“Startle us, O God, with your truth and open our hearts and our minds to your wondrous love. Speak your word to us; silence in us any voice but your own and be with us now as we turn our attention, our minds and our hearts, to you, in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Today is the Feast of the Holy Name. And thinking back on my childhood, one thing I never doubted was that the Lord’s name was holy. Worse than saying “crud,” or “crap”, or calling my sister a “jerk,” worse than all these was saying the name of Jesus in a fit of emotion. Because I knew it was off limits, I’d say it, and then when I’d get in trouble, I’d become my own defense attorney and argue that I said “Geezes,” or “Geez it.” In my childhood, we observed the feast of the Holy Name every day.”

“Did you ever try to describe what God is like? Or to describe what the life of Jesus meant? How do you do that? Do you state some facts? Do you state history? Do you make an argument? Or do what John did, and simply sing? That is how the Gospel of John opens, with an ancient hymn. I once heard the great Presbyterian preacher Robert Cleveland Holland, at whose church I was a singer, compare this sort of scripture to Robert Frost’s poem that describes the fog coming in on little cat feet. That description says nothing about fog coming from dew points and relative humidity, but everything about what the experience of fog is like. The poetry of this gospel’s hymn is emotional more than definitional, but it conveys that humanity and eternity have encountered something immense. That feeling is like stopping to look at a star. it is a “Will you look at that!” moment in scripture.”

Startle us, O God, with your truth, that we may behold, adore, and be drawn into mystery of the Word Made Flesh.

You may have noticed that the Christmas story in Matthew and Luke feels a lot different than the Christmas story in John. Earlier this afternoon we enjoyed the annual and much beloved Christmas pageant – 20 or so of our children took their role as magi and shepherds, angels and the holy family, enacting the story as told by Matthew and Luke. This passage from Johns gospel, on the other hand, is almost impossible visualize, much less for our little ones to act out for us. Could you imagine a Christmas pageant with John 1 as the script? Where are we in this story?

As I have been reflecting on this day I can’t help but think back to Christmas morning when I was a little guy.

“Among you stands one you do not know.

Those were John the Baptist’s words as recorded in John 1:26. Of course, at that time it was literally true that a quiet carpenter’s son from the backwaters of the Roman Empire was rubbing shoulders with lots of people—including the crowds that jostled together at the banks of the Jordan River—but no one had a clue that this unimpressive-looking man was The One, The Word of God, The Logos by whom all things were created, and now made flesh. Sometimes I think that Jesus had a big halo, or a big spotlight on him, or a green arrow pointing down saying “Here is the Messiah.” There wasn’t.”

“The sermon for this morning emerged while I was sitting in a waiting room. And the inspiration for the idea came from the thought: waiting rooms are kind of awkward, and there isn’t a whole to do. There are, I counted, 7 things you can do.

You can consider picking up one of those old celebrity magazines on the coffee table. You can decide to count how many flowers are in the arrangement on the receptionist’s desk…”

““But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.”

Startle us, O God, with your truth, and open our hearts and minds to your word. As we begin again this Advent journey of waiting and expecting and hoping, be with us. Speak your word of hope to us. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

This passage as the first gospel reading of the Advent season burns me. My family took no vacations this summer. We did not go home to Maryland for crabs and much-needed time with far-away family. We won’t be going home for Christmas. I have consoled crestfallen relatives. I have had to look into the eyes of my boys and disappoint them after repeating over and over during the summer that “we aren’t going home now in the hopes we might be able to go home when it matters most.” I have had to pull myself together in my own lonely, homesick moments.”

“Startle us, O God, with your truth and open our hearts and our minds to your wondrous love. Speak your word to us; silence in us any voice but your own and be with us now as we turn our attention, our minds, and our hearts, to you, in Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.

Julian of Norwich lay dying in bed in her early 30s when she was graced with a set of divine showings – mystical encounters with God. If there is one word to describe Julian’s visions it’s that she discovered the eternal God to be kind. Remember Brother Curtis’ reflections from a few weeks ago on this word kind. Its related to our word kin, or kindred. God has chosen in Jesus to become our kin, and in the kinship of incarnation, God is supremely kind. Julian lived at the height of Medieval Christianity that was very concerned with the last judgment: that moment depicted in today’s Gospel when the scroll of history is rolled up, and we stand before the Judgment Seat.”

“If you’re having a bad day, reading the poetry of Emily Dickinson may not be the best idea. The Belle of Amherst lived a lot of her life in isolation and was believed to suffer from severe anxiety. Her poetry is not an ode to joy but more like an ode to truth, to the way life really is sometimes. At one point, she wrote, “I lived on dread.” At another time, she said, “Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me.” For Dickinson, life isn’t really about upholding morality, but it is about mortality, death and life, life and death. This is so much a part of her psyche that she says something I would have never imagined. She says, “I felt a funeral, in my brain.” Wasn’t I right that this is not early morning reading? She’s so mortal and understands our human limitations; that’s why I’m attracted to her work.”

“There’s a story that during the 1948 Texas US Senate race, a group of campaign workers for Lyndon Baines Johnson found support from some new voters – who were already dead. Johnson and his aides were out one night, illegally registering voters in a cemetery, when they came upon a worn tombstone, moss had grown up around the grave; the name was barely readable. The worker at the stone took a quick look and then moved on to the next. The leader of the expedition called out: “No, no, no, go back and register that person. He has as much right to vote as anyone else in this cemetery!”

