“Christmas Eve, 1967”

We have a guest preacher today. He’s not here with us in body, only in spirit. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born 91 years ago but his life was cut short by an assassin's bullet at the young age of 39. In the past, I’ve preached on Dr. King’s life, his theology, his legacy, and have also used this holiday as an opportunity to lift up some lesser-known voices of the Civil Rights Movement. This year I’ve decided I want to simply share his words with you. I made this decision for two reasons: 

First, few people today, unless they’ve taken the time to really study Dr. King’s work, have an appreciation for the fullness and complexity of his faith and commitments. Unfortunately, the vast majority of us only know him from his famous “I Have a Dream” speech...which was, of course, masterful. Or We know only little snippets of quotations taken out of context. But he was so prolific...there are so many other essays and books and sermons and speeches. I want to honor his work by sharing something with you that you probably haven’t heard before. 

Second, this congregation professes to do our best to be an anti-racist congregation. As such, we must work to amplify the words of people of color 

and the best way I can think of to do that today is to share Dr. King’s words with you directly this morning. 

The sermon we are blessed to receive today is Rev. King’s Christmas Eve sermon from 1967, preached at the church where he served as pastor, Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. I did update the language to make it inclusive of all genders and the version you’ll hear from me today is an abridged version….the original is much longer. You can read it in its entirety and original language online if you’d like. 

And now...let’s welcome the spirit of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. to our pulpit….

You can listen to Dr. King’s sermon in its entirety here: https://youtu.be/1jeyIAH3bUI

You can read the full transcript here: 

https://onbeing.org/blog/martin-luther-kings-last-christmas-sermon/

“And God Smiled”

Matthew 3:13-17

January 12, 2020

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

I want to start today’s sermon with a feeling. I couldn’t find a word for it and I’m not quite sure how to label it. It’s some kind of combination of expansive joy, abiding peace, heart-stopping surprise, exquisite vulnerability….well, you can see why I don’t know the word for it. So I hope you’ll humor me for a minute and close your eyes so we can try and find it together….

Imagine, if you will, someone who loves you. They might be alive or dead, here or far away. Just someone who loves you. I am hopeful that everyone has someone they can envision, but if you are unable to think of someone right now, please envision a stranger with a kind face and loving eyes. 

Now, place that person in a room. Doesn’t matter what kind or where. Doesn’t need to be anything fancy. Just a room. 

Leave them there and come back to yourself. Come into your own body and place it in a long hallway. And with your own eyes look out of your body as you begin to walk down the hallway. When you reach the end, there’s a door. Go ahead and open it. 

Walking into the room now, you see someone standing across the way with their back turned to you. It’s the same person you envisioned earlier, you can see that now. They turn towards you and when they see you their face lights up. They smile such a big smile. They are delighted that you are here. Everything about their appearance lets you know that they are so pleased that you’ve come into this room. It is clear that your presence has made their entire day. Maybe even their whole week. 

That feeling that you have when they look at you with so much love and satisfaction and joy and pleasure….that’s the feeling I can’t quite put a name to. I’m going to call it deep joy for lack of a better word, but when I say it, know that I mean the full complexity of that feeling you just had. 

And that’s the feeling that permeates the story in Matthew’s gospel today. Every year, as we move into the season of Epiphany we hear the story of Jesus’s baptism by his cousin, John. Each of our gospels has a different version of it and although they have many differences, they have some similarities. In each version, Jesus is baptized by John. In each version, the Spirit moves in an observable way. 

You may have a lot of questions about Jesus’s baptism. Like, for one, why is Jesus getting baptized? I mean, being the son of God and all it could seem a bit superfluous, no? You’re in good company. Even John, who baptized Jesus, scratched his head a bit about the idea. There are all kinds of answers as to why Jesus might have been baptized by John and though I don’t have time to go into them right now, I’d be delighted to talk to you about them if you find me after the service. 

This passage also makes us ask ourselves a lot of questions about baptism in general. What does it mean? There are so many different answers to that question...and since the scriptures are mostly silent on the whys and hows of baptism, Christians have always struggled to assign meaning to this ancient ritual. In our own tradition, there are no hard and fast rules about baptism. We baptize infants, children, teens, adults. We baptize by sprinkling or full immersion. I often joke that the only thing I won’t do is dunk a baby. But that’s for practical reasons, not a theological statement. 

