Children's Sermon 24 December 2016 Christmas Eve Luke 2:8-20 Year A

Do you see who is around the baby Jesus?

You can’t see all of us up here, but being in church tonight means we are around Jesus too.

Did you hear the word “manger” in the song we just sang?

What is a manger? (Explain if no one knows.)

Mary had to put Jesus in a manger because they didn’t have a crib for him.

Did you know when I was a tiny baby my parents couldn’t afford a crib either? So my parents pulled out a dresser drawer and put it on the bed. They filled it with soft cloths, just like Mary did, and then they put me next to the bed in the dresser drawer.

They didn’t put the drawer back in the dresser because a baby wouldn’t be able to breathe if that happened. But the dresser drawer was my crib until I got older and my parents found a used crib to put me in.

So a manger, in a way, is any comfy warm place where we can put a baby. It’s a place where we can keep a baby safe and warm.

We know Jesus was a very special baby. He was the most special baby ever born. And people came to see him at the manger because they knew how special Jesus was and still is. They knew Jesus loved all of us and was born to show us that love.

So it’s okay for anyone to come Jesus’ manger. So maybe tonight, we could do something special. Something special to show everyone that anyone can come to Jesus’ manger.

I have some people and animals and other things we can put around the manger. Who would like to take one and carefully put in near Jesus?

(There were not a lot of children at this service and I walked through the congregation inviting the children to look in the bag I carried and pick out a creature to bring up to the manger. Some of the children wanted their parents to walk up with them and that was fine too. The bag had super heroes and super villains (male and female), My Little Pony, and other easily recognizable cartoon characters and television show and movie people and creatures.)

That’s great. And you know, some of these people and animals and creatures we put near the manger aren’t very well behaved or very good. Some are super heroes and some are super villains or bad guys. But you know what, Jesus invites everyone to be at the manger with him. It doesn’t matter. Yes, we all want to better every day, but we can come to the manger just the way we are and Jesus loves us just the way we are. Amen.

©2017

The Rev Nicolette Papanek

Sermon 18 December 2016 Advent IV Matthew 1:18-25 Year A

            Two thousand years ago, this weary world had a heart transplant: a transplant of joy and wonder, a transplant of love. It was love that began with the breaking of rules.

         Breaking rules is something most of us have a problem with, even if we try to dismiss it. One of our favorite expressions deals with the entire idea of breaking rules and speaks to our discomfort about doing so. It’s this: “It’s easier to get forgiveness than permission”. I use it myself. Another expression we often use is “rules were made to be broken”. The fact that we have these expressions at all speaks to our discomfort about breaking rules and reminds us that what we would really like to do is follow the rules.

         Following the rules is easy most of the time. Societies set up rules for us to follow to preserve peace, to see that everyone has access to justice, and to make civil encounters that would otherwise be uncivil or violent.

         But the biggest rule of all is generally unspoken. It’s the rule called, “What will the neighbors think”. This is the rule Joseph breaks in this morning’s scripture even before he has his dream.

         According to the rules of his time, Joseph, “being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her (Mary) to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.”[1]

A righteous man, a rule-follower, of Joseph’s time, no matter how much he loved Mary, would follow the rules. The rules said that if a woman had been unfaithful, a man was required to divorce her. It would have been a bill of divorcement because a betrothal, an engagement during this period was a solemn contract and in all aspects a marriage, except that the man and woman did not live together or have what Matthew’s Gospel calls “marital relations.” Joseph would be upholding the rules by opting out of his relationship with Mary. After all, if he stayed in the relationship, what would the neighbors think?

         You know some of the things people would think. People would count on their fingers after Mary had her child. They would assume Joseph had slept with her before their marriage. There would be whispers that Joseph might not be the child’s father. There would be questions about who really was the father. If not Joseph, then who? For a rule follower, if Joseph claimed the child as his own, he would not uphold the rules of purity for the Hebrew people. These are some of the things the neighbors would think.

         “What would the neighbors think” is pretty powerful stuff. It keeps us from doing things that are wrong. And, sometimes it makes us do things that are right. “What would the neighbors think” is about impulse control. We may say we don’t really care, but we do. “What would the neighbors think” is so powerful that centuries ago it even made its way into icons of St Joseph and the Nativity.

In some Eastern Orthodox icons St Joseph is portrayed talking to a tiny man in the icon’s corner. Often the man has a rather evil or sly expression; he’s sinister-looking. At times he is depicted as an imp or small devil, and other times as the town gossip. He is the representative of what other people will think. He is social obligation and public opinion. He represents Joseph’s struggle with “what will the neighbors think”.

