Love All

Sermon for Sunday, December 18, 2011 at First UMC of West Newton

Scripture: Matthew 22:34-40

These past four weeks really have been a lot of fun. As a congregation, we’ve taken up the challenges of the Advent Conspiracy. We are worshiping fully, spending less, and giving more this Advent season in preparation for Christmas. The point of it all is to focus on how we can change the way we celebrate Christmas so that it can once again be the world-changing and life-changing event it originally was, when God broke into this world to restore our relationship with Him, as well as shine his light into the darkness of this world. We have been considering how we can change our own thoughts and actions, wondering how we can serve God and display God’s glory with all we say and do – not just this holiday season, but all year round.

But as I read the nativity stories, I just can’t get over one thing – the amazing, incredible, unconditional, abundant, passionate love that God has for us. More than anything else, the story of Christmas is a love story between God and his people. We see evidence of this in many places in scripture:

• “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.”
• “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his son. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.”
• “Greetings, favored one,” the angel tells Mary. “The Lord is with you…you have found favor with God.” God loves Mary so much that God has chosen to dwell inside of her, for the sake of all people.
• GOD IS LOVE.

Yes, God is love. And God loves us so much that he chose to give us this wonderful gift of presence through the Messiah. At its heart, Christmas is all about God giving us this amazing gift of love, the gift of Emmanuel, which means “God with us.”

And really, what greater gift is there? I would say that most of the time, the gift we wish for most is to be able to spend time with the ones we love. And so the greatest gift, especially these days with the busyness of life, is to be together, to give presence rather than presents. What’s more, God loves us so much that he doesn’t ask us to come to him. God loves us so much that God comes to where we are, dwells with us and in us, and restores the relationship not in some distant, removed way, but in the most intimate way possible. Emmanuel, God is with us.

In fact, I believe that one of the most appealing aspects of Christianity as opposed to other religions is that there is no other world religion I know of that has a more personal, intimate God. With other religions, there seems to be more intentional keeping of distance between God and people. But as Christians, we believe in a deeply personal, intimate God who loved us so much that he came here to be with us, through the incarnation which we celebrate next weekend.

That’s not to say there should be no distance at all between us and God. Sometimes God feels distant, and sometimes God is distant. That reminds us that God is far more powerful and amazing than we could ever imagine, and that our conception of God is woefully inadequate. Even so, there is a deep intimacy present in the Christian understanding of God that I have yet to find anywhere else.

Furthermore, the love that God has for us is so incredible, so amazing, so passionate, so intimate, that it compels a response. And when a person or being loves us, we typically respond in two ways: either with reciprocating love, or fear and trembling.

Yes, I believe the opposite of love is not hatred, but fear. In fact, our hatred for things and people usually comes from our fear – fear of what we don’t know about them, or fear that their displeasing aspects will only reveal the things we hate most about ourselves. We hate because we fear, and fear is the opposite of love.

God so loved the world that he broke into it in the person of Jesus. And the reaction by King Herod was fear. The word of a new king, a king of kings and a prince of peace, worried him. When Herod was told that a new king had been born, he wasn’t angry, as we may picture him. He wasn’t upset. He wasn’t even arrogant. No, he was frightened. He was very fearful that his authority would be usurped, that the kingdom would no longer be his. God loved through the incarnation, and King Herod responded in fear.

In a much different way, I think the Advent and Christmas season often garners fear in us. We have small, trivial fears this time of year:

• I’m afraid he won’t like the gift I give him
• I fear the new recipe isn’t good enough.
• I’m afraid grandma will get run over by a reindeer.

But, we also have more serious fears, things that keep us up at night and cast a dark shadow over our Christmas spirit:

• I’m afraid I won’t be able to pay the credit card bills come January.
• I fear that the family gathering will end in conflict and fighting.
• I’m afraid to face this Christmas without a loved one for the first time
• In Herod’s case, “I fear that I’ll lose my throne.”

Yet, the wonder of Christmas is that God loves us. And God comes to Mary with a message of love and favor rather than fear. Do not be afraid, Mary, for God is with you. God comes to the shepherds in the fields with a message of good news and great joy. So you see, shepherds? Do not be afraid!

Do not be afraid, dear children, shepherds, mothers. Do not be afraid, kings and rulers and wise men. Love is on its way, coming to dwell with us. This truth is proclaimed no more beautifully than by Charles Wesley in the first verse of one of my favorite hymns:

Love divine, all loves excelling,

Joy of heaven to earth come down,

Fix in us thy humble dwelling,

All thy faithful mercies crown.

Jesus, thou art all compassion,

Pure, unbounded love thou art;

Visit us with thy salvation,

Enter every trembling heart.

