Christmas Eve Message on Luke 2:1-21 given on December 24, 2024 at St. Luke's Lutheran Church, Richardson, Texas.
Link to St. Luke's YouTube to watch worship;
Tonight, we celebrate the scandal of God becoming a human being. It’s outrageous really. For the Source and Creator of all that is to become so small, so limited, so weak, so finite, so….. ungodly?
It is a scandal—so much so, that there’s no other god-story like it. Oh sure, there are stories of other virgin births…Romulus and Remus, Karna from India, the Aztec war God, Lau Tzu. But all of these are born as gods or demi-gods, remaining far superior to the frailties and vulnerabilities of being human. No self-respecting god becomes fully human.
We are, after all, a bit icky. We smell if we don’t bathe regularly, we are weak, we are born helpless, and dependent, and it takes years before we can fend for ourselves. We get sick and our bodies don’t work as well as we age. We must eat 3 times a day at least, and we sleep a third of our lives. We learn by trial and error,
we don’t get along with those who are different from us, and wars continue to rage. Some of us are pretty smart, but we have no superpowers to speak of: No lightening bolts like Zeus, no power-wielding hammer like Thor, no super-human strength that can tame wild beasts like Hercules. And worst of all, we do not live forever. We all have an expiration date.
It's no wonder that in every other god-story, they bypass the pain, suffering, and mortality that define human life. The gods live far off like on Mt. Olympus and come in as heroes, or for conquest, resolving challenges with superpowers.
Except for this one and only God-story of the Source and Creator of all that is who became so humble and so small, pressing down into an infant inside a human mother, to enter every single human experience with us, about us, alongside us, and for us. Rather than remaining far off, Jesus collapses the distance between God and us, and becomes—not a god with a few human traits—but fully human, fully like us, born of a young woman.
Jesus embraced all the limitations of our humanity—learning, growing, grieving, weeping, hungering, sleeping, and suffering. I wonder how many times he argued with his brothers and sisters growing up; how many cuts his mother had to bandage, how misunderstood he felt as a teen, how many crushes he had that didn’t work out, how lonely it felt when people misunderstood and betrayed him and his mission.
What a scandal that God—with all the power in the universe—would walk among us in our frailty.
What scandalous, joyful, good news that God loves us this much—to enter the messiness of our lives, embrace our vulnerability, and know us so intimately, so intenesely.
By becoming like us, God makes sacred all of our lives--every experience. Sleep, sickness, growth, aging, even dying—all of it is full of meaning because it is replete with Jesus’ presence and love, because he is with us in all things. Jesus Christ transforms all of our life into holy ground. Our limitations and struggles are no longer barriers between us and God. Because of the manger—they are the very places where God meets us.
If the God of the universe being born in a stable among the animals means anything at all, it certainly means that Jesus is with you in the most difficult experiences, dare I say crappiest moments of your life. Our challenges or weaknesses are the very places where Jesus accompanies us to give us strength to get us through, peace that calms our mind, hope that gives us a vision ahead, love that embraces us with grace no matter what.
The greatest scandal of all is that Jesus was not only willing to experience death like we do, but he overcame it with life, turning the finality of the grave into the doorway of eternal life. The God who became human now holds our humanity in the eternal presence of the divine love who made us at the beginning.
The God of all superpowers did not come to impress us with divine might. God came to love us, to heal us, and to be intimately a part of our lives here and now.
In Jesus, born anew this night, our infinite God embraces you from within where love makes your whole life sacred as part of God’s unfolding story in this world.
Fully embracing this miraculous love and living in faith now is YOUR superpower! And it's the best super in the whole universe!
Message for Advent 2 on Malachi 3:1-4; Luke 3:1-6 on December 8, 2024 at St. Luke's Lutheran Church, Richardson, Texas
When our kids were growing up, we spent a week at Ghost Ranch every summer, a Presbyterian camp and Conference center in the high red rock desert west of Abiquiu, New Mexico. Dan had been there as a boy, so knew the place well.
One summer, early on when Leah was only 4 1/2, and the boys were 6 ½ and 8 1/2, Dan was convinced that Leah could do the big hike behind the camp called Kitchen Mesa. It would be my first time making this hike too. We headed out after lunch. It was about 98 degrees, very sunny, and very hot at 6500 feet above sea level.
