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Saying It Out Loud, to Other People

1/24/2018

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Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him. Mark 1:20
I belong to a Facebook group dedicated to my hometown and the memories of it that all of us in the group share. People often post old photos, remembered events, even their phone numbers from the days when you only needed four numerals, or (a little later) when the phone numbers began with the first two letters of the town: AR (for Armonk Village) 3-8736.

Of course, the group is heavy on the nostalgia. And many describe a simpler, more wholesome life than what they see around them now – whether they stayed in town or moved away. They remember a care-free childhood; a community cohesiveness that simultaneously gave children a fair amount of responsibility for themselves, but also the freedom to be kids. You could go off on your bike for the whole afternoon as long as you told an adult where you were going (sort of) and were home by dinner-time – in those days before we knew the term “helicopter parents.”

I know that Long Hill has a similar Facebook group, and I’m sure Warren, Basking Ridge, and many other towns do, as well. In these postings I hear a longing to return to those times, and a sense that something valuable has been lost – the way life used to be.

All around us the world has changed. Sime of the changes have been very good; others have been not so good – they even seem threatening. Despite the nostalgia and the uncertainty, I know I would not want to go back to a time when women could not have access to higher education, participate in competitive sports, have careers in business, law, medicine, engineering, construction, the clergy. Nor would I want to go back to a time when children with special needs were called “retarded” and were shut away; or where men and women of color were automatically barred from fair housing, good jobs, political participation, good schools; or where LGBT folks lived in fear of discovery and, in some cases, their lives; although there is still a great deal of work to do in all these areas.

But in all this positive change there has also been loss – and not just the loss of nostalgia. Our culture is increasingly secular and multi-religious. Our world of work expects to be “on” and available 24/7. Activities for children and teens are often chosen because participation in them will look good on a college application or perhaps gain a kid a sports scholarship. Many households need two incomes to get by. In all of this, the Church as a center of the community has been side-lined – especially churches in the historic, main-line Protestant traditions which used to be understood as central institutions in each community and in the culture as a whole. There never seems to be enough time, even with all the good intentions we may have, to be a deeply Christian person – or even a moderately Christian person – in our current reality.

In other parts of the world – outside of Europe and North America – the situation is quite different. People may struggle desperately to earn their daily bread, but the churches are full, and faith is vital. The Diocese of Haiti, for example, is the largest diocese in the Episcopal Church – in terms of both membership and worship attendance, and the outreach of these churches makes an impact in their communities every day.  The challenges of life in Haiti are very different from life in New Jersey, and I don’t think many of us would want to trade places, but Haitian Episcopalians live their faith front and center. It is what gives them hope and courage and joy in the face of great difficulty.

The Gospel passage this morning narrates Jesus calling two pairs of brothers – all commercial fishermen – to follow him, to become his disciples. This was a risky business. Jesus was asking them to abandon what they knew, their livelihood, their family business, and follow him into the unknown. Peter, Andrew, James, and John may have heard some of Jesus’ preaching beforehand; we don’t really know. But Mark’s Gospel wants to convey the sense of urgency and vitality in Jesus’ message about the Kingdom of God – enough that these men were willing to drop what they were doing and become his followers, partners in learning, living, and proclaiming the fulfillment of God’s purposes as they were coming true in Jesus. In order to do that, the disciples had to make a change, had to leave behind what they knew, what seemed familiar and comfortable, had to be willing to see the world differently, and learn to live in it differently than what they had been used to. In the presence of Jesus the Messiah, they were in the presence of God far more directly than any of them had been before, and it was going to be a big adjustment, to say the least!

So here we are, not unlike Peter, Andrew, James, and John – and farther along in the story the sisters Mary and Martha, as well as others. Jesus calls us in the midst of our rapidly changing world, in the throes of things we sometimes have trouble wrapping our mind around, to leave behind some of our old life – our old ways, our old expectations, our nostalgia – if it does not serve and support authentic Christian life and practice and faithfulness. That doesn’t mean we carelessly abandon traditions and practices that are life-giving, but it does mean that we need to re-think, and pray, and discern the cost of following Jesus.