Our God is a God of incredible, passionate, intimate, amazing love. And in compels us to love in return, to invite this love into our hearts. When we do so, the two great commandments become the mission statement for all we say and do – to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves.

My mother-in-law has a decoration hanging in her front hallway. It is the outline of a heart, and inside the heart is the word JOY. Written out next to the word “joy” is three words: Jesus, Others, You. This simple, kitschy decoration reminds me, first of all, who we are to love, and second of all, the order in which that love should be prioritized. How often do we flip that order, first taking care of ourselves, and only then loving neighbors, and if we get around to it, loving God? Every time I am at my in-laws, I see that and remember the greatest commandment: Love God, love others, love self, and you will find joy.

And if you really think about it, that’s what the Advent Conspiracy is all about: love. We love God by worshiping him fully, not the things or ideologies of this world. We serve God rather than consumerism or other cultural messages or icons. And we love others when we become like God, practicing the gift of presence rather than presents, and when we consider what we can give God for Christmas as we give generously to those in need. Here in this congregation, we have loved both God and others this Advent season by baking cookies for our neighbors, by gathering for worship, by practicing alternative ways of celebration. And there are still other ways we will practice love: tonight, a wonderful combined choir will love by singing praise to God and sharing that good news with those who wish to hear it. Next weekend, we’ll love each other by exchanging gifts. And together, we’ll give to Living Water International, so that our Christmas gift to God and our brothers and sisters around the world will be life-giving water for all.

I’ve been saying all month that Christmas is world-changing, revolutionary, and scandalous – and it is very much so. But it is also, more than anything, the first chapter in the greatest love story ever told. It is the story of God loving all people so passionately and intimately that God came to be with us. It is a love that comes without price, without condition, without any qualification or requirement on our behalf. It is a love that displays the Wesleyan notion of prevenient grace – that this is love: not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his son. We are only able to love God because God first loved us.

I hope and pray that you will discover the depth of God’s love on display at Christmas. And I hope that rather than being afraid, you will respond in love of God and neighbor: loving all with every fiber of your being. Go therefore, and love all – love all you meet, in every way that you can, with all that you have. Love all because that’s what God does, and we are called to imitate God. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Give More

Sermon for Sunday, December 11, 2011 at First UMC of West Newton
Scripture: Isaiah 64:1-4, 8-11


My father comes from a Dutch family. In fact, he was born in the Netherlands, and the majority of his relatives still live there. As such, there are ways in which my father loves to celebrate his Dutch heritage, and as a child he would share certain traditions with us.

One such tradition was that of Sinterklaas Day, also known as the feast of Saint Nicholas, on December 6. Sinterklaas is the patron saint of children, and originally a Greek Bishop of the 3rd and 4th centuries. As legend has it, Sinterklaas would travel around and put money in the shoes of poor children. It was an act of charity meant to take care of those who could not afford life’s basic necessities. This eventually evolved into leaving gifts in the children’s shoes, and is something Sinterklaas still reportedly does on the eve before his feast day.


And so, every year growing up, on Dec. 5 my sister and I would be instructed by my father to leave our shoes out on the front porch for Sinterklaas. You were also supposed to fill the shoes with hay for the horse Sinterklaas rode in on, but being suburban kids we didn’t quite have easy access to hay. So we’d fill our shoes with grass. The following morning, we would wake up and discover that Sinterklaas had come and left us a small gift – one that could fit inside a shoe, of course.

Sinterklaas, you might say, is the ancestor to Santa Claus. And like many traditions and cultural celebrations, Sinterklaas has evolved from being a tall, thin, charitable patron saint of children, to being a pudgy, red-cheeked glutton and provider of toys and amusement to those who already have everything. Do we need any more evidence that sometimes our traditions lose their true meaning as time goes on?

What’s interesting about the story of Sinterklaas, or Santa Claus in the USA, is that it has taken on the same fate as the celebration of Christmas. What used to be a tradition of giving to those in need has become a tradition of indulgence, consumerism, and debt as people spend more than they can afford in futile efforts to acquire the latest, greatest things – things that will likely be not so great by this time next year. Throw in just enough charitable giving to relieve us of our consumer guilt and to give us year-end tax breaks, and you have Christmas, 21st century style.

But Christmas is not about getting stuff. It's not about shopping malls, traffic jams, and overeating at holiday parties and family gatherings. That's something we've been reminding each other this month around First UMC, as we participate in the Advent Conspiracy. We’re considering how Christmas can once again be the world changing and life changing revolution it is meant to be, rather than just another reason for Hallmark to make greeting cards.

