December 9, 2024 – Stuff That Needs To Be Said: Essential Words on Life, Death, Faith, Politics, Love, and Giving a Damn

“The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and, making her stand before all of them, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, sir.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”  John 8:3-11

“People outside the Church will tell you: Love is no longer our calling card. It is now condemnation, bigotry, judgment, and hypocrisy. In fact, the Christianity prevalent in so much of America right now isn’t just failing to draw others to Christ; it is actively repelling them from him. By operating in a way that is in full opposition to the life and ministry of Jesus, it is understandably producing people fully opposed to the faith that bears his name.” (Pavlovitz, John. Stuff That Needs To Be Said: Essential Words on Life, Death, Faith, Politics, Love, and Giving a Damn (pp. 41-42). John Pavlovitz. Kindle Edition.)

When I was a kid, one of the songs I used to love to sing was the song “And they will know we are Christians by our love, by our love….” I used to believe that this song meant something – that it defined my church. Now as a pastor finishing his nineteenth year of pastoral ministry, I am not so sure that Christianity is known for its love. In fact, after the last ten years, I believe larger and larger denominations within the Christian Church are identified by outsiders by their hate and condemnation, not by their love.

Unless I am mistaken, wasn’t this the lesson of the woman caught in adultery? Didn’t Jesus point out to the Pharisees and the Scribes: “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” I like to think that what Jesus was writing on the ground while the Scribes and Pharisees stood by seething in their hatred were the many times they committed adultery, either in their lust or in their actions.

My friends, when people come to our church, are they met with unwritten rules and secret actions and phrases that make them feel like an outsider, or do we go out of our way to explain and teach why we do what we do? Do we meet strangers with faces that show condemnation, or faces that reflect the love of Christ? If we began to sing “And they will know we are Christians by our love…” would our visitors believe we mean it, or think we are hypocrites?

In our world today, the best way to separate ourselves from Christian “Wannabes” is to live out the words we sing – and then show people we mean it.

Pastor Dave

December 8, 2024 – Advent 2C

“In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth;and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’” Luke 3:1-6

The four themes of Advent are Preparation, Expectation, Proclamation, and Revelation. The four parts of the service are Gathering, Word, Meal, and Sending. The four themes of Advent and the four sections of the worship service go together nicely in this way: We Gather and Prepare for worship; we hear the Word and know that we are part of the Proclamation; we gather around the table for the Meal and meet Jesus who is Revealed in the word, the bread and the wine; and finally, we are Sent into the world with the Expectation that we are the hands and feet of Christ.

The Prophet Malachi should be a prophet to whom we pay attention, because the word Malachi actually means “My Messenger”.  And the words of Malachi, given to him from G-d are this: that “God is sending a messenger to prepare the way for the Lord to come.”  But the book of Malachi also ends with these words: “I will send the prophet Elijah before the day of the Lord comes.” And then Luke tells us that John the Baptist is the fulfillment of this prophecy – that he is the one who has come to prepare the way.  His is the voice that is crying out. His is the voice setting the stage for Jesus and Jesus’ ministry. And his message is that people need to prepare themselves through repentance, through actual change in their lives – how they are living and who they are serving. And if we are willing to be messengers, well that may take some dramatic change.

You see, Advent is not just the buffer to Christmas. Advent is not just the countdown to Santa. Advent is preparation, it is proclamation, it is reading about and meditating on the fact that something Earth changing is coming.  Luke is intentional about making the statement that Advent is about “setting the stage” – that a miraculous, worldwide, phenomenally, incredible event is coming. So we better find our way into G-d’s word, so we can prepare as best we can.

Pastor Dave