Christmas Morning, Christmas Eve Report, and Sermon Recording

It is Christmas morning, 2025, and through the decades, I've had a wide variety of Christmas mornings.  By choice, I had no children of my own, but I have spent Christmas mornings with little children, and I understand how wonderful it is to have that enchanted kind of morning.  I am also a fan of a leisurely morning, even if it ends up feeling like a regular morning.  I've had Christmas mornings in my own house and Christmas mornings in the houses of relatives, along with the occasional Christmas morning at a vacation property.  I love them all.

This morning, I unwrapped the pumpkin roll that had been waiting for me in the church freezer.  I thought we took home the pumpkin roll intended for us, back in the fall, but there was another, in the upstairs refrigerator.  The woman who baked it assured me that it was mine, and so I brought it home.  It makes a delicious breakfast.

I thought about rolled cakes, about my one attempt to make a Buche de Noel.  It was back in my teenage days, when I subscribed to Bon Appetit magazine and actually attempted to make some of the recipes, if the ingredients were ones I could find in Charlottesville, VA and Knoxville, TN, back in the days (1980's) when grocery stores didn't have the wide range of products that they have now.

It was a tasty enough cake, that long ago Buche de Noel, but we all agreed that it was an awful lot of effort for a cake that tasted like, well, cake.  My pumpkin roll breakfast was also delicious, but it doesn't really taste like regular cake.  It does taste like autumn, so it's a bit out of place on Christmas morning, but since I love both autumn and Christmas, that's fine.

Yesterday was a delightful day which revolved mostly around our trip across the mountain to Bristol, TN, Christmas Eve service, and the trip back.  It was unseasonably warm for December, which I no longer complain about; I took advantage of the warm weather and took a longer walk.

I love the Christmas Eve service; it will always be my favorite.  Everyone is in a good mood, and all the hymns are familiar.  The central message of Christmas is easy to preach, unlike many other texts.

Speaking of sermons, my Christmas Eve sermon was recorded, and you can view it here on my YouTube channel.  If you want to read along (or read instead of watching the recording), I posted the sermon manuscript as a post on my theology blog.

Sermon for Christmas Eve, 2025

December 24, 2025
By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



Luke 2: 1-20


In Sunday’s Gospel reading, the story from the Gospel of Matthew about how Joseph comes to take Mary as his wife, we met a family in trouble. In tonight’s Gospel reading, here again, we meet a family in trouble. The writer of the Gospel of Luke shines a spotlight on the trouble caused by a distant emperor: a census, hard travel to the ancestral hometown, not enough rooms when they arrive, and a woman about to give birth.

Chances are good that Joseph and Mary were not as alone as we might have traditionally been taught: instead of having a separate barn for the animals, most animals were kept indoors, in a separate part of the overcrowded house. If Joseph or Mary needed help during the baby’s birth, there would be women nearby who would hear and assist. As I talked about in my sermon 2 years ago, it’s likely that there’s no room in the guest room because other family members got there first. But that doesn’t mean that Joseph and Mary would be turned away, just that they would have to settle for lesser accommodations. Their situation is not quite as dire as it might sound to modern ears.


Does this knowledge change the way we view the story? It’s important to remember that a Gospel is a very different piece of literature from a work of history or biography. A Gospel by its very definition is designed to deliver good news, a task which involves truth telling, even if some meanings change over time.


Historians can’t find evidence of a census during the time of Caesar Augustus and Quirinius, the way that Luke describes. People who study the time of Rome would question the efficiency of registering citizens in this way, requiring them to return to their ancestral place of origin, which would be very disruptive to the local and larger economies. But the truth of tonight’s Gospel remains, that earthly empires don’t usually make life easy for their citizens.


It's a contrast with the way that God works. God does not require a return to our hometowns. God does not require that we exist in any document that has been certified by a government official. As one theologian put it, the lesson of tonight’s Gospel is that things don’t go as planned, and God appears anyway. In fact, that might be one of God’s consistencies: into the midst of every day life, God breaks through. We might prefer that God wait until we have our personal lives straightened out or until we have a better housing situation, but that’s society talking, not God talking. God loves us, no matter where we are on the spectrum of broken to perfect. This is the truth.


This story also reminds us that God often appears to the most lowly. Tonight’s Gospel ends with angels appearing to shepherds, and again, I think that 21st century people, especially those who have seen many a darling Christmas pageant, forget how out of the mainstream of society a shepherd would be in the first century. They would rarely interact with humans. They would spend time with smelly sheep, and many citizens would see them as little above sheep themselves. God works through the necessary but undervalued. This is the truth.


In the Gospel of Luke, these shepherds are the ones who hear the good news of the arrival of the Messiah first: not the emperor, not the governor, not the priest. By now, it’s not news to us, especially if you’ve been hearing my sermons week after week. But it’s a truth that’s important enough to repeat on a regular basis: the good news of God’s love is not reserved for the mighty and the powerful. At the end of tonight’s Gospel, the heavens split open, the way that Mary’s body splits open, and the Good News of God’s presence pours out.


In fact we see this as a theme across the Nativity stories, across the Gospels: the idea of Heavenly shattering and remaking. One thing that is shattered through the birth of this baby is social status and stratification. The community that Jesus builds includes people of less social status, and the appearance of angels to shepherds foreshadows this community. It’s not just the priests and the magi who hear the messages of the angels, but the dirty, smelly ones out in the fields, away from civilized life, tending flocks of sheep: they, too, get Divine visits. God comes for them too. This is true.


Look at what the angels say, notice what they proclaim: God is doing all of this shattering and remaking to bring us peace. As I prepared for this sermon, I read one theologian that summed up tonight’s Gospel this way: God wishes us peace.


The empires of the world will tell us that they will bring peace, but the Gospels tell the truth. The empires of the world will cause disruption, and we know that it won’t bring peace for all, just for a select few. Empires of the world are not set up to help the pregnant women and the shepherds and all the others at the bottom of the totem pole.


Native American scholars would remind us that the ones at the bottom of the totem pole are necessary but undervalued. Nonetheless, the ones at the bottom of the totem pole hold up all the rest, and we see that throughout the ministry of Jesus. He returns to caretakers as a central metaphor for his teachings, and he practices what he preaches, a Gospel of Love that feeds not just bodies but souls. Women make the work of Jesus possible, from Mary his mother on throughout his ministry and into the early church: the salvation of the world is undergirded by the work of these women, these necessary but undervalued. This is the truth.


We know that the work is not finished yet. The creation that is around us, lovely as it is this time of year when decorated in lights and ornaments, that creation is only a pale shadow of what God creates, offers, and intends. Tonight’s Gospel shows God’s arrival in the most unlikely places—a manger—and heralded to the most unlikely listeners: the shepherds.

