You Belong

The Baptism of Jesus, by Vladimir Zagitov

Have you ever wanted a neon sign from God?  Something that you don’t have to decode, not have to guess which part is your own insight, which part is divine, and which part is your guilty conscience?  Well, there are sacraments.  In our Protestant tradition, we have two: baptism and communion.  Sacraments are “an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible gift of God.”  Things we can experience with our senses to represent what is going on at a level we cannot reliably sense.  And the gift of baptism is: You belong. You belong to God’s family through the power of Jesus.  You are forgiven.  You are made new in the image of God. Rely on it.

Unlike communion, baptism is something we preachers are only supposed to serve up to you once.  This is out of respect for the validity of your first baptism, whichever group of Christians did it. (Some Christians don’t think baptizing babies and kids too young to profess their faith counts. They are called, ironically, Baptists.) Only one baptism per person.  In a way this is too bad, because we often need a new start with God; we need that reassurance that we belong.  That we are forgiven.  That we are made new in the image of God.  

“Remember your baptism, and be glad.”  Whether or not you remember your actual baptism, rely on it. Remember who loves you.  Remember that you truly belong.

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Brea Congregational United Church of Christ

January 7, 2017

New Beginnings

Mark 1:4 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  5 And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.  6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.  7 He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals.  8 I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

            9   In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.  10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.  11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Happy New Year! To start our New Year, a new gospel, the gospel of Mark.  And the very beginning of Mark is the baptism of Jesus, the beginning of his ministry.  Today we are invited to experience God’s newness, leading us forward into a future of learning, and service, carrying the message of God’s love, and enjoying God’s amazing world.  Happy New Year, indeed!

I love Mark’s gospel. It was the first written collection of stories of Jesus.  Mark invented a new form of literature: a gospel. He recorded a new religion; the name of it wasn’t even fixed at that time.  Mark had learned about Jesus by word of mouth, probably from people who had seen him in the flesh, and who had encountered the risen Christ in power. Mark in turn experienced that transforming power as their stories came alive for him. Mark was no academic, but he knew how to tell a story in its bare bones essence.  He wanted to make sure that the stories his mentors told him were remembered, and preserved, so that people removed in time and space could encounter that risen Christ in power for ourselves.

Power is key in the Gospel of Mark.  For Mark, Jesus has a kind of power that makes things happen.  Healings.  Exorcisms. Revealing the true nature of things, exposing the powers and principalities and the rot behind the political and social structures of his day.  In the coming months we will unpack this kind of power and what it might look like for us today.  

According to Mark’s story, Jesus’ power was first revealed at his baptism.  The veil between heaven and earth was ripped apart, and the spirit of God escaped from heaven and landed on Jesus. He was claimed as God’s special son, and then his work among us began.

Some impressive baptism that was.  But were people even aware of the amazing new thing that was happening with Jesus in the Jordan?  Who knew at the time?  Maybe only Jesus.  The text says:…just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw…  Did anyone else see?  Did even John the Baptist know what was happening?  Was it just a vision that Jesus saw?  Was that enough to change the course of his life from carpenter to messiah? 

Which begs the question, what does God need to do to get through to us, today?  Have you ever wanted a neon sign from God?  Something that you don’t have to decode, not have to guess which part is your own insight, which part is divine, and which part is your guilty conscience?  Well, there are sacraments.  In our Protestant tradition, we have two: baptism and communion.  Sacraments are “an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible gift of God.”  Things we can experience with our senses to represent what is going on at a level we cannot reliably sense.  And the gift of baptism is: You belong. You belong to God’s family through the power of Jesus.  You are forgiven.  You are made new in the image of God. Rely on it.

Unlike communion, baptism is something we preachers are only supposed to serve up to you once.  This is out of respect for the validity of your first baptism, whichever group of Christians did it. (Some Christians don’t think baptizing babies and kids too young to profess their faith counts. They are called, ironically, Baptists.) Only one baptism per person.  In a way this is too bad, because we often need a new start with God; we need that reassurance that we belong.  That we are forgiven.  That we are made new in the image of God. 

“Remember your baptism, and be glad.”  Whether or not you remember your actual baptism, rely on it. Remember who loves you.  Remember that you truly belong.

