Every Face Divine--December 30, 2025

Every Face Divine--December 30, 2025

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being was life, and the life was the light of all people." [John 1:1-4]

We are going to have to come to terms with two things: first, that Christ (here called "the Word" by the evangelist John in a particularly poetic mood) is somehow one with God; and second, that Christ (the same Christ who is one with God) is also present in and through all of creation.

And that sure sounds like John is saying that the whole world--indeed the whole universe, but let's not get ahead of ourselves here--is steeped in the very presence of God and put together in the power of Christ. The whole world. All of it. Every nook and cranny. Every dark corner, deep sea trench, and dusty coal mine. Every sun-baked desert, tropical rainforest, and melting glacier. And every human heart, too.  It's all holy ground, just as every person is made in the image of God, and every face divine.

Both ideas--the idea of a human being (Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ and the Word) being somehow one with the Almighty and Eternal God, and then the idea that this Christ is somehow present to all of creation, in all of its messiness--are mind-boggling and scandalous. We could spend hundreds upon hundreds of pages probing at those mysteries--and in fact, Christians have spend an awful lot of time and paper and thought on the first of them. Indeed, what we have distilled for us into the handful of paragraphs we call the Creed was the product of a lot of arguing, thinking, praying, and the occasional slap from Saint Nicolas himself (true story!), all of it over the mystery of how Christ can be one with God and yet also distinct. Christians have been talking about that mystery with the convenient shorthand, "The Doctrine of the Trinity," for a long, long time now, and at least in the tradition I come from, we recite a summary of that doctrine every Sunday as part of our weekly worship. So even if we still don't quite understand it all, at least a good number of Christians have spent a good bit of time ruminating on the idea that Jesus Christ is one with God.

That doesn't mean we don't need to talk about it anymore, but it does mean that that particular mystery has gotten a lot of press over the years.

But the other, the perhaps less-considered mystery, still calls out for our attention and consideration. John the Gospel-writer also makes the claim that Christ touches every point of creation--that there is nothing in all the universe that doesn't bear his fingerprint, so to speak. And that does something very powerful to our view of the world, if we dare to let the idea seep into us. It means that, in a very real sense, it's all holy ground. Everywhere you step, you are both in the presence of God and in the handiwork of God. There is no place you can go where God isn't, and there is no face you can meet which is not made in the image of God. And because, as John the Gospel writer goes to great lengths to point out, Christ Jesus (the Word) is one with the living God, then there is no human being, anywhere, who does not bear the stamp of God's craftsmanship or the family resemblance to Christ somewhere.

That means Respectable Religious people bear the image of God... and so does the hot mess who has never darkened the doorway of a church but has walked in and out the door of rehab plenty of times without ever quite giving up their addiction. It means that the bald man who was your childhood neighbor is made in the image of Christ... and so is the woman who wears a head scarf, came here from across an ocean or two, and doesn't believe the same things you do about Jesus. It means that your town, your state, and your country are masterpieces of God... and so are the lands to the south, north, east, and west. It is all, irrefutably and inescapably, the creation of the God who made all things through Christ the Word. So whether a person or a place meets with my personal approval or not, they are already a creation of a God who takes ownership for all of it, the whole shootin' match we call the universe.

That doesn't mean we are all perfect peaches--just the opposite, actually. But despite the fact that every one of us is a hot mess in some way or another, and despite the fact that all of us constantly fail to live up to the fullness of love and creativity that God intends for us, God doesn't disavow making us or disconnect us from Christ who is the source of our life. Our very existence is evidence Christ hasn't given up on us, and in fact, longs for us to see that we bear the image of God.

