This is Epiphany Sunday. Rev. Carlos Uroza, pastor at Woodbine UMC and a graduate of Vanderbilt Divinity School, who is preaching today, grew up in one of the many places in the world where Epiphany is a special time, with children waking up early and getting gifts. Grace requires a response, as in the Epiphany story where grace comes in the form of the star in the sky, but those magi then made a long journey in response. We can also be messengers/angels, which can seem like a tall order, but we can respond to grace by making ourselves available so God can be revealed in our lives.

In today’s scripture, Joseph and Mary have brought Jesus to the temple for an infant ritual, and two significant people, Simeon and Anna, are there to recognize and proclaim the significance of this child. Celebrating the New Year is a ritual of hope, but last New Year’s Day who could have predicted this year? Similarly, the celebration of Simeon and Anna at this ritual for the Savior was full of hope, but who could have predicted how all of that would eventually turn out? We experience intense lows as well as highs in our lives, and through ritual we know that Jesus is with us in both extremes. The end of Simeon’s story is not marked by his death, but by his life alongside that of Jesus. Through the ritual, Simeon and Anna were no longer waiting but welcoming. It reminds us of the gift of community.

This is West End’s traditional Christmas Eve service with communion, a special reading of the birth story from Luke, and the lighting of the Christ candle at the end of the service. In a usual year, all of the hustle and bustle of the season comes to a moment of calm in the Christmas Eve service. This year we cannot help but hold the grief of the whole earth in our hearts. None of us could have anticipated what has happened this year, and yet here we all gather around this ancient and familiar story of hope, comfort, and peace, and even joy.

Through Advent we are looking at Psalms. There’s something about singing that lifts our spirits, and we often experience that with Christmas carols. There’s something about singing that connects us with our hearts, and, for people of faith, singing connects us with God. Psalms are songs that people of God have been singing for thousands of years. Today’s scripture, Psalm 96, is a song of praise to God, inviting not only all people but all of nature to sing. The scripture from Luke read this morning for the lighting of the Advent candle was Mary’s song of praise when she was pregnant with the holy baby. As Methodists, we have a heritage of hymns, including many written by Charles Wesley, including “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing!” And in our age we are living a new hymn.

Waiting is hard, and it is always hard to wait for Christmas, but it has been especially hard this year. Our scripture reading, Psalm 13, hits home with this – “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” The tension between grief and “the most wonderful time of the year” can be great. One of the echoes we can hear during such times is from the affirmation of faith we often use where we affirm that “God is with us. We are not alone.”

Through Advent we are looking at Psalms, today at Psalm 126. Much like Charles Dickens’ "A Christmas Carol" that moves Scrooge through visions of the past, present, and future, this psalm reviews the past, present, and future of God’s people. The memory of who we have been can inform our present. As we see others in the present who suffer we can cultivate joy through acts of compassion. Unlike in Scrooge’s story where the future is threatening, the future in the psalm is truly hopeful and can have a lot to say to us about the meaning of Christmas.

Through Advent we are looking at Psalms, today at Psalm 85. Sometimes in the midst of trouble, someone’s word of comfort can lift a person’s spirit. In this psalm it is clear that the people are in a period of trouble, but the psalmist expresses God’s faithful presence and comfort and God’s word of peace – shalom. We, too, have been in a difficult period, and although we can now see some hope with the promise of vaccines against COVID-19, this psalm reminds us that our reliance on God is essential. This longing for shalom and God’s promise is the essence of Advent – waiting on the coming of Christ.

Through Advent we are looking at Psalms, today at parts of Psalm 80. There’s something about restoring a house or a car that is satisfying, and restoration is what this psalm is about – the people cry out for God to restore them from a time of great suffering and devastation. Out of anger and confusion and fear, the psalm expresses a deep faith and trust in God and in God’s ability to restore. It can speak to us now in this period of loss, worry, and grief. It may mean that the specific type of restoration we seek is not the restoration God will deliver. It may mean that restoration will come in the birth of a child in an unknown place, something new to save us in a way we never expected or imagined.

Carol Cavin-Dillon delivers the Chidren's Moment. Dr. Paula Smith, Senior Pastor at Gordon Memorial UMC, delivers the sermon. We continue our sermon series from Matthew with the description of the judgment wherein the sheep and goats are being separated. One lesson from this is that what we do every day matters. The question posed here is ours: When have we done these things for the least of these? We all have a little bit of sheep and a little bit of goat in us. And who are “the least of these,” those who are in need? Do we settle for charity, or do we move for justice? Do we need a Biblical plumb line to help us to look deep within ourselves to see the light and the places of darkness?

We continue our sermon series from Matthew with the Parable of the Talents. There are some troubling things about this parable, as, for example, the setting of the servant and the master. Then there’s the ending with the third servant being tossed out into the darkness. What did this servant do or not do that relegates him to this end? The master is actually quite generous with what he trusts to the servants. The third servant accuses the master of cruelty and selfishness. But the third servant’s greater mistake may be that he took no risks. This parable calls out for Christ’s followers not to take the gifts we have received from God and sit on them, but to step out and take a risk for the sake of love.