text :: Luke 2: 1 - 20

theme verse :: “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host…” (Luke 2:13)

Sometimes standing isn’t possible. It is often pain or sadness or exhaustion that “takes your legs out from under you.” Sometimes it’s prayer that drives us to our knees – a position of humility and vulnerability. And yet, sometimes, we cannot stand for our sense of awe is too great. O Holy Night invites us all to “fall our knees,” that we might hear the angel voices and, with wide eyes, see the Divine night come to us again. Christ is born! Anything is possible!

preaching :: Rev Mark Briley

*****

'See Amid the Winter's Snow' (Forrest) :: Chancel Choir
'Gesu Bambino' (Yon) :: Kelly Ford, Susie Monger-Daugherty
'All Is Well' (Smith) :: Chancel Choir; Christina Maxwell, soloist
'O Holy Night' (Adams) :: Todd Maxwell, Susie Monger-Daugherty
'Silent Night' (Gruber/Mohr) :: Chancel Choir & Congregation

Luke 2:1-20
2 In those days a decree went out from Emperor 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 for them in the inn.

⁸ In that 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 But 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, as it had been told them.
* * * * *
And. Here. We. Are.  Christmas Eve. Can you believe it?  You are literally here… like a dot on the Directory Map at the Mall. I’m so glad you’re here.  I love this night. It really paints a beautiful picture of Christmas.  It’s full of friends and family come home.  There’s a light chill in the air and soon a candlelit room that can’t help but leave you hopeful.  There are many traditions associated with this night.  It’s a bit predictable in that way but there’s always a magical surprise or two as well.  Last year, I was pictured with some of the Phillips clan right after service who decided the baby Jesus needed to be announced with a little flair.
Isn’t that fun?

Something else happened last Christmas Eve that was not necessarily extraordinary to most but created a marvelous happenstance tradition for me and my middle son, Dane. The Brileys always have two vehicles here on Christmas Eve as I come early and stay late and Carrie and the kids come on their own.  The last couple of years, however, Dane has stayed late with me so we can ride home together. We park down the road a bit so that we don’t take up a parking spot in our lot for all of you who will be joining us. This makes for a nice, still-humming-silent-night stroll from the building to find our car was everyone has departed.  This has meant we walked past the pedestrian bridge that spanned over Harvard Avenue.  And with that wrap around ramp to get to the top, what kid wouldn’t want to run up there at night on Christmas Eve.  So… Dane and I have run up the ramp, stood in the middle of the bridge looking back at the church – now dark and silent with few, if any cars, driving underneath us.  We just stand there for a while, marveling at the events we just celebrated at the church, giving thanks for the gift of Christ, the mystery and miracle of it all. After the frenzied activity of the weeks leading to that celebrated moment, a silent moment with my son on that bridge was as sweet a moment of worship as I had come to know.  But… as you know if you’ve been around here a while at all, that pedestrian bridge was torn down just a couple of weeks ago after standing for nearly five decades. I’ll admit that my first thought when I learned the news was that I’d miss standing on that bridge with my son on Christmas Eve. Which prompted my second thought: “Where are we going to stand this year, to look back at the church, to marvel again at a holy and sacred night? How am I supposed to see Christmas now? As I was pondering that very thing, it led me to the question of Christmas Eve I’d like you to consider tonight. Where do you stand when you can no longer stand where you used to stand?  

This was now a bigger question than physically standing on a pedestrian bridge on Christmas Eve.  For you, this may be a disorienting Christmas.  Things are different this year. You are different this year.  The story of Christ never changes but we do so it hits us differently every year. The events and shifts and relationships and experiences and questions and mysteries and all that you’ve encountered since last Christmas shapes the way you approach this Christmas.  It changes your perspective.  You can no longer stand where you used to stand when it comes to looking at Christmas. You may be here… in this space on Christmas Eve but you may feel like you’re a million miles from Christmas.  I saw this picture recently taken by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit.  It’s the first ever picture of Earth from Mars and included the helpful Mall Directory note: “You are here.”  It is an image capturing a remarkable reality.  “You are here.”  A dot. 34 million miles away from a camera that fellow humans landed on another planet.  As marvelous as that is, it may represent in another way how you’re feeling about Christmas this year – distanced, small, unable to make out many of the details.

I wonder if Mary and Joseph felt a bit like that too.  They were on board with the game plan but who’s kidding who, there had to be some sense of pain and smallness to the whole thing too. They had no perspective other than the immediate. Christmas didn’t hold any of the tradition for them that it holds for us.  It was just the culmination of an unexpected promise with threats of exile from their family and community and death from the empire who was threatened by the word that a new King was coming.  Mary and Joe were surely both asking themselves the question, “Where do you stand when you can no longer stand where you used to stand?”  Everything was upended.  This was new territory. Joe wasn’t having a cigar out behind the stable.  They weren’t taking holy family selfies and snapchatting them out to their friends. They were probably just trying to survive that first Christmas.  Can you relate?  You’re sorting through the loss… the absence… the heartache.  It’s impossible to stand where you once stood in relation to Christmas.  Too much has changed and you’re just trying to get through it. Where do you stand when you can no longer stand where you used to stand?

The Shepherds had an entirely different set of concerns when it comes to where they stood with Christmas.  They’re on the hillside watching the flock as best they can.  As they’re downing a 5-hour Energy Drink to stay on their game, they’re blindsided by an angel choir which was not a typical occurrence on the night shift. The Shepherds were afraid.  The angel laid out for them what had occurred in Bethlehem and as much as they wanted to deny what they had experienced, they couldn’t shake the fact that it did.  They could no longer see the world the same way they did the day before. This news of a Messiah born in their neck of the woods – whether they wanted to believe it or not – was now on their radar and they would have to wrestle with such a reality.  Maybe you’re like the Shepherds.  You’re minding your own business in the world, getting’ yours, focused on the drive of the culture, the need to succeed, or just working the daily grind from 9-5 or even the night shift.  From where you stand, Christmas is of no significance. Who needs it? In fact, the only religion that interests you is religious satire that is good for a laugh.  One of my favorites of late was this artwork that says,  “As for me and my house, we will serve tacos.”  Book, chapter and verse?  Salsa 24:7. It’s easier to keep our spirit’s thirst at bay by laughing off faith as nothing more than a crutch for the weak. But then… the grind grows weary.  And money isn’t satisfying you the way you thought it would… and you’re maturing and something has shifted, maybe even a little bit, where the things you thought would fill you just don’t fill the void. There’s an emptiness… and for every hypocritical Christian you know that you can point to as reason you don’t do religion, there’s a spiritual desire in you to get closer to this Jesus – who without all the fanfare we put around religion – is really intriguing to you.  As much as you’d like to just bah humbug the whole thing, you’ve got this nudge in you that longs to confess (if even internally) … “I need something more.  I need God.”  You decide your cultural stance in life can’t be the end game to it all.  Where do you stand when you can no longer stand where you used to stand?