The first part of the hike was a lot of fun, we chugged up the backside of the mesa with a steady climb, but then we got to what’s called the “narrow dirt path.” It was on a steep hill of loose gravel, and the path was only about a foot wide and 30 or 40 feet long. You could tell it was dangerous, because 10 feet down the gravel embankment was a catch wire in case you slipped and headed downhill.
I took one look, and thought to myself, “what kind of idiot have I married and had children with?” I was SO mad! But there Dan was, acting like all this was actually normal. He led the boys across, came and got Leah and I followed behind. I started silently fuming.
Then came “the chute.” This was hand over fist rock climbing through a narrow crevice and everyone, including me, had to be shoved by Dan from the behind up through the crevice, hanging onto rock edges you went.
Really? This is a great hike for a 4-1/2 year old? Jacob and Daniel had already done it the year before when Leah and I stayed home. We all made it through the chute and were at the top of the mesa. I hoped we were close to the end, but no, there was another 30 minutes of (angry) hiking to get to the front of the Mesa to look down on the vista of the whole ranch. We took our victory picture, and started back. I smiled through gritted teeth.
Leah was doing fine. The truth was, I was feeling weak and wobbly before we got through the chute. I had forgotten that my new migraine prevention meds caused dehydration. Our Gatorade was gone, and we had 1 bottle of water left for the 5 of us to get all the way back to camp. I was overheated, my head and my heart were pounding, and it was hard to keep moving in the blazing sun. The boys took turns holding my hand, which literally gave me strength. We rationed the water—I got 2 sips to their 1. My pulse was over 150 and struggled to put one foot in front of the other, but I kept moving. I knew if I stopped, I would not be able to start again, and they’d have to carry me out on a stretcher.
As we got all the way to the trail head, Leah raced in front of me to be the first to get back to the ranch—this little fierce creature was more fit than I was.
Dan was absolutely right about her. He kept them all safe. I was angry at him, but who was the one putting all 3 of them at risk? Me! I was. If something had happened to one of them, I was in no shape to take care of my own kids, because I had neglected to figure out how to take care of myself.
Why is it that the thing that makes us so angry at other people is the very thing that is wrong with us?
It happens to all of us, doesn’t it? Perhaps not always in such a dramatic fashion as this story, but it tends to be a life lesson that recurs lest we forget that what annoys us in others is what we do not like in ourselves. What makes us angry or judgmental about others, is what angers us and makes us judge ourselves. But the mirror can be a painful place to look. So, we would rather gossip, and point fingers, and judge, and wonder what in the sam hill is wrong with that family member, or that neighbor, or those voters, or this generation, or whatever seems to be disrupting our peace today, or our serenity this week, or our fa la la la la this holiday season.
The word of God came to John proclaiming a Baptism of repentance and the forgiveness of sins. …the voice of one crying in the wilderness.
Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight…
Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth.
Repentance is to “turn around toward God” and to remove the obstacles that that get in the way of our relationship with God and becoming our fullest, truest selves in Christ. So, what is John really asking of us? That we would join him in a time of opening our heart—if not in the wilderness, then here in worship, and a few minutes in the morning or evening—or on the weekend—a time apart— where we can be away from our schedule, and not so in control, so we can see ourselves a bit more clearly. To engage in some mirror time.
John asks for a moment of preparing our heart, when we can ask the Lord to come and remove the anger from our hearts and help us to accept ourselves, and therefore others, as we are, with all of our own frustrating humanness. John calls us to a time of preparing our heart when we can ask the coming Savior to erase the judgments from our mind and enable us to love others, and even ourselves as he loves us. In so doing, Jesus brings low the mountainous barriers between us and those we think are so different from us. John beckons us to a moment of preparing our heart when we can plead for the coming Christ to take the crooked pathways in our hearts that zig zag from hope to despair to control to thanks to doubt to faith to depression to love and back again, and give our heart that gentle pull that straightens us out toward the divine peace which holds us all.
