Category Archives: Year A

All Washed Up

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

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor © 2026

Baptism of the Lord Sunday/A • January 11, 2026

Matthew 3:13-17

“How have I ever deserved such love?” A woman asks this question near the end of a movie called The Danish Girl and I wonder if it is Jesus’ question at his baptism.

 I imagine it as a hot day; this is desert country after all. The stories about John tell us there were crowds but what’s a crowd? Twenty people? A couple hundred? Thousands? We don’t know. John is a striking figure, a charismatic man filled with the Spirit of God, who speaks a fierce message, calling people to repentance. He’s on the shore of the Jordan River. This is the river that had to be crossed centuries before by God’s people to enter the promised land. This is the water that had to be waded, this is the stream that stood between them and the fulfillment in history of God’s love and covenant. Is there a line to be baptized? Did Jesus stand behind others as one after another they came to John, talked to John, heard him pray and then felt him forcefully plunge them into the water, let the water cover them like someone drowning, and then lift them up, wet, wondering what comes next, clean, ready for the next chapter? Now Jesus comes; now he looks at John, now their eyes make a private space only they understand. Now John is taking Jesus in his arms, as he has with all the others, now Jesus is plunged into the water, there is perhaps that instant of fear so instinctive when we are underwater, now he is lifted up and heaven opens, Jesus hears what we all want to hear, “You are my child, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” This is baptism.

Baptism is rare here and in church life, we’ve become fussy about the rituals that surround it. We have considerable evidence for baptism, both of children and adults, in the early church. The Didache, a collection of sayings and teachings probably written about the same time as the New Testament says this about baptism.

Concerning baptism, you should baptize this way: After first explaining all things, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in flowing water. But if you have no running water, baptize in other water; and if you cannot do so in cold water, then in warm. If you have very little, pour water three times on the head in the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Before the baptism, both the baptizer and the candidate for baptism, plus any others who can, should fast. The candidate should fast for one or two days beforehand. [Didache, 7:1-4, found at http://www.paracletepress.com/didache.html]

This is great news if you’re one of those people who think details aren’t important; bad news if you’re a ritual maker. What it says is that the form of applying the water, the part that most interests us, doesn’t really matter. Use running water—if you’ve got it. Use a few drops if that’s all you’ve got. 

But if the details don’t matter, what does? The clues are in scripture. Isaiah says, 

But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.

This word is addressed to people who feel themselves lost. Every day the news shows us pictures of refugees from Gaza and other places. Israel had become refugees and this is God saying, “You’re not forgotten: you’re still mine.” There’s a reason every baptism begins with a question: “What name is given this child?” We name a person at baptism in a way that honors them uniquely but also connects them with a family, a heritage. Whose are you? You are God’s own child, regardless of your age. Baptism is a reminder we’re not on our own; we belong and we belong to someone, to God. In the visible church, here, we are meant to be the emblem of that belonging. We baptize because we recognize the person being baptized belongs to God. Belonging, then baptism.

But it’s also a response to fear. Swimming is taught to children these days and we forget that for most of history and still today in many places, people fear water. Water is dangerous. Once my son was teasing me about not playing sports; he talked about having the courage to go out on the soccer field, knowing he might get bruised. I pointed out that I sailed and commented, “Every year, some sailors die when they drown.” It was a poor joke yet it had a truth: water is dangerous. Baptism began as a way of making sacred what we feared. In John Irving’s novel, The World According to Garp, a family retreats to a home on the ocean shore in New Hampshire. There’s a beach and the children are warned about an undertow that can suck them down. Misunderstanding, the way children do, they call it “the undertoad”. I know about the undertoad. Once, long ago, I was on a beach in New Jersey, swimming while my parents watched a few yards away. The undertow—the undertoad!—caught me, swirled me around and I’ve never forgotten the fear of that moment. “When you pass the waters,” God says, “I will be with you”. When the undertoad grabs you, you will still be God’s.

