12/26/21 - What Next? - Westminster Presbyterian Church Westminster Presbyterian Church | Serving God and others with open mind, hands and heart - 12/26/21

12/26/21 – What Next?

What Next?

December 26, 2021
1^st Sunday of Christmas
1 Sam. 2:18-26; Ps.148; Col. 3:12-17; Lk. 2:41-52
Rev. Denise Clark-Jones

For Christmas, eight years ago, my older daughter gave me a “Grandmother’s Book,” in which I was to write about my life for my grandchildren. I had been at Westminster for less than 5 months and I didn’t imagine I was going to do much writing, other than sermons that year. I don’t have a good track record for doing “baby books.” I filled in the major milestones in a book for my first child, but the second and third did not have baby books. I’m not sure what happened to the “Grandmother’s Book,” but I have good intentions of writing in it when I retire. One can hope.

The gospel writers weren’t very interested in Jesus’ life before his ministry began. Only Matthew and Luke have a birth story and only Luke reports an event in his youth. Matthew tells us that Mary and Joseph had to flee with the infant Jesus to Egypt when King Herod decreed that all boys in Judea, under the age of two, were to be killed. Luke relays the story of Jesus’ dedication service in the temple when he was eight days old. On this occasion, the elderly priest Simeon and prophetess Anna rejoice at seeing the Messiah. At this point, we only have heard what others say about Jesus before he began his ministry. Luke makes the transition from Jesus’ infancy to adulthood with Jesus’ first words about himself. We can only surmise that Luke had a particular reason for writing down the only story about Jesus as a youth. Luke’s story of Jesus stopping at the temple to discuss the finer points of the Torah with religious scholars, creates a link with Jewish history and scripture. This story also reminds us that the Word of God Jesus based his life and ministry on was the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures. In Matthew, Jesus assures the crowd listening to his Sermon on the Mount, immediately after the Beatitudes: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. ¹⁸For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” (Matt. 5:17-18) Jesus had no intention of starting a new religion, he was thoroughly Jewish. Jesus understood his purpose as reforming Judaism – getting back to God’s intentions for humanity to be obedient and faithful to God and loving in relationships with one another.

Our Old Testament and Gospel readings for today link two young men of God, Samuel, and Jesus. Both were born to mothers who had dedicated their sons to service for God. Both Samuel and Jesus’ parents went on a pilgrimage to the temple. Mary’s song, sung when she shares the news of her being called to give birth to a child who would grow up to serve God and Israel, echoes Hannah’s song about the calling of her child, Samuel. Both Samuel and Jesus go to the temple for religious instruction. For me, the most striking similarity between the descriptions of the boy Samuel and the boy Jesus are the verses that refer to their growth. In first Samuel we read in verse 20: And the boy Samuel grew up in the presence of the Lord.” And in verse 26: ²⁶Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and with the people. In Luke 2, in the verse before our passage for today begins, the story of Anna and Simeon encountering the 8-day old infant Jesus ends with the words: ⁴⁰The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.” Then in verse 52: ^“And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.” In both accounts of boys called to serve God and the people of Israel, we read twice that the boys grew in their relationship with God and with their people.

In our reading from Colossians, an epistle attributed to the Apostle Paul, the author talks about our own growth in our relationship with God and others. The epistle’s words about our growth in faith dovetail the passages of 1 Samuel and Luke to give us good guidance at the start of a new year. The letter to the congregation at Colossae addresses a struggling church start that was under pressure from conflicting ideologies, which threatened the core values of their Christian faith. Traditional Jewish teachings were merged with Greek philosophy. Some teachers in the community were promoting asceticism and self-denial as the means to reach greater insights into the mysteries of God by tapping into other “celestial powers.” False teachers of the Christian church were teaching that even though Christ had come to save them, additional practices were necessary to gain salvation; and that there were evil powers that had yet to be defeated by Christ. As many of us do, the people were tempted to treat their faith like a Sunday buffet, taking a little bit of this and a little bit of that, theologically speaking to create a DIY faith, crafted to fit our own comfort zones. In this letter, they were warned: “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit” (Col 2:8a). The congregation was encouraged in this letter to see all that Christ had done and continued to do for them. They were instructed to trust that Jesus was fully God, and in him, they had all they needed for this life and life eternal.

Like the Colossians, we too live in a culture that is not conducive to the Christian faith. In these past years of a global pandemic and political division, we too have experienced false teachers spreading lies and misleading statements, which threaten not only our lives together in a democracy and our physical health, but also, the foundation of our Christian faith. The author of Colossians encourages us to resist the false messages we are receiving and to grow in our faith in Christ. We can assess the truth of the messages we hear by comparing them to the words Christ taught and by which he lived.

Theologically, the author is addressing the issue of sanctification. While Paul wrote extensively on our “justification” that comes from God alone, sanctification is presented here as something that is given by God with which we participate. The author uses baptismal imagery to guide the congregation’s spiritual growth. We are

encouraged to put on, like a baptismal robe, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, peace, gratitude, patience, and love. With this garment, others can see we have put on Christ by observing our behavior. Just as the baby born in Bethlehem grew in wisdom and God’s favor, we too are nurtured by the study of God’s Word in Scripture, and by taking on the Christian virtues Christ demonstrated. In his book, “Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality,” the contemporary Franciscan priest, Richard Rohr puts it this way: “The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better. As the Apostle Paul advised,^“Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good. As Christian disciples, we are called, in every season of the year, to practice the virtues of love and forgiveness, even when, or especially when, many disparate voices are pulling us in the opposite direction.

Yes, we will at times, fall short. But the good news is that this is not a task we are asked to do alone. The writer of Colossians is convinced that we have everything we need in the person of Jesus Christ, to live lives of love and gratitude, not by our own human effort, but rather by the gift of God in Jesus Christ, our Immanuel, God with us.

After the celebration of Christ’s birth, what now? Against all that is wrong in the world, all the agents of evil that deceive and divide us, we are to resist them with the power and promise of our baptisms. We are to take the carols and hymns of the season into the bleak mid-winter and beyond into the re-awakening of creation in spring, the bright days of summer and the harvest of fall.

In this season of Christmas, we celebrate that God came to earth to conquer the powers of sin and death, bringing new life to all. May we, in this coming year, “grow and became strong” in our faith and “filled with wisdom;” and may ‘the favor of God be upon us.’

Amen. May it be so!

My Story

“I believe in Westminster’s missions of service to others and I like how biblical scholarship is integrated with scripture, providing more insight into understanding what Christ says is important. These have only helped me to strengthen my faith.”