Category Archives: Matthew

One Day

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A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ

by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor ©2026

Fourth Sunday After Epiphany/A • February 1, 2026

With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? 

Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. 

—Micah 6:6-8 (NIV – Used by permission

An old man is walking on a path with the sea off to his left and as the breeze blows on the water and his family trails quietly after him, we might think this is a group on the way to a picnic. But soon the concern on his face and the worry in the eyes of his family show and it’s clear a picnic is not their destination. We see a cemetery: row on row on row of white crosses and we’re told this is Normandy, this is the great American cemetery where thousands and thousands of American men are buried. Men who stormed ashore across those beaches in fear and fire to defeat an awful demonic evil. Men who gave their lives so others, so that you and I, would be safe. Here is a man who was part of that generation which grew up in depression and then was called to go off at the beginning of adulthood to kill or be killed. As the man stops in front of one particular cross, the tears stream down his face. He turns to his wife and says, “Am I a good person? Have I lived a good life?” 

The scripture reading pictures just such a moment. Am I a good person? Haven’t we all asked that question: The lesson imagines a man who comes to a priest or prophet, to someone he believes can speak for God, to ask just that question. Am I a good person? What can I do to be a good person? With what shall I come before the Lord? One by one he goes through the options the ancient world suggested. Should I bring a year old calf? Can I be justified for the price of a cow? Should I bring thousands of rams? Rams are male goats. I’ve never seen thousands of them but once I brought a baby goat home from school to keep at my house overnight. That one single goat made such an incredible mess of our basement and smelled so bad that I can’t imagine anyone having a thousand of those things in any kind of religious meeting house. Should I bring streams of oil? The oil they mean here is olive oil. It was used for cooking and perfumed and used instead of bathing: you would pour the oil over yourself and then scrape it off. Should I bring streams and streams of oil? 

You see what this man is doing? He’s bidding for the love of God. I asked the children in a church once, “What would it cost to hire your mother to do what she does for you?” I got lots of responses: $15, $20, even $100! What would it cost to be a good person before God? —a prize calf, a thousand rams, streams of oil, even a first born child. The religion of Israel didn’t practice child sacrifice but others around them did. One archaeologist has discovered at Carthage a place with over 15,000 baby skulls. That was the cost over the years of people feeling they were good persons before their God. This man is not exaggerating, he is asking what it will cost to be a good person before God and he’s wondering if it might not be very dear indeed. He wants to know the answer to a question we all ask: What does God want? What does God want from me?

The answer is simple: do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God. Justice in the Bible comes with a special concern for the poor, the immigrant, the widow, the child, for anyone, in other words, who is vulnerable. Mercy is that unlimited love God models for us which asks not what is fair but what will help. Justice is about public policy , how we act as a community; mercy is what we do as individuals to fulfill our vocation to bless others. Humbly walking with God means simply thinking God might be more right than your own opinion. This may seem simple; it turns ought to be tough. Every church meeting for example begins with a prayer for guidance; most then go on as if What We Did Last Time is the true Torah. We say, “It seems to me…” and share our good common sense although clearly nothing in the scripture makes sense. There, an old woman named Sarah has a baby, a tree trimmer named Amos knows more about God’s Word than all the Ph.D. temple priests and fishermen become apostles.

What does God want? Do justice; love mercy. These things are hard so we often substitute social service programs. A number of years ago I worked in a church with a food pantry. The rule for getting food from the food pantry was simple: if you’re hungry, we’ll feed you. This rule never bothered the poor folks who got food; it always bothered the well to do folks who handed it out. We had long committee meetings about the rule and how to change it so that only people who deserved food would get it. Some of the farmers from the area churches didn’t like the pantry feeding migrant workers because they felt the workers didn’t hav]e as much motivation when they knew their families would get fed regardless of whether they worked. Some people didn’t like giving food to women on welfare who drove cars even if it was the only way their kids would be sure to get a decent meal. Finally after years of wrestling over the pantry rules, an old man said at a meeting, “I’m tired of arguing about this. The Bible says Jesus told his disciples, ‘You give them something to eat!’  He didn’t make any rules and neither should we”. There was a long silence and in that moment a miracle happened: a program with the rule mentality of the Department of Social Services turned into a place where Christians were doing justice. In the eight years I worked in that church the food pantry went from being a little four or five bag a day operation to a program costing $39,000 a year. But the  biggest change wasn’t in the food pantry, it was in the people who ran it as they came to understand what it meant to do justice even when it doesn’t make sense and doesn’t fit the rules.

 What does God want? Do justice, love mercy, show them both in your daily walk so that walk becomes more about following God than getting where you think you should go. Now we are at the beginning of a new decade. We have a choice: we can make this moment like one of those opening prayers at a committee meeting that’s forgotten by the time the minutes are read or we can ask, “What does God want?” If we ask, it will soon be clear that God does not want a calf, God does not want a bunch of goats, God does not want streams of oil. What God wants is simple: do justice, love mercy, walk humbly. Isn’t that when we are at our best? 

A few years ago some Congregationalists, Reformed churches just like this one, got together with just these purposes in mind. A slave ship named Amistad had landed in New London and they did what we do best: held a meeting. The meetings expanded and soon the step that’s natural for Congregationalists was taken: they organized a committee. That committee worked for years until finally those slaves were set free and even the United States Supreme Court had to admit that slaves were people. Just about every old Congregational Church in New England has some part of this story to tell. One congregation I served founded the first school for the children of escaped slaves during this time. Why did these people do this? Because they heard what God said: Let my people go; because they asked what God wanted and heard God wanted justice and mercy and humility. That moment, when Congregationalists set out to do justice, is one of the best chapters in our story. And if we want to write a chapter just as good, it will take more than raising enough money to buy a calf and some goats and olive oil, it will mean spending more time on how we can do justice and love mercy better instead of just refining our knowledge of Roberts Rules of Order.

It’s hard to know how to do these things. But I know what it looks like when it happens. One summer I was in Boston with Jacquelyn. We have a continuing argument her about giving money to pan handlers. I keep quoting a theologian, William Sloane Coffin, to the effect that charity is not justice; she keeps saying, they need the money. We were crossing a street and there was a man in a wheel chair who had been pan handling without much success. He was about to go try his luck elsewhere. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her get her dollar out. But he didn’t see it, so he went on about his business, which was finding a better corner to pan handle, so he started to cross the street. She got to the other side and he wasn’t there anymore, he was out in the street, halfway across, and she went running after him, out into the street, to give him that dollar. When she caught up with him, he looked at her like she was a crazy woman, I don’t think he has a lot of people running after him to give him a dollar. And I knew I’d lost the argument. I thought, that’s it, that’s what we should be doing, running into the street because we love mercy so much we just can’t bearÏ to miss a chance to show some. We should be doing what that old man did at the meeting: reminding each other of just what God has to say about justice and asking how we can do some. We ought to ask of every program in this church, we ought to ask of everything that is said in this church, how is this going to help us do justice, how is it going to let us express mercy, how is it a part of our walk with God?

The image with which I began is the beginning of the movie Saving Private Ryan. The man in the cemetery is Ryan, now grown old, but most of the film is a flashback to a time after the invasion of Normandy when a patrol was sent to find and bring back Private Ryan. The flashback ends with a battle on a bridge and there is a moment when Private Ryan confronts the commander of the unit which had been sent to save him. It’s a moment full of the sound of explosion, the smoke of gunfire and the confusion and fear of everyone. As the captain lies dying, bleeding from wounds he received saving Private Ryan, he grips Ryan’s arms, looks into his eyes and says, “Earn this…earn this.” God has given into our hands all of creation and the time to enjoy it, to live in it, to appreciate it. But creation is not just a fact; it is an occasion, it is an occasion for us to live out the great potential we have to do justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly with God. Each day asks: what is to be done; each day invites us to do what God wants. One day we will; will this be that day?

Amen

This sermon has been revised. It was originally written for the United Congregational church of Norwich, CT, won the Connecticut Fellowship Sermon Award in 1999 and was preached at the communion service of the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches in 1999

Rise and Shine

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A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ of Harrisburg, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2026

Epiphany Sunday • January 4, 2026

Matthew 2:1-12

Among the figures that populated my grandmother’s nativity scene, none were more impressive than the Three Kings. Made of carved wood and painted in bright colors, the Kings sat on camels linked together by gold colored chains, and they had little treasure boxes that fitted behind them, boxes which opened and could be made to contain real treasures: bits of gold from the chocolate coins my grandfather gave us or some other thing that became a treasure just by being secret. I never cared much about the cattle or the sheep or, for that matter, the fat little shepherd boys, but my brother and I played with the Kings until their chains broke and one of the camels lost a leg. We didn’t care: even legless, they seemed to contain the real mystery of the nativity just as they contained our treasures. 