But it’s not all water; baptism is more than being washed up and set down fresh and fancy. Acts tells the story of an early church mission. Someone has gone up to Samaria and baptized some folks there. They didn’t ask the Consistory, they didn’t follow the ritual, they just went ahead and did it. But somehow, the baptism wasn’t effective, and the disciples know this because there has been no evidence of the Holy Spirit among these folks. We don’t know what this means; we only have this little testimony. Yet clearly the early church knew that baptism wasn’t simply a human act of applying water; it had a deeper, transforming significance. Today, baptism has become about the water; God meant it to be about the Spirit, the breath, the wind that blows through life. In the beginning, Genesis says, the Spirit of God blew on the face of the waters and it’s from this ordering that creation follows. Baptism is meant to be a sign of a deeper spiritual blowing in us that causes us to live out the gentle, loving, forgiving way of Jesus. No amount of water can do that; it takes the Holy Spirit. Our task as baptized Christians is to nurture the presence and experience of that Spirit in those who come here, those God sends.

The final clue I want to call attention to this morning is simple and direct. At the end of the account of Jesus’ baptism, it says, “suddenly the heavens were opened”. We live in a world caught up in the details of earthly life: what to wear, eat, how to get through the day. What we miss if we forget our baptism is that heaven is open; God is calling. The question with which I began, “How have I deserved such love?” has a simple answer: you don’t, you can’t. We don’t deserve love: it is pure gift, the gift of the God to whom we belong, whose children we are. If we believe we are indeed, God’s people, if God has given us the Spirit to bind us and energize us in living out love, if we know heaven is open to us, then indeed, we are loved in a way beyond deserving. You are my beloved, God says to Jesus: you are my beloved, God says to you.

The movie I mentioned earlier, The Danish Girl, is a fictionalized account of a real person, a man named Einar Wegener, married to Gerda, who discovered within himself a female identity he named Lili. It was a time and place with little understanding about such things the word ‘Transgender’ hadn’t even been invented and as Lili emerged and his life became living as Lili, as Einar receded and this woman became fully alive, he faced the conflict of being a woman living in a man’s body. At first treating this as a problem to be solved, Lili and Gerda struggled to find a way forward. Ultimately, Lili became the first person known to have undergone a series of operations to remake the body to match the identity as a woman. What’s clear from the real history, not as clear in the movie, is that there were years during which Lili faced the conflict of hiding her real self, living in shame, keeping the secret. Finally, near the end of the moveie, Lili sees how loved she is, asks the question with which I began, “How have I deserved such love?”, and answers it in the only way it can be answered. “Last night I had the most beautiful dream…I dreamed I was a baby in my mother’s arms…and she looked down at me…and called me Lili.” The dream is being called by your true name: known in your true self. And loved. Like the mother in the dream, like our father in heaven, God is calling out to us, loving us, loving us beyond anything we can or ever will deserve. In the moment we see this, in the moment we know this, heaven does indeed open. And that is baptism. 

Amen.

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

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.

The Deep End

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Exploring With Jonah – Part 2

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

by The Rev. James E. Eaton, Pastor ©2024

12th Sunday After Pentecost/B • August 11, 2024

Jonah 2:1-10

When I was seven or eight, our family belonged to the Hopewell Country Club, and we spent summer days at the pool. Everyone had a little rubbery circle worn on your wrist or, if you were cool, around your ankle. The band’s color defined what part of the pool you could use. But like all kids, we saw boundaries more as a challenge than a limit. So sometimes, we’d slip under the ropes and floats that marked our zone. There would be a few moments of stolen fun but inevitably your mother would yell, “Get out of the deep end! Get out of the deep end!” What my mother knew was that I needed to be near a wall. The deep end of the pool was a mysterious zone where danger lurked. Even later when I had passed the swimming tests and taken a diving class, the deep end always gave me a little shiver. 

Jonah in the Deep End

Life has deep ends. Sometimes there are boundaries and markers that warn of our approach to the deep end; sometimes we find ourselves in the deep end with no warning at all. Have you been to the deep end? Today’s reading is about Jonah in the depths, in the deep end. , but it is as much about what to do when you are in the deep end. Last week, we read how God called Jonah to go to Nineveh, a great and evil city and how Jonah ran away from God. He took a boat for a foreign shore, but God hurled a wind that threatened the boat and the sailors hurled Jonah into the water. There, drowning, he was swallowed by a big fish. That’s where we left him last week, in the belly of the fish. 

