Pocket Sized Pastor*

¹² Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. ¹³ He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, ¹⁴ so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
¹⁵ “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
    on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the gentiles—
¹⁶ the people who sat in darkness
    have seen a great light,
and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death
    light has dawned.”

¹⁷ From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

¹⁸ As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishers. ¹⁹ And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.” ²⁰ Immediately they left their nets and followed him. ²¹ As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. ²² Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

²³ Jesus went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.

Matthew 4:12-23

My sermon from the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany (January 25, 2026) on Matthew 4:12-23.

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So earlier this week, I co-lead the annual retreat for folks in the New Jersey synod who are currently in process to be ordained as a pastor or a deacon. And this year, 11 out of the 23 folks currently in what we call candidacy – as well as 8 members of the committee who walk with them – met at Camp Cross Roads for an overnight series of workshops and conversations about being “theological decision makers during times of chaos.” Now being a theological decision maker feels appropriate for every clergy person’s job description. Yet the practice of paying attention to our beliefs, what we put our trust into, and the words as well as actions revealing who we declare God to be isn’t only for the professionals. As members of the body of Christ, faith is already part of the decisions we make that influence us and the lives of others. I’ve often found, however, that doing theological decision-making isn’t something we always notice or see. This work is more than merely making a list of pros and cons, of being good, avoiding evil, and asking “what would Jesus do?” It’s also about admitting how our decisions are mostly just guesses based on limited bits of information, with all kinds of biases, that make no real guarantee over what tomorrow might bring. Even during the most peaceful of times, our decisions can be difficult, costly, and take a lot of time. It’s a process that, on one level, can feel a bit unfaithful since we often imagine decision-making should be like what we see in today’s reading from the gospel according to Matthew – sudden, forceful, and immediate. I wonder, though, if there might be another way to read this text that allows us to be imaginative, prayerful, and completely human. 

And to do that, I’d like to highlight a decision that unfolds at the very beginning of this story. Jesus is, at this point in Matthew, finally an adult who was recently dunked into the Jordan River by John the Baptist. Then after hearing a voice from heaven declare him to be God’s beloved, Jesus went deeper into the wilderness where he was invited to be something other than who he was. Jesus, though, resisted these temptations and when the devil finally left him, angels nourished Jesus back to health. That’s where the story is at the end of verse 11 but when 12 starts, the political and religious situation within Jesus’ community had suddenly changed. John the Baptist was arrested by King Herod after John brought God’s word into a debate about who should have political power and who shouldn’t. It feels as if a lot has happened in a very short period of time between Jesus’ baptism and John’s arrest – as if everything is happening all at once. But I wonder if the immediacy we feel is more from how we read the story rather than from the words Matthew used. The transition from Jesus’ time with the angels to John’s arrest is pretty general. We’re not told today’s story began the next day or the next week or even the next month. Rather, all we know is Jesus heard John was arrested but not specifically when – or how. There’s no description of Jesus reading a newspaper, visiting a nearby marketplace for lunch, or opening his social media feeds to see what terrible thing the government had done that day. Even the assumption that Jesus’ divinity gave him some power to predict the immediate future isn’t explicitly named. Rather, what Matthew gave us is a gap of time where Jesus’ movement from being primarily the son of a carpenter to something else came to life. Rather than jumping out of the Jordan River to the pulpit, we got a Jesus who spent time wrestling with the thoughts, feelings, questions, and external forces that want us to be something other than kind, loving, and merciful humans God knows we can be. And after the news of state sponsored violence towards his friend came his way, he didn’t immediately toss over a few tables in the Temple. Jesus, instead, left the place he grew up in to root himself in a place where his new chapter could begin. And while we’re not told explicitly what went through Jesus’ head and heart during this time, Jesus’ theological decision-making took real effort and lasted a specific amount of time. We know Jesus’ way of decision-making is not like our own. Yet the wrestling, questioning, listening, and time it sometimes takes us to make a decision might be part of Jesus’ own experience too. And while we might wish our own decision making was much faster, resembling Simon, Andrew, James, and John when Jesus came to them while they were fishing, taking the time to wonder, to trust, and to notice where Jesus is leading us can be very faithful too. 

And so practicing that process of decision-making was what we tried to do at our annual candidacy retreat. After a quick introduction once everyone showed up, a fine meal by the cooks at Cross Roads, and a few get-to-know each other games, we took real-life situations to explore what being an intentional theological decision-maker might look like. We invited Pastor Dan Whitener who teaches a course about “Case Studies in Lutheran ministry” at Princeton Theological Seminary to help us unpack the questions we should ask ourselves and our communities when symbols of civic power show up in places where we worship and pray. We then read the statement made earlier this month by our denomination’s presiding bishop Yehiel Curry pertaining to Venezuela and tried to reverse engineer the thoughts, questions, concerns, and faithful commitments that shaped the words he shared. As we pondered which kinds of questions matter more to us than others, those studying to be ordained pastors and deacons watched as members of the candidacy committee roleplayed what it’s like when, on Saturday night, something happens that makes us wonder if our sermons, children’s messages, prayers, and words might, or might not, need to change. And if that wasn’t enough, we then put everyone into small groups to practice their own process of theological decision-making with a variety of real world situations congregations in our synod have gone through. What might their process be if folks in their community started saying those showing up at their church’s food pantry didn’t actually look like they needed help or if questions about who is welcome at the Lord’s table and who isn’t bubbled up or if several families in the church were suddenly taken by ICE. Our focus wasn’t about coming up to a specific decision right then but rather letting an intentional faithful process of questioning ourselves, our communities, our world, and our God inform what we might do next. As human beings, our ability to be theological decision-makers will never be perfect and I trust we’ll always get things wrong way more often than we’ll get them right. But when the way forward looks murky, can we take the time to ask deep and challenging questions about the situation, accepting the fact we’re not experts about everything and we often can’t see all that needs to be seen? Can we invite others into our decision making process since our intent is less important than our impact? Can we let the Lutheran Christian commitments of love, grace, mercy, and being for one another show up more than our commitments to power, wealth, and status? Can we let God’s story be what interprets and reforms us rather than the cultural myths that surround us? And when the decision we need to make overwhelms us, can we focus our energy instead on one faithful step that shows how the kingdom of Heaven is already near? A Jesus who took the time to listen, to wonder, and to root himself somewhere new is the Jesus who invites us to let faith show up in all the decisions we make. But during those moments when time really is short and something must be said and done, it’s then when God’s decision to claim you as God’s own becomes what we cling to. And if Jesus is willing to be with you, to listen to you, to love, care, and show up for you with healing, mercy, sacrifice, and hope – then the decisions we make can – and should – always do the same. Amen.

²⁹ The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! ³⁰ This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ ³¹ I myself did not know him, but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” ³² And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. ³³ I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ ³⁴ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Chosen One.”