We weren’t alone in our fascination. The emphasis we put on Christmas is unique to our culture; Eastern Christianity, most European Christians and the rest of the world spend far more time on the celebration of Epiphany than on Christmas. It is their moment for gift giving and reflecting on God’s gift of presence in Jesus Christ. Too often for us, Epiphany comes as an afterthought to Christmas: a time to finish vacuuming the pine needles and get back to normal. Today I want to call you out from the normal to a story that promises to let your heart swell with joy.

Perhaps it’s best to begin by putting the creche figures back, letting go of the stories that people have made up, and seeing what Matthew tells us about the Magi. Magi means “Wise Ones”—and that’s what they are; only later did a legend grow up that named them and called them kings. The Magi are astrologers: watchers of the sky who look for meaning in the stars, relating patterns in the planets to prophecies. One night they see some conjunction, some stellar event in a region of the sky called the House of the Hebrews and their prophetic books tell them that there is a special king expected in the land of Judah. So they go: packing up, joining a caravan, just as settlers once crossed this continent by wagon train. They take the ancient caravan route, the route that Abraham would have traveled, the route traveled by merchants and slaves and conquerors and people for thousands of years and about a year or so later they come to Jerusalem. There they pay a courtesy call on the reigning monarch, Herod. How disturbed he must have been to hear that a king—another king!—has been born. 

This story challenges us with these two great images of reaction to Jesus: Herod on the one hand and the Gentile Magi, the outsiders, on the other. What the Magi see as a great possibility, Herod sees only as a great threat. Herod, Matthew tells us, was disturbed; he tells the Magi to find the child and report back. When they outwit him and slip away, he’s enraged and has all the boys born in Bethlehem killed. Herod can think only of securing his own position, even though it means violence. The conflict that will bring Jesus to the cross is already in motion right here, right from the beginning: cross and crown are at war.

This story asks us the same question the old spiritual asks: Which side are you on? Put another way, What light lights your life? The word ‘Epiphany’ means manifestation or showing forth, as a light shines. The light in which we walk, the light that lights our lives, does show and it does make a difference. We know this about color and light: sit in a red room, psychologists tells us, and you somehow become more aggressive. The same is true of your life: the light in which you see things is a matter of decision. One camp song says, “I have decided to follow Jesus”. What have you decided? What do you decide-day to day?

The story also asks: what journey are you willing to make? This is a time when many make New Year’s resolutions. In two weeks, we’ll hold our Annual Meeting and look forward to a new year as a church. This is a time of transition as we look for a new settled pastor here. What new mission will we undertake together? This is a pleasant place to come on Sunday, but Christ’s call is not to get together with friends and feel better; it is to heal and help. How can we do that in new ways? We are so blessed in this church; how we will make that blessing a star shining more brightly? We have a wonderful history here at Salem: Epiphany asks us to pack up and move forward to the future, following Christ. 

Finally, the story asks: what purpose drives your journey? Both Herod and the Magi go to Bethlehem. Both go; but only the Magi find Christ. Despite all his violence, Herod misses the baby even as he misses the point. Real authority can never come from coercion; real authority comes from God who seeks faithful and voluntary obedience. Only a journey which remembers that its purpose is to follow wherever the light of God leads finds its way to the Christ child.

Today we begin the year, and we celebrate Epiphany—the showing forth of God’s light—with communion. We often speak of this as the commemoration of the last supper. Today I ask you to remember that in the resurrection this last supper became a kind of breakfast for the spirit: the first meal of the disciple’s journey, the first meal of the church before we began to work in the world. This work is ours, and it continues. Though we may pause, though we may stumble, nevertheless, we keep on, remembering to walk in the light, and lighting the paths of others, so that, as Isaiah said, “Your heart will throb and swell with joy.” This is the promise of this meal, this is the hope of this moment: that our journey may lead us to such joy and may be a means of joy to others as well. Sometimes we have walked in darkness: but today, today and hence forward, let us walk in the light. Rise and shine: your time has come.

Amen

What’s In a Name?

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A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ of Harrisburg, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

Fourth Sunday in Advent/A • December 21, 2025

Isaiah 7:1-10 • Romans 1:1-7 • Matthew 1:18-25

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet; / So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d, / Retain that dear perfection which he owes / Without that title.

Juliet has a problem: she’s fallen in love, deep, hopeless, the way adolescent girls do, with a boy who’s from a family her family hates. She famously points out that it’s his name that’s the problem, not he himself. So, just like a favorite football player, traded to a new team, putting on a New Jersey, she suggests he simply get rid of the name.

Names are the first things we get, and they often reveal something about who we are. Romeo’s last name is Montague, and he’s the enemy of the Capulets, Juliet is a Capulet, and the families are enemies. Names often carry meaning, honoring someone like a grandparent or a friend. I was named after my dad’s best friend when I was born. He played trumpet in the University of Michigan band. Later, they had a disagreement, so I haven’t seen the man I’m named after since I was about six. Some names show affection or are private. Jacquelyn is from Texas, and when we became a couple, she brought that southern spirit home. She calls me “Preacher man,” and no one else is allowed to use that name, and no one does. It’s her private name. All three of today’s scripture readings encourage us to name our savior. They challenge us with different names and invite us to experience him in various ways.

To understand the section from Isaiah, we need a bit of background. King Ahaz’s Judah is caught between Egypt to the south and Assyria to the east. Some local kings have allied with the Egyptians and want Ahaz to join them, so the kings of Damascus and Samaria are at war with him, fighting around Jerusalem. He’s unsure of what to do, and when he turns to the prophet Isaiah, he’s told to rely on God. Isaiah invites him to ask for a sign from God, but Ahaz refuses. So, Isaiah tells him what sign will be given: a child who will be named Immanuel. ‘Immanuel’ means God with us; it comes from the Hebrew word for God—El—and the Hebrew for ‘with us’. Isaiah is teaching Ahaz this fundamental fact: God’s permanent presence. He wants him to make a difficult choice: to rely on God when Ahaz only sees the armies of his opponents. 

Isn’t it interesting how we all approach tough decisions? What’s the first thing we do? Do we crunch the numbers, jot down the pros and cons, or maybe just rely on a well-worn saying or some online advice? What if we really considered God’s presence in that moment? What if we turned to God in prayer, asking for less of a direct answer and more of God’s hope? What if we called God Immanuel? How would that shift our perspective? How would it transform our church?

I used to go to a gathering of clergy every April and I had a lot of friends who were older ministers. One year, a discussion leader asked us to talk about what we actually did during the week. For me then, it was mostly researching the scripture, preparing a sermon, so I said that; most of the people in the group said the same. One of us, a man I had come to respect a great deal, said, “Every morning I go in the office, look at the calls, say hi to my secretary and then I take the church directory in the sanctuary and I sit and pray for each person in the church.” I was stunned. I certainly prayed for people but usually just the ones who were in the hospital or sick or had asked for prayer. I’d like to say I went home and started doing this and I did for a couple of days but then things got in the way and it slipped away. Years later when I faced a difficult conflict at the beginning of COVID, though, I was so frustrated that I began to do it again. It didn’t solve the conflict but it did quiet me so I stopped being angry. I began to be less angry and more able to be a real pastor. I regularly do that now: I pray for each of you, I pray for our church. I see it as my most important job. I wonder: what if every day, every one of us simply asked God to help us be a more faithful, vibrant, loving church?

I’m eager to move on to Matthew and his account of the advent. He begins with a genealogy that traces 14 generations from Abraham to Joseph. He wants us to understand that this birth is a part of God’s enduring relationship with these people. Some of the names are truly remarkable. Rahab, for instance, was a prostitute who aided the Jews in capturing Jericho; Bathsheba famously had an affair with King David. Ruth, on the other hand, isn’t a Jew; she’s from Moab, which means she comes from a completely different family. Finally, we arrive at Joseph, who is distantly related to King David and, therefore, to God’s promise to David that his line would always be with him. This story is all about Joseph; if you’re interested in Mary, come back on Christmas Eve, when we’ll read Luke’s story, which is all about Mary. 

Joseph and Mary are engaged, which is a much more serious commitment than our engagement today. It’s been publicly recognized, and there might even be a contract. Now, Joseph has discovered that Mary is pregnant and immediately assumes she’s been unfaithful. He’s a good person who follows the Torah, and the Torah in Deuteronomy suggests that he should end the marriage. He knows this will be incredibly difficult for her, and he truly cares about her, so he does what we would do: he takes his time, considers the situation, and comes up with a plan to get out of the marriage without hurting Mary too much. “Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to divorce her quietly.” [Matt 1:20] But then, an angel appears to him in a dream. The angel begins like all angels do, saying, “Don’t be afraid,” but then says something that doesn’t quite make sense: “Don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife; she’s going to have a child, and you’re going to name the child Jesus.” Well, the angel doesn’t actually say ‘Jesus’; he says ‘Yeshua,’ which is Hebrew for Joshua. Later, it gets translated into Greek, which doesn’t have that ‘sh’ sound, so it becomes Jesus. It’s a name that means, “God saves.” 