He says,

You cast me into the deep,
   into the heart of the seas,
   and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows
   passed over me.
Then I said, “I am driven away
   from your sight;
how shall I look again
   upon your holy temple?”
The waters closed in over me;
   the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped around my head
   at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land
   whose bars closed upon me for ever;”
[Jonah 2:3-6a]

The deep end of life is the place where you feel yourself far from God’s care, distant from God’s presence, distant from God’s call. 

The Deep End

We arrive at the deep end in various ways. Sometimes an event overwhelms us and we feel God has deserted us. We go to the doctor and suddenly hear awful words that change the afternoon; a friend or a family member dies or is killed, and we cannot see the sense or find comfort, and we rage at God and feel deserted. 

Other times, the deep end is a place we have gone on our own. Our society has a pervasive amount of information about dangers. We know how dangerous heroin and cocaine are. We know how dangerous smoking is. We could list hundreds of other things we know are bad for us. We see glittering commercials about casinos; we hear next to nothing about the toll of those addicted to gambling whose desperation becomes a deep end that destroys. Every year, every day, people voluntarily take the first steps into the deep end. Once there, they discover it is a one way journey that not only destroys them physically but often spiritually as well. The deep end is the place where we cannot feel God’s presence, where we feel alone and desperate. 

Have you been to this place? The fish gets all the attention when we remember this story: we like happy endings and the fish is the happy ending. But before that there is real terror here. There is real fear. People in recovery from alcoholism or other addictions often speak of hitting bottom. Jonah speaks of “the pit”: it’s the same place. Many experiences have a pit. A woman said, “I think I hit rock bottom about 3 weeks after my husband left, and now I’m slowly swimming back up. But I’m a wounded swimmer.” 

Jonah is a wounded swimmer when the fish swallows him. Most of us are wounded as well at one time or another. So Jonah’s experience is ours. We have been to the pit: we have been to the deep end. But there is hope in the deep end. Joseph Hart, writing about the impact of trauma and crisis, notes,

When an accident or disaster strikes, to say nothing of a deliberate act like torture, the old ways in which we saw the world no longer make sense. We ask, “How could this happen?” and “Where was God?” And by slowly struggling to answer such questions, we develop a new and deeper understanding. We grow.

Hart goes on to describe a doctor who had built a successful practice and earned many honors. At 62, he suffered a heart attack followed by a stroke. He lost the ability to drive or practice and he lost his purpose. Eventually he had to be hospitalized under a suicide watch. But with his purpose gone, he found a spiritual core and rediscovered his religious faith. Eventually he found a new purpose and new meaning in life.

Jonah Finds a Purpose

This is what happens to Jonah. Jonah finds purpose when he responds to God’s call. He starts up when he starts back, back to God, back to God’s hope for him. 

7 As my life was ebbing away,
   I remembered the Lord;
and my prayer came to you,
   into your holy temple.
8 Those who worship vain idols
   forsake their true loyalty. [Jonah 2:7f]

Here is the key to purpose and to a way back from the deep end: to rediscover God’s hope for your life, to hear God’s call to you, to put God’s purpose at the center of your own life and make that purpose the guide to every day. 

We often try to fight the deep on our own. We avoid admitting we’re in the deep end. “I can handle it,” we say. We try to cope, moving faster and faster until we can’t see where we are from the frantic spin. Surely in the midst of the storm Jonah swam like crazy, but the answer wasn’t to swim harder, it was to go where God wanted him to go. Swimming harder won’t help if you’re going in the wrong direction. 

Every Sunday we pray, “Lead us not into temptation.” Temptation is an experience when we are seduced into believing we are enough, we can set our own course, live from our own purpose. That path leads to the deep end. One of the reasons for a church is to help us avoid the deep end if we can. But the good news, the truly great news, is that even in the deep end, even when we think we are lost forever to the love of God, we are not. God is waiting, even in the deep end to hear us, to lead us, to rescue us. What Jonah learns in the deep end is that God has heard him. And knowing that God has heard him, he finally is ready to live from God’s call. 

Are You In the Deep End?

Have you been to the deep end? Are you there now? There are many who are. I said last week and I say again, this is a church in transition. Saying that brings to mind the pastoral search, but it’s not just about a new pastor. It’s also about sharpening and sharing our understanding of God’s call and purpose for this church. Surely part of that call is to help people come back from the deep end. After all, the church is meant to be a hospital for sinners, not a hotel for the saved. 