³⁵ The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, ³⁶ and as he watched Jesus walk by he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” ³⁷ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. ³⁸ When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” ³⁹ He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. ⁴⁰ One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. ⁴¹ He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). ⁴² He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

John 1:26-42

My sermon from 2nd Sunday after Epiphany (January 18, 2026) on John 1:26-42.

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I’d like to begin today’s sermon with a question: if you had to sum up some of the main takeaways from the gospel according to John into a few sentences, a verse, or even a question – what might that be? 

[pause]

This isn’t, I think, an easy thing to do since taking a Biblical story full of different characters, stories, teachings, challenges, and mysteries is probably as difficult as trying to sum up our entire lives. Our instinct might be to pick a verse or two as our starting point since John 3:16 always shows up at football games and yard signs. But I wonder if there might be something from earlier in the book that reveals what John imagines it means to have Jesus in our lives and in the world. And to do that, we need to spend a little time with another John who was hanging out in the wilderness. We have, over the last month, spent a long time with this other John – John the Baptist – as we learned about his peculiar clothing habits, his calls for repentance, the baptisms he practiced, and what happened when he was arrested by King Herod after choosing to bring God’s word into local politics. John the Baptist shows up a lot in Mark, Luke, and Mathew – but it’s the different emphasis in today’s story that might reveal a little bit about what this entire book is about. The John the Baptist we meet in the gospel according to John – and it’s important to remember the John who wrote the gospel and John the Baptist are two different Johns – isn’t as colorful as the other books. We’re not given details about clothes being made out of camel hair or how locusts and wild honey is quite a delicious meal. In fact, we don’t even get to see John the Baptist baptize anyone in this story and so it’s fitting in the verses before today’s reading, folks asked John “who are you?” This John is, in a way, less of a doer and more of a talker. And the word he brought wasn’t a sermon inviting us to live more God-centric lives but was a giant verbal finger pointing at who he expects Jesus to be. To John, Jesus is the Lamb of God, the Chosen One who embodies God’s vision for creation and outranks those we proclaim to be holy and true. The word John shared wasn’t a word he chose to keep to himself. Instead, it was a word John shared. John the Baptist not only told those who came to him who this Jesus was; he also told his own disciples they might want to follow Jesus instead. To me, at the heart of John the Baptist’s words is the continual unpacking of that question “who are you” directed not only to us but also to Jesus and God. And the entire gospel according to John feels like it’s meant to unpack that question in challenging and unexpected ways. 

But that might not be the only question John tried to answer. And this comes into view when we notice the first words Jesus uttered in this book. We might assume the Son of God’s first words to be a story or some profound thought weren’t meant to apply immediately to our daily life. Yet what Jesus did instead was ask two of John the Baptist’s disciples the question: “what are you looking for?” That’s not the kind of “hello” we’d expect the prince of peace to share but it could be an invitation for us to reflect on who we want God to be. The language John the Baptist used throughout our reading described Jesus with metaphors, symbols, and spiritual realities that reflected who John the Baptist wanted God to be. And that, I think, creates room for us to do the same  thing. When it comes to God, the divine, creation, the kingdom of God for the world and for our lives – one of the most faithful questions we can ask is simply: what are we looking for? Are we looking for a listener, a companion, this promise our forever has already begun? Or are we looking for power, strength, and the kind of God who makes us special at the expense of everyone else? That “what” we want is often revealed through the words we share and the actions we take. And so the gospel according to John will, throughout the book, to not only reveal what we’re looking for but also push us towards what we can cling to instead. 

So after “who are you” and “what are you looking for,” there might be one more question we’re being asked to hold. And that’s because after Jesus asked his question, the two following Jesus responded with a question of their own. The answer they gave doesn’t lean into the “what” Jesus asked. Rather, they wonder where Jesus was saying. On one level, they really are just asking where Jesus was currently tucking himself in at night. Yet the word in the ancient Greek we’ve translated as staying also means dwelling and abiding. To dwell and to abide is more than simply finding a Motel Six to stay in. Where we dwell is where we get to craft a home of our own. It’s a place defined by the relationships which reaffirm we’re known, valued, and we really belong. And it’s the trust that even when life gets hard, we are a necessary part of what this world is meant to be about. That doesn’t mean dwelling is always easy or that our abiding won’t require us to grow, change, and become something new. Rather, it’s a place, a moment, and an experience where the limits of who we are have been replaced by whose we are instead. Where we dwell can be a physical place like a sanctuary, a house, or even a neighborhood. Yet dwelling can’t happen unless we’re rooted in relationships where we are fed, supported, and cared for. If we dwell with relationships that are toxic, harmful, and rooted in a vision of the world that says some matter more than others, our dwelling is taking from our life rather than enhancing it. And so the disciples’ question to Jesus about where he dwells is more than about where he rested his head. It’s also a question about the relationships shaping who Jesus got to be. Rather than going into detail about what those relationships were, Jesus did something different instead. He asked those who were standing before him if they’d like to “come and see” to experience that kind of dwelling for themselves. 

And so the gospel of John is more than just a verse we wave at football games or tattoo on our body. It’s a book unpacking the questions “who are you,” “what are you looking for,” and “where are you staying/dwelling/abiding?” These faithful questions are the ones we can – and should – ask the divine. But they’re also the kind of questions we need to ask of ourselves. Do we find ourselves dwelling in anger, violence, grievance, competition, and with a deep desire to win? Or do we dwell with One who was there when the universe was made; who lived a life needing the care of others; who broke bread with those who agreed with him and those who didn’t; who welcomed those who were viewed as expendable to his side; and who promised to not let your worst days be the only ones that defined you? “Who are you?” “What are you looking for?” “Where are you dwelling?” are the questions we get to ask ourselves – and our God – every day. And while our answers to those questions might be full of emotions, words, mysteries, or deep silences that nothing can break – God’s answer to those questions will be right there holding you through. 

Amen.

¹³ Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. ¹⁴ John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” ¹⁵ But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. ¹⁶ And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. ¹⁷ And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Matthew 3:13-17

My sermon from Baptism of Our Lord Sunday (January 11, 2026) on Matthew 3:13-17.

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I’ll admit Jesus’ baptism to me has always been a bit of an odd duck when it comes to our church calendar. And that’s because why would the One who was there when the universe was made need to be reconciled to God in such a wet and public way? This episode in Jesus’ life has always been something the church has struggled with and we often describe it as something unlike what we experience when we’re connected to water and the Word. Yet for an event we imagine to be different, it’s sort of strange how we haven’t changed its name. The word we use for God’s public declaration that your story is now defined by something new remains tied to Jesus’ own being dunked in the Jordan River and hearing God’s proclamation of belovedness and grace. There is something to this practice of taking something ordinary like water and combining it with the extraordinary promises of God that continues to shape our faith. And so I wonder if we might focus less on the theological and spiritual reasons for Jesus’ baptism and instead reflect on how this moment in Jesus’ life might reveal who our God chooses to be. 

