Christmas 2A

I rang the doorbell and a young woman answered.

“Hello, I’m Pastor Kevin,” I said.

She let me in and we sat down on the couch. The baby was asleep in the crib by the window.

After a little chit-chat, I got straight to the point.

“So, why a baptism?” I asked.

“Well, I think it’s important to have God in my child’s life,” she said.

“What’s the baby’s name?” I asked looking over the crib.

She muttered something I didn’t recognize, and don’t remember.

“That’s an interesting name, “ I said. “What’s the story behind that? Is it a family name? I don’t think I’ve heard that name before.”

“No, it’s not a family name,” she answered.

“Do you know what it means?” I asked.

“No, it doesn’t have any meaning. It’s just a word I made up. I like the way it sounds.”

It wasn’t always this way, and she is an extreme case. And while the young mom had every right to make up a word with which to name her child, I wonder if she missed out on an opportunity. 

Names can connect us to a greater story than the one we can make us on our own. Names connect us to our past, so we know where we came from. Names can offer a message about who we want our child to be when they grow up.

Most people know what their names mean, or why they were given their name by their parents.

What does your name mean? Most of us have names that mean something. Perhaps they reflect the hopes and dreams parents have for their children. Or they’re carrying a family tradition. Or they name them after a celebrity or an admired public figure.

My oldest daughter is named “Sophia” because it’s the biblical word for “wisdom.” Her mom and I chose that name to honour Lady Wisdom found in the book of Proverbs. Sophia in proverbs is a feminine expression of God, and her mom and I wanted to recognize aspects of the divine that are often overlooked.

Sophia’s (or “Sophie” – she hates being called “Sophia”) sister is named “Naomi” to remember the biblical story of Ruth and Naomi and the message of faith and commitment that it inspires. It’s a wonderful story of integrity and sacrifice for others. And we wanted our child to embody those virtues.

When my parents named me, I know they struggled for days to find just the word to describe who they saw when they peered into my future. They wanted to place upon me the mantle of my destiny, hoping that I would be a force for good in the world, that I would lead others into a new and better tomorrow. 

And so they reached out to the heavens and grabbed with two hands and pulled down the name “Kevin” which means...”handsome.” Or more accurately, “handsome from birth.”

And every time I look in mirror I’m absolutely shocked by how prophetic my parents were!

Bible names all mean something. In fact, if you don’t know the meaning of the many of the names you could miss the point of the story.

For example,  Matthew and Luke both have Jesus’ genealogy recorded. But they’re slightly different. But neither genealogy are a clinical listing of names. Each genealogy tells a story about Jesus, within a specific jewish tradition. But if you don’t know what the names mean, or who these people were, you’d miss a lot about what they were trying to say about Jesus.

Mary and Joseph did what they were told and named their son, “Jesus” which means “God rescues” or “God saves.” They were glad to give him this name because they had laid all their hope on him, as one who would save God’s people from their sins, and rescue them from the hands of their enemies.

And as we heard on Christmas Eve, Jesus grows up like most Jewish boys. Mary and Joseph, as required by law, bring Jesus to Jerusalem to offer the usual sacrifice as a thanksgiving to God, and to circumcise him on the eighth day.

And they encounter Simeon, the old man who’d been around the temple forever, whose eyes may have given out, but he could see God’s promises being fulfilled in a baby.

And Anna then wants to hold the baby, because she wants to feel in her arms the very power of God. After all she’d been praying for him for years.

Both of them may have had a lot more years behind them than in front of them, but they could see God’s bright future being born among them. They could see that everything old was passing away. And that God was doing something new.

It was like there was a flip of the calendar and a new age had begun. And they were glad that they could see God’s heavenly future before they closed their earthly eyes.

And at this flip of the calendar what are YOU hoping for? What are YOU looking for God to do?

This is the first new years where it actually feels like a NEW year. It could be because I’m in a very different place physically, emotionally, and spiritually than I’ve been in a while. Being in this environment, and carving out a new life, has forced me to think about what I REALLY want from my life. What I REALLY want my time on earth to be about. How I think God REALLY wants me to use my gifts.

The challenges I face personally and professionally are opening doors for growth and creativity. And I look forward to what God will do in 2014, and how I can respond to God’s gracious possibilities

So this flip of the calendar spells opportunity for me.

What about you? How do you meet 2014?

Is it just another year, just like the last one, where you go on your day-to-day activities, not thinking of the future or worrying about the past? Just taking life as it presents itself?

Or do you see 2014 as a time pregnant with possibility, and you feel that anything is possible, and you just can’t wait to get in the game, grab the ball, and run to the end zone?

Or are you anxious about 2014, not knowing what’s around the corner, since 2013 has provided unexpected challenges?