John cries out for us to take a time of preparing our heart when we can turn over to Immanuel, God-with-us, the rough places that burden us, and then wait for the Spirit’s urging from within to take the next right step to smooth the path ahead. Oh yes, John spent enough time in the wilderness, maybe like Ghost Ranch, for God to help him remove those obstacles in his heart and bring him peace. And this is what John desires for us—that ALL those obstacles, and crooked paths, and mountainous feelings, and rough relationships would be awash with the peace and presence of Jesus, who today and always, is forever coming to us with God’s love, compassion, forgiveness, and transformation of heart.
This is what it is to prepare for the coming of the Lord—both the babe who is born in our hearts anew, and the return of the victorious Christ at the end of time.
We want our hearts, our lives and our relationship with God to be ready. We can be filled with the Peace of Christ that passes all understanding right now today!
Prepare your heart. Prepare your soul. Prepare your life. Prepare your relationships.
So, I invite you into a prayer of preparation this week:
1. Pick one emotion you have felt toward someone else (e.g. anger, resentment, judgement, annoyance) and ask God to help you look at what this reveals about you that you do not like
2. Ask God to help you grow through this character issue, to release the outward-directed negative emotions, then invite Jesus into this struggle, and ask for Jesus’ peace in place of your mountain of negative emotions—anger, (resentment etc.)
3. Pray for self-acceptance of your human limitations and for Jesus’ peace, love, and light to shine through you
4. Ask for forgiveness to repair a relationship if this is needed
After the infamous Kitchen Mesa hike, I was fine once I got hydrated again. In subsequent years, we got up at 5 am and did the hike before breakfast! The boys picked the morning that French Toast was served for breakfast! But that year, I did need repentance, a transformation of heart, and to apologize to Dan for misjudging him. I was in an art class at the Ranch called Retablo—a folk art form from Mexico where you write a story on your painting. I am not an artist, so as per this sermon, please don’t judge me—it’s worse looking than a paint-by-numbers. I made this for Dan—it’s of Kitchen Mesa and it hangs behind our bedroom door so Dan can see it, but no one else.
Here we are on top of Kitchen Mesa with our arms raised in victory. I shared a little bit about the hike and being quietly incensed. I wrote how my young children inspired me to keep moving when I felt like collapsing. The last 2 lines say, “What a blessing that my children have dad who will challenge them to risk within the safe bounds of his arms’ reach. My mom has a framed cross-stitch piece that proclaims, 'The Kitchen is the Heart of the Home.' But for me, 'The Kitchen Mesa' is the heart of our home.”
When we open our hearts and allow God to prepare them for Jesus’s coming by removing the obstacles that hinder peace, we more readily turn around and repent,
we repair relationships, we experience equanimity in our emotions, and we become less reactive to the external circumstances around us. We then become vessels of shalom and peacemakers in our community and the world as our hearts become straight pathways of peace, and the mountains and valleys of our life even out with hope, and our rough ways become smoothed by love by the Christ, who is always coming to us anew.
A clear look in the mirror does not have to be so bad when the outcome is a heart transformed by the peace of Christ. Malachi give us the image of a refiner of silver. The metal worker knows that her silver is purified when she shines it, and it becomes a mirror—where she can see her own image. This is God’s desire for each of us. As God prepares, refines, and polishes you, God sees the image of Jesus Christ reflected back.
Message for Pentecost 4 on Mark 4:26-34 given on June 16, 2024-Father's Day at St. Luke's Lutheran Church, Richardson, Texas
Last Sunday I got to go mini golfing with the Youth! They know I love mini-golfing and if I were going on any outing and it were up to me, I would always pick mini-golfing. Not that there’s anything wrong with bowling, laser tag or Escape rooms, except I have never been in an Escape room; it’s just that mini golfing is better than all of those.
If you were to ask me why I love mini golfing, I would say it’s interactive, fun and unpredictable; you’re often outside and on the move. But then I remembered this experience from my childhood, which surprisingly, I never even told my husband until yesterday.
I think it was a Saturday, and I was about 7 years old. I was on the floor of the family room playing alone with Barbies or blocks or something. My older sister and brother were off doing older sister and brother things, and Julie, my younger sister, was probably taking a nap.
My dad came up to said, “do you want to go mini golfing?” And I asked if I could bring my friend, Jessica, who lived down the street. My dad said, “nope, it’s just you and me.”
