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Sermon by Rev Fred Kinsey, "Can Jesus Get Lost?"

12/31/2018

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Readings for the First Sunday of Christmas, December 30, 2018
  • 1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26 
  • Psalm 148  
  • Colossians 3:12-17  
  • Luke 2:41-52

Can Jesus Get Lost, Pastor Fred

Can Jesus get lost?  Lost from his family?  Lost from us?  Can Jesus be disobedient and walk away from the family Passover gathering?  Will they find him?  Will we?
 
This is the only story of Jesus’ adolescence – when he was a teenager – in any of the gospel stories.  Though there are a couple of mystical, fanciful ones in the extra-canonical writings, like the one in the Gospel of Thomas, where the boy Jesus turns clay pigeons into real pigeons – he gives them life, and they go flying away!  But the story of Jesus in the Temple, at age 12, is the only one we have in the four Gospels of Jesus’ youth.  In Luke’s story of the boy Jesus, there is a struggle between his human obedience to his parents, and his extraordinary God-given knowledge as the Messiah-in-training. 
 
Mary and Joseph’s extended family are all together in Jerusalem for the Passover festival, as was their custom.  Not every family took it that seriously.  But Jesus’ family did.  They were all watching over each other, in that sort of, “it takes a village to raise a child,” kind of way.  So, it may not have been unusual that Mary and Joseph don’t know their 12 year old is lost, missing from the extended family.  The kids of the entourage would often, hang together at festival time, and parents of one family would be looking out for other parents’ children, depending on where the kids were that day.  It usually worked really well.  But Jesus was not like every other kid! 
 
And neither does the text make explicit whose fault it should be, that Jesus ends up where he does, and becomes lost to his parents.  And it’s probably deliberately unclear.  But, we do find out how each, feels about it!  Mary is very upset.  And Jesus, well he is surprised that they didn’t know where he would be, where he naturally would have gravitated to! 
 
There must have also been a moment of fear and terror, when Mary first discovered that their 12 year old son is missing, and he isn’t with the family caravan – and it’s already been a day into the journey back home to Nazareth in northern Galilee.  What do you mean he’s not with us!?  Where could he be?  Stop, we’ve got to turn back and retrace our steps.  We have to find him! 
 
The only thing that can assuage the fear of losing your child, is to search for him or her as diligently as you know how.  Time is of the essence!  How long can a 12 year old survive without their parent?  Without something happening to them?  So, back they go, to Jerusalem.  Where could he be hiding? 
 
And finally, after three days, they found their boy in the Temple of the LORD.  And, contrary to Mary’s worst fears, we discover that in the Temple, Jesus could not be more in his element, and more comfortable!  Jesus is asking very astute and learned questions of the rabbi’s, and his answers amazed these scholars!  So when Mary asks Jesus why he did this to his parents?  Why did he make them so anxious?  His answer to them is, well gee, mom, I thought you’d know where I must be.  Of course I’d be in my father’s house.  Left unsaid, by Jesus, of course, was what the Shepherds who had attended his birth had announced – this good news, that to them, a Savior had been born, who is Christ the Lord.  That’s how they should know! 
 
But Jesus also understood that Mary was beside herself, and deathly concerned with Jesus’ whereabouts.  And so he agreed to returned with his parents, and was “obedient” to them, Luke says, and he increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.
 
Mary was angry when she found Jesus, but she no doubt hugged him, and rejoiced that her son, she considered lost, now was found – even though Jesus himself, never felt lost for a minute! 
 
Do we ever feel like it’s sometimes hard to find Jesus?  Have you been searching for Jesus, wondering where he’s gone to?  Have you been looking for peace in your life?  For spiritual answers, spiritual fulfillment?  For healing?  For forgiveness? 
 
Jesus does not need us to find him, actually.  Jesus comes to us, everyday.  Jesus is always available in the love and grace of the good news given to all, sealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  Jesus finds us!  
 