 

May we have the courage of Joseph and Mary who said yes to God’s disruption of the life that they had planned to have. May we have the curiosity of the shepherds who knew that they needed to respond to the good news. May we keep our Advent disciplines of watching and waiting so that we will see how God is still at work in the world, shattering social structures, offering a new vision of community. May we know the truth of the Gospel, that God often works through those who are most undervalued and underappreciated, working through them to bring us all the peace that God intends for all of creation. May we know this truth in our core being so that we, too, can say, “Be not afraid” and live out the truth of the Gospel.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

 The readings for Sunday, December 28, 2025:

First Reading: Isaiah 63:7-9

Psalm: Psalm 148

Second Reading: Hebrews 2:10-18

Gospel: Matthew 2:13-23

After all the joy and wonder of Christmas Eve, this Gospel returns us to post-manger life with a thud. In this Gospel, we see Herod behaving in a way that's historically believable, if perhaps not historically accurate, as he slaughters all the male children in Bethlehem under the age of two. Why would he do such a terrible thing? Partly because he's worried about keeping his power; he's worried about what the wise men have told him, and he doesn't want any challenges. Partly because he can; he has power granted to him by Roman authorities, and that power means that he can slaughter his subjects if he sees fit to do so.

Jesus, however, escapes. A power greater than Rome protects him. Warned by an angel in a dream, Joseph flees with Mary and Jesus to Egypt, to safety. But still, the earthly power of Herod turns them into refugees.

Early in the Gospel, we see that the coming of Jesus disrupts regular life. Even before Jesus tells us that the life of a disciple is not one of material ease and comfort, we get that message. Even before Jesus warns us that following him may mean that we're on the opposite side of earthly powers, we see with our own eyes, in the story of Herod and the slaughter of the innocents.

This Gospel reminds us of the potency of power. We shouldn't underestimate the power of the State, particularly the power of a global empire. With the story of Herod, we see the limits of worldly power. Yet even within those limits, a dastardly ruler can unleash all sorts of pain and suffering. Those of us lucky enough to live under benign rulers shouldn't forget how badly life can go wrong for those who don't share our good fortune.

The Gospel reminds us of who has the true power in the story--it's God. The Gospel shows us who deserves our loyalty. And the Gospel also reminds us of the hazards of living in a universe where God is not the puppet master. In a universe that God sets free to be governed by free will, it's up to us to protect the vulnerable. And this story of Herod's slaughter reminds us of what happens when despots are allowed to rule. Sadly, it's a story that we still see playing out across the planet.

If we're not in the mood to see this Gospel in its geopolitical implications, we might take a few moments of introspection in these waning days of the year. Where do we see Herod-like behavior in ourselves? What threatens us so much that we might do treacherous deeds? What innocent goodness might we slaughter so that we can allay our fears and insecurities?

I predict that churches across the nation (and the world) will choose to ignore this difficult text on this Sunday after Christmas. Far better to enjoy Christmas carols one last time than to wrestle with this difficult text. But Jesus reminds us again and again that he didn't come to make us all comfortable. He didn't come to be our warm, fuzzy savior. He came to overturn the regular order, to redeem creation, to restore us to the life that God intends for us--and Herod stands as a potent symbol for what might happen if we take Jesus seriously.

Recording of Sermon for Sunday, December 21, 2025

I was happy with my sermon at Faith Lutheran yesterday.  I preached on the Gospel reading, as I always do.  Yesterday we finally got to a text which feels like a more traditional Advent reading, Matthew 1:  18-25.  Finally we get to a character central to the Nativity stories (Mary and Joseph), not the early ministry of Christ stories (John the Baptist).

Here's what I posted on Facebook:  "If you are feeling a bit like Joseph, feeling like you had solid plans that have dissolved into a huge mess, perhaps my sermon that I preached this morning at Faith Lutheran Church (in Bristol, TN) would have meaning for you."

You can find the recording of my sermon here on my YouTube channel.  You can read along here and count the times I go off-script.

Sermon for Sunday, December 21, 2025

December 21, 2025

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



Matthew 1:18-25


When I think of all the Christmas pageants that I’ve seen through the decades, I’m struck by how much has been left out. In the Nativity story for child actors, we get angel choirs and shepherds and animals in a stable—and of course, the starring role of Mary and Joseph, who get to look adoringly at the doll in the manger. But we don’t get this story about Joseph.

I’m not surprised; it would make me deeply uncomfortable to see elementary school kids acting out today’s Gospel. But as an adult, I find this part of the Nativity story may have more to say to us in our non-Christmas lives than the rest of the incarnation story.

Let us consider Joseph, as we so rarely do. Even on his feast day, March 19, we rarely focus on the aspect of Joseph that we see in today’s Gospel. Often in March, we celebrate Joseph in his role as a stepfather. In contrast, in today’s Gospel, I can almost hear Joseph thinking, When did my life get so messy?

Here’s Joseph, preparing for marriage, and his bride-to-be is pregnant with a baby that he is certain is not his. Even today, with our modern sensibilities, it’s not hard to sympathize with Joseph, to feel the bewilderment that one feels when facing a problem that isn’t going to magically fix itself. Even today, this situation – our beloved has been with another – is enough to make us feel shame. Now take that level of shame and magnify it; as a male in an ancient patriarchal culture, most men in this situation would have personal shame and shame about his betrothed and subsequently, some unpleasant decisions to make.

By law, Joseph could have decided to have Mary stoned—that was one of the prerogatives of a man in his position. But instead, he decides to disentangle himself quietly, which shows us an important aspect of his character. He still has a hope of that conventional life: marriage to a faithful woman, a family, some stability, a chance to leave scandal behind. But into this decision, God steps in with an option that almost no man in Joseph’s culture would consider: to stay with the woman who is pregnant with someone else’s baby.

Matthew is the Gospel of dreams and visions. The angel choirs and big announcements during waking hours—we find those stories in the Gospel of Luke. The student in me wants to know if the dream that Joseph had was of a different quality than his normal dream life, and of course, what I really want to know is whether or not God still speaks to us in dreams and how can we be sure that it’s God talking and not some by product of what we’ve been reading or watching. Of course, maybe that’s a way that God speaks to us now, by prompting us to feel inspired by what we’ve been reading or watching.

Joseph emerges from his dream ready to show us a new way to be faithful. He takes Mary for his wife and Jesus for his child.

As I read the text again on Saturday morning, the words of the angel in the dream jumped out to me. “Be not afraid.” Unlike the angel visitations that we’ll hear about on Christmas Eve, Joseph has other reasons to fear. He thought he was headed for one kind of life, and now he’s being asked to go in a different direction, a direction that might bring scorn and derision. He thought he knew Mary and thought he could anticipate their lives together, and now? He’s headed off into an unknown direction. Even the lives of the patriarchs and prophets, the teachings of the Torah and the law—all that has come before isn’t going to be a guidebook now—Joseph will be the first to be stepfather to the Divine.

