Sermon on Luke 2:1-20

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

If you, like me, have a hard time not hearing the Christmas story in Linus’s voice from the Charlie Brown Christmas special, you might have noticed that in place of “because there was no room for them in the inn,” as the King James Version has it, the version we read tonight has the words “guest room.”

It can be unsettling having words changed in a story as beloved as this, but let me tell you what difference that word choice makes.

The Christmas pageants of our childhood maximized the drama—Mary and Joseph’s weary and solitary journey to Bethlehem, their frantic search for a room for rent, only to finally be shown to a stable, where we see Mary and Joseph bowing reverently to already-born baby Jesus lying in a wooden manger.

There are beautiful themes in that version of the story about the hardships Mary and Joseph overcame, the change of heart of the innkeeper, and God’s willingness to be born in the loneliest and humblest of circumstances.

But it probably didn’t happen quite like that.

First, if everyone had to go back to their hometowns to be registered, Mary and Joseph probably weren’t traveling alone, but with a caravan of people.

Second,the biblical account doesn’t give us any reason to believe Mary wasn’t in Bethlehem in plenty of time before baby Jesus arrived: “While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child.”

Third, since this was Joseph’s family home, they wouldn’t have been booking a room at an inn. They would have stayed with family. Hospitality was an important value, and Joseph not being welcomed into the family home would have been unheard of.

Plus, the word translated “inn” in the King James Version is different from, for instance, the word used in the parable of the Good Samaritan, where the Samaritan pays an innkeeper to care for the injured man. So, “guest room” is a more faithful translation for a word that’s distinct from “inn.”

Homes at that time had an upper room for guests, which is what the word “guest room” is referring to. Then, there was a separate family room that had an upper portion where the family slept and a slightly lower portion where they brought their handful of animals in for the night. That lower portion would have little trenches dug into the ground where animal feed could be put: mangers.

So, since the guest room was taken, and the upper part of the family room taken up by the family who lived there, they would have cleared one end of the animal portion of the family room for Mary and Joseph, and one of the trench mangers would have worked as a place to lay the baby.

Speaking of the baby, there would have been other women there to help Mary deliver her baby. She wouldn’t have been alone in a drafty stable with only poor Joseph to tend to her.

So, yes, our Christmas pageants make for an exciting story, but they don’t give a fair representation of the hospitality and kinship present in the story of God’s dream come true.

God chose to be born to a humble family, yes, not to a king, emperor, or warlord. And God was also born surrounded by a loving, caring community. That’s why the word choice of “guest room” matters.

Jesus came to create a Beloved Community of people who take care of each other, show hospitality and generosity to the vulnerable, including a young pregnant woman far from home, and live out God’s love for the world.

Even Jesus’ birth exemplified that Beloved Community.

And then, God told the Good News to shepherds—not politicians or generals or rich patrons—but shepherds who spent the night outdoors and were probably a little smelly from taking care of animals and who definitely didn’t have a highly-regarded profession.

These shepherds were welcomed into Joseph’s family home, which was already overcrowded with distant family members and chaotic from the aftermath of a birth.

But since the guest room was full, everyone was family—Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, and the shepherds.And when the shepherds shared what they had heard from the angel, “all who heard it were amazed.” It was a shared experience of joy.

God’s dream for the world is one of community and inclusion. It can be a bit messy, but it’s filled with love.

It can be hard to find that kind of community these days. Many of us have the luxury of single-family homes, which might be extra full this time of year, but maybe not, since we do have hotels.

We have the ability to communicate with people around the world in our pockets, but how often do we really connect with other human beings?When someone asks you how you are, do you ever say anything but “fine” or maybe “busy”?How many people do you feel safe enough with to admit that life is hard?

And it can be challenging these days to have conversations with family members who have different political beliefs. It’s often safer to keep the conversation to “how is work” or “wow, it’s been raining a lot this week.”

Modern life can be really lonely.Christmas can feel more like being relegated to a stable than being welcomed into the family.

But no matter how lonely you feel, you are part of God’s family. God created you, loves you, and was born this night to build a Beloved Community in which everyone belongs.

It’s not fully realized yet and won’t be until the end of time. That will be God’s ultimate dream come true, and it will last forever.

In the meantime, God’s working to create Beloved Community day by day, and thanks to the Holy Spirit, we get to be part of helping create it.

Every time we choose kindness instead of hatred,

Or generosity instead of overconsumption,

Or belonging instead of exclusion,

Or love instead of violence,

the Beloved Community is becoming more real, and God’s using us to make God’s love known to the world.

And every time we fail, every time we fall short, and we will, because we’re human, God is still in our corner, comforting us, reminding us that we will always belong to God, and there’s nothing we can do to make God love us any more or any less.

Jesus was God’s dream come true two thousand years ago, the fulfillment of the Beloved Community will be God’s ultimate dream that will come true one day, and God dreamed of you before you were born, so you, too,are God’s dream come true.

Let that belonging settle into your heart, Beloved, and may the peace of the Christ Child be with you now and always.

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.