So, that’s what he does. Now, there’s the tricky part of Mary being a virgin—or not. Early on, Christians linked the Isaiah passage we read with this one. In Greek and later Latin, a Hebrew word meaning ‘young woman’ was translated as ‘virgin’ because it wasn’t really about the body but more about young women in general. The church really took hold of this. Today, it’s a big deal for some, but a stumbling block for others. If it helps you, that’s great; if it doesn’t, that’s okay too. It’s important to remember that we focus on the biological details here in a way that no one in Jesus’ time would have. They had lots of stories about virgin births. Some people even believed that Emperor Augustus was born of a virgin, and there are other similar stories. It’s a way of saying that in this person, God has come to humanity in a special way. And the reason for this coming, this advent, is specific: salvation.

What does salvation mean? For some, it’s about an emotional experience; for others, it’s a quiet, internal feeling. Generally, it means understanding that God isn’t just everywhere, but with you, personally present. When we feel God present, we often feel a sense of our own inadequacy, our own sinfulness. I know this feeling; I stand here and talk about loving my neighbor, but when that neighbor is driving poorly near me, I can get pretty angry. Still, I know God is with me, present, sometimes disappointed, always forgiving and inviting me to grow up a little, act on what I believe. Calling the baby Jesus is a marker: God is not just present in history, but right here, in this person, and as that person grows up, God is providing a class in how to live a Godly life, even when that life ends in a cross.

This brings us to Paul and his letter to the Romans. Unlike many of Paul’s letters, this time he was writing to a church he hadn’t gathered, to people he didn’t know. The section we read comes from the beginning of the letter. He’s introducing himself, and he does it by calling up names. “Paul, a slave or servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle.” There’s a lot to unpack in this simple sentence. First, he’s added another name to Jesus: Christ. Christ is the Greek word that translates “Messiah.” Messiah means “the anointed one” or “the chosen one,” chosen by God. The job of the Messiah is to redeem God’s children. Now, we already know Matthew has given us a long list of the family of God’s children; Paul is going to explain to the Romans and to us that we also are part of that family, adopted into it. And in that family, there are no distinctions. We’re all invited equally, invited by God, made into one family by God.

He names himself an apostle, someone who has seen the Risen Lord, and then he says that he is a servant or a slave of Jesus Christ. He’s giving us a rule about how we stand in relationship to Jesus: not as equals but as servants and members of the kingdom he preaches. He’s going on and talk about what it means to live as part of that kingdom but right here, right from the beginning, he’s inviting us in.

That’s really what all these names are: doorways into the meaning of Christ for us. So today’s scriptures give us three names, three doorways, into the meaning of Christ for us. We started with Immanuel, God present with us. We went on to Jesus, God saves. Now we are given a new name: Christ, the anointed one, the chosen one of God. You probably have different names too: husband or wife, son or daughter, dad or parent or mom. If you work, you have a title at work. And you have your own private sense of self. What name does God call you? What name will you call God?

Amen.

Lighting the Candle of Joy

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A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ of Harrisburg, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

Third Sunday in Advent – Year A • December 14, 2025

Isaiah 35:1-10 • James 5:7-10• Matthew 11:2-11

Seasons of the church year have a luminous aspect. Easter is all light. There was a time in my life when I’d get up before dawn, preparing to lead a sunrise service. I know some people do sunrise services at a more convenient time, but I’ve never been an easy pastor; I always insisted on literally gathering before sunrise so it would happen during the service. Lent is dark: we start with ashes, we think about suffering culminating on Good Friday and the cross. Christmas is all lights: we put them on Christmas trees, and I’m old enough to remember the annual chore of climbing on ladders, helping my dad put up outdoor lights. 

But Advent, Advent is unique; Advent is both dark and light. It began as a little Lent; when I was first in ministry, we wore the same colors for Advent as for Lent. I was gone for a few years and when I came back, someone had decided we’d wear blue for Mary. But still, Advent has a darkness to it, balanced by the candles of Advent. So there is light as well. Christmas Eve is the best example: the next to the last thing we do on Christmas Eve is darken the worship area, just before we all light candles. I’m looking forward to sharing that moment with you in a couple of weeks. Advent light comes in stages, one candle at a time. A candle for hope, a candle for peace, and next week a candle for love. All these are blue; one candle alone is pink, the candle for joy. The reason for the tradition is that in the Latin mass, the word ‘Caudate’, which means ‘Rejoice’ began the service. So our challenge today is how can we light the candle of joy not only here but everywhere?

Today’s scripture readings have that light and dark in them. We started today with Isaiah’s prophecy that gushes out like a warm soda bottle someone shook up. He starts with all creation rejoicing. We often forget how central creation is to God. But there it is overflowing: desert blooming, “…it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and shouting.” [Isaiah 35:2b]. Wow: my English teacher would never have allowed “rejoice with joy”, it’s too much, it’s over the top. But it doesn’t stop with creation, it’s people too, and not just the healthy ones either.

Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees.

Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.”  [Isaiah 35:3f]

That really feels like I’m being personally addressed because honestly, my hands are not as strong as they were; I have trouble gripping the line on the boat these days, and my knees, well, my running days are over for sure. And the highway taking us home to God is so well-marked, so straight, so perfect that, according to Isaiah, “not even fools, shall go astray.” What Isaiah seems to have in mind is joy coming from heaven like a snowfall or a rain shower. You can’t escape it; it’s going to get on you even if you have bad knees, arthritic hands, even if you’re a fool. God’s light is going to shine so powerfully that every corner is lit up, every person is lifted up, and even creation itself is full of the joy of God’s coming.

Well, that’s the fun part of today’s Word: all God’s children parading together in joy. But there’s a darkness too. Before we get to carried away, we need to listen to the gospel. There, things are not joyful, there things are not light. There we are taken to a prison cell in a dark dungeon. King Herod Antipas was a famously bad actor and among his may sins was having his brother killed so he could marry his brother’s wife. John has been speaking about this and just like today, political violence from leaders was common. So John’s been thrown in prison. I’ve visited in prisons and they are not fun places. They’re noisy and drafty and there is an air of pervading violence. Even if nothing bad is happening right now, you feel like it could at any moment. The only light in that time is from candles or lamps of burning oil and those are expensive; no one’s going to waste them on a prisoner. I imagine John sitting in the dark, hearing the cries of these, wondering if it all is ending, if he was wrong. So he gets a couple of friends to contact Jesus and ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” [Matt. 11:3]

What would you say? How would you answer? Jesus doesn’t do theology, he doesn’t demand faith in him, he simply says, “Go and tell John what you hear and see” and then he points out the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy.

…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. [Matt. 11:5]

He’s quoting Isaiah 35:5-6 but surely he also has in mind what we read this morning. Where Jesus goes, the candles of joy are lit and the light of God shines. There’s no demand to come to Jesus; instead, there is this invitation to open your eyes and look around.

Isn’t this our challenge? How do we also light those candles. How do we say to our world, our city, our friends, “Look here if you want to see Jesus? This week I listened to an NPR show with a man who talked about how important his mother was to him. He said that she was 89 and had some medical challenges these days, and he admitted, in all honesty, taking care of her is sometimes a burden. He talked about how he has to wash her, help her use a bedpan, and that she isn’t always nice about the whole process. Then he said this amazing thing, “What I’ve learned, though, in caring for the one who brought me into the world, is that it is a kind of prayer.” He went on to say that too often we think of prayer as asking for something; for him prayer has become this act of service, this care for another. He’s found a new purpose and a new relationship not only with his mother but with God as well. Because he’s lighting a candle of joy in the process of doing something difficult for another.

Ursula K. Le Guin wrote a whole novel about a woman who was terribly burned as a child. Taken to a healer, they are only able to save her life, not fix the damage. What the healer says is powerful: “What cannot be healed must be transcended.” So our question is how to we take the dark parts of life, transcend them, make them into prayer, make them a candle of joy to light?

I know that in my life, one of the most difficult things was when Jacquelyn started working as a flight attendant. I don’t have that reflexive fear of flying many have but I do know that thins happen on airplanes. Somewhere in the background of my mind are the flight attendants on 9/11 and in 2009, not long after she started, an airplane landed in the Hudson River. Planes do crash and even when they don’t, sometimes Flight Attendants get hurt on the plane. Jacquelyn has gotten hurt. So when she started going off to fly every week, it was hard, it was very hard. I didn’t sleep at night; I worried. Every time I said goodbye it felt like it might be the last time I’d see her.

But we’ve been doing this a long time, now. I still have problems some nights when she’s gone, but I’ve learned this important thing: my original thought was right, when she goes off to fly, I might never see her again. But she’s here now. She’s with me now. So it’s up to me to use this time to make a good life with her, and we work at that together. That’s become my prayer: thank god she’s here now.