You probably know at least one person who treats the Bible as a guidebook, the one that has a Bible verse tucked away for every situation. They’re the ones who would tell us how we could dream like Joseph and be convinced not only that God is speaking to us, but what God is saying.

However, as we look at the wide diversity of call stories across the Bible, the one thing we see is that through the ages, God calls people to step out in faith without a complete guidebook. Joseph doesn’t know what every step in the journey will be. Joseph doesn’t receive the divine plan as a series of choices to make with outcomes that will be perfect. The angel tells Joseph the first step: take Mary as your wife.

Across the Bible, we see stories of God calling people to a path they never would have predicted, and may not have ever considered, and perhaps would not have chosen by themselves at first. Think about those first Jewish patriarchs: Abraham onward to Moses, David the shepherd who becomes Israel’s greatest king. Think about the prophets. And in the new Testament we have Mary and Elizabeth, all the disciples, Saul who became Paul, and the earliest believers.

The story of God’s revelation and call doesn’t end with the Bible, of course. Across centuries of church history, God invites people to step outside of convention and to dream bigger dreams.

The angel tells Joseph not to be afraid, and we need to remember that he has plenty to cause him fear: fear of what his friends and neighbors will say when he decides to join his life to Mary’s, Mary who is pregnant with someone else’s child. Does Joseph have anyone who will hear about his dream and not doubt his sanity?

And then there is the fear at the scenario that the angel describes: Mary is carrying the child who will be the fulfillment of the ancient prophecy? There’s no childcare manual for that scenario! If there was, surely it would begin with the angel’s directive to Joseph: Do not be afraid—and do not abandon the woman carrying that baby in her womb!

God still calls to those of us with ears to hear, and God calls us to destinies that don’t have how-to manuals attached. God calls to us even if we come from families scorched with scandals—maybe it’s ill-advised relationships or addictions or other choices gone wrong. God calls to us even if we’re in the midst of messy lives. God doesn’t wait for us to pull ourselves together to show that we’re worthy. God does encourage us to work on relationships of love even if it means a risk of embarrassment.

No, God comes to us in the midst of that messiness, and invites us to be part of something that will be even stranger and more wondrous. From his first appearance, Jesus shows us a different way to be human. We see it in today’s story, Jesus acting even before he is born, his existence prompting Joseph to step away from Joseph’s plan for a conventional and traditional marriage. In the middle of a scandal not of his making, Joseph struggles with his instinct for self-preservation and ultimately shows his openness to God’s plan, for his life, and for the world.

We live in a world that is increasingly messed up, messy, chaotic, in disarray. In some ways, it’s a world that bears resemblance to those Sunday School Christmas pageants, with children pretending to be something that they’re not, and for some of us, it’s a place where we learn shame for what we can’t do, like sing or stand still in an animal costume. But for some of us, it’s a place where we first learn the amazing story of God’s love for us and for the world.

In both the childhood Nativity pageant and today’s Gospel, we that God is not finished with humanity, and that message is still relevant today. The Nativity story is not constrained by that manger 2000 years ago. God still comes to us in times of wonder and in times of scandal, asking us to take the first faithful step, asking us to do the faithful thing, shaping us as we become more faithful people.

Listen! God still speaks to us in the 21st century, by way of dreams, by way of angel choirs, by inspiration, by all the ways we support each other. Across the centuries and today, God still comes to us insisting that we move beyond our self-interest and telling us not to be afraid to do what will lead to the salvation of the world.

One Week Until Christmas

Here we are, one week before Christmas.  I am grateful for my slow schedule, for my family members who don't cause me stress, for my years on earth which help me keep perspective when it comes to the holidays and many other days.

I am also grateful for my congregation.  Unlike other congregations that I've heard of through clergy sites and individual experiences of friends, my congregation is low stress.  It may also be part of the nature of my very-part-time position--they have no reason to have expectations of me beyond Sunday.

I am not stressed about my Christmas Eve sermon.  Advent and Nativity texts are much easier for me to preach than Easter texts.  Actually, Easter texts are easy, if I focus on resurrection.  The crucifixion is so tricky.  And sadly, so many churches spend far more time mired in the crucifixion and the whole issue of personal sin than they do on resurrection and the overcoming of the powers of evil and death.

Happily, I am not a preacher who addresses Good Friday on Christmas Eve, as interesting an approach as that may be.  

I am interested in the ways that Christianity might have been VERY different, had we built our customs and beliefs around the Nativity and not the crucifixion.  But that's a topic for a seminary class, not a sermon.

Let me enjoy this last week, and let me continue to remember how lucky I am that this is a week of enjoyment untinged by the kind of stress that most people feel a week from Christmas.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

 The readings for Sunday, December 21, 2025:

First Reading: Isaiah 7:10-16

Psalm: Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18 (Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19 NRSV)

Second Reading: Romans 1:1-7

Gospel: Matthew 1:18-25


The Gospel for the Sunday before Christmas Eve gives us an angel appearing to Joseph in a dream. It's interesting to think about our lectionary, which moves in 3 year cycles and leaves out part of the story each year. This year we read about Joseph, and in other years, Mary takes the center stage.  In every year, Advent begins with John the Baptist. 

Notice the responses of these people. They give themselves to God's will. They don't protest, the way that some of our spiritual ancestors did--think of Moses, who tried and tried to get God to go away.

It's important to note that God always gives us a choice, although God can be notoriously insistent. Joseph could have gone on with his plans to divorce Mary quietly; notice his unwillingness to shame her publicly, as would have been his right in a patriarchal society. But the angel appears to give Joseph a fuller picture, and Joseph submits to God's will. Likewise, Mary could have said, "Mother of the Messiah? Forget it. I just want a normal kid." But she didn't.

During this time of year, I often wonder how many times I've turned down God. Does God call me to a higher purpose? Am I living my life in a way that is most consistent with what God envisions for me?

The readings for this time of year reminds us to stay alert and watchful. This time of year, when the corporate consumer machine is cranked into high gear, when so many of us sink into depression, when the world has so many demands, it's important to remember that God's plan for the world is very different than your average CEO's vision. It's important to remember that we are people of God, and that allegiance should be first.

What does this have to do with Joseph? Consider the story again, and what it means for us modern people. Maybe you're like Joseph, and you're overly worried about what people will think about you and your actions. The Gospel for this Sunday reminds us that following God may require us to abandon the judgments of the world and accept God's judgment.

Notice that Joseph is the only one in the story who receives an angel visitation in a dream. What is the meaning of this fact? Perhaps this route was the only way that God could reach Joseph. Many of us are so used to having our yearnings mocked or unanswered that they go deep underground, only to bubble up in dreams and visions. Convenient for us, since we can discount things more easily when they appear in our dreams.

God will take many routes to remind us of our role in the divine drama. Many of us won't notice God's efforts; we're too busy being so busy. This time of year reminds us to slow down, to contemplate, to pay attention.