And to do that, I’d like to use an insight from a resource I give to couples when they ask me to preside at their weddings. What I hand out is the book: “The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work” by John Gottman with Nan Silver. Gottman and his wife Julie have, for over three decades, studied how couples work. And this includes paying attention to couples when they’re in the honeymoon stage of their relationships as well as during times of stress and conflict. There is no one scientific formula every couple can follow which will guarantee a healthy and happy relationship. Yet there are practices we can apply to any relationship – marriage or otherwise – which can offer us more respect and care. One of the things in relationships Gottman describes is something he calls “a bid.” A bid is simply an action or word someone makes asking for their partner’s attention, affection, humor, or support. “Bids can be as minor as asking for a backrub or as significant as seeking help in carrying the burden when an aging parent is ill.” A bid can be a sigh while looking out a window or inviting someone to look at a video you saw or even asking for five minutes alone when you’re feeling overwhelmed. Bids are more than cries for attention and they are not opportunities where mindreading is at play. They are, instead, a request for our partner to do a physical, emotional, and mental turn towards us so we can feel loved, known, and valued. It’s in the bids we make to one another where trust is built and where relationships flourish. And while most relationship advice can often feel difficult to immediately apply since we regularly need to recognize how our hurts, expectations, and past relationships have shaped how we treat others, answering a bid is something anyone can do right now. It’s an invitation to pay attention and, even when you’re busy, put down the phone, turn towards your partner, and ask “what’s up?” when a sigh or a word or an invitation is offered. As Gottman wrote, “as comical as it may sound, romance is strengthened in the supermarket aisle when your partner asks, ‘Are we out of butter?’ and you answer, ‘I don’t know. Let me go get some just in case,’ instead of shrugging apathetically. It grows when you know your spouse is having a bad day at work and you take a few seconds out of your schedule to send him an encouraging text. In all of these instances, partners are making a choice to turn toward each other rather than away.” When we don’t take our everyday interactions for granted, we live out the fact that our relationships actually matter. And when our bids are constantly ignored, pushed aside, or met with defensiveness, it’s hard to not feel as if we’re lost and completely on our own. 

 Now there’s another reason why I think noticing bids matters and that’s because I think we’re surrounded by all kinds of things making bids for our attention. This is more than merely complaining about kids looking at their phones or how it takes hearing something eight times in eight different ways before we add some church thing to our personal calendars. Rather, the act of being alive feels as if it’s been reduced to something like creating content we then feed into computer algorithms which defines who we get to be. If we don’t post it, like it, announce it, or share it, then what we do or say has no value. Social capital is defined not by the trust we’ve built in small ways with those who God calls us to care for. It is, instead, all about whether we can send a notification out and get other people’s eyes to see what we’re up to. When too many acts include a gun in one hand and a phone in the other with the hope of making heartbreak viral, our bids are very broken. Bids are less about being in relationship with others and more demands that only one point of view, opinion, algorithm, or way of life actually matters. Yet it’s in the midst of this moment when our bids feel warped that we, in our readings today, meet Jesus when he appears as an adult for the very first time. Jesus’ early life is, for us, a mystery since only Luke provides any story of Jesus between the ages of 2 to 30. And Jesus’ arrival at this point in the story feels very un-Jesus like. He doesn’t perform a miracle; he doesn’t preach a sermon; he doesn’t heal anyone. All Jesus does is patiently wait for his turn to enter the waters. In terms of bids, he doesn’t seem to be doing anything. But this pause in the Jesus we expect invites us to reflect on how Jesus got here in the first place. And when we do that in light of his story in Matthew full of strange visitors, his Jewish identity, the impact of state-sponsored violence, and his flight to Egypt, we realize Jesus’ life was full of bids. In a world with high infant mortality, disease, poverty, war, and malnutrition, Jesus being able to leave the care of his parents and go into the wilderness was pretty amazing. And during his life, this Son of God made all kinds of bids for food, protection, care, and grace. The divine shouldn’t, I think, need to make the bids we do yet Jesus knew this is what life is all about. The bids we express for connection is something God embraced since being in relationship is who our God chooses to be. The God who as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit embodies a community of mutuality invites us to lay claim to the same. And rather than use force, violence, and coercive demands to turn us towards God, God did what God always does: showing up in bids big and small to let you know how loved you are. And while we don’t always recognize the bids God makes, the promise at the heart of your baptism – that you truly are wrapped up in the fullness of Jesus’s ongoing story – is a promise that never goes away. So I wonder if Jesus’ baptism can be less a theological conundrum and more a reminder that our relationships to one another and with God actually matters. And rather than dismissing bids or replacing them with attention-demanding content, we can let them be human and holy. Needing care, protection, and support is not the opposite of strength or independence. Instead it’s the life God chose and Jesus embraced in a ministry where God’s kingdom shone bright with wholeness, justice, forgiveness, and hope. And if Jesus was willing to do the hard work of making God’s love real in the world and cling to everything life brought his way, we who have been brought into his body through water, in word, and with faith – we get to do the same. 

Amen.

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, magi from the east came to Jerusalem, ² asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star in the east and have come to pay him homage.” ³ When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him, ⁴ and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. ⁵ They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it has been written by the prophet:
⁶ ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
    are by no means least among the rulers of Judah,
for from you shall come a ruler
    who is to shepherd my people Israel.’ ”
⁷ Then Herod secretly called for the magi and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. ⁸ Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” ⁹ When they had heard the king, they set out, and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen in the east, until it stopped over the place where the child was. ¹⁰ When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. ¹¹ On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. ¹² And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

Matthew 2:1-12

My sermon from Epiphany Sunday (January 4, 2026) on Matthew 2:1-12.

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A few nights ago, my family and I attended the First Night extravaganza in Ocean City, NJ. First Night, if you’re unfamiliar, is when towns and communities organize family friendly events for New Years’ Eve. We watched a musical based on the children’s book Pete the Cat, ice skated on plastic ice, jumped our way through giant inflatables, sang with a million kids who signed up to sing K-pop songs during karaoke, and then watched the sky lit up by dozens of colorful drones. The highlight of the night, though, was the Harlem Wizards who always use all kinds of basketball trick shots, lots of music, and an incredible amount of audience participation to generate a very high energy event. Since First Night had a lot of different things going on, the Harlem Wizards only had about 45 minutes to pull off their show. And so the music was loud, the kids were louder, and after introductions, a few kids got to play a layup based version of musical chairs with a jersey and a ball as the top prize. But near the end of that bit, something unexpected happened. On the far side of the gym, away from where we were sitting, a commotion began. An older gentleman only three rows up from the floor was having a medical emergency. Those in the audience who were trained in first aid immediately ran over and those working with First Night immediately called for an ambulance. The Harlem Wizards cut the music and did what they could to support the care others were providing. An eerie silence settled over the arena that was only punctuated by the sound of small voices asking: “what’s wrong?” A few parents, grandparents, and guardians didn’t want someone else’s nightmare to be the last thing their kids witnessed in 2025 so they quickly gathered their things and left. After a few tense-filled minutes, the gentleman sat up, looked around, and seemed embarrassed at having caused such a fuss. He seemed like he would be okay and when he climbed into the stretcher the EMTs brought out, everyone let out a large sigh of relief. But we were left with a question: how – or even should – the show go on? 

