Archive for category: Pastor’s Message

John the Baptizer said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” And the crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. Luke 3:7-18

John the Baptizer came preaching to the people that the promised Messiah was coming soon. There was some unfinished business to attend to before his arrival. There was a need for the people to make ready to receive him, to confess their sin and turn away from those things that were too easily given the place of God in their lives. John the Baptist spoke of a new hope God was about to present to the world, inviting the people to join him in turning their hearts back to God.

            

Advent brings John’s message back into our midst. We have preparations to make, unfinished business to attend to, sins to confess. All because God has cradled hope on our doorsteps in the person of Jesus, the incarnation of Good News and undying love. Jesus has come to us today and into our lives with an invitation to live with hope, live with joy, and live at peace. Jesus has come seeking to restore and rebuild what our sin has broken down, to heal such things as only His Spirit can make whole.

 

As part of your Advent preparation, I would invite you to consider your unfinished business. What are those things which cast long, dark shadows across your life and the lives of those around you? What are your obstacles to living with faith and with hope? What is it that is depriving you of a peaceful soul? Who are those people to whom you have amends to make or whom you pray would come to you? Where is it that forgiveness could be offered but has been withheld out of pride or spite? What change of attitude is needed for you to make way for hope?

 

Some of the answers to those questions may be easy and dealing with them relatively painless. Others may be difficult and the thought of dealing with them quite painful. In some instances, the injustice or hurt may be so great that the thought of working through it may seem next to impossible. In any case, there is urgency to begin. Life lived always in the shadow of unfinished business is so much less than what it needs to be.

 

Like John the Baptizer, I would direct your attention to the one who is greater than any prophet, pastor or priest. Greater than any psychologist, therapist or counselor. The One who through God’s own Spirit brings his healing and comfort to us now. See Him as the hope, your hope, for freedom from whatever it is that keeps you from peace.

 

“All of us have unfinished business,” said a hospice nurse. “No one can die in peace until it is put to rest.” As the story of Jesus unfolds, you see how He came to put all unfinished business to rest. To restore hope where it had been lost and to strengthen it where it had become weak. He came to announce hope for those who felt hopeless and to reconcile all of God’s children to God. It is for this gift that we prepare our hearts. It is for this reason that we make room for the gift of hope, for the gift of reconciliation, for the gift of peace.

 

Advent is about remembering that never, ever, do we live without hope. Never, ever, do we make our way without God. We have a hope that can turn hardened hearts and brooding vipers into a people who prepare the way of the Lord and then walk in it. A people who sing about and tell others that God is coming straightaway and His kingdom is so near to you that you can see it. Not only that, but you can live in it. Today.

This season of Advent begins with a surprising word from God. The Gospel reading for the first weekend in Advent is made up of surprising word pictures of heaven and earth all coming apart at the seams, all that we know and count on disrupted and changed (Luke 21:25-36). In that disruption and picture of divine interruption we hear a word of hope. We hear in this season that the Christ has already been born, has already lived and died for us, and comes here now among us each and every day as the light in our darkness. He comes as the one who makes a new creation out of the ashes and remnants of the old. So, we sing in this season marvelous songs of hopefulness, joy and anticipation. We look for God again, knowing that even as wildfire rages or children die, as hopes are dashed or wars are waged, as evil rages or loved ones leave—the light, the true light has not gone out. The light, our true light, still shines. We look for it. We sing about it. We invite others into it. We share it within family and friendships. And we stay alert and wide-eyed to everything that is happening to and around us for what God is bringing, for what God hopes to usher in, and for what God wants us to see.
We often ask why such interruptions and disruptions plague our world. Perhaps they happen because we live in a world where the fault lines of sin run through all that is. Perhaps they happen because things that we assumed would be forever unchanged are, in reality, transient and temporary. We live in a world where we know that any day all that we have relied upon, trusted, counted on and looked forward to could be taken away or turned on its ear. Jesus knows it—we know it—and he teaches us in this world how to live with it. He teaches us how to grow through it and how to serve in it. And it is in that living, growing and serving that hope begins to shine. When the world as you know it falls apart, when even the day seems darkened and the night never-ending—look! Look for what God is doing. Look for God’s nearness, for when there seems to be no other source of light in your darkness, God is there as he has always been. Jesus said, “When you see these things taking place, you will know that he is near, at the very gates”…at the doorstep of your heart and at the threshold of your hopes. Look for him, he is near. And though everything else might pass away, God won’t.
The birth of Jesus, the most spectacular divine interruption of all time, invites us to hold an audacious and abundant hopefulness in all things. God is here with us. God is here for us. God meets us in the most humble and humbling of circumstances. God meets us in times of strength and success. God meets us always with a vision, a hope, and a call that transforms our tomorrows. Hallelujah! Gloria in excelsis Deo!

