Your Life Brings God's Kingdom to Life

State-of-the-Parish Address
Matthew 4:12-23; 1 Corinthians 1:10-18 (readings transferred one week because of weather)
Feb. 1, 2026

I need to let you know, so you don’t get distracted later:  This address will be a little longer than a usual sermon.  There’s a lot going on in the church and the world, so I’m giving myself six extra minutes. 

Jesus said, “Follow me” (Matt 4:19). So, let’s keep that in mind as we consider the state of our parish at the start of 2026.  Of course, what I’m supposed to say is, “The state of our parish is strong.”  In these addresses, the president, or the governor, or the rector always says that.  But I want to say something different because it’s more honest.  The state of our parish is … fine … at least for now.

You’ll see a lot of very good news in the annual report.  Outreach giving and service is downright inspiring: $103,000 given from the operating budget, another $105,000 in parishioners’ own gifts to our outreach partners, and 3,800 hours of service from you.  That’s crazy good.  Also in that category, we’re seeing more younger faces on Sundays and more little people running down the aisle to receive Communion.  The baristas have reached 10,000 hours of serving all sorts and conditions of community members over at HJ’s.  In terms of temporal affairs, we’ll be replacing our aging flat roofs and HVAC units this year with gifts outside the budget.  The effort is led by parishioner Frank Thompson, who has already led replacement of the parking lot and renovation of the undercroft – bless all those who are making this work possible.  And our number of pledging units is up, as is the number and proportion of increased pledges.  There’s a lot of good news.

And there are challenges.  Although the number of pledges is up, the amount pledged is $91,000 less than last year because a major giver died.  Also, we had a higher level of unfulfilled pledges in 2025 than usual – $110,000 pledged but not actually given.  Because of those unfulfilled pledges, we missed our revenue projection for 2025, which hasn’t happened in many years.

Now, this needn’t make you worry about staffing or outreach or utility bills in 2026.  We’re poised to do great ministry together this year.  As you’ll see in the budget presentation downstairs, we’ll be … fine.  But if we keep doing everything just the way we’ve been doing it, it won’t be long before “fine” means what its famous acronym stands for: frustrated, insecure, neurotic, and emotional.

I’d like to avoid that.  So, the leaders of your commissions related to resources – finance, stewardship, facilities, and endowment – are coming together this year to plan for a time when our current senior members and their generous pledges are no longer with us.  Watch for more about that as 2026 unfolds.

So, that’s the news from the land of temporal affairs.  How about the land of spiritual affairs?  That’s why the church is here, after all.  Our “core business” is to … hmmm … how would we frame that?  What are we here to produce?

Well, you could see our product as worship – preaching, music, prayer, and sacraments to connect us with God.  You could see our product as education – teaching people about God and God’s vision for the world.  You could see our product as outreach – being the hands and feet of Jesus to bless a hurting world.  You could see our product as fellowship – bringing the body of Christ together in love.  You could see our product as prophetic witness – speaking for God to the world around us.  We promise to do all those things in the Baptismal Covenant, our job description as Christians.

But I think our product is something different.  Our product is you.  What the Church is here to produce is disciples – people who follow Jesus Christ as their Lord.  The Church forms and equips disciples through all our ministries, all the ways the Baptismal Covenant frames the work of love.

So, forming followers of Jesus will be our focus this year, with a theme of Companions on the Way.  Why would we make that our theme?  Because a life of meaning and value and purpose – the life for which we yearn – that’s not a path we take alone.  It’s a path we take in community, growing in relationship with people who become our companions – a word that means, at its root, people who break bread together.  With our companions on the way, we find nothing less than the staff of life, the true Bread that came down from heaven – divine Love itself.

We find and journey with our companions in different ways, even in one person’s life.  It happens vertically, so to speak, in the one-on-one time we spend with God.  And it happens horizontally, too, in the relationships God empowers us to build – relationships across the dinner table with the people closest to us and relationships with friends we travel alongside.  All those paths move us toward heaven, now and later.

As I said, everything we do at church builds those vertical and horizontal companion relationships – worship, outreach, prayer, learning, welcoming others, having a party.  But to help us focus on going deeper with our companions, human and divine, we’re offering a couple of special resources this year.

One is a series of devotional guides.  The one for the Epiphany season is the start, but we’ll provide one for each season across this year.  And, beginning with Lent, the guides will be specific for each day, briefer, and easier to navigate – think of it as “five minutes with God.”  As you drink your first cup of coffee, or check in with your kids or grandkids, or decompress with your beloved at the end of the day, you can use this resource to reflect on something from the coming Sunday’s readings and see where a rich question will take you.

The other resource is something we’re calling Companion Groups.  Starting in Lent and continuing through the year, these small groups, eight to 10 people each, will gather once a month to connect with God and each other.  What will that look like?  A group might share something to eat and drink, check in about what’s bubbling in their lives, reflect on what they’ve been hearing in the season’s devotional guide, and come away amazed at how the Holy Spirit connects those dots.  If you’d like to be part of a group, you can sign up in the entryway or at the meeting downstairs, or you can sign up online.

What’s the point of the devotional guides and the small groups?  As you journey with your companions, human and divine, two miraculous things happen.  First, you grow deeper in love with God and the people around you, experiencing heaven not just later someday but in your life, right now.  And second, you begin to see how your extraordinary, ordinary life helps bring about God’s reign and rule of love.  How?  By being the person God’s made you to be – through the work you do, the choices you make, the actions you take, the good for which you stand.

Now, most often, no one will notice.  At the Free Store two weeks ago, I watched a parishioner talking with a woman who’d come late and couldn’t get the warm gloves she needed.  So, this parishioner went and got her own gloves out of her coat and gave them to the woman, who never knew where they came from.  That’s the kingdom of God, in the flesh.  But sometimes, you’ll find yourself acting as God’s agent more publicly – in what you say to someone at work, in the insight you post, in the rally your attend, in the causes you support.  As the poet said, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”¹  The kingdom of God is not a church, or a nonprofit, or a political party, or a nation.  The kingdom of God is one person after another following Jesus instead of following the other voices that claim our allegiance – voices of power or wealth or privilege or affinity.

I believe that’s our primary work as the Church.  It may seem like our mission is to provide worship, or put on classes, or feed the poor, or offer fellowship, or raise money.  Instead, each of those things supports our true purpose, which is to help you grow as a follower of Jesus, live out his love across your life, and share it with others.  That’s the Church’s superpower in a world that wants us to think we’re irrelevant.  Your changed life brings God’s kingdom to life.