Now today’s reading from the gospel according to Matthew is one I’ve talked about a lot recently since it was part of what we heard in worship last week and we talked through it when we taught the Christmas Carol “Three Kings of Orient Are” at our 9 am worship two weeks ago. Trying to find one more thing to say about a paranoid and violent ruler, a group of magi, and God choosing vulnerability as a sign of what true power will always be wasn’t easy. Yet during my research I was struck by a thought Professor Warren Carter of Phillips Theological Seminary shared in a commentary on this passage. He wrote: “Here, in chapter 2, Jesus is born into a contested world that sets the scene for the whole gospel and is marked by contrasting responses of homage and violence. First on the scene are the magi, [these]… priestly-political, star-gazing figures from the east. They come to pay homage to Jesus. But good intentions go awry with a foolish performance. They ask a very dumb question in Herod’s political center of Jerusalem: ‘Where is the one born King of the Jews?’ For so-called ‘wise-guys,’ this is an extraordinarily naive question.” Now for over 400 years, various English translations of the Bible have identified those who came from the east to be kings or wisemen. The magi, though, were most likely, Zoroastrian astrologers. It was their job to pay attention to the movement of the stars and planets since they assumed the cosmos directly influenced our daily life. To be a magi required a lot of training, education, and an apprenticeship where they created a portfolio showing how they really could see the divine at work. We shouldn’t assume these wiseguys actually believed in God or if worshipping at the Temple in Jerusalem was on their bucket list. Their vocation was to notice when the divine was on the move and, from what we can tell, they were experts in that particular field. But just because they were smart in one area doesn’t mean they were smart about everything else. And so when they went to the place where they assumed a new born king would be, they ended up interrupting a ruler whose ego, vanity, lust for power and love of money had no idea Jesus was already born. 

The magi’s visit to Herod was, for him, unnerving and completely unexpected. Herod had, through political maneuvering and lots of violence, worked hard to be installed by the Romans as king over parts of Judea, Galilee, Syria, and Jordan. The magi’s message made it seem as if he had, somehow, lost Rome’s favor and was being replaced or that a revolution was brewing among those he was supposed to rule. What Herod needed was information and so he pulled together a group of advisors to see what they knew. From our perspective, what they shared pointed to God’s intervention in our world. Yet it’s probable those speaking and listening to these words assumed it was something else. Chief priests were, at this time, appointed by Roman governors and while some were hopeful the Messiah would come, there was no standard template or checklist for who that Messiah might be. All Herod heard was how word was flowing his power would be undone so he responded by being who he chose to be. He tried to convince the magi to be his spies, lying to their faces by saying all he wanted to do was honor the newborn king. Herod used misinformation, fear, and violence to try and hold onto his power. And while the magi, at first, agreed to follow Herod’s way, they resisted by choosing another way to honor a God they didn’t necessarily believe in. They wouldn’t let God’s show be interrupted by the whims of a tyrant because when push came to shove, they refused to be anything other than who they were. 

These magi were not experts over all areas of life but when the divine showed up, that, rather than their ego, comfort, or desire for safety, would be their way. Life offers us many different ways to move through the world. And we’re told that with the right attitude, right plan, right bank account, right friends, right politics, right faith, and even the right body, we can right our life. Yet this “right” way is often the wrong way since it chooses to center our fear, our anxieties, our worries, and our need for control rather than our God. Sometimes the only way through is by being who God declared you to be. And you are, in baptism and faith, a beloved child of God and follower of Jesus Christ. Life isn’t only about getting what we can out of it or by trying to maximize every moment and every relationship. God has, instead, brought you into a love that has claimed you as God’s own. We, because of God, are part of God’s show and we get to live that out by paying attention to how God chooses to move. The divine comes not in displays of power or might but in mercy, in hope, in care, in listening, in openness, in integrity, in laughter, in perseverance, in patience, and in a willingness to not assume we’re supposed to be the expert in all things. God’s show moves through a love that is who we get to be. When the Harlem Wizards noticed that the medical emergency was over, they knew what they planned would no longer work. They very easily could have just called it a night. What they did instead was to be who they were by bringing a little joy into a very tense and highly emotional space. Even though the show they expected to perform had been interrupted, they leaned into who they could be. And we, in our own way, get to do the same by letting Jesus’ way of hope, peace, and grace be what we bring into the lives of our friends, our families, our neighbors, and everyone around the world. 

Amen.

¹³Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” ¹⁴Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt ¹⁵and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”
¹⁶When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the magi. ¹⁷Then what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
¹⁸“A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”
¹⁹When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, ²⁰“Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” ²¹Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. ²²But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. ²³There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazarene.”

Matthew 2:13-20

My sermon from the First Sunday of Christmas (December 28, 2025) on Matthew 2:13-20.

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So as I hinted at during my children’s sermon, today’s reading from the gospel according to Matthew isn’t what we might consider to be a Christmas story. This season is supposed to be about twinkling lights, presents, and losing ourselves in Hallmark movie marathons. But since the beginning of the early church, all of life – including the parts full of sorrow and grief – have been included in our worship. For at least 1500 years, Herod’s rage and Jesus living as a refugee in Egypt have been major feast days in the church’s calendar. The questions raised by this moment in Jesus’ young life weren’t seen as something to be pushed aside in favor of things that are jolly and bright. Rather, what this hard story revealed was a little bit of what Christmas is all about. And to help see that, we might want to recall some of the Christmas carols we’ve been binging this holiday season.  Songs such as Feliz Navidad, O,Holy Night, and Joy to the World have a way of using music and poetry to stir our spirits and souls. Songs have a way of making us feel seen and known in gospel-centric ways. Some of the earliest pieces of writing we have in our Bible are songs sung by faith-filled people. And a carol that comes from Coventry, England is one that might have been on our personal playlists at home. “Coventry Carol” as it is known is an old song that was written for a Christmas pageant. We’re not quite sure when these pageants first started in the city but we know people were talking about them by the year 1392. In the 1530s, the pageant’s director and manager decided to write down a script for the pageant that included some of the recent changes he had made. The director, Robert Croo (or Crow), took what came before him and added to it by updating the language, tightening the writing, and enhancing how the story was staged. Within his manuscript was a scene that took place immediately after Joseph was warned by an angel to take his family to Egypt. Three women walk onto the stage and sing what sounds like a lullaby. The softness of the words and the tenderness of the music might bring us a sense of comfort and peace. Yet whatever we’re feeling is then quickly replaced by a sense of dread when we realize Herod the King, in all his raging, has charged his men of might to commit an atrocity. Rather than being a carol that lets Christmas be primarily a sentimental moment, it reminds us that when God’s love shows up, something radical begins. 