I said, ok, so off we went to play mini golf, just me and my dad. We lived in southern California, and we went to a fancy outdoor mini golf place where there were castle doors that opened and closed, windmills that turned, and bridges over running water, so each new hole was an adventure in itself, including surprise holes that dropped your ball to another level where the real hole was.
I got to do that whole fancy golf course with just my dad and me and no one else. With 4 kids, days like that didn’t happen often.
I felt SO important, SO special; I knew I mattered. I felt SO incredibly LOVED.
Why do I pick mini golf over bowling and laser tag? Because when I play, I always feel loved. I am reminded of my father’s love, where I came from, my whole family, that I matter, that I am important.
I do not usually consciously call this memory to mind, just going mini golfing gives me joy, because my whole psyche and body remembers and feels LOVED.
I think this experience of being deeply LOVED is what we all are seeking in worship, in our faith and in our spiritual life —to know in our whole being, in our psyche and body and memory, that we matter to God, that we are special, and most importantly, that we are so incredibly LOVED by our heavenly Father and Creator.
• That God seeks us out individually and desires to spend time with just us.
• That God will show us the wonders of this world and our part in it—
• That yes there are doors that will open and close, there are bridges to cross and, that yes, we are going to fall through unexpected passageways, but that there’s always a new platform and place us for to be on the other side--
• That God will go through the whole course with us and never leave our side, and that some plays will be a terrific hole-in-one, and others will be 6 over par, but that through the whole thing, you are never alone,
• That God shows you that you are fiercely loved and chosen
Because this is how God feels toward you. This is why God sent Jesus who embraces you as you are, and forgives everything you fear is unforgiveable.
And we pray today that in this worship service, God will give you peace and fill you with Jesus’ love—
through the music, through prayer, in Communion, in a conversation with someone, in the presence of those around you, in singing—
in one or in all of these ways, we ask for God’s loving hand to bring peace and love to your soul today wherever you are in the course of life.
And maybe you, too, can identify a moment, a memory in the past, when you also felt deeply loved—like you mattered, like you were important.
It may be with your dad or another father figure—an uncle or big brother, a mentor or teacher. You may have a loving memory with a grandparent or another relative, or even a best friend. It doesn’t have to be a big or even a dramatic moment—but just a time when you can recall feeling loved.
These moments are all God-moments in our life—when Jesus Christ shows up to love us through other people. These are mustard-seed moments—small moments—times someone else might not even have noticed or remembered.
In fact, I don’t expect that my dad even remembers that Saturday afternoon mini-golfing with me 5-1/2 decades ago—he was just being a great dad. But it was a mustard seed moment for me—one afternoon as a child that has grown into an enormous tree of love that still feeds my soul today and enables me to love others.
So, what are those small, mustard seed moments for you?
And what happens to our daily life when we remember, even start writing down, and rehearsing and reminding ourselves of those loving, affirming, mustard-seed moments to confirm how much we are loved—how often God has shown up to remind us we matter, instead of recounting the hurts people have done to us?
I often listen to a recorded meditation that ends with what’s called “happy, happy, joy, joy” and the facilitator asks us to think of times when we felt loved and full of joy, and to fill our mind and body with these memories and experiences, so we can go on with our day feeling “happy, happy, joy, joy!”
Every one of your happy, happy, joy, joy memories is God in Jesus Christ showing up in a mustard seed-moment to let you know you are loved, chosen, special, important, that you matter!
Let it grow to an outrageously big tree so others can rest and grow in your expansive love!
• Then YOU can spread mustard seeds of love,
• and YOU can spread more moments where people know they matter,
• and YOU can participate in making sure others experience our heavenly Father showing up on the mini-golf course of life, and reassuring them that they, too, are never alone.
We do not know which seeds will grow, how they will grow, what they will mean and what impact they will have. The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground,27and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.
God is in charge of the growth, and God can do mighty things with small seeds of love. Our calling is to scatter mustard seeds of love, seeds of time and kindness, seeds of affirmation and prayer, seeds of happy, happy, joy, joy!
This week we give out our final Summer Faith, Summer Fun tool to help you have more “mustard seed moments.” It’s called Sing! Play! Summer!