My friend Jefferson gave me a book of Maya Angelou’s poems last Sunday. One that spoke powerfully to me says,

Thank you, Lord.

I want to thank You, Lord,

For life and all that’s in it

Thank you for the day

And for the hour and for the minute

I know many are gone,

I’m still living on

I want to thank You.

I went to sleep last night

And I arose with the dawn

I know that there are others

Who’re Still sleeping on

They’ve one away.

You’ve let me stay.

I want to thank You.

We don’t know why we’re here, always. Yesterday, I know you heard about the terrible shooting at Brown University in Providence, RI. I can’t imagine what that’s like: to be calmly preparing to take an exam and have violence suddenly burst in. One of them said this,

Spencer Yang, 18, who was shot in the leg in his Brown classroom on Saturday afternoon, described helping a fellow student who was seriously injured as they hid behind seats.

“To keep him conscious, I just started talking to him, so he didn’t close his eyes and fall asleep,” Mr. Yang said in an interview from the hospital, where he was being treated for a wound in his leg. “I handed him my water,” he said. “He wasn’t able to respond that well. He was just there nodding and making noise.” “He’s stable now, thankfully,” Mr. Yang added.

When Mr. Yang got up that morning, he didn’t expect to help save a life. When he went to that classroom, he didn’t expect to lie on the floor. But thank God he was there.

That’s it really: I don’t know if I will be here tomorrow, I don’t know if Jacquelyn will be here tomorrow, but she’s here now, I’m here now. When we realize what a wonderful, miraculous thing that is, it can become in our lives, a kind of prayer. Thank you, Lord. I’m still here: help me let my life light a candle of joy because you give me this life. 

Amen.

Web of Wonder

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A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ 

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor

Second Sunday in Advent • December 7, 2025

Isaiah 11:1-10 * Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19 * Romans 15:4-13 * Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon begins at 27 minutes

There is a story of a poor family at Christmas who had only enough to get a tree. There were no ornaments, no tinsel, nothing at all to hang on it. Still, they swept and dusted and scrubbed and prepared the house for Christmas just as if a great Christmas ball were to be held there. They moved the sofa; they cleaned behind the cabinets. Even the dog’s water bowl was washed and dried and put back clean. When all was done, they went to bed. But during the night a spider came crawling down from the attic where it had hidden during all the fuss. The house was so clean, there was no place to start a web. Then it saw the tree: branches lifting needles with lots of wonderful spots just waiting for a spider web. The spider began to spin and soon others joined it so that by morning the tree was decorated with a gossamer web. And when the family came downstairs and saw the web the spiders had fashioned, something mysterious happened. Maybe it was the morning light, maybe it was something more, but suddenly as the dawn came through the window, the web shone with silver and gold and the tree was decorated with a web of wonder.

It was Sunday, December 7, 1941,  and people were just leaving the performance of Handel’s Messiah at Duke University. Still full of the soaring inspiration of the music and these great words of hope from the prophet Isaiah, they left the chapel and found people clustered around radios, listening to the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Suddenly, they were thrust from the comfort of Christmas to the wilderness of war. I wonder: did any of those people sit in the jungle wilderness of Guadalcanal a year later and remember that day? Did any of them remember three years later as they shivered in the snows of the Ardennes forest during the Battle of the Bulge? Did they listen in that wilderness for the voice of one crying, “Prepare the way of the Lord?” Those people who left that chapel and heard the news of Pearl Harbor had their world forever changed. 

We live our lives moment to moment as if we were fully in control, as if we were driving a road we’ve driven many times before. But great events can crash into us from nowhere—and we are changed. Some personal crisis, some accident of the spirit, and suddenly just as we thought we were making time, we are sitting by the road. One poet has written about the experience this way.

At the Art Reception

held in a Modern Bank

my daughter ran full speed

into a wall of glass

ricocheted five feet

and, for a second,

lay stunned.

till screams echoed throughà the lobby:

guests sipping wine,

turned with a chorus of eyes.

I picked my wounded butterfly off the floor

her screams turning to sobs

a red welt rising on her forehead

and together we examined that invisible wall

that comes out of nowhere

and knocks us flat

without any interest 

The invisible wall that knocks us flat leaves us reeling in the wilderness. 

That’s the place where Isaiah said we should listen for the voice of one who cries: “Prepare the way of the Lord.” The wilderness of Judea is dry and rocky and dangerous. The wilderness is a place of desolation. You can die of thirst or, if it rains, you can be killed in a sudden flood in a wadi. The real wilderness has snakes and lions and it’s kill or be killed. The real wilderness doesn’t care that you bought your tent at REI and your sleeping bag at L. L. Bean; the real wilderness simply doesn’t care, it has no interest. The real wilderness is full of invisible walls that leave you weeping with a red welt.

The wilderness is also a spiritual place. The wilderness is where Cain is sent to wander when he kills his brother and where Moses runs to hide from the law. The wilderness is where Israel goes after the Exodus and the wilderness is where Judah ends up when enemies break the gates and overcome the walls of Jerusalem. The wilderness is where you face temptation alone. Even Jesus faced temptation in the wilderness: it’s a place of hard choices. The wilderness is that place which becomes our address when we are knocked flat and left weeping alone. And it’s in the wilderness that John hears God’s call to proclaim the time for preparation. “Prepare the way of the Lord”.

John’s call forces us to choose what we will do about the wilderness. One solution is to call it home. When the Jews were in exile in Babylon, a psalmist asked, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” Many answered by saying we can’t. So they learned the songs of Babylon, they learned the dances and the customs of Babylon. The moral and spiritual wilderness that was Babylon was all they could see and they couldn’t believe in anything else. They made the wilderness home; there was a promised land God intended for them but they missed it because they settled for a home in the wilderness. Even when they returned to Judah, they brought that wilderness with them so that by Malachi’s time, many had stopped singing the Lord’s song even in the promised land.

“Prepare the way of the Lord”,  John says. Just as some of the exiles lost their faith, others remembered God. Have you ever been so far from home you wondered if you’d ever see it again? Have you ever gone so far away you don’t think you can come back? I’m not talking only about geographical distances: I mean really far away, farther than anything measurable in miles. The wilderness is where we live away from others, believing we can’t find the way home. Some Jewish exiles Babylon looked homeward and hoped. They hoped for what Isaiah pictures, for God to come and make a way home. They hoped the mountains would be made low, so they could go home; they hoped the valleys would be filled up, so they could go home; they hoped the crooked roads would be made straight, so they could go home. 

“Prepare the way of the Lord”—there, in the wilderness, that’s what we are told. Get ready, because God is coming and there is no power that can stand in God’s way. There is no mountain high enough to stump God: there is no grief dark enough that God can’t let light in, no loneliness so profound that God cannot overcome it. Every mountain and hill shall be made low. There is no valley so low God cannot find you in that depth. Even in the valley of the shadow of death, fear no evil because God is coming and every valley shall be filled. And all the crooked things of this world—all the crooked paths will be made straight. God is coming to straighten them and to tell the truth, the straight truth: like a refiner, showing what is true inside. God is coming, over and over again—God is coming. Remember that our home is with God and that God is making a way home for us.

Where are you living? You may be in the wilderness but you can choose to live in the Kingdom of God. Your address may be in the wilderness but you have a home with God. That is the gift of Jesus Christ: “..in my father’s house are many places,” he said—I go to prepare one for you. Advent calls us to remember we have a home and demonstrate what this life looks like 

That’s why churches exist. Loren Mead, lists among the ten characteristics of really great churches that they are places where mutual responsibility is shared and mutual aid is possible. That is, churches are places where we can embrace each other and discover that in the midst of the wilderness, we are at home in the Kingdom of God. They are where we practice peace. 

We begin to do that when we understand our lives as a mission. Some years ago I had the good fortune to be the pastor for Arvilla Cline. Arvilla was a slight woman in her 90’s who had been the much loved Latin teacher at a school for girls in Albany. She was a person of amazing intellect ,much loved by her former students. One night a woman appears at the door or our church. It was winter and she had no coat or boots; she made it clear she needed refuge although she spoke very little English. Jacquelyn and I took her home for the night; she stayed with us for a couple weeks and gradually we learned she had been purchased by a man from a refugee camp in Somalia. She herself was from Eritrea; her name was Letamariam. We didn’t have the space to let her permanently live with us so I put out a call in church. Imagine my surprise when Arvilla contacted me and said she’d be glad to take Letamariam. So we moved her there. Now, because Arvilla was a Latin teacher, she was used to overcoming language barriers. Bit by bit, she taught Letamariam English, helped her learn about American culture and think about a new life. Ultimately, we were able to connect Letamariam with some folks in Ohio. She moved there, went to college, married and has a couple of kids now. When all this was over, I sat with Arvilla, thanking her and this was what she said: “I wonder what my next mission will be.”

