Part of the Christmas Story We Don't Want to Hear, 12-17-16

Dan Gepford's Sermon, "Who Will Be the Greatest Disciple"

Dan Gepford sermon, "I Get It--Wait, I don't Get It!" Transfiguration 2015

Tim Mitchell sermon at Sussex United Methodist Church: "Knots"

Here is Tim Mitchell's sermon from Scout Sunday last week.

"Happy Lent"?

Every year, several of the churches in our town gather together for joint worship services on Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.  We also share an Easter Sunrise service on a mountaintop at a nearby camp.  Although I always enjoy sharing worship all these local congregations and my clergy friends, the special Lenten worship services have always maintained an  understandably serious, contemplative tone. 

It was somewhat surprising, then, to hear one of my clergy colleagues greeting departing worshippers by exclaiming, "Happy Lent!"   Now we always greet each other by saying "Merry Christmas!" at Christmas and "Happy Easter!" at Easter."  But is there a normal greeting for the beginning of Lent?  I don't really remember ever having heard one.  And, in all events, Lent is generally so...well, serious.  People use the time for preparation, contemplation and repentance, for trying to undertake new spiritual disciplines.  It's often a time for fasting, or at least for giving up chocolate.  Happy?  It sounded strange to the ear.

But on further reflection, I could not think of a better sentiment.  When we recognize bad characteristics in our personalities, we are embarrassed and frustrated.  Why have we not been able to change?  This season is an opportunity to abandon self-indulgence and self-destructive behaviors, and to start over.  We are reminded at Lent that Christ offers us new life, an abundant life that can be free from all of that baggage, guilt and self-loathing we have been carrying.  We do not have to look in the mirror in despair.  We can be free!  That should be a cause for celebration!

New Year!

This has been a really special Christmas season.  All the special foods and events have called to mind so many years of great memories.  A light covering of snow fell on Christmas Eve, as if ordered up by a Hollywood set designer.  With beautiful music in the air, candles lighting the church, and family members and friends all gathered around, it is hard not to feel God's presence and love.

But now it is January, and the temperatures have dropped precipitously.  The grey sky dampens all energy during the short winter days, and even ordinary work is hard to finish.  We just want to go back to our regular routines.

But this is not a time for business as usual.  Christ is in the world, and we are called to be changed.  Now is the time for making big plans, engaging in new projects, and reaching out in love to those who have been ignored.  New Year's resolutions are a good way to get going, provided that we take them seriously, and undertake to do something of real value.  Like shepherds who have heard angels overhead, we need to wake up from winter laziness and charge into the world full of hope.  Like wise men avoiding King Herod, we need to be willing to head out from seeing the newborn baby by a new and unknown route.  We can get ready by picking up a Bible and reading the old stories with fresh eyes.  We can get ready by getting back to church, and by making friends with people we haven't paid attention to.  We can get ready by volunteering for missions we have held back from trying.  We can build up habits of generosity by giving unexpectedly.  New life is right here, and right now.  Happy New Year!

Remembering.

This week marks the anniversary of two milestones in American history:  the 150th anniversary of the delivery of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.  Naturally, a variety of stories have been dedicated to both events, in newspapers and magazines, radio and television broadcasts, and other media.  Both call to mind very specific memories for me.

During my fifth and sixth grade years in southern Illinois (the "Land of Lincoln") in the early 1960s, we learned a lot about Lincoln, and we traveled to Springfield, to see Lincoln's home, gravesite, and other Lincoln-related historic sites several times.  During one of those trips, we visited a Lincoln historical museum across from the Lincoln family's home.  Amazingly impressed by all of that history, I bought a facsimile copy of the Gettysburg address, printed on the crinkled, artificially-produced "antique-parchment" paper that was then common for souvenirs.  I remember working hard at memorizing the speech, which I would recite in front of the mirror in my bedroom.

During my seventh grade year (1963-4), I got to see history as it was being made.  In September, 1963, my dad was sent by his employer to Washington, D.C., for a seven-month assignment, and our family all moved temporarily to the nation's capital with him.  While there, we visited the capitol, the major monuments, and a lot of historic sites.  When Mom learned that President Kennedy would travel to Arlington Cemetery to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Veterans' Day, we got up early in the morning to go there to see the President.  I was totally awestruck when the President's motorcade drove right by us on the cemetery access road, and President Kennedy waived to us.

To everyone's horror, just a week later he was killed.  We were enjoying a half-day school vacation, when Mom suddenly called my brother and me to the room where she had been watching TV, while ironing clothes.  Walter Cronkite of CBS News was announcing on-air that the President had been shot during a parade in Dallas.  The next day, we joined thousands of people outside the White House and walked toward the Capitol, where the President would be lying in state before his funeral.  The memory of those events remains incredibly vivid to me, even now.

But not only historic and traumatic events command the memory.  I have vivid memories of college graduation, our wedding day, and the birth of each of our children. their games, concerts, dance recitals and stage performances.  I remember lots of other important milestones, and there is a special satisfaction in being able to recall all of them.

So many people, though, suffer from diseases that rob them of their memory, and I can tell that my own memory is not as reliable as it once was.  It's a bit scary to realize that our own sense of continuity with our past can drift away from our ability to recall it.  But we have to remind ourselves that all of our lives are always incredibly brief, and that nothing in our own power is permanent.  The healthiest person with the very best memory endures no more than a little while.  Only God can offer lasting meaning and value.  Our memories can give us "increased devotion" to the tasks that lie ahead, and it is fitting to commemorate important events.  But we should remember (as long as we can) that God is our real strength and hope.