And this week, we ask ourselves, "Now that we have committed to worshiping fully, and now that we have cut back and committed to spending less, what might it look like if we celebrated Christmas by giving more? What if, instead of being roly poly Santa Clauses, we acted more like saints, giving hope, peace, joy, and love from our hearts?

After all, “Jesus is the reason for the season,” we say, but as I like to add, "Jesus is not the reason you’re at the mall.” Rather, the fundamental meaning of Christmas is that God has already given us a gift, and it is the greatest gift of all. Beginning with the birth of Jesus, God offers us a new covenant, a new life, a new relationship. And what do we do for people who have given us gifts in love? Usually, we give them gifts in return. But no one is harder to shop for at Christmas than God – what do you give the one who created and creates everything, the one who’s already got the whole world in His hands? What on earth could be on God’s wish list?

The answer, I believe, lies in chapter 61 of Isaiah. Here, the prophet might as well be reading God’s wish list. And if those words sound familiar, particularly the first two lines, it’s because this is the scripture Jesus read at the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth. In Luke chapter 4, Jesus stood up, and in his first public teaching as an adult, said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And with these words, Jesus gives his mission statement. Jesus gives us all kinds of salvation, both individual and collective, both from sin and death as well as the evil powers and structures of this world. And in doing so, Jesus “displays God’s glory,” as the prophet Isaiah so eloquently states.

But these words in Isaiah are not only prophetic language of what God will do in the form of a Messiah, the savior to come. No, these words are also prophetic language about the people of God. Yes, God brings good news to the poor, the oppressed, the enslaved, the victimized, the grieving, and those with broken hearts. But additionally, God sends out his people to declare his good news as well. The people of God are here in Isaiah commissioned to bring good news, to liberate, to comfort, and to display the glory of God. Through God’s people, the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. And that is the best gift we could ever give God in return this Christmas: to display his glory.

At Christmas, God gives us a relationship, and in return we are called to give ourselves in relationship to God and others. First, we are called to spend this Advent season similar to the way we spend Lent in preparation for Easter. As we prepare for the coming Messiah, we seek to love God more deeply. And we also give more in our relationships with others.

The invitation to give more, in regards to Advent Conspiracy, is two-fold. First, it is an invitation to give relationally to friends and family. It means considering what is a better use of our time and money – spending an entire day at the mall, hunting for the perfect gift for our spouse, or spending the day enjoying being WITH our spouse? Which will have a more lasting impact on your relationship with your child – as well as your child’s development: spending all of Advent buying gifts for them, or spending all of Advent baking cookies, watching Christmas movies, and developing a closer relationship with them?

Second, the invitation to give more is a call to return to the Sinterklaas (or, St. Nicholas) way of giving gifts – to give not to those who have everything, but to give to those who have nothing. The amount of money it would take to address problems of poverty, disease, lack of clean water, and injustice in this world is miniscule in proportion to the amount of money we Americans spend on Christmas shopping every year. So this Advent and Christmas, as a congregation we are giving to Living Water International, and in doing so are giving the gift of clean water and improved health to people all around the world. Giving more, both relationally to friends and family as well as generously to those in need, is how we celebrate Christmas God’s way, and how we display God’s glory.

Last week, I talked about “spending less.” I mentioned the obvious: that in our culture, exchanging gifts around Christmas has gotten out of hand. Every year it’s bigger and better gifts, bigger and worse debt, and bigger and more useless piles of “stuff” that we never use. Black Friday brings out the worst in humanity. Malls and big box stores are not in the business of religion. And even though their signs proclaim it, the retailers cannot give you “real joy guaranteed.”

For many, gift giving has become more trouble than it’s worth. For these and other reasons, both my family and my wife Lisa’s family have cut back in gift giving in recent years. We’re practicing more alternative or charitable gift giving. But that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with giving and receiving gifts with others. Even though we’ve cut back and we now spend less, we are still spending money and we are still giving some gifts.

You see, it’s still okay to exchange gifts and be a Christian. Every holiday season, I spend considerable time shopping for people I care about. I admit, I put more thought into some gifts than others, but with all my gifts I think about the receiver. Who are they? What are their interests? Will they really use this? Will they appreciate it?

Gift giving offers us a chance to think about people around us. We smile just thinking about how much she’ll love it, or how his eyes will light up when he unwraps it. Or, when we struggle to find a good gift because we don’t know the person very well, we recognize the room for growth in a neglected relationship. Gift giving can be a meaningful way to reflect and express our love for each other as spouses, siblings, children, parents, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, co-workers, or friends. In fact, for some people gift giving is the most comfortable way to express love for another.