Where are the places where we need to make choices about how we spend our time and our energy? Is faith in Christ a nice add-on in our private moments, when we have time? Is prayer and Scripture reading something that we leave to the “professionals” – either out of uncertainty about how to do it, or fear of seeming “too religious”, or the difficulty of making time for it?

In calling us to follow him, Jesus calls us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength – our whole being. And in the Episcopal Church, our Anglican tradition rests on the prayerful intertwining of Scripture, Reason, and Tradition. More than many Christian traditions, we Episcopalians are not so much told what to do and what to think, as we are called to put all our faculties and abilities at God’s service, and then given the responsibility (individually and as a community, as a body) to watch and listen and think and pray for the Holy Spirit’s guidance as to how we can be deeply Christian in our current culture., in our own time and place.

It’s hard; it takes work. And that may be one of the biggest changes of all. In the old days the values of American society and the values of the Church were more or less the same – at least on the surface, at least for main-line Protestants. It was easy to coast in our faith when we had lots of cultural support. But those days have gone, and we have before us a fresh Gospel opportunity. Our world needs so desperately to hear that the idolatry of materialism, of status, of power for its own sake, the idolatry of external perfectionism which papers over the emotional and spiritual void, is not what life is all about. The world needs to know that forgiveness, joy, and hope are possible, and that it comes from being loved to our depths by God, and by returning that love with glad and grateful hearts.

We are the ones who have been given the message and the mission to the places each one of us goes. Each of our participation is important and valuable, and God is counting on us. We all, of course, can always learn more about our faith, become more confident in both what we believe and what we say, can learn better how to pray, how to listen, how to recognize the still, small voice of God, the Holy Spirit whispering in our ear. We never stop learning and growing in our Christian discipleship.

But at some point, the training wheels have to come off. At some point, we have to decide that our faith moves front and center, and that God can use us however God sees fit – no matter how scary that seems.

Why does this have to happen? Because through our baptism, God has called us into partnership with him in his mission to redeem the world; and the world sorely needs Jesus’ message now. Forgiveness, hope, justice, joy, courage, peace, and love. That is what we have to offer, that is what we have to live, that is what we have to say – out loud, to other people. And when we do, Jesus will be with us – even to the end of the age.

Let us pray.
Jesus calls us from the worship of the vain world’s golden store;
From each idol that would keep us, saying “Christian, love me more.”
Jesus calls us! By thy mercies, Savior, may we hear thy call,
give our hearts to thine obedience, serve and love thee best of all. Amen. ~ Hymn 550

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Third Sunday after Epiphany
January 21, 2018


 
 
 
 
 
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Can Anything Good Come Out Of ....?

1/14/2018

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Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see." John 1:46

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” These were the first words out of Nathanael’s mouth when his friend Philip began to share the news that he had met the Messiah, and the Messiah was a carpenter-turned-rabbi from the village of Nazareth. Can anything good come out of that little backwater, hole-in-the-wall, wide place in the road called Nazareth…for that is the way it was considered by residents of the larger towns and cities of Galilee like Capernaum, Bethsaida, and Sepphoris.

Philip doesn’t argue with Nathanael, nor try to convince him; he just says: Come and see; come and see for yourself. And Nathanael is curious enough to go along, suspicions and preconceptions in hand, to see Jesus. But, in fact, Jesus sees and knows some truth about Nathanael while he is still a little way off: Here is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit – no guile, a straight-shooter, genuine through and through, a man who speaks his mind. Nathanael is still suspicious and confronts Jesus: “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus replies that he “saw” Nathanael while he was still under the fig tree. Whatever that was about – second sight, intuition, the Holy Spirit whispering in his ear – it made a big impact on Nathanael, who then did an about face, made an abrupt exclamation of faith, proclaiming Jesus as the Son of God and King of Israel. But we’ll never really know what changed in Nathanael, what his inner motivation was in claiming faith in Jesus. That part of the story has been lost to us.

