Sermon on Matthew 1:18-25

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

We’re used to hearing the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke, whether on Christmas Eve or recited by Linus in the Charlie Brown Christmas special, which shares a lot of Mary’s story.

But today, we get the Christmas story from the Gospel of Matthew, which is more from Joseph’s point of view.

We’ve been talking this season about God’s dreams and visions for the world, and we’ll talk on Christmas Eve in a few days about Jesus being God’s dream for the world come true. But today’s reading talks about how close that dream came to not happening.

Joseph understandably had some misgivings about how his life circumstances were shaping up.

He was betrothed to a young woman, which at that time meant they were effectively married already, but it turned out that she was pregnant with a child who wasn’t his.

He would have been very much entitled under the law to have her stoned to death for that, but he was mercifuland wanted to end their relationship quietly and let that be that.

He was upstanding and trying to do the right thing, the humane thing, but he certainly wasn’t on board for raising someone else’s child.

And because of that, he almost missed out on what God was up to, not just in his own life, but in the story of God’s relationship with God’s people and the whole world.

We live in a practical world, a post-Enlightenment, seeing-is-believing world. We want peer reviewed studies and research and sound logic. We have to be careful these days or risk being scammed, cat-fished, ghosted, or trolled. I often find myself saying, “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

Instead, we try to be grounded, productive, and efficient. We optimize our time and try to be industrious and practical. Those are all good things.

But what if we, like Joseph, are missing out on something in our efforts to be responsible and industrious?

God had something different in mind for practical, upstanding Joseph, as God so often does. God has ways of communicating with us that sometimes surprise us.

Joseph drifted off to sleep one night and dreamed. He dreamed of God’s dream for the world. He dreamed of a baby who would grow up to save the world.

That dream changed the course of his life and enabled God’s dream for the world to become a reality.

Joseph had to rest in the dark long enough to hear God’s voice.

We often focus on light and dark this time of year. We light Advent candles and sing of the light of the world chasing away the darkness.

There is something in us that is still afraid of the dark.

But darkness can be generative. Seeds sprout in the dark. Babies, even the Christ Child, grow in the darkness of a womb.Darkness can help us slow down and gives us room for imagination. It’s hard to dream under harsh fluorescent lights.

Author Jeanette Winterson wrote this about what she loves about darkness: “I have noticed that when all the lights are on, people tend to talk about what they are doing — their outer lives. Sitting round in candlelight or firelight, people start to talk about how they are feeling – their inner lives. They speak subjectively, they argue less, there are longer pauses.

“To sit alone without any electric light is curiously creative. I have my best ideas at dawn or at nightfall, but not if I switch on the lights — then I start thinking about projects, deadlines, demands, and the shadows and shapes of the house become objects, not suggestions, things that need to be done, not a background to thought.”

Maybe we need the darkness of this season to help us see God’s visions for this world. God’s visions usually don’t seem practical. They don’t come with business plans or a step-by-step to-do list. They push us beyond what we think we’re capable of.

We can only imagine the possibilities in the liminal space between sleep and waking. That is a way God speaks to us. The Holy Spirit whispers of God’s completely impractical and beautiful dreams. We can only adopt those dreams as our own if we rest in the dark long enough to recognize God’s call.

Sometimes we think it’s too late to answer God’s call. Joseph had already decided to call off the betrothal. Sometimes it seems like it’s too late for us to do something new. We’re set in our routines and habits. Too much time has passed for us to learn something new or to change our ways. We don’t have the energy we once did. Our bodies have changed. Our memories aren’t as sharp. Surely God can’t be calling us now. Our practical minds doubt. But maybe the darkness has gifts for that too.

Here is a poem by Rosemary Wahtola Trommer called

“Too Late?”

By the time we arrive at the cliffside

to watch the sunset, the darkness

has already come. But because

of the ink-ish sky, we see thousands

of yellow lights glitter across the harbor.

And moonlight on the water makes

the blackened surface shine. How often

do I think I’m too late, only to find I have

arrived at just the right moment,

the moment in which there is a beauty

beyond the one I knew to wish for.

Like how, when I thought it was too late

to forgive, forgiveness arrived with its

soft and generous hands. Like how when

I thought I was too late to love, love

bloomed like a sunset, radiant and blazing,

and stayed, the way sunsets never do.

Like how I believed I was here to adore the light,

I came to learn how exquisite, how

lavish, how astonishing, the dark.

It’s not too late for God to do something new in your life or in this world.

In a few days, we’ll be celebrating God’s dream come true, and we also know that this world isn’t yet what it will be. There’s still so much pain and suffering in this world. God is still creating and forming this world into God’s vision for it.

Maybe what we need is more darkness in which to dream of a better world. On this longest night of the year, let’s embrace the darkness. Let’s welcome the gifts of darkness before we rush to celebrate the lengthening days.

Beloved, rest in God’s creative darkness and see what grows.