So, in terms of temporal and spiritual affairs, I believe we have good, healthy work ahead of us this year.  That’s also true about a third aspect of the state of our parish – our intersection with the political and social moment in which we’re living.  And here, the same truth holds:  Your changed life brings God’s kingdom to life.

We’re in a time when we’re being asked, or maybe told, to overturn some of our nation’s fundamental presumptions – how we treat one another and how we treat the rest of the world.  For many decades, certainly across my life, Americans have followed norms that restrained our personal and collective temptations.  We’re in a time now when those norms are slipping.  Not so long ago, I would have assured someone that the losing side in an American election wouldn’t consider overturning the result, and that leaders wouldn’t consider deploying the armed forces against protesting citizens, and that leaders wouldn’t consider ending bedrock alliances when allies don’t follow our demands.  These presumptions are different now than they were a few years ago.  You may like those changes, or you may abhor them, but changes are happening.

I know some of you are frustrated with me for not speaking and writing about all this more directly.  Recently, a parishioner wrote to me about what he described as the administration’s “growing brutality and lack of empathy for citizens.”  He said, “I think it’s time we, as a church, become much stronger in [our] messaging. If some parishioners have a problem with that, so be it – they can leave and find another place of worship. It’s time to get off the fence.”

You deserve to know how I see the Church’s role in these times when slipping norms are emboldening our leaders to change the way they treat those who oppose them.  So, here goes.

First: I don’t see “the Church” as me.  I lead this parish, and you hear my voice more than others; but I am not the parish.  You are.

Second: If you are the Church, then it matters how you see the world.  Now, I can’t prove this, but my gut tells me St. Andrew’s is a microcosm of our politics.  I’d bet my next paycheck that we’re 50/50 progressive and conservative.  Now, I don’t know whether that tracks precisely with supporting the president and not supporting the president, but I’ll bet it’s close.  So, if we’re 50/50 on nearly any given issue, even priest-math tells me I’ll annoy half of you with any perceived political stance I take.

And that raises the question:  So what?  True leaders speak the truth, right? – regardless of whom they annoy.  That’s the perspective of the parishioner who wrote to me recently.

Let me be transparent about this.  There’s a very practical reason not to alienate half of you:  If those of you who disagree with me write me off and stop listening, I’ve lost whatever opportunity I had to change your heart.  But here’s an even better reason not to alienate half of you:  We need each other.  That’s always been true, but oh my goodness is it true now.

Some of my best friends and closest partners here are people whose votes cancel mine in every election.  And over the past 20 years, I’ve learned more from them than I can begin to say.  Maybe they’ve grown a little knowing me, too.  Well, the same truth holds at the congregational level.  I’m not sure there’s any institution but the Church, and especially this church, that has the capacity to hold us together as the powers around us are tearing us apart.  We need each other to be here, Sunday after Sunday, to remind us that we need each other always, as companions on the way.

Now, does that mean it doesn’t matter what we believe or how we behave?  Far from it.  Instead, it means that what binds us together here, across our differences, is not our allegiance to, or our rejection of, a political figure and his movement.  What binds us together is our allegiance to Jesus Christ as our sovereign.

So, then, what does Jesus have to say to our parish and to our nation?

Let’s take it from the top.  A scribe asks Jesus what’s the most important commandment, and Jesus says:  Love God with everything you’ve got, and love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 22:37-39).  Full stop.

I think what that means is that everything we do must align with giving our allegiance to God alone and giving others the same care we’d give ourselves.  So, for those who want to claim that this is a Christian nation – not that we are Christian nationalists, for that is not who we are – but if we want to claim that our nation is guided by the God revealed in Jesus Christ, then we must follow God’s priorities – especially when God’s priorities challenge our own.  A Christian nation follows rules, norms, and boundaries beyond “I can do what I want.”  A Christian nation recognizes that God’s agenda defines the true national interest.  A Christian nation prioritizes raising up those who struggle the most.  A Christian nation has the strength to say, “We honor and serve even those who differ from us because they’re made in God’s image and likeness.”

So, in this challenging moment, what’s the Church for?  The Church is here to form you to follow Jesus in loving God and loving neighbor through every aspect of your life – family, work, finances, volunteerism, advocacy, voting.  If you look at the changes happening in our nation, and you can honestly say they represent what Jesus wants to see, then work and vote for them.  If you look at the changes happening in our nation, and you say Jesus opposes them, then work and vote against them.

But, for God’s sake, literally – if you disagree with me, or if you disagree with the person sitting next to you in the pew – whatever else you do, don’t leave.  That’s precisely what the forces of division want.  Instead, tell me that you disagree, and then let’s share the sacrament of a cup of coffee as companions on the way.

Our broken world says, “Join only with people who look and live and think and love like you.”  The good news of Jesus Christ says, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people” (Matt 4:19) – these people and those people, people you like and people you don’t, people you agree with and people you can’t understand.  “Follow me,” Jesus says, “as your Companion on the way, and learn to live as I live.  Follow me,” Jesus says, “alongside these companions I give you, and with them build my kingdom of love.

“Follow me,” Jesus says.  For it’s in his love, and his love alone, that we are bound together.

1.      From “Poem for South African Women” by June Jordan, presented at the United Nations, Aug. 9, 1978. Available at: https://www.junejordan.net/poem-for-south-african-women.html. Accessed Jan. 30, 2026. See article by Howell, Patrick A. “We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For.” Huffpost, April 18, 2017. Available at: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/we-are-the-ones-we-have-been-waiting-for_b_58e785b9e4b0acd784ca5738. Accessed Jan. 30, 2025.

Are You as Human as I Am?

Sermon for Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026
Micah 6:1-8; Matthew 5:1-12
(Readings for Epiphany 4 switched with Epiphany 3)

Eight days ago, dozens of us joined dozens of folks from St. James Methodist to offer the Free Store, now a twice-a-year event where anyone can come for a hot meal and the chance to shop for things we all need.  At this time of year, that means warm coats, boots, gloves, hats, socks – the basics I take for granted.  It’s a tremendous thing to provide that hot meal and some essentials of life for 325 people on a cold morning.  But it’s a good thing for me, too – a chance for God to form my mind a little more fully into the mind of Christ.  Just recently, I realized my winter coat was ripping out after a decade’s use, so I pulled out my phone, ordered one online, and had it delivered to my door.  That’s my life.  And it’s good for me to remember it’s not the life of thousands of neighbors of mine.

