Embracing the New; Sermon for 1st Sunday of Christmas, December 30th, 2018 by: Rev. Nicole A.M. Collins

Immediately when I started looking into this Sunday's texts, the Holy Spirit sent me two things. First, it sent me that great old 1960’s song by the Youngbloods, ‘Get Together.’ If anybody remembers that song, in some senses, it has beautiful, innocent words about what it means to live into the Gospel, what it means to love neighbor and to put on the New Nature. I also, at the same moment, thought of The Blues Brothers scene where James Brown’s figure who's playing the minister, is shouting out to the congregation and John Belushi's in the background, he asks: have you seen the light?! Then he asked the congregation again and then again. And if anyone remembers that funny movie Belushi’s character starts cussing and he says yes! He does his cartwheels and joins in dancing with the rest of the church.

The time of Christmas is the time to realize and renew that story of God coming down to be with us, through the flesh. God incarnates and is born to an ordinary person, Mary. He comes into our world in order to save it, as I said, in more ways than one. In more ways than one, are we ever in an age that needs saving. Those are not really encouraging or hope-filled words, but currently we are in an age of not feeling much hope with where the world is turning how we're treating one another and where things are moving.  We made our world hinge upon the wheels of money making it go around.

The beautiful gospel we have today is sort of one of those “day-in-the-Life” scenes that only Luke presents from Jesus's childhood. Today’s Gospel is the scene where Jesus is formally getting circumcised and going through the rites and rituals of the Jewish faith. There's always going to be issues with what we do to express ourselves with faith. Piety carries us into ourselves, whereas faith carries us beyond ourselves. Christ challenges us always to live beyond ourselves. St. Paul saw this as divesting the self of the Old Nature, those old clothes of the self, and putting on the New Nature. The wonderful commentary from Barclay said you must: “let the peace of God be the umpire in your heart.” I knew of a pastor who loved using sports’ trivia in nearly all of his messages.  I’m sure he’d just love the thought—“Let the peace of God be the umpire in your heart.”   

There's been a battle going on in my heart and the umpire’s been pretty busy. But then that's what happens when you live through a lot of valleys and go over a lot of mountain tops. Sometimes as well, you are on the mountain top and find a cliff over a chasm... Simeon and Anna had lived very long and full lives. They were both old people. They were old people of a great faith that had wavering hope.  Wavering hope…  you can see this as a healthy skepticism or an unhealthy cynicism.  I don’t think they experienced that, but this is how we balance our spirits when we are on this journey. It wasn't until they literally saw and held the infant Christ that they saw the light. They had that revelation and understood that their efforts of service were never in vain but that they saw salvation, redemption enabling them to become New.

The Old Testament lesson today is really footnoting to the rituals that were important for the Israelites. This was not only in remembering how God brought them out of Egypt but that they needed to realize, sacrifice in order to continue to be renewed by God's saving actions to preserve the remnant. Sacrifice is a funny thing, when you take it too literally it becomes law. It becomes an image that doesn't necessarily exemplify what it should mean for us to spiritually grow, be renewed from. I never forgot a couple of years, back when I went with my cousin to one of her Roman Catholic churches to see a larger than life crucifix with a bloodied and tortured Christ. This rendering of Christ was in the form of a very realistically painted sculpture upon the cross. I started thinking to myself, since we were right there, in the first pew very near to this cross… if he comes off of it, I am out of here! If I see any blood starting to drip, I am out of there! It is a moment of time frozen, but it is missing the story of its completion with the triumph of the Cross. The triumph of the Cross, which we will begin to understand when we move forward into this Greatest Story Ever Told, is the Resurrection. You can't freeze time, however.  Time most unrelentingly moves forward. You can have moments of time that are frozen remnants of your former life, however. They can either remind you of death or they can remind you of the Chrysalis shell that you broke free from at one point in time or another in your life.