When Jesus was baptized, he was getting a ritual that John the Baptist had created, of submersion in the Jordan river for forgiveness and renewal, maybe a little political protest too, but Jesus got something else besides:  the presence and power of God’s Holy Spirit. In this story it was seen “like a dove.”  Whether this was seen by anybody else but Jesus, this receiving of the Holy Spirit to make baptism complete had become part of the baptism ritual already by the time of Paul.  A Christian baptism is water and Spirit: it is not a Christian baptism unless the Holy Spirit is a part of it.  The apostle Paul has to clean up several baptisms in Acts of the Apostles.  He delivered the Holy Spirit to new Christians by laying on hands (chapters 8 and 19).  Now you know and I know that the Holy Spirit does not need a pair of hands to reach you.  But how cool is it that faithful people have been carrying forth the power of God from one person to another for thousands of years through the ritual of laying on hands, in baptism, in Confirmation, and in ordination, and in everyday life? 

God makes us new each day.  Yet so much of God’s work is invisible.   Here is another way besides baptism to make it visible: by our hands, deliberately as carriers of that Spirit that loves us no matter what.  We can be that for each other, with a “peace be with you,” a handclasp, a respectful hug, an arm on the shoulder, or a full throttle laying on of hands. The Spirit blows where it will, but we can also deliberately share it with one another. God is everywhere, but in the church community, we can know it, and share it, in this simple touch of loving hands.

I have worked my way through close to forty listening interviews with members of this church.  I am privileged to know some of the things you value.  As I have listened, I am very aware that this is a season of loss for our church, and for many of your families too.  Losing a beloved pastor who has seen you through so much of life is a big loss.  Some pillars of the church have moved away, and other pillars of the church, have died and gone home to God.  So much loss. We each face that loss in our own way.  

And in the emptiness that we are left with, God is at work creating something new.  We are not alone.  The book of Hebrews talks of a great cloud of witnesses.  Those whose hands showed God to us. Who loved us, and taught us, and showed us how to do this crazy thing we call church. A great cloud of witnesses, no longer here in the flesh, but still supporting us. From my churches, I especially remember Katherine, who showed me how a woman could be a pastor. Dave, whose quiet faithfulness and hard work taught me the bible cover to cover.  Marion, who said: Pastor, I’m praying for you every day.  Beth, who at 99 years old, took church attendance and kept track of every visitor.  Take a minute and reflect on who is in your cloud of witnesses, no longer here in the flesh, but still supporting your faith.

 God doesn’t create out of nothing. Out of our past relationships and our broken hearts, in love with those saints who have gone before us, God is creating a faithful future for us, and for this church.  We might become those caring hands for someone new who walks through our door.  We might be that carrier sof God’s Spirit to a person who needs to know that they belong, they are forgiven, that they can be accepted exactly as they are.  We are probably not ready to fill the shoes of those who go before us with God, but that’s OK.  It’s good to have a challenge.  And we’re not doing it alone!

Has anybody been making New Years resolutions?  Somebody’s making resolutions: I know because the yoga studio was cram-packed when I went last week.

I love that resolutions work for some people.  For myself, I find a different process seems to work more reliably: paying attention to what God is making new in my life.  Then just going with the flow, following that energy, that Spirit gift, and trying to let it fully into my life.  Following through is not always my strong suit; I can’t make things happen.  Instead, I try to keep finding the flow, the life-giving rhythm that God is providing, and stepping into it, and letting it wash over me, and letting it support me.  So I’m not trying to remake myself.  We are being remade.  We are showing up, and being willing to be remade.

So every morning (well, most mornings) I offer myself to that flow, hoping to be remade into the things God is nudging me to become.  And every afternoon, I have forgotten a good part of my good intentions, but God is forgiving, and that flow of Spirit is still there, that cloud of witnesses is still there, and every time I remember to pause and listen and feel it, I am made new.

I suspect this church is ready for new beginnings, and I hope you will be a part of it. Details to follow after the next Council meeting. There is no magic formula for a church to thrive.  I have some ideas of what we can do.  But the most important thing we can do is accept the gift that those before us have given to us, the gift of God’s Spirit made known in the caring hands of faithful people, and then we do our best to carry it forward, in ways that bring us love and joy.  Through the water of baptism, through the bread and cup of communion, we carry God’s spirit. In celebration and mourning, in prayer and song, in parties and works of mercy and works of justice, we carry God’s spirit to hurting world. We are the church, created in water and Spirit.  We belong.  We are forgiven.  And, surrounded by those who love us, in this world and the next, we are made Christ’s new creation.  I can’t wait to see how we grow!  Amen.