And the radical thing we see is what love chooses to be. Rather than define oneself only through strength and might, God chose to be vulnerable and require others’ care. God came not with a sword and spear but with a willingness to embrace those we believe to be unworthy. That’s not usually how we – or our world – usually works. We tend to let our actions, deeds, and points of view center ourselves at the expense of everyone else. Life, grace, wealth, intelligence, goodness, power, might, and blessings are – in our mind – limited resources we hoard for ourselves. There’s only so much to go around and grabbing what we can is how we keep our fears, anxieties, and worries at bay. We don’t really believe that vulnerability, humility, and fragility makes humanity beautiful. And so God chooses to be who God always will be and becomes the human we refuse to be. Herod, in response, chooses to be himself too. But rather than embracing his vulnerability and lay claim to his humanity, Herod could only see God’s movement in the world as a threat to himself. Herod had, after all, backed the winning side in the Roman civil war and was rewarded by being made king over a large chunk of ancient Israel, Palestine, Syria, and Jordan. For over thirty years, he built cities, palaces, and turned the Holy Temple in Jerusalem into one of the largest religious complexes in the world. Herod had no problem using violence to keep hold of the life he built. And rather than going to bear witness to the life God put on, Herod ended the lives of so many others instead. 

Now it’s at this point in the story when we get a song that, in its own way, feels like another scary lullaby. A word from the prophet Jeremiah invites us to look to Rachel who, in the book of Genesis, was the second wife of Jacob. But during the time of Jeremiah, Rachel was seen as a kind of matriarch for the entire Israelite people. When the Babylonians destroyed the city of Jerusalem in the year 586 BCE and sent its people into exile, the city of Ramah served as a staging ground before the community was led away to the Euphrates river. Six hundred years before Jesus was born, the children of Israel were consumed by an ancient empire. And when Jesus entered into the world, that old story of violence and suffering continued. We shouldn’t read Matthew’s citing of Jeremiah as a prophecy justifying what Herod did. The children around Bethlehem didn’t have to die to make Christmas come. Instead, the heartbreaking lullaby embodied in the Coventry Carol and expressed through Rachel’s weeping revealed why God’s love shows up in the first place. Rather than letting us be the ones who determine what our story might be, God came to change what our tomorrow would be. Our love of violence, anger, and self-centeredness will no longer be what defines us. And while we will continue to do what we can to hoard life as a way to secure our own future, Jesus comes to push us into a new reality where love, mercy, and forgiveness rule. Too often we let the weeping and lullabies of mothers become too much of our human story. But instead of letting that be our end, Jesus went through the end we create for ourselves and others. Rather than letting the taking of life be what being human is all about, Jesus pushes us to notice how we’re already part of so much more. In baptism and through faith, your life has been united with the life lived out in Jesus Christ. And if his mercy, love, and forgiveness are truly part of who you are, we then get to bring that kind of life to all children, mothers, fathers, guardians, and everyone in this world since – because of Christ – they truly are beloved children of God. 

Amen.

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. ² This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. ³ All went to their own towns to be registered. ⁴ Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. ⁵ He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. ⁶ While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. ⁷ And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place in the guest room.
⁸ Now in that same region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹ Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: ¹¹ to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” ¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,
¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
    and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

¹⁵ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” ¹⁶ So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger. ¹⁷ When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child, ¹⁸ and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them, ¹⁹ and Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰ The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told them.

Luke 2:1-20

My sermon from Christmas Eve (December 24, 2025) on Luke 2:1-20.

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A couple nights ago around midnight, my dog – Pepper – needed to go out. I put on my biggest coat and warmest boots before the two of us headed out into the cold crisp air. The recent wind storms had pushed the clouds, haze, and pollution away so I saw more stars than usual. While we walked, I started to count them which didn’t take very long. Even though the wind blew through this area with a vengeance, the light from our cities, cars, and all those LED icicles hanging off the gutters on our homes overwhelms all the light that took hundreds and thousands of years to get here. It’s not always easy to remember if we wanted to look up and see what the shepherds outside Bethlehem saw 2000 years ago, we’d need to drive, fly, or sail hundreds of miles into the middle of nowhere and turn out the lights. Then, after giving our eyes a minute to adjust, we’d witness the entire cosmos come to life. A wispy ribbon of light from the top to the bottom would reveal our place in the Milky Way while thousands upon thousands of white, blue, red, and orange twinkling lights would look more grand than any Christmas tree. But for those shepherds who spent their lives on the boundary between civilization and the wilderness, what we have to work so hard to see was, to them, completely normal. A night sky full of stars, planets, asteroids, supernovas, and comets from all over the universe was a part of their everyday life. And yet, one night, while they were busy doing what they always did, the sky above them suddenly changed. 

Now we know, during the time of Jesus and even today, being a shepherd wasn’t easy. The work was difficult, dangerous, and required protecting animals from predators, sudden storms, and anything else life threw their way. Most shepherds, especially the ones located near a city, would be handling sheep that belonged to someone else and it’s possible some of them were enslaved. These shepherds worked on their own or as part of a team and couldn’t always count on each other having their back. And when the sky grew dark and the rest of us went to bed, their work had only begun. Shepherds were necessary but they didn’t always find dignity in a world that refused to value who they were. But then, on that very first Christmas Eve, while some wondered how difficult that night might be, something unexpected shimmered along with the light that traveled light-years to get here. An angel – a messenger from God – showed up and these shepherds were terrified. We don’t imagine angels as something frightening since these messengers from God embody God’s peace and care. Angels, we assume, are strong but gentle, soft and mighty. Luke, though, gives us a word to help picture what this moment was like. After this first angel appeared, the sky was filled with a divine symphony we’re told was a host. In the Bible, a host isn’t the one who invited you to a party or takes you to your seat at a restaurant. The host the shepherds saw was an army. The angel who announced Jesus’ birth wasn’t a soft beam of light with large feathery wings like something out of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life. This angel was armed with everything needed to keep the night and the Roman Empire at bay. And then, after sharing a few words, this angel was joined by a bazillion friends, looking like an invasion force that was about to descend. This host was God’s version of light pollution and the only thing these shepherds could do was cower in fear. But while they waited for them to lower their spears and announce Doom had come, the angelic army started singing a song. It wasn’t, however, a warrior’s song about what God was about to do. It was, instead, music about what God had already done. While the shepherds were busy tending to their everyday life, taking care of their responsibilities, and dreaming of what might happen when the dawn finally broke, the One who they didn’t know was on its way was already here. 

