Pastor's Notes

We have this church season that follows Christmas called Epiphany. Personally I think it is time to give the season a makeover. Let’s instead call it, “ta da!”….you know, like someone might say prior to an impressive entrance or a dramatic announcement. That is, after all the prime message of Epiphany. The baby Jesus was born in a manger. Then along comes this church season to proclaim, “ta da!….This is who this Jesus is!”  Watch him be baptized and hear the voice call him beloved and well pleased, see people give up everything to follow Jesus, hear him challenge followers to fish for people, see Jesus cast out an unclean spirit and heal a follower’s mother-in-law.

Ta da, indeed! Yet the most amazing thing about this Jesus is what he can do for his followers. In Mark this vagabond group give up everything to follow a person they don’t get. In fact, in the end they run away. Where is the “ta da” here?  The “ta da” is not in what those disciples do. It is instead what Jesus does with them. Post resurrection these stumblers go into the world preaching, teaching, healing, and organizing a church. Really? These guys? Well, 2,000 years later here we are. 

Some years the text of Jesus turning water into wine appears in Epiphany. This event pales compared to the change Jesus is able to create in the disciples. They ones who didn’t get it become leaders. The ones who fled and ran away become martyrs. All have since been called saint by the church. 

Careful now; you think I will say, “ta da!” regarding the disciples. Nope. Even and especially the “ta da” here is reserved for Jesus. This is the work of Jesus. Now if you want to get more theologically technical we would say it is the work of the Holy Spirit, but working through those claimed by God in baptism who follow Jesus. 

Moments and instances of “ta da” are not left back in history. They occur still. You have done and said things that were “ta da” glimpses of Jesus. I have said and done things that are.  I once had a bishop who was also a friend and great preacher who said, in a sermon, “I have four sermons in me. I keep preaching them over and over. Yet those who listen keep hearing something different each time I preach one of them. That’s not my work.” Ta da! 

When the bishop preached this, I felt a huge burden lifted from my shoulders. You see, I was secretly hiding the fact that I thought I had six sermons in me and was afraid to share this with anyone. What a guilt reducer for this pastor when the bishop preached that. Ta da! 

What memories do you have of witnessing someone do a simple or ordinary deed that somehow became profound? On what occasion might you have just been going about your day and your work or your life but some action or word in your going caused something important to happen that someone mentions still despite the time that has passed? Ta da!  

It would seem we can do whatever we wish regarding Epiphany. We can go back to the old days when some Sundays were called Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima. (My, spell check just overheated). Or we can stick with Epiphany or contemporize it to “ta da” or some other clever catchword. Regardless, the point will remain: this baby Jesus was God come to earth to be among us and to work to reveal God and to transform those who follow this Jesus. Keep following, baptized ones! God has more “ta das” in store as you follow and through your following. 

“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see everything has become new!” This can be found in 2 Corinthians 17, written by St. Paul. 

Paul was not talking about a New Year, but a new person. 

As we look forward to 2021….and I think more than most new years, we really are embracing and looking forward to this New Year…….we may make resolutions, or collect our hopes for the upcoming year, or look forward to some anticipated events in our life planned for some time in the year ahead.  

A New Year, really isn’t all that new, is it? It is just another date on the calendar, another year in our lives, another round of holidays, work, birthdays, and a few anticipated and unanticipated adventures.  That may not have been quite true for 2020, but it is for most years. 

What if instead of looking forward to a new year, we look forward to becoming a new person? No, I’m not talking about Botox or plastic surgery or even weight loss and getting in shape. I mean a new person. What might a new person look like for you? For me?  What shackles can be tossed aside that now hold us back or hold us down? What new challenges might we embrace that might take us to places both figuratively and literally that we have never been and therefore have the possibility of changing us into someone new?

We all have characteristics about ourselves that most likely will never change. However we also all have possibility to change some parts of ourselves and become a new person. I feel sorry for people who seem to refuse to change. Over time they must become quite lonely and alienated as the world seems to march on and become new, thusly passing them by resulting in feelings of being alone and embittered.

