Isaiah

Philippians 4

December 17, 2006

I have occasionally been criticized or have had it mentioned to me that I don’t smile enough. I’m not sure that I come across as a particularly joyful person. It’s been said from time to time that I sometimes come across as cold and aloof.

I know.

I may not be the right person to preach this sermon.

I had a conversation this week that I found helpful. I was reflecting with someone about my frustration with a project I was working on this week.

In September I was roped in to serving on a search committee to fill a position for our annual conference – our western ny regional denominational body. We are looking to fill a new position as Director of Congregational Development. I’ve been on a few search committees over the years. I’ve also faced a few search committees as a job candidate and I prefer to be on the search committee instead of the other way around. It is often an interesting project. But it can also be challenging and difficult work.

In any case, I agreed to be on the team because I was told that there would only have to be one face to face meeting. The rest would be done via conference call and email. That didn’t sound too strenuous.

I went to the face to face meeting in Batavia back in October. Unfortunately, I was railroaded into chairing the group. I didn’t feel too bad about it, though, because the thought was that all I would have to do was to receive the applications and get them to the rest of the group.

Well, by Tuesday evening of this week I was frustrated as the dickens. We received quite a few applications, the numerical ratings by the team were all over the map, so there was no clarity about how we should narrow the field for interviews, people were slow to respond to email messages, or didn’t reply to particular questions I asked the group. I had put in a lot of effort into the process last weekend and it seemed that no one else was taking the job at all seriously.

Our District Superintendent was here for her annual meeting with the SPRC and I expressed my frustration to her asking her how she could stand to work with the folks in our annual conference. She said she often asked herself that question.

Later that evening most of the members of the team gathered on a conference call and we made some real progress in figuring out how to proceed.

My entire attitude changed. What happened? My attitude dramatically shifted from frustrated to grateful and exhilarated – ready to take on the task with this team of people.

In my helpful conversation later in the week, I came to understand that what happened was that the group had connected.

I had felt isolated. Alone. That it was all on my shoulders and no one was there to help. I had been wrong. The team connected and dare I say it… I experienced a kind of joy.

As I began to reflect more and more on that experience I came to understand that a primary component of joy – in fact what I think joy looks like is being connected.

Now think of the joys of Christmas. Aren’t they all about connecting?

What are Christmas cards but expressions and signs and attempts to make connections. People connect with each other by sending and receiving Christmas cards.

What are Christmas gifts but tokens of connection to people’s wants, needs, hopes and wishes and our efforts and capacities to connect them with the things that we give.

What are our Christmas traditions but ways that we connect to sweet memories of friends and family and Christmas celebrations of long ago that we want to stay connected to as time hurtles on.

What are Christmas visits but times of connecting with friends and family around familiar patterns of festivities that bind us together.

What does joy look like? It looks like people connecting in appreciation and tenderness of heart. People connecting with each other in gratitude and open hearts.

And to go deeper, what is Christmas really all about?

Isn’t it all about God attempting to connect with this world? Isn’t it about God taking human form, the form of a human baby and reaching into our world, connecting intimately with humanity to live and breath and walk among us? To engage us, connect with us where we live and breathe?

We sing Joy to the World because the Lord is come to us. Connected with us.

Well, not so fast. Not exactly. There was a bit of a hitch, actually. You know it started off well enough. Mary, Joseph, a baby. Shepherds and angels. Connections with the heavenly host singing halleluiah and peace on earth.

But the fellow who was King in the area at the time heard there was a new king born and he wasn’t really interested in losing his connection to political power, so he decided to destroy all the little ones to make sure no rivals would appear. Joseph had to flee with Mary and Jesus to Egypt to keep him safe.

And of course when God’s connection Jesus began his ministry and was connecting the power of God to human realities like hunger and illness and evil spirits and social divisions not everyone thought that was a good thing. It was disconnecting some folks from the power and authority they thought they deserved and didn’t want to give up.

Sometimes in this world we don’t want to connect. Whether it’s because of fear, greed, or resentment or hostility or jealousy, sometimes we think we are better off DIS-connected.

Or we close ourselves off and connect just in small circles of isolation: I’ll only talk to folks just like me. I’ll only work with people who feel the way I do. I’ll only connect with people who will tell me that I’m right or do it the way I think is correct.

