A Scary Responsibility (Reflections on Advent 4, Year A 2025)

"St. Joseph with the Infant Jesus" Reni. (It. 17th Cent.)

 “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. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:20b-21)

God is being good to Faith Lutheran of Northeast Philadelphia this Advent season. I got a text last night from Sue, one of the moms who were formerly in charge of our Sunday school in the days before COVID. She sent me a picture of Joseph, her newborn fourth grandchild. Just two weeks ago Jen, another former Sunday school mom, announced the birth of her fourth grandchild. These births strike me as being a very special blessing, coming as they do in a season when we prepare to celebrate the birth of that special little baby who came to save us all. They’re also a cause of joy because, sadly, our Sunday school kids vanished during the COVID pandemic and never came back. If you’re a Lutheran in the United States, you know the average age of our congregants is somewhere between sixty and deceased. When young mommies with little babies and toddlers start showing up, we Lutherans light up like an inflatable Santa on the lawn of a Philly rowhome.

There are two things which are true when every baby is born—great joy and great (if unspoken) terror. Babies are cute, right? They’re the continuation of the family line and one more chance to believe in the possibilities of the future. They also require a whole LOT of responsibility, they’re totally vulnerable, and they’re one more chance to really screw up another life if you don’t parent lovingly, conscientiously, selflessly, and with wisdom. Bringing another person into this world should scare the living crap out of anyone who even contemplates providing the genetic material which will form a human life.

The gospel lesson for Advent 4, Year C (Matthew 1:18-25) also combines the elements of joy and fear. The birth of Jesus as the one who will save us from our sin is certainly a cause for rejoicing, but, in the world of this text, it’s also an occasion for awe and fear. Mary isn’t married, and Joseph makes the not illogical assumption that she’s been less than faithful to their engagement. If a young girl was caught fooling around before or outside of marriage she could be stoned to death. You have to give Joseph credit for not wanting to see his girlfriend get punished, even if he thinks she’s cheated on him. I’ll bet Mary was pretty shaken by all this too.

Martin Luther really loved Mary, and he liked to quote St. Bernard of Clairvaux who said there were three miracles present in the Nativity story: God condescended to become human, a virgin gave birth[i], and Mary actually agreed to be that virgin. That was a pretty gutsy step for a thirteen or fourteen-year-old girl to take, don’t you think? I’ll bet Joseph, once he was convinced this baby would be the Son of God and the Savior of the World, was even more frightened than he was when he thought he had to secretly break his engagement. If he marries this chick, he’s now responsible for the fate of the whole world. I’d be scared. Wouldn’t you?

But Joseph has one advantage the rest of us don’t usually get. He is told unambiguously what God wants him to do. So, being a righteous man, he does a noble and loving thing which his society doesn’t require him to do and even encourages him not to do. He marries this pregnant girl. What’s more, he respects her comfort and doesn’t insist on getting it on with her while she’s expecting (I suspect Matthew may have included this detail as evidence the baby was not Joseph’s but the child of the Holy Spirit. I read it as evidence Joseph was a pretty cool guy who really cared about his lady’s comfort and the health of her pregnancy). The most significant thing, however, is that Joseph names the baby. When he calls the little boy Jesus[ii] he has officially adopted him. According to Matthew 1:1-16, this is what fulfills prophecy and makes Jesus a Son of David.

I never mind when people address me as “Father.” A parish pastor and a parent have one thing in common: we each have complete responsibility for something over which we’ll ultimately have no control. I’m looking forward to baptizing these two new little ones God has sent to us, and I feel hope and joy as I see our Sunday school slowly start to revive again. But I acknowledge our whole congregation has responsibility for these children. In our baptismal liturgy we are all called to support and pray for these little ones in their new life in Christ. But, beyond that, we are charged to represent Christ in honesty and integrity. We are called to be living manifestations of the Gospel who through our words and deeds and love will create a safe, welcoming, and meaningful place for these children within the family of God and in God’s Church. And we are charged with protecting the world in which these children will grow and live. Like Joseph, we have a terrifying responsibility. Like Joseph, we will have to rely on the guidance of the Lord. Like Joseph, we are urged not to be afraid.

Don’t be afraid, my friend. With God’s help you’ve got this. Enjoy the season and come see me soon. 

---

[i] If you want to get wonky and into the linguistic weeds here, Matthew is quoting in verse 21 from a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures which reads literally, “the virgin shall conceive.” The Greek translator uses the word parthemus which is, literally “virgin.” The word found in Hebrew Bibles is almuh, which means a young woman. One could assume she is a virgin, but not necessarily. In fact, the context in Isaiah 7:14 implies that this young woman is a young bride pregnant with her first child. Both Isaiah and Matthew are trying to tell us through these birth announcements that God is active in saving God’s people.

[ii] Jesus was a common name back in the day. It’s from the Hebrew Yashua, which is a contraction for “Yahweh Saves,” or “Yahweh Rescues.” 