That Jesus was 12 years old in this story, is of course, significant.  12 is the age of learning Torah, the sacred scriptures and accomplishing your bar/bat mitzvah – something like our confirmation process.  It’s the coming of age in the faith, and as a young adult.  But Jesus is well advanced beyond that.  He amazes the Temple teachers with his answers. 
 
In this way, from the very beginning of the story of Jesus according to Luke, he is continually compared with Emperor Augustus.  Augustus considered himself divine and worthy of worship, as the supreme leader of the Roman Empire.  He oversaw a period of peace.  But, Augustus accomplished it, often times, through intimidation and military might, with any peoples, or nations, who would not bow down to him.  Those who fought were conquered and made slaves, often times brought to Rome, lost their property, may never be able to gain control over their lives and families again. 
 
Jesus, at his birth, was hailed as the Prince of Peace by the early church, ruler of the whole world, but a ruler who came to liberate the oppressed and heal the sick, to create a new kind of family, and declare the year of Jubilee. 
 
Here in our reading today, Jesus is again compared to Caesar, who also was wise from his youth, and at the early age of 12 had, for example, spoken eloquently at his grandmother’s funeral.  But Jesus is even greater than Augustus, Luke tells us, listening and teaching with the greatest minds of his day, at age 12, proving he’s already the Son of God. 
 
Jesus was not lost in the Temple.  In his Father’s house, he knew he was where he should be, where he belonged.  In all things, Jesus is about God’s business, caring for the world God made for us, and showing us the way. 
 
At the end of the gospel, Jesus will go to the Passover festival again, one last time.  But then it will be with his followers, his disciples, who are his new family.  And he will commend his spirit to his father, on the cross.  This causes great anxiety for all of them.  The followers of Jesus think they have lost him.  But it is the disciples who are lost, and after three days, they will be rescued, saved.  When Jesus goes to the Passover festival in Jerusalem to celebrate the liberation of God’s chosen people, he is not lost, but accomplishing his mission, for the sake of the world. 
 
Jesus cannot be lost.  But we can.  We lose our way when we become disconnected from the road Jesus invites us to travel on. 
 
So, who is the one – who is Jesus for us in our lives, the one who finds us?  It may be a baptismal sponsor, a parent, a sibling, a friend, or even a stranger.  But Jesus has arisen and searches for us daily, and saves us, even when we may not expect it.  Jesus never wearies of finding his lost sheep.  Jesus wants to liberate us, teach us God’s ways, and walk with us to the festival, and banquet, of salvation!  
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Sermon by Pastor Kinsey, "Mary's Biggest Worry"

12/23/2018

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Readings for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 23, 2018
  • Micah 5:2-5a   
  • Luke 1:46b-55 
  • Hebrews 10:5-10  
  • Luke 1:39-45, (46-55)​

"Mary's Biggest Worry," Rev Fred Kinsey
“Greetings, favored one,” the angel Gabriel snuck up on Mary out of nowhere!  “Do not be afraid,” says Gabriel.  Angels know that us regular folk don’t expect to hear from them every day, so when they bring a message from the “realms of glory,” they always start with this reassuring phrase, “do not be afraid.” 
 
But that’s not Mary’s biggest worry – that an angel has come to visit her.  She has much bigger fish to fry.  Mary’s acceptance of angel Gabriel’s announcement, that she will be impregnated by “the Holy Spirit and the power of the Most High,” certainly demonstrates that she already has a radical trust and deep faithfulness.  But I’m not sure it means she’s lost all her “fear” quite yet!  A fear the angel Gabriel can clearly see in her “perplexed” and “ponderous” tongue-tied silence.  What is Mary’s pondering, deep down inside, to this overwhelming news? 
 
