Ordinary Messy Lives - Redeemer Episcopal

Matthew 1:18-25 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

The Birth of Jesus the Messiah

18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

23 “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
    and they shall name him Emmanuel,”

which means, “God is with us.” 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

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This sermon was originally preached by me, Rev. Sarah Locke, on December 22, 2019 at Redeemer Episcopal Church in Jacksonville, FL. You can read the manuscript below and/or listen to my sermon (with infusions from the Spirit) at the link here. 

If you’re anything like my family, you’ve been singing songs about Christmas for about a month now— maybe even longer. Lots of these songs are about the utter joy and amazement with which we greet the baby Jesus. Some songs exclaim about the angels, shepherds, wise men, and the stars that seemed to gleam brighter with every passing hour. Some songs talk about stillness and the various farm animals that were present that evening. I’m sure we will sing most of them here on Christmas Eve and maybe even on Christmas morning.

But this version of the incarnation— Matthew’s version— sounds a bit different. 

Unlike many of the stories we hear of Jesus’ birth, Matthew only gives the actual birth about a verse and a half he says— “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way (then all the way at the end of the passage)… she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.” It’s very simple, nothing about angels appearing to shepherds, nothing about Mary going to visit her cousin and babies jumping for joy in the womb. There is no long travel to Bethlehem, and nothing about the lack of room in the inn. 

But what this story does tell us is about the ordinary-ness, and the messiness of the world that Jesus would be born into. 

We hear that there is nothing particularly special about this family, a man and a woman who are in the process of being married, but haven’t quite brought their households together yet. They are young and normal, until the young woman is pregnant and it appears there is some messiness, perhaps even scandal. 

We hear about the turmoil and fright that Jesus would be born into, the conflict and strife. Imagine the fear and anxiety both Joseph and Mary would be feeling as they relied fully on the words of God’s messengers and brought a baby into the world without fully understanding his paternity. It was a wild scandal in their day. Something that could cause Mary to be left by her husband without anyone to support her or she could even be stoned to death. 

But these were all the messy, ordinary, human issues that people encountered often in Jesus’ time. There was nothing particularly special about the holy family. Even that now-common name for them— “holy”— seems to not quite fit Matthew’s narrative. 

The “holy family” didn’t have people following them around like the Kardashians or have 24/7 news coverage like the next presidential election. Everything was quite ordinary, quite common. There were no press releases or baby shower invitations, no social media blasts. 

They were not a king and queen, there was not even anything particularly special about the couple as common people. Except, of course, their faithfulness. They were much like you and me, trying to make their way in the world and follow God’s direction for their lives. 

And I think God was intentional about this. God CHOSE this quaint, normal, sort of messy family to come into the world. 

God CHOSE to come to us as a child, as a small and fragile, and ordinary baby. 

And yet. This was no ordinary birth. This was no ordinary baby. 

Both Mary and Joseph knew this reality. We hear it from God’s messenger to Joseph, that this baby will fulfill old prophecies. And from Mary, in Luke’s gospel and repeated several times this morning in worship, we hear her incredible song of praise. 

It is a song that tells more than a story of a simple family during a simple time, having a simple baby boy. 

It is the story of God doing incredible things through the humblest of people. It is the story of God bringing the most powerful people down from their thrones. It is the story of God turning the world upside down and inside out by lifting up the lowly and filling the hungry with good things, and sending the rich away empty. 

It is a song of praise at the wonder and awesomeness of our God, because Mary knows that this will be no simple birth, the child that she holds within her womb will be no ordinary baby, this will be no normal man. 

He will be the man who will bring all of these things to pass— he will be the one to begin the revolution, to jump-start the end of times, to usher in the reign of God in this world. From ordinary, humble, simple, and sometimes messy lives, this baby, Christ Jesus, will change the world. 

And I don’t want to give too much away, but if you stick around for the rest of the story, God does marvelous things with messy lives— like a couple of fishermen, some tax collectors, and a few faithful women. In the ordinary water of baptism, God grants us new life and renames us beloved. And even here, at this table this morning, God takes the most ordinary bread and wine and feeds it to us at the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one whose birth we will witness in just a few short days, and whose coming again we long for with anticipation. 