For that matter, even though we collectively do a rotten job of taking care of the world that God has entrusted to us, it doesn't stop being God's creation. That's actually a pretty big idea to consider, because it means that even though God is apparently willing to risk that we will wreck the place, God still loves and claims ownership of this world, this life, and this day. The Scriptures do not give us permission to shrug and say, "This is our world to do with as we please," and then in the same breath say, "and God will just stop the wildfires we set or make some more turtles to replace the ones we've killed." No, in fact, God bears all the terrible things we do the world in which we have been placed--and the people who live in it--and still God claims ownership over the world, even while we are wrecking the place. When we do wreck things, though, we should be honest--we are wrecking a world made by God, through Christ, filled with the Spirit. We should be clear: the world we either care for or wreck, is holy ground, through and through.

Every face bears a family resemblance to Christ's face.

Every place bears the telltale scorch marks of the presence of divine fire like Moses taking off his shoes before the burning bush from which God spoke.

The Bible itself tells us so--so to take God's Word seriously is also to take God's world seriously.

Now, go step out into the world that is steeped in the presence of Christ--and live in it today, among other people today, like that is true.

Lord Jesus, reveal your face to us in the world around us, and in the faces you send across our path today.

God Enters Into the Story--December 29, 2025

God Enters Into the Story--December 29, 2025

"But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children." [Gal. 4:4-5]

Terrible things happen in the world sometimes.

God is not caught off guard by them.

Both of these are true, as hard as it is to hold them together.

In fact, both together are what the child in the manger is all about. And without them, we run the risk of sentimentalizing Christmas into mush.

We cannot simply cover over the evil in our world with a slogan announcing that "God loves us" and ignore the fact that so often we feel as though our world has been abandoned. And we cannot chirp back easy defenses for God to resolve the tension that comes from believing in a God who is both good and almighty in a world where goodness sometimes seems so utterly impotent. (The book of Job will teach us that, too--Job's friends all offer explanations and defenses for God in the face of evil, and in the end God seems to affirm Job's angry questioning of the silent heavens. So let us not pretend that the Bible forbids us from bringing the hard questions right in God's face.) So, determined to be utterly honest about the tragedies of our world and our lives, we still come to this Word from Galatians looking for God to speak good news--and not just generically nice news, but genuinely good news that can meet us in this moment and this situation.

Paul here sketches out God's way of dealing with the ever-present tragedy in our world, and it has two edges to it. First, God's way of engaging the evil of the world (evil which is made all the more palpable because the Law points it out to us) is to come into the world among us--"when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son." It has been the claim of Christians from the beginning that this Son is no less than God, too, so God's way of dealing with evil is not simply to wave a wand from outside the evil, Deus ex machina style, nor is it to simply send a heavenly employee to represent God in the world. None other than God-in-the-flesh enters into the same world in which we live and suffer and weep with those who weep. We may become impatient as we wait for the "fullness of time," but the Christian story hinges on a God who enters into the story, into the world, into the face of evil--not just in Jesus (although most definitively in Jesus), but all along.

Now at the same time, the Christian story insists that God meets us in the pit, so to speak, in order to do something. Jesus comes as one "born of a woman, born under the law" in order to redeem those who are under the power and curse of the law--that is, all of us--in order to make us children of God. This is an important point--God doesn't just impotently sit with us crying in the pit, sorry that nothing more can be done. (Sometimes, it is all we can do, as believers in community, to sit with someone who is suffering and weep with them, and that is perhaps enough for us to do. But God has more in mind.) The story of the Christian faith announces that God is not afraid of being in the pit with us, but that God is then determined to bring this world out of the pit, to heal it, not just to weep over its sickness. The God of our story is more than a big gooey ball of feeling. Our story is of a God who acts, who really and truly acts in history, and in our presents. Paul dares to say that the central point at which God's suffering and God's acting meet to heal this whole world is in the human flesh of Jesus. But Paul yet affirms that this God is still suffering and acting in and with and under this world.

And so we will call on the living God to do both for us--perhaps it seem audacious to call on God both to act and to suffer, but it seems that it is precisely what God would have us do.