Tomorrow is our country’s annual commemoration of the life, work, and witness of Martin Luther King, jr – an important day. But I wonder if we sometimes are not in danger of losing some of the important realities of his story.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, was a Baptist preacher and a civil rights leader, but if we honor him merely as an inspirational speaker, someone who said things that we now think are self-evident, we miss a great deal. Dr. King was also a martyr, shot by a sniper on the balcony of a Memphis motel fifty years ago this April. He was not murdered because he made speeches that said we should all be nice to one another, or that we should just try to get along.

He was killed because his work, and his words, and the movement that he led challenged what many people believed about race and power, roles and opportunity in our society, and the way that the African-American community in particular had been boxed-in and oppressed by certain attitudes, practices, and (in some cases) laws. What seems like compassion and common-sense to us today was in many places considered scary and threatening to the powers-that-be, to an economic system, and to a way of life.

The positive changes came at a very high cost to those involved directly in the civil rights struggle, and sometimes to those who were on the side-lines. I think, for example, of the men and women who were beaten, hosed, and bitten by dogs in the march in Selma; of the four girls who died in Sunday School when the 16th Street Baptist Church was bombed by segregationists; of the white Episcopal seminarian who was shot while protecting a young black woman colleague in the voting rights effort, taking the bullet that was meant for her.

Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Can anything good come out of Atlanta, Montgomery, Birmingham, Selma, Haynesville, Memphis…Newark, Plainfield….all the places and the neighborhoods and communities where people banded together to work for civil rights?

A classic way of attempting to keep others in a “less than” position, to try to rob them of their dignity and power, is to speak of them in demeaning and disparaging ways. And so there were many who thought, spoke, and wrote about Dr. King, and his colleagues and supporters and friends, just as derisively as Nathanael spoke of any good -let alone the Messiah – coming out of Nazareth.

This is the season of Epiphany, in which truth comes to light, and we see and understand more clearly – often suddenly - as Nathanael saw Jesus and knew him to be the Messiah. But Jesus doesn’t just leave it there. He pushes Nathanael further: "Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these." In other words, the fact that Jesus knew who and what Nathanael was would be small potatoes compared to what he might see as Jesus worked to bring to reality God’s mission in the world: the sick healed, the outcasts restored, the poor given justice, the Good News preached, sins forgiven, the Scriptures fulfilled, the coming together of heaven and earth in Jesus. Nathanael’s epiphany about Jesus’ work and identity would continue to grow as he followed him.

Epiphanies are not just about having more information or knowledge; epiphanies change us, make us behave differently. The Wise Men returned home by another road, after having worshiped the Christ Child; Jesus launched his public ministry after he saw and heard the voice of God at his baptism; Nathanael changed from being a skeptical disparager to being a believer after his encounter with Jesus; our American society began to make some important changes after our encounter with the truth of equality, justice, and dignity for all God’s people which was the core of the civil right movement.

But epiphanies need nurturing; they need care and feeding and tending. The disciples walked, and worked, and prayed with Jesus for three years, and they still weren’t ready for the Resurrection. It has been more than fifty years since the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were passed, and we keep finding new ways in which justice, equality, and opportunity for all people can be made more real. We have, I hope, each had epiphanies and experiences of faith that can still grow deeper roots; can be both nurtured and challenged in our walk with the Lord, in our pursuit of living as Christ’s agents in the world.

Can anything good come out of our struggles with prayer, with Scripture reading, with worship, with the daily challenges of making sense of life from God’s perspective and the choices that go along with that? My answer is a whole-hearted: yes! The good is that we will know more clearly God’s direction and purpose; that we will be connected more strongly to Christ, to the Christian community, and to our fellow human beings; that we will feel and experience what it is to love and be loved; that we will help to make a difference in God’s world for all God’s people.

Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Yes it can; Come and see!