Whether we are forced by circumstances out of our control to get a different view of Christmas this year or we’re spiritually churning in a way that won’t allow us to move through another Christmas with a business as usual mentality… here. we. are. … seeking, wondering.  How will we stand with Christmas now?  Sometimes, when it comes to such a holy moment, we shouldn’t stand at all. That beautiful Christmas song that has been our focus this Advent season offers that very advice.  “Fall on your knees.  Hear the angel voices.  For on this night divine, Christ is born.”  Have you slowed your roll at all this season… to simply get on your knees and worship the Lord?  Have you celebrated the fact that you are not God and you don’t have to be?  Have you marveled at the wonders of what it means to be here, alive, seeking meaning and wholeness and purpose?  Sometimes, you have to position your life, even your very body, differently so that you can see that God is here and you are not alone. Sometimes you can’t understand where you stand until you’re not standing at all.

As I was starting college, I moved an hour from home and was looking to room with my older brother, Matt, at the Gatehouse Apartments in Columbia, Missouri.  It was not the nicest accommodations by any means and we didn’t have much stuff to make the place all that homey.  But… I was going to be out on my own for the first time, sorting out this new phase of my life.  No way things could look the same as they did before.  Life was moving on and I was going to have to decide how I would move along with it. The very first night I stayed in the apartment was before I had moved in.  It was just a scouting trip. I had come down to stay the night and look for a job that would support me while I was a student. Somebody had to pay the rent and buy the cans of tuna and generic cereal that fed us most meals. My brother was actually not going to be home that first night so I was going to be there alone.  That was okay but also left me with some of those uncertain feelings about being by myself in a strange place.  Not having my stuff there and Matt being gone, I went to lay down in his bed for the night.  When my head hit the pillow, I opened my eyes and behold, just a few inches from my face, was the windowsill that projected several inches out from the wall.  I was glad I hadn’t hit my head. It was a little tight. The bug light outside of the window brought enough light into the room through the broken blinds that I could tell there was something written on the underside of the windowsill.  In big letters, it simply read, “Matt was here.”  I shook my head a bit, and maybe even chuckled out loud.  You’ve seen that sort of thing on trees or picnic tables in the park or at a rustic camp cabin where kids stay for a week in the summer and leave their mark on the walls as proof of their experience.  But I laughed at the thought of my twenty-year old brother laying there in bed one night, grabbing a pen and scribbling the words, “Matt was here.”  As strange as it may seem… as simple as those three words were… it was the most beautiful gift to my soul in that moment.  My brother, whom I loved and admired and fought with and who had fought for me through all those years was strangely there with me.  I never would have seen that standing up.  Until I laid down, I could not sense his presence.

Sometimes, we have to put ourselves in position to receive the gift and reminder that we are not alone. Maybe falling on our knees this night is the humbling experience we need to receive Christmas as the gift it is intended to be.  When you approach the manger, you can’t really stand tall, towering over the innocence of the baby. There’s not much connection in that posture.  It’s mostly an obligatory viewing from a distance.  But when you fall on your knees next to that manger and you come close to Jesus, you can see things much clearer.  In fact, if you look close enough in that manger, you can surely read carved into the side of that wooden animal trough the words, “God is here.”

Where do you stand when you can no longer stand where you used to stand?  When it comes to Christmas, maybe you don’t stand at all.  You fall on your knees.

CHRIST IS BORN IN BETHLEHEM
a traditional cantata in concert

Deborah Gist, reader
Rev Mark Briley, liturgist

‘Ding! Dong! Merrily On High!’ (arr H.Morris)

‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ (F.Mendelssohn/arr C. Hamlin & F.Lopez)

‘Joy to the World’ (arr D.Johnson)

‘Angels From the Realms of Glory’ (arr D.Forrest)
– Billie Kay Sawyer & Susie Monger-Daugherty, duo piano

Isaiah 9: 6 – 7, 7:14

‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel’ (arr J.Rouse)
– Kathy Rad, cello

Luke 1: 26 – 35

‘Breath of Heaven’ (arr D.Hart)
– Ashley Pease, soloist

Luke 2: 8 – 14

‘Ding! Dong! Merrily On High!’ (arr H.Helvey)
– Billie Kay Sawyer & Susie Monger-Daugherty, duo piano

‘No Eye Had Seen’ (M.W.Smith)
– Greta Metzer, soprano saxophone

‘O Come, Let Us Adore Him’

Pastoral Prayer

Matthew 2: 1 – 2

‘We Three Kings’ (arr D.Hamilton)

‘All Is Well’ (M.W.Smith)
– Christina Maxwell, soloist

Luke 2: 22 – 23, 25 – 33

‘See Amid the Winter’s Snow’ (arr D. Forrest)

‘Sing Noel!’ (arr D.Hamilton)
– Morgan Briley, soloist

Joy to the World (CH#143)

‘Adeste Fideles’ (J.F.Wade/arr D.Hustad)

CHANCEL CHOIR
– Kelly Ford, Director –

– soprano : Yvonne Admire; Debbie Clary; Jenn Epperley; Margaret Erling; Danna Harrison; Janet Herndon; Christina Maxwell; Ashley Pease; Sue Phillips; Delia Pierson; Paulette Pogue; Marilyn Rhodes; Bet Wallace; Connie Wertz
– alto : Barbara Crider; Jean Jolly; Dana Mackay; Inez Major; Janet McKenzie; Elizabeth Palmieri; Marla Patterson; Cheryl Pease; Tammy Wood
– tenor : Dan Abel; Howard Frank; Bob Herndon; Todd Maxwell; Jim Womack; Brien Wood
– bass : Charlie Bennett; Rick Bohls; Geoff Brewster; Alan Crider; Joel Gist; Ron Lee; Andy McKenzie; Dick O’Neil; Dan Pease; Homer Pickhardt; Tom Rogers

AVENUE
– Barry Epperley, Director –

Susie Monger-Daugherty; Brad Epperley; Jenn Epperley; Kelly Ford; Andrea Gross; Kevin Howe; Ron Lee; Christina Maxwell; Todd Maxwell; Marla Patterson; Ashley Pease; Cheryl Pease; Dan Pease; Bet Wallace

HANDBELL CHOIR
– Andrew Dugan, Director –

Janet Briggs; Maggie Cornell; Suzy Crockett; Ashley Gibson; Shari Gibson; Christina Maxwell; Pat Maxwell; Elizabeth Palmieri; Bettye Rosenlieb; Nancy Shannon; Sally Warrington

ORCHESTRA

piano – Billie Kay Sawyer
piano/organ – Susie Monger-Daugherty

violin 1 – Gina Davis; Greg Lynch; Michael Nicholson
violin 2 – Patti Gaddis; Kelley Pride Mason; Jennifer Sherman

viola – Sheri Scales Neubauer; Phil Wachowski

cello – Pete Peterson; Kathy Rad

bass – Marc Facci

timpani/percussion – Jerry Scholl

soprano saxophone – Greta Metzer

audio engineer – Tom Jurena

text :: Luke 1:39-45

theme verse :: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” (Luke 1:45)