Simeon and Anna needed to realize the freedom of the Word, the freedom of the Gospel and it was in seeing the Christ child.  Through seeing the Christ child, they had a glimpse, revelation of the Messiah and their Hope was renewed. Some people like to challenge Christians by saying that we are fools for being or relying upon hope. The scandal of both a God who came down to us and became our crucified Lord. Hope could be an empty promise, if the heart is not fully turning to God for healing and forgiveness. This past week, the Grace Hub only had the Blue Christmas service, on the eve before Christmas Eve to encourage people to see that page-turning and to see beyond themselves into the revelation and hope that Christ is for us what He has done and how He is always with us.  One of the songs we sang alongside a few Taize songs was Noel Nouvelet.  It is a beautiful French Christmas carol that uses the same music of the hymn, ‘Now the Green Blade Rises.’ ‘Now the Green Blade Rises,’ is an Easter hymn.  It is an interesting coincidence if you ask me.  The French carol sings the joy of Christ coming into our world whereas the other speaks of love is come again like wheat arising green. Both talk about rising…

Paul's beautiful letter always goes to the spiritual head of what we should think about and be encouraged about. Clothing ourselves in the beautiful things that are a part of that New life through Christ. Jesus Beatitudes highlight these virtues Of Hope that we find ourselves at time challenged and striving for. We need to clothe ourselves with compassion and kindness humility and meekness and patience we should be bearing one another not “tolerating” one another but accepting each other, forgiving each other especially the self. We need to be like those flower children in the Youngbloods’ song. For we need to get together, and we need love one another right now, not later.  Luke, the Gospel writer was truly someone who understood the Holy Spirit's work for his Book of Acts is nothing but talking about the Holy Spirit's journey through the disciples. We are Guided by the Spirit sometimes it's not the Holy Spirit, but it is of the Evil One shading our hearts with doubt and speaking through other people to pierce the soul. Not necessarily something for the better, but something to make us feel death.

We will all die an earthly death, but a spiritual death is something that will challenge you to your core.  I once knew of someone who experienced a spiritual death but did not rise like the Phoenix from the ashes.  Sam was a promising young man when he first started off on his own from his adopted family in the early 1980’s.  He went to junior college and then went off to move into the far northside of Chicago.  He was a pioneer into what would become the mean streets of the Northside.  The family he left were independently wealthy and had children of their own.  The eldest son became a stockholder and the youngest became a lawyer.  No one however, guided Sam.  After junior college, he found himself draw between two worlds.  The first world being his desire to become a musician and the other, to survive the world through selling eyeglasses.  He soon became a bar fixture at the Blue Moon Bar late afternoons and a cocaine addict by night.  No one could reach out to him for he was lost and, in some ways, didn’t want to be found.  During this time, he started to drift into the local poetry slams that were going on at all times of the night.  The hours disappeared alongside his faith in anything ever changing.  The last memories I have of him was hearing his tragic poetry and somber guitar playing.  The following year, he was found dead in his apartment due to a drug overdose.  Sam never made it out of his valley.

The world we live in can truly become an ugly place. It could be a distant place where people aren't listening to one another anymore.  Where the hurting and suffering ones, fall between the cracks. We rely so much on technology to answer things for us, to speak for us and to even interview people. We can't even make the effort or have the energy to speak to people in person but rely on machines to sort and define who we think people are. These are barriers, barriers that are “old clothes” that are more than ragged and dog-eared. These are clothes that barely cover us, that barely console us that do not make us whole.  Simeon proclaimed a revelation and insight, a prophecy to what Jesus would become for us. Christ Jesus would become for us the falling and rising of the battles we would face as human beings both an actual war and one within ourselves as well.

St Paul saw that spiritual battle that we need to pull the reins in upon. And in regard to his journey of preaching to many Gentile churches, he was battling the heresy of Gnosticism where they challenged the fully human and the fully divine nature of Christ and what he is to mean for us. It's not always just remembering, ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’ and learning new things from each and every time we hear it, but it is realizing what a saving grace truly is. This saving grace is how Christ dwells among us, God with us. It is His Holy Spirit who leads us to clothe ourselves with the virtues of the New Nature. The New Nature is planted within us just like Christ was planted into our world through the Theotokos, the God bearer— Mary the Mother of Our Lord. God with us, God growing among us— The Story begins!

