A Messy Christmas

Christmas Eve 2014

Luke 2:1-20

Merry Christmas Bethany Lutheran Church!  May the grace and peace of our Lord and Savior, be with you on this fine evening.

My wife and I received an unusual package in the mail the other day.  We got out the knife, opened up the box, which was stuffed full of ...Diapers!  It was full of diapers.  

For those of you who don’t know, my wife and I are expecting our first child in April, and so up to this point, we’ve been getting all of the fun baby stuff in the mail.  We have our crib.  There are little onesies and stuffed animals that keep showing up at our door.  It’s the kind of stuff that makes you want to be a parent.  

But diapers?  Am I ready for that? The other day, I had this realization that I have never changed a diaper in my life! Whenever a baby needs to be changed, I do what every rational guy does when - I run to the basement.

Of course I tell this to parents and they all just laugh at me. One guy on the council had changed so many diapers in his life that he was showing off how to do it with his eyes closed...literally.  I told this to another friend from church who told me, “You know, the first time I changed a diaper I threw up on my shoes!” Yeah. Real helpful guys! Thanks for the moral support!

I’m quickly learning that there’s a romantic, made for TV, side of being a parent that’s all high-fives and hugs, bike rides and baseball games. But getting that box of diapers woke me up to the day-to-day reality of being a parent.  It was my first glimpse of the messy side of parenthood.

As much as I would like to take the good parts and leave out the bad ones, the truth is, you can’t have one without the other. You can’t be a parent without changing a butt-load of diapers (pun intended). That would be like saying that you want to experience the thrill of skydiving without the fear of falling. It’s a part of the package, and perhaps we shouldn’t want it any other way.

Every year, I get a similar feeling about the story of Jesus’ birth.  We have such a romantic view of Christmas, that we often miss the bigger picture of what it means for the Son of God to be born in a stable.  

Often, the images we see of the nativity show all of the good, and none of the bad. They’ll paint a romantic scene of a still, peaceful night, with two calm and serene looking parents, surrounded by soft, cuddly looking animals, gentle shepherds, and a host of angels.

The birth of Jesus is often described as a “humble” birth, which strikes me as being a gross understatement. I think a more accurate way to describe his birth would be “messy.”

Mary and Joseph are essentially in a barn. And do you know what goes on inside of a barn?  Everything!  It’s messy in there.  It’s a stable for dirty farm animals, not a hospital! There’s no crib for the baby when it’s born.  It’s just a feeding trough for the animals - a manger.  There’s no soft mattress to lie down on, it’s a bed of itchy hay.  And these shepherds that came to be the first witnesses to the birth of the Savior of the World - they are the poorest folks from the very bottom of society.

It’s as if God chose to dive into this world he loved, but couldn’t truly do so without falling into the messiness of life.

This is how the Messiah comes into the world.  Strange isn’t it? But I can’t help but think that there something beautiful going on here - there’s a harmony between the holiness of God and the messy reality of the world.  It’s a message that God is about to do something new - something completely unexpected.  Instead of destroying the world like in the story of Noah and the flood, this time God is going to enter into it - change it from the inside out.

The story of Jesus birth declares that it’s in the messiness of life that we encounter the holiness of God.  It’s absurdly counter-intuitive.  It’s the moment where you get a box of diapers in the mail and realize that this incredible thing that’s happening is going to be intertwined with everything else life has to offer.

It seems that whenever life gets messy, God is in the midst of it. When the world wouldn’t go near the lepers, Jesus was healing them with his touch.  When people walked around the blind beggars, Jesus walked up to them.  Jesus doesn’t even run from the ugliness of the cross.  This God doesn’t avoid the messiness of life - cancer, poverty, war, hunger, death - this God is in the middle of it all.

I’m getting ahead of the story.  Here, in front of us today is the Messiah - a mere baby - lying in a feeding trough for animals.  He’s in a dirty stable, with filthy animals, surrounded by two exhausted parents. And the only people who know about it are the shepherds working the night shift.