If you’ve been baptized, you likely have your own understanding of what it meant to you. It may have been an initiation or welcoming into the Christian fold. It may have been evidence of a decision you made to follow Jesus or a commitment your parents made to share their faith with you. Perhaps it felt like a fresh start and clean slate - a remission of sins. Baptism is often said to be “an outward and visible sign” of something that is already, unchangeably true: God’s grace and love for us. 

There are so many ways to understand this sacrament. 

Almost always in our tradition, baptism happens during a worship service. It’s understood to be a public act. Why? Well, for starters, it requires the Church to make promises to the person being baptized. We promise them to support and love and care for them as we grow in faith together. The public nature of baptism does something else, too. It reminds all of us gathered of our own baptisms and, in that way, serves as a bridge to the Holy….a moment of transcendent connection as we bear witness to the profound beauty of this simple and sacred ritual. 

Baptism is a dance. It’s relational. We turn toward the One who is already and always turned towards us. We say “yes,” knowing that God has already said “yes.” We open ourselves to a new sense of belonging as God stands there with arms outstretched, already welcoming us home. I am reminded of the waters of birth...waters that nourish and sustain new life. And I think about that deep joy I felt when my two children came crashing out of those waters….the complexity of emotion that encompassed me fully when I held them in my arms and looked at their fresh faces and knew that we belonged to each other. That dance. That turning towards. That love and bond that persists. 

And there it is again: that deep joy. Can you remember how that felt when we visualized it a few moments ago? Because that deep joy shows up when Jesus is baptized. As he comes up out of the waters, the Spirit of God descends upon him like a dove and a voice from heaven says, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well-pleased.”

God is like that person whose face lights up when we come into the room. God smiles such a big smile. God is delighted that we’ve shown up. Everything about their appearance lets you know that they are so pleased with our presence. It is clear that your presence has made their entire day. Maybe even their whole week. 

God is “well-pleased.” Deeply satisfied, content. There is something about the ritual of baptism that, like so many other faith rituals, invites us to tap into that holy sense of contentment and satisfaction that can exist in the midst of everyday routines. After all, there is nothing on the surface about being splashed with water that screams “this is important!” The same is true with so many other rituals we share as a Church….receiving a small piece of bread and dipping it in the cup, passing the plates, sharing the peace with one another, tucking prayers into the manger, having ashes placed on our heads, flowering the cross on Easter. None of these things are - on their own - earth-shattering. They are simple rituals. But in their simplicity we are invited to tap into that deep wellspring of God’s Spirit. When the water falls upon us we are invited to hear words from the heavens, “This is my child, my beloved one, with them I am well-pleased.”

It has nothing to do with our accomplishments. At this point in his ministry, Jesus hadn’t done anything. By any measure, he was well into his adulthood and hadn’t accomplished anything of note. God smiles upon us not because we’ve earned it. God smiles upon us because of who God is….a force so saturated with love that grace overflows. 

The baptism of Christ comes to us at the beginning of each year...a time when many people are taking stock of who they are and trying to make improvements upon themselves. I’m not saying you shouldn’t try to work on things about yourself….that can be a good thing. But whether or not we reach our goals doesn't change who God is. God is the one who loves us completely. God is the one who turns to see us and smiles great big. God is the one who greets us when we rise from the waters and is well-pleased. 

In the midst of a world that feels topsy turvey….In the midst of great uncertainty….God turns towards us and smiles. That same grace that fell upon Jesus is available to each of us….now, always. 

We are going to close today’s sermon by basking in the delicious sunlight of God’s grace and love. We’ll leave just a brief moment of quiet...and, in it, I invite you to just sit in the presence of God’s love. Allow yourself to be the one whose presence lights up God’s face. Allow yourself to be named Beloved. Allow yourself to be loved...not for anything you’ve done but simply because it is God’s nature to love. 

Allow yourself to follow in Jesus’s footsteps and submit to the water...trusting God’s grace is enough to keep us afloat. 

