Two summers ago we put up a new fence around our property. When I read this story I thought of the six huge ficus trees we had to cut down to make room for the fence. The guy who did the work didn’t use a stump grinder to finish the job. Instead he cut giant X’s into the stump with his chainsaw. Then, for safe measure, poured gas into the grooves which apparently kills the tree from the top down. With the trees gone, I removed the sprinklers from the area. And a couple of days later we had a brand-new fence in its place.
 
But that’s not the end of the story. A year later, these little green sprigs began growing out of those stumps. For a while, I would snip them off. But the more I snipped the stronger and faster they grew. Today, we now have a lovely green hedge in that old space. 
 
Not only did the trees survive being cut down, dosed in gasoline and denied water…but they were also transformed into something new in the process, they went from trees to shrubbery. A perfect illustration of how God’s love works. Out of death comes new life.  
 
We see this when Isaiah pronounced the coming prince of peace. Judah had been defeated and those who were hauled off in captivity believed God had abandoned them. Their life seemed hopeless. And those who remained behind were nothing more than old stumps of what they once were. But Isaiah said, God is up to something. 
 
A green shoot from the House of David will emerge and reign with the Spirit of God’s love and righteousness. A new king will come out of Bethlehem and lead his people with “wisdom and understanding” “counsel and might” and with “knowledge and fear of God.” 
 
And just for good measure, this ruler will be the bearer of God’s Spirit, who will transform a culture of fear into a world of peace.  He will judge with justice according to God’s will and righteousness: freed from bias or favoritism. 
 
Out of something that appears finished, lifeless, or left for dead, comes the sign of new life. This is how God’s love surprises the world. Hope emerging as a tiny tendril in an unexpected place. A teenage mom, a dirty stable, a tiny baby born with the weight of the world on his shoulders and a giant target on his back.   
 
I had a professor in seminary who always warned us not to read Jesus into this text no matter how tempting it is to do so. St. Paul has no problem using the stump of Jesse metaphor to argue differently in his letter to the Romans (Rom. 15:12). Either way, Isaiah shows us how to wait for Christ. 
 
For those of us who are fed up with the moral, religious, and political crisis our nation and world are facing today, Isaiah reminds us that God is up to something.
 
For those of us who are in dark places, and cannot muster the strength to live another day, Isaiah says hold on, God is up to something. 
 
For those of us who are barely getting by, or living in poverty or suffering injustice, Isaiah offers hope that arises out of God’s great love for us. 
 
No one exemplified God’s love better than Jesus, the Christ. When we look to him we see God. Through him we know who God is and who we are to God.
 
And so Isaiah invites you to ask where are the stumps in your life?  Where do you feel chopped down, hopeless, or alone? Can you imagine or believe that even now, in your own dark space, God is nurturing the growth of something new and good?  

The world can dowse us with gas, and even deny our thirst, but it cannot stop God from doing what God wants to do – creating life out of death. 
 
When I thought my ministry was done, God was up to something – transforming my faith and leading me to a new kind of church that uses technology to reach people who, for whatever reason, aren’t hearing the Good News. Today, New Church Sherman Oaks, along with our sister church The Phoenix Congregational Fellowship, are literally reaching the furthest corners of the world to share Jesus’ story of love and redemption. As long as we have the internet, we have mission and ministry...because God is always up to something.
 
No matter what you might be going through, I pray these words of Isaiah speak to your heart and give you hope in your head. Because God is not only faithful, but God is hard at work.  Through Christ, God is taking your pain, your fears and worries, and making something new. A new life, and new light, and new everlasting love. 
 
The peace of God that is inaugurated with the incarnation is one where all things will be transformed. Humans, animals, and the land itself will be filled with the knowledge of God. And be reconciled and restored into God’s glory, where the kingship of Christ will reign with justice and fairness. 
 
But here’s the kicker. All we can do is wait it out. Yet in this time of wait, I invite you to look within yourself. And ask how can you use this Advent time to spiritually mature? How can you bear the fruits of God’s love, through acts of mercy, forgiveness, and justice? 
 
How can you see and do what Jesus does, so others can see and do the same.  Our hope, and our love, are the first fruits that God uses to bring divine peace into a world that desperately needs it. In Jesus, God came to be with us, to show us how to be the shining lights in the darkness, to show how God is at work in the most ordinary and unusual of ways. 
 
As you leave here today, how you might live out this light of hope and this light of love in such a way so the wolf and lamb can live in harmony? Here’s a hint: follow the little child who leads the way back to God’s glory?
 
 
Work Cited
Bartlett, David. L., and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 1 (Westminster John Knox Press: 2010) pp. 26-31.