What is your next mission? We cannot avoid the wilderness no matter how carefully we walk, no matter how well we plan. But we need not live in it permanently, we need not allow it to become our home. We can live in the affirmation that God is coming; we can live in the community of God’s people.  If we will prepare for the coming of God, then we are promised a transforming presence that will come when we least expect it.

This is the promise of God: prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness…because God is coming and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Prepare your life: God is coming to spin a web of wonder. Prepare the way of the Lord—so you can get on to your next mission. 

Amen

Climbing Up the Mountain

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A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ of Harrisburg, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

First Sunday in Advent/A • November 30, 2025

Isaiah 2:1-5 * Psalm 122 * Romans 13:11-14 * Matthew 24:36-44

“…they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war anymore.” [Isaiah 2:5]

In 1939, the generation which had fought the “war to end all wars” 20 years earlier went back to war. In those 20 years, one of the most alarming changes had been the rise of air power. Fearful that London would be bombed, as in fact it was, British authorities organized the removal of 800,000 people to the countryside; about one and a half times as many as live in the Harrisburg-Carlisle area. Most were children. They gathered with a few clothes, a gas mask, and a name tag and were sent to rural villages where host families picked them out, sometimes separating siblings. This memorable event is the background to C. S. Lewis’ book, “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”. That story begins with four children sent out of London to stay at an old mansion with a sometimes distracted older professor and his housekeeper. As children do, they get bored and explore unused rooms, finding a wardrobe. Climbing into it, they find it is the gateway to a fantasy land called Narnia, where a great conflict between the Wicked White Witch and the great Lion Aslan is underway. Ultimately, Aslan sacrifices his life to save the children and is then resurrected, and the children lead the way to a great victory, saving Narnia. They become rulers and one day, on a hunt, they accidentally ride past the entrance to Narnia and find themselves climbing out of the wardrobe, back where they were, children again, but with this wonderful memory of victory. That memory sustains them; they know that whatever evil freezes the world, it will ultimately be made green again.

Today’s readings in Isaiah and Matthew are a special kind of literature called eschatology. Eschatology is a kind of literature that looks back to this time from the vantage point of God’s final victory. There are many kinds of language. That shouldn’t surprise us. Looking at a rose, for example, a botanist would say, “A rose is a woody perennial flowering plant in the genus Rosa, family Rosaceae. But the poet Shakespeare said,

O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live;

Wow: totally different, both true. Same rose: different languages. The scientist wants to describe the rose. The poet wants to describe the experience of the rose.

Isaiah is a prophet of a time when God’s people are defeated by the terrible armies of Assyria and Babylon. The reason for the defeat, the prophets say, is the unfaithfulness of the people. So in the face of such sin, God refuses their offerings, refuses their worship, refuses them God’s help. That’s what comes before this Word from the Lord. That’s what God’s people are experiencing. Isaiah tells it in all its terribleness.

Your country is desolate,
    your cities burned with fire;
your fields are being stripped by foreigners
    right before you,
    laid waste as when overthrown by strangers. [Isaiah 1:7]

After speaking about the devastation of God’s people, the prophet then has another vision. It’s as if he turned a telescope around. Now he looks from the final victory of God, and we hear the vision that was read this morning.

In the midst of devastation, there will be new harvests. In the midst of conflict, there will be peace. What makes the difference? The advent of God as the great judge.

God shall judge between the nations and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war anymore. [Isaiah 2:4]

This is the language called eschatology; this is the prophet wanting us to experience the hope of God’s promise.

That’s what Jesus is doing in the portion of Matthew we read this morning. He lives in a place occupied by a foreign army, governed by rulers who are famously unjust and uncaring. He tells his followers that the time of God’s Kingdom has arrived; the very time when God is become the judge, just as Isaiah said. He tells them that people are missing it. Some get it; some don’t. 

For as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so, too, will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken, and one will be left. [Matt. 24:38-40]

So Jesus is turning the telescope around, changing the view. “No one knows” when God will break in and the crisis will occur, he says. 

That alone should tell us to ignore all those people who think they know everything about God’s plan. For a long period, we had the “Left Behind” series, which was more about making money for a few people than the real word of God. The real word is: no one knows when the advent of peace, of justice, of God’s immediate presence will happen. Instead, Jesus simply says, “Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” [Matt. 24:44] Paul preaches the same message and simply says, “Walk decently”, in this time between.

The word of ultimate hope can be powerful. In the years before the Civil War brought the liberation of slaves throughout our nation, many had the courage to leave their bondage, and flee north to freedom. Part of what empowered them was the stories of the Bible of how God had led people from bondage to slavery. They made the story their own, they made all these stories their own. And they used songs to communicate. One of those songs was, “Climbing Up the Mountain, Children.” The song says,

Climbing up the mountain children, I didn’t come here to stay

And if I nevermore see you, gonna see you on the judgment day.

It reminds us all of where we are: climbing a mountain, moving upward toward God’s vision of us, toward a community of joy, a community of justice. It reminds us that we may get lost on the way but that ultimately in God’s final judgment, we are all brought together, we are all gathered as God’s children.

I imagine every one here is climbing some mountain. For some, it’s physical illness and pain, for some it’s a nagging gray hopelessness, for some it’s worrying about the circumstances of life, how to stretch a budget to fit needs. In the 1850s, many enslaved people were escaping. William Still was an African-American abolitionist who frequently risked his life to help freedom-seekers escape slavery. In excerpts from letters, Still left a record of some of the letters sent to him from abolitionists and formerly enslaved persons. The passages shed light on family separation, the financial costs of the journey to freedom, and the logistics of the Underground Railroad. In those letters, they often refer to escaping people as “goods” or “boxes”. One I want to lift up says simply,

We knew not that these goods were to come, consequently we were all taken by surprise. When you answer, use the word, goods. The reason of the excitement, is: some three weeks ago a big box was consigned to us by J. Bustill, of Harrisburg. We received it, and forwarded it on to J. Jones, Elmira, and the next day they were on the fresh hunt of said box; it got safe to Elmira, as I have had a letter from Jones, and all is safe. [https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/the-sectional-crisis/stories-from-the-underground-railroad-1855-56/]

These people, including people from this very church, were all in danger. But these people believed in the promise of freedom and a new life. So they climbed that mountain in that hope.

The hope of advent isn’t simply that Christmas will come; it is what Jesus says, what Isaiah says, that in the love of God, we have a place, we are embraced as children of God. In that hope, in that peace, we come to Advent not as people marking off the days until Christmas, but knowing that God comes into our world, into our lives,
even when we least expect it.

Amen.

Prophetic Patriotism

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A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ of Harrisburg, PA

by The Rev. James E. Eaton, Pastor

Fourth Sunday After Pentecost/C • July 6, 2025

Matthew 5:13-16

Most of know the story of the Mayflower Pilgrims. Less well known is the story of the Arbella and its cargo of 200 Puritans, who landed in Massachusetts Bay nine years later. Yet it was their colony that shaped Massachusetts, eventually incorporating the settlement at Plymouth.  Imagine for a moment that you were the leader of this group. What would you want to say? How would you inspire them? What would you tell them about the purpose of this great and dangerous voyage? John Winthrop was the leader and Winthrop chose to speak to them about charity. More than anything else, Winthrop today is remembered for a sermon in which he said the founding of the new colony had as its purpose to be a city set on a hill, giving light to all and that the method would be to show by their lives the true meaning and fulfillment of Christian love. Winthrop’s ideal wasn’t just spiritual; he is explicit about the need to give to the poor and to make sure each had what was needed. Infused in his sermon is a principle that would come to underlay the  foundation of Reformed churches like this one and, ultimately, the American Way: that there is a fundamental dignity, a fundamental promise, and a fundamental right inherent to each person; that each person represents a gift of God and it is the responsibility of the whole community and especially the church to allow that gift to unfold and serve God’s purpose.

More than a century later, this philosophy—this theology—was firmly planted in New England and flourished throughout the 13 colonies. When Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, two sons of that very Massachusetts colony Winthrop had founded, set out with Thomas Jefferson to define the principles of the new nation in the Declaration of Independence, they went back to this founding principle, that all are created equal, all have a human dignity under God, a purpose and a claim on the freedom needed to live out their purpose. This weekend, we celebrate that moment when our fathers and mothers looked out and said such things and we must ask, as the historic source of this faith, how can we renew it, how can we live it, how can we make it again a light for all. We talk about patriotism, especially at this time of year. But real patriotism is prophetic: it isn’t blue, or red, it’s the vision God gave at the beginning.

