Sermon – December 5, 2010

God is Here.

Isaiah 11:1-11                        Romans 15:4-13

Have you noticed the “God is here” Stickers all over the church?  Some, in very unexpected places?

What was your reaction when you saw them?  At first I smiled, then I started worrying.  What would the stickers do to the finish of the wood?  Maybe some of the places they are, are inappropriate … like on the bathroom doors… ?  They aren’t that professional looking, so what would folks think, who are not from our congregation?  What if they don’t take us seriously?  This was a fun activity for the Senior High to do, but maybe now it is time to remove them.  We are decorated now for Christmas.  We’ll have guests coming and expectations placed upon our gathering and we want folks to be able to come and meet Jesus born to us anew.

Jesus born to us.  As I started pondering more seriously the idea of removing the stickers “God is here”, Advent pushed its way in.  Do you catch the irony?  We started out singing/ praying, “O Come O Come Immanuel” this morning.  The season of Advent feeds our yearning for Immanuel, which means “God is with us” … and I was pondering removing these much needed jarring, unexpected messages all around us, pointing us to the gift and presence we have every moment of every day; “God is here. And God is coming.  And God will come again.”

And yet, like the stickers … this confession, “God is here.” may initially bring smiles and hope to us when we hear it, but when it covers over the keyhole (as Chantelle discovered the first day after they went up), it becomes a bit of an annoyance.  Or when we begin to ponder God coming with us into those places we don’t really want God to see; we’d like to think we can shut the door behind us.  Or as we listen to the headlines or witness the too real and too heavy darkness too many of our friends and family members face, we might even stop a young hand from trying to place a “God is here” sticker there; because really, how could God be present and allow such suffering?

What is it that we believe this season?  Is God here?  Or did God only come 2000+ years ago in a manger far away and we won’t see God’s presence again until it’s too late?  Is that what we hope for every Christmas?  For when we pray, “O Come O Come Immanuel” it connects with a deep yearning for something to change: in ourselves, for our families, for this world.  We yearn for the healing, the peace, and the joy the carols we sing, promise God will give.

If we hope for all this for Christmas … and we dare confess God is here (even when it is inconvenient or not easily visible), … where should we be looking for God and these promises coming true?  While we tend to feel more comfortable with proof, concrete examples, and multiple eyewitnesses, the 15^th chapter of Romans points to something less measurable.  Paul claims we know God is present and active when hope is alive in the world.

I know it is a pretty circular argument.  I also know that the concept of hope has taken quite a beating in the past few years.  But, listen again to verse 4, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by encouragement of the scripture we might have hope.”  Paul is talking about the scripture we know as the Old Testament.  The Gospels and the rest of what we know of the New Testament hadn’t been written yet.  But, Paul writes here to the Romans, as they themselves are growing to understand what it means to follow Jesus, a Jewish rabbi, when they themselves are Gentiles, uncircumcised.  Paul claims that the primary purpose of scripture is to create hope among God’s people; it was written for Jew and Gentile alike that through its instruction it would offer us a steadfast place in which we can place our trust and encourage us to live with hope that our God will not abandon God’s people or God’s promises.

So, what is hope?  Some describe it as: wishful thinking, pie-n-the-sky optimism, that thing we court when we hit our last resort and cannot find a solution to the problem.  Others liken hope to buying a lottery ticket and that higher power of fate finally throwing luck our way so we get what we want.  Or some say it is a weak emotion that blindly ignores reality and insists everything will turn out fine.  But, none of these descriptions of hope have any foundation under them.  None of them reflect the hope Paul describes as being the force behind his patience and endurance that sustained him in prison or gave him courage in the face of conflict or moved him to keep testifying to the grace of Jesus Christ from Jerusalem, throughout Turkey, and all the way to Rome.

No, for Paul, hope is one of the top three gifts of the Spirit … (along with faith and love).  In both 1 Corinthians and Romans, Paul encourages us to value these gifts and use these gifts from the Spirit as the primary fuel for all we do and say.  Because, with them, even though we are different in so many ways: Gentile or Jew, male and female, slave and free, young and old, book smart and street smart, athletic or musically inclined, conservative or liberal, born in the city or small town, from across the border or raised here in the USA … in accord with Christ Jesus, we can live in harmony.  And, this impossible vision of people valuing each other’s differences creates hope and radiates God’s glory to the world.

It is what I caught a glimpse of on Wednesday night as many of you made your way to altar … at first it felt a bit chaotic, not sure how to get flame to votive … but, then as people prayed and others waited and as others rose from their prayers, lit candles were offered to those waiting; the light from one purple flame spread to another … and another … lit because we have confidence in our God, our God who came and lived among us in Jesus … and through Jesus offered an invitation, a living welcome into a life of faith, hope, and love for the sake of God’s glory.

It begins here, but what if what Paul is claiming about scripture also is the main purpose of the church?  That living in Christ’s welcome; the steadfast acceptance and encouragement we find in relationship with Him gives us hope.  Not pie-n-the-sky optimism or last resort kind of hope, but the power-filled hope the Spirit gives and inspires us to welcome others as Christ first welcomed us.  A hope that transforms our sense of welcoming others, into “something deeper, broader, wider, and more generous” than what happens here on Sunday morning.  As we grow in our relationship with Christ and our hope deepens beyond what it will do for “me”, Christ’s welcome moves us to risk being vulnerable enough to set aside self for the sake of God’s glory.  And, that can take us into all kinds of uncharted territory with only love and faith as our guides.

What would this look like for us, people of American Lutheran Church … living God’s welcome, because Jesus came and welcomed us into his amazing grace … just as he did the shepherds from the fields and the Samaritan lying in the ditch and the woman at the well and Zacheaus, the tax collector, the leper crying for mercy along the road, and the sinner no one else would eat with?  After these encounters with Jesus, individuals yearning for something more, returned to their lives and community changed.  Not their circumstances, not different occupations, but their vision of what was possible changed, because they lived now with hope …

How might we prepare this way for others?  How might our steadfastness and encouragement help others discover their gift of hope from the Spirit?  How might our hope help others find their way by the light of Christ instead of the darkness of their fears, loneliness, pain, confusion, financial struggles, hunger, anger or grief?  What would it be like to be a community of hope? … A community confident God is here … ?

Play song: “Hope” sung by Idina Menzel.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.