Recording of Sunday's Sermon

For the past several weeks, I've gotten up on Sunday mornings and studied weather reports.  I've enlarged screens to better study the radar and try to figure out where precipitation is falling.  Last week the forecast was for freezing fog, but we didn't see any impact on road conditions.  

Yesterday I knew we would encounter some precipitation between Arden, NC and Bristol, TN, but I was surprised by how much was falling.  The roads were mostly wet, but at the highest point, there was more snow sticking to the pavement than I expected.  I felt a bit of panic and wondered if we should turn around.  But I also knew that road conditions on the way back were likely to be just fine, and once we headed down the mountain, the road conditions went back to being wet, not white.

To view the recording of yesterday's sermon, head here to my YouTube site.  To read the manuscript, head over to yesterday's blog post.

I'm glad I had a chance to be with the congregation of Faith Lutheran yesterday.  My sermon went well, as did the rest of the service and Confirmation class.  The trip back was fairly easy, and we had a restful end of our Sunday.

Sermon for Sunday, December 14, 2025

December 14, 2025

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott




Matthew 11:2-11



You may be wondering when we’re getting to the Advent readings you were expecting: where is the angel Gabriel? When does Mary go to see her cousin Elizabeth? Those stories are in the Gospel of Luke, which is not the Gospel that provides our lectionary readings this year. Welcome to Matthew. This year, we stay with John the Baptist for one more week, John the Baptist who provides an interesting twist to our themes of watching and waiting.


Those of you who were here last week may be wondering what has happened to John the Baptist. Last week we saw John the Baptist in full prophet mode, proclaiming that the Kingdom of God was near and issuing dire warnings about what would happen if the people didn’t repent. We see him make bold claims about the Messiah who is drawing near. In a few weeks, we’ll return to this story, when John baptizes Jesus, but not before saying, “You should be baptizing me.” In other words, John is one of the first to recognize the grown up Jesus as the Messiah.


This week, just 8 chapters later in the Gospel of Matthew, John the Baptist sends his disciples to Jesus to ask him if John’s confidence is warranted—is Jesus the Messiah? Or should they keep waiting? How can John the Baptist be unsure? What has happened since last week’s text? Some of you may be remembering John the Baptist as the cousin of Jesus and be wondering if there’s a larger family drama—but again, that’s the Gospel of Luke. In the Gospel of Matthew, there’s no family connection. But all of the Gospels include John the Baptist as one of the primary voices proclaiming that the Kingdom of God, in the person of Jesus, is here.


So today’s Gospel reading is disconcerting. What has happened to John the Baptist since we first saw him in Matthew 3? Has Jesus disappointed him? Is Jesus not the Messiah that John expected? Not fierce enough or warrior enough for John the Baptist?


Well, we know that one thing has changed--John the Baptist is in prison, put there by Herod. Was John the Baptist expecting the Messiah to overthrow the empire? Is he wondering why Jesus as Messiah isn’t doing more to free him? Is John the Baptist surprised to find himself a casualty of this fight?


Today’s Gospel continues the theme of last week’s Gospel, and it offers us a chance to continue thinking about expectations: John the Baptist’s expectations, those of the people who waited through the centuries for God to fulfill the ancient covenant with a Messiah, and our own expectations. What do we think a Messiah will do?


Jesus answers this question by pointing to what he has done. As John may be becoming less certain that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus looks at what he has accomplished and is becoming more clear about his mission and his ministry.


In the Gospel of Matthew, the arrival of the Messiah is seen as the fulfillment of the covenant that God made with Abraham, way back in Genesis. Jesus uses actions that first century listeners would understand as a fulfillment of the promises of God: “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.”


For 21st century listeners with access to good medical care, we may not realize how miraculous these deeds would be to ancient people. Perhaps even as 21st century listeners, we may not always appreciate how miraculous these deeds still are. For people versed in the language of the prophets of old, like Isaiah in our first reading or the Psalmist who wrote what we read today, these deeds of Jesus reveal God’s presence.


Jesus goes on to ask the people what they want from John, this wilderness prophet of their own time. Why did they go to the desert to hear what John the Baptist proclaimed? What did they expect to find? You don’t go to the wilderness to see someone whose belief is as slender and shakable as a reed. You don’t expect to find the ruling class denying themselves out there in the desert. No, you go to the wilderness to find the truth. Jesus asks the people why they are doubting John the Baptist—and by extension, Jesus.


Here and throughout his ministry, Jesus tells us that God reaches out to humanity in ways that we don’t always recognize. Even if we have alternative explanations, they may cloud our understanding of what we see. God appears in places where we wouldn't expect to find the Divine. Jesus reminds the people that there's always hope in a broken world. God might perform the kind of miracles that don't interest us at first. The Palestinian Jews wanted a warrior Messiah to liberate them from Rome. Instead they got someone who healed the sick and told them to be mindful of their spiritual lives so that they didn't lose their souls. Jesus showed the people of the first century how to resist the oppression of Rome-- not by outright rebellion but by creating community that couldn’t be broken by empire and by bringing shame to Roman rulers and Jewish leaders and all the others collaborating with all the forces that oppress.


John the Baptist and Jesus ask similar questions that are still relevant for us: what are we looking for? Why is it so hard to believe that we’ve found it? Believing is hard because the world is still so hard. Because we still suffer. Because there are still false imprisonments. Because there are still casualties to those professing Jesus as Messiah. Because love is still countercultural, even during the holidays.


Many of us experience something similar to the crisis of faith that John the Baptist might seem to be having. We want something different than what God offers. We ask for signs and miracles, and when we get them, we sigh and say, "That's not what I meant. I wanted them in a different form." We might say of our miracles, “Well that’s just medicine.” Or science. We discount . . . We turn away. We find ourselves in prisons perhaps of our own making. If we’re lucky, though, we realize that God has such a vaster vision of what our lives could be, and if we’re really fortunate, we have this revelation in time to reach out to God for help and guidance.


Advent is a time of watching and waiting for a savior, and we often forget how much of that time has been spent watching and waiting in wilderness conditions: in times of crisis, in prisons, in times of societal chaos, in hospitals and specialist’s offices, in times of extreme doubt. If John the Baptist, who seems so very sure of himself before Herod imprisons him, if John the Baptist can have doubt and not be cast away, then let us take some comfort from that. We too can ask for reassurance, can ask questions of our Messiah, We can have a strength of faith that ebbs and flows. But we can still wait and watch for God in our lives. We can wait and watch for opportunities to repent, as John calls us to do. And we can rest assured that help is on the way, and we will find our opportunity to be redeemed wherever we encounter the Messiah.

The Feast Day of Santa Lucia

Today is the feast day of Santa Lucia, a woman in 4th century Rome during a time of horrible persecution of Christians and much of the rest of the population, and she was martyred.  The reasons for her martyrdom vary:   Did she really gouge out her eyes because a suitor commented on their beauty? Did she die because she had promised her virginity to Christ? Was she killed because the evil emperor had ordered her to be taken to a brothel because she was giving away the family wealth? Was she killed because a rejected suitor outed her for being a Christian?  We don’t really know.  