Or are you hopeful that this will finally be the year when you get your life together?

Or are you all of the above? A muddle of mixed motivations? A patchwork of expectations?

What about for us here at St. John’s? What do you hope for our congregation in 2014? What do you want God to do with us? What would you like to see God do with this church?

No doubt, we have challenges ahead. Like most other churches. Challenges that may demand creativity. Challenges that may require difficult decisions. Challenges that may stretch us beyond what we’re comfortable with. Challenges may insist that we re-think what we do as a church and how we do it, in order to meet the opportunities that God is throwing at us.



We may be asked to make tough choices to maintain our effectiveness in mission and witness. God may inflict some holy discomfort on us as we move forward in the direction of God’s vision. 



We don’t grow in wisdom when we are comfortable. We don’t grow in faithfulness when things are running smoothly. We don’t grow in knowledge when we are constantly being told what we already know.

God maybe asking us to look with open eyes at what the world is doing, and to listen with open ears to what the world is tellings us. Not so that the world can dictate to us what we should proclaim, or impose a set of beliefs that are at odds with what we have traditionally confessed. 



But to respond to a world in pain, to immerse ourselves in the struggles of those who need good news,



a world alienated from its past, and struggling to understand itself,
a lonely world hungering for the intimacy of a community

a world searching for God but not knowing where to begin looking,


a world that suspects that there is more to life than prosperity, but can’t put their fingers on it,
a world craving rootedness, but constantly finding itself on the road

a world that is suspicious of institutions such as the church, but who longs to touch the divine.

The world isn’t what it was. And so God is opening our hearts, minds, and labour to new and fresh expressions of an ancient faith.


It’s harder to be Christian than it was even ten years ago. It’s harder to be church than when we were growing up.

But God has put us here at this time, to respond, at this moment, to the cries of a hurting world. But not as people superior to others, but simply as a people chosen to do this work.

As we heard in today’s reading from Ephesians,

“In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory.”

No matter where you are in your life. No matter the challenges, expectations, quandaries, or possibilities, you can trust in a God who was born in the middle of all of this messiness, blessed you in our confusion and your hopes, so that you can rise to meet God’s future with open hands.

No matter where WE are as a church, no matter the demands, struggles, or opportunities, we still call God “Immanuel” because we believe that “God-is-with-us,” as promised this Christmas season.

Again, as we are reminded in today’s second reading:

“[For] just as God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. 5He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”

May this be so among us. Amen.

Pentecost C

One thing I find troubling about the Christian church is that we too often seem to be facing in the

wrong direction. We look backwards in history rather than forward in hope. We look to the past for inspiration rather than to the future with expectation.

This is especially true when we talk about our beliefs. We trip over ourselves trying to prove that what we believe now is the same thing as what people believed 2000 years ago, or even longer.

We say that God is unchanging, which may be true, but we don’t know the whole of who God is. So we take our tiny bits of ideas about God, flash-freeze them in time, and present them as if, by their very nature, their un-embodied truths will speak to all people in every time and every place.

It’s as if we think that the glory days of the church were “back then” when the faith was fresh and the Spirit spoke with awesome clarity.

It’s as if we believe that today’s expression of church is a pale imitation of what God has done in previous generations.

I hear this all the time. People wax poetic about the primitive church, and how the early Christians were filled with fiery zeal, upon which we have poured cold institutional water.

Others point to the great church reformers, and the heroism that was shown in restoring a corrupt faith to the “purity” of the original.

Even the father of our Lutheran Church, Martin Luther went to great pains to demonstrate that he is not an original thinker, that he was just a mouthpiece for an ancient proclamation. Theological innovation in the church, we are told, is heresy. A fancy word that means, “really bad and really wrong ideas about God.”

So we ponder the drama of the Reformation story, and are inspired by the Christian heroes who stood up against the enemies of the gospel, and we think, THOSE -THOSE! - were the glory days of the church.

Still others look to the recent past with vivid memories of full churches and crowded Sunday School classrooms. They - and we - remember when committees had more members then they needed, when new church buildings were being constructed weekly, and the budget kept growing, and we say “Those were the church’s glory days.”

We think that God set the standard years ago, and we are not to deviate one iota from what we say God has created.

It’s as if we’re saying that, the more ancient the expression of faith, the more pure it is, since it hadn’t yet been stained by the messy fingerprints of human history.

And when we say that we are not totally wrong. We just don’t see the whole story.

The Day of Pentecost starts telling the rest of the story. When the Spirit descended upon the disciples there was no going back to where they started. So, for those whose eyes were fixed on their glorious past, the Day of Pentecost must have seemed impossibly chaotic.

It must have seemed like everything they knew to be true and good was crumbling around their ankles.