In fact, I had a brief conversation with a young woman at the Free Store waiting for breakfast.  She asked about what was in the next room, where the clothes were – most important, did they have boots?  Now, this young woman had a disability in at least one of her legs, which made walking hard in any case.  And she stuck out her twisted ankle to show me what she was wearing that frigid morning – very old bedroom slippers.  She said, with masterful understatement, “I kinda need some new shoes.”  I told her we did have boots, and I silently prayed there were still some left at that point in the morning.

It’s good to remember that my life is not the life of thousands of neighbors of mine.  In fact, it’s not just good.  It’s holy.  To practice God’s justice, we have to see the other not as the other but as a child of God.

God’s justice … now there’s a rich concept.  We heard it in the first reading this morning, those famous words of the prophet Micah.  Let me set the stage a bit for this verse we see on T-shirts and yard signs so we can know what was on the prophet’s mind.

Micah looks around at the Kingdom of Judah about 700 BC, after the northern Kingdom of Israel had already fallen to the Assyrians, and Micah sees a clear throughline.  Both these Jewish kingdoms have failed to keep the covenant they’d made with Yahweh.  God freed them from the Egyptians, gave them this land, and asked the people for their exclusive loyalty.  Although the answer at first was a hearty “yes,” the people eventually said, “No, thanks.  We’ll worship you when it’s convenient, but there are lots of other cool gods out there, too.”

So, speaking for God, Micah plays the role of prosecutor and judge, making the case against the remaining Kingdom of Judah and basically saying, Justify yourself!  Through the prophet, God says, “What have I done to you?  In what have I wearied you?  Answer me!” (6:3)  Micah then imagines how the people would respond.  What is it God wants, anyway?  Burnt offerings of calves and rams?  Maybe child sacrifice, like some other cultures?  No, Micah exclaims.  God “has told you … what is good” – your allegiance, expressed in action.  “[W]hat does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (6:8)

There’s that word … justice.  What is it to “do justice”?  In our culture, we think of it as following and enforcing the law, and there’s truth in that.  Our “justice system,” on its best days, strives to accomplish that goal.  But God’s justice is broader than that.  God’s justice is what it looks like when we live out the social order God desires.  And what is that?  Well, it does include punishment for wrongdoing, but it doesn’t stop there.  God’s justice applies to all of human interaction.  It includes intentionally caring for the vulnerable rather than assuming it’s someone else’s responsibility.  It includes ensuring that resources are accessible to all – not necessarily that everyone has the same but that everyone has access to what they need.  It presumes that these conditions are the responsibility of the community, not compartmentalized as a function of religion or a government department – but that the community is responsible for the community’s wholeness and right relationship with God.  And why would God expect all this?  Because a right relationship with God would reflect God’s own nature, which is Love.¹  So, if justice is how we express divine Love, then maybe, at the end of the day, justice depends on how you regard the other.  And to regard the other righteously, in a way that reflects the Love that God is, then you actually have to see the other.

From Micah’s call to do justice, our readings take us to Jesus’ vision of justice lived out in a broken world.  The Beatitudes sketch the life of the disciple community, an alternative community – what “God’s empire” would look like in contrast to the Roman Empire.²  This series of nine blessings comes in two parts.  The first four raise up those who are disheartened – the folks who probably just want to give up because the Romans and the complicit religious authorities deplete their spirits, cause them grief, make them doubt their capacity, and make them yearn for a society that is in right relationship with God.  But in a culture that values wealth and power, God blesses those who are out of resources and out of options, a process that Jesus has begun.³  Then Jesus goes on to describe the way of life for his followers, in contrast to the Romans and the religious leaders.  It’s a life of practicing mercy, practicing right relationship, and making peace, despite the harsh consequences.  As one scholar says, “Persecution is inevitable when the powerful elite are challenged,” but “God rewards faithfulness.”⁴

So, how do we learn to live this way?  How do we learn to do justice – to practice mercy, right relationship, and peace?  I think it starts by seeing the other not as “them” but as “us.”  And, it turns out, we have a place to practice doing that six days a week.

Last Sunday, parishioner Craig Lundgren shared that our Brew Crew, the baristas who serve at HJ’s Café, have logged 10,000 hours welcoming all sorts and conditions of people for coffee.  Now, for the church as an organization, and for the baristas, and for Sarah Tepikian, our staff member at HJ’s, this is not easy.  We’ve had to put up signs at HJ’s saying you can’t lie down here or get into fights.  We’ve had to employ security, just as we do on this side of the street on Sunday mornings.  But a beautiful “both/and” happens there.  On any given day at HJ’s, you’ll find Trolley Trail bikers and hikers, members of community groups, and folks looking for a place to stay warm.  And on Fridays, we see maybe the best expression of the community that HJ’s invites when neighbors of all kinds gather to play music and drink coffee and sing together.  The tremendously cool thing is that no one at the church organized this.  It’s not a ministry.  It’s the Spirit’s work, an inbreaking of the reign and rule of God.  And when it happens, you see the other as being just a little bit more like you.

Practicing God’s contrast kingdom of mercy, right relationship, and peace – it’s the hardest work there is.  It isn’t sweetness and light; it’s messy, inconvenient, and disruptive.  Sometimes, it even spills out into the streets, as we saw on Friday.  In Minneapolis, thousands of Minnesotans turned out that day, in weather colder than ours, to express their outrage about the government’s tactics in apprehending people who may have broken immigration laws.  Now, some will argue that those people in the streets were just agitators looking to discredit the government and disrupt authority.  I’m sure you could find some people in Minneapolis who would fit that description.  But I know that thousands of others are like my friend Kathy, a priest who lives there.  She’s a few years older than I am – a mom and grandma who makes the best bars you’ll ever eat.  And she braved those frigid temperatures to stand for God’s justice.  Mtr. Kathy, and thousands more people with otherwise boring, normal lives, looked at the way their government is treating the other, and they saw a disconnect between God’s justice and the application of law.  

And then, yesterday, as the protests in Minneapolis continued, a confrontation turned deadly, with ICE agents using lethal force.  This second killing of a Minneapolis protester will continue to be analyzed deeply and, God willing, an investigation will reveal truth.  But, at the end of the day, people will believe what they see more than what they’re told.  In any event, I think it’s safe to say that othering can have even fatal consequences.

