The medal are placed around the Olympian’s neck, a small bundle of flowers is handed over with a quick handshake or hug from an Olympic official.  Then, as the three flags of the victors’ home nations are raised, the crowds cheer and the tears flow as the gold medalist mouths the words to their national anthem.

            It’s rather timely for us to hear Paul’s epistle to the Philippians.  He writes, “Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.”  Here, Paul uses language and imagery from a sporting contest.  The language of “joy and crown” harkens to the victor celebrating after some sort of race or feat of strength. Just as an athlete spends many years of training and dedication, so Paul imagines the Christian believer as one who willingly takes on the challenges and endures to the victorious end.

The “sports” language is found elsewhere in the New Testament.  Evoking the “heroes” of the faith, the book of Hebrews offers the reader this goal:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, ²looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.  (Hebrews 12:1-3)

 For these two New Testament writers, the end goal is quite remarkable. For the book of Hebrews, one lives by the example set by Christ and the saints that have gone before us.  For the epistle to the Philippians, Paul calls us to believe in and live the ways of Christ, the one who journeyed through this life, knew its failings and vulnerability yet persevered.  We let Christ’s witness shape our lives, taking on the same values of humility, vulnerability, and servanthood. 

In this passage, Paul encourages his reader to imitate his life, holding his own story up as one shaped by Christ.  To imitate another might sound a bit pious at first on Paul’s part, but he is offering his life as an example to the reader.  Paul has been through a great deal of change in his life. He has known persecution and hardship for his belief. Despite all of the challenges, Paul sees his life most clearly through the prism of his faith in Christ.  Whatever has happened along the way, Paul knows that Christ has been with him.  He encourages his reader to imitate him, for Paul only imitates himself, pointing not to the self but to the Christ.

In a few weeks, we’ll be celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day, which admittedly has become less about the “saint” himself.  As for Patrick, he had a profound understanding of living out his life in way that never forgot Christ’s influence in all parts of life.  In his famous prayer, Patrick speaks of Christ ever present:

Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, and in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

In Paul’s letter, he derides persons who have made the choice to live as they see fit, taking no heed to the witness of Christ.  I appreciate his admonition to live for Christ, not the self. Reading this text alongside persons of other religious traditions, I would imagine there would be some general agreements that faith traditions often move in ways contrary to secular societal norms.  Paul’s concern we live with a world that thinks too often with its belly or only of itself would get a hearty “amen” from an interfaith gathering.  I would caution that this passage could be read as “us Christians” vs. the rest of the world, if we are not careful in our interpretation. 

For Paul’s original audience, he is addressing a group of Christians living in a colony of the Roman Empire.  The church is living under the Romans, whose ways might rule the world for now but go in the ways that most Empires go:  the more power, the more control, the more decadent and corrupt.   Paul reminds the Philippians that they are Christians first, citizens of the “kingdom” of heaven, the reign of God.  Caesar claimed godhood, the Roman Empire claimed the world, yet Paul writes to the Philippians telling them to place their trust in Christ.  Earlier in this epistle, Paul weaves into his writing words from what is thought to be an early Christian hymn:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, ⁶who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, ⁷but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, ⁸he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. ⁹Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

For Paul, Christ is the one who we should imitate.  Christ is the One whose life, death, and resurrection provide a pattern for our lives. Keeping Christ before us, ahead of us, and around us is what shapes our lives.  In the language of the Christian faith, the term for this sort of life is called a “cruciform” life.  Cruciform means “cross-shaped”, which is typically a word used in religious architecture.  In the history of western Christianity, it became quite popular to build churches in the shape of a cross.  (The bulletin cover gives you a glimpse of such a design layout.)

Paul goes beyond the crosses we hang on the wall or around our necks, beyond the cross-shaped buildings that people gather in for worship.  Paul asks the believer where his or her truest beliefs and loyalties are given.  Is it in the world or the empire, the belly or the ego?  Or is it in the hope and trust we find in Christ Jesus?

A few years back, I read a wonderful column by historian and writer Martin E. Marty.  Dr. Marty is a life-long Lutheran, and he offers his reader glimpses into his deep and abiding love for Martin Luther and the tradition that followed.  Marty notes that one of his faith practices has been life-long as well as quite simple in its ritual.  Marty follows Luther’s teaching that daily and evening prayers begin with making the sign of the cross, offering prayers, and a time for devotional reading.  At his waking and at his sleeping, Marty makes the sign of the cross across the length and width of his body, marking his whole person with the sign of the cross.

After morning prayers, Luther suggests one “go to your work with joy, singing a hymn, as the Ten Commandments, or what your devotion may suggest.”  And at night, one is to pray and then get ready for bed.  Luther concludes, “Then go to sleep promptly and cheerfully.” 

At first glance, Luther’s suggestion for devotions at day’s beginning and night’s ending might strike us as a little too pietistic or out of touch.  After all, life does not necessarily lend itself to happy days or feeling that cheerful when bedding down for the night.  Nonetheless, Paul sees a thread of hope woven through his life, a way forward through worldly ways.  He calls us to seek the same path, to live lives patterned after Christ. Paul dreams of his readers joining him at the end of the race called life, living with “joy and crown” for life lived well, standing firm in the Lord.

At various points of the book, he shares reflections of persons traveling (himself included) to remote places in the world to experience some form of spiritual pilgrimage.  These journeys take you far from places visited by the average tourist, out into the places that most of us would term inhospitable or lonely.  Out into the desert or somewhere in the mountain range, Belden Lane observes one is confronted with the vastness of the wilderness.  Along the way, the pilgrim traveler encounters glimpses of the divine, often in ways difficult to predict or anticipate.  In such places, “the divine preference for self-disclosure in space is declared to be an austere, deserted, feral terrain” (The Solace of Fierce Landscapes, p. 47). 

For centuries, various Christian individuals and religious orders withdraw intentionally away, seeking God in places less urbanized or developed.  In our Baptist traditions, we rarely speak of withdrawing away from things.  We tend to be a fairly noisy, “in the midst of the fray” kind of Protestant people.  Thus, the stories of monastic movements in the history of Christianity tend not to be history we rehearse and recall. Nonetheless, in reading of such history, I suspicion you and I might find something we have longed for and appreciate: a deepening sense of God’s presence in the world and our lives.  We yearn, even when unaware, for something more to our lives than the hectic, near chaotic pace of work, keeping up a household, raising children, tending elders, dealing with our bills, and wondering where the day has gone by the time we finally feel like it is “safe” to unwind, and the clock says “10 PM”. 

Now that you mention it, a trip to somewhere where you can be alone sounds quite appealing….

            Off in the lonely places, Jesus lived for forty days. One might think this a bit of a letdown after the great celebration just beforehand.  Read the gospel again, and the opening chapters of Luke are one big celebration of Jesus.  The Nativity story of Luke resounds with songs of praise.  At his baptism, Jesus is proclaimed as the one greater than John the Baptist.  The voice of God comes from heaven above, declaring Jesus the divine and beloved Son.  The Spirit descends upon him. And just for extra measure to establish Jesus’ credentials, Luke’s gospel inserts a genealogy after the baptism, showing Jesus’ worthy ancestors.  So why does the gospel writer tell this story of Jesus out in the wilderness?   Just as the story builds up steam, Luke has Jesus take forty days away.

Beyond the biblical narrative, why would a time of withdrawal make sense when everything’s pointing toward success?  A reader versed with the financial or political world would be confused by this story.  Why does Jesus go off far away?  He’s just been proclaimed to have the right pedigree, the best resume, and even the “Big Boss” giving a good word.  Jesus gets all of this glory, and what’s he do?  He heads out to….nowhere.

Out in the desert, Jesus spent time withdrawn from people and the basic comforts, if not needs, of life.  He endures out in the midst of a place not for the faint of heart, making John the Baptist’s frugal existence of hair shirts and locusts with honey look positively opulent.  Luke’s telling of the story has Jesus out there for forty days, echoing another era of the Bible as Israel wanders in the wilderness for forty years.  When the Devil shows up, this is the first time Jesus has encountered somebody else for forty days.  I imagine Jesus, quite weary from the relative lack of sleep, fluids, and food, wondering at first if he is hallucinating this figure standing before him.  The first temptation alone (turn stones into bread) would bend, if not break, many of us right off, after three plus weeks away from a decent meal.