The Gift

I took one of those spiritual gifts inventories when I was with my last church. I was surprised to see that I got a very high score on the gift of faith.  That comes in real handy for a pastor.  So why was I surprised?  Because I remember so vividly the time when God was not yet real to me, and I was searching desperately for connection with God.  I was a scientific materialist, and I so wanted to trust that God was real.  

What kept me hoping when God had not become real to me were some Catholic children’s books on my grandma Lucy’s shelf in Phoenix, Arizona, that I had read at around age five.  I remembered the stories of crazy saints and lovers of God. God was so real to those people that they turned their lives upside down.  That usually involved disobeying their parents, which was very intriguing to me.  These spiritual athletes defied all conventional expectations to be in relationship with God.  If they could be that sure God was real, I could hope.   So I kept searching: in books, worship, conversations, classes, retreats, until I had an experience that allows me to stand up at memorial services knowing that God is real and that love wins in the end.

Generations before us have claimed this gift of God at work in their lives.  They lacked most of our scientific knowledge.  and sometimes they were wiser about matters of the heart than we are. If the gift of God’s presence is not real to you, it is not because God is far away, or because you haven’t earned it, or because you don’t know enough. An Indian poet, Kabir, said it this way:  “I laugh when I hear the fish in the water is thirsty.”  The Apostle Paul said, “In him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28).  The sacred is already here. A shift in perception, and the gift is revealed.  It was here all along.  Seekers, don’t give up hope

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Brea Congregational United Church of Christ                                       

December 24, 2017

The Real Gift

John 1:1-14.  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

            There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.  He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

            He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.  He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.  But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God,  who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

         And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

When Jesus has a birthday we give each other gifts.  I like that. A birthday is the day that we celebrate a person’s coming into the world, so that we get the gift of relationship with them.  On Jesus’ birthday we celebrate the gift of God’s presence and power and love among us, made know to us through Jesus.  Through him we know that God is not remote and hands-off.  God cares.  God is with us, and for us, and the whole world.  That is the real gift.

May we have the faith to trust that this gift is real, and may we let go of everything that prevents us from receiving this gift fully. 

In our bible we have five different reports of the gift to us that is the life and teachings and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Four Gospels and Paul’s version.   These five reports differ in many details.  And that makes perfect sense to me.  Because they are told through the lens of vital, personal relationships, and they were told and retold aloud, so that the next generation of followers of Jesus could also receive the gift of relationship with his living Spirit.

Time passed.  The sacred got codified into the Trinity.  It got ossified into the creeds.  But the real gift is still relationship with the sacred, not as some perfect immovable, unfeeling god of philosophy (how do you have a relationship with that?) not as some tribal god that demands vengeance or blood sacrifice (who wants to have a relationship with that?), but the sacred made known in Jesus: inviting fishermen to go on a road trip with him, teaching about God’s upside-down Kingdom, healing and affirming outcasts, challenging unjust power, even to the cross, the love that transcends death.  

John’s gospel that we read today paints Jesus as more Godlike than the other gospels. The Logos, the Word that existed before anything else in the universe.  John wants you to understand how important this man was.  No birth stories for John.  It may have been too much for John to picture Jesus in diapers. By this cosmic prelude to his gospel, John is telling us the profundity, the world-changing nature of this gift: God with us, and for us, and the whole world.  This gift that we sometimes take for granted, or maybe can’t trust is real. 

How would you feel if you got an elegantly wrapped package and you opened it up and you searched through all the layers of colorful tissue and you couldn’t find the gift?  It looks like an empty box.  But people told you about the gift, how wonderful it was, how it was going to change your life.  And these people, who claim to have received the same gift, are all smiling at you and waiting to see your reaction.  What do you do?  Do you smile and pretend you see it, and tell them it’s very nice? Do you set the wrapping down and leave in a huff?  Do you decide the wrapping itself is a good enough gift and ooh and aah over that and make do?  Or can you keep believing that these people really did get a gift, and admit you can’t haven’t seen it yet?