We left Jonah last week in the deep end, in the belly of the great fish. Today we heard him say, “Deliverance belongs to the Lord!”  [Jonah 2:9b] The fish leaves him on the shore, but he’s not the same Jonah that left. When we have been to the deep end and learned that indeed, “Deliverance belongs to the Lord”, neither are we, neither is anyone. What do you imagine Jonah thought there, wet, sea weed tangled around him, maybe bruised from his landing? I wonder if he remembered God’s call? I wonder if he was just happy to be alive? He’s back where he started; no progress made at all. But perhaps God has made some progress, for Jonah is not tv he same person he was when he ran away. We’ll leave him there on the beach today, and come back next week. 

God’s Call

We need a week to think about our call as well. Sometimes when we imagine a calling, we think it’s big and important, and we know that we are neither. But God’s call comes into our lives in many ways. Mother Teresa said, “Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” May what you do this week indeed be full of great love.

Amen.

Journey to Joy 1: Let God Out!

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A Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY

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

First Sunday in Advent/B • November 29, 2020

Isaiah 64:1-9 • Mark 13:24-37

One day last summer, when Jacquelyn and I were on vacation, we got up to a beautiful day that seemed to promise the plans we made would be perfect. The sun was out but it wasn’t too hot, there was a nice breeze blowing, we were rested and ready to enjoy the day. We were staying at a friend’s house, so we packed up, cleaned the kitchen, left a little thank you note and went out to the car, impatient to get started. I turned the key as we talked and…nothing. Not the sound of the engine, not even a click. I thought I’d done something wrong, so I did what we all do, I tried again; still nothing. No horn; no lights—the battery was dead. Over the next three hours or so, we called for help, got a new battery, he weather worsened and by noon, when we finally got the car going, we were two tired, disappointed people. I guess we’ve all been disappointed at one time or another. We hoped something, we wanted something, we looked forward to something and it didn’t happen. What do you do when things fall apart?

I usually try to begin sermons with a positive illustration but these scripture readings today are from disappointed people. So it’s important for us to remember our disappointment. Both these stories are stories of disappointed, dispirited people; both these readings have a background of hope denied, delayed, destroyed. Today, in a time when we all face fears and sometimes feel overwhelmed, it’s important to learn from them. They found hope even as they lamented—and so we can we.

Isaiah is speaking to a people who have the spiritual equivalent of my experience with the car. A century before, they had been defeated, exiled, lost hope in God’s power to save them. Then they began to hope again; they learned to sing the Lord’s song in foreign lands, they learned God was bigger than they had imagined. They looked forward to a time when God would save them and return them to their home. 

Now that time has come and many have returned to Jerusalem after a long exile. But the vibrant, hopeful, inspired community they had expected God to create hasn’t happened. They’ve returned to ruins; they’ve camped out in their despair. And so we hear this lament, this cry for God to come to them as God came in the past.

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,
so that the mountains would quake at your presence–
as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil–
to make your name known to your adversaries,
so that the nations might tremble at your presence!
When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect,
you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.

They’ve failed at going to God and now they are remembering that their inspiration wasn’t their own doing. They remember the wilderness, they remember how God saved them at the Reed Sea and they begin to understand that what’s needed isn’t something they can do: they beg God to come to them.

Our culture glorifies our efforts. From the basic story of someone working hard and making good to the spiritual version of getting saved by giving your life to Jesus, going to church, pledging gifts, all of it is about what we do, what we achieve. But the stark reality in the midst of despair is that the prophet tells us it isn’t our effort that makes a difference; it’s God’s. They want God to come to them: “tear open the heavens and come down”. Isn’t that the ultimate cry of all our hearts?—that having come as far as we can, God will come to us, enfold us, save us. 

One writer has shared a personal experience of this.

When my son, Christopher, was a boy, I took him to Toys-R-Us, and he got detached from me.

Christopher being my first child, my fatherly instincts caused me to panic. Yet, because I could see the doors, I knew that he had not exited the building. I paced up one corridor and down another… around a corridor… around another aisle… peeping… looking to find him amidst a crowd of people in the Christmas rush – but I could not find my son. I found a security guard and asked him, “Do you have surveillance in the store?” He said, “Yes.” I then asked, “Do you have a monitor?” “Yes.” “Can I look at the monitor?” “Yes.” “Can you scan the floor?” “Yes.”