Sermon on Matthew 11:2-11

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Last week, we heard John the Baptist boldly and even brashlyexhort the people who sought him out to change their minds and their lives in preparation for the coming Messiah.

But by eight chapters later in today’s Gospel reading, John had been imprisoned for speaking truth to power. He sent his disciples to ask Jesus if he was the Messiah that John had been preaching.

It seems that John’s circumstances had understandably shaken his confidence in his message. He had dedicated his life to preparing the way for the Messiah, but he wasn’t sure Jesus was the one.

In response, Jesus could have just told John’s disciples, “Yep! It’s me!” Or he could have said, “Yeah, I was born in Bethlehem, and all these prophecies were written about me. Let me show you all the scriptural evidence.”Or he could have been Transfigured right there instead of on the mountaintop and glowed with God’s glory.

But instead, Jesus told them to tell John about his actions. He invited them to listen and see—to witness with their own senses what Jesus was up to.

I often point to Luke chapter 4 as Jesus’ mission statement, when he quoted Isaiah about bringing good news to the poor and oppressed. But for the Gospel of Matthew, this part summarizes his mission, again drawing imagery from the book of Isaiah. This is what he’s about: “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with a skin disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”

Jesus didn’t command armies, amass wealth, or garner political popularity—all aspects of earthly power. Instead, he manifested God’s power through acts of mercy and compassion. He focused on the marginalized, the poor and the oppressed—those who lacked earthly power.

This is God’s dream for the world: liberation and healing.

Jesus showed the world this dream by acting it out and called his followers to do the same.

Unfortunately, we don’t always do a good job of that.

Christianity today is largely known for who ithates, excludes, and lobbies to legislate against.

Churches are known for infighting, abuse, and control.

And while I argue that the gospel is inherently political in a broad sense, because it involves how we live together as people, the Church has historically run into problems when it gets too enmeshed with political power. And too many Christian leaders are expending too much effort toward amassing political power right now.

On the whole, we’ve got a bad reputation.

We live in a society that wants to see to believe.

And people see us getting grumpy about people cussing, instead of turning the other cheek to people who cuss at us.

People see us judging people instead of welcoming the stranger as we would welcome Jesus himself.

People see us investing in building projects instead of housing our neighbors.

In my second year of my program, my seminary sold its property up in the hills of Berkeley and relocated to the second floor of an office buildingdowntown. It was great to be in the heart of the community. We found out, though, that some of our downstairs neighbors from Berkeley City College, saw the word “evangelical” in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and were a little scared of us.

It's unfortunate that a word that just means focused on good news has become so loaded and politically charged.Sometimes when people find out I’m a Christian, I have to resist the urge to cry out, “No! Not like that! I’m not that type of Christian!”

It’s not entirely fair that people see us the way they do when Christians have and do a lot of good, including the great work of Caring Hands and the other ways this generous congregation loves our community, but the reality is that when a lot of people hear the word Christianity, they don’t associate it with liberation, healing, or love. Often quite the opposite.

But we know that we have a God who calls flawed human beings into the Beloved Community. We’re simultaneously saints and sinners who are capable both of loving and of harming others.

God knows this and loves us and welcomes us into God’s family anyway.It doesn’t excuse any harm we cause—we need to try to make amends, whatever that looks like. But it does relieve us from the burden of trying to be perfect.

Trying to give off an image of perfection won’t help us salvage Christianity’s reputation. If anything, it’ll cause more distrust, because people can sense when people seem fake, especially younger generations.

Instead, we can bring our whole selves to church and to the world in our daily lives. We can be honest when we’re struggling. We can ask for help. We can admit our doubts, discouragements, and fears.Honesty and vulnerability can be risky, but they help our relationships with others deepen. Supporting each other and accepting support are how bonds form—the kind of bonds that make for the kind of imperfect and beautiful Christian community we would be proud to let the world see.

And we can follow in Jesus’ example—not trying to be a savior, but showing our gratitude for how God makes a difference in our lives through our actions.

Jesus told John’s disciples to tell John what they heard and saw Jesus do. We can follow in Jesus’ footsteps and imperfectly do what we can to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Roman Catholic Cardinal John Dearden wrote a poem about doing just that:

“Prophets of a Future Not Our Own”

We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

Beloved children of God, we don’t have to save the world. We don’t have to salvage Christianity’s reputation. We certainly don’t have to be perfect.

Jesus set us free to do our little part in cocreating God’s dream of liberation and healing for the world.As we sing “Light Dawns on a Weary World,” imagine what God’s dream for the world will look like and how you can be a part of making that dream come true.

Sermon on Matthew 3:1-12

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Last week we talked about how jarring Jesus talking about the end times seems at the beginning of Advent, when there’s so much preparation for Christmas going on.

This week, our reading isn’t much cheerier. We’ve got John the Baptist telling people to repent and hurling insults at the religious authorities. Very festive.