Interestingly, on the same Friday as the Minneapolis protest but half a country away, the 53^rd annual March for Life took place in Washington, where a very different crowd of protesters also saw a disconnect between God’s justice and the government’s policies.  Now, I don’t know anyone personally who went to the March for Life, but I imagine they’d consider abortion to be something that fails to care for the vulnerable and therefore denies the justice of God.  They look at a fetus, or even an embryo, and see a person.  Now, half of you hearing this will say they’re right, and half of you hearing this will say they’re wrong.  But, once again, justice comes down to personhood – on the topic of abortion, the question of personhood.  And if it’s a person there in front of you, the requirement for God’s justice pertains.

I certainly can’t solve the personhood question related to abortion, and I won’t try.  But I think it’s surprising that a core Christian principle may have been motivating protesters at both rallies on Friday: the call to stand in contrast to a culture that dehumanizes people made in the divine image and likeness.

What do we do with that?  My point isn’t whether the two rallies were morally equivalent.  My point is that we each have to ask ourselves, “Who’s the other to me?  Is that other as fully human as I am?”  If the answer is “yes,” then we have work to do to see that other the way God sees them: fully human, broken and beloved, and worthy of being taken just as seriously as we’d take any other child of God.

1.      Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 3, 1127.

2.      New International Study Bible, 1754 (note).

3.      Ibid.

4.      Ibid.

 

Look Up and Look Around

Sermon for Epiphany (transferred,) Jan. 11, 2026
Matthew 2:1-12

It probably won’t surprise you to know that, in college, I didn’t take a lot of science classes.  But I had to take a couple, and one I chose was astronomy.  In fairness, that was primarily because my girlfriend loved astronomy, and she was a lab assistant, and I knew an opportunity when I saw one.  I don’t remember much of the class content now, but it made me appreciate the grandeur of the skies, the beauty and wonder we encounter by looking up.

Even now, 40 years later, I can still find Orion and the Big Dipper and the North Star.  And as I walk in the dark of the early morning, I look for them, always.  But in the 40 years since my class, the beauty and wonder of the skies have been joined by an even deeper sense I get when I look up.  It’s Love.  When I step out into the early-morning darkness and see the moon and the stars greeting me, what I feel is Love, with a capital L.  That Love is God.  You know, depending on one’s mood and the happenings of our lives in a given season, the natural world can seem dark and foreboding, even violent and dangerous.  But, to me, what shines through the early-morning darkness is divine Love.  It’s an assurance that I’m not alone, regardless of what yesterday may have brought.  It’s not just that God is there; it’s that God is welcoming me, traveling with me, guiding me into what’s next.

It’s amazing what can come from looking up.

These “three kings” we’ve welcomed this morning – they were professional lookers-up.  As you probably know, they weren’t kings; the biblical text calls them magi, “wise men” in Greek.  They were the naturalists of their day – astrologers in a time when astrology and astronomy were one and the same, more scientists than fortune tellers.  They were most likely from Parthia, modern Iran and Iraq, east of Rome’s province of Judea – in fact, a land beyond Rome’s dominion.  For the Jews, it might as well have been the kingdom of Far Far Away.  These magi were probably court officials, scholars telling their king what the natural world said about the divine will and how a wise king should govern as a result.

The story tells us these magi from the east had seen something new and surprising in the sky – a star in the west, from their perspective, heralding the birth of a king who would fulfill the divine will in a whole new way.  Apparently, they knew enough of the lore of the Israelites to know the Jews were waiting for a king who would bring back the days of David and Solomon, defeating the Romans and ruling directly as God’s own viceroy, bringing the reign and rule of Love to the earth.  So the magi needed to see for themselves if they were right about the meaning of this sign in the sky.

So, they set out, following the new star.  We don’t get any details about their trip, but it wasn’t a quick jaunt.  They would have taken a trade route west, toward Judea – as Mtr. Jean said last week about the Holy Family, the magi, too, would have traveled in a caravan because wise men don’t try to go a thousand miles through the wilderness on their own.  It would have taken a few months to get from Parthia to Judea.  So, this was no impulsive sightseeing trip.  This was a pilgrimage, which by definition doesn’t just take you somewhere but changes you in the process.

As emissaries of their king, the magi made their first destination the palace of the local king, Herod.  Now, Herod was Caesar’s minion in Judea, the local mob boss, whose rule was as far from God’s way of Love as you can get.  Herod was a Jew ethnically, but following God wasn’t exactly the M.O. of this small man who built himself up by tearing others down, including killing his own heir when he felt threatened.  Even the Roman Emperor, Augustus, noted Herod’s taste for blood, saying it was better to be Herod’s pig than his son.¹

Herod listens as the magi ask about some baby who’s been born to be king of the Jews, and all Herod can hear is a threat.  He slyly asks the magi to go find the baby and bring word back so Herod can find him, too – and have him murdered.

So, the magi, undeterred by evil, keep following the star toward Love.  They find Mary and Joseph in a house like anybody else’s, no palace at all.  They find the little toddler king, and they bring out their famous gifts that say, “Your own king may want you dead.  But in nations far away, when we look to you, we see the light of divine Love.”

And because they’re wise men, these royal emissaries heed the voice of Love in their dreams, going home by another way.  Herod, still scared enough to kill, decides to murder all the toddlers and babies of Bethlehem.  But the wise Joseph listens to his dreams, too, and the Holy Family flees as refugees.

What can we take from this story?  I think these wise travelers have at least two crucial insights to share with us today.

Here’s the first:  Look up.  Like I said, it makes a world of difference for me to start my day in the darkness looking up to find the light of Love.  Sometimes, the sky is stunning – the moon blazing full or a crescent, rocking just above the horizon.  There’s Orion the hunter welcoming me to set out for whatever this day’s hunt will bring.  And there’s the Big Dipper arcing through the sky and pointing to the North Star.  Looking up, I get my bearings again.  I remember, “Oh, right – regardless of what’s eating away at me, regardless of how tired I may be, regardless of the Herods who may be waiting down the road – oh, right, there’s Love, walking with me, again.”  Now, of course, sometimes the clouds mask it all.  Sometimes, you look up, and it’s simply darkness.  But that reminds us of something holy, too: that the Love who fashioned creation, and who died to give us life, and who walks alongside us every day – that Love is there, whether we see it or not.  The clouds can’t keep Love at bay.