Yet somehow Joseph’s heart was open enough to realize he needed to lose his old heart, his rule obeying, law abiding, “what would the neighbors think” heart. Even before he fell asleep and the angel came into his dream, Joseph became open to receive his new heart.

What Joseph was told in his dream is the complete opposite of everything he knows. Every rule points him in the direction of calling Mary out as an adulteress. Yet before he even has his dream, he has already decided to break the rules, to ignore what the neighbors will think by putting Mary away quietly. That is the beginning of Joseph’s heart of love.

         When Joseph awakens he realizes God has given him a new heart. God has asked Joseph to do a new thing that requires a new heart: a heart that is willing to break rules for the sake of God coming into the world.

Joseph received his new heart of love when he heard these words in his dream. “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”[2]

         Even before the birth of Christ, the heart of Christ began in Joseph. Not only through Mary’s “yes” to God asking her to bear a child, but also through Joseph’s willingness to break the rules for love; to discard what the neighbors will think. Joseph received a heart of lobe.

By being willing to receive a new heart, Joseph and Mary were the bearers of God incarnate, born as human flesh from the heart of God’s love for us.

In the midst of our anxieties about what the neighbors will think if we don’t put up our Christmas lights on time or forget to bring Aunt Sue her usual loaf of bread, or don’t wrap the gifts like Tiffany’s does, let us be willing. Let us be willing to have a new heart. Let us be willing to lose our rule obeying, law abiding, “what would the neighbors think” hearts, and let Christ give us a new heart of love. AMEN.

The Rev Nicolette Papanek

©2016

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[1] Matthew 1:19 (NRSV)

[2] Matthew 1:20b (NRSV)

Sermon 11 December 2016 Advent III James 5:7-10, Matthew 11:2-11 Year A

         This morning we’re faced with an interruption, or at least what appears as an interruption in our four-week orderly progression from Advent to Christmas. What we have is a rather incomprehensible Gospel reading in which John the Baptist suddenly develops doubts.

         Who could really blame John for his doubting, though? He’s languishing in prison, not seeing much of anyone, and then when he finally does see his disciples he asks them to find Jesus. He asks them to find Jesus and make sure. “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”[1] In the midst of his despair, John asks for proof, for a sign that all his labors have not been wasted, and that his prison cell is not full of despair but full of hope.

         Aren’t we the same way, really? We say we believe; we even believe we believe, and then despair overtakes us. We wait to be filled with hope. We wait for news from the doctor, we wait and watch someone we love suffer, we wait and watch a child struggle, we wait in grief while we mourn a loved one, we wait for an answer that never comes. We wait in the gap between what we believe God has promised and for God’s promises to be kept.

         What comes in today’s Gospel is a word that refuses to wait, a word that leaps out at us despite all our doubts and fears and sorrows. A word of hope that cuts clean against all the prevailing data and interrupts our story of disbelief and despair.

         So yes, Advent is about waiting. And, Advent is a time of remembering, remembering God’s promises, the ones for which we are still waiting, and the ones in which our waiting is fulfilled in hope.

         If you think the blind cannot be made to see, just ask members of our own congregation who have had cataract surgery. A hundred years ago people with cataracts simply went blind. If you think the lame don’t walk, ask anyone in this congregation who has had knee or hip surgery. A hundred years ago knees and hips were not replaced; they just stopped working. And lepers? There is only one leper colony left in the world today. Leprosy is almost eradicated. If you think those who mourn for the dead have no hope, listen to their stories of finding new life and hope in the midst of death. Do the poor have good news brought to them? Some times. Some times. Not enough, never enough, but some times.

         Are we there yet? No. Are God’s promises being kept? Yes. Yes. Yes!

         But remember this: in this season of waiting, of keeping watch, of being wakeful to God’s promises. This is how we wait, as the writer of the Letter of James tell us. “Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the judge is standing at the doors!”[2]

Interrupt our despair with your hope, O Lord. Fling wide the doors! Let him in! Let him in! It is he for whom we are waiting. Amen. Come Lord Jesus. Come. AMEN.