So after that kind of announcement, it would be reasonable to expect their meeting Jesus would be full of light too. The sign they were given was, though, a tad ordinary. They would find the One meant to heal the world not in the beauty of creation or showing off an overwhelming expression of might. Instead, a baby wrapped in cloth and resting in an animal’s food dish would be what they were given. Life is a miracle and before the invention of vaccines, modern medicine, and prenatal care, surviving giving birth was a miracle too. These shepherds, though, had seen life happen and so I wouldn’t be surprised if they expected something bigger when they knocked on a stranger’s front door. After seeing soldiers in the sky armed and ready to fight, they probably emotionally prepared themselves to see another armed angel, prophet, priest, or king ablaze in divine energy and power. The light that shined would glitter off the gold, silver, and wealth a newborn king should have. But the only light in that space wasn’t going to blot out the night sky. The light to help the shepherds see how the Divine entered the world was an overworked cooking fire. While the shepherds were living their life, tending the sheep, helping their friends, and staring at the ribbon of light they saw every night, Christmas came through a young family sleeping with animals in a house that wasn’t their own. The God who made the Milky Way, who would do the work of reconciling our lives and our world, didn’t come with a sword and spear. The very first experience of God’s kingdom come near was in One who needed protection, care, and love. 

Now I know not all our Christmas’ will be full of light this year. We might not have hung every bulb or wreath we wanted and too many of us are spending tonight in hospital rooms and rehab centers. The sparkle, glitter, and shine of this sanctuary is a tiny reflection of the Christmas we want where the Milky Way is lost in all kinds of light. Yet we might also want to do anything we can to make tonight’s sorrow, grief, and worry go away. It’s hard to not internalize and believe that if we’re not the right amount of jolly, happy, and doing what we can to hide how we feel, that we’ll ruin Christmas for ourselves and those around us. But God’s love came not because we’ve been particularly faithful, awesome, or because we’re on Santa’s nice list. Christmas came because the world – and you – deserve a new chapter full of grace, mercy, and hope. The Christmas that came to Mary and Joseph, that was announced to the Shepherds, and that we live out in so many imperfect ways, in the words of Kate Bowler, is a “Love that remakes the whole world, [a love that’s] not quick and efficient, but slow and human. [It’s a] Love that needs to be changed and fed and rocked back to sleep. [And it’s a] Love that will grow up to sit with outcasts, to weep at grave sides, and promise nothing – not even death – can separate us from the heart of God.” For every Christmas that sparkles as bright as looking up in the sky in the middle of nowhere on a crystal clear night and for those Christmases that don’t – trust you are already part of what God is up to in the world. And we are here not to try and create the kind of light that blocks out the stars in the sky but to sing of how God’s light will always show how you, your neighbors, the world, and the entire universe really are treasured by God. 

Amen.

¹⁸ 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 pregnant from the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to divorce 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 become pregnant and give birth to 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 given birth to a son, and he named him Jesus.

Matthew 1:18-25

My sermon from the Fourth Sunday of Advent (December 21, 2025) on Matthew 1:18-25.

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We might currently be knee deep in shopping, wrapping presents, hanging lights, and feeling as if Christmas is already here. But here at the church, we’re still waiting for a Roman Emperor to call a census, for a pregnant teenager to walk her way to Bethlehem, and for angels to let shepherds know what God the new thing God is up to. When we think of a faithful Christmas, the details, drama, colors, and excitement are what we find in the gospel according to Luke. He, very faithfully, elevated the experience of Mary – Jesus’ mother – which wasn’t necessarily a very Biblical thing to do. The Christmas story, though, also comes from another book in our Bible. The gospel according to Matthew focused mostly on depicting what happened after Jesus was born which is why we hear about the visit of the magi, Herod’s incredible thirst for violence, and Jesus then spending his early childhood as a refugee in Egypt. But we do, in Matthew, get to learn about how Joseph needed to figure out what to do about all of this too. Joseph is a bit of an unknown since he’s only present at the beginning of Matthew and Luke before disappearing from Jesus’ story. Over the centuries, our imagination, culture, and art has depicted him as a gentle old soul with the integrity and strength to be the caregiver Jesus needed. But my personal favorite pop culture exploration of who Joseph might have been doesn’t come from a painting or a movie. It is, instead, from a song by power pop indie supergroup known as The New Pornographers.

Now this band’s sound has been described as “peppy, gleeful, headstrong guitar pop” and they’ve been active for almost 30 years. Around the year 2007, they released a 3 song Christmas themed EP called “The Spirit of Giving.” Sandwiched between the title track and the last song “Arms of Mary / Looking at a Baby,” is a 3 minute and 1 second post punk song entitled “Joseph, Who Understood.” What I appreciate most about this song is how it invites us to let Joseph be human. Rather than making him into a stoic figure who simply accepts what happened to him, Joseph has feelings, questions, doubts, and concerns. He didn’t only possess the faith we wish we had; a faith that can easily accept a future we didn’t realize was on its way. Joseph, instead, was a person who needed to do the very human thing of mourning the unrealized tomorrow the angel’s words formed in his heart. He thought he already knew what his future with Mary might be. But then, as the song begins, he’s honest about what this experience was like for him. “Rumors are flying all over Galilee” and while Joseph is trying to stay cool, “when his friends walk by, they can’t even look him in the eye.” Joseph was trying to listen, believe, and trust what his betrothed told him. But he also confessed he’s being asked to believe in way too many things. He wasn’t, I think, trying to shut down Mary or act as if what she said wasn’t true. He was, rather, admitting it sometimes takes time, energy, and work to really be transformed. It would be awesome if a true word, story, or experience another person shared with us would immediately upend whatever false expectations or assumptions we hold. Yet it often takes time to push through our own expectations and our need to be defensive when our soul becomes uncomfortable. What was shared might make us feel incredibly guilty about what we’ve done in the past or we might realize we’re maybe not as good as we thought we were. It’s not always easy to accept how our intent matters way less than the actual impact our actions and words actually have. And while we might assume a word from an angel would immediately change us, it can sometimes take a bit more time for the Word to finally break through. Joseph, then, in the very next verse of the song, named this truth out loud. He already heard how this child was sent to heal our broken time and there are some things way bigger than what we know. Joseph even throws in a little joke, declaring “when somehow you find out that you are stepfather to a God – well, Mary, that’s life.” And yet at the heart of his emotions, feelings, and experience is a phrase he then repeats over and over again. Joseph sings outloud: Oh, Mary, is he mine?