Christians often miss the fact that Jesus did not invent a new ethic or preach a different way of life. Instead, he summoned those he met, those who heard him, to remember and renew the living light of God’s word that they had heard from scripture all their lives. He himself said that he didn’t come to destroy the law but to fulfill it. In this, he was doing what prophets do: seeking the vibrant core of God’s Spirit and making it live again. Of course, many of his contemporaries couldn’t see this. We heard his frustration in the story from Matthew today. Jewish children, like our own, made the rituals of their parents into games. We do weddings; children play with Wedding Barbie. We cook; children work in imaginary kitchens. We dress for success; children love to dress up. But what to do with someone who won’t play? 

“But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’…

Jesus has summoned all who hear him but they refuse to play. They cannot remember the original vision; they cannot see the original hope. The “wise and intelligent” are the worst of all; they are too busy compromising to see the goodness of God. Only those who can come as children receive his gift: the peace that makes it possible to lay down burdens and find rest for the soul, the rest that will allow them to fulfill their purpose in God.

It’s a cautionary tale for us. This weekend we celebrated Independence Day. But in the midst of our red, white and blue feeling, have we reached back to touch the bright vision with which our nation began? It is a vision that believes all have gifts and its genius was always that we offered a place to express those gifts, to make a life by doing the work of expressing those gifts. Where other societies chose to make right birth a qualification, we made hard work the important factor. Where other societies were built like a pyramid with some kind of aristocracy at the top, we said from the beginning, from Winthrop on, that everyone, rich or poor, had a responsibility for everyone. Where other societies glorified a gifted few, we claimed a fundamental dignity for all. This is not simply a political issue; it was, it is, always, a religious, spiritual issue. For the real task of churches is first to lift up a prophetic patriotism. That is, a patriotism that remembers we are founded on a vision of God’s purpose in our community. We do that most effectively when we demonstrate what such a community looks like.

This is what prophets do. Over and over, from Elijah defeating the prophets of Baal, to Amos describing God measuring Israel like a builder with a plumb line, to Isaiah and Jeremiah down through the centuries, all the prophets call God’s people back to the vision with which they began. Reformed churches began by rejecting the pyramid of privilege that was the accepted way in all of Europe when they began. They got rid of bishops; they began the system of voting we still use. Why do we vote in our church? Our congregational meeting is a testimony that every person has a voice, and God speaks through our united voices. One day, we will have a new pastor suggested. The suggestion will come from a Search Committee elected, not a bishop. One day a new pastor will be elected in the same way: by your voice, sharing what you believe the Spirit is saying, not by someone from another place, another church.

Perhaps we could learn a lesson from our history and make it our vision for the future. In the fifth or sixth century, a monk named Dubhan led a group to Hooks Head, a remote corner of Ireland, and built a monastery. Soon the monks noticed that the bodies of sailors were washing up on their pristine beach: they had perished when their ships hit the rocky coastline. The monks decided to set up a beacon and operated it for the next thousand years. No one knows how many ships were guided by that light. No one knows how many captains, lost in fog, anxiously searching  saw that light and avoided the rocks. God knows, and thank God for the work of those monks. Thank God for all those who give us light to see our way in all of life.

This is just another concrete expression of Winthrop’s summons to be a city set on a hill, a light to all. So the question we ought to be asking is what lighthouses do we need to be building on the corners of our property? We know there are dark and dangerous currents in our culture; how can we provide guidance to those caught in them? We know there are rocks on which lives shatter; how can we be ready to rescue the endangered? 

This place is a fine and peaceful place, a meetinghouse with a tradition, an oasis of worship. But if we huddle here within its walls, we can never fulfill its purpose. Jesus has come dancing; we are summoned and if we don’t know the steps, it’s time to learn. We must look to his example and learn his steps. When we do, we will certainly see that he did not stay inside but spent his life on the way, seeking the lost, healing the hurt, restoring the ability of those who had thought they were dead to live again. To dance this way, to live this way, we will inevitably have to leave this place and go out, as a light goes out, into the darkness, to show the way, to offer the love of God.

Amen.

Rise, Shine, Give God Your Glory

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A Sermon for the Locust Grove United Church of Christ of York, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor © 2025

Epiphany Sunday • January 5, 2025

Matthew 2:1-12

Rise, shine, give god your glory. I can’t help hearing the old camp song when I say this; do you know it? Rise, shine, give God your glory. Today is Epiphany Sunday here, one day before the actual day, January 6. Sometimes it’s called Three Kings Day and in the rest of the Christian world, it’s when gifts are given and the promise of Christmas celebrated. ‘Epiphany’ is a Greek word meaning manifestation. I said that once and after the service someone said: great, you explained one word I didn’t understand with another I don’t get. It means seeing suddenly some flash of God’s presence. It’s as if the whole world is lit up, it’s like a dark night split by the instant flash of lightning. Epiphany is God’s light shining into the world and as John said, as we read in our call to worship, the darkness has not overcome it.

I grew up with the Three Kings: did you? My grandmother had a small nativity scene, little wooden figures like the ones we have here but much smaller. Every year we’d set it out on a low end table. When she wasn’t around, my brother and I would take the figures down and play with them. I liked making sailboats out of a pointy board and a dowel mast; Joseph and the shepherds became crew. Mary and the baby were passengers; the animals came on board too, like the ark. But the kings on their camels weren’t meant for shipboard life; they galloped on the shore. Originally they were joined by a chain, but that got broken and so did one of the camel’s legs. We saw them as toys and didn’t understand when my grandmother got angry at us for playing with them. That’s what the Three Kings are for many of us today: the last toys of Christmas. No other Christmas characters have had so many stories made up about them; no others are so richly embellished with fantasies and made up things nowhere in the Bible. Today, I want to put away the toys, stop playing with the figures, and see how this story in Matthew can help us rise, shine and give God the glory.

Who are the these three? They are Magi. The word gets translated “Wise Men”—although the text says nothing about gender—or ‘Kings’—although the Greek text doesn’t call them kings. In the area that’s now Iraq and Iran, schools of magicians and astrologers and dream interpreters existed for hundreds of years. They were called Magi, from the same root word that gives us ‘magic’. We have such people. They are the talking heads on TV, who guess about the future, they are the therapists who help you look forward, they are the people who magically make Alexa work for you. They aren’t kings, and sadly even the camels that were so much fun in the crèche aren’t in the story. There is  something else to understand about the Magi: they are rich Gentiles.

We’re all Gentiles, so we often miss how important this is. Yet in that time and place, no more fundamental distinction existed. So it’s surprising to see them here in this Jewish story. Matthew gives us a long, detailed genealogy of Jesus, connecting him with Abraham, detailing how he is descended from King David. He makes sure we know Jesus is as Jewish as he can be. Then he tells us about Joseph’s reaction to Mary’s pregnancy, and how it takes an angel visit to get the two together. Not a word from Mary but isn’t that just like a patriarchal culture to tell us about a birth by telling how hard it is for the father without mentioning the mom? After the story we read today, we hear about Herod’s slaughter of young male children which is so like Pharaoh in the time of Moses. When Herod dies, the whole family goes home to Nazareth, and we pass to John the Baptist. These are all good Jewish stories and yet here, right here, smack in the middle, is this strange story of these rich Gentiles, the Magi.

They know what they are doing; they’ve seen a star, read the ancient Jewish prophecies, risen up from their daily lives and gone on a long journey. Now they’re near the end; they go to the Jewish king, supposing he will know what’s happening. Yet Herod and his advisors don’t have a clue. Bethlehem is about five miles away but the Magi, who have come over a thousand miles, know more than Herod. They are the emblem of what the Apostle Paul will later call a mystery; that, “…the Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” [Ephesians 3:6] No more fundamental distinctions exist in that time than Gentile and Jew, rich and poor. But here is God breaking boundaries, bringing rich Gentiles to poor Jewish peasants. 

Why do they go? To give gifts. The one part of the créche Magi that is in Matthew’s Gospel is the gifts. A lot of stories have been made up about the gifts, but the truth is these gifts are the working tools of Magi. Incense is burned when mysterious things are done; myrrh is used for magical tattoos. And gold always comes in handy. The other thing in the real story which often isn’t in the créche is a star. To all who had to navigate before GPS and maps, stars were a real gift. Since ancient times, humans have used the stars to mark a path. Matthew tells us the Magi saw a star, and it leads them to Mary, Joseph and Jesus; they give their gifts and then a dream tells them to go home a different way. No names, no genders, no kings; instead, a story of the gift of a star, the gifts to the child, the gift of direction. This is a story about gifts.

Gifts aren’t always easy. Sometimes we don’t recognize them. One father told this story about a special gift.

I was cleaning my 6 year old son’s room, and doing my annual purge of crap he’s managed to hoard. I have this big pile of stuff to throw out in the living room, when he comes in, pulls some stupid paper butterfly out of the trash pile and tells me I can’t throw this away because it was a present.

He goes to a lot of birthday parties and gets a lot of goodie bags with this sort of thing, so I tell him it’s junk and it’s going in the trash. Besides, it’s all bent up and I tell him…that if he values things he should take care of them.