At least, she has much better sense around the angel Gabriel than Zachariah, Elizabeth’s husband.  Zachariah, a priest in the temple, in all his privilege, reacts with informed skepticism and doubt to the news of Elizabeth’s miraculous pregnancy – she’s due a mere 6 month before Mary – and his tongue is tied-up deliberately, that is, he’s struck dumb, by the same angel Gabriel, for the rest of Elizabeth’s term, until the naming of John the Baptist, 8 days after Elizabeth gave birth. 
 
Mary, in contrast, gathers herself to ask a clarifying question, then says, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”  That, despite a fear that she could be in mortal danger!  She is only engaged, after all – a virgin – which 2,000 years ago in Israel, was a possible death sentence, according to Jewish law, because any unmarried woman found to be pregnant, it says in Deuteronomy, could be brought to her father’s door and stoned. 
 
So, going with “haste” to see Elizabeth, her relative, may have been an act of self-preservation!  In her fear of the strict patriarchal law, she may have realized her life depended on it! 
 
Consider Martin Luther, who 497 years ago, was condemned as a heretic by Emperor Charles V, and excommunicated.  Luther fled to the castle at Wartburg, to go in hiding, thanks to the protection of his Prince, Frederick the Wise!  There he spent his time well, translating the Bible into German.  But little known, is that he also finished his commentary on our gospel reading today, Mary’s song, that we call the Magnificat.  Luther sent it to his friend George Spalatin for publication, and at the time, he thought it might be his final composition!  And it was a beautiful prayer-like commentary, addressing the faithfulness of Mary, who was God’s servant.  Perhaps he was thinking of himself, in this moment when he feared for his life.
 
So, Mary, running away, finds comfort and solace with Elizabeth, not just because she is her relative, or even that Elizabeth too is pregnant – with John the Baptist.  But because together, they find hope – an Advent hope and anticipation, in angel Gabriel’s message from their God, that they, though poor and unknown, are “favored, by the most high!” 
 
And this is the astounding irony, that the most faithful ones – Elizabeth and Mary – must hide in fear, fly under the radar, and commiserate in private, because the kingdom and realm of God had not yet been revealed!  The Savior is still a pregnant promise, a secret joy between two women – the birth of the Messiah is 9 months away – which seems in some ways like forever, but in another, just around the corner! 
 
Mary stays with Elizabeth for 3 more of those months, and you have to wonder what the two kinswomen do?  Luke doesn’t dwell on this part of the story, but Mary no doubt helped her older relative, as she became great with child, and as Zachariah was not even able to say boo!  Plus Mary could get used to the idea of her news, that she was the God-bearer, and get over her fear a little more, before returning home to Nazareth, just before John the Baptist is born. 
 
Who is it that today must fly under the radar, favored by God, but distrusted, even hunted by the authorities, and those in power?  Who is it God is calling us to lift up in the world today?  Who has the understanding of how God works, and the courage to live and share it, that is being intimidated from speaking out?  Where are the voices of peace and liberation that will speak up for the lowly and oppressed? 
 
For much of the first 2 chapters of Luke, Mary & Elizabeth are the focus of the gospel story.  These kinswomen are a foreshadowing of the rest of the gospel.  The lowly are “favored”.  The marginalized, the meek, the humble, and the oppressed are lifted up and liberated.  The kingdom is all about them.  And the gospel message is, that God is turning the world inside-out.
 
Where is Joseph, the betrothed?  He is not the focus.  Where is Zachariah, the husband of Elizabeth, a priest in the temple?  He has been silenced by God’s messenger, his tongue tied, by the angel Gabriel, for his lack of faith. 
 
God instead has looked with favor on Elizabeth and her younger relative Mary.  And the message is sharpened for us, the moment Mary walks in and greets her kinswoman, when John leaps in her womb, and Elizabeth interprets it to mean that John is greeting Jesus!  Elizabeth, “filled with the Holy Spirit, sings out exuberantly, blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” 
 
Jesus, we learn, is going to be much greater than John, he is “my Lord,” according to Elizabeth, and therefore Mary is highly favored and blessed. 
 