And we may practice alternative gift giving. I already know there are large families in which the adults only give gifts to the children, or do some variation of a secret santa gift exchange. I know there are others who make homemade gifts out of love. I know that’s how some people in this congregation celebrate Christmas and gift giving, because you’re a talented bunch. I know there are talented artists, sewers, musicians, writers, woodworkers, cooks and bakers in our congregation. You all have many talents you could use to make gifts of love for friends and family. And when you use your gifts and talents to make gifts or give gifts of love to others, you "display God's glory," because it is God who created you with those special talents and abilities. And those gifts express love greater than anything bought in a store.

I also know that Christmas is the celebration of Jesus’ birthday, not ours, and so the change in gift-giving must reach further than our own families and friends. What God wants for Christmas is the world to change. God wants us to use Christmas as an opportunity to transform this world. And so we return to that second invitation of giving more. Because we are committing to spending less and giving relationally on the home-front – giving our time and our talents rather than going into debt – we are now free to give more this Christmas to those who are truly in need.

So we thought we’d offer you a way to do that. Of course, we all have our favorite non-profits and charitable organizations we like to support, and that’s great. We want you to continue doing that – supporting the organizations you care deeply about. But we also want to give you an opportunity to learn about Living Water International, which is the primary charitable organization that Advent Conspiracy explicitly partners with. We have a video that will show you a little bit about the work that Living Water International does:

I believe that God is always challenging me to give more – not just during the Advent and Christmas season, but all the time, all year long. And you know, growing in terms of giving is a tremendous challenge. Do you know why? Because giving more means I get to keep less for myself. That's why I'm being called always to give more – God is using the call to give to mold me into someone less selfish, as someone who doesn’t think only of my own needs. Giving more is not a one-time call, but is an invitation into a life-time process. And it is the first step toward having the mind that was in Christ, who gave all he had, even his life, in a self-emptying way for our sake.

That’s the story of Christmas, folks. God had everything, and GAVE it all up for our sake. God GAVE up all power, authority, glory, and grandeur, entered our world in a smelly stable in a forgotten small town, through the faithfulness of a pregnant unwed teenager. God GAVE everything for us. So maybe, just maybe, as we celebrate the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, we can strive to do the same. Give more this Christmas, and you’ll find that your life and this world will be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. God gave everything He had for the sake of others. Go and do likewise. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Browns to the west of me, Flyers to the east...

Pens vs. Flyers at 7 pm. Steelers vs. Browns at 8:20 pm. What a night in Pittsburgh sports. Here are my alternate lyrics to the classic song above:

Well I know what I’ll be watching tonight,

Both these rivalries just feel so right,

Don’t be scared, we are the black and the gold,

The opponents’ gonna get knocked out cold,

Browns to the west of me, Flyers to the east

Here we go, we are Steel City: Woohoo!

Yes, we are Steel City: Woohoo!

And the Browns don’t have a clue what to do,

Yeah this game should put a smile on my face,

The defense will give Colt McCoy chase,

Browns to the west of me, Flyers to the east

Here we go, we are Steel City: Woohoo!

Well we’ll start it out by running,

And be proud of Coach Mike Tomlin.

And the towels they will be waving,

Waving in the air chanting,

Hines…Hines…

Trying to make some sense of it all,

Cause I see the Flyers standing up tall,

Jaromir Jagr goes to sleep on the floor,

Arron Asham can do that for us I’m sure.

Browns to the west of me, Flyers to the east

Let’s go Pens, we are Steel City: Woohoo!

Well they started out with nothing,

Then they got Talbot and Jagr man,

And the Pens they will go skating,

Check them in the backs, they’ll say,

Please don’t do that…Please don’t do that…

Well I know what I’ll be watching tonight,

Both these rivalries just feel so right,

Don’t be scared, we are the black and the gold,

The opponents’ gonna get knocked out cold,

Browns to the west of me, Flyers to the east

Here we go, we are Steel City: Woohoo!

Spend Less

Sermon for Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011 at First UMC of West Newton

Second Sunday in Advent

Scriptures: Matthew 6:19-21, 24-33; Ecclesiastes 2:1-11

This year during Advent, we are participating in the Advent Conspiracy. The Advent Conspiracy is a movement of hundreds of churches – across the world, but primarily in the United States – that seeks the true meaning of Christmas. And that is that Christmas is not about giving or receiving gifts. It’s not about hosting the best holiday party. It’s not simply a way to end the year in a good mood, although it may have that effect. No, Christmas is more than what our culture has turned it into, and as Christians we are called to celebrate Christmas as it was originally intended: as a world changing, transformative event. Christmas is the scandalous, revolutionary, life-changing and world-changing event of God and God’s kingdom breaking into this world.