Lord Jesus, We give this day into your hands because it is all we know to do. We trust that they will be strong enough to bear us up and carry us through present trouble, even as we know they still bear the scars of weakness and of troubles past, taken on for us. Hold us, and all who grieve this day, always close in your strong embrace, with those same arms ever outstretched to us in love. We pray to be held there, even in the life-worn arms of those people through whom you love us, too. We ask it, Lord, in your own strong-and-weak name.

God's Peace-Bringing Presence--December 25, 2025

God's Peace-Bringing Presence--December 25, 2025

"In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger'.” [Luke 2:8-12]

If you are in a burning building and a firefighter runs into the flames, picks you up, and carries you to safety without speaking a word, it would be enough. Saving your life is the critical thing, and that doesn't require an explanation. But if the firefighter sees that you are scared and says to you calmly, "I'm here to help. It's going to be ok. You can trust me," and then carries or leads you to safety, there is an added gentleness that makes a difference somehow.

The outcome might look the same--either way, the person in the burning building gets out to safety. But the additional attention it takes to practice kindness certainly makes it easier to go through the scary experience. Going into a burning building demands bravery from the firefighter no matter what, but when the firefighter takes the time and energy to put the one being rescued at ease, it helps them to be brave as well. And it reveals that the rescuer cares enough to think about how the one being rescued feels. That might seem unnecessary or additional, but it sure does feel important if you're the one petrified by fear in the flames. It means a great deal if you are the frightened one to have someone tell you, "You don't have to be afraid. It'll be all right."

The same thing could be said about a good nurse or a doctor with old-fashioned "bedside manner" in the Emergency Department: they can give you medicine or perform surgery without being compassionate and still save your life, but it makes a world of difference to bringing you peace if they can do it while assuring you, "You are going to get through this. You are in good hands." Someone can save your life without caring for your troubled spirit, I suppose, but there is something genuinely beautiful about those times when the ones who come to the rescue also care about being tender with our hearts.

That's something I've found myself picking up on in the story of Jesus' birth lately. God doesn't simply save the world--God takes the additional time to tell the world, "I'm here to help. You can trust me." God doesn't just send a savior in secret, as Luke tells it, but goes to the trouble of finding other ordinary people who are struggling, as the old carol puts it, "beneath life's crushing load," and takes the time and effort to stop and say, "You don't have to be afraid." For us who know this story by heart from decades' worth of Christmas pageants and Charlie Brown specials, it can be easy to gloss over this detail. But consider for a moment that God didn't "have" to announce anything to anybody, even if God were determined to send a Savior. The child could have been born in total anonymity, without anybody aware of anything, just as the firefighter could step into the burning building and never do a thing to put the ones who are trapped at ease before rescuing them. It would still "count." Their lives would still be saved. But God knows that while the saving is happening, it does something to ease our fears to be assured that we are not alone--to know that God is at work even when we cannot see how we'll get out of the mess we're in.

It's worth taking this moment to see and understand this dimension of God's love--that God is willing to take the extra step, to go to the extra length, and to make the additional effort, to be kind to us even in the act of saving us. God loves us, and that love is not merely a duty-bound, no-nonsense piece of business, but comes with the kindness of making sure our fears are put at ease. God takes the time to tell a bunch of shepherds what is happening in town, and that they do not need to be afraid. God is not merely saving the world in Jesus--God takes the time to calm our fears in the act of saving us. God is like the gentle firefighter who knows how to reassure the people being rescued while they are being pulled out of the flames, or the empathetic nurse who assuages your fears while giving you the medicine you need.  Ultimately, this is how the peaceable kingdom we've been hoping for comes: by God's Word spoken tenderly to our fearful hearts until it finally gets through to us and our spirits unclench to let God's love in.