Still, I have to believe that this is the most beautiful scene you could imagine. It’s the most precious gift you could receive. And I don’t believe God wanted it any other way.

Merry Christmas Bethany Lutheran Church

and Thanks be to God.  Amen.

You Can Be A Dinosaur

Sermon, Luke 1:26-38

You Can be a Dinosaur

Pr. Paul Cannon

Grace and Peace Bethany Lutheran Church, from God our Father, the Holy Spirit that connects us, and our Lord Jesus Christ, AMEN.

Do you remember when you were little and anything was possible?  When you were in preschool, or elementary school, grownups would come up to you and they would ask you the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

The beauty of being a little kid is that when you are that age, you really can do anything.  If you said you wanted to be an astronaut, adults would look at you and enthusiastically say “Ooh, that’s nice dear.”

But if I told my wife today I wanted to be an astronaut, she would say the same thing - except sarcastically - “Oh yeah, that’s nice dear.”  When you are little the whole world is in front of you - nothing is impossible.

When people asked me as a young child what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would tell them that I wanted to be a “Policeman ... and a Donut Maker.”  BOTH.  Because...you know, it’s the perfect combination.

Kids don’t really know any boundaries yet, so when they imagine their future, they think they can be anything.  On Bethany Lutheran’s Facebook page a while back, we shared with you a video from a Christian comedian named “Michael Jr.”  On the video, Michael Jr. is talking about his four year old son, who came up to him one day and said, “Dad, I want to be a doctor.”

Of course, that’s what every parent wants to hear, so Michael Jr. gives a fist pump and says “Yes!  Yes!” And then the son looks up at his dad again and says, “Or a dinosaur.” Or a dinosaur! I love it! He either wants to be a doctor or a dinosaur and the kid doesn’t see anything wrong with that.

You see what I mean don’t you?  To a young child, anything is possible.  Anything!  You can be a donut maker and a policeman.  You can be a doctor.  You can be a DINOSAUR!

But then you start to grow up and begin to discover your limitations.  At some point, we all come up against the harsh realities of our world that tell us what we can’t do.  You’re not smart enough, the world tells you. You’re not charismatic enough.  You’re not strong enough. You’re not educated enough.  You’re not funny enough. You’re not pretty enough. You’re not talented enough. You’re not brave enough.  The older you get, the more walls you discover.  Reality sets in as we learn the boundaries of our world.  

But then we arrive at our gospel story today.  Mary, a virgin, is visited by the angel Gabriel.  And Gabriel says to her, “Mary, you’re going to bear a son.”  Mary was young, but she was old enough to know that wasn’t possible..

So Mary asks the angel, “How can this be?”  And the Angel Gabriel tells her, that God was going to create a baby in her womb, and that she should name this baby Jesus.  Then Gabriel gets to the heart of Mary’s question and says this:

For nothing will be impossible with God.

Nothing will be impossible.  Anything can happen.  With God, the whole world is in front of you - just like when you were a kid.

Believing is the hard part for us adults, because even if we wanted to, I’m not sure we could just turn off the so-called rational parts of our brain.  No matter how hard you try, there is always going to be a part of you that will ask the question “Really?  Was Jesus really born to a virgin?  Did he really walk on water? Did Moses really part the Red Sea?”

You could run yourself ragged asking these questions.  We are pretty much all aware of the boundaries of science.  Water doesn’t turn into wine.  Virgins don’t get pregnant.  People can’t walk on water.

And yet, this story asks us to reorient our entire frame of mind.  The angel Gabriel says to Mary “Nothing will be impossible with God.”  Nothing!  

I can’t stress how important that is, because if it’s true that all things are possible through God - if it’s true that Jesus could have been born to a virgin and Moses could have parted the Red Sea, and the dead could stand up and walk - if it’s true that these things are possible with God, then who knows what other possibilities are out there that we haven’t dared to imagine since we were kids!

In a world where all things are possible through God, then maybe you can be a dinosaur!  Maybe the Cubs have a chance at winning the World Series (next year). 