Everything is being turned upside-down, which is the gospel message brought to you by Luke!  In no other gospel are women lifted up as leaders of the faith, quite so impressively!  Others who are marginalized in Luke are also heralded: those considered sinners, like tax collectors and lepers, and even familiar enemies, like the Samaritans. 
 
The meeting ground of Elizabeth and Mary, in the hill country of Judea, may be considered seditious by rulers like Herod, and Emperor Charles V, but is holy ground for Luke, a fertile soil for faith and the growth of the kingdom and realm of God. 
 
Here in this place, Mary herself, is grounded, and learns to trust the gospel message she received from the angel Gabriel.  And so she sings from her heart, confidently:
“My soul magnifies the Lord, 47and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
  Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
 49for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name…
51bhe has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
 52He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
  and lifted up the lowly;
 53he has filled the hungry with good things,
  and sent the rich away empty.”
 
And Jesus is born, of one of these lowly outcasts!  Jesus is born our king and savior in a humble manger – fulfilling God’s promises in a most unlikely way.  So, from cradle to cross, Jesus will not only show us the way, and fill our hearts with love, but will love the world in all its misguided upside-down, sin and greed. 
 
“Fear not,” Jesus tells us, like the messenger-angel Gabriel, once told his mother Mary.  Though we have much we are afraid of – no matter if we are rich or poor, in times of faith or in questioning, feeling favored or lowly – in Christ, we are protected.  We are as well sheltered and protected as Luther was by Prince Frederick, for the promise of our Savior has been announced, and we are the favored ones. 
 
He will be born, like one of us – lowly, in a humble manger.  But favored as God’s Son, to bring us peace and salvation. 

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Sermon by Rev Fred Kinsey, "Sea of Flames"

12/19/2018

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Readings for the 3rd Sunday of Advent, December 16, 2018
  • Zephaniah 3:14-20  • 
  • Isaiah 12:2-6  • 
  • Philippians 4:4-7  • 
  • Luke 3:7-18

​"Sea of Flames," Pastor Kinsey
The precious Sea of Flames diamond was locked up in the museum that Marie-Laure’s father, worked at.  No one had seen it for almost 200 years, but it was said to be stunningly beautiful: pear shaped, blue like the sea, with a flare of red at its core.  And it seems to me, a flash of fire and spirit, like the Advent of Our Lord, the announcement of the coming of the Messiah. 
 
The Legend, of the Sea of Flames diamond, was said to have protected the [anointed] Prince who held it in his palm, saving his life from a mortal knife wound, but at the same time, brought misfortune and even death to some of his friends and family around him.  But the curse would be lifted, if only someone had the courage to throw the Sea of Flames back into the sea.  So went the legend, anyway, that was told to Marie-Laure as a child in Paris in 1934, in Anthony Doerr’s novel, “All the Light We Cannot See.” 
 
How do people react to the beauty, and indeed, the wealth of such a precious diamond?  Can diamonds like the Sea of Flames be shared by all in a public museum?  Or will it only be an object that creates greed and misfortune? 
 
Marie-Laure’s father is Principal Locksmith, the keeper of the keys, in the National Museum of Natural History.  And he alone has the keys to the Sea of Flames, locked behind 13 doors!  He says he doesn’t believe in the curse.  But early on in the story we hear tell that:  his father died in WWI, his wife died in childbirth, and now his daughter, Marie-Laure is blind from cataracts, at the age of 6.  “It’s like they’re cursed,” young Marie-Laure hears people whispering all around her. 
 
So, as WWII crashes in on France, the Museum’s director devises a plan to hide the precious Sea of Flames, in case the museum is captured.  So, two fakes are created, perfect look-a-likes!  And three employees of the museum were designated to secretly carry the stones away from Paris.  Even as German bombs are falling on the French capital, Marie-Laure and her father, and two others, are making their way out of France.  Neither of them knows which one is the real Sea of Flames.  Any one of them might be carrying one of the fakes, or the real thing! 
 