The gospels tell this story as a way of demonstrating Jesus’ commitment and obedience to God.  Do not gloss over Luke’s especial emphasis to the forty-day period, for it evidences the sort of discipline Jesus undertakes.  The forty days are just as difficult as the temptations to follow.  Withdrawing to be alone, voluntarily taking leave of one’s comforts is a hard decision to keep, let alone make.  What happens out in those remote places in the desert or in the mountains might be unsettling, far more than losing the assurances of three meals a day and a decent bed at night. 

In our day, Belden Lane observes, “Wild places are uncompanionable to the qualmish, to those compulsively anxious to please.” (The Solace of Fierce Landscapes, p. 43) A wilderness experience allows a person to see without distraction the things that keep us from living more fully or obscure our devotion to God.  Lane reminds us of Saint Jerome, a third-century Christian, who said, “The desert loves to strip bare” (p. 23). 

Withdrawing allows one to focus, “strip[ping] bare” who we are and what we presume is most important or pressing in our lives.  After forty days and forty nights, Jesus is weak in his physical deprivations, yet as it is said, that which challenges strengthens.  He is offered three temptations that have increasing degrees of enticement:  food to eat, power over the world, and finally to challenge God for power.  Each temptation challenges Jesus to exercise his power, to take the easier path.  Jesus refuses each one, which again, by the general measure of the world, would be increasingly foolish.  “If you have power, use it!” the world would say.  Jesus could have done any of these three things, yet he did not.  Jesus not only refuses, he refutes the very thought of being tempted to stray from God’s ways.

In the forty-day period away, Jesus experienced the fruitfulness of the wilderness.  He claims his authority in its proper use and understanding.  Throughout the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is said to live and minister by an authority that is from God, not derived by his own devising or grasping.  Jesus will minister to those whom society and religion alike have deemed lesser people.  Jesus speaks truth to the powers of Empire and Temple.

The opposite of the Devil, the one who has fallen from the heavens above, Jesus remains grounded in his radical trust of God.  Jesus will derive his authority from God, not by any means necessary.  The desert has stripped him bare, just as surely as the desert would any of the rest of us.  In his sojourn among the fierce landscape, Jesus emerges resolved in his faithfulness and goes onward to live out this calling to proclaim the Kingdom of God at hand.  Rather than draining him, the desert experience nourishes him.

In turn, this story becomes a challenge and an invitation to the reader. For the gospel writers, the story of Jesus in the wilderness and the temptations that test him also serve as stories to challenge the disciple.  While we might never climb a mountain or travel far across a desert, the fierce landscapes still await us in the midst of our lives.  We need times away to be stripped down, to face our issues and to examine ourselves before God.  The “fierce landscape” may come in that day spent away from work, clearing your head while letting the noise of life drift off.  The “fierce landscape” may be the time as Belden Lane discovered, while sitting in an anti-septic smelling hospital room, keeping vigil and companionship with a loved one as they die. 

The fierce landscape, whether desert or mountain, is that place where you feel pared down, made to take a hard look at who you really are and whether or not God is there in the midst of your life.  You will know these times for their fierceness, the way they make you feel apart or adrift.  Yet in that ferocity, the journey will be well worth it, strengthening you as surely as it challenges.  As Belden Lane reminds,

In early Christian tradition, the desert was perceived ambiguously, usually as an unfriendly, intimidating domain; but for those able to endure its purifying adversity, an image also of paradise.  If desert terrors can be sustained as the self is laid bare under its harsh scrutiny, dry land becomes an avenue of hope (Lane, p. 43).

      The title of today’s sermon:  The Body You Always Wanted. 

      Stand in front of a mirror long enough and each of us will start fussing over something that you think is less than attractive or desired.  It is alright to feel that way.  It is part of being human: that wonder of your parents’ DNA, two different strands of genetics, intertwining together to give you big ears or a firm jaw line, delicate fingers or stubby toes, the right shade of blue eye color, or big frizzy hair to keep up with (or if so genetically inclined, hair that you fight to keep).  Everybody has something about their body that they wish was otherwise.  It’s part of being human.

      “The Body You Always Wanted.”  Call a diet book or an exercise DVD or a reality show by this title, and you’ve already made a tidy sum.  We Americans drop quite a bit of money on diet programs purporting to help us lose weight by sometimes the oddest methods.  We hang on the words of the “health guru” of the moment. Richard Simmons still teaches classes in Los Angeles to his devoted fans, complete with those spangled sparkly short-shorts.  Simmons is among the few multi-millionaire diet kings, who emphasize the inescapable work that goes along with his methods.  Most of us do not want such candor.  We would love to miss the fine print that we would prefer not to read: “This diet does not work alone and must be balanced with exercise.”

      So we stand there at the mirror, fussing over the third chin, the eyebrows that just cannot be tamed, and last but not least, wonder whether or not we can pull off another year of saying, “Oh, me? I’m 29…forever!”

     In the epistle reading today, we encounter a familiar teaching about the nature of the Church.  Calling the body of believers “the body of Christ”, Paul uses the metaphor of the human form, detailing various parts of the human body and says none of them are non-essential.  Every single part of the body is of use and importance.  This language is quite winsome calling the Christians gathered together to remember we are all on common ground, one in Christ Jesus.

     This lofty ideal is given to a church on the ropes, the Church at Corinth. You do not help figuring out this epistle is written to people in conflict.  The members are nearly at each other’s throats.  The fellowship faded away.  Old scores were being settled. Chairs were being likely thrown.  And worst of all, some folks were cutting in line at the church potluck!  

     Paul was called in as a long-distance interventionist, a wise leader who could be trusted by all sides to have a good word.  Essentially, the tone of the Corinthian correspondence is like this:  Want to be “the Church”?  You’ve got to work out your differences and build up your life together.  Corinthians: rise up above your squabbles and be one in Christ!

      We present-day Christians read these first century words between Paul and the Corinthians and other early Christians, and essentially, it’s a bit like reading other people’s mail.  The first century is now long distant, but my, my, the words Paul imparts!  The church is one.  The church is many.  The church is united in Christ. 

What a marvelous vision!   What good theology!   What a challenge to live it out!           

      Despite being two millennia old now, Paul’s writings serve us well, especially when you apply these lessons to the body of believers you know best.  How does our congregation measure up when we look at ourselves in the mirror? 

      What does it mean to be together?  Will we ever be satisfied with our appearance?  Do we secretly long we looked like something other than ourselves?

     For the Corinthian Christians, Paul’s words are needed.  There are some in the Corinthian fellowship who claim pride of place by virtue of their spiritual gifts or their status in the church of society.  Persons who speak in tongues claim greatness. Those who are wealthy muscle out those who are weaker for the best places at the table.  Persons claim prominence, based on criteria of their own devising.  As for Paul, he claims each and every person has equal worth.  No matter who you think you are, no matter who others tell you that you are, the Body of Christ is the place where all are one, not on our terms, but on that of Christ. 

      When somebody asks me how many people belong to First Baptist, I give the number of over sixty adults and nearly a dozen children.  I claim this number with pride, as this number, though smaller than our general membership roll (we claim “260” by virtue of baptism and transfer of letter) represents the people who have declared a vested interest in our fellowship continuing onwards.  You are a remarkable group of people, and the annual report reflects the fruitfulness of your intentional investment in the life of this fellowship. 

      Deep down, though, we find ourselves looking in the mirror and ask what we would like to change about our congregation’s “body” or what we wish was otherwise.  Any church inevitably finds itself musing and perhaps frittering over the church we always wanted.  What will it take to feel attractive?

     What makes us feel a bit uneasy or unsettling when we look at ourselves in the mirror?  Books, DVDs, and media-savvy preachers (with the best hair, teeth, and makeup this side of Hollywood) give us an impression that you have to look “just right” to be relevant.  Are we still beautiful, even if we glimpse a wrinkle or two in the mirror or quietly wish something about our body could be changed or excised? 