With the words of this prayer of Dr. King’s, let us pray.
"God, we thank you for the inspiration of Jesus. Grant that we will love you with all our hearts, souls, and minds, and love our neighbors as we love ourselves, even our enemy neighbors. And we ask you, God, in these days of emotional tension, when the problems of the world are gigantic in extent and chaotic in detail, to be with us in our going out and our coming in, in our rising up and in our lying down, in our moments of joy and in our moments of sorrow, until the day when there shall be no sunset and no dawn. Amen."

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Second Sunday after Epiphany
January 14, 2018
 

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Opening the Curtain

1/9/2018

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And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." Mark 1:10-11

On these winter mornings it’s often hard to get up and out of bed because it’s cold, and dark. Especially if you have the curtains closed, it may be hard to tell what time it is without looking at the clock; the curtains block out what little morning light there is. But then when you do get up and pull open the curtains, sometimes you are greeted by a crystal clear and beautiful day. A stark difference between a dark inside and a bright and glorious outside has been revealed with one swift movement.

The baptism of Jesus, here at the beginning of Mark’s Gospel, is like that sudden revelation. Mark begins his Good News with a brief reference to Isaiah’s words of the messenger who will prepare the way of the Lord, and then we are off and running with John the Baptist preaching and baptizing all who will throw their lot in with the Lord, as a sign of their readiness for whatever it is God is bringing. And it is in that context that Jesus comes to be baptized, along with all those who were drawn by John’s message.

As with the rest of Mark’s Gospel, we don’t get a lot of detail here – his words are spare and economical; so when he does give us detail, we need to pay attention. Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." Mark is using detail that connects this scene, this experience both backward and forward in time. The water and the dove are reminders of the First Day of Creation, the opening lines of Genesis in which the Spirit hovered over the face of the waters. The heavens being torn open [schizo] is the same word that Mark uses later at the Crucifixion: Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. A new beginning, a new Creation, that takes the path, the highway that runs right through crucifixion and death to open a new way to the holy of holies, the heart of God’s reality.

Not only has Mark opened the curtain for us as readers and hearers of the Gospel, but Jesus has had the curtain opened for him as well. In his baptism the day-to-day reality of rocks, trees, wilderness, people, river, have all been dissolved in the far greater reality of God’s presence: You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased. No matter what else happens, no matter what other distractions, difficulties, trials come Jesus’ way, this reality of being loved and delighted in by God is his deepest truth. Baptism is the sign of that.

Baptism is the sign of that same reality for us. God loves us and delights in us – deeply, and without end. No matter what else we do or fail to do God love and delight in us will remain constant; it will not change. And on these days when we renew our baptismal vows, when we hear God’s words to Jesus, perhaps the curtain between our day-to-day experience and God’s of reality is pulled back and we get a glimpse of God’s truth.

But then the moment fades, the curtain falls closed, and it is all too easy for us to go on about our business and the world’s and forget what our reality is. We know that when we are loved we live differently than when we are not loved. When we encounter someone who is hostile or bitter or indifferent to us we shrink back inside ourselves, we put up a wall against them, we take up a defensive posture, we become brittle. Sometimes that is just what we have to do. But when we know that we are loved and valued and cherished, then we allow ourselves to be open, to be flexible, free to take risks – because we know that we will not be condemned if we make a mistake.

Baptism is the sign and the reality of God’s love and delight for us. It is the place from which we should begin each day. That’s why the Creed in the Daily Office – Morning and Evening Prayer – is the Apostles’ Creed, the baptismal statement of faith, the Creed we will affirm in the Baptismal Covenant this morning. We have joined Jesus in his baptism; we have become part of God’s family in which God’s love is abundant and new every morning.

As Jesus’ followers, as part of his Body, this is the way we are called to be and to live in the world: knowing ourselves as God’s beloved, and carrying that love into all our encounters, being the ones to draw the curtain back – even just a little – so that the world may see and know God’s love and delight through us.