There is a view of the world called scientific materialism.  It says we can only know what we can sense: see and hear and touch and measure.  Scientific materialism says the gift of God’s presence, of relationship with the sacred, is impossible to experience. A relationship with a man two thousand years dead, or his spirit, which exists on a level of reality that is inaccessible (if it exists at all), that is just not going to happen. 

A lot of organized religions have been acting like materialists. God may be out there, in heaven or some spiritual realm but don’t try to relate to God directly.  Perhaps in ancient times the rules of nature were broken and the two realms touched, physical and spiritual, but don’t expect it to happen to you. The religious leaders know what God wants. Don’t bother seeking God’s guidance for yourself; you have to rely on those leaders to tell you about God. 

I’m glad we do it differently here.  If God’s presence is not real to you, you can follow Jesus.  You can study his words and deeds.  You can imagine how he would speak and act in our contemporary world.  You can take principles from his life and teachings and do your best live by them.  And this is a powerful and worthy gift.  Still I wish for the materialists in my life the experience of something more. 

I took one of those spiritual gifts inventories when I was with my last church. I was surprised to see that I got a very high score on the gift of faith.  That comes in real handy for a pastor.  So why was I surprised?  Because I remember so vividly the time when God was not yet real to me, and I was searching desperately for connection with God.  I was a scientific materialist, and I so wanted to trust that God was real. 

What kept me hoping when God had not become real to me were some Catholic children’s books on my grandma Lucy’s shelf in Phoenix, Arizona, that I had read at around age five.  I remembered the stories of crazy saints and lovers of God. God was so real to those people that they turned their lives upside down.  That usually involved disobeying their parents, which was very intriguing to me.  These spiritual athletes defied all conventional expectations to be in relationship with God.  If they could be that sure God was real, I could hope.   So I kept searching: in books, worship, conversations, classes, retreats, until I had an experience that allows me to stand up at memorial services knowing that God is real and that love wins in the end.

Generations before us have claimed this gift of God at work in their lives.  They lacked most of our scientific knowledge.  and sometimes they were wiser about matters of the heart than we are. If the gift of God’s presence is not real to you, it is not because God is far away, or because you haven’t earned it, or because you don’t know enough. An Indian poet, Kabir, said it this way:  “I laugh when I hear the fish in the water is thirsty.”  The Apostle Paul said, “In him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28).  The sacred is already here. A shift in perception, and the gift is revealed.  It was here all along.  Seekers, don’t give up hope.

An additional barrier can lie between us and the gift: the wrapping. .  I’m talking about the worship service, the music, even the teachings. You might have found the wrapping repulsive, or just deadly dull, and you gave up on the gift because you could not stand that wrapping. I want to give everybody that gift.  But I can’t. We can only try to wrap it nicely and hope people will discover it for themselves. We have a lot of different kinds of wrappings to choose from– different styles of churches.  Mostly that’s a good thing.  I personally find some of those wrappings downright dangerous.  Strangely, the gift is sometimes still hiding in there even if the wrapping is scary.  Unfortunately some of us got so tangled up with scary wrapping that we’re still recovering.  I think we could have an “ugly wrapping contest” for the Gospel, like an ugly tie contest.  It would be funny if it didn’t hurt so much.

On the other hand, be careful not to get too picky about the wrapping.  The sacred shows up in all kinds of wrappings that are out of our comfort zone: different styles of music, of prayer, of ritual, teachings that are unfamiliar to us… If we must worship a certain way, we need to check: have we confused the gift with the wrapping?

That wrapping, the worship service, the forms that we observe, these are tangible to our senses.  God’s Spirit is not.  Perhaps the closest you can get to peeking at the gift in this place is to take a good look at the people here.  Look for signs of their love of God,  their relationships with each other, signs of their trust, their hospitality, their honesty, their generosity, their risk-taking to stand up for what’s right.  If you look for flaws, you’ll find those too.  All the wrappings have flaws.  You can always go to a different church if our wrapping doesn’t suit you.  Good luck finding a flawless one, though.

What if you started to open this gift, and, well, it was not exactly what you expected?  It was looking to be a high-maintenance gift, and you realized things might go easier without it.  You might have to let go of a lot of other things in your life to hold on to this gift. You might even have to reorder your whole life.  You like your life the way it is.  Well at least it’s a known quantity.  You don’t like surprises.  You decided to pass on this gift for now.