The Rev Nicolette Papanek

©2016

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[1] Matthew 11:3b (NRSV)

[2] James 5:7, 8b-9 (NRSV)

Sermon 1 December 2016 Isaiah 2:1-5, Matthew 24:36-44 Year A

         This morning’s Isaiah reading seems future oriented. The Prophet Isaiah speaks of the time “in days to come.” Many of us would like to see Isaiah’s vision sooner rather than later. We’re impatient people, most of us. I’m not sure that’ always a good thing though. Some of us are so impatient for the next bargain we don’t want retail employees to have a day off for Thanksgiving. Black Friday has become “black un-thanksgiving” for many retail employees.

 Isaiah longs for a time when people will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Isaiah longs for a time when nation shall not lift sword against nation and neither shall anyone learn war any more. If you are old enough to remember the 1960s you may remember our Isaiah reading this morning as a popular folk song known as either “Down by the Riverside or “Ain’t Gonna Study War No More.”(I sang the following.)

I’m gonna lay down my sword and shield

Down by the riverside

Down by the riverside

Down by the riverside

I ain’t gonna study war no more

Ain’t gonna study war no more

Ain’t gonna study war no more

I ain’t gonna study war no more

The song has more verses than were sung in most popular version. And the song’s message is about casting off aggression and negativity at the side of the river before crossing it. Baptism and ascending to heaven are part of some of the lesser-known verses. And, as in many African-American spirituals, the biblical images allude to escape from oppression and slavery.

Most importantly, though, when we look at both Isaiah’s vision and the words of the song, we see that instead of being simply future oriented, the texts are also now oriented. These are texts that talk about the future and a past that come together in God’s time, the “not-quite-yet” and the “already-here.”

         It’s easy to get discouraged about a text like Isaiah’s. “…(T)hey shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”[1] Yet in the midst of our skepticism, if we are honest, most of us still feel our hearts leap with joy at these words. Why would our hearts do this when the overwhelming weight of what we know about the world presses in on us?

         I believe it is because without always knowing it consciously, our hearts have absorbed the idea that while God has not brought us to the second coming, signs of Jesus’ second coming are all around us.

         Isaiah speaks to this knowledge of ours, this knowledge of a world filled with justice and mercy. A world of hope, rather than hate. A world that where God sees us and knows us at our best.

         Isaiah offers us both a look at how it might be, and how it is. There is justice, not always, not everywhere, but in bits and pieces and growing. There is some justice for women, some justice for children, some justice for people of color, some justice for animals and the earth today.

Imagine sending three young people to build and to help, to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry, to educate the struggling and the poor, and to study war no more. You may think it is a dream, but two young people in parishes I’ve served and one student from my seminary’s junior class did just that. They joined the Young Adult Service Corps (YASC), one of the best-kept secrets of the Episcopal Church. Two were teachers in underserved areas of the world, and one worked in Appalachia teaching and building and learning that there was much more in the world than the privileged life he’d always known. These are swords into plowshares today.

I know a young woman who travels the world planting trees in deforested areas. And I know another who lives in one of the most dangerous war-torn countries in the world and works for peace: justice for the earth and swords into plowshares today.

Several years ago, a young woman I know put her feet on the path of legal citizenship. Her mother, fleeing violence and oppression, brought her daughter here when she was barely walking. There is justice and hope today.

Just this week, the Jesus House provided Thanksgiving baskets for hundreds of people. The hungry are fed with hope today.

Three years ago hope began in a hospital unit where young mothers who have no one to love them are being partnered by affluent mothers who help them love and care for their new babies: mercy today.

And here, this month, Care Share will bring Christmas gifts to at-risk children whose parents are struggling: mercy and hope today.

         Advent is a time to look for the “not-quite-yet” so we may do that which we are called to do. And Advent is a time to look at the “already-here” and to ask, “How can we have more of that?” How can we use what God has given us to bring forth justice, mercy, and hope?

         Advent is the time to look forward to the justice, mercy, and hope we will find in the manger with the Christ Child. Yet Advent is also the time when we look forward to how this justice, mercy, and hope will come to us in power and great glory with the Risen Christ at his second coming. And Advent is the time of now: when justice, mercy, and hope are with us today.

Advent is the time when we pray with our hearts wide open as we say, “Holy God, show us how to bring your justice, mercy, and hope into your world. Blessed Jesus, show us how to beat our swords into plowshares. Holy Spirit, work in us and through us to offer others justice, mercy, and hope. You are here, Lord Jesus, come among us today.” AMEN. 

The Rev Nicolette Papanek

©2016

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[1] Isaiah 2:4b (NRSV)