What difference does that make? Why is it better that God sends angels to tell a handful of unimpressive anybodies that there is good news for all people? Well, in a sense, it's the very fact that it's unnecessary that makes it noteworthy--God could save in secrecy and silence, but God knows our needs enough to tell us, "This is what's happening now. I want you to know so that you won't be afraid, and so you'll know you can trust me." God doesn't "have" to do it that way... but God chooses to. That's how God's love works--there is a kindness there that goes beyond a job description or a matter-of-factly assertion, "I'm just doing my job." God's love is kind--and that is such a beautiful gift.

Today, just let that sink in. God loves you, and me, and the likes of anonymous sheep farmers, enough not merely to send a savior, but to make sure we know we don't have to be afraid while that savior is going to work. God is willing to take the time and make the effort to put these fearful hearts at rest. Maybe our love, too, can begin to learn to take the time with other people as well, so that they'll get a glimpse not just of God's saving power, but of God's peace-bringing presence.

Lord God, thank you for the time and attention you spend to put us at ease in the act of saving this world.

Where Nobody Was Looking--December 24, 2025

Where Nobody Was Looking--December 24, 2025

"In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. he went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place in the guest room." (Luke 2:1-7)

God does a clever bit of turning the tables here, in these opening words of the Nativity story, which many of us will hear read in worship this Christmas Eve.  Just when you think you know where the action is taking place and who the real movers and shakers are, Luke practically gives us whiplash pointing us in the opposite direction to see God moving, not among the Big Deals in the centers of power, but in a Podunk town in the backwaters of the empire, in a house so modest it didn't have a spare guest room. And it turns out the Lord of the universe chooses to come, not to the Imperial Capital among the powerful and the well-heeled, but among the anonymous nobodies of Bethlehem and their borrowed food trough from the barn.

That's at least part of why Luke our narrator begins the story of Jesus' birth this way. It's a bit of clever misdirection, like in a classic whodunnit or the latest Knives Out movie.  Luke points us at first to the Emperor in Rome, Caesar Augustus, who thinks he is the savior of the world.  Literally--Augustus had official proclamations issued throughout the Empire making his birthday a special holiday and decreeing that his birth was "good news for the whole world" and that he was both "god" and "savior." Augustus had the Senate rename a month of the year in his honor, and quite a number of cities and towns across the empire were renamed "Caesarea" to bring him glory, too.  Talk about a gigantically over-inflated ego, right? It would be funny if it also weren't so pathetic--and if Caesar Augustus also didn't casually wield Rome's military might like a petulant child to attack and invade whomever he wanted.  Everybody in Luke's audience hearing this story knew that Augustus thought he was the most important person in the world, and that he was the head of the most important empire in the world, ruling from its capital city. The regional oversight in the less-fashionable parts of the Empire fell to local Roman-appointed governors, like Quirinius whom Luke mentions, too.  But Luke doesn't ultimately leave his movie camera on the province of Syria, either.  

Neither the Empire's capital or the local seat of power are the important places for the real and living God.  This will be the last mention of Caesar Augustus or of Quirinius in the rest of Luke's story.  They are introduced in the opening sentences, as if Luke is saying, "Yes, I'm well aware that these arrogant bozos were around, and we ALL know that they thought they were the ones calling the shots in the world.  But they have no more to do with our story than just issuing the order for the census. They are self-important bureaucrats at best, and deluded egomaniacs at worst."  Luke tells us that Augustus is the one ruling in Rome when Jesus is born, and then promptly turns our attention elsewhere--to a laborer named Joseph and his fiancée Mary, who are nobodies in the eyes of the Empire.

They go along with Caesar's self-important census (tyrants always want to claim they are the Most Important by counting how big their "numbers" are, regardless of how irrelevant those statistics may be to their actual governance), and they make the journey from up in Galilee down to Bethlehem because that's where Joseph's family is from.  And yet, there, in whatever room they could find as the town was crowded with people coming home for the census, the promised child is born.  Mary had been told by the angel that this was the long-awaited Chosen One of God--the "Messiah" or "Christ" for whom the people of God had been hoping for centuries.  She had practically burst into song about this child when she was visiting her cousin Elizabeth, declaring that in him, God would fill the hungry with good things, lift up the lowly, and pull down the tyrants from their thrones and take the over-inflated egos of the powerful down a few pegs.  And now the child is born--laid, not in a palace or a room decorated with gold trim, but in a borrowed manger in a house that doesn't belong to him. It is precisely the opposite of Caesar Augustus and his self-important bullying reign.

