“She’s the first woman I trusted,” I confessed. And it was true. For most of my grown life I had not fully trusted women, including my mother or sisters. I know it stemmed from a bad relationship when I was younger. That first heartbreak. And it caused me to do things that would ensure that I would be the one breaking the heart, or destroying the relationship, before it would happen to me again. But this young woman was different.
 
I remember sitting with her on the crooked stoop of her studio apartment. Our neighbors were out in the courtyard, as they often were, drinking and laughing. We lived in a place of broken hearts and budding dreams. The perfect place for me to heal from yet another relationship I had destroyed. In fact, it was really two relationships. It wasn’t the prettiest of places, just the perfect place to rest and restore my soul. I had nothing left in me to go and look for somewhere nicer. Good thing. She lived there.
 
I don’t know what it was that made me trust her. It could have been her smile, or the way she listened but watched the world around her as if my words didn’t really matter. I told her things, things I had trouble admitting to my therapist at the time. And she listened while still drinking and laughing with the rest. And when it was her turn to talk, her words would pierce my heart – poking holes in the darkest of places to let the light in.
 
When we started dating, I let her into my most intimate of secrets. Then for my birthday, she threw me a surprise party. One might see it as a betrayal of my trust because she had to lie (or really hide the truth from me) in order to make it happen. For some reason, I loved her more and trusted her more for it. I can’t explain it beyond trust is irrational at times.
 
When I knew we were going to get married, I confessed my most protected fears. I shared my story and told her of my true calling – something I had kept to myself for decades. She didn’t run. And that made me love her and trust her more. So, by the time we moved into our first house, having our first of three kids, I trusted her more than I trusted my own breath. She has lived up to this in every way. ​

This week I was privy to a conversation between two women in the park; one asking the other, “Who do you trust?” I have no idea what lead to this question or how her friend answered. But it got me thinking about my relationship with trust and with my wife.
 
Many people trust our current president more than they trust themselves. Just the same others distrust the man for a variety of reasons. For example, he is constantly sowing seeds of doubt in our ability to trust our government, or media, or one another. And does so simply by telling his sycophants to “Trust me.”
 
But here’s the thing, his words are vague, at best, because time and time again he has proven himself to be untrustworthy. As of today, it has been reported that Trump has stated over 52,000 lies or mistruths in the last five years since they started counting. His trust in social media has given us well recorded documents of this.  This is alarming if you trust the sources who have been fact checking him. And ammunition for those who put their trust elsewhere.
 
Without a shred of proof or anything to back up his claims, Trump has asked us to trust him when he says he has a better health plan, or that he loves the environment more than anyone else. And let’s not forget “Trust me, this virus will be gone by Easter.” Those who trust him do so believing he isn’t lying but is optimistic about a better way forward. Those who don’t trust him only see these faithful followers as gullible fools. 
 
As the old saying goes, words matter. They say something about the person speaking them.
 
In a recent article in USA Today, Cindy L. Otis reported, “The reality we must contend with is that the insurrection was the result of a massive, five-year disinformation campaign waged by Trump and his supporters who have weaponized lies, conspiracies, and the reach of social media to gain and attempt to hold onto his power and to distort reality.”  
 
The problem with putting our trust in a person is knowing for sure if that person is trustworthy or not. There are simple ways to check this. The easiest and most important one is by asking yourself, do their words and actions align?  If they say they are going to show up and don’t, then what does that say?
 
Trust is important on so many levels. I need to trust if the surgeon about to operate on the tumor in my throat knows what he is doing. I need to trust that the person I gave a deposit to do some work on my house will show up the next day to do the work. I need to trust in the law and legal system in case he doesn’t. So let me ask you the question I was privy to in the park. “Who do you trust?”
 
As a kid I went to a school where they pride themselves on forcing kids to battle it out with sword drills – the memorization of bible passages; book, chapter and verse. This allowed us to look like we knew the bible, without having to know the context in which it was written. I have no idea if this was the first one, or just the one that stuck with me, but it’s been my go-to verse in shaping my faith. It’s a proverb that states, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not into your own understanding. In all ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path.”
 
