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WHENEVER YOU SAW SOMEONE IN NEED

12/31/2023

Matthew 25:35-40
The Lord said, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,

I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing,

I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink?

And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing?

And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’

And he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.”

Today is the First Sunday after Christmas Day. That’s it’s actual name in the lectionary. It seems to be something of a “catch all” Sunday with quite a number of possible readings. Since tomorrow is New Year’s Day I elected to go with the reading you just heard which is the gospel reading for New Year’s Day. And also a reading most of us are very familiar with.

I chose this reading because I, myself, need the reminder that there are many, many good people in this world. I say this a lot here – “There are more good people than terrible people” – and I firmly believe that to be true.

But sometimes I find myself forgetting to believe it – especially when I’ve been reading reports of the endless killings in Gaza, or the language of “otherness” used so often today about anyone we view as “different,” where “different” has come to mean “less than.” So I need reminders of goodness, and that’s what I want to offer today, using two local examples.

The first is the Christmas Project that comes out of my husband’s church in Geyserville. Every year people of this small town – the majority of whom have no other connection to the church -- come together, in a dozen different ways to provide food boxes and individual gifts for anywhere from 85 to 125 families. This year there were requests for about 465 individual gifts.

Geyserville is a very small town. The only reason we can do this is that there are folks who donate to a special fund that pays for all this, and then folks who fit themselves in where they fit best. Different folks shop, or sort and count donated gifts, do the computer work to track numbers, make dozens of phone calls, collect donations.. One small group makes a run to the next town to pick up cases of canned vegetables, others lug 100 lb. bags of potatoes or onions or rice. The last morning another group makes the “chicken run” to pick up a pick-up truck load of meat, and then the wrappers arrive to wrap the 450+ gifts.

The most amazing part of all of this is that no one needs to be told what to do or how to do it – they know the tasks they have chosen. – and they’ve been doing this for years – and they’re raising their children to do it too. I flat-out love these people.

My second “it really is a good world” story comes from Plowshares Community Dining Center a little to the north in Ukiah. Plowshares is a year round fixture that provides a daily hot meal for anyone. I’ll quote from Plowshares themselves to explain what they do with a small staff and a truly amazing cast of volunteers:

This year our amazing volunteers donated over 22,000 hours of service, allowing us to provide over 77,000 free meals to our hungry community.
Our volunteer cooks made roughly 400 meals a day!
Our Meals-On-Wheels drivers, drove over 8,300 miles, and the MOW runners knocked on roughly 16,000 doors delivering over 56,000 meals to our community's homebound disabled seniors.
Our Volunteer servers, dished-out over 21,000 meals to our dining room guests, and then, they served seconds!

Like Geyserville’s story this one is run on volunteer efforts. Local churches, businesses, and individuals donate not only their labor but food and cleaning supplies – 365 days a years. And I am willing to bet that every one of these volunteers, performing every one of these repetitive acts has a wonderful time doing it. This is Joy for them.

These are only two examples out of small-town Northern Calif. Examples of people helping other people. People caring about others. I doubt anyone has ever heard of them other than the people directly involved.

And I suspect such local groups of giving people exist all over – in every country – the folks who come together to try to meet the needs of the time and place – folks who care.

They may call God by different names, or maybe no name at all. They may believe differently than we do – but we share the same heart. Do unto others as you would have them do for you. It doesn’t matter what language we use, all God’s children understand this one. And we ARE all God’s children...

“I was hungry and you gave me food.....
I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”

That’s the Good News I needed to hear today.

Thanks be to God

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CHRISTMAS MESSAGE and LIGHTING OF LIGHTING of 4TH and CHRIST CANDLES

12/24/2023

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Isaiah 9:2-7    LIGHTING THE 4th CANDLE of ADVENT
The people in darkness have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.
You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy;
they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest.
For the yoke of their burden and the bar across their shoulders,
    the rod of their oppressor,
    you have broken as on the day of Midian.
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given,  and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. There will be justice and righteousness from that time on, and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

[Light the fourth ADVENT CANDLE]

We are here to celebrate the birth of Jesus, our Lord.
And yes, we know that this date is an arbitrarily assigned one. All the greeting cards with their peaceful snow scenes aside, it is most unlikely to have been snowing in Bethlehem that night. And, it really doesn’t matter at all on what day in what month this Child was born. He was born into a world filled with trouble and strife, much like the one we live in today.