We could get more serious about it too. Maybe with God, there’s a chance for peace in the Middle East. Maybe with God, there is a chance you to reconcile with your loved ones. Maybe with God, the hopeless alcoholic has a chance of getting sober. Maybe with God, those Pakistani school children will be reunited one day with their parents. Maybe...there is no limit to God’s possibilities.

There’s one more possibility I want to mention. Maybe those barriers that tell you aren’t good enough have never been true with God. Maybe you already are enough to God. Maybe it’s possible that you don’t have to become something else. (That’s grace) Maybe God’s love for you is already so great that he would send his son into the world - born of a virgin in the messiness of a barn.  

I’m not asking that you uncritically believe everything you’re told - even if it comes from the Bible or the pastor - or that you should abandon all reason and thought.  God gave us brains for a reason people!  Please use them.

What I am asking you to do this Christmas season, is to allow yourself to believe in the God in whom all things are possible.   It doesn’t mean that everything you want to happen will, and it doesn’t mean that everything that should happen does.  

But it does mean that you can hope for all good things in this God.  It does mean you can pray for all good things to God and to ask for all good things from him. In your life with God, it means that all things are possible  - all those things that you were too afraid to believe could be possible ... are.

One more thing:  I want you to find a scrap of paper - maybe tear off the bottom of the Tall insert, or the back of a receipt, and write the words “You can be a dinosaur” - not because that’s something that literally could happen, but as a reminder that with God, we can hope and pray for all good things.

Then fold it up and put in your pocket or your wallet or your purse and the next time you take it out, remember that with God, nothing will be impossible.

Thanks be to God,

Amen

Wednesday Words December 17th, 2014

Christ is the Key to Unlocking Our Hearts

On the fourth Sunday in Advent the church turns to Mary, the Mother of Our Lord, as an example of humility and obedience.

Mary is obviously stunned by the message of the angel that she has been the favored and chosen one who will bear a son and will call his name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.

Mary is most likely young and if discovered to be pregnant out of wedlock could be subjected to an honor killing, like the ones that we have heard about in the news recently. In fact she questions the angel, “How can this be, because I have no husband?”

She is assured that the Holy Spirit will provide the answer and Joseph will step in and take Mary under his wing to protect her and give her aid and comfort.

Our focus on Mary always leads us to Mary’s song, the Magnificat. In this song Mary sings God’s praises and describes herself as a lowly servant. She describes God as turning the tables on the world and in this miracle of the Word made flesh brings all people, especially the hungry and poor what they need, while those who see themselves self-sufficient find themselves empty.

This week we are called to follow Mary’s example of humility and obedience, we are called upon to give thanks and to serve the one who is born in a manger in Bethlehem and who goes to a cross in Jerusalem.

Pr. Len

Wednesday Words, December 10th 2014

Pastor Len Hoffmann

Thought for the Day

“The Lord has done great things for us, and we are glad indeed.” Psalm 126:3

This Sunday at Bethany:

In the past this Third Sunday in Advent was titled “Gaudate Sunday” or “Rejoice Sunday.”  It is the theme of the lessons for this week. Yet, we know that there are many who find it difficult to rejoice this time of year because of injustices and loss.

In the past weeks we have seen many U.S, citizens lifting up their voices in protest over the uneven application of the law, particularly as they are enforced by some members of law enforcement in some of our communities in the U.S. Some of those who are using this protest as an opportunity for violence and destruction are to be renounced and prosecuted. Yet, those who are legally expressing their first amendment rights speak out on behalf of those who feel that justice in this country has failed them and are seeking a long term solution to this age old problem of inequality.

Also, this week, we have as a nation confessed that it was outof fear we that took unjust and unwarranted measures as we tortured those suspected of having information that may have been useful to us in fighting terrorism. We violated our values, but we were willing to let the world know that justice also requires mercy.

Obviously, these are not stories about which we rejoice, just as there is little rejoicing among those who have lost loved ones, those who have lost employment, those who have experienced broken relationships, and those who have experienced a variety of other kinds of losses.

In the midst of all of this bad news there is the good news of Jesus advent among us. The Lord has done great things for us and so, we are glad indeed.