Go Tell John (Reflections on Advent 3, Year A 2025)

 “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with a skin disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” (Matthew 4b-5)

Many years ago, I had the honor of taking part in the Lutheran/Roman Catholic Dialogue. Our topic that year was “Ministry to the Dying.” Both Lutheran and Catholic clergy agreed on one point: we rarely minister to the dying here in America. Nope. Most folks like to believe they’re going to beat whatever illness or disease they’ve got. They know they’re going to die eventually, but just not today or this week. By the time it becomes obvious they’re about to shuffle off this mortal coil and shake hands with the Lord, they’re usually too out of it for any theological discussion.

Every once in a while, however, we get a chance to minister to someone who knows just how many grains are left in their hourglass. Most of the Christians I’ve met who were in that situation were ready to move on and did so with impressive courage and grace. It’s no longer fashionable to walk these short-timers through the Kubler-Ross stages. It seems much kinder and more worthwhile to review the life they’ve already lived and focus on the highlights.

I don’t know about you, but if or when I know I’m about to check out, I’d like to know my life has had some significance. I always think of that scene at the end of Saving Private Ryan where the old vet stands amidst the graves of his fallen comrades and asks his wife if he’s been a good man.

When we meet John the Baptist in the gospel lesson in the RCL for Advent 3, Year A (Matthew 11:2-11) he’s pretty sure he’s reached the last stop on the line. Prison in the ancient world wasn’t a punishment with a prescribed duration. If you were in jail, you were either awaiting trial or execution, and John had a real good guess which one he was waiting for. You have to feel sorry for the guy. He’s been spending the last year or two telling everybody that Jesus is the Messiah. Now, chained or in wooden stocks, sitting in a dark dungeon with no light or air, he’s got nothing to do but think about his life. He’s starting to worry if he got it right.

But John deserves some credit, too. He’s at the end of his life (a little earlier than he’d planned, of course!) and he’s in a state where he’s confined and can’t get around anymore, he can’t see much, and he depends on others to visit him and take care of him—just like many of us may be some day. He might be doubting if Jesus is really the one, but he never doubts that there will be a one. He never stops believing that God is going to send a Messiah or that God’s people will know a day of liberation. As rotten a time as he’s having, his faith is still present.

He’s fortunate in another way. He still has friends who come to the jail to look after him. In Bible times there was no guarantee a prisoner would even get fed let alone a change of clothes or clean water. John has not been abandoned by either God or his disciples. Granted, these guys aren’t going to be able to spring him from the slammer, but at least they show up and let him know he’s still loved, still valued, and still important to the movement. They may not have the answers he needs, but that’s okay. 90% of caring for another is just showing up.

So these loving brothers (and maybe sisters) of John’s posse head off in search of Jesus to ask point blank if he’s the Lamb of God who is going to take away the sins of the world. Jesus—in typical Jesus fashion—doesn’t give them a straight answer. It seems to me the Lord always likes it when we figure stuff out on our own based on the evidence. “Go tell John what you see going down,” he tells them.

They could, of course say, “Well, Jesus, we see a good and decent (if slightly eccentric) preacher being silenced by a corrupt and incompetent ruler because the ruler doesn’t like what the preacher has to say. We see a gigantic empire swallowing up just about everything so it can transfer wealth to its already wealthy plutocrats. We see and hear the Pharisees talk their pious platitudes while the widows and orphans go hungry and the sick and leprous are excluded from society. We see a lot of crappy things, Jesus.”

But, even if they’d said that, Jesus would remind them. “Look a little harder. Do you see the sick being healed? Do you see the poor being recognized and lifted up? Do you see the dead being raised? The people who had become comatose with hopelessness have started to believe God has a plan for them and God’s kingdom is with them. Have you seen that? Go tell John that.”

Jesus goes on to praise John. “John was the real deal. He was a mensch. He told the truth to the powerful and he didn’t back down. But great as he is, the lowest, poorest, least able sinner in the Kingdom of God is just as precious. Even more precious, because God loves and has compassion for the weak.”

Sometimes it looks like the whole world is circling the drain. Sometimes it seems like nothing you do has mattered. But it has. You may not see it, but God has seen it. Tiny works of charity, infinitesimal deeds of mercy, little seeds of righteousness are growing quietly but surely. We need to see the whole picture, keep believing, and rejoice for what the Lord has already done.

Keep the faith, my friend. Come back and see me again

We're Getting Called Out (Reflections on Advent One, Year A 2025)

 

St. John the Baptist Preaching. Mattia Preti (It. 17th Cent.)

“Therefore, bear fruit worthy of repentance…” (Matthew 3:8)

Back in my grad school days at the University of Wisconsin we had this thing called the Free Speech Platform. On a sunny day—or even on a chilly December day—it wasn’t uncommon to be crossing the main quad and hear a strident voice emanating from the Platform, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, attempting to sway the mass of scurrying students to one position or another.