The contrast Luke is making as the director of this movie is obvious: the Big Deals of the world think they run the world with their threats of invading army and gold-plated opulence, barking orders and intimidating their subjects into complying with their every whim.  But meanwhile, the real Lord of all comes into the world as a helpless infant in a backwater town.  The child's cries from the manger practically call out, "The emperor is wearing no clothes."  Caesar can tell himself he is the Savior of the world, but he's fooling himself.  He can claim to be bringing "peace" to the world, but the angels will declare otherwise.  God's way of saving the world will require no invading armies or flexing of imperial muscle; even the whole heavenly host will only be called upon to sing to some shepherds rather than going into battle.  God's way of saving the world comes where nobody was looking--because that is just the way God operates. 

And that's just what we need.

Lord God, come and visit this world in your unexpected and yet perfectly fitting way--away from the typical places of power and domination, and among the lowly and forgotten.

How Big Is Us?--December 23, 2025

How Big Is Us?--December 23, 2025

[The angel said to Joseph about Mary:] "She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
 “Look, the virgin shall become pregnant and give birth to a son,
  and they shall name him Emmanuel,”

which means, “God is with us.” (Matthew 1:21-23)

It's always in the plural--did you notice that?

The great salvation story and the announcement of the birth of the Savior--it's always told as God's action for "us," rather than for just "me." Even when the scene is a heaven-sent angel speaking in a personalized dream custom addressed to Joseph about his precarious engagement to Mary, the message isn't merely singular--it is in the plural.  The child Mary is carrying won't only save Joseph, but a whole "people" from their sins.  And the callback to the scene from the book of Isaiah about a young woman who will name her son "Emmanuel" drives toward a conclusion that this name means, "God is with us," rather than "God is only with ME."  It's always in the plural--God's action is always for US, and never my private possession.

I suppose that also means that from the beginning of the Christian story, the news of Jesus has always also been news of belonging to a community--the people of Jesus.  It's not an exclusive clique or elite country club, but it is a community.  We belong to the people of Jesus--to the family made up of those who have been claimed and rescued by Jesus.  That may be all that we have in common, honestly--all of us, from a host of different backgrounds, coming from different languages and cultures, with different experiences and identities, we belong to the people of Jesus. We are the "us" that God has promised to be with.  It just turns out that this particular "us" is an awfully large group.

How big, really, is that "us"?  Who is it that God has come to be "with" in this "God-is-with-us" Emmanuel child?  Well, in a very real sense, with ALL of us.  The incarnation--the notion that God fully dwelled in Jesus' humanity--means that God has chosen to share something in common with ALL humanity.  Jesus brings us the fullness of God taking on the fullness of humanity and standing in solidarity with the entire lot of us. There's no fine print or exceptions by which God says, "I'm willing to enter into humanity... but NOT for anybody with RED hair!" or "I've taken on human existence in Jesus... but that DOESN'T include left-handed people!"  God has taken on the heart of our common human experience in Jesus, and that doesn't leave anybody out.  The "us" in Emmanuel's "God-is-with-us" is as big and wide as the whole of humanity!