“Epiphany: Five Lessons of Christmas”

Matthew 2:1-12

January 5, 2020

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

It was one of those weeks. Fires raging, bullets flying, hatred simmering, politicians posturing, bombs dropping. By the time I sat down to listen for a word from God, I was tired. And so I wrote it all down….one big giant list of all the pain in the world that was resting heavy on my heart. And I sat, with the ink on the page and a lots of emotions welling up in my heart, and I prayed one of those wordless prayers….you probably know the kind: 

breathing in worry, breathing out exhaustion, 

breathing in frustration, breathing out sorrow, 

breathing in uncertainty, breathing out fear….

And I just kept breathing and breathing and breathing until eventually I found my way to:

Breathing in worry, breathing out peace,

Breathing in frustration, breathing out love,

Breathing in uncertainty, breathing out hope….

And I closed my ears to the rumble and chaos of 2020 and tuned my spirit to ancient words. I sat with the Gospel of Matthew and read the Christmas story there. Today marks the end of the twelve days of Christmas, tomorrow being Epiphany. In the West, Epiphany is a time of remembering the story of the Magi who traveled to visit young Jesus in Bethlehem. Epiphany, the word, means a holy manifestation….the revelation of God to humanity. 

Matthew’s version of the Christmas narrative is short and tight….many of the details we think of like Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, the shepherds in the fields, the babe lying in a manger simply aren’t there. Instead, Matthew’s lean version of the story features the genealogy of Christ, the angel appearing to Joseph, and just a brief sentence saying the baby was born. Then we’re on to chapter two, which happened some time later...this is where the wise ones from the East make their trek to visit Jesus. King Herod manipulates behind the scenes, attempting to cut off his potential rival before he’s old enough to toddle or talk, and we quickly move from Christmas to the massacre of young babies...Jesus and his family are on the run as refugees to Egypt. 

It’s not a very sweet story, this version in Matthew. You can see why we usually feature the more PG version from Luke’s gospel on Christmas Eve. 

And, yet, there it is in all its gritty glory. Angels, humans, astrology, foreigners, a ruthless ruler, genocide, refugees. 

This, too, is Christmas. 

For all the domesticating we’d like to do of the Holy Spirit, God’s wild, unbounded love refuses to be revealed only in sweet songs sung by candlelight. Instead, God is made manifest even in the chaos, violence, corruption, messiness of our world. Biblical scholar Karoline Lewis says Epiphany comes at us each year and reminds us we don’t get to tarry long with Christmas. [1] We catch our breath for a moment, but the story keeps unfolding. Even young Jesus is soon on the run, fleeing violence and hoping for the best. 

And so….before we leave Christmas, it seems that we are invited to pause for just a moment and ponder what it is we might take with us as we hurtle into the new year. What new insights does Christmas offer us on the eve of Epiphany? What invitations does Love offer us at this time of year? 

I could go on a long time...but don’t worry, I won’t. I want to share just five lessons of Christmas before we leave this season and move into whatever 2020 holds for us. None of these are going to be epiphanies in this crowd, I don’t think...but all of them are important to remember. 