Christians believe in the communion of the Saints, a belief that says the dead who are now with God have a right to vote. Or rather they cast their vote with the way they lived. They have cast their lot with God, and in the lives of the saints we know the love of God more clearly.”

“Love God with all your heart soul and mind. And love your neighbor as yourself. On these hang all the law and the prophets.

The Pharisees come at Jesus with a question about which commandment is the greatest. They are trying to trap Jesus. It’s actually a lawyer that asks the nitpicky question. It’s interesting to note that at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry he had 3 temptations put to him by the devil. Now a few days before his execution, at the end of Matthew’s gospel, in the last 3 weeks of readings, he has 3 tests offered by the religious authorities.”

“Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s. Or in the more familiar language: render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and render unto God what is God’s.

From its beginnings as a minority religious community in the midst of Roman military rule to its status today as a majority faith in a secular American democracy, the church and state are like the odd old crotchety couple who have been in the neighborhood forever. It’s not at all clear that they should have gotten together in the first place, and it’s very difficult to tell what is really going on in the relationship, but given they’ve been seen together for so long, it’s awfully hard to imagine them not occupying the same space.

Full disclosure that when I looked at the lesson for this Sunday, I immediately made plans to preach the Exodus reading. It is one of my absolute favorite readings, and I’ll say a brief word about it later on, but after being in our Bible studies this week, and hearing the different perspectives on the church and politics I can’t resist the minefield.”

“The Gospel today is one of the harder, or perhaps harsher, ones in our lectionary, and many preachers choose to address it by preaching from the Epistle instead, with its familiar and comforting turns of phrase that seem to be part of the very air we breathe. Peace that passes all understanding. Truth, honor, justice, purity, and excellence as human attributes. We can settle into those words like a comfortable old sweater, or a down comforter on one of these cold mornings.”

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” (Matt. 11)

“Those words of Jesus in this morning’s Gospel reading are surely among the most comforting in the entire Bible. Lord knows, they hit me somewhere deep—because my burden this morning is a heavy one.

As your preacher this morning, I’m afraid I’m not here to offer comforting words. Rather, I’m here to tell the truth, as hard as it may be to hear. Because that’s what I owe each and every one of you. Because there is no such thing as any real comfort without facing the truth. I think the Gospel teaches us that.”

I remember a talk offered by a therapist in my first-year orientation to seminary, and I think the talk was something like, “How do I know if therapy is for me?” I really don’t remember what the therapist said – I was too busy sizing up the room, thinking about these, my future classmates, and also doing my own diagnostics. Scanning the room, everyone was so fit and sharp looking, everyone’s Nalgene had the coolest stickers. I thought to myself, “No way any of you need therapy.” Again, I don’t remember anything the therapist said but I do remember her response a question I asked her. Trying to appear like I was really engaged, and also psychologically subtle, I said, “I struggle distinguishing between what I need and what I want. I often feel like I need recognition, but when I get it, it’s not as satisfying as I want it to be.”

“In his 2005 commencement address at Kenyon College “This is Water,” David Foster Wallace highlights the difficulty of giving attention and care to the most obvious, matter-of-fact, unmistakable aspects of our lives. He begins this address with a comical little parable about two fish. There were these two fish who are swimming along in the ocean, when a wise old fish swims by and shouts, “Morning boys, how’s the water?” The two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the heck is water?” Wallace’s speech, which I commend to you, is about the singular challenge raised by these two young fish: how do we as people gain the awareness, the attention to see and notice that most obvious and essential of things – the water in which we are immersed. For Wallace, it takes practice, prayer, and attention to gain the miracle of sight, to be able to see what is right in front you, and say, “This is water. This is water.”

Jesus’ parable for us this morning is like an icy splash of water onto his disciples faces – and he’s trying to shake them awake to recognize the water that is the Kingdom of God.”

“I have to say, after six months of a global pandemic, I'm in better physical shape than I've been in the last decade.

Like many people, I’ve been working from home on a fairly strange schedule. For most of the spring, I'd usually get up around 6:30 in the morning, drink a cup of coffee and answer emails or work on my laptop until around 8:30, then spend a couple of hours with Murray while Alice was in class. We spent the rainy month of April trading off between wandering around outside and logging on to Zoom. With libraries, coffee shops, and playgrounds closed, going for a run together was one of the few leisure activities we had left, other than playing with the grass clippings outside the Harvard observatory. And so Alice, Murray, and I spent most of the spring running from place to place with our stroller, discovering that a two-year-old makes an inspiring, albeit rude, track coach: “I want you to run faster!” “

“In my second sermon here—way back in September of 2018—I preached about my two pet turtles, the Song of Songs, and love. It was a pretty good sermon. I re-read that sermon a few weeks ago, because I wanted to know if anything had changed. I wanted to know much these two years of ministry alongside you had changed what I thought, had changed who I was.

Not very much, it turns out. And unimaginably.”

“There seems to me only one way to begin – and that is talking about what for me has become a parable of this strange and wacky year. I am referring to the drive-in movie screen. Want to know what 2020 has been like? Look no further.”