Home for Christmas

This is the sermon I preach tonight. It's based on the scripture passage Luke 2:1-20. Click here to read the scripture passage first.

Home for Christmas

Home for the Holidays or Home for Christmas are two of those phrases that you hear a lot during this time of year. It’s in the songs played on the radio and played in the stores while we shop. It’s talked about in commercials. Television shows and movies bombard us with images of everyone being gathered around a warm glowing fireplace, laughing and telling stories, maybe even singing the occasional Christmas carol.

Holiday cards paint a warm colorful picture for us of that magical nativity scene. Curious shepherds and sheep are gathered around awestruck Mary and Joseph as everyone tries to catch a glimpse of where that warm radiant light is coming from, everyone is trying to catch a glimpse of baby Jesus lying peacefully in the manger. A stable has never looked so cozy or so much like home as it does on the front of a greeting card. Home for Christmas was even on the Christmas Eve invitations we sent out. It seems like everywhere we turn people are talking about being home for the holidays.

All this talk about being home for the Holidays raises the question, where exactly is home? Where is home? For some people the answer to that question is really simple. But I can tell you that as a child of two Army officers, that question was a difficult one for me to answer. Is that the place I currently live? Is the place where I was born? Is it where my family lives even if I’ve never lived there? For awhile I would list all the places we had lived … but then the list started to get too long. So instead, when I was asked where I was from, I took to saying, “I’m from the US Army.” We even had little plaques in our house that said, “Home is where the Army sends us.” Or “Home is where the heart is.”

This time of year there is so much talk about being home for Christmas, but where exactly is home? If home is simply where you live, or where you’re from, then none of the people in the original Christmas story were home on the first Christmas. All of the people we read about in Luke’s account of the Christmas story are away from home that night. While most of us this season travel towards the comfort and familiarity of home for the holidays, the people in the Christmas story were traveling away from the known towards the new and uncomfortable.

Mary and Joseph were literally half way across the country from their home. Luke tells us that Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken. That meant that everyone had to go to their ancestral town of origin to be counted. So even though Mary was very far along in her pregnancy, Mary and Joseph both had to leave their home to go to Bethlehem. Only God knows how difficult and tiring that journey must have been for her. It must have been difficult for Joseph too, worrying about how he would care for Mary on such a journey, or wondering where they would sleep with all the inns filled. That first Christmas, Mary and Joseph were far from the comforts of their own house.

The shepherds were in the fields, their familiar realm, tending their sheep like any other night. When an angel appears proclaiming the good news of the birth of a savior, the shepherds are propelled from their comfortable and familiar territory into the unknown as they search for the messiah. Luke tells us that the shepherds hurry off towards Bethlehem and they find Mary and Joseph and the baby just the way the angel had described. That night the news of the birth of Christ sent the shepherds on a journey away from the familiar realm of the field to seek out strangers they did not know.

Even, Jesus, the little child that all this fuss is about, even Jesus left his place with the father and has gone to the little town of Bethlehem to be with us. Jesus is Emmanuel, the name itself means God with us. What an incredible thing. The creator of heaven and earth, the one who formed each of us in the womb, is himself formed in the womb of Mary. The one who breathed life into each one of us, the one who is himself the breath of life now depends on normal human breaths for his own life. The one who formed the mountains and carved out the valleys, the one through whom all things were created humbles himself and takes on the form of his creation. What an incredible thing, that God would give up such power and prestige and would become one of us, to be God WITH US! Jesus leaves his home with God, to live with us in this world.

None of the people in the Christmas story were at home that night. Each of them in their own way were far from home, far from the places that were comfortable and familiar, far from the places where they belong. They’re not with the people they would have chosen to be with. Instead they’re with a group of strangers, people they don’t even know and that they have little in common with. Not exactly the picture portrayed on most greeting cards.

And yet maybe that greeting card picture of being home in a stable really isn’t that far off. All the people in the Christmas story end up gathered around the baby Jesus. The really ironic part of the story is that they have journey away from the known and the comfortable and ended up in the place where they belong. It doesn’t seem that unusual to us because it’s such a familiar image but the group gathered around the manager that night was a really eclectic group. Who would have thought this group of strangers, from such very different backgrounds would all find their belonging in the same place. And yet they do.