The Greatest Story Ever Told is one that we need to live. We need the restorative Word of God to live within us in order to be disciples.  To be disciples that become strong and filled with wisdom that only God can give our hearts through faith. Let the Peace of Christ rule in your hearts. I wish Sam would have found that peace… Do we let ourselves feel that reign as Christ ruling our hearts? Do we realize this when we are in the midst of the rising and falling due to war, due to transition that we are struggling with? Do we allow God to be the umpire bearing peace and Good News to make us whole once again? 

It does take us to be retrospective about how our lives have moved forward. We should never cover up the past as well as we should never delete the past. We need to look at how the world has turned in our lives in order to not have the world revolve around us but see beyond ourselves.  Even when we are in the darkest valley, we need to see beyond ourselves in order to begin reaping that New Nature, letting that New Life clothes us with the reality of Grace in, with and through us.  Sam never had any peace within his heart, his family let him fall through the cracks.  Sometimes the foolish have the greatest advice. Disciples are fools for Christ in a growing Godless world that the challenges us to our breaking point. What we must sacrifice is sometimes too great for our spirits to handle. What we expect from others is often cruel, not understanding and frankly not open to hear where people are. We need to lift our lives to God in prayer.  We need to live our lives in prayerful service to others for a continual healing that helps us grow and develop that wisdom.

Let us Pray,

Loving and Gracious Lord Jesus

We look to Your life coming into our world, being in our world.

You became our greatest sacrifice

Taking with you all of our sins, transgressions to that cross

We realize as we come together as Your Body in the world

The love that we must clothe our hearts with

That New Nature, we must fully invest ourselves in.

Help us to Faithfully be Your children of Grace and promise

In this new world that we must bring forth

Amen

December 30^th, 2018; 1^st Sunday of Christmas; Year C; SOLA Lectionary

Sermon by: Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins

Psalm 111; Exodus 13:1-4, 11-15; Colossians 3:12-17; Luke 2:22-40

 The link below is to this sermon's delivery at the Grace Hub Church at 12:30pm

https://youtu.be/IAHBqiW-CA8

The Grace Hub's Blue Christmas Service 12/23/2018 7pm

Transitioning Hope; Sermon for December 9th, 2018 by: Rev. Nicole A.M. Collins

With the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, transition and the “Advent” of things to come is something truly positive, something truly of Hope. Hope is a funny word though, it's one of those words that stretches us either one way or the other. Sometimes we feel the pain or anxiety of struggling with seeing that light, the Light of Christ leading the way, or we dismiss the notion of being hopeful because it doesn’t seem “real” enough for us. The voice of one crying out in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord make His path straight, begs to differ! Truth be told, John the Baptist is one of my favorite Biblical characters partly because the man did not keep his mouth shut.  He was profoundly honest, and he had a task to do whether or not he put himself in great trouble.

That kind of motivation and conviction is something we should strive for as Christians, disciples of Jesus. Even today we need to be hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit in our hearts calling us to action.  This kind of call to action is a willingness to hear the Word and a motivation to have this very New Word change you. We need to continue to be hopeful even when we feel moments of despair. I know this all too well currently since the last few months of this tail-end of 2018 have been very trying for me to keep encouraged yet alone see much hope for the future… Life is what you make of it.  Or quoting another John, John Lennon— “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans…” If you can't see or won’t let the light of Christ shine towards a future pathway, how can you ever grow into God’s plans for you? The Harvest of righteousness is one that is carved out by our faith. 

In Paul's beautiful letter to the Philippians, we have a wonderful snippet today all about encouragement and moving forward. From the paraphrase Bible of ‘Epistles Now!’ I love what Paul has to say to his friends. He tells them God spoke to him and comforted him in his despair.... He continues to say to them: “…How it should be encouraging to all of us, the way in which God is able to turn the unhappy things that happened to us, even our foolish errors and failures into stepping stones toward the accomplishment of His purposes in the world.  The way the world sees stepping stones is not the way God sees them.  We are not to be building “castles in the air” of false hope.

