This story ...is simply a continuation of Luke’s Christmas story, which is not meant to be the sentimental tale we sometimes see it as.  It is about God sending Jesus into the world, and what that means.   The question Luke is primarily concerned with is “how do the people he came for receive him?”     Luke is particularly concerned with showing how ordinary and humble people recognized and received Jesus as one sent from God.  Of course that’s not just an academic or historical question; it’s supposed to prompt us to think about how Jesus is received into our world, our time, our lives.   Luke’s intention is inviting his readers to recognize and receive Jesus alongside Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, Anna, and Simeon. 

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The manger isn’t just a picturesque detail of small-town farm life that Luke slips in for verisimilitude.   The manger is really important to what Luke is trying to tell us – you can see that it is by the fact that it’s referred to three separate times in this short story.

 The gospel writer is not merely telling us a sweet story about a baby.  He is also slipping in a little theology – some hints about who this baby is, and what his presence here means, and why it matters to us.   He reminds us of our  vulnerability, of our neediness, of the longings we try – unsuccessfully - to satisfy with things and security and activity and control.  He shows us this vivid picture of God in Jesus entering into our world and experiencing that same neediness and vulnerability.    He hints at the sacrifice of love Jesus’ life will be.  And he invites us to understand that in the manger we see the One to whom we can always come with our deepest needs.

Isaiah reminds us not only of our mission, but of our character. What sort of people are we? What kind of community have we formed? What values are evidenced in our life together? Here we must have courage to face the hypocrisy present in the church and to seek God’s grace for ourselves. ... Professor Cynthia Jarvis urges the church to deeper reflection.  “What if,” she writes, “we went on to name those who are oppressed, brokenhearted, captive and imprisoned not only by the world but particularly by the church’s narrow take on God’s wide mercy: the gay uncle, the unwed mother, the woman who has chosen to abort the pregnancy, the non-Christian, tortured enemy combatants, the illegal immigrant, and the hapless in a hospital waiting room” 

What if the Spirit of the Lord were upon us? What if we should become aware of this and began paying attention to the urgings of God’s Spirit? It is only a few days before we celebrate again the birth of Jesus into our world, a birth that bridged heaven and earth. Jesus knew for whom he had been sent. He was clear about his purpose. It didn’t always sit well with everyone. The hometown crowd tried to run him off a cliff. The powers of the day eventually nailed him to a cross. But neither of these things changed his mind about God. He still healed the sick, fed the hungry, offered good news to the poor, forgave the sinner and even raised the dead.

Advent is a time that challenges us to consider where we are making compromises. Richard Ward suggests that we have become so comfortable in life that we scarcely realize that we have stripped “the God of Israel and of Jesus Christ” of all power and replaced “God with the “other gods” that reign in our world. “Consumerism,” he writes, “demands more of our resources and lust for oil and mobility threatens our environment. The conduct of war robs us of precious lives and international respect. Religious zealotry pits one image of God against another, leaving the human community fractured and cynical” (p.31). We have much to answer for in our accommodation to those “other gods.”

“Comfort, O comfort my people” are not words for those who have made a home for themselves in exile. They are not words for those getting along just fine in life. They are words for the poor who can’t fathom how they came to live in such desperate circumstances. They are for the hungry who lack the means to provide their next meal. They are words for the disenfranchised, the disinherited, and the downtrodden. They are for those who know that they are in exile, for those who know that this is not their home.

For these people they are words of comfort, but for those who live in comfort, they become words of challenge. For in our comfort, we have settled for something less than fair. We have settled for an approximation of justice that is still unjust. We have settled for making our lives easier and in the process made the world more uncomfortable for others. We have settled for a house, a two-car garage, a big screen TV and a host of other comforts, and failed to equip ourselves with the things that make for a home. We have in many ways mistaken a house for a home.