Nothing like starting off the Christmas season with a story about the end of the world, and the end of humankind. But if we look at it honestly, we might see Jesus’ words are no different than a Hallmark Christmas movie, where something good always happens no matter how bad the situation might seem.  
Recently we’ve talked about how prophetic and apocalyptic text are warnings for us. They are the flashing red lights and sirens that get our attention, designed to keep us on our toes. Matthew uses this technique to awaken us from our slumber.
 
He tells us that one day Jesus might appear like a thief in the night. We don’t know when that day or hour will come. We can’t mark it on our calendar or prepare for it beforehand. We just have to stay awake. For those who like to nap, this is a bit disconcerting. 
 
So why does Jesus bring it up? Does he want us to be feel unsettled and anxious? Personally, I think that the fact Jesus isn’t telling us when that day will come, is actually very telling. Just as we overlook advent to get to Christmas, it’s easy to jump ahead and make faith only about the end goal- getting into heaven. We become so enamored with talking about spending eternity in the Kingdom of God that they forget Jesus said the kingdom of God has come. 
 
Advent is not a time to simply wait for Christ to be born, or the resurrection to happen. Instead it’s a time to “Stay awake.” To be present and live intentionally, to see and do what Jesus does as if Jesus meant what he said. It’s a time, not just to ponder the first and second coming of Christ, but to be fully engaged with the Christ within us all until that day comes. 
 
I love to tell the story of a Buddhist monk who is being chased by a very hungry tiger. Running as fast as he can the monk realizes he’s running straight towards a cliff. As the tiger gets closer and closer, the monk searches for an escape. He sees a long vine dangling from a tree over the cliff. The monk jumps and grabs hold of the vine and begins to shimmy down just before the tiger can pounce.
 
But as fate would have it, the vine wasn’t as long as the monk had hoped. And when he looked down there were sharp, jagged rocks about 1,500 feet below. Letting go of the rope would be certain death. As would climbing back up.  
 
So the monk looked for another escape plan. And that’s when he saw a small ledge on the side of the cliff. On that small ledge was a patch of soft, dewy grass. Growing from a crag in the rocks was a small strawberry bush. And on that bush rested a fresh red, ripe strawberry.
 
The monk reached out and plucked the strawberry off its branch, and brought it up to his nose and inhaled its goodness. It was the best thing he had ever smelled. He savored that moment before he took a bite and enjoyed its sweetness. 
 
There was something about that strawberry that made heart sang with joy. In that moment he was fully alive. Had he only focused on what was to come, the sharp jagged rocks below, or on his past where the tiger waited, he never would have seen the gift God had placed in his path to savor.

​Jesus says, “stay alert.”
 
“When we are too focused on heaven as the only place of beauty and goodness,” writes Jazzy Bostock, “we run the risk of not only ignoring the beauty and goodness of the world but also our responsibility to it.”
 
A life of faith need not be focused on the world to come but on how to remain faithful in this one – the one God gave as our mandate to love and care for. It’s here in this world, in this place and in this time that we find that red ripe strawberry to savor. 
 
If you’ve been following me on Facebook or on my blog, you know that I spent each day of November getting to know someone new. Afterward I quickly wrote about the experience. What you may not know is I didn’t take notes, or record the conversations. Instead I listened to what they had to say. In doing so, I learned something new about myself: I could remembered their story, their quotes, and the small facts about who they were and where they were from, simply because we shared a moment. Their story became a part of my own story. 
 
Moreover, I discovered this simple act allowed a young man named Matt to cry with a total stranger. It helped Dan to confess something before going home to make amends to his wife. It gave Bill, an elderly vet who I continue to run into, a friend to talk to in the park. And it helped Gerry and Victoria to take sting out of a bad situation.
 
We may not know the day or hour, but we do know that at any given second Jesus will appear around the corner, suddenly like a hungry person, or a neighbor in need of help, or a friend who is sick, or someone we love who is in a broken or toxic relationship.  People around us are suffering in many different ways. They are worrying about climate change, gun violence, and fearing what is to come out of this political mess we’re in. 
 
Jesus doesn’t tell us when the day is coming, because today there is work to be done.  When we focus only on the world to come, we lose sight of the task God has called us to do right now. 
 
“Jesus is offering us an invitation into the world we are already in – an invitation to this world, to this time and place” (Bostock). As messy as this place might seem, it’s precisely in this space we find our hope, our strength, our beauty, our truth, our grace, our salvation.  

Here’s the best part about it all. We don’t need to be perfect, just present. We don’t need to hide from our messiness to participate in this season. John Pavlovitz calls us to,“bring every bit of your flawed self and all your chaotic circumstances to this day. This is where we notice beauty, move with compassion, and have grace revealed.”

Jesus calls us to ready ourselves to leave this world by truly living in it, by soaking up every grace-filled moment and savoring its sweetness. To actively wait for both the birth and rebirth of Christ that is happening all around us, right now. 
 