In this tiny stable, in a strange and far off land, is the child who is home to us all. It is in this child, in Jesus, that each of us finds our belonging. It is in relationship with God that we come to know who we are and whose we are. It is in relationship with Jesus that we come to understand what it means to be loved and accepted.

Whether we’re the rough and tumble, blue collar working shepherd who’s looked down upon by society or the proper and distinguished wise man who’s respected by kings and commoners alike, we belong with God. Whether we’re the young and pensive Mary, quick to agree with God’s plan or the righteous and reserved Joseph wondering what the right thing to do is, we are home when we’re with Jesus. Whether we’re awestruck Christians or curious people wondering what this good new the angels proclaim is all about, we all find our belonging in God.

That’s part of the miracle of the Christmas story. Jesus gives up everything to be human, to be God WITH US. It is in this small child, far from home, that we all find our true home. As we gather together around Jesus, with people from all different walks of life, we find that this rag-tag group of people has been transformed into a community, into the community with Christ at its center. That’s really what the church is intended to be, it’s intended to be the community that gathers around Jesus Christ, the community that realizes it’s left behind all that’s familiar and comfortable and yet has found its belonging in Jesus.

If you are wondering who you are or where you belong, come home for Christmas. If you’re far from where you grew up or far from family and loved ones, come home and be a part of this community, a community that gathers around Christ. God goes to incredible lengths, even becoming human, in order to invite us home tonight. Come home for Christmas. Come home.

Amen.

What do you expect?

Below is the outline for my sermon this morning.

Read Isaiah 40:1-11

What Do You Expect?

I. One of the things that has always amazed me about the Jewish community is their sense of expectancy. The Jewish community as a whole has a much high sense of expectancy, of expecting to see God at work in the world and in their lives than most Christians do.

II. Jewish expectations of what the Messiah would look like and how the messiah would act

a. King, who would re-establish the nation of Israel

b. Military ruler who would conquer their oppressors

c. Would uphold the law perfectly – all 613 commands

III. They kept this sense of expectancy that the Messiah would come by integrating it into their lives.

a. Sabbath worship – opening the doors, turn towards them and pray for the coming of Elijah who is believed to proceed the messiah.

i. As part of the concluding hymn, an appeal is made to God that Elijah will come during the following week. “Elijah the Prophet, Elijah the Tishbite. Let him come quickly, in our day with the messiah, the son of David.”[35]

b. Passover remembers the saving activity of God in the past and points to God’s continuing presence and God’s future deliverance.

i. This was especially poignant when they were in exile or being oppressed.

ii. The Elijah cup – At each Passover meal, a cup of wine was placed in the center of the table. This cup was reserved for Elijah and no one else drank it. It was an act of hospitality towards Elijah, but it also served as a visual reminder that Elijah would come any day.

1. Many Christian theologians believe it was the Elijah cup that Christ picked up from the table at the last supper and blessed as a part of the celebration we now call Communion.

IV. Judaism cultivated a sense of expectancy in their life together. Yet, we often point our fingers at the Jewish community for missing the birth of Christ. We say how silly it is that they had the wrong expectations of the messiah. Since Jesus didn’t fit their preconceived notions of what the Messiah would be like many don’t recognize him as the messiah. We tell ourselves it’s such a shame that they had the wrong expectations.

V. But at least the Jews actually expected something. At least they actually expect God to be powerfully at work in their midst. Like our prayer of confession said, a lot of us don’t really expect Christ to return in our life-time, let alone before the next Sabbath like the Jewish prayer talked about.