There’s a gentleman who often hangs out in the parking lot of a grocery store near my home. He holds a sign that tells people they’ll go to Hell without Jesus, and he yells at people through a megaphone.

I often wonder how effective his strategy is. I, at least, find people loudly threatening me to be a turn-off.

And yet, our reading says that, despite John’s cantankerous demeanor, “Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region around the Jordan were going out to him.” Something in his message was appealing to people.

It may be because John was proclaiming that something big was coming. The prophets had said there would be a forerunner of the Messiah, that the prophet Elijah would return to prepare the way. The Gospel of Matthew’s description of John evokes Elijah—all the details about his clothing and lifestyle.

People recognized his role as someone to pay attention to because God was up to something.

John was letting them know that now was the time to examine their lives and make sure they were ready for what was coming—or rather who was coming.

As much as the word “repent” can sound threatening, it really just means to “change your mind,” or maybe more practically to “change your life.”

There’s a reason why self-help is a multi-billion-dollar industry. There’s a reason why people keep making New Year’s Resolutions year after year. The idea that you have the power to dramatically change your life for the better is appealing. And maybe transformation like that is only possible with God’s help.

So, John’s message to repent wasn’t punitive: he was inviting transformation. Most of us get to a point where we would welcome a fresh start at least a few times over the course of our lives. 

So, people came to John to be baptized.

What baptism meant to them is different from what it means to modern day Christians.

In the first century, baptism was a cleansing ritual for converts to Judaism. It wasn’t something people who were already Jewish did.

But John called his fellow Jewish people also to be cleansed and confess their sins in preparation for the Messiah.

From John’s reaction to the religious leaders, we can assume that they were questioning why John was baptizing people who were already Jewish.

John responded by saying not to rely merely on their ancestors’ faith, and perhaps for the religious leaders, not to rely on their positions of power either. Instead, they should engage and connect with God themselves. He was, in his own cranky way, inviting them to join the Beloved Communtiy.

And we see in our reading from Romans that God’s mission of Beloved Community is for the whole world. Paul declared that Jesus came to “confirm the promises given to the ancestors and that the gentiles might glorify God.” Gentiles are included in the Beloved Community too—thankfully for any of us who don’t have any Jewish heritage. The Beloved Community includes anyone who wants to be a part of it. It’s open to all.

That’s God’s dream of inclusion and belonging for this world.

And our reading from Isaiah shows us another aspect of God’s vision for the world. It tells us that “with righteousness he shall judge for the poor / and decide with equity for the oppressed of the earth.” And then there’s the beautiful list of the vulnerable living safely: the wolf not harming the lamb, the leopard and the baby goat, the lion and the calf, the bear and the cow, and the snake not harming the human child.

In God’s vision for the world, the vulnerable will be safe.

Over the course of this week, though, I was starting to feel uncomfortable with this passage. The idea of cohabitating with predators started to trouble me.

Marginalized people probably won’t feel safe in the presence of someone who victimized them, even if they can’t harm them anymore. And someone who has been abused would probably feel unsafe around their abuser, even if they can’t harm them in the same way.

So, maybe the image of the wolf living with the lamb isn’t as comforting as it sounds. But perhaps it’ll help if we refrain from personifying the creatures in the Isaiah reading. Instead of reading the wolf as a human predator, we can let the wolf just be a wolf. A literal animal wolf isn’t wrong for hunting.

So, instead of the predator/prey aspect of the metaphor in our reading, we can understand it as expressing that, in the fullness of the Beloved Community, nothing will be harmful anymore. There will be no violence or injury or even anxiety about the possibility of harm—there will only be peace and safety, which will make room for joy. Fear will be replaced with delight in God.

John talked about bearing fruit. The fruit of the Beloved Community, as we see it in our readings today, is inclusion, safety, justice for the oppressed, and belonging for all.

As Lutherans, we might be uncomfortable with John’s calls to change our lives and bear fruit. It sounds awfully like works righteousness, having to do certain things to earn God’s love.

But let’s think about the image of bearing fruit. A tree doesn’t try to prove its worth by bearing fruit. It bears fruit as a natural process of living in a healthy environment and getting the right amount of sun and water and nutritious soil.

God’s creating a Beloved Community for a reason—with God’s help, we build a healthier environment together, and the fruit grows out of that.

We need God’s help to be ready for what God’s up to in the world—whether the first Christmas or the Advent of Christ at the end of time. There’s no amount of self-help books, New Year’s resolutions, or people yelling into megaphones in grocery store parking lots that can change our lives without the Holy Spirit bearing fruit in us.

In our baptisms as we understand them—distinct from John’s—God declares that we are part of God’s family forever. We can trust in that as we work together with God to create a safer, more inclusive, healthier Beloved Community where harm will give way to pure joy.

That’s God’s dream for this world. Instead of shouting that into a megaphone, let’s show it with our lives. That’s how we can prepare the way this Advent.