On the Threshold

 

On this threshold of one year to another, I encourage you to imagine God is sitting side by side with you.  God’s love has you, holds you.  Today, I encourage you to think about:

 

What brought you joy and made a positive impact on you?  Make a list ~ feel free to review what you wrote yesterday.

 

Who made a positive impact on your life?  List the names of those who left fingerprints on your heart.

 

Your accomplishments this last year ~ this doesn’t have to be “I won an Olympic medal” kind of triumph.  It can be something you worked on ~ like I walked a mile most days or I tried to love my enemies, or I was more loving toward my family.  I know many of us don’t want to pat ourselves on the back, but take a moment to honor that you made it through this year ~ which, given all that has happened, is really something.  And this past year has changed us all.

 

Now think about a challenge you faced ~ could be a family member who died or standing up for justice, or trying a new way of being in the world. 

 

What did you learn about yourself this last year?

 

If you could sum up this year in one word, what would it be and why?

 

May this prayerful pondering be a holy moment filled with God’s love that has you.  Amen.

Pause to Reflect and Review

 

On the cusp of a New Year, I invite you to rewind, review, and recall this past year.  I think the best way to do this is to take a few deep breaths.  Slowly inhale, hold the breath of life, and exhale ~ even sigh loudly.  Then, on a piece of paper, write down all you can remember about 2025  ~ you may want to make three columns: the good, the bad, the ugly!  Please know, this is NOT a quiz.  You can use your calendar to help spark your memory.  You don’t have to write down every meeting, volunteer moment, doctor’s appointment, or worship service (or sermon!).  Survey and scan the days that culminated and combined to create this year.  There is a great wisdom that goes, “the days are long and the years are short.”  This is that feeling that you have this time of year, wondering, “Where did time go!?!?!?” 

 

As you review the good, bad, and ugly…look also for places of bewilderment, wonder, awe this past year.  I was in awe when I witnessed my first Broadway musical.  I was in wonder as we wandered around New York City as a family.  I felt chills race and run up and down my spine as my son graduated from college and began his master’s program ~ where did the time go?!?!? 

 

Today, listen to the story your calendar wants to share with you and where God showed up (unexpected, like a baby born in a stable) this year for you.  Amen.  

Christmas that Lingers and Leaves an Impression

 

Whether you are still in the Christmas Spirit or ready to put the tree away in the attic, today I offer you the powerful words of the Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman:

 

When the carols have been stilled,
When the star-topped tree is taken down,
When family and friends are gone home,
When we are back to our schedules
The work of Christmas begins:
   To welcome the refugee,
   To heal a broken planet,
   To feed the hungry,
   To build bridges of trust, not walls of fear,
   To share our gifts,
   To seek justice and peace for all people,
   To bring Christ’s light to the world.

 

Which of the words above sang to your soul?  Which of the above invitations stretched your soul?  Which did your soul bellow, “Objection!” because you don’t think you have the energy to engage in the work of Christmas?  Which of the above caused you to think, “Maybe”?  Which of the above baffled and bewildered you? 

 

We live in a world where we think that we know.  We reward confidence and certainty; we snicker sarcastically or call people “flip-floppers” or worse when they have not formed an opinion instantly on everything…because the reality is that our opinions change.  Pause for a moment, because you are not the same person you were a year ago.  Life has changed, and our thinking changes.  The Christmas Season is about bafflement.  We think we know about the baby born in a manger with the songs of angels, but do we let this truth interrupt and disrupt our lives with shepherd-like courage?  Do we seek out the stable-like places today where God is still showing up and angels still singing out?  Remembering that a stable was smelly, musty, dusty, and not exactly where God was expected to make a grand entrance to the world.  That means if we think we know where God is (like church or the halls of power/privilege or with fame/fortune), chances are we are still missing the sacred. The poem/prayer above reminds us that God is with the refugee, fleeing, hiding, and afraid about their paperwork and legal status.  God is with creation, crying out against our seeing soil and trees as mere means to an end and profit.  In the child whose belly is empty, even as we throw away leftovers.  God is in those we wall out both physically and emotionally.  God is with the least, lost, and lonely.  We are called to go like shepherds and wise ones ~ not because we know the truth, but to explore and experience the Eternal truth here and now again…and every day in 2026.  May this be our call and put in our calendars every day.  Amen.  