And that question is, I think, our question too. When we take seriously the entirety of Jesus’ story and of God’s activity in our world and in our lives, do we really trust Jesus is ours? I’m not trying to make faith into a choice we do on our own. Rather, when we take the fullness of ourselves seriously, do we believe – with all our doubts, questions, sin, and ways we get in the way of noticing what God is up to – can we really lean into the God-who-is-with-us. There might be folks who from the tips of their toes to the top of their heads can hold tight to who they know God to be. But I’ll admit that even I, a professional religious person and pastor, struggles with this too. When I think about all the stories, in the words of historian Kate Bowler, that shouldn’t be told – such as the story of a child who doesn’t get to grow up; the story of parents left to piece together a future they never asked for; the story of a world that doesn’t quite know how to sit with suffering; and the story of everyone carrying something heavy today – such as a diagnosis, a goodbye, or a future that no longer exists – the most faithful thing you and I can do is wonder if Jesus really is ours. And instead of rushing through the discomfort to seek the assurance that ignores the life we live, we’re invited to let Joseph’s story be our story too. We can let the space between the periods and the start of each sentence in Matthew be full of every fear, doubt, and worry. Rather than putting our trust in how strong our faith feels, we can admit it’s only God who saves. And while we want our experience of faith to withstand whatever might come, even Joseph and Mary were full of questions and doubts too. If the ones who raised Jesus needed to be given the faith to help them care for the One who would go to the Cross for us and for the world, it’s okay for you to trust God will give you that same kind of faith too. As we live and listen and love and serve, as we wonder and question and worry and hope, as we live the life God has given us to show ourselves and others what God’s love will always do, it’s often in the most surprising moments when our questions suddenly change. And then we, like Joseph, will find ourselves unexpectedly moving from “is Jesus mine?” to realizing that since Jesus has made us his own, we get to make Jesus our own too.

Amen.

² When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples ³ and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” ⁴ Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: ⁵ 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. ⁶ And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

⁷ As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? ⁸ What, then, did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. ⁹ What, then, did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. ¹⁰ This is the one about whom it is written,
‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
    who will prepare your way before you.’
¹¹ “Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist, yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

Matthew 11:2-11

My sermon from the Third Sunday of Advent (December 14, 2025) on Matthew 11:2-11.

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Now for the last few weeks, I’ve been drawn to the passages from Isaiah our lectionary – the three year cycle of readings we use in worship – has given us. I see within these words a hope our lives and our world often needs. The prophet Isaiah, who lived 700 years before Jesus’ birth, made the word of God come to life in a community that felt like it was turning in on itself as it anxiously watched the Assyrian Empire destroy ten out of the twelve tribes of Israel. The people assumed the hope they needed was in simply finding the right kind of soldiers, technology, wealth, and friends to stop what was just over the horizon. And so in the race to win, they hoarded for themselves whatever they could, turning their backs on the most vulnerable in their community. God, though, refused to let their lack of care and justice be the end of the story and so Isaiah was sent to announce how accountability was on its way. Isaiah’s words lingered long after his ministry and people used those words to process the challenges, struggles, and opportunities they were living through. That’s why, 160 years or so after Isaiah’s death, the Jewish community who had been exiled by another empire – the Babylonians – and realized they might soon return to Jerusalem used Isaiah’s words to speak into their current reality. The words we heard about deserts blooming and a highway being built probably came from this later period. The community used words forged in a time of fear, anxiety, and worry, to find hope when things were hard. The hope they longed for was more than trying to manifest or wishcast a future where everything was okay. What they needed was a word and a promise that could hold them even when they couldn’t even imagine what okay might be. Isaiah, who had no problem pointing out the community’s need to make welcome, mercy, and grace the core of who they were, also knew what this kind of hope might do. It was a hope that could push them into a future they couldn’t see. And it was that kind of John, in our reading today from the gospel according to Matthew, also needed as he waited in prison to hear if Jesus was who he wanted him to be. 

Now as we heard last week, John’s ministry involved dressing in camel hair, eating bugs, and baptizing folks by the River Jordan while embodying the fullness of who God called him to be. John’s words weren’t always the most pastoral and he wasn’t above name calling to get someone’s attention. Folks, however, listened to him and he soon formed his own group of disciples who followed him wherever he went. John in our Bible never identified himself as the Messiah but he hoped the One who would fix everything would soon be on their way. John imagined the Messiah would, in a very real way, upend the relationship we had with our God and with one another. Our lack of kindness, justice, and our unwillingness to be for one another would be replaced by something more. Yet here, not long after we watched Jesus visit John in the wilderness, everything changed. King Herod Antipas, one of King Herod the Great’s children, arrested John and put him in prison. John, it seems, wasn’t afraid of calling out negative behavior by those in power. After being targeted by John’s words and actions for quite awhile, Antipas threw him in jail. Even though the Roman Empire decided who would rule in all the territories they called their own, people would do all they could to gain power and influence. Herod’s family long had a history of using violence, corruption, and inheritance laws around marriages as a way to convince Rome they were the ones who could keep taxes and soldiers freely flowing into the arms of the Empire. Ancient sources tell us that, at some point, Antipas and his brother’s wife Herodias, decided to marry even though they were already married to other people. From what we can tell, their divorces went through even though a woman being the driving force behind her own divorce was seen as very strange. Rumors, though, persisted and many thought their arrangement was unethical, unlawful, and wrong. John was one of those who was very against what Antipas was up to and that quickly got under the skin of those in power. Antipas, I think, was a ruler who cared about what other people thought of him and his power, wealth, and status mattered more than anything else. When he couldn’t quiet John, he thought shutting him in prison might get him to change his tune. Yet while John waited behind bars, visitors told him about how his arrest kicked off the ministry of a man named Jesus. These words probably gave John a sense of hope since it looked like God was on the move. And so he sent his disciples to Jesus to see if he really was the hope John needed him to be. 

And it’s at that moment when something very heartbreaking happened. The disciples found Jesus and he told them to report back everything they saw and heard. From our perspective, it appeared as if Jesus was merely letting his actions do all the talking. But what Jesus told them was very specific since it was the same thing the prophets and Psalms used to describe who the Messiah would be. Their words were very formulaic and those who knew their Bible would have easily recognized what Jesus was saying. The One who John believed would fix everything would make the blind see, allow the deaf hear, help the lame walk, cure those with skin diseases, and set the prisoners free. We can almost imagine John, sitting in prison, checking off each word in the formula while his disciples shared everything Jesus said. But when they got to the end, John would have noticed Jesus said nothing about those in prison being set free. Jesus, in other contexts, talked about setting prisoners free so we know he knew the formula. Yet here, at this particular moment and while talking to someone in prison, Jesus stayed quiet. Both John and Jesus knew the power of what wasn’t said and I imagine it broke Jesus’ heart to not share what John wanted to hear. And while we might want to explore, in detail, why Jesus didn’t say what John assumed he would say, I wonder if – during this season of hope – if it might be more fruitful to just sit with the experience John had. We all, I think, know what it’s like for hope to change. Life has a way of moving forward but that doesn’t always mean everything will get immediately better. The hope we want is a hope that will fix whatever crisis, sorrow, or heart break devouring our souls. Yet the hope we need is, I think, a hope big enough to hold us when going through – rather than getting better – is the only thing we really can do. This kind of hope doesn’t pretend as if life doesn’t happen or imagines our life to merely be some kind of straight line defined by us getting better physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Rather the hope of Isaiah, the hope of John, and the hope embodied by the crucified One is meant to hold us even when our hearts remain unmended. It’s a hope that trusts every part of our story – the good, the bad, those moments when our tomorrow looks bright and those times when there’s no going back to being okay – when all of us are wrapped up in the story God is already writing for you and the world. You, no matter what, belong to God even if we can’t quite see what our immediate tomorrow might be. And while living with that kind of hope is hard, our hope is always connected to the One who – in spite of all kinds of violence, fear, pain, and even death – still lives which means we – today and tomorrow – will live too. 