1. God exists beyond borders and labels. Have you ever stopped to notice how interesting it is that the first people to come and honor the infant Christ in Matthew’s gospel are foreigners? The word in Greek means foreigner, sorcerer, wise one, interpreter of dreams, astrologer, teacher, soothsayer, auger. In short: not familiar, faithful Jews. Not by a long stretch. We aren’t told many details about these magi from the East but one thing that is 100% certain: they are outsiders. Their arrival frightens Herod because it is perhaps at this moment he realizes: this Jesus situation cannot be contained. Not for long, at least. Jesus, still a very young child, has gone viral, global. These outsiders come to honor him. And honor him they do...they kneel before him and offer gifts. There is something so powerful in this scene...people from different parts of the world, with different worldviews, different religions coming together to honor the power of Love. Labels don’t matter. Borders don’t matter. These are just humans pausing to honor that Spirit that moves beyond names, beyond our understanding. God is not confined by religion or creed. God is not found only in some parts of creation. God transcends. 
2. Speaking of God beyond the boundaries of religion….I know we already all know this, but it bears repeating again and again and again. Especially right now. Jesus was a Jew. He was born to Jewish parents, out of a long lineage of faithful Jews (just check out Chapter 1 of Matthew). He was known, from the outset, as a potential leader of the Jewish people. He was a faithful Jew throughout his entire life. The one we Christians call Emmanuel, God-with-us, was Jewish. Any Christian who speaks ill of Jews is misguided, misinformed, flat out wrong. Anti-semitism has no place among followers of Jesus and it is our job as Christians to stand in solidarity with our Jewish kindred. 
3. Next up: Jesus was also a refugee. It’s right there in black and white in our holy texts. Herod launched a genocidal attack against all Jewish children under the age of two and Jesus’s parents did what all parents would do in that situation, as long as they are able….they left. They ran. They got out of there to protect their child. They sought refuge in another land until it was safe for them to return home. The one we Christians call Emmanuel, God-with-us, was a refugee. Any Christian who demeans refugees is misguided, misinformed, flat out wrong. Christians are commanded to welcome refugees and stand in solidarity with those who are fleeing violence. 
4. A fourth lesson flows from the third: Empire will be Empire...are our God calls us beyond the confines of Empire. Herod is the quintessential despot here. Scared of a baby, he lashes out in violence against the most vulnerable in society. He plays from a rule book as old as Empire itself….dehumanize, desensitize, decimate the enemy at all costs. As long as there are humans, it seems there will always be cowardly rulers like Herod. Rulers who are short-sighted and quick to turn to violence. And as long as there are humans, there will always be an alternative for us to turn to. For our God is not like the rulers of Empire. Our God is the one who comes earth-side as a helpless infant. Our God is the one who always stands on the side of Love...even when it comes at great cost. A small geographical detail in today’s passage says it all: the Magi, having heard of the infant king’s birth, make haste to go see him….so they head straight for Jerusalem, because that’s where rulers are expected to be born. But Jesus is not there...instead, he is in Bethlehem, a small town, far away from the hubbub of the capital. An unexpected, fly-over place. The One who comes to rule our hearts and spirits is like that….found in the most unexpected of places, not in the grandeur of elite rulers..but in quiet places, in forgotten places, in everyday places. Our ruler is not like the others. 
5. Fifth and final lesson of Christmas that I’d like to share today: God is still speaking. In Matthew’s version of the Christmas story, God’s voice comes through loud and clear. The voice of Love echoes down through the centuries, connecting generation to generation as we hear about Jesus’s ancestry. God comes to Joseph and speaks to him in a dream, helping him understand his role and convincing him to do the right thing. God speaks to the magi - the outsiders, the ones who aren’t Jewish - and helps keep them safe. And God’s ancient words of prophecy and lamentation are woven throughout the Christmas story - Matthew’s gospel relies heavily on the words of ancient scripture to tell the story of the new thing God is doing in our midst. God speaks in moments of joy, peace, love, calm, celebration...and  God does not shy away from the places of violence, fear, anxiety, terror. 

Breathing in, God is still speaking. Breathing out, we are still listening. 

Breathing in, God is with us. Breathing out, God is with us. 

Breathing in, we open ourselves to Christmas. Breathing out, we take the lessons of Christmas with us. 

Thanks be to God for these gifts. 

NOTES: 

[1] Working Preacher podcast for Jan. 5, 2020

BENEDICTION:

We leave this season of Christmas now, committed to walking in its ways throughout the year ahead. I have five charges to share with you today, one for each lesson. Feel free to take notes if you’d like, or just let them sink in. I’ll also post them on social media later today so you can catch them there. 

1. First lesson: God exists beyond borders. First invitation: before the first month of 2020 is over, find a way to connect with someone who is very different than you.
2. Second lesson: Jesus was a Jew. Second invitation: learn something new about Judaism this year. Honor someone who is Jewish. 
3. Third lesson: Jesus was a refugee. Third invitation: advocate for refugees. Take the time to understand their plight and speak up on their behalf. 
4. Fourth lesson: God is not like the rulers of Empire. Fourth invitation: do not allow yourself to get so caught up in the whims of today’s empires that you forget who you are. We are God’s, first and foremost. In God we live and move and have our being. 
5. Fifth lesson: God is still speaking. Fifth invitation: make time and space each day to listen for God’s voice. 

I’ll be at the door after worship with some frankincense oil. If you’d like a blessing, with or without oil, come find me. Go, now into this world of Christmas and Epiphany. Hold tight to the truth of Love. Be well. Amen.