The guard began to scan up and down the aisles, and there I saw my son, surrounded by toys, yet crying.  He was clearly in a state of panic. My son was all by himself among people he did not know. My son was feeling lost and alone, and I did not know what to do. I asked the guard, “Do you have an intercom?” He said, “Yes.”

I said, “Keep the camera on him.” Then I got on the intercom and said, “Christopher.” My son looked around because he recognized my voice. I continued, “Stay where you are.” He started looking around. “It’s Daddy,” I said. “Don’t move. I see you although you can’t see me. Stay where you are. I’m coming.”

That’s what this lament hopes. It imagines us sitting and crying and hoping God will come find us. It’s no accident that the prophet goes on to see the solution to despair in God remembering who we are: “Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.”

That’s the spirit of Advent and that’s the hope of Advent: that God is coming, no matter how lost we feel, now matter how absent God feels. The Gospel of Mark was written for people who faced persecution, wars and a dark disappointment that everything they had hoped was in vain because Jesus hadn’t come on their schedule. Jesus imagines a violent time, a world ending time, and they says in such moments, “Keep awake.” Why keep awake? Because God is coming—and we don’t want to miss the moment. Over the last few weeks, we’ve heard several parables that lift this theme as well: hope isn’t about what you see, it’s what you can’t see but believe. Keep awake: God is coming, tearing open heaven, coming into the world.

Why is staying awake so important? Because of something Isaiah says: “…you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down…” God’s coming is a surprise. Abram wasn’t looking for God when God found him. Moses wasn’t looking for a life mission when he went to look at burning bush. Jesus didn’t come and do what people expected of the Messiah. God’s coming always surprises, never fulfills our expectations because our expectations aren’t big enough, creative enough. I’ve spent most of my life working in churches and what I’ve seen, what I know, is that we never imagined big enough, never thought big enough. We were so busy making sure we sang familiar hymns, we often missed the chance to praise God in new ways. We were so busy doing what we’d always done, we often didn’t hear God say, “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” [Isaiah 43:19] So we missed it.

Advent is a time to wake up and wait. Do those sound like opposites? They aren’t, they are the bedrock of spiritual life. Think of the lost child in the story: the child hears the father’s voice, and may want to run toward it. But what’s important is for that child to stay right there, wait right there, so the father can come and to watch for the father. That’s Isaiah’s message: hope because like a father coming to a lost child, God is coming to us. That’s Jesus’ message: hope because if you stay awake, God will send messengers—angels—to help you. That should be the inspiration of this time: hope because God is coming.

What do we do with this hope? What do we do while we wait? Listen, watch and one more thing: let God out. Isaiah pleaded for God to tear open the heavens and come down. Today, our problem isn’t the forbidding height of heaven, it is the boxes in which we’ve enclosed God. Let God out! Let God come into our whole lives, the life of our church, the lives we live at home, the life we live when no one is looking.

This is a moment pregnant with possibility. Over the last few days, we’ve been doing something at our house you may have experienced. We brought the Christmas decorations down from the attic, we’ve unboxed them. They haven’t changed; they were there all the time. But the joy of their beauty was put away, the inspiration of their presence wasn’t visible. One by one as they are put out, they bring memories of hope, memories of love, memories of what has sustained us through times of despair and happiness. 

It’s the same with God. Let God out! Stay awake: this is a time when God can come at any moment. Stay awake and you might hear the sound of the heavens tearing open, and a baby crying as he’s born.

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

All My Children

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A Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY

by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor

All Saints Sunday • November 1, 2020

1 John 3:1-3 • Matthew 23:1-12

All My Children was a long running soap opera; before you ask me about Susan Lucci or her character, let me say that I really know nothing about the TV show. Last week, we thought about how to relate to God and remembered what Jesus said: “Love God with all your heart and mind and soul.” I was still hearing that in my head and thought, “But how does God see us?” That phrase—all my children—immediately leaped to mind. So I looked it up and found this summary of the show by Agnes Nixon, its originator

The Rich and the Poor, The Weak and the Strong,
In Sickness and in Health, In Joy and Sorrow,
In Tragedy and Triumph.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_My_Children

I thought that summed up how God sees us: we see all our various conditions, our poverty, our riches, our styles, our failures, successes, problems, hopes, fears; God sees all God’s children.