    As Paul says elsewhere, one faith, one baptism, one Lord is our identity and our goal.   We are called to be one in Christ.  We tend to obsess about what is wrong or what should be changed so that we can somehow become better.  The New Testament claims that we are already one, the many diverse and gifted, drawn together by the Cross.  Paul indicates the gifts of the Spirit are many, and instead of trying to claim one is greater than the other, or worry the Church is always under some sort of drought, we should realize God has given us what we need. 

     When he hears of a church where some think they are “perfect” or “gifted” and believe so at the expense of others, Paul calls his readers to honor all the gifts, all the people, for they are all one in Christ’s body, all are gifted by the Spirit, all are treasured by God. To be part of the Body of Christ is to be part of the whole, the many who are also one. 

      God has given us one another for the sake of Christ and the Church.  Each of us has something to give to the Body.  Not one of us is expendable or inferior.  All persons and all gifts, properly understood, are for the common good among us.

       We use our gifts not for individual benefit or glory.  We offer ourselves and our abilities, no matter how great or small they might seem, so that all might benefit in our contributions.  When we yearn for a more perfect Church, the “Body of Christ” we have always wanted, we ask ourselves, how are we doing serving one another?  Are our gifts given freely and with due humility?  Scholar Paul Minear wisely says Paul’s measure of a gift’s worth is found in its use and user’s intentions.  Do we offer our giftedness for the “upbuilding, encouragement, and consolation” of the Church? (Images of the Church in the New Testament, Westminster Press, 1960, p. 193).  Just like the flashy diets or the latest face cream claiming to make you look years younger, reality still trumps.   You cannot build up the Church by focusing only on the things you want or prefer as outcomes.  It takes every single part working together to build up the Body.

            These past few years at First Baptist have been a time to pull together and make “big picture” decisions for our common good.  When I first met you in January 2006 as an interviewee for the intentional interim minister’s position, you were tired from a difficult past, but hopeful for a different, brighter future.  In September 2005, you voted to start a new path, though admittedly, no one had the proverbial “crystal ball” to guide where things should go next.  No clear ideas were on the table however your willingness to explore possibility was in itself a mile maker for the journey ahead.  You made a tremendous first step in faith saying we need to change.  Some churches have closed their doors still waiting for members to say this important word to one another. 

            Today, you will consider accepting the reports of the church boards, the proposed 2010 budget, and the nominating committee report we share a different story in January 2010.  We may not be a hundred or two on Sunday mornings, but we have made important decisions that have amplified our mission and ministry in this community.  Instead of “where’s that?” when people mention First Baptist, the word on the street is becoming, “Oh, that’s the busy church.”  How did this happen?

            Paul’s writings would claim it was the work of the Spirit in our midst.  The collaboration and partnerships that are happening in the community with First Baptist at the fore happen because collaboration and partnerships are happening within our fellowship.  People are more engaged in our congregational governance and “big picture” questions are being wrestled with successfully.  The many are one in Christ.  In a congregation great or small, things are healthy and at their best when the many are giving their diverse gifts for the common good.

       You have chosen to be the Body of Christ, by being aware of what a body needs.  Rather than embracing the view that we are “too far gone to change”, we have been taking bold steps towards our short and long term wellbeing.  It’s almost as if we’ve started looking at our body less as something to feel inferior or vain about.  In fact, we are taking good care of ourselves. 

      Nonetheless, we have to keep working at it.  We are never “finished” in tending the wellbeing of a congregation’s heart and soul.  It’s a bit like what your doctor would advise at the annual physical.  To stay healthy, the body needs exercise, the right diet, and all of its parts working together.  Indeed, we are getting a better prognosis:

***Exercise (we’re talking more about what it takes to be Church together—our annual meetings are becoming part of an ongoing conversation, not just a ho-hum event that seems a bit like jury duty with spreadsheets.  We tell our story, affirm our future, ask questions about what will improve our ministry, and then, we eat good food, some of which our doctor would prefer us not to eat…);

***the right diet (we are exercising more oversight and strategic planning.  Our organization is becoming more structured and efficient.),

***and all of its parts working together.  (Without a doubt, each and every person who chooses to be part of this gathered people is essential and equal here. You have a voice, you have gifts, and thanks be to God, we are endeavoring to use all of our gifts and ourselves to build up the common good in our midst.  We are all gifted people, different yet united.)

       Look in the mirror, First Baptist.  Now, you might still spot things you wish you could change, but is it me, or are you looking pretty good? Despite being 183 years old, I think we could even pass for 157.

The Rev. Jerrod H. Hugenot

            It can be unsettling to watch the 11 PM newscast, with the stories of Haiti’s struggle to deal with the after-effects of its recent earthquake.  The images flicker across the screen, drawing the world into age-old questions of suffering, the randomness of the world’s chaotic nature.  For some faith traditions, persons ponder questions of divine presence or absence when a major disaster strikes. 

            While we wrestle with the “why?” questions, the international efforts to coordinate disaster relief and humanitarian aid speak volumes to the good humanity can bring about in troubling times.  The same newscasts now turn to the stories of supplies and personnel being sent to coordinate care, admittedly with the inevitable concerns that not enough is getting where it is most critically needed.  Email and social networking sites bring stories otherwise unreported, sometimes of a loved one’s whereabouts, sometimes vignettes of the struggle at hand to find adequate food, medical help, and shelter.  The global village is pitching in right now, though I hear Newsweek editor Jon Meacham’s lament the U.S. has tended to care about Haiti, one of the world’s most economically challenged nations not that faraway from our mainland, only when “something really, really miserable happens there.”

            Locally, the stories of Haiti relief are remarkable. The Banner has covered a number of wonderful efforts by individuals and organizations in town. A Haitian living in the area remarked to me that the efforts are inspiring, a reflection of the human spirit at its best. 

            For local congregations, the Haitian earthquake has created a variety of responses.  I contacted fellow representatives of the Greater Bennington Area Interfaith Council to learn how their faith communities have gotten involved in the efforts.  For some congregations, Haiti is home to established programs and personnel underwritten by denominational and ecumenical agencies.  For others, this might be the first direct connection a local congregation has made with short or long-term aid and support efforts.

            Rabbi Joshua Boettiger notes Congregation Beth El is providing assistance through the American Jewish World Service (www.ajws.org).  The organization has established a Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund.  Direct donations to AJWS can be made online.

            Congregants of the First Baptist Church (ABC/USA) and the Second Congregational Church (UCC), both of Bennington, are sending funds through “One Great Hour of Sharing”, an ecumenical effort to support humanitarian aid, administered through their respective denominational offices and the ecumenical Church World Service.

The Rev. Mary Lee-Clark also notes the public is invited to help with creating “health and hygiene kits” for distribution by the Church World Service (www.churchworldservice.org).  The kits are simple to create.  In an one-gallon Ziploc bag, place one wide tooth comb, a hand towel, a washcloth, six band-aids, a toothbrush still in its packaging, a pair of nail clippers, and $2 for processing.  Persons can also donate money for kits.  Make any financial donations to “Second Congregational Church” with “Haiti relief” or “CWS Kit Postage” in the memo lines.

The Rev. Dr. Anita Schell-Lambert, rector of St. Peter's Episcopal Church, notes her parish, “has adopted a twofold response to the crisis in Haiti.  First, PRAY: Hold all of the people of Haiti, and all those with friends and loved ones in Haiti, in your prayers and secondly, GIVE: The most immediate thing Americans can do is give to the relief effort.”

Dr. Schell-Lambert notes, “Episcopal Relief & Development has disbursed emergency funding to the Diocese of Haiti to help meet critical needs such as food, water and shelter for those affected, and stands ready to support the country's ongoing recovery and rebuilding efforts in the days to come. For more information and ways to respond financially, including through the Episcopal Relief & Development, go to St.Peter's website, www.stpetersbennigntonvt.org and go to “Haiti suffers devastating earthquake.”

Many denominations receive donations throughout the year, creating a pool of money for domestic and international crisis situations.  The Bennington Friends Meeting (Quakers) notes the American Friends Service Committee has sent $100,000 already.  The Meeting’s representative Bain Davis notes the AFSC is already working on plans to help with long-term rebuilding initiatives.  Likewise, the American Baptist Churches/USA has distributed $65,000 out of its reserve funds for emergency humanitarian aid. 