He leaves, and some 5 minutes later he returns, visibly distraught (he’s clearly been thinking hard about this). He says “It was a present…for you.”

“For father’s day.”

I swear at that moment I heard every angel in heaven slow clapping.

What is a gift? Is it the stupid paper butterfly or is the butterfly a pedestal for the time and care given to make a connection with someone? We make up stories about these gifts when the truth is staring us in the face: God has given a gift of presence—the Magi rise up from their homes, go following the shining light of that gift before they even know where they’re going. And they give God not just gifts but their witness of God’s glory. Rise, shine, give God your glory.

Isn’t this what we mean to do every Sunday during the offering? Passing around plates is not an effective way to raise money. Someone has to hunt through her purse; someone else pulls out his wallet and considers which bill to give. I know personally, it’s the one check I write all month, all our bills are handled electronically. Sometimes I forget on my way out the door and then there’s in the plate. Some churches have numbered pews and the reason is that once upon a time the church raised money by renting out the pews. Anyone who knows about fundraising today would tell us to use email and a web service that does subscriptions, so our offering is automatically deducted from our bank accounts just like Netflix. No, we don’t do the offering because it’s efficient, we do it to act out this mysterious thing: giving gifts.

Christmas is not about toys and the real Magi are not toys. They are an emblem and a guide to how we should react to God’s gift of presence in the world. That gift is for all people, and it’s fitting that here in this story, in the midst of these Jewish stories, it’s Gentiles, not local leaders who recognize the gift and respond by bringing their own gifts. Rise, shine, give God your glory, indeed. That’s what they are doing: giving gifts that may be strange to us but are their stock-in-trade, giving what they use, giving what they have, giving who they are. For them the “Joy to the World” about which we sing has become real. And, as one writer said, 

…when joy to the world becomes real, it breaks chains, topples hierarchies, knocks over our carefully laid out game and says: Start over, start new, start now. This is the message of the story of the [Magi], this is the message of Christmas; joy to the world, the savior reigns. 

Rise, shine, give God your glory. Isn’t your glory the gifts God has given you? Isn’t that what we are meant to be as a church?—people who give themselves, give their gifts, imitating God’s gift giving in Jesus Christ. When we do this, when we rise up and become part of that great giving, then indeed God’s presence shines, then we give God glory. And then, how wonderfully, then indeed: Joy to the world. 

Amen.

Give Thanks for the Appetizers

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A Sermon for the Locust Grove United Church of Christ of York, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor © 2024

Thanksgiving Sunday • November 24, 2024

Joel 2:21-27, Matthew 6:25-33 

It was the year nothing went right. May was in college in Georgia; she decided to go to a friend’s house for Thanksgiving. So Jacquelyn and I were on our own. Then, a friend of ours named Tara was going through a difficult time, so we invited her to come visit. I volunteered to cook, so the women could visit. Now Tara and Jacquelyn both love Victorian home and our town was full of them, so on Thanksgiving Day itself I set about cooking the meal I’d planned while they took off for a walk around our town. 

The real challenge of a dinner like this is getting everything to come out on time. I’d researched the traditional dishes and put a turkey breast in to brine the night before. I patted it dry, rubbed it with oil and spices and put it in to roast, setting the timer according to the directions in Betty Crocker. I chopped and mixed and spiced the various side dishes and got them going. I had everything timed and thought I was doing fine. I was doing the “blast turkey with high heat then turn down” method, so after a half hour, I intended to turn the oven down; instead I turned it off; mistake number one. I didn’t realize what I’d done and thought we were on course. The kitchen mess was mounting when the women returned, talking about how hungry they were and that the house smelled great. They started to pick up bits to eat in the kitchen, I shooed them out, sternly ordering just like my grandmother used to do, “No snacking! You’ll spoil your dinner!” I checked the turkey; not done. They complained about being hungry; I snarled back, “No snacking!”  We waited; I checked the turkey again and it clearly wasn’t cooking. I finally figured out what had happened—along with the fact that we were a solid hour or more from being having dinner ready. Meanwhile, the rolls had burned beyond redemption. Mistake number two. 

It’s a scary thing to tell two hungry women dinner is delayed. I frantically looked around, saw a baguette, sliced it up, spread it with some garlic and tomato sauce and bits of onion, put it on a plate and took it to the women, announcing as if I had planned it all along, “This is the appetizers.” I was so frustrated, angry at myself for my mistakes, feeling like nothing was going right when I heard from the other room the song the choir sang last week: “Give Thanks with a grateful heart.” Except the words were different; instead of,  “Give thanks with a grateful heart”, they were singing, “Give thanks for the appetizers.” We all laughed. The turkey eventually finished. I dropped it on the floor taking it out of the oven, it didn’t matter; we were still laughing about the song. We still do. 

Our Thanksgiving celebration is like the Susquehanna, a river with many sources. Some are harvest festivals, which both the English and the Native Americans celebrated. Some of the streams are legends: no one called the people at Plymouth ‘Pilgrims” for almost 200 years. So there was never a “Pilgrim Thanksgiving”. And we have no record they ate turkey at all on that day; most of the meat was venison, much of the meal was fish and seafood. There is the long history of Thanksgiving celebration in the Biblical record, the New Testament commands to give thanks and most of all the deepest current, which is the power of giving thanks to transform us.

Where shall we dive in? Let’s start with the message we read earlier from the prophet Joel. We don’t know much about him or his time. One thing that’s clear: he preached his Word in the midst and aftermath of a time of fear and desperation. Hordes of locusts had eaten crops and people were afraid. It’s fear Joel addresses here, fear that robs hope, fear that paralyzes. To this fear he says, 

Do not fear, O soil; be glad and rejoice, for the LORD has done great things!

Do not fear, you animals of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green; the tree bears its fruit, the fig tree and vine give their full yield.

O children of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the LORD your God; for God has given the early rain for your vindication, God has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the later rain, as before. [Joel 2:21-23]

He begins with the ground of faith, the history of God’s blessing, and follows the rhythm of creation from land to animals to the trees that bear fruit and the vines that give wine. Only then does he come to us: the children of Zion. God’s first and foremost blessing is creation itself; God’s creation is the ground of hope. “Do not fear…be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things!” The answer to fear isn’t redoubled effort, it isn’t what we do at all; it is a Thanksgiving that remembers and appreciates what God has done and invites us to hope in what God will do. The final movement of this song is faith: “You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I, the LORD, am your God and there is no other.” [Joel 2:27]

Jesus is also addressing fear in the passage we read earlier because our fears make us worry. 

31Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” 32For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
[Matthew 6:31-33]

Matthew has wrapped this saying into a summary we call the Sermon on the Mount. We don’t know the exact setting but it’s not hard to guess. Jesus is on the road with his disciples. There must have been times they wondered where the next meal would come from, how they would raise the funds they needed for the ministry, for their own needs. Just like Joel, Jesus calls them to remember God’s creative blessing. He asks them to look around at the lilies, at the birds;
he invites them to put God at the center and give thanks. Thanksgiving is the real cure for fear. Thanksgiving is the doorway to hope.

We’re living in a fearful moment. The locusts of our fear of terrorism and different people are trying to eat up our hope. It’s a story that sells ads, so the media is urging them on; it’s a story that gets attention, so some people who want to lead are telling us the solution is to get rid of the locusts. Last week, I quoted Yeats’ poem, The Second Coming, and it’s line, 

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

It is especially important that we remember and take to heart the lessons we heard today. Our hope is there; our worry can only be satisfied by the peace of remembering God’s providence and power.

In this moment, in this week, it’s good to remember the Thanksgiving story. It is so overlain with legend and lore that it’s hard to remember the real details. This is the Thanksgiving story. A group of refugees who wanted to worship in the Reformed way, like us, fled persecution in their native land. They went to Holland, where they formed a little cultural enclave. But they don’t really fit in; their religion is different, stricter, their values are different also. So they returned to England and contracted to found a colony in Virginia. Half of the people going weren’t part of the original religious group; they were called ‘strangers’. After a terrible yoyage, they go off course and end up in Cape Cod in November. A measles epidemic had decimated the native population; these new settlers survive by stealing corn from caches those vanished natives left behind. They settle in a protected bay and name it after their departure city: Plymouth. They have a hard time fitting in but some of the native people, the Wampanoag, in the area help them out, teach them how to get along, and they adjust, they adapt. Almost half of the original 102 settlers die the first winter. But eventually they learn to grow corn and other things, they learn to eat the local seafood, clams, lobster and so on. They learn to hunt. 