This is how scripture says it in the first letter of John:

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.

1 John 3:1

Roman society, the culture in which this letter was written had the relationship of children and father at its center. Roman fathers were not just emotionally powerful in families as they are today, they were empowered by the law to govern the family.. Adoption legally as well as emotionally brought someone into the family and was common. So John is invoking the most powerful structure he knows to describe how God sees us: as a father sees children. 

It’s not a bounded, limited circle; others can be adopted in and the Apostle Paul makes that point. After a long discussion of the place of Abraham and Sarah’s descendants as children of promise, he says, 

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 1For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

Romans 8:14-16 – http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=471232722

See how once again he describes us as children of God. ‘Abba’ is not simply a word for ‘father” it’s an intimate term. It’s the word Jesus uses in what we call the Lord’s Prayer and it’s the words he uses on the cross. It is less ‘father’ and more “daddy’, less general and more loving. 

Now there are some things that flow from this. The first one is that no one ever goes away. Parents know how this works. When kids grow up, we see that but we also see the child, we remember the child. I drive May to work mornings when she goes to her office. I’ve been doing it off and on since she was in high school. She picks the music and when Fall Out Boy comes on or Panic at the Disco or God help me Wake me up when September ends plays, I remember those days. I have—or had!—brown hair and brown eyes. So did my mother, father, and my brother Allan. Six years later, my brother David came along. He didn’t look like us; he had blue eyes and light colored hair. Everyone commented on how different he looked until my dad’s mother saw him. She took one look and said, “Oh my, little Elmer!” Elmer was my Dad’s older brother. She remembered her child and saw him continued in my brother. Scripture tells us God is ageless and changeless, so like a parent, no one goes away to God, not ever. There’s all there, just like Uncle Elmer was there for my grandmother.

There’s a second group God sees that we often forget: those who aren’t here yet. This is the thing all growing churches know. Growing churches constantly plan for people who aren’t here yet, people God will bring here. So they work on welcoming, they treat each visitor as someone special, sent for a purpose they can’t wait to understand. They don’t get bound up in brass chains. Do you know about these? Brass chains are when we let honoring the past hobble the future. It’s the point in the joke about how many Congregationalists it takes to change a light bulb. Change a light bulb? No way: my grandfather gave that light bulb. We  make room for those not here yet s parents and grandparents. When we bought a house in Michigan, my daughter Amy and my son in law Nick had two children with a third on the way; Bridget was born a month or so after we got there.But even before Bridget appeared, Jacquelyn picked out a house with room for all and a crib for her. She saw the ones who weren’t there yet.

So God’s children includes those who aren’t present here any more; they’re still present to God. God’s children includes those who aren’t present here yet; they’re still present to God. I know you’ve noticed I left someone out.: those of us here now— that’s us! What about us? We’re children of God too, and God has in mind a way for us to be present to each other just as we’re present to God. Now if you have siblings like I do, I know a secret: that sometimes you’ve wondered or hoped your mom or dad liked you best. But if you ask a parent, they will always tell you the same thing: “I love all my children equally.” It’s the same with God.

That’s why Jesus gives the instructions we read in Matthew to his followers, to us. He lives in a rigidly hierarchical society. That means everyone is part of a pyramid. The emperor and kings are at the top, then there are officials, rulers, rich people and so on down the line to the peasants, which is what he is, and finally, the servants and slaves. In Jerusalem, there are religious authorities, called scribes and priests, who are high, there are Pharisees who are high and when you are high up on the pyramid you show it by, as he says, sitting in the high seats, making rules for others, having the place of honor at banquets. But to us, to all his followers, he says instead,

But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father–the one in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted. The greatest among you will be your servant. 

Matthew 23:8-11 http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=471233063

What he clearly has in mind is a radical equality among his followers. You demonstrate devotion to Jesus by serving others, not by having servants. It’s the image of a family gathered in love, equally sharing burdens and joys.

Let’s be honest: we haven’t always done this. Congregationalists started out with radical equality as a principle. They got rid of bishops, they functioned in Plymouth without a minister for decades. But we’ve back slid. In the United Church of Christ, we have Conference Ministers. We hear leaders in church talk about being in control.