Praise God that God might do the same with our own ordinary, humble, simple, and sometimes messy lives. And our own faithfulness. Amen. 

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Prepare to Repent - Redeemer Episcopal Church

Matthew 3:1-12 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

The Proclamation of John the Baptist

3 In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’”
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4 Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, 6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

7 But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit worthy of repentance. 9 Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 10 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

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This sermon was originally preached by me, Rev. Sarah Locke, at Redeemer Episcopal Church in Jacksonville, Florida on December 8, 2019. You can read the manuscript below, and/or you can listen to the sermon (with infusions from the Spirit) at this link. 

Are you ready? It’s December 8th already. We only have 17 days until Christmas. Panicking yet? 

Even if the weather does not quite show it, it appears that Christmas time is here. Christmas music is playing on the radio, all the displays are out, I saw last Sunday night that Santa is at the mall waiting for his picture to be taken. 

For our college students at UNF and JU, it means finals week is upon us, some of them are graduating, other are gearing up for the seasonal holiday hours at their job. 

For others it means finishing up projects at work or bracing yourself for your children to be out for Christmas break. 

There always seems to be an abundance of things to do to prepare for Christmas: Making lists, checking them twice, if you’re my mother, you’re running around making sure everyone has the exact same number of gifts under the Christmas tree. Lots of other people are still decorating, baking, cooking, and traveling. 

Preparing for Christmas seems a bit more like a sprint than a marathon and, as a pastor, by the end of it, I’m winded and ready to never do it again… until next year. 

But preparing for Christmas seems to look very different than preparing for the coming of Jesus. 

In the text this morning, we hear the words of John the Baptizer, the man who was called and sent to prepare people for the coming of Jesus. Like a prologue of a book, or a prelude in our worship service, John tells the people what is about to happen. He preps them for something that is better and more important than himself. But it doesn’t sound much like shopping and baking and decorating. 

“Repent,” John says, “for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

He continues, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

So what does it mean to John to prepare for Christmas? Well, it means preparing for the coming of Jesus, and he says we won’t be ready for that until we repent and recognize that a Jesus’ birth marks a new age— something wild and new and wonderful that we could never even dream of. 

Repentance is not necessarily the word we would immediately associate with Advent and Christmas preparation. For one thing, here in this Episcopal church, as well as many others across the country, we use the hopeful and anticipatory color blue for Advent instead of the repentant and penitential purple that other congregations might use, the same color we use for Lent in the spring. 

But it seems that repentance is of utmost importance to John, and throughout the gospel according to Matthew, we will see this liturgical year, that it is also very important to Jesus. 

It is important that we prepare our hearts and our minds and our attitudes for Jesus. We are reminded to do this figuratively throughout Advent, but what we will celebrate on Christmas Day is not only the miracle of Jesus coming to be with us in the form of a tiny baby, marking the beginning of the coming of the Kingdom of God, but also looking forward to the day when he will return to us, at the end of time, when Isaiah’s prophecy will be completely fulfilled in God’s promise. 

Repentance, at its core, means to change direction, to pick a different course, to turn around. And that is what John is asking the listeners— and us— to do. John’s sole calling is to alert people to the fact that what they are doing is out of step with God’s purpose and desire for their lives and for all of creation. “You brood of vipers,” John accuses, something new is happening and you’d better be ready for it. And that newness is what Isaiah describes: a time when there will be no predator and prey, no fear or hatred, no anger or rebellion. There will be peace, reconciliation, equity, and grace. Paths that are straight and lives that are full. 

Repentance, John says, turning toward this peace, reconciliation, equity, and grace, is the first step in joining Jesus in this new world and in this new kingdom. 

That is my favorite thing about John the Baptizer. He minimizes himself in order to glorify the one who will come after him. All that he does and all that he is points to the one who will save us with baptism in the spirit, with his birth, life, death, and resurrection. John points to the one who embodies what it looks like for us to repent. 

So how do we prepare for the coming of Jesus? How do we prepare for Christmas? Repent. Be transformed by this age-old story and change direction. Turn from idolatry, violence, injustice, exploitation, slavery, and scarcity— and turn toward devotion, peace, justice, equity, freedom, and abundance— turn toward God and the one whom we await on Christmas morning and on the last day, Christ our Lord. Amen.