But misfortune continues to swirl around Marie-Laure’s father, making us wonder if he is indeed the carrier, because first, the two of them fail to get on their train leaving the country, and end up at their uncle’s home in Britany, on the island town of Saint-Malo, on France’s NW Atlantic coast, which, coincidentally, has been selected by the Germans as the strategically perfect location for their soldiers to occupy, just across the channel from Great Britain.  Then their house-keeper dies, followed by Marie-Laure’s father mysteriously being summoned back to Paris.  He hands off the stone to his daughter before departing, but he’s never seen alive again. 
The 16 year old, Marie-Laure, now totally blind, is left all alone to fend for herself in the town’s final battle, as the Germans dig in to defend against the onslaught of the Allied bombs.  Does Marie-Laure have the real Sea of Flames diamond?  Will it protect her from the war?  Will she survive the Day of reckoning?  Will France ever see the light, the liberation by American and British troops? 
 
Here in this Third Sunday of Advent we wait and hope with anticipation for our liberation.  In Advent, we live in the “in-between times”.  The time between Christ’s first and second comings.  Is Christ with us to protect us?  Or is the ax lying at our roots, ready to cut us down?  Are we part of God’s plan, the favored and chosen people?  Or will God raise up new people from stones?  Do we know the one who is coming to bring Light, a flash of fire at our center, light that will illuminate our days, and show us the way?  Is our salvation near? 
 
And what of the fire-y prophet John the Baptist?  Isn’t he a kind of Sea of Flames diamond-in-the-rough for Jesus? 
 
As the crowds were coming out to be baptized from Jerusalem and Galilee, John preached repentance in the Jordan wilderness.  Everyone was coming to be baptized and asking John, if they cannot depend on their status as the chosen people, that they’re ancestors of Abraham, what then should they do?  How should they bear good fruit so they are not cut down and thrown into the fire?  ‘If you have more coats and more food than you need,’ says John, ‘share with those who have none.’  To the rich he says, ‘stop cheating.’  And to the occupying forces, their Roman overlords, John says, ‘do not reinforce the structures of inequality, or extort those you have power over, just because you can.’ 
 
For this, John was exulted, and the people gathered thought perhaps he was the Messiah – that full of such wisdom, John was about to inaugurate the Advent of the coming new age.  His teaching on lifting up the lowly and combating oppression sound a lot like Jesus!  John the baptizer, was a Sea, but a Flame, of Judgement – a cleansing baptizer on the water’s edge, but with a winnowing hot flame separating the wheat from the chaff.  He was not the Messiah of Grace and Love, the anointed Son who brings the Holy Spirit, flame-of-fire. 
 
And John knew it: One who is more powerful than I is coming, said John.  I baptize you with water; but Jesus will baptize you with the Holy Spirit, and yes, with a new kind of fire – with a purifying red tongue of fire, more valuable than any diamond. 
 
The magnificent Sea of Flame diamond, all beautiful sea-blue, was said to have a touch of red, like a small flame, at its core.  Not perfect, because no diamond is, but just enough red to give it a spark of light at its center, a power born of ages of formation and shaping. 
 
The fire that Jesus brought as our Messiah, we find, was the spark of fire ignited at Pentecost, the individual flames of fire that touch all the disciples as they wait for him in the upper room – and the fire of the Holy Spirit that steadily spreads to more and more believers, more and more followers, a flame more beautiful than any diamond, the Light of Christ, of the resurrected Jesus, the one “we cannot see,” but we feel at the center of our lives, and know as the most beautiful and magnificent gift we will ever receive.  As John said, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
 
And that’s the grace that rescues, revives, and fills us so full, so satisfied, that we can’t do anything but rejoice, as St Paul does, rejoice in the Lord always.  That’s the grace that gives us hope and confidence in this time of waiting and preparation, to bear good fruit, here in this in-between time of Advent, as we live with the promise of our resurrected life to come.
 