And now, Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine: Glory to him from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen.    Ephesians 3:20,21

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
First Sunday after Epiphany: Baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ
January 7, 2018

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A New Humanity

1/9/2018

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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. John 1:1-3a

In the old days of the Roman Empire the god Janus was considered the god of “beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings.” He was pictured as having two faces, looking to the future and to the past, and it is usually thought that the month of January is named for him. And we stand in one of those transition places this morning, in the liminal space of the old year ending, and the new year about to begin. Many of us use this time to glance backward over what has been before we turn to face whatever is yet to come – with all our hopes, dreams, and good intentions. And, as Christians, I pray that we do that with an eye to recognizing what God has brought to bear in our lives, the way God has accompanied us thus far, and the places to which God may be pointing us – as individuals and as a church community – in the year ahead.

The reading from John’s Gospel looks both backward and forward. When the Gospel writer, the Evangelist says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God,” he is intentionally echoing the opening words of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.”

These are the words John wants us to be hearing while we read his telling of Jesus’ story. He wants us to know that the same God who made the world and called it good, who created humankind and called us good, who hung in with us through all of the ups and downs of human history – all the places we took wrong turns, went off the rails, were faithless to God’s goodness, sinned and fell short of God’s purposes for us, and generally messed up life for ourselves and the world around us – this God has been faithful to his first purposes by coming to us in the birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus. God began humanity again in Jesus – a new creation, a new humanity, the Word made flesh.

By looking at Jesus we see what God is like – God with skin on. And by looking at Jesus, we also see what we humans – men and women – are to be like. Jesus is the very icon, image, example of true humanity; who God intended us to be all along – to be filled with the goodness, faithfulness, and wisdom of God so that we might care for God’s Creation as good and wise stewards, offering praise and thanksgiving along with the rest of the created order.You may well say to yourself that this is just not possible – you are not good enough, faithful enough, brave enough, holy enough, wise enough….whatever “enoughs” you might think of. And you would be right. On our own, none of us can fully live up to God’s expectations, can fully embody God’s purposes. That is why the Gospel writer goes on to say: “the Word became flesh and lived among us…full of grace and truth…. From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.”

The grace that has come to us in Jesus – the free gift of God’s favor and faithfulness when we least deserved it – it what makes our new humanity, our new creation possible. Grace is not God waving a magic wand and making us perfect people. Grace does not erase that past mistakes, failures and grief. But the gift of grace is that when we give our hearts to God, when we trust in Jesus’ faithfulness and apprentice ourselves to him, when we allow our minds and hearts and wills to be shaped by the Holy Spirit, then bit by bit we will become the Christ-shaped men and women that God intends. Sometimes it happens in great chunks; sometimes our growth is painstakingly slow, with false starts and backward detours. But always, God calls us to begin again, to hope, to live, to love. That is “the work of Christmas” – to quote the theologian Howard Thurman.

In the new year that begins tomorrow I pray that you will know an abundance of God’s grace as you follow Jesus and become even more deeply rooted in power of the Holy Spirit to shape and fuel your life as the new man or woman God created you to be, as the new humanity we are all called to be in Christ.

Let us pray.
Lord, may your Light shine in us and through us into all the darkest places, and may your grace and truth dwell in us richly so that your glory may be revealed through us to your world, your new creation. Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
First Sunday after Christmas
December 31, 2017
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What Are You Doing Here?

1/9/2018

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But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see-- I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. Luke 2:10-11

What are you doing here? What are we all doing here? We’ve come to celebrate Christmas, of course. Some of us have waited all year for this occasion, or at least this season. Some of you are here because, well, it’s just what lots of people do on Christmas Eve, along with the feasting and the gifts and the Christmas tree. Others of you may have been dragged along by a friend or family member, and you are here to humor them. Still others of you may have come tonight with a heavy burden – an illness or a personal problem in which you are seeking a measure of peace, guidance, perhaps a lifeline. Some of you may be relieved to tune out the noise and strife of political and social discord – change the channel, think about something else. And for some, what we celebrate tonight is the very foundation of their being. All of these are good and important reasons to be here. Whoever you are, wherever you come from, whatever burden or blessing you have brought with you, you are welcome here. God has invited you – in one way or another – and you came. Thank you.

