Luke begins his Christmas story, not with shepherds or a virgin host, but with two elderly folks named Zechariah and Elizabeth. Luke tells us they are “righteous before God.” Meaning they’re good people; faithful souls trying to hold it together while the world around them rips apart at the seams.

For decades these two have been praying for a child. And for decades God has been silent. And not just in their home. It seems God has been silent everywhere. Even the prophets have gone quiet as Rome’s voice grows louder. The people pray for help. But God seems to be missing in action. I’m sure some of us here know what that feels like.

There’s a story of a widow who prayed every day for some kind of sign that would tell her God still saw her. Yet nothing ever happened—no angels, no booming voice, just silence day-after-day.

Then one morning she opened her mailbox and found a piece of junk mail with “You are loved” scribbled in Sharpie on the front. Whether it was from God or the mail man, those three little words completely renewed a faith she had all but abandoned.

Maybe you know that feeling of praying for something for so long that you stop expecting it to ever happen. Which makes this story of Zechariah and Elizabeth a perfect launch for Advent. Where in the quiet we remember hope takes root in our dark space, long before we notice its light.

This story is also a great way to kick off our theme for the year—Woven Together by God. It reminds us that even while it seems like nothing is happening, God’s working, stitching something together beneath the surface. 

Now, Zechariah’s been carrying a heavy ache, wondering if God is even listening anymore. He takes this longing with him to work, where his job as a priest in the temple has become as routine and predictable as opening a record store each morning.

He’s not expecting anything different on this day, when he’s chosen “by lot” to enter the sanctuary to offer incense to God. To a priest, this is like winning the lottery. It’s considered to be one of the holiest of tasks. But for Zechariah, he’s probably thinking what’s the point. God’s not listening.

Maybe you know this weight, of feeling ignored, or let down by God. You’ve all but given up. As it so often is with hope, it’s in these unexpected spaces God breaks through the silence and everything changes. You might not get an angel showing up and freaking you out, but the message is still the same: “Your prayer has been heard.”

This story reminds us that we always have hope because God has already heard every prayer Zechariah ever prayed. And God hears every one of ours as well. The uncomfortable silence isn’t God ghosting us. It’s God moving in the shadows, clearing space so hope has a place to take root.

After all, before we get Jesus, we get John…a messenger who prepares the way. Likewise, before we get the bright lights and joy of Christmas we get a season of quiet darkness. This is our time to wait faithfully even though we can’t see what’s happening.

Richard Rohr teaches us that: “Hope is not a passive waiting for the future. It’s the active trust that the holiness planted in the silence will blossom in its time.” Rohr echoes something I said last week—that where we tend to see nothing more than a bag of tangled, mismatched string,
God sees the pattern. And God is quietly knitting us into it.

The way I see it, hope is the thing that holds us, and binds us, and pulls us towards one another. Hope is shared. It’s communal. It’s what keeps us connected in this season of waiting where God keeps stitching saints, doubters, and misfits into a beautiful tapestry called Anamesa.

Hope is the light that invites us to trust that God is working even when we can’t spot a single sign. Wherever you feel stuck or abandoned, Advent leans in and whispers: “It’s not over. God’s still weaving.”

Hope becomes the light that keeps us showing up. It invites us - like Zachariah in the temple - to keep doing the next faithful thing, even when nothing feels different. To paraphrase Anne Lamott, hope is that quiet, stubborn belief that from darkness, dawn will come.

The way we show up doesn’t need to be fancy or dramatic. Sometimes it’s as small as checking in on a hurting friend. Or scribbling you are loved on your neighbor’s junk mail. Small acts become quiet lights that remind the world dawn is on the way.

And lastly, hope invites us into the redemption God is already unfolding. I’m not suggesting this is a call to fix the world. But we can use our small light of hope to reveal the glory of the One who is already mending it.

That light shines brightest when we are woven together in all the ways we love God, love others, and serve both. Through our love, our showing up, God’s light shines brightly in the darkness so others can find their way home. 

Madeleine L’Engle reminds us, “We draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe, but by showing them a light that is so lovely they want with all their hearts to know the source.”

Hope is the light we are called to bring into our homes, our communities, and into the world. And so we wait in the quiet silence, with our little light shining as best as we can manage. Because some truths need quiet before they can grow brighter.