The other implication of all this is that none of us gets to push the people we don't like outside of the "us" either.  When Matthew quotes that passage of Isaiah's about the child Emmanuel's name meaning "God-Is-With-Us," there is no implied "Them" who are outside of the presence of God.  The point of this coming Emmanuel figure, whom Matthew identifies with Mary's baby, to be called Jesus, is not to set up a contest between "Us-Who-Have-God-On-Our-Side" and "Them-Who-Are-Without-God," but rather to say, "God has chosen to come among ALL of us."  God has chosen to be with the whole of humanity.  It's you, but it's not just you.  It's your neighbors, both the ones you get along with and the ones who always forget to take their trash cans in. It's the people who dress, speak, vote, and think like you... and the people whose clothing, language, worldview, and choices are different from yours.  It's the ones who worship beside you in church, and the ones who have never darkened the door of a church in their lives.  It's the people you find it easy to be kind to, and the ones whose demeanor is as rough as a corn cob.  The "us" is just that big.  The angel said so from the beginning of this story, even before Jesus was born.

As we prepare in the very near future to celebrate again the birth of this Jesus, it's worth remembering that the Christ-child comes as a gift, but not addressed to me alone.  Christ is given as God's gift to the whole world. God chooses to dwell with "us" rather than only with you.  The "people" whom Jesus has come to save is not limited to my narrow "Me and My Group First" interests, but instead is as large a group as the whole human family.  It includes grubby low-class night-shift shepherds and traveling foreigners who practiced astrology. And it includes you and me.  That's just how big the "us" really is.

Lord God, come among us and gather us all to yourself in Christ.

The First Duty of Love--December 22, 2025

The First Duty of Love--December 22, 2025

"When [Jesus'] mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But when he had resolved 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...." [Matthew 1:18-20]

It amazes me, now that I think of it, how much the whole divine plan to save humanity hangs on two people being patient enough to listen.

Mary, of course, is one of them. And when the angel comes to her with an outlandish notion that she bear the long-awaited savior, she is befuddled at how it will happen. She knows enough about where babies come from to know that she shouldn't be able to be pregnant yet... but she listens. And even though some part of her has to be increasingly worried about "what the neighbors will say" and how it will affect her reputation to be expecting a baby before the wedding invitations have been sent out, she is careful and thoughtful enough to consider everything the angel says. And after listening, thinking, and pondering the choice to trust God even when she can't see how it will all work out, Mary says "Yes." We're so quick to jump ahead to the scene with the manger and the shepherds that we often forget the power of that momentous conversation beforehand where Mary is clearly thinking things out and resisting the urge to panic by patiently letting herself soak in the words of the heavenly messenger. She isn't rash. She doesn't blurt out that it's impossible. And she doesn't rush to answer with her initial gut-reaction that she can't be the mother of the Messiah... because she knows she can't be a mother at all, yet. There is a deliberate pace, a slowness to respond, that makes all the difference. And if you think about it, it's exactly because Mary is willing to mull this whole thing over that the plan unfolds as God intends. It's because Mary thinks it over, listens to the angel's answers, and then says, "Yes," that the birth of the child proceeds the way it does. Her patience allows the breathing space for the Christ-child to be born.

But as this passage from Matthew's gospel, which many of us heard in worship this Sunday, reminds us, Joseph, too, plays his role in the great salvation story by being willing to be slow enough to listen, rather than rashly shutting everything down. Matthew tells us that when Joseph first finds out that Mary is expecting, he draws the only logical conclusion there is--Mary has been involved with another man. And whether out of feelings of betrayal at what he assumes is unfaithfulness, or because he doesn't want to keep her from someone else she might truly love, or all of the above, Joseph's initial plan is just to break everything off. He doesn't want to make a big public spectacle of things, although a stickler for the Mosaic law could insist that there be a public trial and a stoning. He just wants to break things off quietly and move on with his life. But again--Joseph is willing to consider things over. He is willing to be patient enough to listen when the angel comes to him in a dream.