What matters is that he was born into our world of ordinary people, and this is cause for all our celebrations and all our Christmas joy.

This Babe, this Child of God grew into a man of compassion and love. He taught us by his own actions that it is possible to live without hating, to refuse to view anyone who is not part of one’s own ‘tribe’ as an enemy and to instead see each other as fellow children of God – brothers and sisters to us -- deserving the same love that we hope for ourselves.

He lived with us to teach us that love is the answer for most of our problems – and that love is of God and is God’s will for us.

Luke 2:1-7 -- CHRIST CANDLE

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world ..... and everyone went to their own town to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.

While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her son in the stable where the animals were kept.. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

[Light the CHRIST CANDLE]

May there be Peace and Hope and Joy and Love aplenty in your life and the lives of all around you.

There are many in our world who won’t find Joy an easy thing to come by right now. Some are grieving losses, some are dealing with painful illnesses, some are lonely and hungry and cold, some are incarcerated – and some are living in the midst of hatred and mindless war.

Such things existed in the world into which Jesus was born – and he still went out and loved the world enough to change it, and to begin the healing this world so desperately needs – that change our hearts need. And may we help bring about a world where those without hope find hope, and those without peace find peace, and those without joy find joy growing in their hearts, and those without love have love being offered them in all circumstance.

Regardless of circumstances, may this season of new birth bring God’s love to you and yours, and may we share that love far and wide. May the Christ-Child be born anew in all our hearts.

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AVENT THREE: "Changes, Changes, Changes"

12/17/2023

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Luke 1:46-55
And Mary said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
    and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowly state of his servant.
    Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
    and holy is his name;
indeed, his mercy is for those who fear him
    from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
    he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones
    and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things
    and sent the rich away empty.
He has come to the aid of his child Israel,
    in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
    to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

Today is the third Sunday in Advent for 2023. The overall theme for this week is Joy. I imagine we are all familiar with the reading from Luke’s Gospel with which we began today—“My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.....”

This is Mary’s hymn of praise upon being told by the angel Gabriel that she – yes, she—a most ordinary young woman of no particular standing at all—will bear the long-foretold child who will be the Son of God.

Mary is a believer—one of those who is familiar with the ancient prophecies—one who has waited and dreamed about the messiah who would come to free her people from oppression. Upon hearing this incredible news, she breaks out in spontaneous excitement and joy and as we read her words we can almost feel the awe and joy radiating from her.

This is in large part a personal joy – she has been chosen to be the mother of her Lord. That’s got to be a pretty overwhelming thought.
    Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me

But it is also a communal joy—a national joy—a faith-filled joy—The God she has followed and believed in all her life is about to bring a long held promise to fruition. Her people will have a leader who will make all things right again.   Mary sings, not only her personal joy, but a song of Justice which could have come straight out of Micah or Amos or any of the justice-oriented prophets of old.

He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones
    and lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things
    and sent the rich away empty.

This hymn isn’t just calling for the lowly to be raised up. It’s not only about those who haven’t had food finally being fed, but now we hear that those who have been full in the past are actually to be sent away hungry themselves. The formerly powerful are now the ones on the streets, scrambling and begging for scraps.

This is revolutionary language. In any revolution in history I suspect you could find similar language—throwing those who have been on top, lording it over everyone else, down to the bottom of the pile. It’s an announcement of a complete disruption of the status quo, calling for a total change in the way the world operates.

This child who is coming is going to turn the world on its head. I wonder how often we actually think of this birth as something this revolutionary on so many levels.

There is a Greek word often used in theological discussions: metanoia, meaning a complete change of mind. Not a minor change like deciding to have a banana for breakfast rather than an orange, but seeing and understanding things from an entirely different point of view—a change of mind and heart from the deepest levels.

Looking back on John the Baptist from last week I’m fairly certain John never used this word, metanoia, but this is the same as the repentance to which John called those who turned to him to be cleansed and changed in baptism. “Repent! Give up your prior way of being. Turn to God in everything!”