Haiti is a place where U.S. religious organizations have had long established partnerships. (For example, American Baptists have worked in Haiti since 1823!)  The presence of dedicated personnel and cooperative U.S./Haitian partnerships has been quite helpful in this time of critical need.  Four long-term American Baptist missionaries assigned to Haiti for medical and educational work are coordinating medical care and humanitarian work in coordination with the Haitian Baptist Convention. Likewise, the United Church of Christ maintains ongoing efforts with Church World Service, the National Spiritual Council of Churches of Haiti, and the House of Hope.  Haitian churches across the United States, including the First French Speaking/Haitian Baptist Church of Manchester, NH, are becoming key places for Haitians to coordinate care.

The Bennington Unitarian Universalist Fellowship will be offering a Haitian dinner fundraiser.  The idea started with the UU Fellowship’s board wondering what they could do to make a difference.  On Saturday, February 6, the UU Fellowship will host the dinner, featuring a variety of Haitian foods ($15/at the door).  The proceeds will benefit Haiti Relief.  Call the UU Meetinghouse at (802) 440-9816 to reserve tickets. A Haitian Peace Quilt, handmade by a Haitian women's cooperative is also being raffled ($5/ticket) to raise additional funds. The drawing for the Peace Quilt will be held on June 15. Funds raised from the raffle will benefit both Haitian relief and UUFB social action work.

If you would like to help with donating funds or supplies via an area faith community, please do so! You will find religious organizations are often at their best when engaged in such important work. The generosity of local religious communities is well known through the common work of the Food & Fuel Fund and the support of the Bennington Free Clinic.  Likewise, when it comes to the rest of the world, our local interfaith community shares its love of neighbor with those near and far alike.

The Rev. Jerrod H. Hugenot serves as coordinating minister of the First Baptist Church of Bennington, Vermont.  To correspond:  fbpastor@sover.net

      The passage from Luke is called often the first “sermon” of Jesus.  Jesus is back in the town that raised him.  Indeed, in the Greek text, Luke describes Nazareth as the place that nourished him.  Here Jesus came into his own, growing up in the midst of the people, and now they are eager to welcome him into this new calling.  As he enters the synagogue, he is welcomed as a teacher respected enough to be invited to read and interpret sacred text in the midst of the assembly. Perhaps one can imagine the assembly filled with persons beaming with pride.  This is a great day, welcoming one of our own!

Jesus reads the text and then gives what is the briefest of sermons. The response moves from silence, to puzzlement, to grumbling, to rage. For readers familiar with the gospels, the way the story ends is well known.  Those who nourished him and raised him up will try to toss him off a cliff.   (Come to think of it, my first sermon didn’t go so bad after all….)

      The crux of this story revolves around the ways one responds to Jesus’ teaching.  Jesus reads the text from Isaiah and claims the prophet’s word has been fulfilled.  The comment is made, “Is this not the son of Joseph?”

      Sometimes, going home is the hardest journey one makes.  Sometimes you feel like persons see you still as that young child, chasing after butterflies in the backyard or buzzing by on a bike on a hot summer day.  People can treat you like you’re forever the kid, the daughter or son of the folks at the end of the street, failing to recognize you or give you credit for being who you are today.  Going home sometimes feels great.  Other times, you wonder why you put yourself through it all, feeling treated as the juvenile version of yourself at best, and at worst, realizing the “you” who you have become might as well be invisible.

      The Harvard chaplain Peter Gomes recounts an experience when serving as a resident scholar at Emmanuel College in Cambridge, England.  He found the faculty reserved at first, however, he began to enjoy collegial friendship, though he notes he was “the only person of color on the premises”.  At the end of the term, he remembers one of the college staff saying, “Well, Gomes, considering your background you’ve done well here.”  Gomes notes, “Never have grace and malice been more subtly mixed and administered as they were then” (A Scandalous Gospel, p. 39).  Years later, Gomes claims empathy with Jesus when the crowd mutters, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” (i.e. the subtext of “who do you think you are?”)

      When Jesus came to speak to the hometown crowd, I would argue that he gave his teaching not seeking to cause controversy.  Admittedly, this can happen. Sometimes people show back up in town with a chip on the shoulder, ready to set those folks straight.  Garrison Keillor recounts in his novel Lake Wobegon Days of a longtime town resident nailing 95 theses to the door of the Lutheran Church.  This list included just about every aggravation he had with his fellow churchgoers and town in general.  He did not get them affixed to the church door that night, as the church was hosting the Luther League’s Halloween pizza party, and he didn’t want to be caught with list and hammer in hand.  Instead, he waited, and sent it in for the local paper to publish.  Thankfully the local editor always found some other story to cover in the newspaper…. (Cf. Keillor, p. 251ff.) 

Three of the four gospels tell variants of this story of Jesus before the Nazareth assembly.  Luke places this story up front in his gospel.  The “first sermon” is part of the introduction to Jesus and his ministry, a foretaste of what will be unfolding in the rest of the story.   Reading Luke, I suggest this passage needs to be bookmarked, to refer back as you read of Jesus’ parables, ministry, miracles, and engagements with disciples and opponents alike. If you want to understand Luke’s gospel, this text is a good touchstone to learn how to “read” Luke and understand the Jesus he proclaims. In preaching Isaiah, Jesus establishes himself in the tradition of what has gone before him especially the prophetic tradition’s affirmation God will not forget the marginalized or those who are otherwise written off.    

To side with the poor, the captive, the blind and the oppressed will not win you the victory parade through the streets of Jerusalem or Rome.  He gets into the gritty part of human existence, dealing with the hard questions of people getting exploited and those enduring hardship.  Most important, he stands upon the traditions of the sacred text, which call the faithful to look out for the most vulnerable. The gospel Jesus proclaims is one of inclusive hope.  His gospel goes against the grain of the worldview of the villagers, the powerful within the religious establishment, and the prevailing ethos of Rome.  His gospel fits within the ancient witness of the prophets before him, and like the prophets, Jesus is learning he is not welcome among his own people.  The violence of the crowd demonstrates the costliness that can come with such effort. 

The controversy revolves around Jesus’ commentary after his first remarks.  Not only does he claim his ministry will be to those otherwise forgotten, he cites scriptural narrative where even the Gentiles will be included.  Even the complete outsider shall be part of “the fulfillment” Jesus claims to have brought about. It becomes an unsettling word to consider. The question of “who’s in” and “who’s out” challenges us to be clear about our beliefs and practices.  When we say of our ministry that “all are welcome”, do we live it out?  These are questions people of faith do well to answer, though admittedly, such self-examination can go neglected or discouraged.

            A few months ago, the town of Americus, Georgia, held a ceremony celebrating local persons who made a difference in their town.  Of interest was a very posthumous recognition for a man who died in 1969.  The Baptist leader Clarence Jordan was remembered for his civil rights leadership by the town leaders, an odd turn of events, considering town officials back in Clarence’s day tried to talk him into leaving town.  They didn’t want his controversial beliefs in integration and civil rights disturbing the peace.  Forty years later, the same town that rejected Clarence Jordan gave thanks for his work.  It is a remarkable testament how times change and the determination and clarity of vision it takes to be a prophet in your own hometown.

“Today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Reading Luke’s story of the “first sermon”, the faithful reader is challenged to ponder what effect Jesus would have if he were the guest preacher in your own congregation.  Would he be thanked at the door or tossed out of it?  Jesus presents an ambitious vision of the gospel, the same gospel we are called to carry out.  To care for those who are vulnerable, to engage in efforts to meet basic human needs, these are signs of the gospel coming to life.

A couple of weeks ago, I was at the end of a very long day.  I had been behind the computer screen working on administrative matters for so long, I lost track of time.  I looked outside and thought it was looking fairly overcast.  Actually, it was nighttime.  I got up from my desk to head for home.  (The dog doesn’t walk herself. She does, however, take me for walks.) 

By this time of day, the free clinic had set up its waiting room space, which crowded with patients, mostly young adults hoping to see a doctor.  Just around the corner, in the fellowship hall, the church choir was in the midst of rehearsal.