Or, what if you found the gift, long ago, and it was glorious, and it made a deep impression on you (or at least you seem to remember it did).  But now you keep that gift on a high shelf and just take it out on special occasions.  Because it is a lovely gift, but not really practical, not compatible with your everyday life.  Maybe you handle the gift with kid gloves, because you’ve felt its power, and you’re not sure you want that kind of force set loose in your life?

So if you’ve seen the gift and decided to pass it by, or had it and shelved it…here you are looking busy on a Sunday morning, messing around with the wrappings.  I like the wrappings.  Maybe you’re hoping you’ll get the benefit of someone else’s gift, a little of the vitality of the living Spirit of God secondhand without having to change and grow much yourself.  We’ll do what we can for you.  But remember, your gift is waiting patiently for you, whenever you’re ready. 

I know some people try to hit you over the head with this gift, whether you want it or not.  It is a gift, not a blunt instrument. And not accepting it does not send you to hell.  (Although accepting it can sometimes get you out of hell.) 

Lots of people have passed up the gift over the centuries, and made of their lives something beautiful and true and good.  Materialists, seekers and skeptics, some who were too hurt by scary wrapping.  If the light of Christ really lights the whole world, perhaps it does not always need our conscious awareness.  It certainly doesn’t need saying the right words, to shine in us and through us.  I love that Process theology has an explanation for this.  The gift is not just landing on our conscious mind to be consciously accepted.  It can be received in our unconscious mind, even at a cellular level.  How does that work?  I have no idea!  But I like to think it does.

What is it like to make the gift a part of your life?  For some people, receiving the gift is a sudden shift, a vivid experience that brings home God’s nearness and God’s care in a way we can never forget.  It’s like those Before and After pictures –a beauty makeover for the soul.  For others, receiving the gift happens gradually.  There is just a gradual growth in and trust and learning how to follow Jesus, no fireworks, until one day you look back and see a faithful relationship has grown up and stood the test of time. 

If you’re wondering whether the gift is for you, the answer is yes.  That gift is custom made to be right for you.  And this is the season of opening gifts, of new light, and of new birth.

To those who have received it, the gift is given again and again.  We are invited to wake up in the morning and admit our own agendas and hopes and fears and expectations, and then try to set them all aside and just listen, to attend to the other partner in the relationship, to receive the gift afresh for this day, and be ready for surprises.  This gift is a two-way relationship, with the Spirit who knows you better than yourself, and loves you more than you can imagine.  What happens when you receive the gift?  The adventure begins. I hope you’ll tell me about it sometime.  Merry Christmas. Happy Birthday, Jesus.  Thank you for the gift.  It’s just what we needed. Amen.

Behind the Scenes

When I think of Joseph’s role in the story of Jesus, I think of all the people behind the scenes in those dramas I love to watch.  The ones who work the lights and the sound.  You only notice them when they mess up.  The folks dressed all in black, who move the furniture around between scenes.  These people don’t get paid, not in community theater anyway.  They are often invisible to us.  Their names might appear somewhere in the back of the program; only their friends read far enough to notice. You might think these people don’t matter.  You would be wrong.  They do matter, and I hope they know it.  They are essential to the story.  Their joy in being a hidden part of the drama, their generosity with their time and skill, their faithful participation, make it possible for the story to be told.  

Our culture tells us something different.  Grab the spotlight, look good, flaunt what you got.  Those people all in black moving the furniture?  They’re losers.  The important people get attention. You gotta be somebody, make the grade.  

That, you know, is a lie.  What really matters is not where you stand on the ladder of earthly value.  The real drama is going on behind the scenes, where nobody is even looking.  Are you a faithful friend?  A faithful parent?  A faithful worker? Not all the time; none of us are.  But do you keep trying when you fail?  Are you a faithful, if imperfect, follower of Jesus?  Are you showing up to fulfill God’s role for you as best you are able, through joys and sorrows, despite your fears and your failures? For these things you may never get human recognition.  But your faithfulness is essential to God’s drama as much today as it was in Joseph’s times. 