Lingering Love of God

 

We all live off his generous abundance, gift after gift after gift.

 

While the packages may have been unwrapped, God keeps giving.  While the feast has already been made and eaten, leaving leftovers in your fridge, God keeps giving.  While the company may have come and gone, you may think that Christmas has too, but God keeps showing up, speaking up, singing out, and blessing our lives.  Gift after gift after gift.  “All life is but a gift from You, and ever in Your care” (from the hymn: I Sing the Mighty Power of God). We sing this truth as one to shape our whole lives.  For some reading this today, there is a Christmas letdown, the thrill and joy have subsided, and silence has moved in.  For some reading this, there are still parties to attend and family/friends to see.  For some, reading this, there is loneliness, and for others, there is questioning, and for others, exhaustion.  Wherever you are — emotionally, spiritually, physically—God is there.  If God is found in barns, God can be found in our lives. God shows up to shepherds, God still sings to us.  If God longs to break into our world, move into our neighborhoods, awaken our lives, that was not just true yesterday but every day.  May the afterglow of this holy holiday continue to inspire and influence the words we speak and our actions every day. Amen.  

Christmas Prayer

 

Bethlehem Bound...Arriving Soon

 

We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Parent, like Child,

 

Tonight, we behold and we will be held by a love that has us.  We gaze into the eternal eyes of the One who is the light to our lives, church, community, and world.  We stand in silent awe of a love that never lets us go.  So, come all ye faithful.  Come and join the angels from the realms of glory.  Listen as Hark! The Herald Angels sing on this O Holy Night.  That in the Little Town of Bethlehem all this took place.  That once in royal David’s City, a canticle of turning and the first gleam of Christmas shone bright.  For away in a manger it (hope, peace, joy, and love ~ God’s very presence) came upon a midnight clear.  This, this is Christ our Lord born on this silent night.

 

Please join us in worship at 4, 7, and 10 p.m. ~ 7 p.m. service will be livestreamed. 

 

May God’s hope, peace, joy, and love enfold and hold you.  Amen.   

Bethlehem Bound ~ Christmas Eve Eve...

 

The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.

 

God-next-door is the holy invitation of life.  Jesus’s succinct summary of the gospel ~ ^“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”  Christmas helps open us to the holy part of humanity.  We sense connectedness and joyfulness, as well as the afterglow of laughter at parties.  And then just as the mystery of this moment slowly starts to make a difference, we blink, and suddenly the stores deeply discount the inflatable Santas…to make room for Valentine’s Day…Christmas vanishes around us and within us.  And yet, it doesn’t have to.  You have a choice to let the lingering truths of this season guide you and ground you in the New Year.  You can decide to stubbornly cling to hope as Jesus did.  You can practice peace by pausing between the stimulus (what someone says) and your response (what/how you say), because honestly, no one is keeping score of your snappy, sarcastic comebacks.  You can hold love as what has power, even when the external evidence objects as you read the paper or scroll online.  You can sing out joyfully, not because everything is perfect…but if we wait until the world reflects God’s realm…we might never find “reasons” to rejoice.  In fact, maybe singing, “Joy to the world” might just send a ripple into the universe.   So much of the Christmas story sounds foolish to modern-day cynics and critics…a baby born in a barn is God?  Shepherds as your PR team?  A young teenager as the womb God breaks forth?  While some may sarcastically laugh, my soul longs for the truth.  This, this is Christ my Lord, who reorders my life and reorients my soul to be about living love for God, the other, and myself as the way of faith and full life.  May it be so for you today as you stroll around your neighborhood gazing at Christmas lights and wonder as you wander how God’s love is here and now.  Amen.