So, the magi’s first insight:  Look up.  And their second?  Look around.

Now, we don’t know much for sure about these travelers from the east.  The story gives us few details, and history offers even fewer.  But we do know this much:  Magi is a plural noun. To represent the nations surrounding God’s chosen people, the story doesn’t give us a lone ranger.  It’s not some cowboy alone on his horse who brings gifts to the baby king.  It’s not a magus but magi – several wise people, traveling together across the wilderness.  We don’t know how many; the tradition tells us it’s three because three is a magic number – the perfect symbol of community, just right even to reflect the deeply relational nature of God.  So, the magi are a community of pilgrims aching to glimpse the divine; and, somehow, they know they can only do that together.  They know each other’s strengths and foibles.  They have each other’s backs.  They learn from each other’s wisdom.  They’re individuals, certainly, each with their own gifts and their own brokenness.  But they look around, and they see each other, and they know:  They’re at their best together.

So are we.  And this year, you’ll have the opportunity to experience that kind of community in a new way here at St. Andrew’s.  In Lent, we’ll be starting something we’re calling Companion Groups – small, monthly gatherings to help us grow in faith through intentional spiritual companionship.  And why would we do that?  Because the Christian life is meant to be lived together.  Spiritual maturity isn’t just about learning the Bible or prayers or theology; it’s about learning to walk with God and with one another.  And we do that best in safe, prayerful spaces where we can share our stories, listen to each other, reflect on life, and discover Christ walking alongside us.

Companion Groups give us a way to create that safe, prayerful space, and you can sign up for one today.  With a few other fellow travelers, you can connect, reflect, grow … and realize you don’t have to do this on your own.

You know, we are children of a culture that equips us very well to provide for ourselves.  Rugged individualism can be a great strength, in the right time and place.  But as a paradigm for life’s journey, it’s a way that leaves us vulnerable to the bad guys lurking behind the rocks.  Maybe even worse, that rugged individualism also can keep us from seeing heaven all around us.  If salvation is only about making it through this life so we can find eternal rest and reward later, then we’re missing heaven in the here and now.  Think about the old Appalachian spiritual, “Wayfaring Stranger”:

I’m just a poor wayfaring stranger
A-travelin’ through this world of woe.
But there’s no sickness, toil, nor danger
In that bright world to which I go.
I’m going there to see my mother,
I’m going there no more to roam.
I’m just a-goin’ over Jordan.
I’m just a-goin' over home.

That’s the theme song of the spirituality of rugged individualism – a lament that I know heaven’s out there somewhere, if I can just hang on long enough in this life to get there on my own.  But, as good as the heaven of chapter 2 will surely be, it’s not the beginning of our eternal life.  This life is – this life of looking up, and looking around, and knowing that divine Love walks alongside you every day.

1. https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/it-is-better-to-be-herods-pig-than-son

Jerry the Angel Finds the Good News

Sermon for Christmas Day, Dec. 25, 2025
John 1:1-14

This Gospel reading may not be what you were expecting for your Christmas story.  That came last night – the angels and the shepherds and the baby in the manger.  This morning, we get the story from a cosmic perspective: the Word of God made flesh and dwelling among us in glory.

In Anglo-Catholic congregations, there’s a tradition of offering this reading every Sunday.  It’s the “Last Gospel,” and it comes at the very end of the service, even after the final blessing.  You can’t miss the importance of God taking flesh among us if it’s the last thing you hear literally every time you worship.

So, the incarnation is important, but maybe it’s hard to know what we’re supposed to do with it.  How does this amazing mystery affect my life?

Well, it’s Christmas morning. So, rather than diving deep into a theology of the incarnation, how about a story?

 *  *  *

Jerry the Angel wasn’t much of an angel, really.  Every time he was on the edge of success, about to make a real difference for people, that’s when he managed to mess it up.  If you ever wondered how we found ourselves with concrete lawn ornaments and 24-hour news channels, you can blame that on bungled messages from Jerry the Angel.  It’s what angels do, after all – they deliver messages. 

Well, when you’re an angel who’s not so good at delivering messages, they assign you to the heavenly Office of Salvation Research.  Instead of sharing good news of great joy, these angels go out listening to people’s opinions and perceptions about God.  Maybe you didn’t know heaven has its own research department.  But the angels have to stay in touch with how we’re thinking so they can tell us Good News in a way we can understand it.  I mean, what would people think these days if an army of shining, flying soldiers suddenly hovered over them in the night, talking about a Messiah who’s come to save them?  It probably wouldn’t show God’s love nearly as well as a story on the evening news about an anonymous stranger handing out $100 bills.  Like God always says to the angels, you’ve got to tell the story in a way folks can hear it.

Anyway, that was Jerry’s job – to go around talking to people about how they understand salvation.  What do they think the Good News is?  So, Jerry heard a lot of crazy stuff, frankly, especially at Christmas time – like those stories about Santa’s little henchmen, the elves, tiny spies who watch your every move.  In fact, this time of year usually left Jerry a little depressed.  “Just once,” he said, “I’d like to meet someone who really gets what the Good News is all about.”

So, it was late afternoon on Christmas Eve, and Jerry was on patrol.  His first stop was in a nice neighborhood – a huge, lovely home filled with guests for a holiday party.  Jerry walked down the long driveway to the front door and rang the bell.  A woman with a drink in her hand answered the door.

“Hello?” she said, dubiously.  “I’m sorry – do I know you?”

“No, ma’am,” Jerry said.  “I just want a moment of your time for a couple of quick questions.”

“Oh, not a survey!” the woman replied.  I have guests!”

“It will only take a minute, really,” Jerry said.  “In fact, I’ll cut it down to just one question.”

“All right,” the woman said, looking over her shoulder.  “Let’s get this over with.”

“OK,” Jerry said.  “What’s the Good News for you?”

“I’m sorry?” the woman asked.  “The good news about what?”

“It’s Christmas,” Jerry reminded her, “when the Word of God was made flesh and came among you.  It’s the reason you’re having a party, right?  So, what’s the Good News for you?”

“Oh, you’re one of those religious types,” the woman said, nodding her head knowingly.  “Well, then, I’d have to say the Good News for me is … um … let’s see.  I know:  God wants us to treat people nicely.  OK?”