But my mother in law, Marilyn Welling, had the right idea. She had five children. There were divorces and separations and remarriages and births and the family grew and grew. Some of them have never met; some aren’t that fun to be around. But to Marilyn, they were all family. She had a whole wall of pictures to remind her. Anne Lamott talks about this kind of wall.

There are pictures of the people in my family where we look like the most awkward and desperate folk you ever saw, poster children for the human condition. But I like that, when who we are shows. Everything is usually so masked or perfumed or disguised in the world, and it’s so touching when you get to see something real and human. I think that’s why most of us stay close to our families, son matter how neurotic the members, how deeply annoying or ill—because when people have been you at your worst, you don’t have to put on the mask so much. And that gives us license to try on that radical hat of liberation.

Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies, p. 215

The radical hat of liberation is just what Jesus came to give, it’s why he wore the crown of thorns, it’s the purpose of the cross: to set us free from the high places and low places to be children together, children of God.

Now along with children of God, there’s another word for all of us. In the original language of the Bible, it’s often translated ‘elect’ and it means chosen. But it also is translated ‘Saints’. So this is who we are, God’s children, all the saints. You, me: those who came before, those who are coming later, all of us here now, all the saints. This is how God sees us: all my children, equally loved, equally called, whether past, future or present. “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are.”

Amen.

The Unperishing Spring

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A Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY

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

21st Sunday After Pentecost/A • October 25, 2020

Deuteronomy 34:1-12 • Matthew 22:34-46

“Winter is coming.” That opening theme from the “Game of Thrones” appeared so obvious when I first read it that I was puzzled. I’m a northern boy; I’ve lived through 68 winters and the falls that preceded them. Fall to me means occasional harsh storms like the one that brought down a tree big enough to cover the entire backyard at the parsonage. It meant raking leaves and, when I was growing up, the smell of burning as piles of fire happened throughout my neighborhood. Summer was fun, fall wasn’t fun; it was a depressing end. Then I married Jacquelyn. She didn’t grow up with fall, so to her fall was an ever opening series of wonderful surprises. She loves the changing colors and I introduced her to cider mills and crisp days with a cup of sweet apple and a doughnut. Winter is coming meant something dark to me; to her, it means doughnuts and colors. How do you see winter coming?

A Spiritual Winter

A spiritual winter is coming in the story we read from Matthew about Jesus. The gospels remember that when he began to move toward Jerusalem, it was with the knowledge that there would be an end not only of a journey but of his life. At the beginning of the journey, 

…Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

Matthew 16:21

Again, along the way,

As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands, 23and they will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised.” And they were greatly distressed.

Matthew 17-21-23

So the journey is a spiritual fall, a time preparing for the spiritual winter of the cross.

The Great Commandment

Today’s reading is part of a series of controversy stories. We read one last week about taxes. Now a group of Pharisees confront him and ask which is the greatest commandment. What do you think? One of the Ten Commandments? A particular rule in Torah? Something your mother told you?. “Which is the greatest commandment?” It’s a preacher’s challenge: summarize all the teaching you’ve brought, Jesus, tell us, what you think. How strange to hear him teach something very old, something from Torah, something they should have known: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,” Deuteronomy 6:5. And then: Leviticus 18:19: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” There it is, the whole program of Jesus, the whole preaching of Jesus, the whole treasure of Jesus and they had it all along, just as we do: love God, love your neighbor. It’s what has led him to preach, what has led him to heal, what will lead him to the cross.

Do Bad to Do Good?

Winter is coming. We are living through a moment when to many it seems that the only way to do good is to do bad. This summer we watched as protests of police killings left cities on fire. Just recently, we heard how a group of men plotted to kidnap and kill the governor of Michigan and then from Wisconsin the terrible story of a young man, a man too young to vote, who used an assault rifle to shoot protesters. We are on the doorstep of a division elections seem unlikely to dispel; already, hundreds of lawsuits are filed, already there is talk of how to overturn its results. 