I would not necessarily say God becomes new, but I can argue from scripture and from life that God is not afraid to express God’s self in new ways. There was the Creator way of “Young God”, there was the covenant way of a “Maturing God”, and ultimately there was and is the “Jesus Way” of “Mature God” in the birth, life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God is not one to say, “Let’s keep things the same.” God sees clearly that overall this does not work. Look at our world today: would it be wise to keep it this way? Take your historical pick back in time…..do you really wish life was just like that now? If we think some time in history was ideal, we probably weren’t paying attention. 

Being made new is much more than a decision on our part. It is the work of God who keeps coming after us year after year making at least some part of us new despite our best efforts at resistance. Think of that when you raise a toast this New Year’s Eve. Yes, it is a new year, but the year is not all that will be new in 2021. You will also be new; at least some part of you will be. Will the newness result in bitterness or will you look to faith to struggle to find some better way to become new?

God is not going to forget to come after you in 2021. God does not tire of making us new. God has not run out of creativity. So, it will be a happy New Year in 2021 after all. 

A central ingredient to a good movie is the characters. Story line and plot are extremely important, but if the characters don’t fill out the roles, the movie doesn’t make it. This time of year the movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life” is viewed by millions. I am betting you can picture this litany of characters in your mind: George, Mary, Pa and Ma Bailey; Mr.   Potter, Uncle Billy, Mr. Martini, Bert the police officer and Ernie the cab driver, Sam Wainright, Violet, Mr. Gower, and Zuzu.  If you cannot picture them all, I suspect still recognize their role in the movie.

No doubt your life, like mine, has also involved quite a cast of characters over the years. Some are characters because of various eccentricities. Some may be characters because their primary eccentricity was having nothing eccentric about them. They were as straight as people come, always living life “by the book” as we sometimes say. 

This time of year always reminds me of one such character in my past. His name was Steve. Steve ran the local soup kitchen in downtown Colorado Springs. He was a former Roman Catholic priest and lived in a type of eco-friendly commune with a few other similarly minded folk. They recycled everything. Yes, everything! None of them owned a car. When asked why he did not own a car, Steve would answer, “Because I do own two good feet!”

Our congregation took turns preparing, serving, and cleaning up at the soup kitchen. Every Friday was our turn. We averaged about 450 hungry souls each week. 

On a Friday just before Christmas I took my confirmation class to slice, dice, peel, stir, dish up, and clean up. It seemed every five minutes or so someone would enter the soup kitchen doors with a box or boxes. The announcement seemed always about the same, “We are from St. John’s by the Gas Station Church and we made (or we have) a. socks, b. mittens, c. ski caps, d. candy canes, e. other,

Each time I would select a couple confirmands to distribute the donated items to those around the tables. Steve would always help out as did I. During the distribution of one donated item….I think it was candy canes….Steve stopped, looked at me, and said, “Sometimes our mission is to feed the hungry; sometimes it is to give stuff away.”

Only a day later Steve wrote an article for the local newspaper. The article described how people’s generosity went up a few notches every December as Christmas approached. I expected a note of cynicism in his writing. Not so. Steve did say it would be great if people exhibited the same generosity all year long. Many societal issues could be eliminated or at least greatly alleviated were this so. Yet each December Steve professed a certain hope. Steve’s hope was that maybe every once in a while someone whose giving was stimulated by the Christmas season may be moved to continue this generous spirit for the rest of the year and possibly for the rest of the person’s life.

When is the last time you took a look at the depth of your spirit of generosity? I know ours is a very generous community. Statistically we are better than average. We have to be as very few communities our size could ever pull off what we do each year without a greater than average depth of generosity. Christmas had its start in pondering. Mary pondered what the angel Gabriel said to her. Christmas can be a good time for you and I to ponder our commitment to sharing and giving. As we wait to receive, might we also ponder in our waiting how we might better give?  When is the last time this thought occupied your mind?

The God who takes on human flesh at Christmas in the baby Jesus comes to us to live in us and give to us. This God does so for us to be able to give to others. Who and what is out there that could use something, some gift that we have?  We can make this Christmas a time of waiting for opportunities to become more deeply committed to giving and sharing our gifts where they would be of use. Ponder this. Sharpen your spirit of generosity and you just might become a leading character among those other characters in someone else’s life. What if giving of yourself becomes the eccentricity for which you will be known?  God places many characters in our life. Share with them, learn from them and grow from doing so. Be one of God’s eccentric givers.