NOT to be somewhere any loftier than where we are getting on with doing things in his name. The real miracle – like so many healed blind in the Gospels – is us getting to have our eyes opened enough actually to see him as he is – right here where he is…

16 And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And

Rev. Dr. John Burton and Rev. Heather Burton reserve all rights © 2020.

You are welcome to use, copy, edit or reproduce this sermon summary with copyright attached. Publication is prohibited.

Rev. Heather Burton reserves all rights © 2019.

You are welcome to use, copy, edit or reproduce this sermon summary with copyright attached. Publication is prohibited.

Summary

We began the Season of Advent by looking at John the Baptist and his message of our needing to ‘get ready’ for the birth of Christ… Then we looked at the Shepherds as they were visited by the Angels, announcing Christ’s birth, and also at the townspeople who just missed that whole event. Last week it was the Three Wise Men/Magi and the star that they chose to follow, and how it led them to an awareness of Christ with them. We have two readings today, from Luke and Matthew, to help us wrestle with what we may learn from Mary and Joseph in terms of our getting ready. The first reading, from Luke 1:26-38 introduces us to Mary.

Think about what Mary represents for us with regard to our readiness for Christ’s presence to be birthed within us. Mary wasn’t any great intellect with profound insight and faith; deep understanding. No, just a girl really. And yet, I’d like to suggest that she brings beautiful qualities: (1) simple obedience! (2) Availability! Accessibility! Vulnerability! And (3) Courage. 

And then Matthew 1:18-25 which introduces us to Joseph and to what he represents. How about his willingness to risk? His determination NOT to do the necessarily popular or expected thing – but the RIGHT thing? 

Stephanie Landsem[i] (author) writes of how the status of betrothal was almost identical to the status of a married woman. A betrothed woman who lay with a man that was not her intended husband, was punished as if she had committed adultery. Deuteronomy 22 is quite clear about this and the appropriate punishment: If a man marries a girl who is claimed to be a virgin, and then finds that she is not, “they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her father’s house and there her townsmen shall stone her to death” And If a man has relations within the walls of a city with a maiden who is betrothed, “you shall bring them both out to the gate of the city and there stone them to death.” (V2 23)

Joseph would have been entirely within his rights—even within his duty—to expose her sin and witness her execution. It was only his internal conviction – his own faithful acceptance of the angel’s message that saved both Mary’s life and the life of her unborn baby, the Incarnation of God.

Imagine her courage! Mary of Nazareth, unwed and pregnant, knew the punishment she faced and had nothing but the story of an angel to tell her parents and Joseph, the man she had promised to marry.  She would have known exactly what she would face after her faith-filled consent to the visiting angel’s message. And yet, still, she said yes. She simply trusted that God would take care of her, and God did, through Joseph.

And Joseph, instead of doing the expected thing, he had the courage and deep faith of his convictions instead to do what he was given to know was the right thing!

What do you think happens as that same Angel comes to us in these modern times with that same message?

What do modern day Mary`s and Josephs still do?

What do you do? 

I cannot say where it lives, only that it comes to the heart that is open,

to the heart that asks, to the heart that does not turn away.

It can take practice, days of tugging at what keeps us bound,

seasons of pushing against what keeps our dreaming small.

When it arrives it might surprise you by how quiet it is,

how it moves with such grace for possessing such power.

But you will know it by the strength that rises from within you to meet it,

by the release of the knot in the center of your chest that suddenly lets go.

You will recognize it by how still your fear becomes as it loosens its grip,

perhaps never quite leaving you,

but calmly turning into joy as you enter the life that is finally your own.

—Jan Richardson (The Cure for Sorrow) 

WE become the Mary & Josephs that 2020 needs as we allow holy Christ-presence-inspired-courage to arise from within us – bringing us into courageous alignment with what God has always intended us to be, and do/ as we allow ourselves to be available – like Mary – to flow within t

Summary

(Matthew 2:1-11)

We began the Season of Advent by looking at John the Baptist and his message of our needing to ‘get ready’ for the birth of Christ. Last week we looked at the Shepherds as they were visited by the Angels, announcing Christ’s birth, and also at the townspeople who just missed that whole event. We looked at them in order to find what they may imply in terms of our ‘getting ready…’ Today we are doing the same thing with those three enigmatic characters described as ‘Magi’ or ‘Wise men’ in today’s reading from Matthew. What are we to ‘get’ about our readiness for Christ’s coming by Matthew’s specific mentioning of these enigmatic figures with their gifts? (…he is the only one who mentions them!)

Let’s start by asking who they were? We traditionally put them into the Nativity scene alongside the shepherds but we know that’s not historically correct, because that’s putting two quite separate scriptures together (1) Luke’s description of the shepherds and (2) Matthew’s writing about some unspecified number of magi/astrologers/wise men who came from somewhere in the east as a result of their astrological observations & calculations.

We’re also told they came to visit the newborn Christ in a house – not a stable – and only with his mother, Mary, specifically mentioned as being present. And as for them being called ‘Kings’, well, some say that’s based Ps.72:11[i] which reads “May all kings fall down before him”

What we do know is that they were intellectuals, probably of a priestly order whose practice of studying the stars was seen at that time as a very serious science. They were scientists, and very serious scholars.

