Dec 28 ~ 1st Sunday of Christmas / Where Have You Heard an Angel Speaking to You?

Isaiah 63:7-9  

Psalm 148  

Hebrews 2:10-18  

Matthew 2:13-23  

Sermon by Pastor Joel

A few weeks ago, I happened across a story I read, while preparing my sermons for Christmas. It was an experience shared by a reader in the New York Times, seeking advice. 

At a party, the writer observed a nasty exchange between two children, a 12-year-old boy and a younger girl, around 8. The boy had taunted the girl, who was Latina, saying, “You better pack your bags. Cause Donald Trump is going to send you home.” The girl in tears went to her mother, who confronted the hosts, who then asked their son. He denied that he had said anything. And with the classic he-said, she-said, nothing was resolved – the liar wasn’t chastised, and the victim’s voice went silent.

The reader explained, she said nothing. She didn’t intervene. She didn’t want to make a conflict between children into the centerpiece of a party. So she went home, having stayed silent, and yet wrestling with it enough that she wrote to a stranger to ask if she had done the right thing. (And let’s be honest: usually when we are asking that question, we are hoping to be absolved of our guilt.) 

So what would you have said? What would you have done?

This morning in our gospel, we hear the angels who came to deliver advice and warning to Joseph. The first angel appears to warn Joseph that Herod is looking for Jesus -  Mary and Joseph pick up and flee to safety, and barely escape Herod’s horrific atrocity – so fearful is he of Jesus, still a baby, that he orders the massacre of children. A second angel appears and tells Joseph to move again. And finally a third. The family finally lands in Nazareth where they stay. 

The angels that spoke to Joseph were not telling him anything he wanted to hear. The last thing I imagine he wanted to do was uproot his family – again – and take another trip to a strange place. All through the Bible, we are presented with examples of angels – serving as the bearer of news, usually the kind that unsettles the person receiving it, and forces them into action. The angels are the divine engines of the Christmas story: telling Mary how much life is about to change, urging Joseph to stand by her, pushing the shepherds out of their comfort zone. The angels are the voice that tells each of them to act when they might have stood waiting on the sidelines. They are the voice of challenge and change, neither of which are always comfortable or easy. They tell us to open our eyes and prepare for what is coming. 

We have gotten away from talking about angels. They are the pretty shape of ornaments. They appear on Christmas cards. But they somehow seem too fantastical, and maybe a little hokey for these modern times. We call people angels when they do good, when they act with kindness. But if somebody told you that they were hearing the voices of angels, you would probably tell them to see a doctor. 

But is it really true that you have never heard the voice of angel, a messenger of your faith speaking to you? Have you never heard a voice that said – Speak up! Or Wake up! Or Get up! I bet you have. I know I have.

Here is the part I left out of that writer’s story: She wrote in seeking advice five years ago. Five years - that’s before the pandemic. Before the lockdowns. Before the trade war. And yet, that letter could have been written exactly the same today. In the United States, the rhetoric and racism around immigration has worsened, become more dangerous, more violent: university students walking to class are being taken aggressively into custody, even Canadians are landing in detention. What did silence for the sake of momentary peace at parties, between neighors, in our advocacy for human rights change five years ago? We see for ourselves: it changed nothing. 

Have we even needed out better angels more than right now? Right-wing, anti-democracy rhetoric is only getting louder. Lies are presented as truth. The world feels thrust back to a time when racists could be outspoken, when tyrants rule the day, when honorable values of tolerance and justice are being erodes, when the good order - much of it created out of Judeo-Christian principles and ethics - seems to be collapsing into chaos. We could use a few angels to blast us with a trumpet or two and remind us to stay awake.

In the case of the advice-seeker, I went back and looked up the response. She was told, categorically, that she had failed herself, the children and society by staying silent. She has passed on her responsibility as a bystander, to stand by the victim, and to teach the bully. She was advised to call both sets of parents and report what she had seen, in the hope that reparations might follow. 

She was, in effect, chastised for not hearing the angel when she should have. At least, however, she was told, she could still hear the angel enough to have been bothered by her failure to act.

We will all end up in her situation someday; life is inevitably filled with these moments, where we bear witness to unkindness and injustice and must decide what to do about. Maybe, when that has happened, you heard your inner angel and acted. And maybe you chose to pretend you didn’t hear that better angel. Maybe you will act in the future. Maybe you won’t.

But our second lesson reminds us of the most important teaching of Christmas. Jesus didn’t come to earth to rub our nose in our failing. He wasn’t about final judgements, and he didn’t even spend a lot of time on sin – the church of history has done that work for him.

As we are reminded in our reading, Jesus came not to help angels, but to the descendants of Abraham. That is – us. “Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service to God.” 

Because Jesus was also tested, he can understand when we are tested. Jesus came to understand people by living among people, by hearing their complaints and concerns, and by experiencing those same complaints and concerns. 

asks that we see and listen to the little girl in the story, received the wound. But also see and listen to the little boy in the story, who wielded his words like weapons. And the to ask: how can we with our own actions and choices, fill the space between them with love and kindness and understanding so that they might cross? In this way, we are not only to listen to our inner angel, Jesus sets the example of listening to each other.