She is most often pictured with a crown of candles on her head, and tradition says that she wore a candle crown into the catacombs when she took provisions to the Christians hiding there.  With a candle crown, she freed up a hand to carry more supplies.  I love this idea, but it wouldn't surprise me to find out that it isn't true.

Truth often doesn't matter with these popular saints like Lucia, Nicholas, and Valentine.  We love the traditions, and that means we often know more about the traditions than we do about the saints behind them, if we know anything at all about the saints behind these popular days.

This feast day still seems relevant for two reasons.  First, Lucia shows us the struggle that women face in daily existence in a patriarchal culture, the culture that most of us still must endure.  It’s worth remembering that many women in many countries today don’t have any more control over their bodies or their destinies than these long-ago virgin saints did. In this time of Advent waiting, we can remember that God chose to come to a virgin mother who lived in a culture that wasn’t much different than Santa Lucia’s culture: highly stratified, with power concentrated at the top, power in the hands of white men, which made life exceeding different for everyone who wasn't a powerful, wealthy, white man. It's a society that sounds familiar, doesn't it?

On this feast day of Santa Lucia, we can spend some time thinking about women, about repression, about what it means to control our destiny.  We can think about how to spread freedom.

It's also an important feast day because of the time of year when we celebrate.  Even though we're still in the season of late autumn, in terms of how much sunlight we get, those of us in the northern hemisphere are in the darkest time of the year.  It's great to have a festival that celebrates the comforts of this time of year:  candles and baked goods and hot beverages.

I love our various festivals to get us through the dark of winter. In these colder, darker days, I wish that the early church fathers had put Christmas further into winter, so that we can have more weeks of twinkly lights and candles to enjoy. Christmas in February makes more sense to me, even though I understand how Christmas ended up near the Winter Solstice.

I made my traditional Santa Lucia bread last week, for a gathering where I wanted one slightly healthier treat to be available.  Today, I'm baking a different bread, but you could make a more traditional offering.  If you’d like to try, this blog post will guide you through it.  You could end with bread braids cooling on racks in just a few hours:

If you’re the type who needs pictures, it’s got a link to a blog post with pictures.  Enjoy.

Happy Santa Lucia day! Have some special bread, drink a bracing hot beverage, and light the candles against the darkness.

Recording of Sermon for Sunday, December 7, 2025

The video of my sermon for Sunday was posted a few days late; usually it's posted within an hour of the time I deliver it.  You can view it here on my YouTube channel.  You can read the sermon manuscript in this blog post.

Returning to Bethlehem Again

I spent much of yesterday doing volunteer work, but not the traditional kind.  I haven't been stocking the food pantry or knitting scarves.  Yesterday I went over to a local Methodist church that allows its gym to be transformed into ancient Bethlehem for a walk-through, immersive experience, Return to Bethlehem.  All proceeds go to Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry (ABCCM), an interfaith group which works on hunger and homelessness issues in Buncombe county, the county which contains Asheville.

I first started doing this volunteer work in December of 2023, and I wrote a blog post about it, which I'll quote here:   "I thought it might be something like a living Nativity scene, maybe with a few extra scenes. I was wrong. It's a whole living Nativity village. One of the supervisors walked me through the space, telling me about how the visitors would stop at each station to hear actors tell about the space. For example, there's a weaver's house, and the Temple, and a place where a person dyes cloth. Eventually the tour ends up at the inn and the stable outside of the inn."

It takes a lot of work to make this transformation:  lots of hanging and draping of fabric, LOTS of industrial stapling, lots of arranging of baskets and chairs and potted plants and such.  I love doing it, and I'm happy to help.  It hits a weird combination of my interests:  the illusions of stagecraft, theatre, fabric, color and texture--creating illusions and believability.

Here's a 2023 picture, when the theatre flats were first being assembled.

Eventually each station gets its own furniture and tubs of supplies.  We have other tubs of fabric we can use, all sorts of fabrics.

And then, finally, a finished product, in this case, the Temple (this is a 2023 picture--I forgot to take pictures of  yesterday's creation, where I used more blue fabrics and velvets).

It's more standing on a ladder than I'd like, but I'm happy I can still do it.  I expected to be much more sore this morning than I am.

After a morning working on the Return to Bethlehem sets, I went over to the local Lutheran church to work on Lutheran World Relief quilts.  We assembled 4 quilts to get them ready for knotting.  I prefer to assemble quilt tops out of all the fabric we have, but by assembling those quilts, one of our members could take them home to get the knotting done.  I did bring some fabric home in the hopes that I/we can assemble a quilt top or two in the next week.  And then I made some repairs to a quilt top that my spouse had been assembling before he got frustrated and made ill-advised cuts.

Today I'll go back to the Methodist church--we're racing against the clock, since Return to Bethlehem opens at 6 tonight.  When I left yesterday at 1, we had made good progress, and more volunteers were expected.  Many of us have some experience now, which makes it easier to get things done.  And we seem to have enough ladders and enough staplers, lacks which have slowed us down in the past.

And now it is time to shift my morning into a different gear, to get ready for another day of volunteering in this way.

 

The Gospel for Sunday, December 14, 2025

  The readings for Sunday, December 14, 2025:

First Reading: Isaiah 35:1-10

Psalm: Psalm 146:4-9 (Psalm 146:5-10 NRSV)

Psalm (Alt.): Luke 1:47-55 (Luke 1:46b-55 NRSV)

Second Reading: James 5:7-10

Gospel: Matthew 11:2-11


Here again, in this week's Gospel, Jesus reminds us of the new social order--the first will be last, the last will be first. Since many of us in first world churches would be categorized as "the first," this edict bears some contemplation. What do we do if we find ourselves in positions of power? Are we supposed to walk away from that?

Well, yes, in a sense, we are. Again and again, the Bible reminds us that we find God on the margins of respectable society. Again and again, we see that God lives with the poor and the oppressed. Nowhere is that message more visible to Christians than in the story of the birth of Jesus.

We get so dazzled by the angels and the wise men that we forget some of the basic elements of the story. In the time of great Roman power, God doesn't appear in Rome. No, God chooses to take on human form in a remote Roman outpost. In our current day, it would be as if the baby Jesus was born on Guam or the Maldives. Most of us couldn't locate those islands on a globe; we'd be surprised to hear that the Messiah came again and chose to be born so far away from the most important world power centers, like New York City or London or Beijing.

God came to live amongst one of the most marginalized groups in the Roman empire--the only people lower on the social totem pole would have been captives of certain wars and slaves. Most Romans would have seen Palestinian Jews as weird and warped, those people who limited themselves to one god. Not sophisticated at all.