And when the angel tells him it is OK to marry his betrothed, and that the child isn't the result of anybody being unfaithful to anybody, but rather of Mary being faithful to God and God being faithful to the ancient covenant promises, he is willing to let that new information change his mind and his plan of action. This really is an amazing turn in the story, if you think about it. Joseph had a plan, once which was decently thought out and reasonable given the circumstances and the data available to him, but he remains open enough to consider new information... and patient enough not to rush to judgment without listening to it. This isn't a story of a dramatic 180-degree turn from wicked or foolish choices toward wise and noble choices; it's not a matter of needing to "repent" from a sinful course toward a virtuous one, either. It's simply a matter of having enough openness and composure not to react rashly in a shoot-from-the-hip kind of way. Joseph is thoughtful, reasonable, and open to a fuller picture than what he had before going to bed the night before. And that willingness to listen--the humility to consider that maybe there was more to the story that needed to be factored in when someone presented it to him--is what leads Joseph to be the one to raise Jesus as his adoptive father.

I have to be honest here: people of faith are not always known for their ability to sit down and calmly listen to new information. We are not known in the wider culture for being open to hearing more to the story and letting it change our course of action. We are not often known for being patient enough to listen or humble enough to admit we didn't have all the facts. Rather, a lot of times we Respectable Religious People have made Certainty into an idol, as though any openness to consider new information is a damnable sign of moral relativism and a perilously slippery slope to sin. A lot of the loud voices of pop religion in our day can only see things their own way and to even allow the possibility that there might be more to consider feels to them like they are losing a battle to the side of evil. Ours is a time when many think that the surest posture of faith is to dig your heels in and clench your first, rather than to sit with open ears and an open mind to new information. But Joseph offers us an example of the power of patient listening, and he shows us that sometimes the most faithful thing you can do is to stop and say, "Maybe I don't have all the facts yet--let me consider what this other voice has to say."

Of course, to take Joseph's approach means choosing not to let ourselves be rushed through life or forced to make hasty decisions. It means that certainty is not always a sign of true faith, nor of being correct. And it means nurturing that uncomfortable virtue of humility--of admitting none of us have all the answers, and being open to being corrected, redirected, or given more information. Since so many people have only experienced Christians as "people who are always shouting their answers" rather than "people who are willing to share tough questions together," it is indeed a hard path to walk by following after Joseph's way. But my goodness, his story shows us just how much difference it can make to be patient enough to listen. As theologian Paul Tillich put it, "the first duty of love is to listen."

So today, perhaps our calling is to be like Joseph in that way, and to learn how to love more deeply by slowing ourselves down enough to listen to others first before telling them whatever it is we have burning inside of us to say. Perhaps especially for us who name the name of Jesus--and who are so easily tempted to tell the world, "I have all the answers!"--it is all the more important for us to hold off on rushing to certainty or heel-digging or fist-clenching. And perhaps the way we are called to grow in love is to take the time to listen to someone else today, yes, even at the risk of letting what they share with you change the way you think, speak, or act in the world. That might not be a sign of weakness or wobbly faith, after all, but rather of love and faith that are sturdy enough to grow in new directions.

Today, may we practice like Joseph the first duty of love--to listen, even when it seems risky.

Lord God, whether you are sending angels our way or the life story of someone else whose experience is different from our own, give us the courageous ears to listen, and the patient love to take the time to hear them out.

For Fools Like Us--December 19, 2025

For Fools Like Us--December 19, 2025

"A highway shall be there,
  and it shall be called the Holy Way;
 the unclean shall not travel on it,
  but it shall be for God’s people;
  no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.
 No lion shall be there,
  nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;
 they shall not be found there,
  but the redeemed shall walk there.
 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return
  and come to Zion with singing;
 everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
  they shall obtain joy and gladness,
  and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." (Isaiah 35:8-10)

Every time I come across these words, it makes me smile. I see myself in that line of fools, walking along God's pathway.

I caught myself smiling in self-recognition again this past Sunday when these words were read, too.  