At the heart of what we do tonight is to proclaim the news, the good news, the very best news, that God loves us – full stop; no ifs, ands, or buts. There is nothing that we can do to make God love us more than he already does when we are at our very worst. And when you truly love someone, you want the very best for them, and you do whatever you can to make that happen – gladly, generously, sacrificially. That is what God did for each one of us, for all humanity, and all Creation in the birth of Jesus.

After millenia of patriarchs and prophets, judges, priests, and kings, and the whole long history of humanity – broken, disillusioned, alienated – God came into human life, came to share our humanity; not as a reflection of humanity, or a hologram, or an avatar, but as a fully flesh-and-blood baby, vulnerable, dependent, needing the care of parents; powerless, poor, unknown, having no status or influence. Imagine – the Creator and Sustainer of the universe willingly becoming small and weak. And why would God do that? So that we would know there is no aspect of human life and experience that is outside of God, unknown to him. In Jesus, the human and the divine meet, heaven and earth; as the beloved Christmas hymn says: “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” A name often ascribed to Jesus from the Hebrew Scriptures is Emmanuel – “God with us.” God with us – we have not been abandoned, we are not bereft, God has not left us to fend for ourselves, but is here with us, among us, at the center of our heart and being, if we will let him.

And if God comes to us in Jesus, the representative of all humanity, the Everyman or Everywoman, the Second Adam, as the medieval writers said, then there is no aspect of human existence that cannot be healed, redeemed, saved, made whole, participate in shalom, salaam – God’s life of peace and goodness. That includes you – and whatever you are going through, whatever pain or difficulty or joy you find yourself in.

No wonder the shepherds in the field were awe-struck when they heard the angels’ announcement. This was incredibly, exceedingly good news. At long last the Messiah, the Anointed, the Wisdom, the Lord, the Root of hope, the Key of life, the Morning Star, the King, the One who was to bring God’s promises and purposes to fulfillment had come.
 
And he hadn’t come to a palace, or to the Temple, or to the seat of imperial power. Instead, God’s Messiah had come to his people, to ordinary folk who were living their lives as best they could, who were struggling to get by, who had hung on to God’s promises for centuries: The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness--on them light has shined and The Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth…See, your salvation comes; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. They shall be called, "The Holy People, The Redeemed of the Lord"; and you shall be called, "Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken."

A God who comes among us, a God who is in our corner, a God who keeps his promises – though not always in the ways we expect or look for, a God who is willing to get down in the muck and mire, the uncertainty and grief, the pain and deceit of human life is absolutely a God worth trusting and celebrating and loving in return. This is the good news we announce and embrace at Christmas, and are embraced by.

So, leave your fear, worry, pain, anger, grief, weariness, lostness, despair, disillusion, and hear God who says: Come; come to the stable – like the shepherds who ran all the way to town to see the truth after hearing the angels’ message. Come; come to the life that God offers, full of faith and hope and new beginnings for us and for all humanity, as we walk in Jesus’ way. Come; come to the love of God in Christ and be embraced by the heart of God, a power over which no earthly force can prevail. Jesus, Emmanuel, God-with-us, will meet us there and we will be blessed, indeed, tonight, tomorrow and in the days to come.

Let us pray.
O Lord Jesus Christ, as you humbled yourself to be born among us and laid in a manger, bring us with the shepherds and wise men to kneel in awe and joyful thanksgiving and to follow the steps of your blessed life; that rejoicing now in your peace, we may come at the last to eternal glory in your presence, where the angels ever sing your praises. Amen. ~ St. Augustine’s Prayer Book
 
Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Christmas Eve
December 24, 2017

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All Saints' Episcopal Church

 15 Basking Ridge Road, Millington NJ 07946    phone: (908) 647-0067    email: allstsmill@hotmail.com