And that’s the rhythm of Advent: Silence. Listening. Receiving. And then—when the time is right—shining brightly.

So here’s my invitation for you this week: Find one quiet moment each day. Enter it without an agenda or some eloquent prayer. Just take a few minutes where you can breathe and remember: God is listening. God is weaving. God is always preparing the way. And where God is, there is hope.

When you’re ready, ask yourself, “How can I carry hope to someone today?” A phone call? A kind word? A moment of forgiveness? Or choosing kindness when cynicism would be a much easier route.

Hope is the first candle of Advent. It’s not loud or flashy or always immediate. But it’s the small, steady, stubborn light that interrupts the dark and changes the way we see.

And as it flickers, it whispers what Teilhard de Chardin wrote long ago, “Trust in the slow work of God.”

Because hope is the quiet truth that we’re not just drifting through life—we’re being woven, thread by thread, into something beautiful.

As we begin this Advent journey, remember: Zechariah’s story isn’t just ancient history. It’s our story, too. A story of God listening in the silence, working behind the scenes, and calling us to participate in the small, unseen beginnings of redemption.

So may this first candle of Advent, that is alive and stirring weave us together. May we keep showing up like Zechariah—trusting the One who hears every sigh and every prayer.

And may we prepare the way for Jesus by letting love slip into our ordinary lives and take on flesh again, one quiet act at a time.

​You know what I’m talking about. That feeling you get when you see a post of a classmate who doesn’t seem to age. Or a co-worker who travels more in a weekend than you’ve managed in a decade.
 
It’s amazing how quickly our hearts and minds can go from admiration to envy. And always leaving us feeling a little “less than” because of what someone else has. Before you know it, you’ve broken the tenth commandment.​

​Like some of the earlier commandments we’ve looked at, when I read this one I think I’m in good shape. I’m content with my wife and house. And I don’t know anyone who has a donkey or slave that I’d want to own. But that doesn’t let any of us off the hook.
 
After nine commands about what to do or not do, this one sneaks inward like a thief at night and rummages around those secret hiding places in our hearts. And that should make us all a little uncomfortable.
 
With each commandment we’ve learn a new Hebrew word. Today’s is ḥāmad. Which means to desire intensely, to take delight in. It’s the same word used when Eve saw that the forbidden fruit “was pleasing to the eye.”
 
This isn’t suggesting that ḥāmad is bad thing. Our desire for beauty, connection, purpose and love are a part of our divine DNA. God given if for no other reason than to get us out of bed in the morning.

The problem isn’t delight. It’s discontent. When that divine longing chases after what will never truly satisfy.
 
Now, in ancient Israel, where folks shared land and resources, coveting what belonged to someone else disrupted the harmony of the community. It could unravel trust and breed envy, jealously, and eventually violence.

I would argue this still rings true today. Only now you don’t have to peek over the fence anymore—just scroll on your phone in bed. Your neighbor’s house has been replaced by their vacation reel. Their donkey, a kitchen remodel. Their spouse, a filtered post captioned #grateful.

This last commandment reveals how easy coveting shows up in so many different ways. Often without us giving it a second thought.
 
It hits us emotionally. When we wish we had someone’s else’s life, instead of cultivating the one God planted in us. It shows up physically when we chase after someone else’s image; forgetting that to God each person is a sacred temple, not a side project.
 
There have been times when I’ve hāmad another’s spirituality—the clarity of their faith, their confidence in their belief, their closeness to God. Coveting makes it easy for us to forget that holiness isn’t mass-produced. Each soul is a unique part of God’s deep desire for this world.
 
There’s a Buddhist teaching that says, “The mind that seeks more is the mind that suffers.” That suffering begins the moment desire stops being delight. And turns into discontent. When we start believing peace lies somewhere outside of us instead of within.
 
Jesus tells his followers, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:21).

Our treasure isn’t what we hold in our hands, but what we possess in our heart - the richness of God’s steadfast love and grace. This tells me that coveting doesn’t end when you finally get what you want. It ends when you love what you have.
 
In Luke’s gospel, Jesus warns, “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions” (Luke 12:14).

He then tells a parable of a man who has an overly abundant harvest. The kind that would set him up financially for years. So, instead of sharing his surplus with his community, he builds a bigger barn to hoard it all for himself. As fate would have it, the man dies the day it’s finished.
 