As I walked through the hallway and into the fellowship, moving from the murmur of patients shooting the breeze to pass the time to the choir working on the Sunday morning anthem, I felt a bit of joy rise up above the fatigue of wading through paperwork. Some days, it seems a bit up in the air, this effort to be a missional church engaged in the community while keeping up with all of the necessary elements of congregational life. Moments like these help me make sense of “the big picture” of ministry here at First Baptist. 

As the choir sang, the patients waited for a nurse to say “Next!” I could swear I heard another voice in the mix. 

“Today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Despite assurances to the contrary, the water was COLD! 

My family started attending church services when I was in elementary school. I was baptized in 1984 on the same day my father was baptized.  At the appropriate time in the service, we stepped out of service and headed to change for the baptism. We didn’t have white robes in the little Kansas church that baptized me.  They said to bring along an extra set of clothes and change in the men’s bathroom in the fellowship hall.

We stood there, taking off our dress clothes.  I was a bit nervous, taking my clothing off fairly quickly.  My father said, “Slow down, son.  They don’t baptize you naked!”

Years later in seminary, I read that some early Christians practiced baptizing persons naked and greeting the person as they rose out of the pool with new clothes, symbolizing the new life found in Christ.  I thought to myself, “Well, I guess I was technically correct….”

Over our four centuries, while keeping to a theology of baptism by immersion, Baptists have varied the ways in which such a baptism could take place.  For most of our 400 years, the idea of an “indoor” baptism is newer than we think.  Early Baptists in Philadelphia baptized persons using rocks out in the river as a place to stand.  Locally, First Baptist used Barber’s Pond until they decided baptism, even in the dead of winter, ought to be indoors.  (Talk about your “penguin plunge”!)  Baptists in the South might have used the sandbar out in the river as a place to have the baptismal candidates gather with the pastor.  As for the Baptists of Moline, Kansas, they put me on a cinder block, used only for baptizing children, so they could be seen a bit better by the congregation.  They used a heating coil to warm the waters, but as I said earlier, that water was cold!

Baptism…. We opt to drown sinners good in the Baptist church.  Baptism by immersion distinguishes the Anabaptist tradition among the Protestant movements.  Baptists, Mennonites, and a few others insist that baptism involves a high water bill.  In fact, in Amsterdam last summer, the Baptist World Alliance met at a Mennonite church for our 400^th anniversary celebration of the Baptist tradition’s origins in 1609.  The street sign said, “Doopsgezinden”, an old term, originally meant to be derogatory toward Mennonites.  If you want to understand us, call us “baptism minded” folks.

Despite the historical differences in the theology and ritual around baptism, the Church universal agrees baptism is part of being a Christian.  To follow Christ is to be caught up in the divine story of God and humanity, the brokenness brought about by human sin, and the strong desire of God to bring about humanity’s redemption.  We Baptists celebrate baptism as a personal act, as the individual affirms his or her belief in Christ as Lord and Savior. 

In our more ecumenically minded present day, most Baptist churches are welcoming of persons who were baptized otherwise.  Nonetheless, when you ask a Baptist about core beliefs, we will affirm who we are:  baptism by immersion, gathering around the table for communion, sparingly in comparison to the more Eucharistic traditions of the Church, and of course, we know how to throw a good potluck.

Each week, we gather together as the baptized people, celebrating and looking for signs of new life.  Though this particular day we have no persons to baptize, we display one of our baptismal robes as a reminder of our core belief in baptism by immersion. We will be on a journey through the winter and spring, learning more about our Baptist beliefs and heritage.  Most importantly, the older elementary students will be exploring Baptist beliefs through their religious education.  It is time to share with our children this story of our belief, now as they begin to reach the age where such decisions can be explored and made.  Such sharing is part of our calling:  to speak of our lives shaped by Christ.

Remembering the day of my baptism, I recollect the congregation had a practice of singing a number of hymns right after the baptisms took place.  Practically, this extended time of singing gave the minister a chance to get likewise out of the wet clothing and change.  I remember back to that day, and I believe this to be a good practice.  What better for a church to do than to sing of the faith gathering us together?

<WE SING>

Tomorrow, our nation gives thanks for the witness of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther, Jr.  Of the civic holidays, the King Holiday is becoming a time to celebrate King’s life and work, and many persons use the day not for “play” but for engaging in community service opportunities.  We’ll gather Monday evening at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship for the interfaith community King Celebration.  (They’ll have a potluck, so don’t worry, you’ll feel right at home!) 

Given the connections of today’s focus on baptism and the civic holiday celebrating a 20^th-century Baptist, I thought it appropriate to look for any stories related to King’s own baptism.  From Taylor Branch’s massive three volume biography of King’s life, I found a brief mention of King’s baptism, recalling:

In 1934, when a guest minister at Ebenezer [Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA] made a strong pitch for the salvation of young souls, [King] watched his [older] sister [Christine] rise to make the first profession of faith.  Impulsively, as he later confessed, “I decided that I would not let her get ahead of me, so I was the next.”  He wryly observed that he had no idea of what was going on during his subsequent baptism.  He knew the feeling of being special, and the intense pressure of churchly expectation, long before he had the slightest grasp of religion.  (Parting the Waters, America in the King Years, 1954-1963, p. 48).

The story chastens those looking for a bright beginning to King’s storied career and faith journey. King did not blossom without the upbringing in the context of a church community that embraced and helped him claim a sense of identity and voice.  That King became a national figure for Civil Rights and an enduring symbol for America at its best is well worth celebrating, but we cannot forget the formative influence of those waiting for him as he rose up in church and professed his belief or helped him towel off and change into fresh clothes when the day of his baptism occurred.  As King began his religious life a bit unsure and uncertain of what he was promising in his confession and baptism, it was the gathered people called “church” that helped him along his journey.

Along the way, our Baptist tradition has emphasized baptism as an individual and personal decision.  We have given less reflection to the communal implications.  We come to Christ each of our own choosing, however, it is the presence of other believers who help us grow in the faith.  The old proverb claims it takes a village to raise a child. In the Christian life, it takes a church to shape a believer.

After the waters of baptism, there is much work to do in shaping persons to grow in Christ. You see this in other traditions when catechism is offered.  Baptists likewise need a robust sense of religious education, and we are reclaiming this as we adjust our religious education to match our children as they are growing into middle school age.  We have to work hard to retain them as they become youth and demonstrate to them that the life of faith will help them as they grow up to be the next generation.  Who knows?  Perhaps we have a future King in our midst. 

In turn, the role of religious education for adults becomes important.  I am grateful we have restarted adult education at First Baptist, as we need to keep providing opportunities for believers to wrestle with the intersections of life and faith.  This month, the adult forum reflects on Jewish/Christian relations with Rabbi Cohen.  Beginning next month, we explore what it means to be a Baptist, and it ought to be a lively dialogue about our faith and the fruitfulness of exploring our heritage.  You’ll find it lively as the Baptist way is one of diversity.  In case you haven’t heard, Baptists don’t all think all alike!  Yet, we are all one in Christ.

The journey of faith begins with that decision which leads you to the pool of water.  What happens next is likewise up to you.  In Baptist history, much has been made what is meant by the Greek word for baptism, yet I am a bit curious by that word right beside it.  In the gospel of Luke, John preaches a baptism of metanoia, the Greek word typically translates as “repentance”.  More accurately, the word “literally means changing one’s mind or outlook” (Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke, Sacra Pagina, p. 64).  The change is not meant to be one-time.  Our baptism inaugurates an ongoing process of growth, adjustment and challenge.  We do not just “get saved”, as some Baptists traditionally say.  We are on a journey that begins with our yes and continues each time we keep saying “yes” to life in Christ.  

 In John’s gospel, as the gospel writer is seeking a way to introduce the story of Jesus, he harkens back to one of the earliest stories: the creation narrative of Genesis.  This gospel begins with “In the beginning was the Word”, meaning before creation, before there was a concept of “before”, the Word “was”.   The story of Jesus, the good news about his life, death, and resurrection, is interwoven into the story of the One who brought all of Creation into existence.  John’s gospel develops the story further, speaking of how the Word became “flesh”, bringing God into the midst of the world.  In this story of John’s gospel, we will behold the very power of the universe, voluntarily taking the form of humanity, coming down to dwell among us.  Something familiar yet powerfully new is taking place in this gospel story.