This is what John preached--what Mary sings . This is the promise God made to Abraham all those centuries ago. And this is what Jesus calls us to--“Follow me!,” not just in words but in actions. We here, two thousand years after Jesus’ arrival are part of an ongoing revolution.

That’s why we’re here—to change--to live into reality the teaching of the Child, who came to turn our world upside down.

Joy to the world, indeed! The Lord is coming! The Lord is come!

Amen and Alleluia!

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ADVENT TWO: "Disturber of the Peace"

12/11/2023

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Mark 1:1-8
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ as it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
    who will prepare your way,
the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
    ‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
    make his paths straight,’ ”

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And the whole Judean region and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him and were baptized by him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins.

Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

We spoke last week of a people living in expectation—a people who waited, not even entirely certain who or what they were waiting for. And when they finally found him they had the wrong person.

This new wonder people were flocking to hear was a weirdly impressive man. He lived in the wilderness and dressed himself in animal skins. Like many desert people who did not cultivate the soil, he fed on locusts and wild honey that he found by following the bees. He did not speak to the people with sweet, loving words, but rather, howled at them to repent and give up their evil in order to avoid the destruction that was due them. He is an interesting choice to be the subject of this second week in Advent – the one dedicated to Peace.

His name was John, and for a while many believed he was the One they had been waiting for.

His story is long and complex. He is mentioned in all four Gospels. In the beginning, John was the star and Jesus was the bit player. The people had known John for quite a time and many had received his baptism – they knew John, When Jesus first came out of obscurity they knew nothing of him and often ran to John for his take on this new voice.

The stories of these two oh-so-different men are so intertwined they can’t be told separately. As far back as Isaiah it was foretold that there would be one to announce the coming of the other.

A voice cries out:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord;
    make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
    and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
    and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
    and all flesh shall see it together,
    for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 40:3-5)

And again in our reading for today, John himself speaks:
“The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

The role that John was destined to play was known long before his name, and he is a man of many names. Through the years he has been known as Elijah, John the Forerunner, John the Messenger, John the Baptizer, Saint John the Baptist, and John the Immerser. He is recognized and revered in all strains of Christianity, as well as in Islam, and the Bahai’i faith.

The role John the Baptist plays in the story of Jesus is much larger than I ever noticed. He was so much more than a wild preacher who announced Jesus’ imminent arrival, nor was he just someone who stood in the river and witnessed Jesus’ anointing as God’s chosen beloved one. These two were a set and each played their own role, and neither would have been who they were without the other.

And what is there about John that speaks to us this week of Peace? I think poet John Shea may have the best explanation of that connection:
From, “The Man Who was a Lamp,” by John Shea:

Jesus came out of John
as surely as he came out of Mary.
John was the desert soil
in which the flower of Jesus grew.
John was the voice in the wilderness
who taught Jesus to hear the voice from the sky.
John would push sinners beneath the water
and Jesus would resurrect them on the waves.
John was the fast
who prepared for Jesus, the feast.

No man ever less a shepherd than John,
yet loved by one.

If you are surprised that Jesus came from John,
imagine John’s prophetic puzzle
when the predicted “wrath to come” came
and he said, “Let’s eat!”
John expected an ax to the root of the tree
and instead he found a gardener hoeing around it.
He dreamt of a man with a winnowing fan and a fire
and along came a singing seed scatterer.
He welcomed wrathful verdicts,
then found a bridegroom on the bench.
When John said, “There is one among you
Whom you do not know,” he spoke from experience.....

Yet he came to me to go beyond me.
He entered the water to rise out of it.
He knew I would know him when he came
even though I did not know him before he came.
The fulfillment is always more than the promise,
but if you hunger and thirst in the promise,
you will welcome the One Who Is Not You
as All You Are,
and more.

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ADVENT ONE: WHO'S IT ALL ABOUT?"

12/3/2023

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Isaiah 42:1-4
Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
    my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him,
    he will bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not cry out or lift up his voice
    or make it heard in the street;
a bruised reed he will not break,
    and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
    he will faithfully bring forth justice.
He will not grow faint or be crushed
    until he has established justice in the earth.

Advent is not about the birth of Jesus. That comes with Christmas. Advent is about those who believed and hoped . . . and waited . . . and kept on hoping.