VI. It is in this context with a lack of a sense of expectancy that these familiar words of Isaiah come to us. Isaiah calls out a reminder for us that God is here and is on the move.

a. Isaiah says, “Here is your God! See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power, and his arm rules for him….He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart”

VII. So how do we cultivate a sense of expectancy of God’s activity in our midst?

a. When we expect a guest in our house there are certain things we do to prepare.

i. Clean

ii. Make up the guest room

iii. Plan what to cook.

b. If we expect God to be present in our lives then there are things we should do to prepare for God.

i. Prayer/devotional life

ii. Recounting the ways that God has been active in our midst

1. We do this corporately as we celebrate special events in the church calendar

a. Christmas

b. Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday

2. We should also do this individually and as families, we should be intentional about remembering how God has been active in our lives.

3. Part of recounting the ways God has been active in our lives is sharing those stories with other people. As we hear those stories from others, we begin to expect it in our own lives.

iii. Looking for ways to partner with God’s work in the world.

1. It may be something relatively small like talking to the person sitting next to you on the plane.

2. Inviting someone to church

3. Going on a mission trip

VIII. Advent is a season of expectancy. It’s a time where we remember the birth of Jesus, the Word made flesh, God among us, but it’s also a time where we wait in hope and anticipation for the return of Christ.

IX. How will you cultivate a sense of Expectancy this year? Let us prepare the way of the Lord! Amen

How to pray

I used an outline format for my sermon this week instead of a full manuscript. I hope it still makes sense. Read Matthew 6:9-13

How to pray

I. Intro /overview – last week in prayer series

a. Week 1 - "What is Prayer?" prayer is two way communication with god.

b. Week 2 - "Why Should We pray?" Lots of things prevent us from praying but we should pray because Jesus prayed and expected that his followers would be praying.

c. Week 3 - "What should we pray about?" We should pray about everything. If it’s important to us, it’s important to God.

d. Now we are at the question, “how do we pray?”

II. When we talk about how to pray it’s important to remember that there’s no magic formula to prayer.

a. Max Lucado once said “The power of prayer does not come from the one who speaks it but the one who hears it.” Prayer isn’t effective because we find the perfect words or because we’re in just the right position. Prayer is effective because God, the One who hears it, is able to change things.

III. Practical suggestions: Keep it honest. Regardless of how or what we’re feeling. The bible gives us permission to voice it to God:

a. Angry at God – Job, many of the prophets – Jonah, Jeremiah

b. Praise of God, life is happy – songs of thanksgiving after deliverance, Moses, Miriam, Deborah, psalms

c. Confession - David

d. Intense grief – Psalms, David, even Jesus in the garden

e. Petition – asking God for help.

IV. So how do we communicate that to God? Should we pray silently or outloud? Alone or together?

a. Whatever is most natural for you.

b. When thinking about prayer, most people probably think about praying silently alone

c. You can pray outloud even if you’re alone. This is what I do because it helps me feel more connected to God.

d. You can pray outloud with other people.

i. Classes, with family or friends, prayer partners

e. Sometimes there are no words – just listening.

V. How long and how often should we pray?

a. Bible says we can not pray too often. Pray continually (1 Thess 5:17)

b. Start where you are. Don’t try to pray for an hour if you have trouble staying awake for a five minute prayer. If 2 or 3 minutes is all you can do then start there.

c. Breath prayer – The same Hebrew word is translated into English as wind, spirit, and breath. The Hebrew word is RUAH. This simple fact reminds me that we are each breath we take is breathing in the breath or spirit of God. Breath prayer is a form of prayer where you repeat a short phrase while breathing in and a different phrase while exhaling. (breathe in)“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, (breathe out) have mercy on me, a sinner.” Can use any phrase that’s meaningful to you.

d. Conversational prayer – little prayers as you go about your day. Thanking God, asking for help, whatever is going on in your day.

e. Reminders to pray – passwords, sticky notes

f. There are as many variations of prayer as there are Christians. Prayer is about communicating with God and we all do that in different ways. We all communicate with each other differently, why would we think we will all communicate with God the exact same way? Sometimes prayer is sung, painted, sculpted, or carved. There’s no one perfect right way to pray. Remember prayer is effective because of God, not because we find some magic formula.

So pray! Prayer is one of those things that we can only really learn by doing. We can talk about it, read books about, do lots of research about it, but ultimately we learn the most by actively engaging in prayer.