"You better sing!” is the encouragement of Jennifer Hudson, one of four coaches on The Voice, when she is really moved by a contestant’s singing. Most people, even those without any musical talent, find joy in music. You’ve likely been so moved in hearing someone sing that you felt what JHud feels even if you couldn’t verbalize it that way. “You better sing!” It’s a feeling. It’s passion! It’s freedom! It’s joy! As in, “You better praise God!” “You better keep it up!” “You better sing!” It’s not a threat. It’s not an “or else.” It’s “how could you not?!!” This season brings out all the feels when it comes to music. O Holy Night calls them “sweet hymns of joy.” What do you call them? Do you have a song? You better sing!

offertory :: 'The Little Road to Bethlehem' (M.Head/M.Rose) :: Susie Monger Daugherty, vocal; Billie Kay Sawyer, piano

reader :: Jane Whitt
preaching :: Rev Mark Briley

special music :: 'Joyful Joyful' (arr.TheBrilliance) :: The Rising Band; Isaac Herbert, leader

Do you speak fluent emoji?  It seems you’re either a fan of the image-based communication icons or… well… you’re not. Emoji is a Japanese word. It’s plural, though debated in the United States, is also emoji… like the plural of sushi is also sushi.  Emoji.  I was curious if Rosetta Stone, the language software company that can help you learn a foreign language in a jiffy, offered any help with emoji.  Surely not, I thought. But indeed, they are open to the possibility.  The company put out an article that says emoji are a linguistic evolution all about making communication more efficient. How ‘bout that?!!  If Rosetta Stone moves forward to create a guide to what all these emoji mean, such could really be helpful.  After all, how often have you received a text with a string of emoji that you just have no clue what message someone is trying to communicate to you. We play the decipher the mother-in-law text game all the time at my house.  My mother-in-law loves her string of emoji for any messaging occasion.  There’s a lot of random ones that get thrown into her usual string of about a dozen per text but you can be sure you’ll always get a bouquet of flowers and an American flag emoji.  It doesn’t matter if she simply texts “How’s your day going?” or “My cat just died.” You can be sure what follows is a series of emoji that, at minimum, include a bouquet of flowers, thumbs up, party hat, praise hands, American flag, and an unidentifiable rodent.  It’s a hoot every time.  But such confusion can get you in trouble.

The Wall Street Journal shared a story earlier this year about a Deakin Law School study.  The study discussed a case in Israel that involved a couple looking for an apartment. After they had seen a particular apartment, the couple texted the landlord a series of emojis, including a smiley face, a comet, a champagne bottle, dancing yellow Playboy bunnies and a chipmunk. The landlord believed, based in part on the emojis, that the couple had agreed to rent the apartment. He took down the listing only to later sue them when they stopped responding to his messages.  A judge found in favor of the landlord, reasoning the couple had negotiated in bad faith, and fined them a month’s rent as damages, according to the Deakin study.[1] How ‘bout that?!!!  And, you’re probably asking yourself by now, who cares?  Maybe nobody but as I was approaching this third Sunday of Advent, JOY Sunday, I couldn’t help but think of my favorite emoji:Do you know what that emoji is supposed to communicate? I probably gave it away already but that’s okay.  I always thought it meant you were cry-laughing – you know, you’re laughing so hard that tears just flow. And I think that’s pretty much the idea, but I looked it up and it is most accurately intended to represent uncontrollable joy.  And who doesn’t love uncontrollable joy?  It generally means guards have been put down, all fear is abandoned and this contagious connection between you and the sender of that uncontrollable joy is satisfying.  I want that for you this morning… on JOY Sunday… also known as Gaudete Sunday – a Latin word meaning rejoice. While we still carry a spirit of waiting this season and maybe even a weariness that things in our lives still exist in tension and conflict and challenge… Gaudete Sunday is where we begin to make the turn toward the manger. It is why the advent wreath candle we light today is pink instead of purple.  It’s Advent’s hump day – the time we turn from expectation to celebration. The rose candle invites us to intentionally make the turn with expectant confidence that what has been promised will come to pass.  It’s an invitation into uncontrollable joy. And the RSVP on that invitation was for today’s worship gathering.  I want our guards to be relaxed, our fears released, our connection to the coming Christ and each other to be full of joy.

We get this in our scripture text today as we’ve rewound the tape a bit from last week when we celebrated the birth of John the Baptist with his folks, Zechariah and Elizabeth.  We drop back in the story to Mary’s visit to her relative, Elizabeth; cousins perhaps.  Mary has just had the obligatory angel visit herself.  Gabriel says, “Mary – you’re up.  Game time. You will bear the Messiah.”  If that isn’t shocking enough, Gabriel thickens the plot for Mary saying, “And guess what else – you’re much older, but lovely, cousin, Beth is six months into her own pregnancy even though she was said to be barren.  How ‘bout them apples?!!!”  Teenage Mary looks up from her smart phone but doesn’t say, “Wha’dyousay?”  She was hanging on every word and responds: “I’m in.  May your word be true.”  What do you do when you get a visit like that?  Mary bolts for the hills to go see Elizabeth with a million thoughts buzzing through her head.  She’s got to be feeling her stomach with some confusion about what’s happening in her own body.  But then there’s this news about Elizabeth.  Surely that’s not true. She had not received any invitation to a baby shower. There were no social media posts of Zechariah and Elizabeth’s empty Birkenstocks sitting next to some adorable empty little baby Birkenstocks with the announcement, “Coming in September.”  If she can get to Elizabeth and she is, in fact, give or take 24 weeks pregnant, then this would be some validation to Gabe’s word about what was taking place in her body as well.

Our brief focal text for today captures this confirmation moment between Elizabeth and Mary.  And their coming together can only be described as uncontrollable joy. Mary’s heart flutters at the sight of Elizabeth’s baby bump and Elizabeth knows instantly that her boy would be the forerunner of the child Mary was carrying. Beth could have been bitter – “Seriously, Mary?  I finally get my turn and you have to come overshadow our good news?”  But not at all. Elizabeth’s joy is not diminished by Mary’s own news.  In fact, it is enhanced.  Do you have that kind of joy?  The kind of joy that can celebrate another’s?  It is a disposition of joy… and Elizabeth’s got it.  How could you be an Elizabeth to someone else in your life right now?

Courtney purchased a print of this art piece this week that depicts the moment between Elizabeth and Mary.   The artist, Lauren Wright Pittman, said, “I wanted to depict the creative energy, communication, and power that was taking place in Mary and Elizabeth’s wombs in this moment. Mary’s womb swirls with the knitting together of the One through whom all things came into being, while Elizabeth’s womb radiates joy with the leaping of the one who will spend his life directing attention, awe and reverence to the One in Mary’s womb.”  And then she writes, “When we draw near to one another, we can recognize and proclaim God’s movement in one another’s lives and be encouraged in our own journey. When we draw near to one another, we live more fully into who we were created to be.”[2]  There is no space for envy on this journey… so root it out of your system by practicing joy.  Position yourself for joy.