Trust God. I can’t tell you how hard this was for me. I knew God. I loved God. I wanted to be closer to God. But trusting God was difficult because I didn’t trust myself, or those in my life. But here’s what I learned after a hard life of doing it my way. Unlike so many women that I ran from, cheated on, or betrayed, God never did any of that.
 
In spite of all the reasons I have given to God not to trust me, God remained faithful to a fault. I can’t say this about my job as a minister any more than I could say it when I was a copywriter. I can’t say that about my government or even the institutions put in place to keep them honest. And yet, I know God remains trustworthy because God has remained faithful to me.
 
What does this say to our own faithfulness be it to God or one another?
 
 
“Who do you trust?” is a great question to ask yourself. And one we should ask frequently. You can begin by looking around your circle, taking inventory of your friends, family and community to see whose words match their actions. Another way to approach it might be to look at those people who have put their trust in you – your spouse, your kids, your boss, your co-workers – and ask yourself if you are worthy of this honor.

The answer may or may not surprise you, but I believe it’s a worthy exercise if only to help you better understand yourself.  Believe me, you can trust me on that. 
 

​
 *There is just so much to talk about on this subject. This is just one small aspect of a much larger picture.  

The Jesus I know from the gospels would not condone such behavior. The Jesus I know would have never weaponized people to wage a violent insurrection.

The Jesus from the gospels did not fight even when he was being arrested or unjustly crucified.

​The Jesus I love said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” For that, God blessed him with a name above all others.
 
Read Mark 1:1-11
 
There are two things are worth noting here at the very beginning of Mark’s gospel. First, the Holy Spirit of God is “a dove that descended from heaven.” And second, a voice from heaven declared, “You are my beloved. With you I am pleased.”
 
After the September 11th terrorist attacks on our country, then President George Walker Bush famously said to the world, “You’re either with us, or against us.” Although this was tough, hawkish language meant to garner support from our allies, this “us versus them” mentality has set the stage for the bitterly divisive place we’re in today.
 
Now Mark begins his gospel identifying Jesus – not with a war hawk, but with a dove, the symbol of peace. God’s shalom. This instantly sets Jesus apart from other human rulers whose reigns depend on violence and bloodshed to secure more power, not peace. The author will spend the rest of his gospel revealing what the Spirit of God’s peace means to us today.
 
The Holy Spirit descended like a dove. A voice from heaven declared, “You are my beloved. With you I am pleased.”

watch the message here.

If Wednesday’s coup attempt taught us anything, it should be this: Thirst for power corrupts us. But a hunger for peace unites us. We need to stop dividing ourselves over our petty differences and be united by our commonality. As our great advancements in science have proven, all humans are 99.9% identical. This leaves .01% for all the tiny little differences – like thumb prints and taste in music.
 
Paul Schoenfeld noticed, “Despite the vastness of our similarities and the breadth of our mutual desires and needs, it is easy to focus on our differences—in beliefs, life experience, aspirations, habits or personality. Today, there is so much emphasis on how we diverge. Whether they be political views, religious practices, or philosophy of life. These distinctions can have a way of creating the false view that there is an “us and them” that is everywhere. It can cause us to forget that we are one species.”
 
The Jesus I know from the gospels never took a “me versus them” approach. It was always “me and them.” You see, Jesus was inclusive. He loved and welcomed all – including those who eventually killed him.

If science is correct, that there’s merely .01% difference between you and me, that tells me we are also created like Jesus, who at his baptism The Holy Spirit descended like a dove. And a voice declared, “You are my beloved. With you I am pleased.”
 
In seminary, I did a class project to get people to see Jesus in a new light. Using my advertising skills, I created a series of billboards designed to look like handwritten notes from Jesus. They said things like “Spiritual but not religious? I understand completely.” Or “Like giving blood for a good cause? Me too.” Each note was signed “Love Jesus.” And on each the tagline read, “You might have more in common with Jesus than you think.”
 
Let’s think about our commonality. Jesus was birthed by a mother, and he relied on her to be fed, changed, and cared for. He had siblings who bothered him, and at least one weird relative named John the Baptist. He laughed, he cried, and he probably cussed when he stubbed his toe or spilled hot coffee on himself.

We can debate the divinity of Jesus, but he was undisputedly fully human. ​Along the Jordan River, he was claimed and named by God. “You are my beloved. “With you I am pleased.”
 