A year or so later, things are going well. They decide to take a few days off and plan a feast. They invite their neighbors who take one look at the food and decide to supplement it with local meats. Later, the whole experience is romanticized and becomes a kind of living legend. The refugees are now called the Pilgrims. They go on to found churches and communities; they create a culture of congregational democracy that trains people to live in hope, believing God is present and they have a purpose. We are meant to be that people. We are their children. Let us like them, like faithful people in every time, from Joel to Jesus to Plymouth to York, give thanks, the thanks that remembers the Lord our God is in our midst.

Sometimes things succeed; sometimes they fail. The Thanksgiving dinner where nothing went right? It’s remembered by all of us as a wonderful, special one. Somehow, the song—give thanks for the appetizers—the act of giving thanks even when hungry, the choice to see the gift and goodness rather than focus on the failure and fear it transformed the moment. It can transform any moment; it can transform us. Give thanks—this week, always. Give thanks for the appetizers; give thanks to the Lord above. Give thanks and see if it doesn’t grow into a harvest of grace.

Amen.

What Day Is It?

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A Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY

by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor © 2020 All Rights Reserved

24th Sunday After Pentecost/A • November 15, 202

Matthew 25:14-30

“How will I know I’m in love?” Every parent gets that question and I suspect we all answer it the same way: “You’ll know”. How do you explain something so great but so invisible? Jesus had the same problem trying to explain what it’s like to live so intimately with god that God reigns in every moment, every place, every occasion, every corner of your life. Just like us, he doesn’t try to explain it directly. Instead, he tells parables. Parables are stories meant to share an experience, to make us feel the experience. Listen as he tells the parable we read in Matthew.

He’s coming out of the. temple, his disciples following along. There are crowds swirling around, people on errands who weave through the mass of people, ignoring everyone except the ones in their way. There are animals: bleating sheep, hooting donkeys, chickens flustering. There are the smells of the animals and the marketplace and the always present urging threat of violence. His disciples are from small towns; they’re impressed by the city. Maybe you’ve always lived in a city but if you haven’t, it’s overwhelming the first time you go. The masses of people, who all seem to know where they’re going, the tall buildings, the prices, and they’re gossiping about it all. As they talk, Jesus steps aside, sits down and begins to talk. First he tells them nothing from the temple will last. The he tells them about the final judgement and finally he tells them a story about to help them feel the kingdom of God.

This is the story. A man goes on a journey, a rich man, with slaves and servants to manage his property an he makes arrangements for them in his absence. One receives five talents one gets two, another just a single talent. It’s not entirely sure how much a talent would be worth today; perhaps a few thousand dollars. It’s the largest currency available and the point here is that even the last one is given a great deal of money: metal coins in a small sack, perhaps.

Now each of these servants has a problem: what to do with the money? There are a complex set of overlapping rules. Long ago, the law said a servant owed a 10% return on such trusts; rabbis, on the other hand, taught that burying the money in the ground is all the law requires and looked down on moneylending. Think of it: you’ve just been given a fortune, perhaps more money than you’ve ever seen. But it’s not yours, it will have to be returned. What do you do with it? Invest it in the stock market? Double it and you get to keep the excess; lose it and you get sold into slavery to make up the difference. Maybe municipal bonds, those are safer and tax return. Then, of course, there’s your backyard: just dig a hole and bury it, keep it safe. What would you do?

Can you imagine what they thought, what they felt? I imagine they were all scared. We’ll get to the hole burying guy but let’s think about the middle guy for a minute; he got less than half the first one got. Still, he has a lot to manage. How tense is he? Is he excited at the opportunity?—or is he just afraid of failing? Does he know what to do right away or does he spend time researching possibilities. This is a big chance. How many nights does he lay awake worrying? I suppose the same applies to the rust man in the story. Was he more confident, ore experienced, is that why he got more?—or is he more scared?

Then there’s the last one. He’s scared for sure. When he’s called to account, he says, “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter seed, so I was afraid…” He does what is safest: he his the talent, he secures the money. I imagine he slept better once it was safely away.

When the owner returns, the first two servants bring out the talents entrusted to them—and the profit they made. The owner is pleased. Their risk becomes the reason for the Master’s joy and he shares the joy with them. The last servant who refused to risk anything has no profit to show and he’s cast out, with the owner saying he should have realized a return on the money would be expected. Once again, we’re left with a servant who is cast to the outer darkness

What makes a difference in this story is the decision of the first two servants to take a risk. They must have know what the third servant knew about the master, they must have been scared by the risk, but they took it anyway. What allows us to risk? The deepest antidote to fear is faith in God. I’ve been reading an exhaustive study of the people who sail boats around the world all by themselves. Inevitably, they encounter storms and conditions that overwhelm them and scare them. The author discovered one common element among those who serve and shish their voyage: a deep religious faith. One said, 

Ten months of solitude I some of the loneliest areas of the world strengthened every part of me, deepened every perception and gave a new awareness of the power outside man which we call God. I am quite certain that without God’s help many and many a time I could not have survived to complete my circumnavigation.

Chay Blyth, quoted in Richard Henderson, Singlehanded Sailing, p. 71

It’s the failure to take a risk that condemns the third servant. There are three places in the Gospel of Matthew where this figure of throwing someone into the outer darkness occurs. Once is the parable we read recently about the wedding feast where one person comes unready, another is a story in which the good religious people of a town are angry that Jesus heals a gentile.

Jesus intends us to understand life in the Kingdom of God is a constant risk, a voyage that always feeling like it’s teetering on the edge of failure. Our sure and certain guides, our traditions that comfort from familiarity, cannot help us. We cannot always see how things will work out. Risk makes us afraid and fear makes us seek safety. Fear is powerful; it is actually possible to be scared to death. We’ve just come through a national election campaign conducted where appeals to fear were a major theme and we all live day to day with the fear of a raging pandemic. Life is scary and it can cause us to bury ourselves in the ground but that is a kind of death and Jesus is proclaiming everlasting life.

All three of the servants were faced with the fact of the future and the question of what to do with what they have been given. All three are afraid. Jesus tells this story to illustrate a deeper reality: the kingdom, his term for knowing and deciding to live in the hand of God, lets us hope. Living in the hand of God is an invitation to hope but it takes a decision. I wonder if the reason so many mainline churches have declined is that having been successful, built our buildings, created our structures, we are afraid to take risks, to embrace new lights and new ways. 

Today we heard from the Prophet Zephaniah and the part that struck me most deeply was the description of God going through the city, finding people who believe God makes no difference so that they are not prepared for God to come, not prepared for God to act, not prepared to live in God’s kingdom. They are not prepared to hope.

But “hope is the best of things”; that’s a line from the movie Shawshank Redemption. Andy DeFresne has been falsely convicted of killing his wife and in prison he’s beaten and humiliated. But he continues to hope. His best friend, another man with a life sentence, tells him hope is dangerous; that it can kill a man. But Andy tells him that there is a decision to make: get busy living or get busy dying. Hope is what allows us to get busy living.

Fred Craddock tells a story about a man living from hope. He works on Concourse A at the Atlanta airport, a place with a huge food court and swirling crowds of people. Some are in uniforms, some are children, some don’t speak English, some are confused or tense about the whole business of flying. One day Craddock sat down with a cup of coffee and heard something.

…this marvelous male voice, deep and resonant and obviously well-trained. Singing. I noticed the song because it was “Lara’s Theme” from Dr. Zhivago..and it was done so well. And then there was silence. I was about to finish and then that same ice came again, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”. Beautiful.
I went to the counter and said to the person there, “Is that singing coming from over here?”
She said, “That’s Albert in the ditch.
I said, “Can I speak to Albert?”
She said, “Well, yeah, Albert! Man out her wants to tan to you.”
And he came out, this big, robust, smiling guy, who said, “Yes, sir?”
I introduced myself, he introduced himself. “Albert, I said, I want to thank you for the singing it’s marvelous.”
He said, “You know what I’m doing, don’t you?”
I said, “No, what are you doing?”
He said, “I’m auditioning”
“You’re auditioning?”
He said, “Yeah, as many folks go through here all the time, there’s bound to be one that’s going to come along and going to take me out of this kitchen.”
And then he went back, humming, into the kitchen and I just thought, “There’s not five percent of the population of Atlanta as happy as that guy in the kitchen.”

.Fred B. Craddock, Craddock Stories, p.123

Albert’s waiting, but he’s not waiting in place, he’s hoping, he’s holding on to a vision of where he’s going, he’s ready, he knows the right moment is coming and he’s ready and singing.

Zephaniah calls the moment of God’s coming the Day of the Lord. Are you ready? Are we? Are we doing what we can with what we’ve been given, using them with hope, less worried about whether we’l succeed than whether we’ll please the master?

Every day is a decision Every day we audition for the Lord. Every day we decide whether to let fear fix us in place or to hope. One day we will understand that the resurrection is a reason to hope every day. One day, we’ll sing like Albert, sing the song of the love of God and we won’t care about our performance, we’ll only care about the joy of living in the kingdom of God.

Amen