Through the Advent Conspiracy, we are trying to rediscover this true message of Christmas. Last Sunday, I shared how we may conspire to worship fully – that Christmas is about peaceful moments of rest, as well as revolutionary movements of protest, and both these moments and movements can be forms of worship. Today, we’re going to talk about how together, we might conspire to SPEND LESS this Christmas. By spending less, we can then free ourselves from the burden and obligation of spending so much on Christmas and gifts, and we are freed to give more, worship fully, and love all.

Spending less is important to the Advent Conspiracy, because it is a concrete, counter-cultural action we can take in this season of shopping, sales, and general shopping mall-induced stress and traffic jams. The conspiracy of spending less begins with cutting back on gift giving.

Before you get the wrong idea, this is not a call to eliminate gift-giving completely. I do think it’s monumentally important that we admit gift-giving and receiving is not the point of this season. Christmas is not about getting what you’ve always wanted, nor is it about giving your children everything they’ve always wanted. Christmas is not YOUR birthday, after all. The retail side of Christmas is out of hand and a tragic sign of where our culture’s priorities lie. But the fact is, there’s not necessarily anything wrong with giving and receiving gifts with others, if it’s done out of love for each other and not love of stuff.

However, what we are doing this Advent is asking ourselves if we really need to spend as much on gifts as we do. We are asking if all the gifts we give are really necessary to show someone we care about them. And the call to spend less is not to cut out gift giving completely, but to evaluate our spending and consider cutting back.

Think about this: Americans spend $450 BILLION a year on gifts. Every year. That’s a lot of money. And yet, it has been estimated that just $20 billion per year could solve the world water crisis. That’s less than 5% of our Christmas spending. If we just cut back 5% on our Christmas spending as a nation and gave it away, we could solve the world’s water problems. That’s a big deal, because tens of millions of people each day do not have access to clean, safe drinking water. Without clean, safe drinking water, these people are at significantly increased risk of illness and disease, and the infant mortality rates are sky-high. So, Advent Conspiracy asks that we think about giving one less gift for Christmas, or maybe 5% less than in previous years, and then give away the money we save to Living Water International – or some other organization.

There are many ways to spend less. You can simply buy less, or you can practice alternative gift-giving. You can “tithe” a percentage of your gift budget. 

Spending less frees us to give more – to give in new ways, to give with more love and to give relationally. After all, God gave a relationship at Christmas, and it was the best gift we could ever receive. Next week, we’ll talk further about GIVING MORE – one of the things that spending less frees us to do.

The Gospel lesson this morning is not particularly an Advent or Christmas text, but I do find it to be extraordinarily relevant to this season, in the face of retail mayhem. It is a season of worrying and fretting and anxiety. It is a season where we tend to serve wealth and the “things” of this world rather than serving God.

It is very easy to serve the retail gods around Christmas. This is what we are so tempted to do, is serve and worship the retail season of Christmas. It is a religion unto itself – marked by holy days of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, celebrated with the weekly rituals of Saturday traffic jams, requiring the sacrifice of our financial well-being, and proclaiming the fulfillment of promise and hope for our families.

I wish that the passion people display in the wee hours of the morning on Black Friday, lining up and creating riot-like atmospheres just for the best deals on flat-screens, would pale in comparison to the passion people have for God breaking into this world. It’s a stark reminder that everyone seeks fulfillment of some type of promise this season, and we are all in service to someone or something during the holiday season. 

So what are you seeking this Advent with all your heart? Where is your mind? What are you dedicating your time and money to? If someone were to look at your life this December, who would they say you are serving, God or wealth?

Let me tell you – I have found myself serving wealth at times. And I echo the sentiments of the writer of Ecclesiastes: all of it is vanity and chasing after the wind. For the things on this earth are temporal, but God’s kingdom is forever. I hate to break it to you, but even diamonds are not forever in the way that God’s kingdom is.

This morning, we baptized a young child. And when I think about the world this child will grow up in, I hope that the world will be better in the future for him than it is for us today. I think that’s the hope for all our children and grandchildren, all the generations that will follow us. I have hope that many things will be better for him than for us – I pray that he will live in a more tolerant nation than we see today. I pray that the world will be more peaceful than it is now. I pray that the harmful things we’re doing now that we don’t know are harmful – he’ll be warned of them. After all, we younger generations were warned of the harmful effects of smoking, a habit that many people of previous generations did for years without realizing how harmful it was.