Hospitality and welcome are frequent topics of discussion and focus for congregations like Mount Calvary. What is a visitor’s first impression when entering the atrium? The sanctuary? Does the bulletin assist visitors in navigating our worship? Are our members friendly and warm towards strangers and unfamiliar faces? Do our sermons and prayers reflect the hospitality and grace of Jesus? And, similarly, do our members experience warmth, welcome and gracious hospitality as strongly or stronger than they did years ago?  When we go offsite to do mission projects, do we show the compassion, humility and neighborliness of Jesus? These are important questions that always call out something more and something better from all of us. 

Hospitality and welcome are not just concerns for paid staff, but for all our members. I hope that whenever you gather here or represent Mount Calvary out in the community, you are considering the face you put forward to others. Do you make time for the stranger?  Do you greet and encourage and invite others into those things that matter to you? Do you represent Jesus and his teachings about open tables, open arms and open communities that are sanctuaries of grace? These are important questions that always call out something more and something better from all of us.

How many neighbors and friends have you invited to come be a part of our fellowship and mission? I would like to encourage and raise the bar of expectation for all of us. I want you to commit to inviting and welcoming others to worship with us, come to a Bible or study class, participate in our youth or confirmation programs, or check out what we are about in mission and see if it fits them. Instead of “wondering” about that neighbor you haven’t seen at church for a while, call them.  Ask them to join you at something or go for coffee. I also want you to be evangelists: tell the story of our outreach ministries: invite someone to join you at a packing event of Many Hands Many Meals; tell parents of preschoolers about the best Preschool in these western suburbs with our team of teachers who have a higher degree of licensure, training, and experience than any other and who have a passion for children;  tell a neighbor about our Academy of Music and encourage youth and adults to sign up for lessons…it’s a program that other congregations locally and nationally are seeking to replicate.

Hospitality is just another form of generosity and care. It is grace in action. It is sharing what you value with another and inviting them into this place where the Holy Spirit inspires and stirs up. Ask, seek, and knock…on your neighbor’s door! You will be surprised how many wonder what took you so long.

Your neighbor, 

Pastor Dave

 

 

 

Some years ago, Garrison Keillor shared the Seven Principles of a Successful Christmas. Number one was not to spend too much time shopping for gifts that are going to spend the next 30 years in a bottom drawer and sell for 35 cents at an estate sale. Just buy them all sweatpants. Number two, don’t sweat the dinner. All you need is potatoes, bread crumbs, a frozen veggie, cranberries in a can, a big bird, and a tub of butter. Order pies from a bakery. I won’t share all seven, but I was intrigued by number three. When planning your Christmas dinner, don’t think of the folks as dinner guests…think of them as the cast and your job is to make the event entertaining.

The best way to have a memorable Christmas is to seat bachelor Uncle Earl with the squirting mistletoe tie next to the cousins in the Armani suits and the $100 haircuts who are trying to hide the fact they’re from Iowa. Sit your brother-in-law from Roswell, New Mexico who moved there in hopes of reconnecting with his Martian ancestors next to the sister who worked for Michele Bachmann. They probably have more to talk about than you might think. Place the brother who brought the venison sausage and the pheasants for dinner next to your cousin Wanda the vegetarian who changed her name to Moonflower. Too many people, Garrison Keillor says, only invite people who get along, think and act and look alike and that’s like trying to form a choir and only recruiting sopranos. And then what you get feels more like a committee meeting, a discussion group or a memorial service. A good Christmas always has some moment where some crisis occurs or is resurrected from the past and somebody needs forgiveness for something. A GREAT Christmas has several of them.

Sound far-fetched to you? Let’s go back 2 millennia and see the guest list, according to Matthew and Luke, invited to that very first Christmas. You have a young Jewish carpenter from a small town no one ever heard of and his pregnant teenage fiancée, you have a group of homeless shepherds who live in the fields with their sheep, you have a host of angels on a choir field trip with one spokesangel whose job it is to go around telling people not to be afraid. You have three intellectuals with lots of money and time on their hands carrying gold, frankincense and myrrh whose GPS is oriented to an unusual star (turn left at the next oasis), an 84-year-old widow who spends every day hanging around the temple and her counterpart named Simeon. In the background, you have a paranoid king, a governor with the unfortunate name of Quirinius and a clueless Emperor who all figure they should be major players in this drama but who don’t even get called to audition. And of course, the baby. At the center of it all, the reason for the coming together of all these disparate and desperate lives, the baby. A baby whose birth is not a Hallmark moment as much as it is a crisis of Biblical proportions. Lives will be changed, authority called into question, religious leaders called to account, and a whole planet of people needing forgiveness for something or hope in everything will find their attentions drawn to him.

This story of Christmas, God’s story written on the world, assembles a memorable cast of characters around the birth of a child. Memorable and diverse casts have been assembling ever since, seeking to connect that story with their own: seeking a star to guide their way, seeking a message of hope and peace, and wanting to trust that God is not so far removed that God won’t show up in the stink and funk of the stables we call home. It’s our story, don’t you know. It’s our story, God’s story, I hope you know.

Pastor Dave