If you’re only sitting around waiting for God’s kingdom to come, then you’re missing what God’s Kingdom is all about - a kingdom where Heaven and Earth are one. In the race to get to Christmas morning, the season of Advent can come and go without notice. So I invite you to take the time to be in a spirit of wakefulness and watchfulness. And to make yourself God’s Christmas gift for those around you. 
 
Jesus is coming at an unexpected hour – it might be in this moment or it might be on Christmas Eve, we don’t know. But what we do know is what we can do while we wait. And that’s to make heaven happen for someone today. It might be in the most outstanding act of charity or the simplest act of compassion.  It may be in our our daily busyness or in our quiet moments. 
 
As we kick off advent, we do so with gratitude that Jesus makes us sit and ponder what is to come. In doing so, Jesus is giving us the time we need to simply be in the moment where life is happening in real time. He is giving us this day to see Christ in our midst, in the stories of strangers and friends alike…and he’s giving us the time to love them as if we were loving Jesus himself. 
 
Not knowing when the day or hour will come is a gift for us. It’s the time we need to look around and see those red ripe strawberries that are growing wildly all around us, to pick them and to savor every bite of goodness, as we wait the goodness and the greatness that is to come. 


Work Cited
Bostock, Jazzy. No One Knows. episcopalchurch.org. (Accessed Nov. 27, 2019).
Pavlovitz, John. Low: An Honest Advent Devotional. (Chalice Press: 2019) Kindle edition.

He used to say that he was born where people go to die. “Which in hindsight seems a bit strange considering all the times I thought I was actually going to die. And none of those times were in Florida.”

This KNOWvember has been a good one on many levels. The people I have met and the stories (and confessions) I have heard would most certainly make numerous great scenes in a really surreal movie. If only I had recorded them. But here’s the thing, I never took notes while I was talking to the person, instead I listened. In doing so, I discovered something about myself. I’m actually interested in what people have to say.

Today is the last day of this social experiment, blood-pressure rising challenge that last year I swore I’d never do again. This is day 30. And it’s raining. And we have to drive home. And traffic was worse than we anticipated. And then it snowed! Yes, it snowed. And then we finally got home, and I got a call from someone in dire need of pastoral care. And then...well.

The shear silence of this beautiful machine was enough to want me to meet whoever this person was behind the helmet. And when I saw it to be a short, much older woman I couldn’t help myself but to stop what I was doing to ask her some questions. She agreed to answer three.

Question #1: Do people often freak out because they can’t hear you coming? I felt like I wasted a valuable question because already assumed the answer. “All the time. But I’m pretty aggressive with the horn.” I knew that because that’s what you have to do in the city. It doesn’t matter what you drive, you have to always be ready to honk in San Francisco, where Beth has lived for over 40 years.

It was cold on the corner down the street from where my wife grew up. That’s typical of the neighborhood, as well as San Francisco itself. This is where Mark Twain famously said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco.” Beth wasn’t bundled up so much, but she didn’t want to stick around for my weird social experiment. But she obliged me for two more questions.

Question #2 What got you to this particular electric motorcycle? “I always had a scooter so when I saw this bike I knew I had to have it.” And I could understand why. The Zero-s is a beautifully sculpted piece of machinery. “It’s what street riding is meant to be,” boast the website. “It’s pure stealth.” But here’s the thing, while I didn’t hear Beth pull up...all eyes were on her bike. So I’m not so sure stealth is the right description.

Beth told me, “I want to help the environment, but really I just hate traffic.” It was the latter which led her to abandoned her car nearly 20 years ago. She’s all about “splitting lanes.” For those who don’t know or don’t have this law in their state, it’s legal in California to drive between the lanes of traffic. “It’s dangerous, but it shaves off a heck of a lot of time in your commute.”

It’s not your typical motorcycle. But then again, Beth was not your typical “biker chick” either. Bright, clear blue eyes that popped against her pure white hair. And a smile that was equally as bright as it was white. From her small frame came a powerful voice that made up for both her and the machine which I learned from the site, “strips away the noise, fumes, and vibration.” The wind began to pick up and both our noises were already going from pink to red.

Question #3 Where would you take this if you could go anywhere? “I hate the highway. I’m 63, and I can’t go the distance anymore. Anyway, have a Happy Thanksgiving and good luck with your experiment.” I suspect she could have gone the distance with this interview. But it was cold, and the night before Thanksgiving. The line in the supermarket was 20 people deep. ​

Beth is my 27th person I have intentionally met this month. While most of these meetings have been long, wonderful conversations, they don’t always have to be. Not every person you meet will be a surprise hit, like “Beth” was for Kiss. But each one has the potential to make someone’s day. As cold as it was outside, Beth warmed my heart and got me thinking maybe I’m not to old to ride a motorcycle. My wife, mom, and kids might have a different opinion however.