Jim Stovall, Olympic weightlifter and accomplished author and advocate for the blind as he is blind himself, is a Tulsan and has made quite an impact in the world.  He recounts a moment backstage before a speaking event with Zig Ziglar.  He said, “I remember being backstage at an event where we were both speaking.  It seemed everything was going wrong with the lights, the sound and everything else surrounding that particular event.  Zig was greeting everyone backstage as he always did. ‘It’s a great day to be alive,’ he said. One of the stage hands said sarcastically, “Well, you’re in a good mood today, aren’t you?”  Zig abruptly turned, stared at the young man, and said, “Yes, sir. Many years ago, I decided to be in a good mood today.”[3]  How do people do that?  How might we position ourselves so that we can be a joyful presence in the world?  It’s worth thinking about.  Imagine how your encounters with others would change if from the onset you decided to bring the joy. Not annoyingly so, of course, but with authentic confidence. We all know someone who is sort of a Debbie the Downer… just always in a bad mood, always enduring terrible circumstances of some kind, always followed by a rain cloud. And this is not to say that we don’t have some of those seasons in our lives.  But positioning ourselves for joy means knowing what enlivens our spirits, charging that battery regularly, and then living with joy in the world.

Elizabeth offers Mary encouragement saying, “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” Some ancient authorities word it slightly differently instead of in the past tense but as a prophetic word of what was coming: “Blessed is she who believes, for there will be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”  Blessed is the one who is positioned for joy.  In this way, Elizabeth is sort of like Jennifer Hudson as a judge on The Voice.  Finale tomorrow night, as it happens.   Jennifer Hudson always offers the encouragement to a contestant’s singing that has moved her: “You better sing!”  Most people, even those without any musical talent, find joy in music. You’ve likely been so moved in hearing someone sing that you felt what JHud feels even if you couldn’t verbalize it that way. “You better sing!” she shouts!  It’s a feeling. It’s passion!  It’s freedom!  It’s uncontrollable joy!  It’s as if she’s saying, “You better praise God!” “You better keep it up!” “You better sing!” It’s not a threat.  It’s not an “or else.”  It’s “How could you not?!!”  Elizabeth has this spirit with Mary.  “Mary,” she says with uncontrollable joy, “You better sing!” And, of course, Mary sings – the Magnificat follows. Her soul magnifies the Lord.  Her spirit rejoices with uncontrollable joy.  It doesn’t mean that it won’t be a hard road. There will be morning sickness, and ridicule from her community, and struggle for her and Joseph as they sort out this unexpected addition coming to their lives.  If we always waited until everything was just right, just so, before we could express our joy, we’d likely never get there.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor imprisoned for his anti-Nazi resistance of Hitler’s regime and ultimately killed in a Nazi concentration camp, wrote a good deal about singing joy even in the struggle.  He wrote to his fiancé, Maria, approaching Christmas in 1943, “I think we’re going to have an exceptionally good Christmas. The very fact that outward circumstance precludes our making provision for it will show whether we can be content with what is truly essential. I used to be very fond of thinking up and buying presents, but now that we have nothing to give, the gift God gave us in the birth of Christ will seem all the more glorious; the emptier our hands, the better we understand what Luther meant: We are beggars, it’s true. The poorer our quarters, the more clearly, we perceive that our hearts should be Christ’s home on earth.”[4]  Isn’t that amazing?  I think we’re going to have an exceptionally good Christmas. He’s positioning himself for joy over fear, joy over self-defeat, joy over despair. Joy is his song. His way of saying, “You better sing!”  In O Holy Night, the lyricist calls this “Sweet hymns of joy!” That line also follows the one that names the chains of slavery and the oppressive nature of that institution, but it proclaims in the very next line, “Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we, with all our hearts we praise His holy name.”  Despite the circumstances and even though the struggle is real and we can’t fully know what is ahead… allow yourself the gift of uncontrollable joy.  Give yourself over to it. It is so good for the soul.

As always, this is easier to hear than it is to practice.  There’s something in you that resists the joy.  It may be pushing back within you right now to all that I’m saying. For whatever reason, you can’t fully let it go. Maybe it’s because you’ve held it for so long and it just feels like part of you.  Maybe the stakes are too high to imagine giving it up for the sake of some new joy.  After all, can the joy of the Lord be better than what you’ve come to know as joy-enough all by yourself?  Only you can answer that.  Only you can choose to hold it with all you’ve got or let it go… shed the baggage, forgive the wrong, drop the fear.  It can be done. It may take a deep breath, lots of prayer, and some repositioning but it can happen.

Have you ever seen “A Charlie Brown Christmas?”   It always makes the rounds on most channels during December.  One of the favorite scenes is that of Linus, standing on a bare stage, reciting the story of the birth of Jesus from the gospel of Luke.

That scene nearly didn’t make it into the show. TV network executives thought it was too religious and, maybe even more honestly, thought the Luke scripture was just too long.  The producers persisted, however, and the scene stayed. “There’s one feature of that scene that not many people notice. Just before Linus begins his recitation, he drops his security blanket. If you know anything about Linus, you know he’s never without that blanket. Over the years of drawing his comic strip, Charles Schulz would occasionally deprive Linus of his blanket but only in moments when Snoopy mischievously steals it. Every time this happens, this otherwise cool, calm and wise-beyond-his-years character dissolves into frenzied angst. Linus simply cannot be without his blanket.  Except in this moment, when he’s standing on stage reciting the Christmas story. With the Christ child on his mind, it seems, he doesn’t need it.”[5]  He lets it go.  He drops it.  He has made room for uncontrollable joy. Can you make room today?  Can you meet Christ with joy in your heart?

I want to close with a prayer offered by Howard Thurman that I hope can be our own today.  Would you pray with me?

“May the sounds of Advent stir a longing in your people, O God. Come again to set us free from the dullness of routine and the poverty of our imaginations. Break the patterns which bind us to small commitments and to the stale answers we have given to questions of no importance. Let the Advent trumpet blow, let the walls of our defenses crumble, and make a place in our lives for the freshness of your love, well-lived in the Spirit, and still given to all who know their need and dare receive it.”[6]

May you be so daring to receive it today.  To give yourself over to uncontrollable joy.  It is worth it… spoken in emoji or any language.  Amen.