It turns out that the protector of Marie-Laure’s Sea of Flames Diamond was one of the enemies, an orphaned German, under-aged boy-soldier, like one of the enemies we are to pray for, and who himself uses his one opportunity for good, by living large, and  by overcoming temptation to do what no one else could with the diamond, bearing fruit worthy of repentance. 
 
That’s the kind of Messiah we have in Jesus, the One who lifts the curse of death for us!  The One who’s inner light is our flame. 
 
He was the prophet from the north, from tiny, discounted Galilee, born of an unmarried mother, born a refugee in a lowly manger across the border in southern Bethlehem of Judea. 
 
Jesus the Christ, the anointed One, uses the opportunity God gives him, to show us the way.  He uses his life, to create a pathway to the Light, as we travel without credentials into God’s new and liberating kingdom – waiting and hoping, in this Advent season – preparing and anticipating every opportunity we have, to be keepers of the flame, and to bear good fruit.
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Sermon by Rev Fred Kinsey, "Don't Miss It"

12/3/2018

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Readings for the First Sunday of Advent, December 2, 2018
  • Jeremiah 33:14-16  
  • Psalm 25:1-10  
  • 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13  
  • Luke 21:25-36

Don't Miss It, Pastor Kinsey
I fear we’re going to miss the celestial signs in ‘the moon and the stars,’ here in Chicago, where our view is almost more closed-in than the purview of the ancients was.  2,000 years ago, when everyone was still a ‘flat-earther,’ the skies, their heavens, were alive with the Creator’s gift of lights, ‘by day and by night.’  Yet, here in our neighborhoods we can barely look up past the street lights to observe the moon and stars at night.  We are perhaps the city with the most light pollution anywhere, which can be good, safety-wise, or for enjoying night life, but terrible for catching the Big Dipper or Milky Way.
 
In rural Michigan, where I lived for 20 years, there you could enjoy all the lights of the night sky!  Step outside, and there were so few streetlights that it was almost pitch black, and immediately, there were thousands of stars up above, the Pleiades shooting stars every August, and on rare occasions, the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights. 
 
One day our friend Ruth, from Marquette, called to tell us she saw them over Lake Superior the night before.  ‘You’ve got to check it out’ she told us.  So we stayed up late, past my bed time – which always makes me cranky, Kim can tell you – but it was sooo, worth it!  There, from our front steps, we could look to the northern sky and see the most amazing lights – colors, pulsing and vibrating, “like shook foil” as poet Gerald Manley Hopkins once described them.  Pinks and greens and yellows, changing in color and shape the more you watched. 
 
Nobody knows for sure what causes them, maybe solar flares, in concert, somehow, with earth’s gravity.  Sometimes they are so strong it interferes with radio waves and major communications around the world. 
 
That’s probably the only way we’d know they were happening, here in Chicago, because we can’t see much past the sodium vapor and LED glow, from street to street, neighborhood to neighborhood.  “There will be signs,” said Jesus.  And, “…when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
 
I hope we don’t miss them!
 
So, what did the signs mean, that Jesus warned of?  The brilliant and ground-breaking work by biblical theologian N. T. Wright, reveals that they were certainly signs a Jewish Messiah would point to.  And first and foremost, would be the sign of redemption that would signal the end of Israel’s exile, the major unanswered question of the time.  They had returned from exile in Babylon, a long time ago.  But they had never really become the promised ‘redeemed’ Israel, had not yet become the liberated people of God, and beacon of light to the nations, but were under the thumb of one empire after another, and Israel’s faith leaders corrupted more than ever, under Roman occupation since Herod the Great arrived, which set the stage for the birth of Jesus a few decades later. 
 