What does this say about who we are as humans?  “These words revealed the true identity of Jesus as the beloved. Jesus truly heard that voice, and all of his thoughts, words, and actions came forth from his deep knowledge that he was infinitely loved by God” (Nouwen).
 
Despite the rejection, jealousy and hatred Jesus faced, he continued to show love to all people no matter what tribe they were from or what little faith they had. Jesus was deeply inclusive. He welcomed all people to come and follow his way back to God’s righteousness. The way he lived his life “from that inner place of love,” teaches us how to be human – and to be claimed and named by God.
 
Jesus set the bar by which we are all called to live – especially those baptized in his name.  A bar that opposes violence, bigotry and hatred. A bar that turns the other cheek and sets aside one’s personal needs to care for others first.
 
His way is the way of God’s love and righteousness. He is a living example of God’s peace and shalom. Thus, Jesus is the One in whom God is well pleased.  He is the One inviting all of us to join him - anywhere and everywhere - to uphold and promote the Kingdom of God, not the fiefdom of some ungodly, power hungry person. 
 
But here’s the thing when we are divided into our camps, with hearts are hardened by anger and rage, this can be difficult to understand, making it nearly impossible to follow Jesus faithfully. To claim exclusive rights on Jesus as Richard Rohr points out, “might make it easier to worship him, but it makes it that much harder to imitate him.”
 
Today, as you leave here to watch sports or engage with others on Facebook, I want you to remember this: We’re all made God’s image. Even those jerks you don’t like or the idiots who don’t like you. This is where claiming the name Christian becomes difficult, but not impossible, to do.
 
For the last decade I have been seriously working on my ability to see Christ in the face of others. As I’ve stated on my blog, it’s my daily struggle to find the Divine in our midst. What I’ve learned along the way is, the more I try to focus on our commonality rather than our differences the easier it is to see the presence of God all around me. And we all have something in common, if only it’s the divine love that God has etched on every heart. I think Jesus was able to love, even the unlovable, because he understood this.
 
He knew we are all created in God’s image, which means we all house God’s Spirit of peace within us. This is how Jesus approached all people. You might know that Buddhist often bow to one another, not out of respect for the person but to show respect for the divine within that person. Take a moment to imagine what our world could be like if we allowed God’s love in us to bow in respect to the love of God in others like Jesus did.
 
The Spirit descended like a dove. A voice from heaven declared, “You are my beloved. With you I am pleased.”
 
As Jesus’ life will reveal, we won’t get along with everyone. We won’t always like people’s post or agree on the way some people do things. But in order to stake our claim on Christ’s name, we have to continue his mission of peace and receive one another in love because we all are God’s beloved children.
 
So, I’ll leave you with this to ask yourself: Am I living in a way that pleases God? Am I living into my baptism? Walking as Jesus walked? Loving as he loved?  Am I caring for the least of these my brothers and sisters?
 
God’s dramatic acknowledgment of Jesus makes it clear that through his words and deeds we’re encountering God’s intensions for all people. And those intensions, according to the prophet Micah, are to see that justice and fairness is done for your neighbor, to be merciful and compassionate, loyal in your love, and to get off your high horse and humbly walk with your God. (Micah 6:8)
 
The words God spoke to Jesus in the wild rapids of the Jordan River are words spoken to us all.
 To paraphrase Henri Nouwen, “Once we accept the truth that we are God’s beloved children, loved unconditionally, then we can go into the world to speak and to act as Jesus did.”
 
But when we hold on to rage and anger, and participate in divisiveness like we witnessed on Wednesday, it makes it harder for God’s love to penetrate our hearts. Harder, but not impossible.

Like heaven at baptism, God is able to break through our hearts and gives us peace.
 
If we can truly believe that God is speaking to us, calling us the beloved, then we can begin to see that it’s not our subtle .01% differences that make us standout. It's how we live out our similarities as one people in the name of the One who unites us in perfect peace and calls us all home to be with him.
  