We may not have said it in just the same way as the ancient Israelites said it, but we know what they mean because we have expressed the same sentiment.  They said (to God), “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down.”  We are more likely to say, “God, why don’t you do something???”   But we have shared the same questions, the same puzzlement, the same frustrations, the same faith struggles.

Not for same reasons, but that doesn’t matter.

 For us, it may be personal setbacks, the things we hear on the news, experiences of injustice, or the suffering of those we love.

 For the ancient people Isaiah speaks for, it is a long period of hopelessness following the collapse of their political independence, their economic fortunes, and the institutions that supported the practice of their faith.  The future looks bleak and scary to them.  

 “It’s been a long time since God sent pillars of cloud by day and fire by night.  It’s been along time since God rained manna from heaven or sent plagues upon Israel’s enemies.”     Isaiah (whose voice clearly expresses the feelings of his people) wants God to do something earthshaking: “Tear open the heavens and come down.”

But instead it feels like God has hidden God’s face from the people God once claimed and loved and led and protected.  

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 Paying attention to our journey of faith, or our spiritual life, with some desire and intention to grow, does NOT mean that we are living on some elevated spiritual plane instead of in the real world.

 “If we want to meet the Divine on its own terms, we need to be receptive to what’s there, not what we think is supposed to be there.”      (Robert Corin Morris)

Generosity turns a mere object into a shared experience. It turns a thing which we thought to possess into an opportunity to connect to another person. Generosity turns “having” on its head. When we focus too much on owning things, we run the very real danger of being ourselves possessed by those same things and our spirit shrinks within us. Generosity reminds us to value people over things not by rejecting them but by placing them into proper perspective. What I “have” serves who I “am” instead of the other way around. We are fundamentally “givers.” As we place the things we “have” into this service, then our spirits grow. This is true, I believe, for all spiritual types. Giving pulls us to the center, helping us avoid the dangerous extremes.

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We’ve been talking these few weeks about growing spiritually, and last week Jerry asked you to think about what you need to help you do that.   Today I want us to think about one thing that all of us need but which might not be the first thing that comes to mind when we think about what we need in order to grow spiritually:  friends.   And when I use the word “friend” in this connection, I really mean “spiritual friends.”  That might be a new or foreign or even off-putting idea to many of us.  It might even be hard to imagine, if our vision of friendship comes from TV sitcoms or buddy movies, or if most of the friendships we have revolve around shared sports activities or shopping. 

For those of us who are down-to-earth people, maybe “spiritual friend” sounds a bit pious and head-in-the clouds… but that’s not necessarily the kind of relationship I mean.    A “spiritual friend” might very well go shopping or golfing or hunting or out for a beer with you, be there to watch your kids and help you paint the living room, share a joke and sympathize with your frustrations like other friends do.   Life can’t be all lofty meditating on God even if you happened to be inclined that way!   But a spiritual friendship has a deeper dimension too:  A spiritual friend is someone who helps you pay attention to God in your life. 

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From"Growing Spiritually, part 2: 'From Rags to Riches'"  based on Colossians 1:3-14  ~ Rev. Jerry Duggins  ~  October 26, 2008

The point is:   we grow spiritually in many ways:  prayer, and worship, and reflecting on scripture, certainly; but also by asking questions, through relationships, as we cope with hurts and challenges, in service, in taking a risk or a stand, by practicing love, in learning from successes and failures, in work, in giving, in quietness, in activity.    And in all of that, we engage differently, we discern God differently… because we are different.  And understanding something about who we are spiritually can help us discern what can help us grow, and what might be more of a frustration than a help.

 It’s all part of being human.  It’s part of being a community – a church – that exists not in some idealized fantasy, but in the real world.    What we learn from setbacks and challenges and disappointments shapes us and helps us grow.  But those things aren’t what define us.  They are not our bottom line.  Our bottom line is that our hope is in Jesus Christ, who has called us to follow him.    

Sure, we get discouraged sometimes.  Occasionally, we slip into the-cup-is-half-empty mode.  But that’s not where we live.  That’s not where we belong.  

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