Anyone can do the activities and meditations in this booklet with families, or on your own, on the road, or at the dinner table. I certainly encourage family fun together. I also encourage 1:1 dates (especially mini-golf!) with spouses, partners, kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, teens, siblings, and whomever God has put in your life to mentor and to love. You never know which mustard seed moments will grow into an extravagant tree of love!
The wonderful thing about this resource is that it comes with fun songs. Go to our Summer Faith, Summer Fun page where you can play all of the songs which are great for road trips, bath time or BBQ’s. (Contact us stlukeslutheranchurch.org to receive a Sing! Play! Summer! booklet in the mail!)
As we treasure our own memories that reveal God’s loving presence with us, Jesus blesses us to share mustard-seed love with others, so all might know that they are loved, as we trust our heavenly Father is always with every one of us.
Message for VBS Sunday on Matthew 28:16-20 on June 9, 2024 given at St. Luke's Lutheran Church in Richardson, Texas
Have you ever had one of those moments when you experience unity with God and oneness with all things? In Celtic spirituality it’s often called a “thin place,” where the distance between heaven and earth seems to collapse. These moments often happen out in nature, far away from the lights, sounds, and busyness of cities and civilization so as not to distract us from paying attention to the felt spiritual presence of the divine all around us.
I have experienced “thin places” many times in my life. Ghost Ranch—the Presbyterian camp and conference center in the high red rock desert west of Abiquiu, New Mexico is a thin place.
Our family went there almost every summer when our kids were growing up, and each time we arrived and just stepped out of the car in front of the main office, I could feel something different there—like the air was thick with the Holy Spirit, like I could breathe more deeply even though we climbed to an elevation of 6500 feet, and something about being there meant the kids would get along well.
On a clear night, we would sit outside and gaze at an amazing view of the Milky Way, watch for shooting stars, and try to be the first one to spot a satellite moving across the sky. I have been to Ghost Ranch at least a dozen times and each time I had some thin place experience—that we are all connected to one another, the earth, the sky and heaven—it’s all one cosmic fabric wrapping us in God’s love.
Perhaps you, too, have had this experience of a thin place or a peace-filled moment, when heaven and earth come together, and the cosmic fabric and unity of the created universe made sense in your bones; a time when there was no grasping for God because divine presence permeated the air and the earth, the trees and the sky above, or the water you were floating on. And everyone in your family somehow got along, and love and mercy seemed to swim in the air.
It would be nice to have a thin place experience every day, but that feels impossible. Thin places are rare spaces and experiences—an unusual moment that we usually need to leave town for, go on a pilgrimage, drive to the high red rock desert of New Mexico, visit the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, or another National Park. Perhaps we need to go see a Norwegian fjord, hit up an Alaskan cruise or find some other natural wonder of the world. With inflation, it may be a staycation this year and where are the thin places in that?
But Jesus just might have something to say about this very human assumption, that staying put in our daily life offers no supernatural moments of peace. In our reading from Matthew, Jesus, risen from the dead, commands his followers, including us, to share his love by making disciples of all nations, and then he says, “and remember I am with you always to the end of the age!”
And remember I am with you always, to the end of the age.
This was the theme verse from our Vacation Bible School yesterday. At the closing program for VBS, I asked the children, “if we can’t see Jesus, but he’s always with us, where is he?” And they all knew the answer—and you do, too, right? Jesus dwells within our heart.
When Jesus was a human person, he could only be in one place at one time like us. But now that he is risen from the dead, his Spirit can be everywhere all at once, dwelling within all of our hearts, and all around us, and in all of creation; Jesus’ presence is everywhere.
And remember I am with you always, to the end of the age. Jesus is always with us, so every space is a thin place.
Jesus has made our own heart a thin place!
So, the way we express and share love is a thin place where we can experience God’s love wrapped around us when other’s love us; and we can feel God’s love reaching through us to care for others!
Our home, our dinner table, our daily life, and even how we work, or go to school, or hang out at home in the summer, are all thin places where we can experience God’s presence and the union of all people.
Every day, no matter where we are or what we are doing, we can experience the unconditional mercy of God who made us all, and binds us all together in one cosmic fabric, wrapping us all in Jesus’ love.