        Words....  When I’m on the road, sometimes, people ask what I do.  Sometimes I just want to be “off the clock”, so I say, “My trade is in words.”  Oh really? They say.  What do you write?  Then I sheepishly have to say, “Sermons.” 

        Words…. Each week, I chase after dozens of words, trying to coral and cajole a few together to make a point, honing them into sentences and paragraphs.  Sometimes, late at night, I have been known to plead with them to make it onto the page sitting there blank before me.  Some weeks, I find the words just show up, moving from mind to keyboard to printed page to pulpit.  Other weeks, I feel like that hapless babysitter in The Incredibles film:  no matter what I do, the unruly child called “just the right word I was looking for” just keeps getting more and more difficult to get a handle on it.  A book written by clergywomen on the art of preaching has likened writing the sermon as similar to birthing.

        Words…. Words can bear a much needed moment of truth and grace.  Words can be used as blunt instruments, spoken in moments of frustration or rage.  However we use words, they are best used with due care and consideration.  Words well used create all manner of good. 

        A few years back, the Benedictine monks of St. John’s Abbey in Minnesota commissioned a Bible to be designed and lettered by hand, a fascinating “old school” approach to creating a Bible.  The “St John’s Bible” is laden with beautiful illustrations, including a frontispiece for each gospel.  The St John’s Bible introduces John’s gospel with the image of a human form emerging from a swirl of the DNA helix and Greek and Hebrew letters, the languages of the Christian canon of scripture.  It is an artistic way of communicating the story, reveling in the generative power of John’s language.  In this passage of scripture, the strands of humanity’s encounters with God, our sins and God’s tireless effort to redeem us, weave together anew.  In this story, the story of Jesus, we learn of the Word that came down and dwelled among us.

        As I read John’s gospel, I often find myself stopping in the midst of the rich language of the opening chapter and just reveling in the words.  I recall the fond memory of Christmas Eve services from my own upbringing when the minister read the Prologue of John as the candles were lit around the sanctuary.  (You will note this tradition made an impression on myself, as I carry it on in my own worship planning.)  The reading builds up from the ethereal language to a highpoint in verse 14:

        And the Word became flesh and lived among us,

                        And we have seen his glory,

                                        The glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

        A few notes on the Greek text of John help at this point:  The imagery is not merely Jesus becoming a man.  The text is more fulsome, claiming the Word became part of what it means to be human.  Jesus did not excuse himself from the grace nor the grit of human life, a body prone to aches and pain, capable of such much less.  The Word becomes fragile flesh and does not live above but among, in the midst, of us, the whole lot of humanity. 

        The Greek text also uses a phrase that few English translations pick up:  the Word became flesh, and (the Greek says) pitched his tent.  It is such an interesting image:  the great God above becomes a common person, somebody who lives as neighbor and fellow journeyer along life’s path.  From time to time, you will spot bulletin cover art provided by a Brazilian Catholic artist who provides free art for churches based on the weekly gospel readings.  (Ah! The global church enriches us!  Vermont Baptists benefit from the art of a Brazilian Catholic!)  This particular week’s image is quite interesting:  Jesus is imaged in the midst of a field of tents, sitting on the ground side by side with another person, having what appears to be a heart-to-heart type conversation.  As the Word, God has the power to create all we know.  As the Word made flesh, Jesus shares life with the created. 

                As John’s gospel unfolds, we see the prologue’s lament that the Word came to the world yet the world did not know him.  He moves among us, yet he is more often rejected, notably by the religious leaders of the day.  Jesus chooses a less expected path, in the midst of the common people, offering his teachings and performing his signs and miracles in veritable obscurity.  Jesus seeks not fame and recognition.  The glory of God shines in the least likely of places, yet in those places, the gospel writer claims the shadows overtaking the world are cast away by the light of Jesus.

                Words…. Christians use quite a few terms to describe Jesus: “Savior”, “the second Person of the Trinity”, “son of God”, Emmanuel, King, Servant, Messiah, and the list goes on.  The terms are spoken out of religious devotion and explored by biblical and theological scholars.  Our words for God are our ways as Christians to identify who we are and the ways we believe. 

                Words…. Jesus gave us words to live by, found in gospel narratives in the form of parables, sayings, and the conversations he engaged in with disciples, the crowds, the marginalized, the authorities.  In these words called “gospel”, we are given words that guide us through life, help us know ourselves better by reading them and taking these words to heart (sometimes in the process engaging in a struggle of conscience to sort them out in the context of our own life and times). 

                Words…. Amazingly, God did not choose to remain aloof or silent up in the heavens above.  Such texts as the prologue to John serve as a counter-witness to those times of despair and doubt when we believe God does not hear us, remember us, or stay with us.  In our present day with a rising number within society self-identifying as “no religious identity” or “not religious or spiritual”, being able to share these sort of texts becomes that much more important. 

Words…. Our texts form us to be a people who believe with heart and mind God is with this world.  We believe God became flesh and dwelled among us.  In turn, we cannot live aloof from the world or refrain from being in the midst of the crosswalks of life.   To follow Christ means to follow him into the midst of the world and dwell there especially in those places we would not go.

Words…. Christ comes among us, speaking the words of life abundant.  Can we stop and listen, hearing the word in our lives?  Can we welcome the Word into our midst?

      Kids grow up.  We joke a bit about it.  “Oughta put a brick on his head,” we say of a child as he starts going through clothes and shoes at seemingly overnight pace.  In some households, you find curious scratches on the doorpost of a kitchen door, marking the growth of each child.  Or somewhere in the attic or a storage closet, a “baby book” and every single school yearbook is kept safe.  Or with today’s kids, parents hope the computer hard drive crash didn’t wipe out the pictures of Junior’s third birthday party. 

      We love keeping track of the kids and marveling at their achievements, great and small.  I’m sure you have started thinking a bit about your own ways of keeping the kids.  I’m curious to hear a quick memory or two from the crowd.  What have you done to keep track of your kids’ growth over the years?                 [Comments from the congregation.]

      The gospel story today might seem a bit of a surprise.  We just finished Advent and Christmas Eve, and here we are just two days later, and Jesus himself has grown up while we weren’t looking!  We put him in the manger the other night, and we sang songs to him.  And now he has grown up on us!  Heavens!

      The lectionary reading from Luke today moves us away from Bethlehem, and we hear of the only gospel account of Jesus as a child.  And what pray tell is the young Jesus up to?    As far as his family is concerned: mischief!

      Raised an observant Jew, Jesus is on the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  The family has caravanned their way to the holy city, made their religious observances, enjoyed their time, and then they started for home.  In the hubbub of an entire clan of people going out, it is highly likely that Mary and Joseph just kept thinking, “Oh, he’s back there playing with friends”.  When enough time passed and still no child to be seen, that is when Joseph and Mary realized he was not with them.

      Have you noticed how children can disappear?  Nowadays, parents have a variety of ways to keep track of their kids, including those leashes that you strap to the kid’s back.  I saw a child so tethered to a parent in New York City a few weeks back.  I kept marveling the family was able to walk through the busy streets and the kid didn’t “clothesline” another pedestrian.

      Of course, parents struggle with keeping track of the kids.  I remember the time I discovered elevators.  Being a farm family, we rarely traveled that far, so being in a store with an elevator was quite the experience. As a five year old, I was fascinated by these doors that would open and close, and what child does not automatically reach up and hit every single button?

      My fascination grew to the point that as soon as my mother and grandmother were distracted, I wandered off to the elevator door.  I got on, and the elevator doors closed. 

      I enjoyed riding it for a few minutes, as the doors opened and closed.  Then I realized I forgot which floor my family was on.  I started asking adults to help me find my family.  One adult asked me, “Did you get on at housewares?”
            “I don’t know,” I said.  “What’s a houseware?”

      Mary and Joseph found Jesus in the Temple, where he is engaging the wise religious leaders. The momentary parental anxiety is met with an interesting response.  “Why were you searching for me?  Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”  (I tried that line on my parents.  It didn’t work….).