We probably don't think too often enough about stepping stones or milestones we have in our life's journey as disciples of Christ. I for one personally hate the word legacy. I have read one too many church planting missional theology books that talk about “leaving a legacy…” I think the word legacy is purely a term of the ego and it's not something that speaks of growing with the challenge and transitioning of everything that happens in your life. Transition can be a very hard word to deal with and for some of us, it is a life-and-death situation. We are like the grain hoping to be rescued by God and not be burned with the chaff. But then, life is a lot like being baptized with fire sometimes you're walking upon that mountain and then without any warning there's cliff and back down you go into the valley. Here's where we need the Holy Spirit to keep us encouraged.  This Autumn’s valley has been quite deep and this winter’s ascent far too slow for my spirits.

The psalmist is in the same way reflecting as Paul. he challenges us to think about what draws us into conflict. He thinks God continues to test and try us and it’s easy to go there and start to blame God. He sort comes off sounding like Job, if you ask me.... but then he finishes these thoughts in saying he uses these very things to purge and prepare for God's purposes. To purge and prepare, purging sounds a lot like starting to make New Year’s resolutions before the Holiday parties and the diet goes out the window.  What God needs us to purge is entirely spiritual. Preparing the way, of not only a new year, but preparing the heart for the incarnational reality of God with us, that is the beautiful note of not only Advent but hearing "The Greatest Story Ever Told" challenging us once again to start anew and grow.

Speaking of hope in growing, out here in Las Vegas, the leaves are just slightly changing on a few trees as well as my friend’s church is doing the old college try in growing their front lawn from scratch.  It may never make Town and Country’s Magazine cover for a “hearty” lawn but faith and lots of watering are helping it to break the odds.  Gardening has never been my thing, I believe my lawn would look much worse if I were trying to do the same thing, growing it from scratch.  The New Nature within us is grown from scratch you could say.  We are called to reap the seed.  Our lives stories alongside the ‘Greatest Story Ever Told,’ is the seed of God’s Word soon to be planted in our world as a New beginning… we must prepare for as God’s children.

In order for us to grow up and transition into the children of Grace and promise, this is what God hopes and prepares for us, takes us to learn from our past. It's not just repenting of the past, but it is allowing the lessons of the past to shape you for the better. I've been thinking a lot about that. We cannot change history, nor should we attempt to erase it. Your personal character is to be growing from the mistakes and things that we have learned… but the silliness we have going on currently with this new age, is not progress. Many of these young people have been making a voice heard... but only to erase the past under the guise of making things "right." I suspect this is more or less about control and power over the spirit.  When the world becomes an idol to the self, the spirit needs to be controlled for the worldly power one wishes to grow cannot be gained without it.

You know you’re getting older when you start remembering those great late 60’s early 70’s Claymation or cartoon shows celebrating different holidays.  One of my all-time favorites is a ‘Charlie Brown Christmas.’ There recently was a ruffle about removing ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ as a show that promotes bullying and somehow or another is "racist." There were a lot of issues with the era of the 60’s and 70’s that that Claymation TV special was born out of, but it certainly was not coming from that vein of thought it all.  But then there is a school principal in Nebraska who wants to ban the colors red and green, candy canes, Santa and everything else Christmas because she feels that the separation of church and state means the complete oppression and dissolution of anything and everything Christian.  Since when is persecuting Christians in the guise of political correctness ok? Yet in another state they have a statue of, or depiction of Satan alongside a Christmas tree and something else because this is how we are showing our “freedom of speech,” Etc.

We are a people in transition and not necessarily for the better and not necessarily even hearing the voice of God calling out to us to prepare ourselves for His beautiful kingdom of Grace and promise. There are not many people today who feel comfortable in saying: “What then should we do?” and asking God for help…  Finding that point within yourself to turn around and see what do you need me to do God? Takes work. We need to pray and ask— Help inspire me, Lord. May Your Holy Spirit refine me to see your straight path and begin to grow a harvest of righteousness. One that is a natural response of love.  This kind of reflection is a prayer of seeking reconciliation. I don't think we consider this often enough.

With both figures in today's lessons— St Paul is in prison in Rome and John the Baptist by the end of the Gospel, is thrown into prison by Herod. But perhaps they are the “freest” because their mission speaks beyond their captivity. What do I mean by that? Both Paul and John the Baptist were the freest because the Holy Spirit of God encouraged them to stay true and continue to speak. The word of God built them up to keep making that page turn forward in the message that the world needed to hear from God. You could say maybe that both of them were inspired to do the real right thing and it wasn't coming from selfishness or oppression, but it was coming from a freedom that only the love and grace of God can give us.