God couldn't even get a room at the inn. From years of Christmas pageants, we may have sanitized that manger. We may forget about the smelliness of real hay, the scratchiness, the bugs, the ways that animals stink up a space.

God chose a marginalized young couple as parents. Did God choose to be born in the palace of Herod? No. We don't hear about Joseph as a landowner, which means that his family couldn't have been much lower on the totem pole, unless they were the Palestinian equivalent of sharecroppers. God does not choose the way of comfort.

Again and again, Jesus tells us to keep watch. God appears in forms that we don't always recognize. God appears in places where we wouldn't expect to find the Divine. Jesus reminds us again and again that there's always hope in a broken world. God might perform the kind of miracles that don't interest us at first. The Palestinian Jews wanted a warrior Messiah to liberate them from Rome. Instead they got someone who healed the sick and told them to be mindful of their spiritual lives so that they didn't lose their souls.

Many of us experience something similar today. We want something different from God. God has different desires for us than our desires for our lives. We ask for signs and miracles, and when we get them, we sigh and say, "That's not what I meant. I wanted them in a different form." We turn away.

The John the Baptists of the world remind us to turn back again. Repent. Turn back. Forswear our foolish ways. Go out to meet God. Your salvation is at hand.

Week-End Update: Cooking and Other Types of Mood Management

In some ways, it was a good week-end.  Sunday at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee went well, the kind of Sunday where I find myself wishing this position as a Synod Appointed Minister could continue for several more years.  It might, but much of that decision will not be up to me.

It was the kind of week-end where I hear about the travel plans of neighbors and feel a weird sense of emotion.  It's not envy, exactly.  They're taking a 10 day walk across England, 7-8 miles a day, carrying everything they need on their backs, following the same path that the pilgrim's in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales traveled.  They are at least 10 years older than I am, maybe 15.  It's the kind of plan that makes me wonder if I should retire/work less now rather than later.  But I am not sure we could make this kind of trek now.  For one thing, the long airline flight to get there is a dealbreaker for me.  And my spouse would need a very flat route, and he would need to do some training to be ready for even a flat route.

So, not envy, but the kind of feeling I have had so often in my life, wondering what is wrong with me that I don't want what so many other people seem to want.  In the above paragraph, it's vacation plans and bucket lists.  I look at the larger culture, particularly the desire to have the latest cell phone and hours to spend scrolling, and I don't feel like something is wrong with me.  I do worry about the health of the larger culture, particularly when I stumble across particularly disturbing information about what tech is doing to our brains.

I organized a cookie tasting for our neighborhood group, and I tried to make a recipe, pecan sandies, from childhood.  As with the chocolate chip cookies I've tried to make, the butter seemed to melt outside the cookie and fry it.  Not untasty, but not the memory of the cookie.  And there was that distressing moment when I said, "I can't cook anymore."  A ridiculous thought, but a distressing one.

Yesterday, though, we had great success making pizza with cast iron pans.  Before putting them in the oven, I turned the burner to medium heat for 3 minutes, as recommended by this blog post from King Arthur Baking Company.  It was the first time since being in this house when we've had a good homemade pizza.  My usual experience is to go through all the effort to make homemade pizza, only to be left with a mess of a kitchen and a blah pizza and a yearning for pizza from somewhere else. 

Yesterday as we ate pizza, we watched the recording of the Sunday worship service at the National Cathedral.  The service was beautiful, and once again, I found myself observing a strange mood evolving in me.  There was some nostalgia for the year I spent in seminary, where I went to the Cathedral occasionally.  I felt nostalgia and wistfulness and sadness for a time that is gone and won't be coming back.  I felt fortunate to have had the experiences and the opportunities and at the same time, I know what I had planned to do with that time in the city and the ways I fell short.  I tried to keep focused on what I did manage to do.  

When the worship service was over, we switched to Saturday Night Live snippets, so it was easier to manage my mood.  And then it was off to bed; I've been going to sleep increasingly earlier, and I feel like I need to get back on a more reasonable track.

Sermon for Sunday, December 7, 2025

December 7, 2025

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



Matthew 3: 1-12


Today's Gospel continues with the Advent theme of watching, waiting, and listening for the call. Today it's John the Baptist who tells us what's to come and what we are waiting for.

Many of John's listeners in today's Gospel probably thought that John was talking about himself when he said, “This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.'"” First century Palestine was full of self-proclaimed Messiahs, and I suspect many of them spoke of themselves in the third person telling (or warning) of the deeds they would do. Many of John’s listeners yearned for a Messiah that would come in a form they'd recognize: that warrior spoken of by ancient prophets and the Psalmist to save them from the Romans or a temple reformer to get rid of corrupt priests and other perverters of the word of God.


Of course, people yearning for that kind of messiah would not be wanting John the Baptist to be their Messiah. He is not that kind of warrior who can save them from the Romans or reform the Temple, although the later part of today’s Gospel, with John addressing Pharisees and Sadducees shows that he does have some appetite for confronting religious officials. People who came to the wilderness to see John the Baptist might have been hoping for a Messiah, but what they saw hearkened back to an earlier age. Even before he gave his message, just by his clothes and diet, John the Baptist would be familiar in his role as a prophet, out of the line of Isaiah or Jeremiah, Amos, Hosea, or Micah.


His message would be right at home coming out of the mouths of those prophets. It’s important to remember that most Biblical prophets are not foretelling the far away future. On the contrary, God sends prophets to the people to remind them of the covenant, to call them back to right and righteous living in their time. Some prophets to do this by painting a picture of what could happen if people do this, the glorious world that is waiting if we would just move to God’s vision of the world. Some prophets do this by warning about what happens when people don’t set themselves right with God, who is just, loving, and powerful.


With his language of axes and winnowing and unquenchable fire, John the Baptist is clearly in the latter camp of prophets. And it works on some level. Consider verses 5 and 6: “People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. 6 Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.” Geographically, this means that everyone came to see John, city dwellers, people who lived in the desert, and everyone in between—John the Baptist wasn’t just a local phenomenon.


And unlike Old Testament prophets who might have to make a perilous journey to bring God’s message to God’s people, in today’s Gospel, John is on the margins, in the wilderness, and the center comes to him, just as wise men came to the baby Jesus just a chapter earlier in Matthew. And John’s influence is clearly more than the center of civilization. In this short passage, the whole of Judaism comes to him: everyone from religious elite to the common folks.


If John had been a different kind of person, he could have claimed enormous power for himself. Clearly, he’s charismatic. After several thousand years of baptisms, we might forget that John was doing a new thing. While ancient people would have taken part in ritual baths for purification after certain events, like pregnancy or other body processes that involved fluids, the idea of baptism for purification from spiritual impurity seems to be new, introduced by John the Baptist. And people go along with this idea and go into a river—ritual baths, by contrast, were human-created structures, a much tamer, safer experience than what John offers.