      Here, we get a glimpse of Christian theology.  Christianity confesses Jesus as “fully human/fully divine”.  Jesus is in the Temple, even at an early age, engaging the Temple elders in conversation, speaking with an authority far beyond his years.  Can we also read this text with a bit of wonder at Jesus, the one who grew up just like us?   The authority, the power, and the divinity is in tandem with birth, growing up, and becoming an adult.  Jesus did not exempt himself from life, showing up as the babe in Bethlehem and enduring the passage of years.  The one confessed as “very God of Very God” is made known in the gawkiness of humanity.

      Jesus offers himself in the fullness of human experience, as one who struggled to walk those first steps, who fussed a bit when told to go to bed.  He cried and laughed.  Jesus lived the mundane realities of human existence.  Luke alone records a story of Jesus’ younger years, and arguably, he tells the story to fit into the themes of his gospel.  Hearing this story on the Sunday just after Christmas, the text serves as a friendly word to enjoy the season upon us and avoid the mistake of thinking of Jesus only in the contexts of manger and cross.  There is a long journey Jesus takes, the one called “being human”.  This text illumines the fullness of Jesus as Son of God as well as the firstborn of Mary.

      I wonder if we could think a bit about the influence of Mary and Joseph on this young child.  Jesus was raised up in the midst of a household, woven into the fabric of a family’s life.  The gospels do not dwell extensively on Jesus’ upbringing (Mary appears in the gospels later in Jesus’ life and Joseph’s story begins and ends with the nativity narratives), yet Jesus surely must have benefitted from the raising up he received in that little off-the-beaten path town of Nazareth, son of a carpenter. In short, Christ was indeed “Immanuel”, “God with us”. 

            In celebrating Christmas, can we also marvel at the part “family” plays in our faith?  We are blessed with upwards of a dozen children active in our congregation.  I take delight in them.  Ivy will run into my office and jump up into my arms. I believe Tea finds me a bit magical.  Calvin once told his grandmother (“ammu”), “Hey, it’s the church man!” when I came to their home.  Each child we have in our midst is a blessing and part of what makes us “First Baptist”.

            I believe each member of the congregation should have a vested interest in each and every child in our midst. We may not have the dozens of children common in church decades ago, but we have “our dozen”, a group of delightful kids who could benefit from the larger family of faith.  May I challenge us to make this coming year a time for growing our ministry with children?  It would be delightful to welcome more children, and we will work on that.  I would likewise challenge us to be working just as diligently on the nurturing of the children as well. 

            Would you consider this task as holy work?  Jesus grew up in the midst of a web of family around him.  Could we see ourselves as that holy caravan on pilgrimage?  Could we see ourselves as the wise old elders welcoming the child into our midst and marveling at their contributions to the ongoing dialogue?

            I may not have children of my own, but when I come to this place, I have a dozen kids that need my love, care, mentoring, and presence.  I would suggest this way of thinking is limited only to clergy or religious education instructors.  Each one of us needs to be “family” to these kids.  It is indeed holy work.  Will you join in this effort?

        Thus, when I plan worship, I hold this hymn back for Christmas Eve or the Sunday just after Christmas.  It is good to have a crowd to join together voices on this hymn.  So, after these words of proclamation are given, I invite you to rise and sing our hymn in praise of Christ. 

Whether walking down the street, humming it to yourself, or stuck in an elevator somewhere with the Muzak version playing faintly overhead, you know this song.  (And you quietly give thanks that there is no muzak playing overhead right now.)  Tonight, we sing this hymn in its intended place:  the church at worship.

Most people associate this hymn with the manger, perhaps a lullaby, though boisterous, of the Babe born in Bethlehem. “Joy to the World!” is drawn more the good parts of the book of Revelation rather than a retracing of the gospels’ nativity stories. The hymn’s writer Isaac Watts has a different intention, offering these words in celebration of Christ’s return. Watts looks up at the heavens above than down in a lowly cattle stall.  “Joy to the World!” is less about what happened in Bethlehem and more about the return of Christ to the world at a time yet to come.

Contrary to the veritable cottage industry of books on “the End Times” or those doom-loving preachers on the AM dial, the end vision is not fire and brimstone raining down.  Isaac Watts stresses “the End” as something good for us all.  This hymn captures the true vision of the biblical witness: a world long suffering shall be endued with Christ’s truth and grace.  

In the words of this hymn, Isaac Watts gifts us with this shimmering vision of a world that shall be transformed, not by any single nation or ideology of the day.  In the end, Christ shall return and make all things well.  “Joy to the world!” is a declaration of radical hope: Christ shall bring to accountability the evil of this world and give the world long-yearned justice and peace.

I have seen a glimmer, a foretaste of this vision.  For the past three summers, I have traveled to annual meetings of the Baptist World Alliance, a global gathering of the many and diverse Baptist denominations.  Around the table (where, if you do not know, you will always find Baptists around the table), I have spoken with Baptist leaders from countries dealing with great hardship and challenge.  You spend time talking with a young man whose home country is considered one of the most politically unstable countries in Africa.  You have a cup of coffee with a woman from India who works with women and children caught up in prostitution or victim of other forms of global human trafficking.  You find yourself roommates with a young pastor from an Eastern European country, still recovering from years under a repressive communist government.  In turn, I tell your story, a small congregation working in a rural community where the economic recession is experienced in the form of food and fuel crises, employment challenges, a high incidence of domestic violence per capita, and the list of what’s not right around these parts goes on. 

These stories start adding up, all signs of the world’s pressing needs and the great difficulty the peoples of the world face.  What astonishes, and admittedly humbles me as well, is the resolute commitment of these varied folks from around the world.  Somehow, despite all of the differences and disparities, there is a deep trust in the Christian faith.  What these folk have in common transcends the political, cultural, and economic barriers through which we typically see and order the world.  Arising above the pain, yet not numbed to it, I see a thread of hope interweaving through the stories around the global table: wonderful, abundant, life affirming hope that empowers and enables people to stand up in the midst of the world’s chaos and pain and be conduits of great mercy and strength.  This common thread of hope is grounded in Christ Jesus.

In a time where a new generation of best-sellers decry the validity of religion, in a time where the church in North America myopically dwells more on why these pews tonight are not “standing room only” and less on the mission field just outside their front door, Christians around the world testify mightily to the faith that Jesus taught, the essentials of discipleship grounded in a different ethic:  a deep love of God and neighbor, a commitment to personal and communal wellbeing, and a belief in peacemaking and reconciliation, which goes against the grain of conventional wisdom claiming partisanship and might are the only tools to effect change. 

Our faith calls us to be Christ’s hands and feet in the world, part of the reseeding of the world where, in Watts’ words, “thorns and sorrows grow”.   The church at worship sings this hymn “Joy to the World” not as a happy little carol meant for a passing warm feeling of yuletide joy.  This sort of hymn should thunder with the people of God claiming a core belief:  Christ is coming again!  We are waiting with expectation.  Yet, as a people who wait, we also put our backs into the needs of the here and now.  Discipleship in Christ Jesus is not about passive waiting.  The world is not right, and we want to see it changed, not just down the road, but also in the here and now. 

“Joy to the world!” becomes our reminder that we live in-between times of the “not yet” and “yet to come” as a people who nonetheless live with hearts and minds engaged in this world’s problems and yearn to be part of healing the world, in our little corner and around the world, in ways great and small, temporary and long-lasting.   First Baptist is learning this anew, as we close a year of continuing transformation, becoming a church serving as “a place for healing, community involvement, and spiritual grounding”.  We end 2009 with “a full house”, our facilities now providing previously under-utilized space for community non-profits providing critical services: medical care access for the uninsured, disability advocacy and support, help to families affected by domestic violence or other crises, a place where persons dealing with personal or economic challenges can find help and support, especially through initiatives our congregants have taken on, such as the sewing class or the cooking skills class, donating faithfully to local food pantries and social service outreach organizations. 

Indeed, look back to where we have been and where we are today in our efforts to provide a credible witness to the gospel to this hurting community and world, and indeed, sing “joy” to the Christ who is coming!

So it is “with truth and grace” that Isaac Watts envisions Christ coming back.  This Christ shall arrive with the resounding joy of a world welcoming back the One who shall make all things well, who shall take to task recalcitrant nations, who shall bring about a commonweal more glorious than any vision for the world humanity could come up with on its own.

May we be the church at worship and sing “Joy to the world!”