[1] Mike Cherney, “Lawyers faced with emojis and emoticons are all…,” The Wall Street Journal, January 29, 2018, wsj.com.
[2] https://sanctifiedart.org/original-art/mary-elizabeth-lauren-wright-pittman
[3] www.jimstovall.com.  I do not know the original source of this story.
[4] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Letter to his fiancée Maria von Wedemeyer,” December 1, 1943, in God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas(Westminster John Knox, 2012), 6.
[5] From Animating Illustrations found at Homiletics Online. Senior Writer, Bob Kaylor.  www.homileticsonline.com
[6] Howard Thurman, The Mood of Christmas & Other Celebrations (Friends United Press, 1985).

text : Jeremiah 33:14-16

theme verse : “In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” (Jeremiah 33:15)

Do you ever feel like you’re tripping your way to the end of the year? In a season of division and strife in the nation, it seems many are just flat out exhausted. The rush to Christmas adds its own cultural expectations and pressures, choking out the hope of something new; something beautiful. But then… a mouthpiece of God, the prophet Jeremiah, says, “Surely the day is coming.” Surely? What day? A day where hopes and promises are fulfilled. Somehow with faith, even in the middle of the chaotic mess of life, a weary world must find a way to rejoice.

offertory : 'Ave Maria' (F.Schubert) :: Kathy Radd, cello & Susie Monger-Daugherty, piano

anthem : 'O Come, O Come, Emmanuel' (arr.Rouse) :: Chancel Choir - Kelly Ford, director; Kathy Radd, cello

reader : Scott Booren
preaching : Rev Mark Briley

special music : '42' (M.Mumford) :: The Rising Band - Isaac Herbert, leader

It’s an event for everyone. Christmas, that is.  It says so as the header of Luke, chapter two, verse eight. An event for everyone.[1]  Do you know that part of the story?  Sheepherders camping in the neighborhood were having an average night on the job when a ‘Marty-McFly-in-a-DeLorean-Back-to-the-Future’ like moment blazed around them. It was God’s Glory, the name of the heavenly angel acapella ensemble. The second soprano of the group says, ‘Pick your jaws up off the ground – a joyful event meant for everyone, worldwide, has just occurred.  Up the road in Bethlehem, a baby is born that will transform the world.’  The group proceeded to sing a couple of Pentatonix arrangements of Christmas carols and the sheepherders agreed that they had never had a better night at work. The angels took off, so the sheepherders huddled up and talked it over.  ‘We’ve got to go, right?  To see this kid? After all, she said this is an event for everyone.’  They left, running into town, past the billboard that says, “Home of King David,” turning right at the Waffle House, around the karaoke bar to the other edge of town where the star was evident overhead. Yep.  The kid was inside. Seeing was believing.  It was true.  The sheepherders chatted up the parents a bit, commented on the sheep stock of that particular stable, and bowed before that baby saying, ‘It’s better than even they said it would be. We’ll keep tabs on you, kid. You’ll do amazing things.’ They left more hopeful than they’ve been in a long time and let loose on their way home, praising God for everything they had experienced.

That’s where we’re headed my friends.  In twenty-two days, we’re going to join those sheepherders in this praise-fest. That’s our hope. That’s the event that changed the world… and it’s for everyone.  Even you. Even me. I had to start with the hope story today so we can remember where we’re headed, even as I know it might seem a bit premature.

You’re not there yet.  You may be far from that hope today. You may feel like life is collapsing around you and you can’t see beyond the collapse.  There was a story this week of a guy who had … how would you say … “just one of those days” at work. The video making the rounds this week was simply called, “Cleanup in aisle two. And three. And four. And five.”[2]  Just take a look.

Is that not just the worst? My first concern was for the driver of the forklift of course.  The warehouse is unidentified {{ed.note: The video page gives info, but it is disputed by commenters. So goes the internet.}}, but the driver apparently made it out of the rubble okay.  Have you ever had a day like that? Maybe your life kind of feels like that right now.  Just a series of collapses that have left you hopeless, angry, hurt and completely confused.  You’re just trying to get through the next thing, the next day, the next mandatory event in your life.

Marguerite Higgins was a correspondent during the Korean conflict. One bitter winter’s day, she began interviewing a muddy Marine who had just returned from a grueling battle. As he opened a tin can of C-rations and began eating, Higgins said to the young man, “If I could give you anything in the world you wanted, what would you ask for?”  The Marine thought for a moment and then said, “Give me tomorrow.”[3]  When life is so thick and brutal and difficult, sometimes that’s all we can ask for.  On this first Sunday of Advent, Hope Sunday as it were, such is the promise of the prophets.

The prophet Jeremiah is our companion today.  And he’s a good one.  That guy wrote what he lived and lived what he wrote. Some people are good writers but can’t live up to the story they can write.  Others live a good story but can’t write it all that well.  Writing or living, Jeremiah was the same guy which is totally refreshing. He also tends to be the prophet of choice when we find ourselves living through a difficult season. When you’re crawling through pain or setback or heartache or injustice, you want somebody trustworthy in the mix with you… someone authentic who’s been there… someone who can help you know what to think about, how to pray, how to take another step forward. We live in a disruptive time but it is not exactly unprecedented.  Jeremiah was living through one of the most troublesome periods in Hebrew history… the decades leading up to the fall of Jerusalem and into the Babylonian exile. Essentially, everything that could go wrong did and Jeremiah slogged his way through it.  His every thought subjected to questioning; his every feeling ridiculed… and he lived through it with an underlying pulse of hope that God was moving still. If you feel smashed by your circumstances; if you’re grasping with all you have; trying to hold on to a stubborn illusion or collapsed system of belief, hang on tight – Jeremiah is a companion you want to make room for in the front seat of your mid-sized, and aging, SUV, or whatever moves you around your life these days. He’s the first of our biblical friends who is going to help get us to that event that is for everyone on Christmas Eve. Make some room in your spirit this morning for that thrill of hope to come in… to rejoice, even if you’re weary. It will be worth it.

A THRILL OF HOPE is the theme of our new sermon series – a line you may recognize from one of the most beloved Christmas songs of all time, O Holy Night.  The story of the song itself is quite remarkable and controversial – which will come out more throughout the series.  The lyrics were written by an unchurched, hardly religious French poet and the music by a man of Jewish ancestry who never celebrated Christmas, nor the baby proclaimed as the Son of God.  But at that first Christmas Mass in 1847, O Holy Night (Minuit Chretiens) was offered in worship, it’s beauty only surpassed by the gift of Christ himself.  The French church fell in love with the song until news later broke that it was written by a Jewish man and an unchurched Charlie.  The church banned the song and it was suppressed for more than a decade but… it had already captured the souls of so many, it was bound to re-emerge.[4]  More about that next week.

Today, we hone in on the line:  a thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices.  How does a weary world rejoice?  What is it in your spirit that when you were rubbing your eyes in bed this morning wondering about going through the required routine of getting ready to get here today that pushed you over the edge when a large part of you would have preferred to roll over and try to sleep off the weariness… rest away the struggle, the confrontation that seems to be a leading thrust in your life?  If nothing else, I commend you for that alone – that you planted your feet on the floor and get to God’s house to worship today.  It does matter that we do this. It may not seem like it always but when you step back for some perspective, it can blow you away.  And I’ll tell you this: You can’t buy back consistent presence.  You miss practice, you don’t grow that day.  You miss a work out, you don’t get that endurance building session back.  You miss worship or a chance to serve or a small group commitment, your reservoir misses getting replenished that day.  Your hope doesn’t get refueled. Sometimes we don’t realize we missed it, or valued it that much, until the chaos hits and we’re ‘running on E.’ 