And I hope in another way. I really do think it’s possible that Christmas can eventually be not about the stores making profits, but can be about the world being transformed into God’s kingdom. I hope that one day, we’ll tell our children and grandchildren about how people pushed and shoved each other to get a good deal on a TV. We’ll tell them that Saturdays in December were just one big traffic jam, and people spent entire weekends at the mall and it still wasn’t enough to complete all their shopping. We’ll tell these younger generations about the amount of money we spent as a country on a holiday celebrating the birth of a Savior, and our children and grandchildren will look at us in disbelief – there’s no way people were that materialistic and selfish, they’ll say. Didn’t they know that Christmas is a time to participate in God’s work in the world, a time defined by giving from our abundance to those in need, a time to make a positive change in the world? Why did they celebrate selfishly rather than charitably?

And we’ll say, yes, people gave to charity back then, but only to assuage their guilt for spending so much on crap they didn’t need. You see kids, Christmas had lost its nature of being a world-changing event, and had simply become a way of acting out our greed in the worst way. But eventually, the church stood up and created a revolution. The Christians of this nation – just as they had with women’s rights and the abuse of alcohol and with racism and with gambling – they stood up and said, “Enough!” And they committed to spend less, to give more, to worship fully, to love all. They led a revolution that changed Christmas back from the retail holiday it was to the true Holy Day that it was always meant to be.

That’s my hope – that we can tell future generations how bad it used to be, how parents wrestled each other for tickle-me-Elmo dolls. And then, we’ll remember what it was that finally changed things – the Holy Spirit moving through a committed group of individuals, the world changing because people began serving the Messiah rather than wealth. Don’t you want to be a part of that story? Don’t you want to be a part of the revolution, the one where God can transform how we think about Christ’s birth?

Spend less this Christmas. In doing so, you’ll discover that it frees you to: 

• Worship fully – serve and love God, prepare the way of the LORD, more time to worship with family
• Give more – give your time, give relationally, give charitably (join us next week and we’ll talk more about this)
• Love all – Christmas is a time of love – of God’s love coming into our world, of how we may return that love by worshiping God and giving to those in need, and that true love is not defined by the price tag on our gifts.

One final note: spending less has special significance in this season of the year, because the holidays are a time marked by indulgence, over-spending, and perhaps even the accumulation of unmanageable debt. But this is only when we are at our worst. These kinds of consumerist, retail-worshiping actions are practiced by us all year round. So the call to spend less may begin this holiday season, but it is meant to continue all year long.

May it be so. May we spend less, and in doing so, discover anew how we may serve God and God's kingdom rather than the kingdoms of this world. And may it free us, in turn, to give more this Christmas and all year long. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Worship Fully

Sermon for Sunday, Nov. 27, 2011 at First UMC of West newton
First Sunday in Advent
Scripture: Luke 1:39-55

This year, First United Methodist Church is conspiring during Advent. That means we're planning and plotting together to make a noticeable difference in this world. After all, that is our call as Christians - to be disciples who transform this world in the name of Jesus Christ.

We will do so by joining with countless other churches in the Advent Conspiracy. The Advent Conspiracy is a different approach to preparing for Christ’s birth. There are four themes to the Advent Conspiracy, and we'll focus on one each Sunday in Advent. These themes and practices are: worship fully, spend less, give more, and love all. But in fact, these are not mutually exclusive actions. Each one affects the other. Spending less frees us to give more, love all, and worship fully. Loving all motivates us to spend less, give more, and worship fully. And spending less, giving more, and loving all is a wonderful description of how to fully worship God.

And that is our topic today: what does it mean to worship fully, and how can we conspire to do so, not just during the holiday season, but every day of the year?

The word worship comes from the Old English word "weorthscipe", which means giving praise or honor or worth to someone or something. Worship is proclaiming, in words and action, belief that someone or something is valued more than anything else in our life. By that definition, we all worship fully already. But it may not always be God who we're worshiping. We fully worship a number of things. At any given moment, we could probably be found worshiping popularity, our career, our comfortable way of life, a celebrity or athlete or sports team or band. I'm sure most of us could easily recognize when we've placed ultimate value and worth in these things rather than God.

Sometimes less easy to recognize is when we worship things that are good, but not ultimately where we should direct our worship. At times, we may find ourselves guilty of worshiping the Bible, or morality, an ideology, or even a good Christian leader. We might also worship the Church or our church, or we may worship our family and friends, placing one of these things in the position of primary importance in our lives. Again, if we're honest with ourselves, we are all probably guilty of taking these good, valuable things, and putting them above God in the time and attention and devotion we give to them, of worshiping them rather than the God who created them.