 
 
Work Cited
Green, Emma. A Christian Insurrection. The Atlantic. January 8, 2021 (accessed on January 8, 2021).
Nouwen, Henri. Anchor Yourself In God’s Love from You Are the Beloved. (New York: Convergent, 2017)
Rohr, Richard. Yes, And…Daily Meditations. (Cincinnati: Franciscan, 1997) p. 249
Rohr, Richard. The Universal Christ. (New York: Convergent, 2018) p. 23.
Schoenfeld, Paul. We are more similar than different. everettclinic.com on July 26, 2017 (accessed on January 8, 2021).

watch the Andrew Benson tells the story of a little girl building a sandcastle. It’s a palace fit for the princess who fills her imagination. Before she can complete it, a wave comes and crashes over her masterpiece. Instead crying or throwing a fit, the little girl picks up her bucket and begins again.

He writes “We build something beautiful in our minds or with our hands, and we hope our work endures. Then the tide comes in and rolls over us. Trial after trial, set back after set back, we build and rebuild. It’s what we do. It’s what God does.”
 
Last year, the waves came crashing down on us. But God was there, rebuilding us and making something new out of great love for us. It’s a story that is repeated time and time again in the bible. One of which we read about here, from the young prophet Jeremiah.
 
READ JEREMIAH 31:7-14
 
What a perfect reading for a new year. It reminds us of why our faith is so important to how we move through life. Like I’ve always said, faith is less about getting into heaven when we die and more about living in heaven right now. Jeremiah gives us a great picture of what that living looks like – people gathered from every corner of the earth to shout praises and raise their glasses to toast God. There’s singing and dancing and celebrating the goodness of life.
 
Today, in these last days of the Christmas season, churches around the world are celebrating Epiphany, when God revealed God’s self to the world. It’s often accompanied by the story of the Magi coming to visit Jesus. But today, I want to talk about the epiphany I had while binge watching Hallmark Christmas movies this past week.

watch the message here

Now if you’re not familiar with this pop-sugar phenomenon here’s some things you need to know. There’s often a character with a Christmas name like Holly, Noel, Nick or Chris.

In every story there’s a cynical person from the big city who for some reason has to go to a small town where they discover, or rediscover, the magic of Christmas. And fall in love with hot cocoa. No matter where this small town is located, it’s always within driving distance to Manhattan. And there’s always snow. Lots of snow.
 
There’s also a certain mystique and mystery about Hallmark Christmas movies that draws you in and makes you want to watch more. It isn’t the predictable outcome, boy meets girl and falls in love.

Nor is it the fact that everyone is obsessed with Christmas or that every square inch of their home or business has been professionally decorated by magical elves with an endless supply of ornaments.

It’s more subtle than that. After watching three movies back to back, I began to notice that in every scene, people are smiling. And for some strange reason it makes me want to watch more Hallmark Christmas movies. I guess that the old saying is true - smiling is contagious.
 
Sadly, this doesn’t happen enough in the real world. Not even at Disney, and that’s the happiest place on earth. The real world is full of cynicism, and real pain and deep suffering. These days it seems to lack that joy and goodness that makes us want to smile.

​But not in towns like Holiday Falls or Hope Junction. There everyone smiles. All the time. No matter how bleak or dire the situation becomes, they smile – faithfully believing that everything will turn out alright by Christmas.  And you know what...it does. They smile because they have hope.
 
The previous chapters in Jeremiah are dedicated to warning God’s people that a time will come when their world will come crashing down. In today’s reading, the prophet reminds them not to lose hope. Instead, keep smiling because God is always smiling upon you.
 
But here’s the thing, you don’t have to live in a world where a cup of cocoa can solve all our problems, to produce a smile. You just need a small glimmer of hope. Long before that first Christmas Day, the incarnation was already unfolding.
 
Jeremiah’s words remind us that God is always one step ahead of us, leading us to whence we came. We can have hope in God, knowing that what we’re dealing with today is preparing us for what is to come tomorrow.

This should be good news for all of us who survived 2020. Christmas is our reminder that life is pregnant with hope, always giving birth to God’s grace and glory. Knowing that God has included us in that story ought to bring a smile to everyone’s face.  
 
Now another characteristic of every Hallmark Christmas movie is the fact that someone or something needs to be rescued – like the annual Christmas pageant or a small family business. But that rescue is usually the precursor to the main characters being redeemed from his or her past.
 
For forty years Jeremiah warned the people that something bad was about to unfold. If they didn’t repent and return to God, then they too will fall like the many nations that had conquered them in the past. Eventually his prophecy would come true. And God’s people would be scattered and stuck in places they don’t want to be. As they were being humbled, all they had to hold onto was the hope of God’s promise that Jeremiah spoke about.
 