I caught a beautiful glimpse of this at our Ministry Leadership Team meeting this past week.  It is a time when twenty of our church leaders that you elected to serve in leadership get together and share how their piece of the mission is building us toward God’s goals for our church.  Any one of those stories by itself may seem simple enough, maybe even inconsequential in comparison to the greatest story ever told – the story of Jesus Christ… until… you lay them on top of one another and you start to see hope embodied – stories of a child who claimed the faith in a tangible way by choosing a partner for a school project that no one else would choose, why?  Because of something her spirit was gleaning consistently in Sunday school.  Talk of budget for donuts – what does that have to do with Jesus – but then… yes… someone new to the church signed up to pick up, cut up, and serve the donuts because “Everybody comes over for donuts and I knew I could meet new people and get connected that way.” A can donated on Souperbowl Sunday or a box of Kleenex donated for our partners in education may not seem like much until our Outreach leaders present a snapshot of our gifts to make our city better, stronger… to see people more dignified and loved as Christ calls us to love.  It amounts to $126,334 on top of weeks of hosting students during the Spring walk-out and housing neighbors without home for weeks at a time and serving meals at the Day Center and building Habitat Homes. Sunday School Classes and small groups will supply gifts to children in need this month and the list goes on and on.  At that very meeting this last week – there were tears as these stories were told… tears of transformation… tears falling as leaders realized their contribution to the whole mattered, as their spirits had been transformed in saying “Yes” to lead and serve. They were tears of hope that flowed because of one’s consistent sacrifice of self, of time, of showing up again and again because it all adds up to an amazing and transformative whole.

Never discount your contribution to this hope.  Hope is a compounding interest investment.  It is, perhaps, the cost and sacrifice of that investment that leads a weary world to rejoice.  We’re not in it alone. We’re a part of something greater than ourselves.  Working hard for something meaningful is always worth rejoicing in the end. And every bit contributes to the whole.  It is why President George H.W. Bush, even after commanding the world’s mightiest military, once said, “I got more of a kick out of being one of the founders of the YMCA in Midland, Texas back in 1952 than almost anything I’ve done.”[5]  It’s that consistent presence, never overlooking the calling and value of the moment’s contribution as part of the compounding hope of the world.

The quest for hope won’t always come easy or without injustice trying to hinder its progress. There was a school message board at a school my friend’s kid attends that shared this message:

Isn’t that the truth?  Jeremiah was living squarely in the middle of that truth.  He offers this word of prophecy that those pursuers of faith have been unable to ignore. “The days are surely coming,” he begins.  And that’s almost enough hope for me right there.  The days are surely coming.  Surely coming.  What days?  Jeremiah goes on to tell us… “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made.”  That promise, to the house of Israel and the house of Judah – coming through King David’s lineage, would be a righteous branch to be born, sprout, grow and bring about justice and right relationship to the world.  Surely that day will come… says THE LORD.  That’s enough for me to hang my faith on.  It’s not always clear or easy to do so… sometimes my windshield to the world is covered in dirt and my wiper fluid is empty.  But I believe in the long game of this life… of the long arc that bends toward justice… that ends in the eternal and beautiful, loving presence of God.  I believe surely that day will come… even when I can’t see how given the current circumstances of my life or that of the world. A branch will rise… new life will come out of the broken and burned down realities of our lives.

Maybe you’ve seen the images of new plants that finally spring up from forest floors that have been decimated by wildfires.  A case of the surelys – surely new life will rise again.  Or this image that was sent my way recently. 

“Fell years ago. Never gave up.” 

Surely the days are coming. Surely. Surely the days when the promises of God will come to pass; when justice will be executed and there will be righteousness in the land.  This does not refer to self-righteousness – that’s a problem of our perspective.  The righteousness the prophet speaks of is God’s righteousness. God’s righteousness is all about right relationship. To be in right relationship with the people around us, we search for the image of God in each and every person. That means such an image is within you right now… and uniquely so.  It also means it’s in the person sitting next to you, or a few rows back, or in the cubicle next to you at work, or your neighbor who sees the world differently than you do. In the black, brown and white, in rich, middle class and poor, in the young, on-the-verge of mid-life crisis, and old, in the immigrant and native-born.  The branch that sprouted into a Savior came for right-relationship with every one of those people which means… our hope is tied up in their hope; your hope overlays my hope and mine, yours.  And that overlay can surely, surely, bring about a day of right relationship with all people. This will not likely magically happen one day by sudden surprise but by your daily prayer, “Give me tomorrow,” and then in such a tomorrow, the sharing of your hope with somebody else and them sharing their hope with you.  In that overlap, hope takes a step in the world toward right relationship. Practice this enough and you start looking for these opportunities over mere survival.

A close friend shared vulnerably this week that she remembered a time, during what was a very difficult childhood, that she didn’t have any concept of hope. Zero. None. She didn’t go to church. There was no hope message being offered around her. The pain was always close to the surface which meant the mantra was ‘Simply survive.’  Hope had no roots in her soul.  But later, faith… later church… later someone who cared enough to hope alongside of her… now she sees the world through hope, not survival.  This can surely come for all of us, my friends.  Like a branch that springs up in the rubble, hope can be planted and spring forward.  A weary world can begin to rejoice when we’re telling hope stories.  Sharing in that meeting of church leaders this week, hope stories were being told by every member of that team and the stories were lifting the very mood of the room one by one.  They were bringing souls through tears to triumph.  I wrote a single note on the paper in front of me that night: “Tell your hope story first.”  There are plenty of stories being told every day, all around us, that are not hope stories. You want to change the environment of your home or your workplace or your relationships with your extended family and friends? … Start telling your hope story first. Game changer. I promise. And you’ve got one. I promise you that too.

Folk rock band Mumford and Sons[6] has a new album out.  One of the tracks is called 42.  Part of the lyric says, “Where do I turn to when there’s no choice to make? And how do I presume when there’s so much at stake? I was so sure of it all… but what if I need you in my darkest hour? And what if it turns out there is no other? If this is our last hope we would see a sign, oh, we would see a sign.”  If this is our last hope, we would see a sign. The prophet says that sprouting branch is hope of the surely day… the day when the promise is fulfilled… when the love of God consumes one and all… where right relationship overrides pre-occupying self-righteousness… where hope is the lead story of the world, not buried, back page news. Find it in you now and start telling it, living it, and learning the hopes of others.  That’s really the story of Advent.  And you’re here today to start the season on the right foot.  You choose how it will go moving forward.  Henri Nouwen [7] tells us that

“Advent does not lead to nervous tension stemming from expectation of something spectacular about to happen. On the contrary, it leads to a growing inner stillness and joy allowing me to realize that he for whom I am waiting has already arrived and speaks to me in the silence of my heart.  Just as a mother feels the child grow in her and is not surprised on the day of the birth, but joyfully receives the one she learned to know during her waiting, so Jesus can be born in my life slowly and steadily and be received as the one I learned to know while waiting.”