This scene from the prophet Isaiah's book gives us a glimpse of the utter certainty of God's saving grace.  It is, quite literally, a fool-proof sort of salvation.  The prophet here is offering a vision of hope for people who felt stuck in exile in Babylon and couldn't imagine how they would ever make it back home to their own lands and their own lives.  The Babylonian armies had captured and deported countless people of Judea by brute force, and they now languished in limbo in Babylonian territory, hundreds of miles away from their homelands but without the means, power, or ability to go back to the only places they had ever lived.  Even if they could escape the watchful eyes of the Babylonians and leave, they didn't know how to get back home, and it was a dangerous and difficult journey through unknown wilderness to get there.  It seemed hopeless--there were a million ways it could all go wrong, you know?

So here comes, Isaiah, envisioning that God will make a way--nothing short of a highway to stretch across that vast wilderness, which will bring them all the way home.  You can almost hear Isaiah anticipating the worries and questions of the exiles and getting his responses ready to assuage them:  

"But how will we know how to get home?"  And the prophet answers, "God is building the road to go directly to Jerusalem, so all you have to do is just follow the pathway laid out for you."

"But what if there are dangerous Babylonians on the road following us, or what if people with leprosy who sometimes have to go live out in the wilderness come up to us and we're afraid of getting sick?"  Isaiah pre-emptively answers, "Nothing unclean will be on the road, so you don't have to worry about getting contaminated by anybody or captured by a Babylonian."

"Okay, but what if there are lions or other predators along the way? They live in the wilderness, and we would be defenseless against them if we went out there!"  So Isaiah says, like a parent calming a child who is afraid of monsters under the bed, "There will no lions, or any other kind of ravenous beast there--I promise!"

And as if to remove any other unspoken fears, the prophet also adds this beautiful, humbling detail: "No traveler, not even fools, will go astray."  What an absolutely stunning promise.  Even when our own stupidity would have gotten us lost, God's kind of pathway keeps us on the right road.  Even when our own blockheadedness would have led us into a ditch or gotten confused about the exit signs, God insists we will not end up in the middle of nowhere.  Even when our own fear might spur us to turn tail and go back to the now-familiar misery of exile in Babylon, God's road will get us all the way home.  God's saving grace is literally fool-proof: even we cannot mess it up with our own foolishness.

I am convinced that this notion from Isaiah 35 is not an exception: it is the Standard Operating Procedure for God in the world.   God's way of saving us doesn't leave loopholes that our own stubbornness or stupidity can get through.  God's kind of rescue doesn't leave open the possibility that we will mess it up by our foolishness, orneriness, doubt, or even our sins.  God's way of saving the world is utterly foolproof--which is to say, even fools like us cannot undo it.

So often at this time of year, when we tell the story of Jesus' birth, we take notice of how precarious and fragile the whole story seems. We ask questions, maybe like the exiles who heard from Isaiah did, naming all of our what-ifs:  what if Mary had said no? What if Joseph had broken off the engagement? What if Mary's parents didn't believe her story about a divine pregnancy and had her stoned to death? What if the shepherds didn't believe the angels' message?  What if mean ol' bully King Herod had successfully tricked the Magi into giving away the location of the child they found? What if they hadn't understood the meaning of the star? There are a million ways it could have all gone wrong, you know?

And yet, the assurance of the Scriptures is that even for all the ways God's movement in the world seems fallible and fragile, God's gracious saving is ultimately foolproof.  God has already figured our foolishness, our fearfulness, and our sinfulness into the recipe, and God's commitment to redeem and restore are unthwartable all the same.  Perhaps God has decided already that all salvation has to be foolproof, because all of us in need of saving are fools.  But just as the prophet said to those people despondent in exile centuries ago, so God says to us as well: "No matter what, my love will make a way.  No matter how big the fears are and no matter how small your confidence is, I will bring you home."

That is news that is worth holding onto today, tomorrow, throughout this Christmas season, and always: God's way of saving and bringing us home really is foolproof--even for fools like us.

Lord God, despite our fears and worries about what could go wrong along the way, bring us home and bring us to you.