“OK,” Jerry said.  “One vote for politeness.  Thanks for your time” – and the woman shut the door in Jerry’s face.  “So much for ‘nice,’” he thought.

From there, Jerry transported himself to a very poor neighborhood.  He came to a broken-down apartment building and passed through the locked door.  He walked up to the third floor and found a door with a laughing, plastic Santa face hung on it.  “Here’s someone who at least celebrates Christmas,” he thought.  “I’ll give this a try.”  And he knocked.

A teenaged boy answered the door.  Looking in, Jerry saw very little – not much furniture, nothing on the walls.  He could hear a TV in the corner. “Wha’cha want?” the young man asked.

“Hi there,” Jerry began, trying to sound positive.  “I just want a moment of your time for a couple of quick questions.”

“You gotta be kiddin’,” the young man said.  “Your takin’ a survey?  How’d you get in here, anyway?”

“It’ll only take a second,” Jerry said.  “How about just one question?”

“OK – shoot,” the young man said, looking back over his shoulder at the TV.

“It’s Christmas Eve, right?” Jerry asked.  “The night Jesus was born.  So, what’s the Good News for you?”

The young man looked back at Jerry, his eyes narrowing. “Oh, I know about Good News,” he said, bitterly.  “Good News is what they call it when the preacher says you’ll be happy if you just give God more money.  Good News is what they call it when you come to church and end up takin’ home nothin’ but empty words about how things’ll get better if you just pray harder.  Is that the Good News you had in mind?”

Jerry began to step back from the doorway.  “Thanks a lot for your time,” he said quickly, “and … um … have a merry … well, have a safe night.”

“OK,” Jerry thought, heading down the stairs.  “Folks can smell a lie a mile away.  So, the Good News has got to be real.”

From there, Jerry transported himself to the closest thing we have to a town square or Main Street in the year 2025, the place where the locals gather from miles around:  He went to Costco.  There, even on Christmas Eve, Jerry had his pick of hundreds of folks he might interview – people doing their Christmas shopping at the last minute or stocking up for the family’s visit.

Amid all the intense shoppers going this way and that, Jerry saw a little girl.  She was about 10, and her parents must have left her on her own for a bit while they hunted for her present.  Jerry decided she was the one to talk to.

“Hi, Honey,” he said softly.  “I want to ask you a couple of questions.  Is that OK?”

“Sure,” the little girl said.

“What’s your name?” Jerry asked.

“I’m Gabriella,” the little girl said.  “What’s your name?”

“I’m Jerry, and I wish I had a name as good and strong as yours.  It’s perfect for an angel.”

“Oh, I’m no angel,” Gabriella said.  “Just ask my parents.  So, what did you want to ask me?”

“Well,” Jerry began, “it’s Christmas Eve.  You’re not in church, or at your grandparents’ house, or opening presents with your family.  You’re here at Costco.  This is the night the angels appeared, announcing the Good News that Jesus was born.  Do you know what that Good News is?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Gabriella said.  “The Good News is right here in my cart.”

Jerry looked down and saw what the little girl had been shopping for: Stocking caps – lots of stocking caps.  There must have been 50 stocking caps in the little girl’s cart.  “Stocking caps?” Jerry asked.  “I don’t get it.  Where’s the Good News in a cart full of stocking caps?”

“Oh, it’s not about the caps exactly,” Gabriella said.  “The Good News comes when I take the caps to church later, and we give them away for people who don’t have a warm place to live.”  She looked down at her treasure and then looked back at Jerry.  She was beaming.  “I saved up my allowance.”

Bingo, Jerry thought.  Finally, he’d found a little messenger.  “So tell me why that’s Good News,” he said.

Gabriella looked at Jerry with a little sympathy, like maybe he wasn’t very smart.  “It’s easy,” she said, again.  “Jesus came into the world long ago, on a cold night like this.  Jesus is still in the world, on a cold night like this.  He’s there in all those people who don’t have a place to live, who can’t find any room at the inn.  He loves me just like God loves me – and he’s shivering out there in the cold.  So I need to help keep him warm, because I love him, too.”  She cocked her head and looked at Jerry.  “It’s not complicated.  Don’t you get it?”

Jerry smiled and remembered why he loved his job after all.  “Yes, I get it,” he said.  “Can I ask you a favor?”

“Sure,” Gabriella said.  “Do you want a stocking cap?”

“No,” Jerry said.  “I just want you to go and tell other people your story.” 

“I can do that,” she said, as she pushed her cart toward the check-out lane.  Jerry watched as she walked away, and suddenly he found himself listening to what was playing over the Costco loudspeakers: 

Hark! the herald angels sing
            glory to the newborn King!

Christmas Past, Present, and Future

Sermon for Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 2025
Luke 2:1-14

Here we are, in this beautiful space on this beautiful night, celebrating the realization of our hope:  the long-awaited coming of Christ the Lord, God made flesh, the One who will save us and bring us light.  For four weeks now, we’ve been marking church time, ever so slowly lighting a candle a week on the Advent wreath and waiting expectantly to see what happens next.

That’s been true for many of us.  But others have been waiting differently – waiting just to make it through a tough time.  From my perspective, closing the book on 2025 can’t come soon enough.  If you’ve lost someone or something recently, or if you’re having trouble making ends meet, or if you long for civility and common decency to be normal once again, then maybe you, too, feel weary, tired of waiting not so much in hope but in fear of what might be the next shoe to drop.

In fact, you’d be forgiven for wondering about the relevance of hope in our world at all.  Hope seems quaint, like rotary phones or TV Guide, a marker of a bygone age.  In fact, you might have come here tonight/today with some resentment or anger in your cup of Christmas cheer.  Peace?  Goodwill?  Hope?  They might sound, at best, like a nice children’s story, or, at worst, from the cynic’s perspective, like the opiate of the masses.

For me, I’ve always waited in hope for Christmas by watching certain movies – It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34^th Street, Elf, Love Actually.  This year, I haven’t watched any of them.  But, a couple of nights ago, I did feel the urge to see a Christmas movie.  So, on my daughter’s recommendation, I picked The Muppets’ Christmas Carol.

Now, A Christmas Carol is a story I imagine we all know, at least in outline.  Ebenezer Scrooge is the ultimate misanthrope – a truly awful man who describes poor people as “surplus population” and happily underpays his staff.¹  He’s visited by three spirits who show him how his choices have made life so much worse, for himself and for others.  The experience converts him to a life of love.