One of my favorite quotes has been attributed to a number of people, but the one I have is attributed to St. Teresa of Avila, and it goes like this,"Joy is not the absence of suffering, but the presence of God." Yes, there is joy in the midst of suffering and loss because the Lord has done great things for us. We take comfort in the peace, love and joy that comes to us in Jesus now and each day, even in the midst of sorrow and loss. So, we rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice.

Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again!

Pr. Len

Seize the Day

Sermon - November 16th, 2014

Matthew 25:14-30

Carpe Diem

Grace and Peace…

A week and a half ago, my brother and I took a little trip to Cincinnati.  We had tickets  to watch our favorite football team the Bengals take on the in-state rival Cleveland Browns.  

Those of you who follow football, already know it was a rough game.  And the trip didn’t get off to a good start either.  We checked into our (finger quotes) non-smoking hotel room, and when we opened the door it smelled like we stepped into an ash tray.  In hindsight, we probably should have taken it as a bad omen.  

Of course, it didn’t get any better after that.  We arrived at the stadium, got our seats, only to find out that somehow we were surrounded by a pack of obnoxious Browns fans. Great.

The game was horrible.  The final score was 24-3 and the Bengal’s quarterback delivered the worst performance ever. And I’m not exaggerating. Bears fans, if you think Cutler was bad on Sunday, our quarterback literally had the worst statistical game in team history.  (And did I mention it was cold and windy?).  GREAT!

But at least I can say I saw history being made!

We got back to our hotel room feeling dejected and a little beaten.  But we decided - right then and there - to make the most of our trip and find something (anything!) interesting to do the next day. That way, when people asked us why we went to Cincinnati we wouldn’t have to talk about the real reason.

We decided to seize the day.

We googled Cincinnati attractions, and found something called the American Sign Museum....whose website proudly boasted to be the only sign museum in the whole country! It couldn’t be any worse than the game was, so we went and goofed around and took funny pictures.  And I have to say, the American Sign Museum was by far the highlight of our trip.

But we weren’t done seizing the day.  When our GPS led us to a Starbucks that no longer existed, we wouldn’t take “no” for an answer.  We drove 5 miles out of our way to find a decent coffee shop where we commiserated with a Batista named Kelly who was also a Bengals fan.  

When we saw a sign for Bob Evans - one of our mother’s favorite restaurants - we stopped for lunch, even though we weren’t hungry, to take a selfie by the sign and send it to her!

And I have to say, that despite the horrible, no good, awful game, we ended up having a lot of fun.  It was a resurrection kind of turnaround for us.  We had an unbelievably depressing start to the trip, but we finished it with a flourish! We seized the day!

Well, I got a similar kind of feeling when I was going through our readings for this week, because they all use this ominous, depressing “God-is-coming” language, but when you stick with them, they end up in a hopeful, seize-the-day kind of place.

The first two readings, are about God’s judgment on the earth.  

The prophet Zephaniah is talking about the “The Day of the Lord” when God will come to bring doom and gloom!

And in case you think, oh, that’s just an angry God, Old Testament thing, Paul writes to the Thessalonian church - a church grieving the death of some of its members. He writes, “The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”  And “then sudden destruction will come upon them...and there will be no escape!”

Wow, that’s dark!  God would seem super scary if you stopped reading there. And if that were the end of the story it would have been just as depressing as my Bengals game. But Paul and Zephaniah aren’t writing warning stories, they are writing a call to action.

Paul tells the church in Thessalonia to “stay alert.” In the margins of my Bible I wrote “carpe diem,” seize the day.  Don’t fall asleep.  Be ready.  

Here you have this church in Thessalonia that is grieving the death of some members, and Paul is telling them, don’t worry! God has come for those people, and God is coming for you, and that is a hopeful sign.  

Paul concludes that the way to be ready - the way to seize the day - is to encourage each other, and build each other up. Stop the bickering.  Stop the fighting.  God is coming, he says, and therefore we should respond with faith, love and hope. We should look out for our the people around us.