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Brea Congregational United Church of Christ

December 17, 2017

Joseph Was Faithful

Matthew 1:18-25    Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.  19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.  20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.  21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 

22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

23       “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,

                        and they shall name him Emmanuel,” 

which means, “God is with us.”  24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife,  25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

I moved to Southern California when my son Mark was a toddler.  I still remember my culture shock when I first arrived here from Minnesota.  The weather was perfect.  All the time.  (Compared to Minnesota, anyway.) The traffic on Irvine streets went twenty miles an hour faster than in Minnesota.  People made interesting hand gestures at me when I drove.  And the news. The news was… all about show biz.  Movies, TV, theater, actors.  I learned that a job at Disneyland is a great job for an aspiring actor.  And I’ve met a whole lot of aspiring actors here in Southern California.  Some of them have become dear friends.  People who get degrees in theater at UC Irvine.  People who drive up to LA to audition as extras.  People who do community theater.  They work full time at their day job, and then they put in a few more hours for no pay, just for the joy of being part of the drama.

I just watch theater productions.  I especially enjoy if I know someone in the cast.  And my very favorite drama is the old, old story: about how God came to earth, and became one of us, a helpless child born in poverty.  Then he increased in wisdom and years (according to Luke), and around his thirtieth year he started teaching us and loving us and healing us, and challenging us to follow him.  He died for us.  But that was not the end of the story.  He rose, and his Spirit is with us even now.   And that old, old story is still being lived out, by us, today.  Emmanuel.  God with us.

This time of year we naturally concentrate on the birth part of the story.  The details of Jesus’ birth are probably not accurate history, that mash-up of Matthew and Luke’s versions if Jesus’ birth that we know as “the Christmas story.” But let’s take the story at face value for now, because it makes for some pretty good drama.

We tend to sanitize the Christmas story.  For instance, when’s the last time you’ve heard about the slaughter of the innocents?  Matthew Chapter 2.  I didn’t think so.  Tragically,  is still being acted out among the Rohingya in Myanmar, and the people of Syria, and sometimes in our own country’s schools and streets.  Today’s reading is another part of the story we frequently leave out: the angel’s annunciation to Joseph. 

Poor Joseph. He doesn’t have a single speaking part in the whole of the Gospels.  In the G-rated Nativity story he just stands beside Mary at the manger, looking like a third wheel.  Matthew and Luke sketch Joseph’s role in only the barest outlines.  Mark and John, not at all.  But we can read between the lines; imagine what was happening behind the scenes: do Midrash, as Jewish scholars call it.  Pretty quickly we realize that Joseph had plenty of drama to contend with.  And Joseph’s drama might have something to tell us about our faith.

For Mary’s annunciation, the angel appeared in person.  Joseph’s angel appeared only in a dream.  That kind of disorienting dream experience that could happen to anybody, and that could be totally explained away.  I imagine Joseph wanted to explain it away.  It’s a wonder he could sleep at all, given the news he’d just heard.  His fiancée was pregnant.  Not by him.  Devastating.  But he could put it behind him and start over, if he just… oh wait.  The angel said: go through with the wedding.   That angel Joseph could easily have explained away for his convenience.  It was only a dream, after all.  It would have been so easy for him to just ignore that dream.  Because whatever you believe about virgin birth, you can bet the neighbors didn’t believe a word of it.  Yet Joseph chose to be faithful.

This was probably not the role Joseph expected to play for God.  But he stepped up and took up that ego-crushing part in God’s drama.  He took Mary under his protection, and legitimized her child, and gave him a name and a heritage: descendant of the royal line of David.   Legitimacy and genealogy may not matter so much to us, but they mattered a whole lot back then.  

Next, Joseph is forced to drag Mary, nine months pregnant, to Bethlehem, ninety miles away from home, so that the occupying Romans can count her correctly for tax purposes.  And Joseph doesn’t have good enough connections in his ancestral town to find Mary a real bed, so this child for whom he has given up so much, in whom he has become so invested, gets born… in a barn!  Some provider for his family.  Can you imagine the shame?

Some time later, rich foreign dignitaries arrive, bearing gifts.  They know way too much about this special child, and they have revealed way too much to that power hungry old despot Herod.  The angel pops up in another dream, and tells Joseph: run for your child’s life. The journey to Egypt is over two hundred miles of walking through wilderness.  Jesus’ family become refugees, immigrants in a foreign land.  For Joseph that meant sweat and fear and gut-grinding powerlessness. 

The last mention of Joseph in our gospels is when he leaves Jerusalem years later after a festival visit, and accidentally forgets to take twelve-year-old Jesus home with him. Didn’t notice your own kid wasn’t in the caravan? Can’t control your son, can you, Joseph? Shame again. 