And as for what they were doing? I think we can all agree that they were using their very best wisdom & logic to come into a personal realization of Christ’s birth. The key, for them, was to notice and to be reacting to that anomaly in the sky – the star that they were following – and to be open to embracing whatever & wherever that was leading them to…

But how does that help US in OUR getting ready for Christ’s birth? I mean, there are so many stars in the skies of our lives, things that demand our following – aren’t there? Our children/grandchildren, careers, our responsibilities, expenses, other people’s expectations, the things we do to avoid pain or hardship, our welfare… There are so many things that scream for our attention, that it’s almost impossible to notice which points us to Christ!

What are your guiding stars, and to what are you allowing those guiding stars primarily to point you?

Matthew tells us that those Magi knew not to be thrown off course by anything of any less importance than an encounter with the One being indicated by THAT particular star, not even the wickedly self-serving King Herod and all his fawning flattery. They were single-minded in their quest.

The tragic truth is that things that we get SO attached to serving, on which we spend so much of our time, energy, LIFE are seldom what matters most, and the things that often gets the least of our attention are so often what matters most!

And so, to ask again: WHAT STAR ARE IS YOUR LIFE CURRENTLY FOLLOWING…? To what is that star pointing: …to Christ & to all of the life-giving priorities that matter most or, Like Herod, is it just to our own, grubby aggrandizement?

And we can use our best logic to decide this! As we stop to assess ourselves and our motivations in this season of Advent, the lesson of these Magi is that we shouldn’t shrink from some very serious thought and good intentional logic. They go on to give us 3 clues as to what a most meaningful Christ-priority is. We see it in their gifts: Gold / Frankincense / Myrrh…

Think for a moment what they represent for you and your ‘getting ready’.

GOLD: Those travellers were recognizing that the Christ-child, despite his extremely humble life-circumstances, was royalty. Christ later elaborated on this in his reply to Pontius Pilate who wanted to know whether he was a k

Summary

(Luke 2:8-16)

We began the Season of Advent last week by looking at John the Baptist and his message of our needing to ‘get ready’ for the birth of Christ. Today, we are looking at what Luke wants us to understand about our readiness for Christ’s coming by specifically mentioning certain unnamed shepherds and their angelic visitation.

Shepherds have an interesting place in scripture, from the earliest pre-historical days where sheep & shepherding was a way of life for a nomadic, pastoral culture. It was good, responsible work. Abraham was a shepherd, as was Moses at one time and, later, King David. During their 400 years in Egypt their status began to change. Egypt was an agricultural culture where arable land was precious. Shepherds were despised by the farmers whose land was for growing crops, not grazing sheep. In Gen.46 Joseph actually told his brothers that “Every shepherd is detestable to the Egyptians” One writer[i] describes how over the next 400 years the Israelites became used to settled living and forgot all about their shepherding roots. And so, after the Exodus and their return to Canaan, shepherds lost their sense of social acceptability. The religious leaders maligned their good name; rabbis even banned pasturing sheep, except out on desert plains. They were deprived of all civil rights. They could not fulfill judicial offices or be admitted in court as witnesses. Officially labeled “religiously unclean” and “sinners” which was a technical term for all despised people…

And so it’s deeply curious and significant that it was to these lowly types, utterly without social or religious status, that God chose to send the Herald Angels announcing Christ’s birth! What are we to take from that?  What do ‘shepherds’ draw from us if we are ever able also to sense that same announcement of Christ’s presence in our lives? I’d like to suggest 2 things: (1) The need for us constantly to be letting go of our pride and instead embrace genuine, self-deprecating humility (2) Our call to be the faithful stewards of whatever/whomever we have in our care, without domination or possessiveness[ii].

How does self-obsession somehow stop our readiness for embracing Christ’s presence within us? To what extent is our determination to own and dominate everything get in the way of appreciating what Christ may actually be doing – or longing to be doing – in and through us?

That’s the Shepherds, but then there were also the people of Bethlehem (‘place of bread’) They represent all those who were NOT present at Christ’s birth! …who just missed it. Some missed it, probably, because they were simply going about living their lives without an agenda that readied them to be looking out for any kind of spiritual reality! They were busy! Distracted! So much to do! It never occurred to them perhaps to look up, notice the star! There was stuff going on in their lives that took their focus away from what was happening in some little stable/shed/cave somewhere on the edge of town. I think that’s why we may miss it as well! We make our plans, set our agendas, and then get so very busy – too busy to notice what may be happening RIGHT HERE on some beautiful spiritual plain – closer than our breathing! And so, many were simply distracted by their own agendas…

Others may have missed out on Christ’s birth because they had absolutely no intention of going there! We may call them the ‘NO-ROOMERS’ who, when confronted by the opportunity to have Christ be born in their homes, chose other priorities and so forcing His stable birth![iii] To be distracted by our own ego-created agendas is one thing, but to be a deliberate ‘NO-ROOMER’ who chooses ‘own’ over ‘Christ’ life-priorities, well, that seems to be something else!

Which are we, most often? How are we that, I wonder? And how do we do that?

Kaitlin Curtice[iv], a Christian writer and an enrolled member of the Native American

POT-A-WAT-OMI, wrote an article in a 2017 copy of Sojourners entitled This Advent, L