This is what makes this passage important for us as we start the new year. There are places we find ourselves that we don’t want to be in. Dark places of addiction, anger, jealousy, or resentment. Places that steal our joy and cause us to lose hope in God’s word.

Like these silly movies show us, we are all in need Christmas - God’s final word on salvation. In Christ, God came to save us from ourselves by showing us how to live rightly in God’s promise. It’s in this way of living, God transforms us to be who God created us to be - kind, loving, peacemakers seeking justice and equality for all people.
 
In Hallmark Christmas Land, this transformation is obvious. With a renewed heart, the redeemed character always decides the big city life just isn’t where they belong anymore. So they buy the failing bookstore or crumbling hotel and start over. They give themselves a second chance at life.

Hope and restoration. That is the hallmark of Christmas. 

This is exactly the Christmas gift God is offering you in Christ Jesus. This is the great Epiphany - that God came to be with us, to rescue us, by becoming one of us. On Christmas, God's grace became incarnate and transformed the world; restoring us and returning us to place where our hearts have always belonged – at home in God’s heart. 
 
This doesn’t mean we won’t have more days like we experienced in 2020. There will be suffering and sorrow, and hard times that will challenge us.

But out of pain comes healing, out of darkness comes light. God’s mercy and grace that is given to us in Christ Jesus is just what we need to help us through difficult situations. Like Jeremiah points out when the hard times end, we will be closer to God than we were before.
 
Which takes me to one last thing about Hallmark Christmas movies. This is the obvious one. Every movie ends with true love being found. Which makes total sense, because Christmas is the greatest love story ever told. Christ is proof of God’s unconditional, transformative love. A love that is real and everlasting, and always catches us off guard.
 
It’s the kind of love that cracks our heart wide open and allows God to be where God wants to be the most. In you - singing, dancing, celebrating and of course sipping endless amounts of hot cocoa.
 
As the new year begins, I hope that you will always remember that in Christ God has given us a chance to renew our faith and to place our hope in the great heart that leads us home just in time for Christmas.
  
​
Work Cited
Bartlett, David L. and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Feasting on the Word Year B Vol 1. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008.

After a long Advent season, and an even longer year, I’m glad to be here to share this quick message of hope and promise with you. 2020 has been a difficult journey, and heartbreaking for many. Yet, if you are watching this then you have made it just in time to celebrate the time-honored tradition of Christmas.
 
Because of COVID, most churches will gather in a new way to hear the old story of Jesus coming into the world; the light which breaks into the least likely of places. And with this light comes hope. This year we need to be reminded about the way the light comes in. We need to hear that darkness doesn’t have the final word. We need to see God’s grace made manifest for you and me to survive moments like this.
 
So let us gather in our homes and around the world, to see God in a new light, in flesh like ours, and to hear the good news that we celebrate not just on Christmas Day, but hopefully every day after as well.
 
Let us pray: O God, you have caused this holy night to shine with the brightness of the true Light: Grant that we, your children, may be refreshed and renewed by your Holy Spirit as we gather in bold new ways to have our hearts and hands open to receive the good news of your beloved son, who by his righteousness revealed to us your great mystery for all to see. Amen.
 
 
Our reading tonight is taken from the second chapter of Luke’s gospel.  It’s a familiar story read by a familiar face in our home.  READ: Luke 2:1-21
 
 
This year has been a year of doing old things in new ways. Like going to work in our pajamas. Or withdrawing money from the bank while wearing a mask. If ever there was a time to take a new look on an old story this is the year. Tonight, instead of putting our focus on the stable at center stage, I want to turn our attention to the shepherds in the background. Those beloved scamps no one ever wants to play in the Christmas pageant.
 
While everyone fights to be Mary, or an angel, or the coveted Inn Keeper, the role of shepherds is often filled last. It’s typically reserved for the kids who didn’t want to be in the pageant in the first place. They are nameless, non-descript. No single one is more important than the others. They just sit on the side of the stage waiting for the angels to come and bring them the good news.
 