A little over a week ago, Lisa and I were in downtown Pittsburgh for the annual light-up night. One of the first things we went to see was the Pittsburgh Crèche (Nativity), on display every year at the Steel Building. Only this year, the setting was a bit different than any other year. Across the street from the crèche, in Mellon Green, is the Occupy Pittsburgh movement. So, as we approached, we encountered these hearty protesters seizing the opportunity of large, passing crowds to loudly proclaim their case against Wall Street, corporations, capitalism, greed, and whatever else the Occupy movement seems to be fighting against. They were passionate, if not articulate.

As I walked past and quickly scanned the scene of this makeshift tent city, I thought about their passion. Here are people who have dedicated themselves to live in a downtown park, for as long as it takes, for a purpose. Here are people so wrapped up in a movement that they have given their lives to the movement. Now, we won't go into the validity or merit of the Occupy Wall Street movement - that discussion is for another time and place. But the point here is, I saw people worshiping fully - they were fully worshiping, fully dedicating themselves, to participate in a movement seeking change the world.

Of course, the same passion can be seen by activists on the other side of the ideological spectrum: the Tea Party movement is full of worshipers, dedicating all of themselves to a cause that they too proclaim as a form of justice. They too are incredibly passionate, if not articulate. But again, this is neither the time nor the place to justify or dismiss the Tea Party movement - I'll leave that for political pundits and cable news talking heads and voters on election day.

In fact, all I will say now is, if you do feel called to join a movement such as the Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street or whatever else comes our way in the future, that may be fine, but if you proceed, do so with caution. Those two movements and many like them are politically or socially motivated, man-made ideologies that will never satisfy your spiritual hunger and will never provide hope in the way that only Christ can provide. I believe there is only one movement worth sacrificing everything for and dedicating your life to, and that movement is the work of God through Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

But as I walked by the Occupy Pittsburgh camp last week, I couldn't help but wonder when the last time was that I heard of or saw Christians so taken by the movement of the Holy Spirit that they left all they had to literally set up camp downtown. I don't often see that from Christians. Nor do I often enough see Christians organize rallies like the Tea Party to support the cause for God's justice - justice over slavery, poverty, disease, war, and famine. But just last week, in the midst of the kickoff of the downtown holiday shopping season, the most consumer-driven time of the year, Occupy Pittsburgh rang out in that moment as a counter cultural prophecy to our infatuation with the American capitalist Christmas.

On the opposite side of Sixth Street, where the crèche is, I saw an entirely different form of worship. There was no shouting, and in fact very little talking at all. Sure, some people treated the crèche as little more than a tourist attraction, eager to take and post a picture on Facebook with their phones to prove they were there. But even those people sensed the need to do so reverently. And by and large, the crowd stood silently, just taking in the beauty of it all, in a moment of reflection and meditation. Nearby was a choir singing so angelically: "Silent night…holy night…" And it was there, in the chaos and confusion of the light-up night crowd of half a million people, all was calm, and all was bright. The creche and its impromptu congregation stood as an oasis of peace that nourished the soul in soothing, restful ways.

And the road that ran between the crèche and the Occupy camp was Sixth Street. I believe worship of God can look like both sides of this street. Sometimes, worship is a soothing, peaceful moment of rest in an otherwise chaotic and out of control world. It can be a way to draw us safely into God's presence, where we may turn our eyes upon Jesus and nothing in this world can threaten to distract us. But other times, worship of God might look more like the Occupy movement: prophetically preaching on a street corner against the ways and systems of this world, standing up for what we think is fair and just, proclaiming the movement we're a part of - not only with our words, but with our whole being.

Worship can be the serenity of a Christmas Eve candlelight service, but worship can also be taking social or political action against poverty in your own neighborhood. Worship can be a moment of devotion to start our day, or the delivering of bed nets to sub-Saharan Africa. Worship can be defined as fully resting in a moment of peace and tranquility, or it can be fully dedicating oneself to a movement that glorifies God. Worship is any action that gives praise and honor to God, and asserts that God is valued more in our lives than anything else.

A life of worshiping fully is both a peaceful moment of rest and a passionate movement of unrest. Peaceful moments of rest, on their own, so shelter us from the world that we forget that Christ was seldom found in church because he was busy befriending the people in the street. But passionate movements of unrest are dangerous without that Silent Night chorus - they become a clanging gong or clashing cymbal that is not rooted in Christ's love for us.

To worship fully is to give ultimate value to the God who comes at Christmas, and to do so in peaceful moments and full dedication to the movements of the Holy Spirit in this world. To live a life of worship requires tremendous discipline and self reflection. It requires that at every turn, in every moment, with every decision, we should ask ourselves, “Is what I’m about to do or say giving praise and honor and glory to God, or is it giving praise to someone or something of this world?”

Even further, to worship fully requires the gathering together of the community of faith.