In this story, Jesus reveals the truth hidden in this commandment: God gives us all that we need. Because God’s economy runs on abundance, not accumulation. Life isn’t measured by what you store, but by what you share.

When our heart’s focused on comparison, we only see what we lack. Which causes us to cling tightly to whatever we have. But when our heart is shaped by God’s abundant love, we are able to see that what we have is all that we need.
 
The mystic Meister Eckhart said, “God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction.” Coveting is addition — more stuff, more approval, more control. Love is subtraction — less fear, less judgment, less ego.
​
When we covet, we create distance. We turn neighbors into competitors, community into a zero-sum game. But when we love, we close the gap between us. We rejoice in another’s good. We see blessing not as a pie to be divided, but as a gift to be shared.
 
There’s a Hasidic proverb that asks: “Who is rich?” The answer is “The one who rejoices in what he has.”

So how do we faithfully rejoice with contentment in a world that constantly tells us “You deserve more”?
 
A good place to start is practicing “enoughness.”  What Richard Rohr might say, is waking up to the truth that we already live in God’s abundance. We don’t earn love or accumulate our worth—it’s already in us. A gift, freely given. And when we know that, we stop grasping and start giving.
 
The art of enoughness is seeing the world through the eyes of love, not lack. It’s hearing the quiet voice of God whisper, “You are my beloved. You have all you need.”

​Enoughness gives birth to gratitude. And gratitude moves us from living in a place of lack to a place of love.
 
When love takes root, we stop comparing and start connecting; sharing what we have … knowing we’ll receive even more out of the abundance that God has woven into creation.

When we live like this, we become the living proof that God’s kingdom isn’t some far-off dream. It’s right here, in the intense desire of our heart where love begets more love.
 
Eckhart warned, coveting “closes the eye of the heart, so that one no longer sees God shining through all things.”

​Like I said, coveting causes envy. And envy blinds us from seeing the divine image in the other. Envy turns them into an object, a rival, a threat. But when we see people the way God sees them, we no longer see enemies but friends; not competitors but companions.
 
This is how we build a community of love— … the very thing these commandments are protecting. A community that can fearlessly and faithfully love and serve God and each other. 

More than just a call to stop comparing, the tenth commandment is a way to start caring.
 
Which makes it the perfect one to end on because it ties all the other commandments together. If you don’t covet, you won’t steal. If you don’t covet, you won’t commit adultery, you won’t bear false witness, or dishonor your parents. Embracing our enoughness is how we testify to God’s glory. And make every day holy.
 
Each of the Big Ten is an invitation — to come home to honor God by honoring your life, just as it is. But this final one invites you to open the eyes of your heart, trusting God is enough. And so are you. 

So today, as you look around your kitchen, your neighborhood, your messy little corner of the world, be grateful for all that you have. Like Moses said, “If you live like this, your life will be blessed.”
 
So let’s go out into the world, living and sharing our blessings, both big and small. Let’s go into this week content, with grateful hearts building a community of love together in the space between all that we have and all that we need.

For this is where God meets us. When God is with us, we have all that we need to bless one another.

acred Let me begin by saying, I’m the best person to preach on this one. Just ask my ex-wife. Or the others who came before her. Fidelity wasn’t my thing.
 
Then my first marriage ended. And I made the conscious decision to no longer be “that guy.” I think I struggled writing this message because of that. So, I buried myself in research hoping Holly would surprise me. And once again, she didn’t let me down or let me off the hook.
 
For example, I learned the Hebrew word na’af doesn’t just mean “sex outside of marriage.” In fact, it literally means betray a covenant. That could mean a marriage vow, or a communal promise, or the divine covenant between us and God.
 
In the ancient world, adultery was more than a private moral failure. It was breaking the trust that held families and communities together.

​When Israel chased other gods, the prophet Isaiah didn’t call it “exploring options.”  He called it na’af —adultery. A spiritual infidelity.
 
The rabbis took this to mean that anytime you betray a person, you’re betraying the God whose image they bear. Again, it’s not just about keeping wedding vows.  It’s about being faithful to God, to each other, to love itself.
 
So maybe the question Patricia should ask Tom isn’t “Who’s Joanna.” But “Are you faithful?” Are you faithful to your word, your neighbor, your God, your truest self?”
 
But then Jesus goes on to say, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’  But I say to you, that everyone who looks with lust has already committed adultery in the heart.”
 