And that is what happened to Jesus. The people around him – the people living in his day, the people who God was trying to connect with through Jesus – eventually decided to connect together and disconnect him. They crucified him. Disconnected him from them and connected him to a cross with nails. Connected him to death.

But God was not about to be disconnected after taking the trouble to connect with the world in this person Jesus.

In God’s connecting love and forgiveness, Jesus is raised from the dead and starts renewing the connection again. God this time reconnects with forgiveness and mercy and compassion and invites us to connect with all the divine power that unfolds from those connecting energies.

And as Jesus again connects as the Risen Lord to the apostles and they become the ongoing living presence of God’s love in this world

We connect with our past in reading the prophets:

Isaiah: Joy and challenge.

Reading St. Paul: Rejoice in the Lord.

Nicene Creed which ware using this Advent and will say together in a few minutes was an attempt to connect with the ancient Greek philosophical conversation so that Christianity could make sense to the intellectual minds of the time.

The Nicene creed expresses the connectedness of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit that were distinct yet one, connected in eternal love for one another and then inviting humanity to enter into that oneness to be connected as it reminds us that God became truly human in Jesus Christ, ratifying the connection of love that was promised at creation.

We connect in to God sacramentally through our baptism as Shane was joined into the Church this morning. One baptism for the forgiveness of sins. The sign of baptism says to us that our sins need not disconnect us from God’s embracing love. I don’t want to say that Shane has much of anything to be forgiven, (his parents haven’t mentioned anything in particular) but the concept is that throughout our lives God’s love and mercy is greater than our capacity to turn away.

The great disconnect of people from one another and from God is overcome by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We say that right up front in baptism.

The Nicene Creed goes on to affirm that there is one holy catholic and apostolic church. Despite the differences in theology, denomination, spiritual gifts, and particular ministry callings.

Holy means sacred, of God, divinely set apart and special.

Catholic means worldwide, not divided by nation or sect, but glorifying God and expressing divine love in different ways.

Apostolic means connected to Jesus’ earthly journey through a continuity of community and conversation across time and space back to a particular group of human beings commissioned and sent by Jesus to extend the connection out into all the world.

By that one, holy, catholic and apostolic church we connect now to God and to one another.

We connect to God together in our:

Prayer and worship: we offer praise and prayer to God together, in concert, united, connected in awareness that God is holy and loving and compassionate and just and the creative source and end of our being.

Song – connecting in song is a robust example of how we are joined together in common activity. Even in round singing different parts at different times is enacting the greater connection we have in producing beauty and offering it to God as an expression of our love and devotion and our connectedness together. I deeply encourage you try to sing in church. If you can’t sing well, or if you sing terribly, just don’t sing overwhelmingly loud.

From the grandeur of music to the nuts and bolt reality of the church Budget – we connect to make sure we can do the ministry God has called this body to do, sharing the load, making the contribution we can so that we are all invited and connected to be a part of something greater than ourselves.

Taking care of business around here – working cooperatively to keep the operation running smoothly – folding bulletins, minding the gardens, changing the light bulbs, maintaining the physical plant, flowers, candles, ushering and greeting.

Learning together – connecting our experiences and insights, our questions and our answers. Encouraging a deeper understanding of how to live faithfully in the midst of complicated situations. We do this together because each of us is connected to a variety of situations that we can bring into the conversation to enrich the discussion.

Connect that joy with the world:

Outreach

Not to be closed in our connection among ourselves to keep the world disconnected, but always to be connecting to the world in compassion and inviting and opening our hearts to share the joy of the Lord.

The more I have thought about joy over this week, it seems to me that joy looks like connecting with God and connecting with one another as we join in the journey together toward wholeness and peace.

Joy looks like connecting to the connection that God was making in Jesus Christ in the birth of Jesus.

As Christmas approaches I invite us to keep our hearts open to all the connections that the season offers:

Connections of cards, gifts, visits, and traditions. Connections of mercy and compassion. Connections of song and story. All the connections that go to create the joy that marks this season.

Connections that join us to one another and to the Great Connection to the world that God was making, is making and makes eternally, in Jesus Christ.

Thanks be to God. Amen.