This isn’t the first time we’ve been here. I watched a movie the other night that had a profound impact on me because it reminded me of the the late 1960’s. “Chicago 7,” is a movie about the trial of New Left leaders after the police riot in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention in 1968. Some of you will remember that time; for others, it’s vague history. So let me remind you it was a moment of shattering violence. Frustration was leading many to question the strategy of non-violence and democratic change. Over a hundred thousand of our troops were in Vietnam; thousands protested the war at home. Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., assassinated were assassinated. In the movie, Bobby Seale, national chairman of the Black Panther Party, is leaving to speak in Chicago and A friend reminds him about the power of nonviolence and Martin Luther King; he responds, “Dr. King is dead.” 

“I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”

Just like Jesus, King was killed for daring to preach this one Great Commandment: “Love God, love your neighbor.” And he did not go blindly to his death. On the last night of his life, he closed his speech with these words.

I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

https://www.afscme.org/about/history/mlk/mountaintop

He walked on, he loved on, until he couldn’t walk anymore. But his vision went on and still does today.

That mountain top is just where we found Moses in the portion read today. Winter is coming there too. Think of his story. Rescued as a child, brought up in the luxury and safety of Pharaoh’s household while his people were enslaved and used to build up the wealth and power of others. When he finally found his true identity and became angry, he killed a man and had to run for his life: no more luxury, no more power. A fugitive from justice, he was taken in by another people, made another life with a wife and a family. Called by God, he went back to that same power structure, that same household he had fled, with God’s word that they should let God’s people go. Ten times he watched the plagues of Egypt stun that nation until the Pharaoh agreed to let the Hebrews go.

Moses led them out into the wilderness and then, as power always does, the powerful couldn’t let go, and used violence to enslave. So Moses and God’s people faced the armored might of the greatest military in the world at that time. But God was greater, and God’s people fond a way through the muddy Reed Sea when the wind of God blew the water away for a moment, and the army of Pharaoh perished in the marshes. Moses might have thought they were safe and all was well. 

But when we read the story of the Exodus, all is not well. Time after time, Moses is challenged. People argue, people complain. When he stays on the mountain receiving the commandments of God, his brother and the others build up an idol out of gold so that once again there is a terrible reckoning. For 40 years he leads them through the wilderness. For 40 years he listens to them complain. For 40 years he bears the terrible burden of believing God, of loving God with his whole heart and mind and self. Now, winter is coming; his winter, his death is coming. 

We Have a Destination

So he goes up on a mountain to see the way forward. Now, you know that in the Bible, geography is always theology. So what he sees isn’t just a place, it is God’s performance of a promise. Long ago, Abraham and Sarah were promised a place to live and raise generations of God’s people so they might be a blessing to the whole world. Long ago, Moses set out with God’s people to see this place. Now, he sees it. Like King, he might have said,  “…as a people, will get to the promised land…Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” For 40 years, we read they wandered in the wilderness. But that’s not right; they didn’t wander, they had a destination.

So do we. Ursula Le Guin wove through many of her stories a theme that speaks to our purpose. She imagined a man who grew up as a person of integrity, strong and intelligent, owning slaves, living in a culture that devalued women. When he is forced to live in a world where the slaves have been freed, where women have become equals, he hates it at first but then falls in love with a woman who teaches him how wonderful sharing with equals can be. He becomes her husband and love animates their life. Learning to love his neighbor, he has learned to love God. When he is near his end, he says, “I have given my love to what is worthy of love.”

The Unperishing Spring

Are you giving your love to what is worthy of love? This is the question of Jesus’ commandment. For surely the ultimate one worthy of love is God. Le Guin goes on to say that this is “the unperishing spring”: to give your love to what is worth of love.

Winter is coming; but so is spring. Good Friday is coming, but so is Easter. Faith is not hoping for some particular election result; faith is giving your love to what is worth of love, faith is loving God with all your heart and mind and soul until finally, in God’s time, you too can say, “I have been to the mountain top.” Faith is what leads to hope and hope leads to the unperishing spring.

Walk on, Love on

I remember the hope of 1969 and how it was dashed in later events. I remember the hope of other times and how they sometimes didn’t come true. But I don’t remember the unperishing spring; I’m living for it, I’m grateful for it, because I have seen the glory of the Lord and I know that no matter how great the armies of the night, God is more powerful; no matter how many times winters comes, there is an unperishing spring. Just wait, just walk on, just love and you will live in the unperishing spring.

Amen.