Jesus is showing us how our idea of love gets distorted the moment we turn a person into an object for our use or fantasy. He knows we can’t build God’s kingdom while objectifying its citizens.

Jesus invites us to see others the way God sees us—whole, radiant, made in the divine image.
 
But when we stop seeing people as sacred and holy when we only see them for what they can offer (like status, comfort, validation, a vote) we break this commandment by betraying the divine image that binds us together. And we commit a quiet kind of adultery against the fidelity of love itself.
 
As I mentioned last week, one year I gave up murder for Lent. Well, the following year I took a stab at fasting from this one. I thought it should be a no brainer. I was madly in love with Kathleen and determined not to repeat the patterns that had wrecked relationships before her.
 
But then, I turned up the heat and approached this commandment the way Jesus did —beyond the obvious. I fasted from objectification and feasted on seeing every person, especially women, as beloved children of God.
 
There’s a Hasidic saying, “In every human encounter, there is a spark of the Divine waiting to be discovered.” So, I put imaginary halos over people’s heads to keep me grounded. It sounds simple but requires getting it over some people’s horns.
 
Another part of my spiritual practice was looking people in the eye when they spoke. This simple task also proved to be challenging. It required me to be intentionally present, to listen not for what I could get, but for what I could give. But as the days worn on, I slowly began to notice a change. I began truly see others for who they were, understanding their worth and value, as well as my own.
 
These were just a few of the exercises that helped me realized this commandment isn’t just about moral policing—it’s about presence, showing up with intention reflecting God’s love, grace, and forgiveness in real time, with real people, in real situations.
 
True fidelity is love incarnate embodied and made real in how we live out our faith together. This is the kind of fidelity Jesus shows. It’s the kind that builds a community of love in the space between where small, steady acts of faithfulness can heal the world and expand the kingdom of God.
 
Funny how the Church keeps losing its balance right where love was meant to keep us standing. Maybe it’s because it’s easier to preach fidelity than to practice it. Easier to talk about love than to let it cost us something.
 
If we’re honest, we’ve weaponized this commandment—turning fidelity into fear, and purity into punishment. We shame those who are divorced. We shun our LGBTQ+ siblings. We marginalize anyone whose story doesn’t fit our tiny understanding.

But the commandments were never meant to shame us; they were given to protect the sacred space where love can take root and grow.
 
So how do we live them faithfully? How do we stop the quiet adultery of the heart and imagination? Let me offer three simple practices I learned in my Lenten journey.
 
First, feast on presence.
 
When you’re with someone, be with them—not half-scrolling, half-listening, rehearsing  what you’ll say next. Just be there, heart and all, like Jesus does. He notices the woman at the well, the tax collector in the tree, the bleeding woman in the crowd. Jesus sees their halos and stops to offer each one the transformative, divine power of a compassionate heart.
 
Second, feast on commitment.
 
Don’t just show up, reach out. Renew a relationship you’ve neglected, a task you’ve grown tired of, a prayer you’ve stopped praying. Faithfulness in the small things builds faithfulness in the big ones.
 
Third, feast on God’s fidelity.
 
Re-center your heart on the One who has never broken the covenant, who has always been faithful to us no matter how unfaithful we’ve been. A God who stays—who loves, who forgives, … and who keeps showing up with grace upon grace. Jesus calls us to do the same for each other. To be the incarnate presence of God’s fidelity in the world.
 
Victor Hugo wrote, “To love another person is to see the face of God.”  When we live that way, love stops being something we feel and becomes something we do.
 
This is the way of Jesus who stays when others scatter. Who forgives when others condemn. Who loves so deeply it carries him through death and beyond. Every time we live like that—with open hands and a Christlike heart, we show the world what God’s love looks like.
 
So, this week, let’s give up adultery, the quick judgments that reduce someone to a category. Let’s give up the restless eye that keeps chasing what’s next instead of tending what’s here. And let’s give up the spiritual flirting with comfort or control that keeps us from trusting God’s love.
 
In its place, let’s choose fidelity to the promise God offers us through Christ. Let us stay faithful to love itself—the love that saves, redeems, and holds us together.
 
May we never lose sight of the halo over our own heads, as we learn to see the sacred image of God in every face before us. And as we do, may our faithfulness bear witness to the one truth written into every commandment, every word, every act: God is love. And thanks be to God…so are we.