One of the primary prophets who spoke of one to come for the people was Isaiah. Isaiah’s is a long book, with 66 chapters, covering a vast number of years – so long that scholars have identified three different Isaiahs – first, second, and third.

The story told by all three Isaiahs is a story of comfort and security turned to loss and despair and a feeling of deep abandonment. The people had grown used to having God guide them and prosper them for so long that they began to take God for granted, until it all collapsed around them and they had to learn to trust God all over again. It was a long and tortuous journey.

First Isaiah was a contemporary of, and deeply influenced by such prophets as Amos, Hosea, and Micah, who were well known as prophets of Social Justice. Influenced by these prophets, Isaiah preached a message of justice for all to all who would listen -- kings, ordinary people, cultural leaders -- a justice only to be found in adherence to far older messages of God’s justice, a Messiah to come, and the absolute necessity of placing the nation’s full dependence in Yahweh rather than in the might of nations and earthly kings.

This was the time leading up to and during the Babylonian exile and Isaiah taught, first, that bad things were going to happen if the people didn’t return to obeying God in all things, and then once the worst happened, that the only hope of the people in exile, as well as those fragmented souls left behind, was an absolute trust in God’s promises.

Years later, Babylon was itself conquered by Persia under King Cyrus and, in the time of Second Isaiah, the Hebrew people were eventually freed to return to their homeland.

This was not generally a happy time. The people had been too long torn apart – they were strangers to one another – with different hopes and dreams for this reunification. Again, a message of complete trust in God was necessary – their God – the One who chose them to be his own. But first they had to learn to live with each other again. It was not easy, but in time, they focused on God again and rebuilt their nation and their lives around their trust in God and the Promised One to come – and they learned again to hope – and to wait.

There are even older stories of rejection built all through the Hebrew Scriptures. Stories of those who waited long, long times for the fulfillment of promises given them. While there were triumphs and loses among the males heroes of the bible, one common thread among the women is that of barrenness and the rejection by both their husbands and the world’s opinion because of their failure to bear children (the failure was always the woman’s fault, never the man’s).

The Old Testament Hebrews did not believe in an afterlife, except as their name was kept alive in the memories of their sons. No sons – their memories would fade and die. Therefore, it was of the utmost importance that they had sons to carry on their line. A woman who did not give her man sons was a disgrace and a failure. Even if a man did not blame his wife he still took other wives to give him sons. Such was the non-status of women in the bible.

Some such women’s stories made it into scripture – Hannah, barren wife of Elkanah, who prayed and trusted God, and finally bore Samuel who became High Priest and a great hero. Sarai, barren wife of Abram, suffered much scorn for years, but through her trust in God’s word, she did bear Isaac in her old age. And even Elizabeth, cousin to Mary, wife to Zechariah the priest, was barren and shunned until through faith, she bore John, who would one day baptize Jesus. There were many other like them. These women suffered in the waiting, but each eventually bore a man-child who would one day play a major role in the story of their people.

Each of these women lived with a sense of failure and rejection, while still holding on to their faith in God’s promise. Even in the face of evidence that said that God had forgotten them entirely – they still believed. Each of the Hebrews defeated and forced off into exile in a foreign land, still believed. Each Jew who watched their once powerful kingdom wither and crumble making them easy prey for stronger nations – found the courage to believe – the courage to hope – the courage to trust again. They may have lost it for a while but they regained it and they hoped.

Generation after generation of faithful people trusted – they suffered, but they kept trusting. And these are the ones whose faith was repaid when God sent Jesus. In some cases hundreds of years later, long after the human lifespan – because God’s promises were more for the people as a whole more than the individual -- to show them that God does hear our prayers, and does keep God’s promises, even if it’s not on human schedules, but on God’s own.

They hoped, and trusted ... and waited . . . as we still wait today for peace in our world. And we believe in the one who “will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in all the earth.”

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WHENEVER YOU SAW SOMEONE IN NEED

CHRISTMAS MESSAGE and LIGHTING OF LIGHTING of 4TH and CHRIST CANDLES

AVENT THREE: "Changes, Changes, Changes"

ADVENT TWO: "Disturber of the Peace"

ADVENT ONE: WHO'S IT ALL ABOUT?"

Rev. Cherie Marckx

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