We don't really hear about the story of John speaking to Herod in today’s Gospel. John was trying to help Herod to turn his life around and come to repent of his adultery with Herodias, as we know Salome and Herodias got around that... The fact that John was trying to "free" Herod by getting him to acknowledge what he did only got him thrown in prison and eventually beheaded. The story of Paul's journey is a little more complicated than John’s, but he would spend time in prison all the while completing a few letters, this being one of them. I think it's a great testimony of faith how in the following chapter of Philippians he even pens unknowingly the first Creed: ‘Jesus is Lord.’ John the Baptist in today's Gospel tells the truth as it is. He makes it clear to those listening, that he is not the Messiah and the Messiah's coming afterwards who will baptize them all with the Holy Spirit and Fire. He will sort those who need to be refined and those who don't want to follow his path or bear fruits worthy of repentance, he says, will meet their own peril.

Kind of intense words… but then I believe the Gospel challenges you not to “sugar-coat” the Words. God needs us to hear the truth. It needs to be spoken with love of course, but God needs us to begin to seek, create that harvest of righteousness. Returning to these modern-day PC Grinch stories of no Christmas, no candy canes, No Rudolph and so on and so forth… I don't know what the ultimate goal is of these individuals who are trying to control and suppress the past as well as religious freedoms? I just don't see it is a move forward or “progress.”  I certainly don't think the Gospel does as well. In fact, it's a move backwards and it is into a new kind of captivity, one we may make even greater and more intricate then we have experienced before.

A few weeks from now will be God with us. ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’ recaps those great words of a God who came down to us, took upon himself the weakness of human flesh to save us from ourselves through Grace unconditional and overflowing.  God's love and God’s message for us is unconditional. We are the ones that are conditional and evermore close minded. We are the ones that only want to change other things for ourselves, not ourselves. We are the ones that want to change the world as a means to control it. This is the ultimate imprisonment. If we are unwilling to even see the world beyond ourselves and the Grace of God how it leads us to New Life… how can we ever see or understand, yet alone prepare for God with us?

One of the things interesting to note about John the Baptist is he was a character in ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’ of transition, himself. He was truly a prophet and speaker of the Old Covenant. He just started to see the light of things to come ahead. The only way he could get to turn that page was by being that ever-speaking voice. The Word of God did not rest within his heart, his conscience to share with all those around him. He had to speak the truth! It may necessarily not have been in love, but in warning. Paul speaks the truth of the Word in love and it is an unconditional love— that the Gospel sets us free. For Paul the Philippians were dear friends and he wanted to try his best to build them up as the Body and grow to have that special knowledge that is only wrought through prayer. This is acknowledged in reconciling the self to the past and to the present, meaning dealing with history being accountable to it and growing, moving on from it.

A couple of years back, the unruly and very un-politically correct cartoon, ‘South Park,’ had a very funny take on how silly people get in regards to not only political correctness (which I think is public enemy number one...) but the teachers and the townspeople fought over what they should do for a non-Christmas, holiday play with the children of South Park. By the end of all their silliness and removal of different things, ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’ became a weird, abstract play narrated by the moaning and droning music of Philip Glass with all the children dressed in black, dancing around and not even making sense in what they were doing. You have to admit it was very clever and strangely disturbing, because this is what it's come to today in regards to people having the courage to share their voice.  This is not the Voice of the Gospel, it is the delusions of the world speaking…

Let us pray

Loving and Gracious God,

Help us to hear that voice in the wilderness crying out to prepare the way for You into our world.

Help us to bear fruits worthy of repentance

Help to lead us and what we must do and say with Your Holy Gospel as our guiding Light into the wilderness of the world. May we be Proclaimers of the Good News

Completely free in heart and in mind, with Your Gospel’s truth

AMEN

December 9th, 2018; Second Sunday Advent; Year C; SOLA Lectionary

Sermon by: Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins

Psalm 66:1-12; Malachi 3:1-7; Philippians 1:2-11; Luke 3:1-20

The link below is to this sermon's delivery at the Grace Hub at 12:30pm
https://youtu.be/3OX2tYX5-co