How did Joseph raise Jesus?  That happened behind the scenes.  By the time Jesus started his ministry, Joseph was only a memory.  But despite the loads Joseph carried, loads of dashed expectations and confusion and shame and guilt and fear, we can tell that Joseph did some things right.  He stayed faithful.   By “faithful,” I don’t mean that Joseph believed certain things.  I suspect he didn’t know what to believe.  He must have stopped trying to imagine what God was going to drop on him next.

Joseph was faithful because he took this role he was offered by God, though it cost him his reputation more than once. He was faithful when he went to any lengths to protect the child God had entrusted to him.  He was faithful when he persevered in that role even when he felt like a total failure.  Day after day, through joys and sorrows, Joseph was faithful in raising this child who later was called Savior, the child who brings us hope and healing two thousand years later.  It seems he raised that child well indeed.

I wonder how many of you noticed:  it was Joseph who got to name the baby.  Jesus.  Yeshua in Aramaic.  “God saves.”  A message of joy, that people in that place and time needed to hear.  We probably do too. But God does not always save in the way people expect.  A child, born in a barn, of parents who were nobodies, in a tiny occupied country.  Would you have written the story that way?  Nothing special at all, except God, and a few faithful people that almost nobody even noticed.

When I think of Joseph’s role in the story of Jesus, I think of all the people behind the scenes in those dramas I love to watch.  The ones who work the lights and the sound.  You only notice them when they mess up.  The folks dressed all in black, who move the furniture around between scenes.  These people don’t get paid, not in community theater anyway.  They are often invisible to us.  Their names might appear somewhere in the back of the program; only their friends read far enough to notice. You might think these people don’t matter.  You would be wrong.  They do matter, and I hope they know it.  They are essential to the story.  Their joy in being a hidden part of the drama, their generosity with their time and skill, their faithful participation, make it possible for the story to be told.  

Our culture tells us something different.  Grab the spotlight, look good, flaunt what you got.  Those people all in black moving the furniture?  They’re losers.  The important people get attention. You gotta be somebody, make the grade. 

That, you know, is a lie.  What really matters is not where you stand on the ladder of earthly value.  The real drama is going on behind the scenes, where nobody is even looking.  Are you a faithful friend?  A faithful parent?  A faithful worker? Not all the time; none of us are.  But do you keep trying when you fail?  Are you a faithful, if imperfect, follower of Jesus?  Are you showing up to fulfill God’s role for you as best you are able, through joys and sorrows, despite your fears and your failures? For these things you may never get human recognition.  But your faithfulness is essential to God’s drama as much today as it was in Joseph’s times.

I wonder if anybody is hearing this sermon thorough the filter of process theology.  If so, you might be thinking, “God doesn’t direct everything going on here. There is no script, no master plan.”  According to process theology, in each moment of experience there is the invitation to choose the good and the beautiful and the true. And then a new moment is created, with a new invitation.  That looks like direction to me, although the script is being written as we live it.  Improv, you might call it.  Improv actually requires more attention and skill of the participants than reading off a script.  Either way, our participation, our faithfulness, is needed.

We are starting a new chapter in the story of this church.  Faithfulness is required, so that we can be guided together, not necessarily into my vision of what this church can become, or yours, but so that we can create, together with God, the next chapter of this church’s story. 

And we are all still part of the old, old story, that is larger than us, and larger than this church. God With Us, Emmanuel, is still being acted out today.  God with us, not far away.  God here and now.  No longer in the form of a helpless baby, but in the Spirit of the Risen Christ, the Holy Spirit breathing into us, life and hope and love and purpose and joy.

If you haven’t yet become part of God’s evolving story at Brea Congregational UCC, please join us. I’ll be honest, it takes a lot of behind-the-scenes work to keep a church going. And it is a joy and a privilege to work and play with people who care so much about getting out God’s message of love and acceptance and creative power to the world.

God doesn’t need us to be in charge, or to be successful, or fearless, or to remember any lines, or even to follow the story line.  Your faithfulness, you just showing up, your willingness to learn, and serve, and love, is what matters to God.  You matter to God.  Even if your name never shows up in the credits, this side of heaven.  Thank you, Joseph, for faithfully taking the supporting role.  And thank you, people of this church, for to bring the story of God’s amazing love to Brea, California this Advent season.  Amen.