Once purified, John the Baptist preaches that the people are ready to meet their Messiah, the one prophesied in today’s Old Testament texts, the bloom that comes from the stump of Jesse. These kinds of prophecies prepare people to expect a warrior Messiah, and John’s language suggests that he, too, would welcome the arrival of this kind of savior, a Savior who would, to use the words of the prophet Isaiah from today’s reading, “strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.”


This kind of language is part of why people expect the Messiah to be a warrior type. This kind of language doesn’t prepare us to be on the lookout for a baby in a manger or a healer moving from place to place.


In next week’s Gospel, we’ll discover that John the Baptist isn’t quite sure that Jesus is the Messiah. He asks the question asked by many through the ages: “Are you the one we’ve been waiting for?”


In this Advent time of watching and waiting, it’s a good question for us, too. What are we hoping for? What are we yearning for? Although we might wish that others would be winnowed and thrown in the fire, we know we don’t want that for ourselves.


John reminds us that God has always wanted for us to be sprouts that grow up to bear good fruit. It’s a powerful image, one that’s not unique to John the Baptist. Indeed, it’s an image that Jesus will use, and it’s one that we’ve returned to as a congregation. What are the fruits of faithfulness?


John the Baptist emerges from the wilderness, and at first look, he seems to be a prophtet rooted in the Old Testament tradition of prophecy, of calling people to repent from past transgressions and to remember their roots of faithfulness. But John is also pointing to a new direction, with his baptizing in the river Jordan, the river associated with the promised land of old, and the new world that the Messiah will usher in.


Let us take some Advent time to consider the Messiah we are longing to meet, the God who longs to meet us where we are. Is it the baby that looks so harmless, lying in a feeding trough? Do we long for someone fierce like John the Baptist, someone who pulls no punches and tells it like it is? Are we hoping for that gardener that will prune back all the dead wood? Can we separate the charismatic imposters from the true Messiah? John the Baptist warns us to be alert even as we yearn.


Many of us in this congregation are coming to the end of a very hard year, a wilderness time of our lives. Indeed, if we look at events around the planet in the past few years, it’s not hard to see this decade as a wilderness time for the world. Today’s Gospel gives us a new way to frame this wilderness time, as an opportunity to get on the right path. And if we’ve been in this wilderness place for so long that we feel immobile, our Buddhist friends would remind us that the easiest way to get on the right path is to step out to whatever part of that path is closest.


John the Baptist reminds us of the potential of this desert space. For those of us who feel hollowed out, let us remember the vision offered in today’s Gospel—wilderness as a place of preparation, yes, but also of promise. We have not been forgotten. God has not gone off to greener galaxies. Out of a wasteland of locusts and wild honey, new hope arises. Let us prepare the path of our lives and make the way straight. Our redemption is at hand.

The Feast Day of Saint Nicholas

Today, all over Europe, the gift-giving season begins. I had a friend in grad school who celebrated Saint Nicholas Day by having each family member open one present on the night of Dec. 6. It was the first I had heard of the feast day, but I was enchanted.

Still, I don't do much with this feast day--if I had children or gift-giving friends, I might, but most years, I simply pause to remember the historical origins of the saint and the day.

This year, my neighborhood group is having a cookie/treat tasting.  It's not a cookie swap, which requires people to bring several dozen cookies to exchange.  No, we will bring a batch of cookies or treats of some sort and enjoy some time together, with treats to eat if we want.  We're doing it at one of the Lutheridge buildings, which means no host who had to clean their house.  

In different years, I might have spent some time looking at my own Santa objects, but they are all packed away while the house renovation continues.   Happily, I have pictures!

One year, my step-mom in law and my father in law gave me these as Christmas presents:

They're actually cookie presses, and the Santa figures are the handles of the press. I've never used them as a cookie press, but I love them as decorations that are faithful to the European country of origin.

It's always a bit of a surprise to realize that Saint Nicholas was a real person. But indeed he was. In the fourth century, he lived in Myra, then part of Greece, now part of Turkey; eventually, he became Bishop of Myra. He became known for his habit of gift giving and miracle working, although it's hard to know what really happened and what's become folklore. Some of his gift giving is minor, like leaving coins in shoes that were left out for him. Some were more major, like resurrecting three boys killed by a butcher.

My favorite story is the one of the poor man with three children who had no dowry for them. No dowry meant no marriage, and so, they were going to have to become prostitutes. In the dead of night, Nicholas threw a bag of gold into the house. Some legends have that he left a bag of gold for each daughter that night, while some say that he gave the gold on successive nights, while some say that he gave the gold as each girl came to marrying age.

Through the centuries, the image of Saint Nicholas has morphed into Santa Claus, but as with many modern customs, one doesn't have to dig far to find the ancient root.

I don't have as many Santa images in my Christmas decorations. Here's my favorite Santa ornament:

I picked it up in May of 1994 or so. I was visiting my parents, and I went with them on a trip to Pennsylvania where my dad was attending a conference. I picked this ornament up in a gift shop that had baskets of ornaments on sale. I love that it uses twine as joints to hold Santa together.

In the past decade, I've been on the lookout for more modern Saint Nicholas images. A few years ago, one of my friends posted this photo of her Santa display to her Facebook page:

I love the ecumenical nature of this picture of Santa: Santa statues coexisting peacefully with Buddha statues. And then I thought, how perfect for the Feast Day of St. Nicholas!

More recently, I have a new favorite Saint Nicholas image, courtesy of my cousin's wife:

In this image, Santa communicates by way of American Sign Language. As I looked at the background of the photo, I realized Santa sits in a school--the sign on the bulletin board announces free breakfast and lunch.

The photo seems both modern and ancient to me: a saint who can communicate in the language we will hear, the promise that the hungry will be filled.

In our time, when ancient customs seem in danger of being taken over by consumerist frenzy, let us pause for a moment to reflect on gifts of all kinds. Let us remember those who don't have the money that gifts so often require. Let us invite the gifts of communication and generosity into our lives.

Twenty Years of Phyllis Tickle's "The Divine Hours"

As I've been making my way through the first week of Advent devotional time, it occurred to me that I've now been using Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours for 20 years.  Back in 2005, having returned from my second trip to Mepkin Abbey, I wanted a prayer manual that was more like I experienced at Mepkin.  I'm not sure how I found The Divine Hours, but it's probably because some of the theological writers I admired were using it, or maybe I read other work of Tickle's and thought The Divine Hours was worth the price.

And I do mean price, as in the cost of the book:  a 3 volume set, each volume $35 before the Amazon discount.  But it's been worth it.

I have been most constant in my use of the books in the mornings.  It's hard for me to remember to return to the practice through the day, but when I do, I notice a difference.  I'm not sure why that difference isn't enough to make me do it consistently.

In late March of 2020, I started using the books as I did an online morning devotional for my church, which I've written about in other blog posts (most notably here at the 7 month mark and here at the 5 year mark).