Notorious among the more frequent speakers was a rotund, matronly woman with a bombastic sousaphonic voice who called herself Sister Pat. Sister Pat bellowed from the Platform dire warnings that the souls of UW students were most certainly on a collision course for Hell should we fail to hear her stirring words and come to repentance. She called the female students “whores” and the male students “whore mongers.” As you might imagine, UW scholars took this somewhat amiss and failed to come weeping to her feet like the altar call at a Billy Graham crusade. They were much more prone to hollering back some rather impolite observance of their own before walking away and ignoring the evangelist entirely.  I once attempted to talk to Pat, but she shouted at me (shouting being, it would seem, her only form of communication) that my lord was Satan and I was doomed to perdition for being a Lutheran and accepting the abomination of infant baptism.

Nobody likes being called out or being accused. That’s the real bummer we face every year on the Second Sunday in Advent when the Revised Common Lectionary confronts us with this freaky mass of zeal and passion, John the Baptist. John comes as Jesus’ advance man, and if we want to get to Jesus, we really should go through John. He’s a bizarre figure outside the mainstream, dressed in animal skins and eating bugs and looking for all the world like the prophet Elijah. Like Elijah before him, John, in our Gospel lesson (Matthew 3: 1-11) is calling out society for turning away from God and warning folks to come to repentance. I guess he had to be more persuasive than old Sister Pat was, because tons of people came out to hear him and let him give them a dunk in the Jordan when they confessed their sins.

Our lesson tells us even Pharisees and Sadducees were curious about John. I’ll bet they only came out to hear this guy because they thought he was a novelty or because they were afraid he might be telling people something which would impugn the power structure the Pharisees and Sadducees so enjoyed. When John sees these bigwigs, he really gives them an earful. He calls them snakes and goes totally Sister Pat on them—telling them their vaunted pedigrees don’t amount to spit and, unless they actually started doing something worthwhile with their faith, there was going to be a lot of chopping and burning in their future.

I think both John the Baptist and Elijah before him saw a nation which had skidded off the rails. Given the borderline psychotic times we live in here in America, we could certainly use a prophetic voice calling us all to repentance. I could, of course, launch into my own screed about the ills of society, but nobody in my pews serves in congress and it’s a long time until the next election. Maybe it’s better if I just stick to churchy things.

I saw this video a few weeks ago on Youtube about why the ELCA is losing members like feathers off a molting chicken[i]. The narrator opined that the communion to which I belong and in which I have been ordained to Word and Sacrament ministry has lost its way. It has embraced cultural relevance and progressivism and alienated more conservative, traditional Christians. Since the controversial 2009 Churchwide Assembly in which the ELCA embraced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy and recognition of same gender marriages, a huge chunk of our membership fled to the more conservative Missouri Synod or the new North American Lutheran Church or just stopped going to church altogether. The narrator noted that, even though Missouri Synod membership is dropping like a rock, it hasn’t picked up quite the velocity as has the desertion from the ELCA.

The Youtube pundit went on to suggest that the ELCA’s progressivism has failed to attract newer, younger Christians. He believes that young families feel more comfortable in conservative churches which preach Biblical inerrancy. It seems some people just don’t want to wrestle with the scriptures (or the more controversial sayings of Jesus) and just want to be told what to believe. They like that bumper sticker feeling of “The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.” Being judgmental is so much more enjoyable when you can comfortably say, “We’re right and all the rest of you are wrong.” The Sister Pats of this world must love feeling righteously self-assured.

The guy on Youtube also made the very interesting point that liberal ideas and values are everywhere in the media. You don’t need to go to church to hear them. So why, he asked, would anyone feel the need to attend an ELCA congregation? My answer? For the same reason people came to hear John the Baptist on the banks of the Jordan. Maybe the folks came for the entertainment value of hearing this wacky guy preach, but that wasn’t what drew them into the water. They came because John touched their hearts in such a way that and they knew in their hearts they needed to confess and be forgiven and be transformed. Progressive ideas alone don’t bring people to repentance. The hunger for God does.

As Lutherans we begin every mass at the baptismal font to confess our sins and claim the renewing power of Christ. We ask forgiveness for what we’ve done and for what we’ve left undone—for the sin of not producing the fruits worthy of repentance. I find I have to ask myself every day, “Have I really served the Lord today?” In the swirling chaos of this present hour—when compassion, mercy, and generosity are so needed—have I born the fruit Jesus expects of me? Could I be doing more? The Baptist calls to each of us during this sacred time to examine our conscience and wrestle with what our faith means to us. And that’s a good thing.

Even better is the gift of our baptism, the blessing that through our repentance we receive, as Isaiah has said, “the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.[ii]”

Yup. When the Sister Pats of this world try to call us out, we’ll get defensive. But when we hear John the Baptist calling--calling to receive the love and grace of Jesus--we’ll hear the truth about ourselves and gladly come with both contrition and joy to the river.

Thanks for joining me this week. Have a blessed Advent and keep being the bearer of good fruit.

---

[i] This video is calls “Lutheran Collapse,” and you can view it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3N57C1clEE

[ii] Isaiah 11:2.