Amen.

A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
    and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
² The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
    the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    the spirit of counsel and might,
    the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
³ His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see
    or decide by what his ears hear,
⁴ but with righteousness he shall judge for the poor
    and decide with equity for the oppressed of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
    and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
⁵ Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist
    and faithfulness the belt around his loins.
⁶ The wolf shall live with the lamb;
    the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the lion will feed together,
    and a little child shall lead them.
⁷ The cow and the bear shall graze;
    their young shall lie down together;
    and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
⁸ The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
    and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
⁹ They will not hurt or destroy
    on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
    as the waters cover the sea.
¹⁰ On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.

Isaiah 11:1-10

My sermon from the Second Sunday of Advent (December 7, 2025) on Isaiah 11:1-10.

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In front of my house is a plant whose leaves are turning brown. Small spots have shown up on each leaf, devouring all the green it can see. This plant, which is a rhododendron (row·duh·den·druhn), isn’t supposed to be doing this yet this specific plant has browned before. When it first happened, I did a lot of research and talked to a few experts who assured me it was at its end. So one afternoon, I took my garden shears and cut it down, leaving a small stump on the ground. I chose, out of sheer laziness, to leave it there, planning to take care of it once spring rolled around. Yet when that future finally arrived, a green shoot suddenly sprouted. The plant’s tomorrow was, I thought, already decided and life wasn’t on its agenda. It was, however, still growing and it soon bloomed with several bright pink and purple flowers showering others with beauty, grace, and hope. 

Now today’s reading from the book of Isaiah also includes a stump that showed signs of new life. These words, since they come from the first 39 chapters of this book, probably originated with the prophet Isaiah who lived approximately 700 years before Jesus’ birth. During Isaiah’s forty years of ministry, he watched the Assyrian Empire destroy ten out of the twelve tribes of Israel before turning its attention towards Jerusalem. Those in power, at the time, did all they could to survive. They formed alliances with nearby communities, strengthened their fortifications, increased the size of their military, and believed God was completely on their side. Isaiah, though, noticed that in their race to win the game they were playing that mercy, forgiveness, and justice were often in short supply. Those who were struggling to find food, access opportunities, and receive any kind of care were pushed aside and scapegoated as being a drain on the entire community. Rather than being for one another, folks turned on each other, trusting that their power, wealth, and strength would be what would finally save them. The community that saw itself as vibrant and full of life was instead, covered in spots that kept growing and growing. 

And so it was in this context when Isaiah used in his preaching the image of a dried up stump. Whatever energy, vibrancy, and life this plant had was long gone. The stump served as a metaphor for the hope the community had when the son of Jesse, David, was anointed king 300 years before Isaiah was born. Their future, at the time, seemed almost endless and they couldn’t wait to see how everything would turn out. Things, however, did not go according to plan and the community’s faith and calling to care for one another was replaced by violence, suffering, and fear. The people, over and over again, chose to hoard life rather than share it and viewed each other with suspicion rather than sharing their love and support. The future the community built and trusted in would, according to Isaiah, never come. But rather than letting this be the end to its story, God chose to do something different. God wouldn’t merely judge those who failed to embody the mercy at the core of who their God chooses to be. God would keep creating by building the tomorrow we deny to ourselves and others. God will raise up a new royal figure who wouldn’t do what we do by using our power to inflict our will on those around us. Instead, this new king would be the wonderful counselor and prince of peace who builds a future for every person. God’s possibilities are always a kind of  equalizer since the poor, the vulnerable, and the pushed aside will always be worth God’s intervention. And that’s because God imagines a world where the ways we devour one another for comfort and security are replaced by a reality where lions live with baby sheep, leopards hang out with defenseless goats, and children safely play in the home of a poisonous snake. When we let our future stay rooted in fear, selfishness, and a hopelessness that assumes everything depends on us, we end up covered in faithless spots that shape the relationship we have with ourselves, our neighbors, and with our God. 

Now it’s our tradition on the Sunday nearest December 7th to put two red roses on the altar as a way to recognize a couple whose vision for the future gave several communities in Northern New Jersey a different future too. Anna and Dominick Ricci were pillars of this community and whose lives were shaped by their various vocations. Anna worked for a number of years on Wall Street and Dominick was very visible in a variety of roles at the old grocery store known as the A&P. Their lives were very full and when they moved into their later years, I’m told they used their financial gifts to prepare for the future they assumed was on its way. Dominick thought he’d go first and so he made sure to pick a gravesite in a cemetery Anna could easily reach by bus. They both wanted each other to have enough for whatever might come their way. But when Anna passed first, Dominick found himself living in a future he didn’t expect. He could have hunkered down, focused on his immediate needs, and lose himself in what he didn’t have. Dominick, though, chose to use his gifts to help others have their own futures too. He wanted his legacy to allow the communities that mattered to him the opportunity to focus on their mission in the world. And so their ongoing gift is the foundation for our Special Gifts fund which we have used, in a variety of ways, to remove all kinds of spots we see in our world. The congregation has chosen to fund the work of groups responding to disasters, fighting against food insecurity, and those who are making a difference among all the vulnerable parts of God’s creation. The Riccis’ generosity has allowed us to keep this place welcoming and inviting so that community groups, Meals on Wheels, A.A., and the Girl Scouts can focus their energy on care and service. The foundation the Ricci’s gave us has enabled us to weather incredible storms and deepen our relationships with all who call Northern New Jersey home. And while there is tendency to want to anxiously hold tight to this gift whenever we’re worried about what our tomorrow might be, the power of the Ricci’s legacy is how we are always invited to trust that God’s more holy, peaceful, and generous future is already on its way. This doesn’t mean we should ignore our own generosity since recognizing what God gives to each of us shapes our lives and our faith. What we get to do, instead, is to let the future the Ricci’s clinged to be a future we believe in too. And whenever our lives, our community, and our world feels like its a dried stump covered in spots of greed, pride, and hatred devouring whatever hope we have left, we can trust that the God who was willing to be born, live, love, die, and rise is still here – creating a different tomorrow for you and for the world. 

Amen.