I was not blogging back in 2005 when I first started using the books, but I remember loving the variety of readings, something that I didn't have in other books that were much briefer devotionals.  Other devotionals had one or two verses, if that.  I also loved the feeling of participating in an ancient ritual.

There have been times when the physical structure of the books weighed on me--literally, in some ways.  The books are fairly big, especially if one is travelling by plane and wants to bring other books too.  And the print is tiny.  But the physical book is reliable, unlike online sites.

I think back to 2005, when I envisioned a new life of some sort:  maybe a different teaching job (always I've been dreaming of a small, liberal arts college) or maybe a different degree (an MFA or an MDiv).  But I felt trapped in place and would only go on to feel increasingly trapped.

I'm grateful to be in this part of my life for many reasons, but not feeling trapped anymore is one of the reasons that makes me feel most grateful.  And I'm grateful to books like The Divine Hours that have been with me along the way.

Jan Richardson's Prayer/Hope for Peace

During a Monday morning prayer group, our leader shared the following prayer by Jan Richardson with us.  Jan Richardson has written many prayers, so I couldn't track the prayer to the original posting of it.  I loved the imagery and language, and it seems appropriate for our moment in history.

That peace will rise like bread we can always hope.
That justice will flow like wine we can always hope.
That the table will make strangers kin we can always hope.
That our hope will rise like bread we can always pray.


By Jan Richardson

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, December 7, 2025:

First Reading: Isaiah 11:1-10

Psalm: Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19

Second Reading: Romans 15:4-13

Gospel: Matthew 3:1-12


Today's Gospel continues with the Advent theme of watching, waiting, and listening for the call. Today it's John the Baptist who tells us of what's to come.

Many of John's listeners in today's Gospel probably thought that John was talking about himself; after all, first century Palestine was full of self-proclaimed Messiahs, and I expect many of them spoke of themselves in the third person telling (or warning) of the deeds they would do. Many of John's listeners probably had no idea what he was talking about; humans seem incapable of thinking in terms of metaphor and symbol for very long. Many of them probably expected a Messiah that would come in a form they'd recognize: a warrior to save them from the Romans, a temple reformer to get rid of corrupt priests, or maybe someone who would lead them into the wilderness to set up a new community.

Are we not the same way? How many of us read the Bible literally, expecting specific answers to social or political issues that would have been unheard of thousands of years ago when the Scriptures were written? How many of us would welcome salvation when it comes? We go to church, we sit in our pews, we wait for God to appear. We wonder why we don’t feel the presence of God, as we go home to take a nap and gear up for our secular week ahead. We scurry through the rat race of our lives, substituting other things for God. We worship at the churches of Capitalism, buying things at the mall or on the Internet, which means we have to work overtime to pay for those things. We wonder why we feel unfulfilled. To try to fill that emptiness, we do more of the activities that leave us with gaping holes in our Spirit. We hear that voice, the voice of the Spirit--maybe it cries or maybe it whispers. It scares us, so we continue scrolling through our phone,  we eat some more, we keep looking for the perfect show to stream, or we go to bed early--because we can't deal with the implications.

John warns what happens to those of us who don't listen: "His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire" (verse 12). Some of us don't like this vision of a God with a winnowing fork in hand. How does this mesh with a God of grace and love?

I think of parents who warn their children of the danger of bad choices. I think of all the ways we make bad choices, both as children and as adults.

I return to John's fiery language and the idea of winnowing. I visualize God as a loving parent, wishing we would do what's good for us. God doesn't have to do much winnowing. Our lifestyles are already punishing us. Many of us are already feeling that unquenchable fire.

The good news is that there is time to change our ways. There is still time to "Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." (verse 3). Advent, traditionally a time for getting ready, is a good time to think ahead. How could we make the next year to be our best spiritual year ever?

Choose just one simple action, whether it be keeping a prayer journal or making gratitude lists or learning to play or sing sacred music. Choose just one action and attend to it faithfully.

In this way, you will be in a much stronger spiritual place a year from now. You will be bearing fruit. God will call, and you will hear. God won't have to go to such great lengths to get your attention. Your deepest yearnings, the ones you didn't even know you had, will be filled, as you move towards God--and God moves towards you.

Recording of Sunday's Sermon for Advent 1

Before we get too far away from last Sunday, the firs Sunday in Advent, let me link to the recording of my sermon for November 30.  You can read the manuscript here.

Despite the forecast of ice in the mountains and that it was the Sunday of Thanksgiving week-end, we had a fairly easy trip to Bristol, Tennessee and back.  And the church strikes me as particularly beautiful during the season of Advent, as most churches do.  It is my third Advent season with this church, and I'm glad to still be here with this community.

World AIDS Day 2025

Here we are, World AIDS Day, in yet another year of our no-longer-new pandemic (COVID 19), a disease that's much easier to contract than AIDS, a disease that like AIDS preys on the more vulnerable in our society.

Maybe all diseases target the more vulnerable.  And our epidemiologist friends would remind us that diseases don't have emotions or calculations.  Diseases infect where they can, and in vulnerable populations, diseases have more opportunity.

AIDS is still a fairly fierce disease, even though we have medications that can keep people alive for decades--that's still a lot of disease management, which isn't a cure.  According to a UN Fact Sheet, 1.3 million people worldwide contracted AIDS in 2024 alone--that's just one year.  Since the beginning of this epidemic, 91.4 million people have been infected, and 44.1 million have died of the disease.

At this moment in time, COVID-19 isn't killing as many of us.  But it is still a disease to be reckoned with, a disease that leaves lots of wreckage in its wake.  Like AIDS, many of us assume that COVID-19 has been tamed or disappeared.  But like AIDS, some of us are more protected than others.

Dec. 1 is also the anniversary of the day in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger. This act is often given credit for launching the Civil Rights Movement, but what many forget is that various communities had begun planning for the launch, even before they could see or know what it would look like.

In fact, for generations, people had prepared for just such a moment. They had gotten training in nonviolent resistance. They had come together in community in a variety of ways. They were prepared.

Someone asked me once how I had come to be such an optimist. I've always had an optimistic streak, but frankly, my whole world view shifted when I watched Nelson Mandela walk out of prison. I fully expected him to be killed, but again, my worldview shifted when I watched South Africans stand in line for days (days!) to elect him president. And he was ready to be president because he had spent those decades in prison thinking about how he would run the country and making plans.

I have seen enormous social change happen in my lifetime--in the face of such evidence, I must agree with Dr. Martin Luther King, who said the arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.  

Some years, that arc seems so long and the bending so difficult to discern.  Diseases show us where we need to bend that arc towards justice, where there's still opportunity for progress.

Those of us who work towards social justice and human dignity for all know how long the struggle might be. We are similar to those medieval builders of cathedrals: we may not be around to see the magnificent completion of our vision, but it's important to play our part. In the words of that old Gospel song, we keep our eyes on the prize, our hands on the plow, and hold on.