When we are running through life, busy with work or cooking, cleaning, laundry, yard care, planning, bills, grocery shopping, and all the duties of daily life, it’s easy to forget that every space, every breath, every heart is full of the presence of God—every space is a thin a place: Every moment, God is available to help us; in every difficulty, Jesus is here to give us strength; through every sadness, Jesus is here to comfort us.
This spiritual truth reminds me of the story of the little fish swimming up to its mother, all in a panic: “Mama, Mama, what’s water? I gotta find water or I’ll die!”
We live immersed in God, surrounded by the Spirit of Jesus, and the reason we miss it, is not because God is far away, or we have to go far away to experience it, but because, amazingly, God in Jesus is so close; God is more intimate to us than we can imagine. We are swimming and breathing in Jesus’ presence and mercy.
In her book Mystical Hope, Cynthia Bourgeault says,
The mercy of God does not come and go, granted to some and refused to others. Why? Because it is unconditional—always there, underlying everything. Mercy is literally the force that holds everything in existence, the gravitational field in which we live and move and have our being….Mercy is God’s innermost being turned outward to sustain the visible and created world in unbreakable love.
Being held in the gravitational field of unbreakable love…that’s where we live every day…breathing and swimming in a sea of the Spirit of Christ that permeates our hearts and our whole being.
Jesus’ promise to be with us to the end of the age means that every space is a thin place—we are held in the field of unbreakable love. And we need reminders of this—because life is always happening, and it’s easy to be distracted from God’s presence within us and right in front of us.
The first thing that reminds us that daily life is a thin place is our children or grandchildren, nieces or nephews or children in Luke’s Learners. When my children were growing up, I started writing down all the ways that I saw God in them, and in what they said, and the thin places I experienced with them. In fact I wrote a book a about it: Motherhood Calling: Experiencing God in Everyday Family Life.
Children are the ones who have most recently come from God, so they remember things that we have forgotten: like these truths that my 3 children said to me between the ages of 4 and 8 :
• When I asked what happened to the fallen rose petals on the table, one of them said, I threw them outside so they’ll fly away with mercy and joy on the wind.
• When we were talking about God being the mommy of everyone and one thought that wouldn't work since God was a boy, another one said, God is a spirit that is both a boy and a girl, like a seahorse or worm!
• When Dan took one to visit a church member they knew at a care facility: I know why they have a cross on this hospital. So when people who are really sick and dying will see it, they’ll remember that God is always with them and they won’t be afraid.
• During another conversation, one said, The afterlife is right now.
• Another day, I heard: I was standing in a spot and the angels took me up to heaven to talk to God. Where were you standing? In front of the elephants at the zoo. How long were you talking to God? 40 days!!
To help us remember that Jesus is always with us, that daily life is thin place where God is always present, we are going to spend the summer taking our Journey Jesus with us. I invite you to take pictures with him wherever you go—both staycation days and vacation days! Have fun with the Son! Journey Jesus a visual reminder that we are always swimming and living and breathing in the sea of God’s unbreakable love and Jesus’ presence, in our hearts and all around us. And Jesus wants us to have joy—joy in his presence, joy in his mercy, joy that he is always with us and available with all we are doing—whether we need strength for hardship or we have our arms raised on the roller coaster at 6 Flags.
We invite you to post your Journey Jesus pictures on St. Luke’s FB page—use the hashtags on the back of Journey Jesus and show us how you are having fun with the Son (S-O-N) this summer! And here on the back are some questions to help you notice your experiences of God—to notice the thin places in your daily life where God already exists and shows up.
Finally, there are a couple of table prayers and a bedtime prayer, so if you are not in the habit of saying these daily prayers at meals or at bedtime with your family, you can start this summer as part of your awareness of swimming and breathing in the gravitational field of God’s mercy.
So pick up the resources from the last couple weeks if you missed them—they are in the Gathering Area. Read your Bible stories, try a Wild Wonder outside, take your Journey Jesus with you and pay attention to the ways you experience the God you’re already swimming and breathing in every moment of your life.
Let’s make the thin places of our daily lives stuffed full of experiences of being held by the cosmic fabric of God’s unbreakable love!
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Linda Anderson-Little