It’s a great story, and it sits very close to my heart.  In fact, I was in A Christmas Carol at a local theater in Springfield a long time ago, so at one point I had the whole script memorized.  And, of course, we offered our own short version of A Christmas Carol here for a decade or so, with me perhaps typecast as Scrooge.  So, Dickens’ words are in my head – and the Muppets’ version of it actually follows his language closely.

So, it surprised me to be surprised by a line I heard in this movie a couple of nights ago.  It comes at the end of the story, when Scrooge has had his epiphany.  The three spirits have revealed to him Christmas past, present, and future, each scene showing the consequences of choosing against love.  And Scrooge wakes up finally to daylight, realizing it’s morning, and he isn’t dead, and he hasn’t even missed Christmas.  Through the grace of God, hope still awaits him.  So, he arranges with a kid in the street to go buy the prize turkey in the butcher’s window and deliver it to the hungry Cratchit family.  He says, “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy.”  And as he comes to see just how good it feels to choose love, Scrooge promises the universe he will “keep [Christmas] all the year.”  That line I remembered – a lovely thought, but seemingly no deeper than what you might find on a Christmas card.  But in the Muppets’ Christmas Carol, true to Dickens’ text, Scrooge fleshes it out a bit and connects his jolly heart more directly with God’s purposes.  He says, “I will live in the past, the present, and the future.”¹

Sit with that a bit.  “I will live in the past, the present, and the future.”  That’s a line I hadn’t remembered.  But I think Scrooge is onto something there because the way he resolves to live is the way God lives – past, present, and future, all available to be lived, in any given moment.

Now let me tell you a second story, as quickly as I can.  It’s not that the story is quick – in fact, it’s the longest of them all – but this thumbnail version can be quick.  It’s the story of God.

It begins with God on top of the world – more precisely, creating all the worlds, all the universe, including this beautiful Earth, “our island home” (BCP 370).  God brings forth life over all of it, the peaceable kingdom of mutual dependence and blessed interconnection – the wolf living with the lamb and the leopard lying down with the kid (Isaiah 11:6).  And God creates humans, too, the coup de gras of creation, beings made in God’s own image and likeness, including the mirrored divine attributes of love and freedom.  God aches for the humans to choose the loving side of their nature, but these nearly divine beings choose individual interest over interconnection.  In time, they turn against each other, too, behaving so badly that God sees no choice but to start over.  Well, the flood ends up being messy and not exactly just, so God decides not to solve the problem that way a second time.  Instead, God anoints a couple of heroes, Abraham and Sarah, to journey into a divine covenant, for themselves and their descendants.  Why?  To bless the two of them and their families, sure, but also to bless everybody else, to show everybody just how good life is when you live it in God’s image and likeness.  The people of the covenant thrive and fail and thrive and fail.  God sustains them, and delivers them, and instructs them, and blesses them, even with other people’s lands.  But the people forget their covenant and choose against living in God’s image, over and over again.  Finally, God says, “Enough – enough of kings and their armies, enough of experts and their law.  I’ll send my beloved to show them what love’s supposed to look like.”

So, we find ourselves at that first Christmas, with the power that created the universe taking the appalling step of becoming a human baby, an absolute nobody and, thereby, everybody – the ultimate image and likeness of God.  People didn’t know what to do with that, especially once this incarnate Word of God started talking and teaching and training one poor Schmoe after another how to follow in his steps.  Against all odds, the movement caught on, so much so that the people in charge decided it was better to kill the power of Love than to lose their own power.  But the Word of God would not be silenced.  Christ rose from death and defeated it, sharing the Spirit of Love so his friends could spread the word, and then returning home as CEO of the universe.

And now?  What do we do with that now?  Well, now, we wait.  But it matters what we’re waiting for.  Are we waiting for God to do something more, for the sequel to the story, where God conquers sin and death completely?  You could see it that way.  Or, if you’ll entertain the possibility of a larger story with a God-sized scope of time, maybe that victory is already complete.  After all, if the baby in the manger, the Word made flesh, is truly the sovereign of the universe, that would imply there’s no serious resistance left.  Here on earth, we’re in a 2,000-year-long mopping-up action, just waiting to see the fullness of God’s victory revealed – both in our own choices, day by day, and eventually in Christ pulling back the curtain completely on creation that’s been made new.

As Scrooge said, “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.  I will live in the past, in the present, and in the future. …”¹  That’s how we honor Christ, too.  We live in the past when we celebrate Eucharist, taking our seats at the Last Supper, as Jesus gives himself to give us eternal life.  We live in the present when we inhabit our role as the Body of Christ today, being Jesus’ head and heart and hands to bring the power of Love to bear in this mopping-up action of Christian life.  And we live in the future when we remember what’s yet to be fully revealed but what we’ve been affirming since the 300s as a done deal:  Christ “ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father … and his kingdom will have no end” (BCP 358-359).

In the midst of the hardness of this world and the hardness of our hearts, we can hope because God’s already got this.  What remains now – as we play the long game to face down all pretenders to Jesus’ throne – what remains now is to live hope by embodying love, joining Scrooge in his Great Commission for this present age.  So, take it as your Christmas commission, too, because it means much more than greeting-card verse.  Draw God’s past and God’s future together in the holy now by living Christmas every day.  Let your life be the light that shines in the darkness – the light that the darkness did not, and will not, and even now cannot overcome.

1.      Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. Available at: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm. Accessed Dec. 23, 2025.

 

Maybe It's Not Just a Sunrise

Sermon (narrative essay, actually) for Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025
Matthew 11:2-15

Maybe it was just a sunrise.

Thursday morning, as I was walking with the dog, I looked up.  That doesn’t seem noteworthy, but sometimes looking up matters.  It was nearing sunrise, and Pete and I were heading back toward the house, walking west.  Now, last time I checked, the sun rises in the east.  But as we walked west, I noticed the edges of the wispy clouds on the horizon beginning to gleam in pinks and purples.  I stopped and looked south.  And north.  And east, finally.  And all around, at about the same level of brightness, the wisps of clouds at the horizon were being painted in pinks and purples.