It must have looked like their ancient faith was being trampled upon, pushed aside in favour a dangerously innovative religious movement.

They were taught that salvation was reserved for God’s chosen people - Israel. Now people from all over the world were receiving God’s mercy and grace.

They were taught that a series of national laws and religious disciplines made them unique in their faith. Now those laws and disciplines were being replaced by new practices.

They were told they had to offer sacrifices in the temple and worship in the synagogue, Now people were praying in the streets and meeting in homes.

They were taught that people could come to God only through the mediation of a priest, that they couldn’t understand the bible on their own, that women had no place in leadership.

Now people prayed without the help of religious professionals, they could study the scriptures for themselves, and women took their place at the head of the table.

Those invested in an unchanging religious tradition must have met the Day of Pentecost with alarm or even scorn. It must have sent them into a panic. It must have seemed like the world was ending.

And they would’ve been right. Their world was ending. But out of something old and dying, something new arose.

But for those who trust in a God that makes all things new, Pentecost must have been like someone had opened a window to allow in the blast of fresh air they were waiting for. Something new had begun.

The Word of God was now spoken in all languages. God’s message of mercy and grace was now for everyone. People from all over the known world fell down and worshiped God. Now, ALL people were invited to God’s table.

Church folks like to call Pentecost Sunday “The Birthday of the Church.” And what do we celebrate on birthdays? The fact that a new person has arrived on this planet. We celebrate a birth, a new age of possibility.

I guess the danger and the worry is that people will diminish or dismiss the past as if what happened before us is irrelevant or unimportant, if we are to take the message of Pentecost with seriousness.

That the hard work of those who came before us will be lost in the dust of history. That we’ll fail to honour those who dedicated their lives to building Christ’s church.

That we’ll arrogantly forget the blood that was spilled to bear witness to the crucified saviour, which propelled the Church forward.

And that’s an appropriate fear. It IS good to honour what God has done in and through those whose names are now written in the Book of Life. It’s important that we remember the saints of the past whose sweat and toil has built Christ’s church and whose voices still echo in our collective proclamation.

But forgetting the hard work of past Christians is not the danger I see. The danger I see is that we cling too closely to the church of the past that we miss the opportunities for ministry that God has placed TODAY on our doorstep, opportunities that will take us into a faithful future.

A bigger danger is believing that our glory days are behind us, and in front of us is a ministry boulder that we’re being asked to roll uphill.

It’s tempting to turn our eyes to the past. It’s easier to look at earlier successes than to see what’s ahead of us. Especially when we’re honest about the challenges we face as a church.

But today, this Pentecost Sunday, this day when we celebrate the coming of the Holy and Life-giving Spirit into the church and the world, God is telling us that the glory days of the church aren’t just behind us, and the glory days of the church aren’t just in front of us, But the glory days of the church are NOW. TODAY!

Whenever the Spirit speaks words of mercy and grace through Christians just like you and me, those are the church’s glory days.

Whenever God is praised either with a smile or through tears, those are the glory days of the church.

Whenever the captives are set free, people’s eyes are opened to new possibilities, the oppressed find freedom, and the poor receive good news, THOSE are the church’s Glory Days.

Whenever the lonely find friendship, whenever the grieving are comforted, whenever the dying receive the promise of new and everlasting life, those are the glory days of the church.

Whenever the people of God gather to hear good news, to receive the holy sacrament, and go out into their lives bearing witness to God’s vision of peace, justice, mercy, forgiveness, love, and grace, those are the Glory Days of the church.

In other words, TODAY - TODAY is the Glory Day of the church. Right here. Right now. In this place.

Tomorrow is the Glory Day of the church.

Whenever the Spirit ignites faith,
Whenever the gospel is proclaimed in every language,
Whenever a sinner receives forgiveness,
Whenever the waters of baptism are poured over a child’s head, that is the church in its glory because God is glorified in what we do.

And this is GOD working within and among us. This is GOD working within and among YOU.

You have NOT been given a spirit of slavery to fear, but you have been given a Spirit of adoption into God’s family. You who have been named and claimed as God’s own child through your baptism into Christ bear witness to the Spirit that lives in you.

Despite what we see all around us, despite what we feel within us, God isn’t finished with us yet. The Spirit is still descending.

The Spirit is still hovering over the waters of the world’s chaos.
The Spirit is still descending upon the church breathing new life into old institutions.
The Spirit is still setting new fires of love and compassion all over the world.

The Spirit is still giving us tongues to speak God’s Word of mercy and forgiveness to anyone within earshot.

God won’t be finished until that glorious day comes when all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

May we see this glory in all that we do. Today. Tomorrow. And into the future that God has prepared for us. Amen.