It is underway… Can you sense it? That which already was underway even if we didn’t claim it or recognize it.  But now we do. Tell your hope story first and tell if often. When we come to the big moment in a few weeks, we can, like those first sheepherders, lead the way forward so that even a weary world might begin to rejoice.  We can be part of that… and do you know what it will feel like?  The thrill of hope.

[1] This header is worded as “An Event for Everyone” in Eugene Peterson’s “The Message.”  The background to Jeremiah’s value as prophet on the following page was also utilized from this resource in Peterson’s intro to Jeremiah.
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pni9ZDUzOIw
[3] The work of Higgins is noted in many places, including this story.  I utilized it as found in the animating resources section of the periodical resource, “Homiletics.”  Timothy Merrill, Senior Editor.
[4] https://www.beliefnet.com/entertainment/movies/the-nativity-story/the-amazing-story-of-o-holy-night.aspx.  This story is shared in many places.  This link is one that supported the background.
[5] As shared on Facebook in Barack Obama’s tribute to Bush’s passing.
[6] www.mumfordandsons.com
[7] Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Genesee Diary: Report from a Trappist Monastery (Crown, 2013).

text : Acts 20:17-24

theme verse : "I do not count my life of any value to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received form the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news of God’s grace.” (Acts 20:24)

We all know that shrilling sound called “feedback” that is experienced when a live microphone gets too close to the speakers from which it is propelling sound. What if we looked at feedback as in ‘feeding back’ or ‘giving forward’ from our abundance into the glory of God and the needs of the world? We can surely name at least one person whom we would deem generous; one who has given forward with grace. In remembering that person, we may describe him or her with a quote paraphrased by friend, Mary Magee: “They opened their hearts to help others and they helped others to open their hearts.” Wouldn’t we all like to be such a person? The Apostle Paul leaves this same idea with the Elders of Ephesus in this passage from Acts. Paul has poured his life into this ministry. May we also make the same commitment saying, “I will give forward.”

Gratitude Statement : “I will give forward.”

Open Mic testimony : Bob Lynch

special music : 'Build My Life' (C.Nockels) :: The Rising Band; Isaac Herbert, leader

reader : Hollie Hawkins
preaching : Rev Mark Briley

anthem : 'Let Me Fly' (arr. DeCormie) :: Avenue a capella ensemble; Barry Epperley, director

Mark Twain said that if he’d had more time, he would have said less.  Quite a self-reflection don’t you think?  Do you ever reflect this way on your own life?  We do tend to be our own worst critic.  Our own self-feedback may not always be the healthiest.  The truth is, we may not be great at receiving feedback from others either.  We call it constructive criticism but often that’s just the veil of judgment.  Even so, feedback is important if we’re going to grow, change, shift, adapt, improve, succeed.  In many ways, we’ve become oversensitive to receiving feedback.  Representative-elect, Dan Crenshaw, of the 2^nd District in Texas and former Navy Seal officer,  lost his right eye to an improvised explosive device while serving our country.  He continued to serve even after that injury.  Most recently he was mocked on Saturday Night Live as Pete Davidson made fun of several politicians.  Many were outraged.  Crenshaw, a Navy Seal who had experienced the chaos and injury (of all kinds) of war had been through harder things than a comic’s mockery.  Crenshaw was invited onto SNL  the following week where he and Davidson did a bit together, bridging the difference in a light-hearted way, honoring veterans who have served faithfully and sharing a need to forgive, heal and move forward together.  Crenshaw said, “I try hard not to offend others and try even harder not to be offended.” Not bad advice and maybe some helpful feedback for you and me to remember.

Feedback.  Are you up for some today?  This sort of advice may be what you first think of when it comes to feedback.  Certainly, as we in the throes of this Open Mic series, feedback has a technological connotation. If you get a microphone turned up too loud or in front of the wrong speaker or amplifier, a deafening screech has been known to be sounded.  A ‘hot mic’ we might say when that ear-piercing sound is made. Nothing pleasant about it whatsoever. But we’re not really talking about that kind of feedback today either though we are playing on that idea given the nature of our series.  Instead, I’m taking some liberties with the two words that are the basis of the word feedback. Feed and back. In this series on gratitude, I’m wondering how we’ve been fed – our minds, our stomachs, our souls – and how, in turn, we might feed back.

With the gratitude for all we are, all we’ve experienced, all we have, how will we feed back – how might we give back to God, to our neighbors, to the church?  Someone surely comes to mind when you think of a person who has done this well, faithfully, with deep gratitude.  Our own Mary Magee, member of our Stewardship Team responsible for this current series and campaign, described those generous people in a beautiful way.  She said, “They opened their hearts to help others and they helped others to open their hearts.”  That’s this feeding back we’re hoping to embody as people of faith.  The Apostle Paul had the same hopes for the early churches he helped start.  What an exciting season in the life of the church.  Talk about grass-roots.  Jesus is resurrected and now it’s game on.  Life was forever different and the likes of Paul stepped into the role of church planter, ministry entrepreneur, creator of the community of faith designed to contain the hopes of the world.

The passage from Acts that is our focus today is Paul’s farewell to many he nurtured along the way.  These were people with whom he shed blood, sweat, and tears for the sake of the Gospel.  They believed in it so.  They were moved by Jesus.  They were committed to the cause.  And they gave everything they had to propel the church into the future.  Paul knew the infection of the world was not far away.  He lived among the pain every day.  Through the entire motif of this pericope from Acts, runs this dominant feeling of an affection as deep as the heart itself.  That feeling should be in every church for when love dies in any church the work of Christ cannot do other than wither.

Daniel Grothe, pastor in Colorado and friend of a friend, wrote of this love-amid-the-pain-of-life this week.  He said, “One of my friends is walking through the Valley of the Shadow. As I was listening to him share his heart this morning, and when the appropriate amount of silence had settled over us, this came out of me:  “You have permission to live the most difficult days of your life in the safety of our presence.”  Grothe said, “That is the summary of Christian community.  We all need that permission from each other, permission to be where we are.”[1]  This is love run deep.  This is church.  After giving the first part of his adulthood to the persecution of the church, Paul had given the second part of his adulthood to building the loving Body of Christ.  You can imagine Paul’s turn to Jerusalem at this point was bittersweet. He was with his people. They built love.  They had some great pot luck dinners and built a few Habitat Houses.  And the baptisms… the BAPTISMS!  My, people were coming to faith left and right. Why would he leave?  And beyond being comfortable, he knew he was risking it all to leave.  He would not be received well in Jerusalem. In fact, he says it well in this loving farewell to his posse: “There is another urgency before me now.  I feel compelled to go to Jerusalem.  I’m completely in the dark about what will happen when I get there. I do know that it won’t be any picnic, for the Holy Spirit has let me know repeatedly and clearly that there are hard times and imprisonment ahead. But that matters little.  What matters most to me is to finish what God started: the job the Master Jesus gave me of letting everyone I meet know all about this incredibly extravagant generosity of God.”