Wake up, angels said to Mary and the Shepherds and Joseph. Wake up, the angel says to us. 

Wake up so we can be kind when we need to be. So we can be strong when we have to be. Wake up so we can hear the voice of God. 

Amen

Dec 25 ~ Christmas Day/ The Word Becomes Flesh and Moves Into the Neighborhood

Isaiah 52:7-10

Psalm 98

Hebrews 1:1-12

John 1 :1-14

Sermon by Pastor Joel

Christmas morning has a particular kind of honesty to it. The rush has quieted. The candles have burned low. Some of us are full of joy; some of us are full of grief. Some of us are surrounded by family; some of us are missing people we love. Some of us are relieved we made it here at all. Christmas Day isn’t only a celebration -- it’s also a revealing. It shows us what we carry.

And that is why I’m grateful that the Church, in its wisdom, doesn’t give us only the sweet and simple story today. Yes, we sing about shepherds and angels. Yes, we remember a baby in a manger. But the Gospel appointed for Christmas Day often takes us deeper: not just what happened in Bethlehem, but also what it means for the whole world.

“In the beginning was the Word … and the Word became flesh and lived among us.” Not visited among us. Not hovered above us. Not tolerating us from a safe spiritual distance. Lived among us. Which means God does not love humanity in theory. God loves humanity in skin. God comes, not as a superhero who swoops in to fix everything without cost, but as a child—vulnerable, dependent, needing warmth and milk and someone to hold him when he cries. That is not an accident. That is the point.

Because the Christmas claim is not that God is strong where we are weak. It’s that God chooses to meet us in our weakness—so we can stop calling our tenderness “failure” and start recognizing it as holy ground.

If you have ever felt too small to matter, Christmas is for you. If you have ever felt overwhelmed by the world’s cruelty, Christmas is for you. If you have ever wondered whether your life—your ordinary, complicated, imperfect life—could possibly be a place where God shows up … Christmas is for you.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” Notice what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t say, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness immediately disappears.” Christianity is not denial. The Gospel does not gaslight us. There is still war. There is still poverty. There is still heartbreak. There are still lonely people on Christmas morning. There are still systems that chew people up. There are still bodies that hurt and minds that struggle. There are still families carrying fractures that no amount of tinsel can hide. But the promise is this: that darkness does not get the last word.

On Christmas Day, God doesn’t give us an explanation for suffering. God gives us presence within it. And that presence changes things—not always in a loud way, not always in the way we want, but in a way that is real. Because when God becomes flesh, God declares that we matter. That the material world matters. That food and shelter matter. That dignity matters. That the safety of children matters. That the lives of migrants and refugees matter. That Indigenous lives matter. That Black lives matter. That trans lives matter. That people who have been pushed to the margins of religion and society are not a problem to solve—they are beloved.

This is not a political add-on to the Gospel. This is the Gospel: The Word becomes flesh and moves into the neighborhood. And if God moves into the neighborhood, then faith can’t be a private hobby. It can’t be only an interior feeling. It becomes a public way of living—an insistence that our neighbors deserve what God has always wanted for God’s people: daily bread, safety, belonging, and a future.

That’s why the angels don’t sing to emperors. They sing to shepherds. That’s why the good news comes first to people working the night shift. That’s why the holy family is not sheltered in comfort but placed, from the beginning, among the precarious. Jesus is born into an occupied land, under a violent empire, into a family that will soon be displaced. Which means: if you are looking for God, you don’t have to climb up to heaven. Look in the places where people are trying to survive. Look where someone with tired arms is holding a newborn. Look where someone is making a meal stretch. Look where someone is grieving. Look where someone is choosing compassion when cynicism would be easier. That’s where God is.

And then John says something almost unbelievable: “To all who received him … he gave the power to become children of God.” Not “the perfect.” Not “the certain.” Not “the ones who never doubt.” To all who received him. Which means that the Christmas invitation is not: “Get your life together and then you can belong.”

It is: “You belong—so come home.”

Christmas is God saying, in the clearest language God knows: “I am with you. I am for you. I am not giving up on you.”

So, what do we do with this? We do what Lutherans do: we let grace come first. We stop treating ourselves like a project God is reluctantly managing. We stop treating other people like problems to be fixed. We stop confusing God with the voice of shame. And we practice in a different way.

Today, maybe the most faithful thing you can do is small: Make room at your table for someone who might otherwise be alone. Text the person you’ve avoided because you don’t know what to say. Offer forgiveness—if it’s safe, and if it’s yours to offer. Give generously to a shelter, a food program, a refugee sponsor group, a harm-reduction ministry. Speak up when someone is demeaned. Rest—because you are not God, and the world’s healing is not all on your shoulders. Let your life be a little more tender, because God has dared to be tender with us.

Because here is the miracle of Christmas: God does not wait for the world to become worthy. God enters it and begins to make it new from the inside out. The Word became flesh. And the light still shines. Not as an escape from the world, but as hope within it. Not as proof that everything is easy, but as promise that love is stronger. Not as a sentimental story, but as a holy expression of grace.