His conclusion is to seize the day.  Don’t sit around being idle.  Go out and do something positive with your time, because it might be short...because it might be short.

Isn’t that what the gospel story is about today?  Jesus is telling the parable of the talents.  A master gives one servant 5 talents - more money than a normal laborer would make in a lifetime!  Another receives two talents - 30 years worth of income!  And the last received one talent - 15 years of wages!

The first invests the 5 talents and makes 5 more talents!  The second invests his two talents and makes 2 more.  But the third takes his talent and buries it in the ground, because he’s afraid of what the master will do if he loses it.

But when the master comes home, he tells the first two - well done, good and faithful servants!  But to the last one who did nothing with the talent, he threw out into the darkness.

I want to be clear - Paul reminds us that we have nothing to fear.  We are children of the light - already saved through baptism and faith.  Our work isn’t urgent because we need to save our own skin.  Our work is urgent because our time is short and God’s world is in need.  

Make the most of what you’ve been given. Don’t bury your gifts in the backyard. Don’t sit on your hands.  Don’t be idle.  

And there are so many ways that you can do that!  It doesn’t matter how old or young you are, how able or disabled, how busy or tired - you have all kinds of opportunities to seize the day - all around you, all the time.  

Last thing: I want you all to take a look at the Bethany Weekly that you should have received when you came in today.  Go ahead and pull that out.  And I want you all to open it up to the middle pages.

There’s a ton going on at this place, and the stuff on the list isn’t even the half of it.  But what I want you to do now is to take out a pen or a pencil and circle something that looks interesting to you - something that you’d want to be a part of.   

• Look at the Thanksgiving dinner boxes - you can provide somebody a Thanksgiving meal through our community food pantry.  
• The Family Christmas Project is coming up - they need shoppers and donations and wrappers and deliverers.
• Attend a fellowship event, and lift up each other through love and friendship and laughter - that’s just as big a part of what we do as anything.  
• Check out the community harvest food drive - Give some struggling folks in our community a boost by donating food.

Our gospel tells us not to put this stuff off until tomorrow. Don’t put it off.  God is coming - life actually is short!  So let’s spend our time lifting up our neighbors.  Let’s spend our time giving back.  Let’s spend our time being joyous and loving.

Let’s seize the day.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Free at Last

Sermon - October 26th, 2014

Affirmation of Baptism Service

Free at Last

Pr. Paul Cannon

Grace and Peace Bethany Lutheran, a special welcome to all our guests ... and to our Confirmation class of 2014, I say,

Free at last, you are free at last!

Confirmation students, you guys are now free!  You’ve written your essays, you’ve done projects, been to camp, you’ve acolyted and turned in sermon notes, you’ve completed service hours and been to fellowship events - you’ve done a whole lot of stuff!

Some of you have younger brothers and sisters going through confirmation right now.  Feel free to laugh at them.

But YOU, you are done! You are free!  

• You don’t have to acolyte from today onward. In fact, this might be the last time in your life that you ever have to wear a white robe again!  
• You don’t have to listen to my sermons ever again.  You can sleep right through them, and unless you snore - nobody will know.  
• Nobody at church is ever going to make you volunteer for stuff, which (in any case) is kind of an oxymoron if you think about it.
• And you don’t have to go to fun youth events anymore - like Mega Trampoline.  You are perfectly free to stay at home and do your homework if that’s what you prefer.

Freedom is awesome and you guys are just starting to get your first taste of what that means.  Most of you are now in 9th grade.  You’ve started high school, which means that when your parents try to tell you what to do, you respond with an eye roll.  I get it.  You are longing for your freedom.  You don’t want your parents telling you to clean up your room.

But parents, if you think it’s bad right now, just wait, because in a year or so, a lot of your kids are going to go through driver’s ed (a terrifying thought if you know these kids!) - and when they do, freedom will take on a whole new meaning!

Freedom is a beautiful thing!

And so, not surprisingly, Jesus has a lot to say about freedom too.  He’s talking to his followers and he tells them, If you follow me, “you will know the Truth, and the Truth will make you free.”