It’s a brief  moment in the spotlight that typically comes right before the wisemen enter the scene pushing the shepherds into the background from which they came. I like to think of the shepherds as the quiet heroes of the Christmas story.
 
In a year has been particularly noisy, full of things yelling to get attention, our hearts yearn for humble ones like these shepherds – quietly minding their own business in a dark field. Far from the chaos of everyday life, the angels surround them. It’s here, to a small, inconspicuous group of outsiders that God chooses to announce the birth of Godself into the world.
 
This tells us something about God and the shepherds. That God comes to people like us to bring the light into a world that is often filled with darkness. The shepherds respond to God’s invitation by running to this baby the angels told them about. What does this say about how we should respond to God?
 
It might not always come with a choir of angels, but God is always inviting us to come and meet Christ – calling us deeper into relationship with our neighbors, or practice blessing our enemies without judgment. The shepherds run with excitement to the center of this production, even if it’s only for a moment. Eventually the Magi of the East will come bearing sacred gifts to honor the Christ child. But tonight, the shepherds bring only themselves.
 
They are not rich. And they carry with them hardly any possessions. In fact, the only present they bring was their humble presence. They come with an open heart to receive what God wanted to share with them. They come with a willingness to be transformed, with courage to overcome any fear they might have had. They bring with them a small spark of faith, and a flickering light of hope.
 
Tomorrow as we wake up and exchange presents with one another, I hope you will think about the gifts you can give after the tree and decorations are put away? The gifts of the shepherds.
 
As you pull the tinsel off the tree and put away the Frosty the Snowman videos, remember the surprise and joy of the lowly workers, and offer the good news to someone who is lost in March, or someone who is hungry in June, who is in need of peace in October.
 
Theologian and civil rights leader, Howard Thurman, said it best in his poem The Work of Christmas:
 
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks,
The work of Christmas begins:
 
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among others,
To make music in the heart.
 
Like Thurman pointed out, our gift to God is our response to the human condition. How we care for those who are hungry, comfort those who mourn, clothe the naked is how we sing our heartfelt hallelujahs. And showcase God’s glory.
 
Our gifts are not dependent on what we can afford, but on what we are willing to give – that inner light of Christ that shines brightly through our acts of mercy, grace and love. When life gives us a dark year like this one, God entrusts us with carrying in the light into the darkness. And there’s plenty of darkness out there – political unrest, systematic racism, and inequality and injustice. COVID has left countless widowed and  orphaned, shuttered a lot of our small businesses and forced layoffs that have left many people fearing they’ll be left homeless in the new year. There is a real hunger and need for the light of Christ to be seen; its warmth felt.
 
It doesn’t take a heavenly host of angels to deliver the good news of God’s love and mercy to the world. A smile or a kind word will suffice. A gentle touch or willing ear can go a long way. As one little baby showed us, as those humble shepherds would discover, the smallest of gifts can have the greatest impact in God’s kingdom.  Like a good friend once said, “Christmas night is different from other nights but that all other days and nights are different because of Christmas night.”
 
In Christ, God burst through the darkness and lit up the stage where there are no insignificant players left waiting in the wings. We are all important voices invited to participate and to proclaim God’s redemptive grace.
 
In Christ, God is calling you to the role of a lifetime; to be in the spotlight, center stage, singing with heavenly hosts: The first noel, the angels did say, was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay.
 
I encourage you to take God’s invitation out into the world. Go and be the gift of God’s light and love to all of God’s children...the faithful and faithless alike. Your presence is the only present God needs to redeem the world with peace.
 
May God bless you. May the Holy Spirit lead you. And May Christ shine through you, everywhere you go.
 
Merry Christmas. And good night.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Work Cited
Special thanks to the inspiration of Jazzy Bostock's "The Shepherds." (accessed on 12-22-2020).

This passage congers up many different ways to portray the holy mother of God. There is the historical Mary of the Bible – most of what we know is found in the first chapter of Luke. There’s also relevant Mary, who can inspire us to do what might seem impossible to do. And then there’s modern Mary, like the one featured in John Crist’s silly video entitled “Joseph and Mary 2020.” (watch the video on YouTube)
 
As you might imagine from the title, the sketch begins with a young millennial couple sitting in their rather upscale home. Both are stylishly dressed and tethered to their smart phones. A very pregnant Mary is making a Tik-Tok when Joseph interrupts to announce, “Caesar Augustus just tweeted that we have to go Bethlehem to fill out a census.”
 