     The Corn Palace advertises every few miles with these whimsical signs, declaring inviting you to be a-maize-d at the sight.  It is a grand sight, all that corn adorning the side of the building.  The Corn Palace attracts tourists (and birds!) year round.  Nonetheless, you wonder why you’re out here in the middle of nowhere.  The Corn Palace is an amusing oddity, sort of like back home in Kansas where they claim Cawker City possesses the world’s largest ball of twine.  It smells of rot and mildew, but it is the tourist attraction that some people plan their vacations around. 

     If you believe that’s just the Midwest (and surely odd things and people come only from the Midwest), travel down to Cheshire, Massachusetts, as I plan to do sometime this spring or summer. I recently learned of a memorial to a noteworthy Baptist.  In the midst of town, you will find a monument dedicated to the early Baptist John Leland.  The monument’s plaque hails Leland as “[an] eloquent preacher, beloved pastor, [and] influential patriot”.  The monument recalls Leland’s strong support of Thomas Jefferson’s presidential campaign, and Leland’s subsequent travels to present Jefferson a gift from the local community.  

    The monument records Leland traveled to Washington, DC, and “presented to [President Jefferson] on January 1, 1802, in the presence of foreign diplomats, Supreme Court judges, and the Congress” a 1200 pound block of cheese.  The monument remembers Leland’s legacy by placing his image on the front of a monument shaped like the large cheese press used to make “the Big Cheshire Cheese”.  In true Baptist fashion, leave it to a Baptist to turn anything into an excuse for a potluck!

     In these little out of the way places, you find the most remarkable oddities and revelations.  People pass through, snap a few photos with the big ball of twine, or perhaps feel strangely hungry after reading of an now obscure Baptist’s adventures with cheese, but then they get back in the car and off they go, in search of the next leg of the journey.  Small towns like Cawker City grow quiet again as the tourists leave, settling back into the sleepy way of life.

      The same could be said of Bethlehem.  As Christian readers of this text, we often approach Micah’s prophecies around Bethlehem, hearing the familiar strains of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” faintly in the background.  In Micah’s day, and even in the day of the New Testament, persons would have been quite perplexed.  What’s the big deal about Bethlehem?  It doesn’t look like much, just sort of there on the map, even today not necessarily a place of great importance, outside of the tourist trade.

      Bethlehem was of little strategic or political importance, just a humble village off the beaten path.  Of little consequence, this little town will bring about one who shall be known as “great to the ends of the earth”.  Christian readers hear the gospel nativity story coming alive in this text.  For the people of Micah’s day, they heard a strong word of hope, placing God’s favor on the lowly and vulnerable. 

      Micah’s prophecy weaves through parts of the Hebrew Scriptures’ narratives of David’s family tree.  Bethlehem was a place where David’s forebears lived, persons seemingly insignificant as David himself would have appeared when he was first brought before the prophet Samuel.  Jesus’ detractors were known to ask what good could come out of Nazareth?  The same could be said for David, the little shepherd boy, thought to be the least likely candidate when Jesse was told to bring his sons before the prophet.  The pipsqueak kid would become the symbol for Israel’s monarchy and his name synonymous with Israel’s good fortune.

     Bethlehem becomes in-speak for Israel’s hope.  When Micah served as a prophet, Jerusalem was under constant threat.  Few persons believed any good could be left for the Israelite people. The neo-Assyrian empire had taken most of the northern kingdom lands, and of late has turned its attention to the remaining southern kingdom.  In Bethlehem, one shall come forth as one as if the David of old and be even more powerful.  Out of the lesser of kinship clans, out of the least likely place of influence shall rise up the true strength of God made known.

     Also in more signage inclined states, you will find small towns in the Midwest put up signs willy-nilly to honor locals, celebrating the proverbial “local boy/girl made good” types.  For example, back home in Kansas, you will spot a guitar-shaped sign noting Leavenworth, Kansas as the birthplace of rocker Melissa Etheridge or on a town’s outskirts a sign decorated with an airplane notes aviator Amelia Earhart was born right here in Atchison, KS.  In my hometown of Sedan, a sign and even a small museum hail the town as the birthplace of circus clown Emmett Kelly.  Indeed, each year, we gather along Main Street and sing, “For unto us, a clown is born.”

    Favored sons and daughters become part of the lore of a community.  They provide a witness to a community of how people you used to know when they were “this tall” or remember when they served as a waitress at the local diner can go on to be the next Nobel Prize winning physicist, next year’s Oscar winner, and tomorrow’s generation of leadership.  Little towns can be the birthplace of many good folks who heal the world. 

    Bethlehem reminds us that Jesus grew up in the midst of humanity.  He entered into this world as we did, though he was born in lowly circumstance and part of the world in its delights and difficulties. In his humble birth, Jesus knows what it means to be human.  He did not exempt himself from this life, and in his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus offers a different sort of powerful hope for the world.  As Micah railed against power’s temptations, so did the one born in Bethlehem.  As Micah hailed the peaceable world he believed God intended, Jesus likewise taught an ethic embracing enemies as friends, modeling forgiveness of one another, and an inclusive vision of marginalized and mighty being equal in the Reign he preached.

      Bethlehem becomes the Christian response to the world’s woes.  Out of an obscure place, Jesus beckons his followers to go to the forgotten places, the places where persons are considered of little consequence.  Bethlehem becomes a sign and symbol of a beloved ruler like the positive element to the Davidic story.  Jesus is the one who rules with “truth and grace” as the old carol extols.  Jesus is the good shepherd, tending the many, never leaving even the most wayward sheep behind.  Out of Bethlehem would indeed come one who brought hope to a broken world.

     As I noted earlier, the Micah reading inescapably has a soundtrack.  We cannot read this passage without humming a certain tune.  The hymn “O Little Town of Bethlehem” recalls this text and the Christian interpretation of the passage.  The hymn comes to us thanks to a 19^th century leading Episcopal priest of his day, the Rev. Dr. Phillips Brooks. 

      Brooks wrote this hymn for a children’s choir, thanks to a pilgrimage experience he had earlier in life visiting Bethlehem on Christmas Eve.  When you read the carol’s words, Brooks’ reverence for this memory shines through his poetry.  Brooks captured a certain tenderness of a small town, out away from the more urbanized areas of Jerusalem, made more notable due to a favored Son whose life reshaped the world. 

      I recalled another memory of Phillips Brooks.  Years after he wrote the carol, Brooks became the rector of Trinity Church in downtown Boston.   Outside the church today stands a statue of Brooks, commemorating his ministry and career.  Brooks’ statue might not catch the eye of the modern day Bostonian, passing by the church on the way to work or at play on the green space around the church.  In fact, the day we visited Trinity Church, Brooks was covered with pigeons. 

      As we looked around Trinity Church’s green space, many people were out enjoying the summer day.  (Only a minister would go inside and look at a church on a nice summer day.)  People were out sunning themselves on blankets. Office workers enjoyed eating their lunches on park benches. Children gleefully ignored the prim “no swimming” sign over the public fountain and waded in.  The Rev. Dr. Brooks surveyed the scene from his pedestal over by the church.

      We were in search primarily for the Boston Public Library.  (Only a librarian like Kerry would go inside and look at a library on a nice summer day.)  We spotted the library across the green space.  As we made our way there, I noticed the further we walked along the path away from the street, the more the crowd became primarily the homeless.  They were hunkered down on park benches, leaning on trees and making small talk, and some sleeping the daytime away, perhaps enjoying the relative safety of a very public area.  As we walked past one person sleeping on the ground, I did a double take.  The blanket he slept on had a familiar, though well faded image of Church World Service.

      A few weeks before, First Baptist completed its annual donation to Church World Service’s blanket fund, providing money for these durable blankets to be sent around the world.  And here, rather close to home than the “far off mission field” we often associate with CWS projects, was evidence of the support of First Baptist and other Christians providing help to a person in need.

      Thinking back, I wonder what Brooks would have made of this scene unfolding outside his old parish church.  I imagine he would have been delighted to see this quiet witness to the faith of Jesus, the one born in Bethlehem. 

O Holy Child of Bethlehem/

Descend on us, we pray/

Cast out our sin and enter in/

Be born in us today.