He couldn’t settle to just stay and be fed and enjoy the high life of faith in that community.  He was called to give forward… to feed back from the enormity of the meal he’d feasted on with those Christians.  If you read forward a way you see the beauty of Paul’s send off.  Listen to the words: “Then Paul went down on his knees, all of them kneeling with him, and prayed.  And then a river of tears.  Much clinging to Paul, not wanting to let him go.  They knew they would never see him again – he had told them quite plainly. The pain cut deep.  Then, bravely, they walked him down to the ship.”  Parting is such sweet sorrow. His friends probably went into town after seeing Paul off and rented a Rage Room for an hour.  (You heard about those? Rage Rooms. It’s a BYOB situation – bring your own breakables.  You rent a room for an hour or so, bring your breakables and then just smash all your stuff.  That’s it.  Tulsa’s first Rage Room opened in August near 51^st and Mingo.  It’s called Smash Something.[2]  You can break anything from an Xbox to a smart phone.  “It’s fun to break stuff,” said the owner.  “There’s a lot of stress and anger in the world.  It’s nice to have a way to blow off some steam.”  Cost is $15-30 per session.  But I digress.)

Paul departs.  He is grateful for what he’s shared with that Christian community, but his course is forward. He’s got to share forward that gratitude with more who are seeking faith.  He must keep feeding back.  What is your course forward?  How are you feeding back, giving of yourself to the faith that has given you new life?  Are you giving forward?  A friend said to me this week, “I always prayed I could live well enough until my kids were adults.  But then I made it and realized I couldn’t stop there.  Now I’ve got grandkids to care about.”  In this life of faith, there is no end-game.  It’s the course. The journey.  The faithful next step to a new view where the next faithful step can be seen more clearly.  This is Paul’s sentiment – “I do not count my life of any value to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord… to testify to the good news of God’s grace.”  When you find that truest meaning of your life… that deepest conviction of your purpose… it must lead you forward.  And such a path can only be taken with gratitude. Are you on such a path?

Much of the time we are either distracted by the chaos around us or unintentional in our attention to God’s guidance.  But don’t give up when you can’t feel it on the inside.  Daniel Grothe noted this about the long journey we’re on.  “The life of faith is the life where the saints learn to play the long game with each other.  If we do it right,” he says, “the seasons of bottoming out in grief and overwhelming despair do not have to be seen as final but can be seen as stops along the way.” The biblical greats wobbled and fell and had moments of complacency, but they didn’t stay there.  They rose.  They re-focused.  They saw the course forward – and typically only when they remembered gratitude; when they recalled where they had been and who Christ had become for them.  They couldn’t help themselves but to press forward and give faithfully. They opened their hearts to help others and then helped others to open their hearts.  Isn’t this what we are about as a church family?  I don’t know about you, but I hear a lot of stories from the world that are designed to discourage us.  They are designed to create fear and a push to create an isolated life where you’re skeptical of your neighbor and always bowl alone. But then I speak to you… I run into you… I meet with you… I pray with you… I give of my time and talent and resource alongside of you and a wholly other life story emerges.  A life with pain, sure, but a life that is pushing forward with purpose; a life that is singing a song that is worth getting stuck in your soul. Can you hear that soul song now?  Is it in you?  It’s glorious.  It’s glorious, in part, because of the pain.

In his memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami reflects on why runners spend so much time and energy on long distance runs like some of our folks running the Route 66 Marathon downtown right now.  He says, “It’s precisely because of the pain, precisely because we want to overcome that pain, that we can get a feeling, through this process, of really being alive.”[3] Paul was surely a runner – he used race imagery so often.  But he knew he had to keep running.  He couldn’t rest on his laurels.  He couldn’t grow complacent.  He was only really alive when he was gratefully living out the call on his life.

It’s Thanksgiving Sunday. We’re counting blessings and living gratitude. I’m grateful for all who will make a pledge today to support the ministry we’ll share in 2019.  May our gifts be sign and symbol of our gratitude and our clarity of course – that we are pressing forward together, not out of obligation, but out of faith… out of commitment to the long game of the saints.  It speaks to the words of the Persian poet, Hafiz, who said, “Even after all this time, the sun never says to the Earth, “You owe me.”  Look what happens with a love like that. It lights the whole sky.”  We have opportunity day after day, year after year to show the world what a grateful love like that can do.  We can light up the whole sky… the entirety of the earth… with the glory of Christ.  Your gifts matter.  So do mine. It’s our feed back… our gifts forward.  This is our time for we never know what time we have.

Kirk Cousins is the quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings.  In front of his home, in between a few shrubs, stands a curious tower.  It’s about four feet tall, filled to the top with stones.  Inspired décor you ask?  Well… sort of.  “It’s there,” he says, “to remind me how brief life is and how important the time we have here is.”  Okay. But why the tower of stones?  “It’s a little morbid,” he admits, “but it’s a tool my Bible teacher taught me in high school.”  The stones were inspired by the Psalm his teacher shared with him that says, “Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”  Cousins said, “It’s about making a deposit in people’s lives in a way that matters.”  We only have so many days.  The quarterback transformed that verse into a visual reminder: 720 stones.   He calculated what he considered a feasible number of years he had left given his health and history, measured that time in months and came up with 720 months left in his life Lord willing. “Every month I’m going to take out a stone,” he said, “put it in my pocket and think: ‘Once this month is over, this is gone. You can’t get it back.’”  Cousins was going to be intentional about how he spent the time he had left… wanting to stay the course of his faith, his call to live generously, in pursuit of his life’s purpose.  Carrying each stone reminds him to be less selfish and more giving to others because, in the end, he says, “It’s not going to be about what I did for myself, but what I did for others.”  So he pulls a stone and he asks the question, “What impact am I making, not only today, but for eternity?”[4]  This was Paul’s waking question.

And so, my friends… what is your waking question?  Does it have anything to do with feeding back; about giving forward?  It’s worth a thought.  It fact, it’s worth more than a thought.  It’s worth a life… lived open before God… free to pursue the dream of your calling in Christ.  Which leads us to finish with the same question that started this whole series in the first place.  Your life is an Open Mic… what will you say?

[1] A friend shared Grothe’s Face Book post with me this week which is what is quoted in this message.  Grothe is on staff at New Life Church in Colorado.  http://www.newlifechurch.org/staff
[2] https://www.smashsomethingtulsa.com/
[3] This piece was shared in Rob Bell’s “Drops Like Stars.”  Harper One. 2009. Pg. 46.
[4] http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/25024166/minnesota-vikings-quarterback-kirk-cousins-confronts-mortality-stone-form