Mary is quick to point out that Fauci has banned travel - otherwise they would have done Thanksgiving at her parents house. Joseph assures her it’s just a quick Uber ride away, and even suggests they could get a hotel for the night. As we know, all the hotels in Bethlehem are booked.
 
Leave it up to Mary to find a rustic barn on AirBNB. Having read that it’s “a full immersive experience with live barn animals,” Mary is all in.  She knows it will be better than any of those trendy gender reveal parties. She tells Joseph, “I’m going to post on Instagram from a barn, with live barn animals announcing our newborn child. Imagine all the likes.”

watch message here

This social influencing mother to be is not the typical Mary we have come know from preschool Christmas pageants. Though it provides some well-needed comedic social commentary, it’s a far cry from the historic Mary who sings her beautiful song of praise.
 
That Mary is barely a teenager living in 1st century Palestine. We don’t know who her parents are, or her father’s occupation, or how many brothers and sisters she had. Luke tells us she has a much older cousin, Elizabeth, who Mary goes to visit for three months – probably to get her out of the sight of the neighborhood gossips. 
 
Judging by her song, it’s safe to assume Mary’s family is not wealthy or powerful which might explain why we don’t know her backstory. People like her didn’t matter enough to have one. By all accounts, she was an ordinary nobody. Until she was selected by God to carry God’s self into the world. Now her name is forever on the heart of creation.
 
Her song is one of four sung from the mouths of women who play key roles in the lives of ancient Israelites. The first was Miriam, the sister of Moses. Then Deborah, Hannah, and now Mary. Because she knows their ancient stories, she knows God can be trusted. So, Mary is willing to say yes to God, even when she doesn’t understand how a virgin like herself cold bear God’s Son.
 
Because of her response, and her responsibility, Mary is depicted as a model Christian. More churches bare her name than any other biblical figure. She has a reputation of being in perfect sync with God, responding to God's call with absolute obedience, to carry the Christ child and offer him to the world.
 
Who was she that God would choose her? She was an ordinary nobody who was brave enough to say yes to God.
 ​

In his book The Universal Christ, Richard Rohr describes Mary as “the archetype for our yes to God!” Like Mary, God has called us all to be that “great divine yes that humanity forever needs for Christ to be born into the world.”

In the faithfulness of this unknown girl from Nazareth is “the model for the way the grace of God can and will, albeit in smaller ways, use each of us” writes Frank Logue.

The way I see it, Mary is us. An ordinary nobody like you and me, called to do the extraordinary.
 
I don’t know if Mary was reluctant or afraid. But I know she was willing to trust that God knew what God was doing. I also know her story is no different than our own. Her call, as extraordinary as it was, is our call. But will her yes, be ours as well?
 
Which takes us to the Mary I think we all can relate to today. A Mary who reminds us that God has invited us ordinary folk, to participate in God’s redemptive plan to transform the world. Don’t be surprised if there isn’t a choir of angels lightning up the night sky to mark the occasion. It seems like God prefers to show up in the ordinary things that ordinary people do.
 
There’s a story told from a mother’s perspective that I’d like to share with you. It begins, “It was Thursday, on Christmas, our family had spent the days before the holiday in San Francisco with my husband's parents. But in order for us to be back at work in Los Angeles we found ourselves driving the 400 miles to Southern California on Christmas Day.
 
It was normally an 6 hour drive, but with kids it can be a 12 hour endurance test. When we could stand it no longer we stopped for lunch in King City, a little metropolis made up of 6 gas stations and a diner. And it was into that one diner that the four of us strode ...road weary and saddle sore.
 
As I sat Eric, our one-year-old, in a highchair, I looked around the room. The restaurant was nearly empty. We were the only family, and ours were the only children. Everyone else was busy eating, talking quietly, aware perhaps that we were all somehow out of place on this special day.
 
My reverie was interrupted when I heard Eric squeal with glee, “Hi there;” two words he thought were one. He pounded his fat baby hands on the metal highchair tray. His face alive with excitement, eyes wide, gums bared a toothless baby grin. He wriggled and chirped, and then I saw the source of his merriment. And my eyes couldn't take it all in.
 