Why should we pray?

Read Philippians 4:6-7

Why should we pray?

Last week was the first of four weeks in November during which we will be talking about prayer. Each week we will be talking about a different question. Dennis started off this sermon series for us last week by talked about the question, what is prayer? Today we’re going to be talking about the question why should we pray? And the next two weeks we’ll be talking about the questions what should we pray about and how should we pray? Each of these questions came from the questions that you submitted to us several months ago.

Last week Dennis defined prayer as two way communication with God. So that means not only us actively sharing our thoughts and concerns with God, it also means listening for and being open to what God is saying to us. When asked, most of us would say that prayer is important, most of us would say that we pray on a somewhat regular basis. But just about all of us would probably admit that we don’t pray as often as we feel like we should.

Why is that? Why is it that we don’t pray as often as we think we should? What is it that’s holding us back? There are several different stumbling blocks that are common reasons people find prayer difficult.

I think one of our biggest stumbling blocks to prayer is our independence. America was created and founded on the idea that you could make something of yourself, you could be anything you wanted to be, if only you worked hard enough. The American ethos and frontier mentality that we can determine our own future by the strengths of our backs and sheer determination has led us to believe that we don’t need anyone else.

But that independence, that desire to do things on our own, can be a stumbling block when it comes to prayer. If we are convinced that we can do it on our own, that we don’t need anyone’s help, then why bother with prayer? Why bother asking God for help, or trying to discern God’s desire for our life if we have already figured out what we want? Prayer, on some level, requires us to recognize our dependence on God. If we don’t think we need help or need God, we won’t bother with prayer.

Sometimes we have the opposite problem. Instead of feeling confident in our ability to live on our own and that we don’t need God, sometimes we are so aware of our dependence on God that we begin to feel unworthy. We know all the ways that we have fallen short, that we haven’t lived up to our expectations for ourselves, let alone, God’s expectations of us. We begin to think that we have no right to ask God for anything, or maybe that God is mad at us and doesn’t want anything to do with us.

But that is simply not the case. God has immense love for us, even when we mess up sometimes. God is always willing to forgive us if we ask and always wants to be a part of our lives. We don’t have to worry that we’re not good enough or important enough to pray. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus reminds us that God hears the prayers of the humble tax collector. If God hears the prayers of the tax collector, who were widely considered to be the biggest sinners, certainly God will hear our prayers as well.

Another common reason many of us don’t pray as often as we feel like we should is time. We all have so many demands placed on our lives. There’s family, school, work, sports, housecleaning, and homework to name a few. We pack our days full from the minute we wake up in the morning to the minute we go to bed at night. Sometimes prayer seems like just one more thing to do, and we wonder where we might find the time. Other times we try to pray but we find ourselves so exhausted that we fall asleep instead.

But we don’t have to set aside huge chunks of time for prayer. If you don’t pray daily, you can begin by praying a one or two sentence prayer in the morning when you wake up, asking God to guide your decisions during the day and to help you reflect the love of Christ in all that you do during the day. You can also pray while you’re going about your day, it doesn’t have to be one long period of time set aside during the day.

Another reason many of us don’t pray is unanswered prayer. Unanswered prayer is one of the most difficult stumbling blocks to prayer. When we pray, we don’t always get the answer we wanted or even an answer we recognize. Unanswered prayer can be really frustrating and disheartening because we begin to wonder if God can hear us at all. And if so, does our unanswered prayer mean that God doesn’t care?

The problem of unanswered prayer is complicated. There is no one simple answer to explain it. And In part, unanswered prayer points to another stumbling block to prayer; it’s a mystery! Prayer is a mystery. In our culture we have a tendency to break things apart, analyze how the pieces all work together so that we can figure out how the whole thing works. Prayer is one of those things that no matter how much we analyze it, we don’t really know how it works. Unanswered prayers remind us that we don’t know how prayer works. We don’t always know why God seems to answer some prayers and not others. When we can’t understand how something works, we have a tendency to dismiss it as fake or an illusion. The mysterious nature of prayer can be one of the reasons we don’t pray as often as we feel like we should.