Glory to God in the highest—and on earth, peace. Peace that is more than a feeling. Peace that looks like justice and welcome and real connection with God. Peace that looks like enough. On Christmas morning, God has moved in. Amen

Dec 24 ~ Christmas Eve/ Do Not be Afraid... I Bring You Good News of Great Joy

Luke 2: 1-7

Luke 2: 8-14

Luke 2: 15-20

John 1: 1-14

Sermon by Pastor Joel

Tonight, we gather in a world that is both beautiful and bruised.

Some of us arrive tonight bursting with joy. With hearts filled with excited children – and returning university students, and grandchildren to create a musical Christmas soundtrack, the comfort of tradition, the nostalgia of familiar carols, the warm presence of family. Some of us arrive tired, stretched thin, carrying grief that does not take a holiday, carrying worry that hums beneath the music. And many of us arrive with both at once—because that is what it means to be human.

And so, it matters—deeply—that the Christmas story begins the way it does. Not with perfect people in a perfect world, but with ordinary people under pressure.

Mary and Joseph are pushed onto the road not because it is wise or humane, but because the government of the day ordered them to do so. They were bound by a faraway decision that rippled into real homes and ordered them to uproot their lives unexpectedly and at the worst time. Just as the decisions of faraway tyrants and politicians have changed the course of our country and our world so much this year.

And, like many people forced to leave their homes and their countries around that same world each day, Mary and Joseph arrive in Bethlehem only to learn that there is no room. No room in the inn.

And yet—this is the miracle we celebrate tonight—God does not wait for the world to make room. God comes anyway. Not as an invading tyrant. Not with vengeful tariffs. Not ruling from a shining throne.

God comes as a baby—small enough to hold, fragile enough to need care, dependent on human kindness to survive. Christmas is not God commanding us from heaven, “Do better.” Christmas is God whispering into our lives, “I am with you.” And what’s more, “I trust you.”

And if God comes to us this way—vulnerable, tender, trusting—then the message is unmistakable: vulnerability is not shameful, tenderness is not weakness, trust is not a failure of courage. In a world that often seems to reward power and might, the Incarnation is God’s bold decision to be gently present with us. That baby in the manger is God saying, “I am here.”

And when the angels appear, they do not appear to the powerful. They do not appear to the people who can afford the VIP seats. They appear to shepherds who smell like sheep. Who work the night shift. Who live on the margins.

And that is where the good news travels first. The angel says, “I bring you good news of great joy for all the people.” Not for winners only. Not for those with tidy lives. But for all people. For everyone.

Joy is often a word that seems to fail us. It feels as if it can be misused—like a bandage slapped over a deep wound. “Cheer up.” “Don’t feel sad.” “Be grateful.” But divine joy is not denial. It does not pretend the shadows are not real. Divine joy translates into stubborn hope.

Hope is what happens when love shows up right in the middle of things as they are—not as we wish they were. Hope is what happens when God refuses to abandon the world, refuses to leave us. Hope is what happens when the innkeeper creatively finds room for Mary and Joseph, when the shepherds bravely answer the call, when we, ourselves, are that innkeeper and those shepherds.

“The glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.” Who wouldn’t be? Hope offered in the night of our lives can be terrifying. And once again, the angel’s response is not, “Get your act together!” The angel says simply: “Do not be afraid.”

This is the gift God offers at Christmas. To Mary and Joseph, to the Shepherds and to us. It is God saying, “I know the world you live in. I know what you carry. I know what you have survived. I am here.”

Christmas Eve is for the anxious, the grieving, the exhausted, the people who are doing their best and still feel as if it is not enough. Christmas is freely given. We don’t fix ourselves to become acceptable.

Whatever you carry—joy or grief, faith or questions—bring it to the manger. There is room there, and here, among people who are also trying to do their best. For what the gospel teaches us again and again is that many people doing their best is all that is needed to change the world. In the manger, we are freed to try to do the good that heals the world.

Which is why Christmas is not only comforting. It is revolutionary. Because when God is born among the poor, the displaced, the overlooked, God is making a claim about where holiness lives and who matters. God is saying that nobody is beyond concern, no one’s need is invisible. Whatever you carry—joy or grief, faith or questions - bring it to the manger. There is room.

And if that is true, Christmas cannot stay inside these walls. It spills out. It becomes how we treat our neighbors. How we speak to and about people different from us. How we vote, how we give, how we welcome, how we work to change systems that still leave “no room.”

Remember, the angels do not say, “Good luck down there.”

They sing, “Peace on earth.” And they bring to us both promise and challenge.

In a few moments, we will light a single flame, and it will pass from person to person until the whole sanctuary glows. Such a small thing—a shared flame. And yet it is the whole Gospel in miniature: one light given, another received, neither diminished, growing into a collective fire.

This is Christmas, with all its tenderness, hope and courage: individual flames held by people doing their best, sparked by the gospel, shared yet never diminished, growing beyond our imagination.

May we all carry that flame with us, home tonight, and always.

Merry Christmas. Amen