A tattered rag of a coat, dirty and greasy. And worn baggy pants. A spindly body. Toes that poked out of old, old shoes. And a face like none other. Gums as bare as Eric's. Hair uncombed and unwashed. Whiskers too short to be called a beard. I was too far away to smell him, but I knew he smelled. And his hands were waving in the air flapping about on loose wrists. “Hi baby. Hi big boy. I see you Buster.”
 
My husband and I exchanged a look that was a cross between ‘what should we do’ and ‘that poor devil’. Eric continued to laugh and answer “hi there.” Every call was echoed. I noticed the waitresses’ eyebrows shot up their foreheads and several people sitting near us ahem’d out loud. This old geezer was creating a nuisance with my beautiful baby. I shoved a cracker at Eric, and he pulverized it on the tray. I thought “why me” under my breath.
 
The meal came and the nuisance continued.  Now the old bum was shouting from across the room, “Do you know Patty cake? Attaboy! You know peekaboo! Look, he knows peekaboo!”
Nobody thought it was cute. The guy was probably drunk and a definite disturbance.
 
I was embarrassed, my husband was humiliated, and even our six year old said, “Why is that old man talking so loud?” We ate in silence, except Eric who was running through his repertoire for the admiring applause of this Skid Row bum.

​Finally, I had enough. I turned the highchair. Eric screamed and clambered around to face his old buddy. Now I was really mad. Dennis went to pay the check imploring me to “Get Eric and meet me in the parking lot.”
 
I troubled Eric out of the highchair and looked toward the exit. The old man sat poised waiting. His chair directly between me and the door. “Lord just let me out of here before he speaks to me or Eric.” And I headed to the door. It soon became apparent that both the Lord and Eric had other plans.
 
As I drew closer to the man, I turned my back walking to sidestep him. And  as I did so, Eric, all the while his eyes riveted on his new best friend, leaned far over my arm reaching with both arms in the babies ‘pick me up’ position. In a split second of balancing my baby and turning to counterweight, I came eye to eye with the old man.

Eric was lunging for him. Arms spread wide. The old bum's eyes asked, implored, “Would you let me hold your baby?” There was no need for me to answer since Eric propelled himself from my arms into the man's.
 
Suddenly a very old man and a very young baby were involved in a love relationship. Eric laid his tiny head upon the man's ragged shoulder. The man's eyes closed, and I saw tears beneath the lashes. His aged hands, full of grime and pain and hard labor, gently, so gently, cradled my baby's bottom and stroked his back.
 
The old man rocked and cradled Eric in his arms for a moment. And then his eyes opened, and they set squarely on mine, he said in a firm commanding voice, “Now you take proper care of this baby.” And some how I managed “I will” from a throat that contained a stone.
 
He pried Eric from his chest unwillingly, longingly, as though he was in pain. I held my arms open to receive my baby and again the gentleman addressed me. “God bless you ma'am. You've given me my Christmas gift.”
 
You see, it doesn’t take much to say yes to God; to bring to life the great joy of Christmas to one another through simple acts of kindness, forgiveness, love, mercy, and gentleness. This is how Christ is born in us; how God breaks through all the pain and suffering of the world, time and time again.  Transforming harden hearts to mushy, innocent, non-judgmental love.
 
I think we all possess a little bit of each one of these Mary’s. The one who is excited to show off on social media, the one who story is known but not really. And the one who, despite not wanting to, reluctantly gives in to God’s call to give birth to Christ in the ordinary and everyday.
 
As we wait in these final days of Advent, we do so by carrying the love and light of Christ within our bellies, always ready to give birth.
 
Right now God is acting in the world, in the broken, ordinary me and the broken and ordinary you to turn all that we think we know upside down. Ordinary people doing the extraordinary; joining Mary in praise, “Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me and holy is his name.”
 
 
Work Cited
Bartlett, David L and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Feasting on the Word, Year B Vol. 1. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008.
Logue, Frank S. Here I Am. episcopalchurch.org (accessed on December 18, 2020).
Rohr, Richard. The Universal Christ. New York: Convergent, 2019.
Unknown story was found on the Heart Wisdom with Jack Kornfield podcast, Episode 8 11/25/2014 (accessed on December 18, 2020)