After a few minutes of watching the colors brighten, I went into the house for breakfast.  When I looked out the window, no surprise, the eastern skyline was brightening gloriously; and the clouds around the rest of the sky’s dome were growing whiter, beginning to lose their pink and purple.  It was as if the artist’s gaze had shifted:  Having played with color all around the horizon, the artist got busy with the canvas’ focal point.  As my cereal got soggy, I kept watching; and the shifting colors crept through the clouds for what seemed like twice as long as any sunrise I’d ever seen.  In divine slow motion, the artist seemed to say, “You like this?  Hang on … wait just a little more.  It gets even better, if you keep watching.”

Maybe it was just a sunrise.  But on this particular morning – in this season of my own life and our collective life, too, when expectations of goodness and love perhaps have never seemed lower – on this particular morning, it felt like more than a sunrise.  It felt like a wonder – an assurance – an embrace.

*  *   *   *

Two thousand years ago, a wandering preacher and his band of misfits had stopped in a village.  It had been a busy few weeks.  Heading from town to town, they’d found what you’d expect: people doing the best they can, living grindingly normal lives – same as it ever was.  Some were doing well, settled in responsibility and respect, comfort and control.  Others weren’t so lucky.  Two thousand years ago, the sick and the broken and the poor and the alone were out there for all to see, not shunted away but out in front of God and everybody.

So, this wandering preacher and his band of misfits focused on them – not the folks who had it all together, the ones who might have offered a meal and a place to stay, but the folks with no expectations of aid or comfort, and nothing to give anyone.  

Now, among these folks with nothing more to lose, crazy things kept happening.  A guy everybody knew was blind suddenly could see.  A woman everybody knew was sick, and therefore excluded, suddenly felt great and was out with everybody else on market day.  A kid whom everybody knew had died wasn’t dead after all.  These things made no sense.  Nobody was complaining, mind you, but they also couldn’t explain it.

Miles away, a guy in a jail cell couldn’t explain it either.  His name was John; and Herod, the Romans’ local lackey, was letting John rot in prison because he kept calling Herod a hypocrite for breaking religious rules when they grew inconvenient.  John was the cousin of this wandering preacher, Jesus from Nazareth; and Jesus had been part of John’s own band of misfits out in the desert, where John spoke hard truth to people in power about how they should love God and love neighbor rather than lining their pockets and pushing people around.  Now, stuck in his dank cell, John was losing hope.  He’d seen himself as the next great prophet, like Elijah, taking down corrupt kings and bringing hope that God’s true king was coming to set the world to rights.  So much for that, John thought. 

But still, John had heard these stories about his cousin and the amazing things that kept happening wherever he went.  Back when Jesus had joined John’s band, John had had a vision and told anyone who’d listen that Jesus was the one they were waiting for.  Maybe that was true after all.  Maybe God was at work here after all.  Maybe this prison cell was just an ugly stopover on the journey toward life under God’s true king.  So, John sent a couple of his old friends to find Jesus so they could check things out and ask Jesus what all this meant.

They got there just after Jesus had healed four people, and the local crowd was buzzing.  Like always, the folks in control weren’t too pleased, but the nobodies started daring to think maybe change was finally coming.  After all, they’d always been taught that, someday, God would send the king who would kick out their oppressors just like the Maccabees had done 200 years earlier, and restore Israel’s golden age, and put a new King David on a new Jewish throne.  Had David done anything greater than the things this Jesus was doing?  And the prophets back in the day had said the greatest prophet, Elijah, would return from heaven just before the king would come – that Elijah would prepare the way for his victory.  So, was Jesus Elijah?  Or, even better, was Jesus the king?

The friends of John the prisoner found Jesus in the marketplace.  They knew him from the old days, so they could trust he’d give it to them straight.  “Look,” they asked, “what does all this mean?  You’re making folks think they’ve got reason to hope.  You’re making John think God might break him out of prison.  You’re making the crowds think God’s going to drop the hammer on the Romans.  John wants to know what’s going on:  Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?  And if you’re the one, which one are you – Elijah or the messiah himself?”

Jesus smiled. “You’re asking the right questions,” he said, “but the story won’t play out the way you think.  Look, you want an answer for John?  Go back and tell him what’s happening.  Blind people can see.  Deaf people can hear.  Poor people can see a way out of debt.  Dead people aren’t staying that way.  Sound familiar?” Jesus asked.  “You might check out what the prophets said was going to happen before the messiah comes.”

As John’s friends ran off to share the good news, Jesus turned and saw the crowd gathered around him.  They had the obvious question on their minds, and someone dared to yell it out:  “If the blind see, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised, what’s John doing in prison?  Can’t you fix that, too?”

Jesus sighed and looked at his questioner the way a parent looks at an angry child.  “This isn’t going to work the way you want it to,” he said.  “What’s coming won’t follow your script.  God is with you, but not as a general or a magician.  You want certainty.  You want control.  You want miracles everyday,” Jesus said.  “Instead, what I’ve got are everyday miracles.”

“But what about John the Baptizer?” someone else called out.

Jesus shook his head.  “Look, when you fight for a kingdom of love, the violent will take it by force – same as it ever was.  Love’s not something God can impose.  Love is something you have to choose – you and them, too, the ones holding John in prison.  Remember your scriptures,” Jesus continued.  “What happened to the prophet Elijah?  He told the truth, too, and the king tried to kill him.  So, Elijah ran away, hiding out on Mount Sinai, expecting God to send him an army.  Instead, God sent him … God, walking with him in person at the edge of the cliff, embracing Elijah with the sound of sheer silence.  And in that power, Elijah returned to face down the corrupt king, and defeat the prophets of Baal, and find himself taken straight to heaven.  But I think Elijah’s back,” Jesus said. “I think he’s been preparing the messiah’s way.  Right now, he’s stuck in a prison cell with worse yet to come, but the story won’t stop there.  Remember:  The blind now see.  The deaf now hear.  The poor now look forward in hope.  The dead now live.  Maybe it’s just a crazy preacher in that prison cell,” Jesus said.  “But maybe Elijah’s back.  And maybe the messiah looks and sounds a lot different than you’d expect.”

*  *   *   *

Over these next two weeks of Advent, we’re still going to be walking in the dark.  The wind will still be cold against our faces.  Voices will still pipe up with realistic angst:  “Can’t you see how rough this path really is?  You’re on your own, you know; only the strong survive.”  

On those cold, dark days – look up.  Look to the edges of the clouds where light’s not supposed to start breaking through.  Look for the pinks and purples of sunrise coming from the least likely directions.

Maybe it is just a sunrise.  But maybe it’s more than you’d expect.