That’s what today’s all about.  It’s your day to say that following Jesus is something that you want for your life.  Today you get the opportunity to say that this faith journey you’ve been on is something that you want to continue.

And Jesus says that when you follow him, he will make you free!

But let me be the first to tell you that Christian Freedom is a strange kind of freedom.  It doesn’t mean you can do whatever the heck you want.  Martin Luther, and I hope you all know by now that I’m not talking about Martin Luther King, the original Martin Luther once famously said this:

A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.  (And...)

A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.  

Or in other words, you are free and you’re not free. Get it? I didn’t think so.  Luther’s favorite thing to do was to confuse people with paradoxes.  

So let me try an analogy.  Has anybody ever seen that TV show, “Undercover Boss?”  

If you haven’t, it’s a pretty simple premise. It’s a reality TV show, where CEO’s from big companies like Subway would spend a week working in some of the lowest level positions that the company had to offer.

It’s a fitting analogy for what Christian freedom is like.  As followers of Christ, we are free.  We’re like the CEO.  We can kind of do whatever we want, and nobody is going to fire us.  We’ve been baptized.  God isn’t going to kick you out of the family when you mess up - even if you mess up big time.  

We’re the undercover boss here. Nobody is going to force you to do good things in your life.  God is not going to ground you if you don’t show up to church every week - though I can’t say the same for your parents.  You’re the CEO of your life.  You are a perfectly free Lord of all.  Subject to none.

And yet...there’s the other side of the coin. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant to all, subject to all. As followers of Jesus, we think of freedom differently than the rest of the world, because we know what we are being freed from.  

You see Jesus tells us that we are being freed from sin.  Sin is kind of a loaded word, because it can mean a lot of things, but at its most basic, sin is simply selfishness.  And that’s what I mean when I say sin, I mean selfishness.

In Christ, you’re free from sin. And if sin is our own selfishness, then what that means is that the thing that keeps you from being truly free, isn’t your parents, it isn’t school, it isn’t church or confirmation classes, it isn’t that you can’t drive yet - the thing that keeps you from being truly free is you.  

Jesus saves you from yourself - so that you are free to live as unselfishly as you can. And in that sense, freedom is service. Think about that.  If you had to do good works in order to get into heaven, ultimately all those good things you did, would be selfish. They would just be for your own good.  

And so, our Lord Jesus, died on a cross so that whoever believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life. If that’s true, then heaven is no longer a bribe to make us do good things. And so, as Jesus said, “If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

And that’s what today is all about.  You are free.

You don’t remember it, but when you were babies, you were all baptized.  And when that water was sprinkled on your forehead, a bunch of people made promises to you - your parents, the congregation, and the most important of which, was God.

God’s promise, was that you was that you would be connected to the death and resurrection of Jesus. You would be a part of his family - and being a part of God’s family means that you are free; You’re not a servant anymore.

You might remember that I asked each one of you in your interview if you wanted to be Confirmed.  And the reason I asked you that is because now it’s time for you to make those same promises that were made to you when you were baptized.  This isn’t your Mom’s choice.  It’s not your Dad’s choice.  It’s not your grandparent's choice. It’s not my choice.  It’s yours.

Class of 2014, you are going to make some promises.  

• You’re going to promise to continue this life of faith with the church - not alone (because alone is ultimately selfish), but with this community of people.  
• You’re going to promise to listen and share God’s word, to listen to the voiceless and to pray for the people around you.
• You’re going to promise to live Christ-like lives to the best of your ability - and that means to live unselfishly,  serving others and working to make this world a better place.  
• And when you realize you screwed up, like we all do, you are going to promise to seek forgiveness at the communion table and do it all over again.

To live free means to live unselfishly.  Confirmation class of 2014 - Do you think you can do that? If so, give me a “Yes.” Are you willing to follow Jesus even if it takes you places you didn’t want to go?  If so say “Yes.”  Do you think you can live for others, even when it’s not in your best interest?  If so say, “Yes.”

Then, Confirmation Class of 2014, you are free indeed.

Come Holy Spirit, Come.