Jewish leaders like Bar Kochba came and went, gaining the people’s favor when they liberated the Temple, temporarily, but this too proved to be a dead end. 
 
What N. T. Wright understands about this apocalyptic chapter of Luke, which is in all three synoptic gospels, was that Jesus was referring to a real liberation of Israel, within his own generation.  It would not be a military liberation like Bar Kochba, but the beginning of a new non-violent way of leadership, never before revealed by God to the nations.  It would also no longer be centered in the physical Temple in Jerusalem, that sacred symbol of Israel’s identity and center of worship, where the presence of God lived in the Ark of the Covenant, in the Holy of Holies. 
 
The signs, in the stars and the seas, would signal great upheaval in the heavens, and also ‘distress among the nations,’ and the day of the coming of the Son of Man would come suddenly.  But be ready, Jesus said, “praying that you may have the strength to escape” the destruction which would come.  Jesus was predicting the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by Rome, but not that his followers should take up arms to defend it.  This was a confusion, and even a contradiction, for all Jews – even the 12 disciples – who had believed the day of the Lord would bring Israel a new king to reign from Jerusalem, mighty like David – that’s how the capital would be saved and liberated from the occupying Romans. 
 
But Jesus told his followers in Jerusalem to, run for the hills, and escape the violence.  God’s kingdom was not to be inaugurated by war.  But be ready – after the Temple is destroyed – to ‘stand up’ and take hold of ‘your redemption.’  Then the living God will dwell in the new Temple, of the ‘Son of Man,’ the Messiah, in the risen Jesus, our Lord, the one worthy of worship and praise.  The One God raised, is our redemption, a new temple that is not destructible but lives and reigns bringing in the kingdom of God, which is alive as the church, in the people of God, who carry the good news in their hearts, who live by non-violence, where the last will be first, without lording it over their brothers and sisters. 
 
There were enough followers of Jesus, like ‘the 12 disciples and women followers,’ who decided not to defend the Temple ‘made with human hands,’ and fight the Romans to the death, but ‘escaped’ to live another day, and fight the battle of enacting the kingdom and realm of God, from synagogue to synagogue, house-church to house-church, to share the powerful message of love and non-violence, faith and living-for-your-neighbor – to stand up for washing your servants feet, raising up women leaders, loving your enemies, and transforming the kingdom of this world, by the power of kingdom of God, that had broken through in the death and resurrection of the prophet and Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
So, what are the signs of our times?  How do we read the sun, moon and stars?  The roaring of the seas?  It’s not hard to see the signs of more powerful hurricanes and wild fires, drought and floods, and rising world temperature, as a quickly rising danger of climate change, threatening the home of our “very good” eco-system God created for us.  We now know it’s happening even faster than predicted just a few years ago, and we only have a decade or two to start to make dramatic changes in the way we are overusing our fossil fuels. 
 
And then there is the exponentially growing gap of income inequality in America, and the whole world – a sign of the rigidity of our polarized politics, a palpable disillusionment and spiritual crisis where less than half of eligible voters vote, and houses of worship are languishing.  Only a reengagement from the grassroots, a movement of prayer and praise in faithful solidarity, can overcome the top-down control we have slid into.   
 
‘Be on guard,’ as Jesus said. ‘Be alert!’  We, the people of God, must be ready to lead in times of trouble, ready to guide our neighbors and country, in an ancient-future 2,000 year old, always reforming, direction:  the way of love and non-violence, the way of servanthood and loving your enemy, and the way of worshiping the Messiah, the crucified and risen Savior, who is our (living) Temple-without-walls, our first-born of the dead of God’s new creation.
 
In Advent, we are preparing and learning to follow the sign of the ‘star of Bethlehem,’ our shooting star, more beautiful than anything else in the world, always leading us to, ‘love of the good news,’ our core message, we share and we live. 
 
Let us not miss the sign of the star – even here in Chicago – for our redemption is drawing near!
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