These are just a few of the reasons that prevent us from praying as often as we think we should. I’m sure there are others that I have not named. These are just a few of the most common reasons. With all these things that prevent us from praying, why is it that we should pray at all?

One of the biggest reasons that I think prayer is important is because Jesus prayed. When we look at Jesus’ life and ministry we see him praying on a regular basis. He prayed in public, he prayed with his disciples, he prayed alone by himself. Over and over again in the gospel we see Jesus turning to prayer. He prayed when faced with temptation, he prayed out of thanks and gratitude, he prayed to discern the will of God, he prayed to gather strength and energy to continue his ministry, he prayed for the healing of others, and he prayed for the well being of his disciples. Jesus, who was fully human yes, but also fully God, Jesus who is the son of God and God incarnate in our midst, Jesus, even Jesus prayed.

As I think about that, I find myself very convicted and convinced of the importance of prayer. Jesus prayed on a regular basis. And if prayer was important to Jesus, if even Jesus needed to pray, then I know I certainly do. I know that Jesus was much stronger than I am, I know that Jesus was much more able to resist temptation than I am, I know that Jesus was better able to discern the will of God than I am, and if Jesus needed to pray for all those things, then I certainly am in need of prayer! We all are.

But Jesus wasn’t the only one in the bible who prayed. There were lots of people who prayed. In fact, the word pray, prayer, or praying occurs over 542 times in the bible. 542 times! That’s a lot of prayer. And when Jesus talks about prayer he says, “when you pray…” Jesus assumes that the disciples are already praying. When Jesus talks about prayer and spends time teaching the disciples, he doesn’t try to convince them of the necessity of prayer, instead he teaches them how to pray. Not only did Jesus himself pray, but he operated with the assumption that his disciples were also praying.

Another reason to pray is the reason given in our scripture lesson for today. Praying helps give us strength and encouragement, it helps relieve our anxiety and stress about the situations we find ourselves in. I know, with the current state of our economy, many people are worried. With the election of Barrack Obama as our next president, there are many people who are excited, and many people who are disappointed, but everyone is uncertain about the future. With uncertainty comes a certain amount of anxiety. But the more we pray, the more we acknowledge our dependence on God and the more we begin to trust God. As we pray, it helps give us a sense of comfort and peace. We begin to feel a sense of assurance that God is present with us and cares for us. With so much conflict and tension in the world, we could all use more peace and assurance in our lives.

Prayer also helps to nurture our relationship with God. Just like our human relationships need us to put time and energy into them, if we want our relationship with God to grow, we need to put time and energy into it. One of the keys to nurturing a relationship is consistent communication. Prayer is our communication with God. It helps us discern God’s will for our lives. It helps give us strength and encouragement to resist temptation and to act in love. Prayer is a way for us to thank God for the blessing in our lives and prayer helps give us the energy and encouragement to continue in the ministries we are a part of. Prayer helps us stay connected to God and as a result it helps us feel more connected to God. If you’re feeling like God is distant and disconnected, try praying to God. Over time you’ll begin to feel God’s presence more and more in your life.

This certainly is not an exhaustive list of the reasons why we don’t pray or of all the reasons why we should pray. These are just a few of the reasons why we should pray. The last reason I want to leave you with is this: prayer changes things. Like we talked about before, prayer is mysterious, and we don’t know how it works, but we do know that prayer works. There are biblical examples, and modern day examples of how prayer changes circumstances. I’ve personally heard stories of people wondering how they were going to pay their bills, and after praying about it, they received an anonymous gift for the exact amount they needed. I’ve heard people witness to the miraculous healing power of prayer for themselves or other members of their family. Prayer has the power to change things!

Jesus prayed. Jesus assumed his disciples would pray. Prayer helps relieve our anxiety and nurture our relationship with God. Prayer helps us discern God’s will for our lives and prayer has the power to change things. What have you got to lose? Try prayer today.
Amen.