I often wonder why Mary, the mother of Jesus, made a trip to visit Elizabeth. And I wonder, had she not, would we still have the Magnificat, Mary's praise song in Luke 1:47-55? Sometimes I think, had it not been for Elizabeth, Mary would not have sung this song of praise to God. And had it not been for Mary, Elizabeth may not have believed in the prophecy growing in her own womb. Both their conversation and Mary's song had elements of peaceful rest and passionate participation in the movement of God’s kingdom breaking into this world.

Mary praised God in song - and I imagine that scene was as peacefully simple as soaking up a manger scene while listening to a choir sing a carol. The Magnificat is symbolic of Mary's peaceful moment of rest and acceptance of the divine call placed on her life. I believe her visit with Elizabeth is what moved Mary to be at peace with carrying the Christ child. Before Elizabeth, Mary's tone seems to be that of tentative assent. But after Elizabeth's words of blessing, Mary has moved to a posture of joyful acceptance of the blessing growing inside of her.

But as Mary's song continues, it also contains elements of prophetic hope and promise for a new generation. The coming of God in Christ signifies that God's kingdom is breaking into this world in a new way. And the hope and promise of that action is the lifting up of the lowly, the tearing down of the powerful people and systems of this world, the liberation of those held captive, the feeding of the hungry, and the continued fulfillment of the covenant made with Abraham. All of these hopeful promises are found in the few short lines of Mary’s song.

Simply put, Christmas is not just about warm, fuzzy feelings as we sip hot chocolate and listen to heavenly carols. Christmas is not about making us feel good. This holiday is fundamentally about God's kingdom breaking into our world to reform, renew, and transform. It is about God loving us enough to come into our lives and world in a new way, to give hope to those who need it and a new perspective of humility for those in power.

Our annual celebration of this event is a reminder that this movement of God’s in-breaking kingdom is still going on, 2000+ years later. And in particular, God is calling out to us from a street corner to get on board with the ways God is living and acting in this world.

Particularly this Advent, God is calling us to conspire. Part of the goal of Advent Conspiracy is to get us thinking differently about Christmas; to get us thinking about it as it originally was: a world-changing event, a time to give glory to God rather than each other.

So, I won’t go into it too much today, but one of the things we’ll be doing as a congregation is spending less on gifts for ourselves and each other, so we can be free to provide clean drinking water to those who have no access to it all around the world. We’ll do this through an organization called Living Water International, and they created a brief video that I want you to see:

If you couldn’t tell, that was taken underneath the running faucet of a new well drilled by Living Water International, so that people who didn’t have clean, safe drinking water now experience the joy of having it. I don’t know about you, but just watching that reminds me of how often I take clean water for granted. It has moved me into a posture of worshiping God with praise and thanksgiving every time I turn on a faucet to take a shower, wash my hands, or simply pour a glass of drinking water. We use water all the time, yet how often do we fully worship the God who provides it? And how often do we think of the millions of people who are unable to receive this great gift of life?

If you read Mary’s song closely, you’ll notice that she sees the coming Christ child not just as a peaceful, silent night, but also as a revolution on the way, a movement with great passion and energy. This too, I believe, was something Mary recognized only after visiting with Elizabeth. And that is why it's important for us to gather for worship with others - so we may help each other discern how God is living and moving in this world, and that we may encourage each other as we join this revolutionary movement, one that, when complete, will turn the whole world upside down.

This season, and all year round, I hope you find ways to move yourselves toward worshiping fully. I hope that, in living a life of worship, you can find peaceful moments of rest as well as passionate movements of unrest. I hope you'll journey down Sixth Street with your Christian brothers and sisters, finding a crèche on your left - perhaps Christmas Eve worship or a restful moment with family, wonderfully worshipful things. But I also hope you’ll find the revolution on your right – the reality of God’s kingdom breaking into this world or the conspiracy of giving clean water to others as your gift to God this Christmas. And I hope that, if you're tempted to spend all your time on one side of the street, you'll at least spend some time on the other side as well.

Yes, Christmas can be peaceful and angelic and heavenly. It is a moment of respite from the busy, chaotic confusion that often defines our world. Yet, Christmas is not ultimately about escaping this world. It is about God entering it with great promise and hope. Christmas is a reminder that God is living and active all around us, and is in the process of making all things new, of lifting up the lowly and tearing down the powerful, of leading a movement that calls us to take part.

This Christmas, find both God's moment and God's movement in this world. Fully immerse yourself in both that moment and that movement, and you will, like Mary, discover how Christmas truly can transform both your heart and this world. Will you conspire with me to worship fully, in both the moment and in the movement of Christmas? In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.