Author: annawoofenden

June 18^th 2017
Rev. Anna Woofenden
The Garden Church
Scripture: Genesis 18:1-15, Matthew 9:9-13

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I have a good friend Athena, who can make friends anywhere, and usually does. My first memory of her was from the first day of college, freshman year at our dorm orientation. I had traveled all the way across the country from northwest Washington, to Philadelphia, knowing only a few people and starting off by myself in this new adventure. My roommate and I, both on the shy and reserved side, were literally sitting in a corner, watching everything going on around us, when this beautiful tall young woman in overalls bounded over and said, “Hi! I’m Athena, what’s your name?!”

That was the beginning of a life-long friendship Athena, and I’ve had the privilege of watching how she makes friends and connections, literally around the world. And I’ve learned a lot from her approach to other people and to life. Her passions and work continue to take her around the world, and I’ve watched how she’s able to serve in various cultures—not as an outside colonizing force, but because she goes into the community and makes friends first. She gets to know the people and the needs and the strengths. She asks about the family and the stories and the history. She connects and gives of herself and receives what they offer. And she sees each person as a potential friend. I’ve seen this skill get us out of dicey situations, such as a late-night machine-gun armed checkpoint late at night in Conakry, Guinea. I’ve seen it introduce me to community I wouldn’t have known otherwise, like the retired Catholic women in Longmont, Colorado who she went and did centering prayer with. This talent has helped Athena get to know the withered hard-core conservative owner of the eclectic corner store down the road from her farm. She has taught me over and over, to approach people as potential friends, to look for the humanity in all kinds of people, and to see the joy, connection, and even self-preservation, that come from approaching the world with a wise and open heart.

I thought of Athena when I read this story of Abraham this week. This story of how Abraham leaps out of his sleepy afternoon nap to greet these unknown guests and give them a welcome, and then learns he was greeting “the Lord.”

Retrospect is everything isn’t it? We read this ancient story of Abraham, with the frame, with the context. The scene starts off with these words, “The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Marme, as he sat by his tent in the heat of the day.” The text we read says, “the Lord appeared,” and then that, “He, Abraham, looked up and saw three men standing near him, and he ran from his tent entrance, to meet them and bowed to the ground.”

Well, to us, reading this story now, that seems to make sense—right?—because we were just told that the Lord was going to visit Abraham and then three men show up. And maybe that’s a little odd, but then Abraham confirms to us that it must be something special like the Lord, because he ran out and greeted them and bowed to them.

But context is everything, isn’t it? I’d like to posit, to imagine, how this story might have gone down in real-time with Abraham.

Abraham was sitting at the entrance of his tent, the scorching afternoon heat was intense and he was taking a much-needed break in the shade. He was just dozing off when he saw figures in the distance, three of them. Visitors were not necessarily very common out in the desert by the oaks of Marme, and it could have as easily been lost travelers, conniving bandits, friends, or foes. Of course we don’t know what went through Abraham’s head, but I am imagining myself in that situation and it seems to me that he demonstrated a philosophy that he had chosen, over and over again to respond to visitors, and that he immediately put it into action in this story. It reminds me of Athena, making friends wherever she goes. It doesn’t say Abraham ran into his house and hid, or sent a servant out to check them out, or lazily sat and waited for them to approach him. No, he ran out to them, greeted them, bowed down. He treated these unknown people who approached him as honored guests, as welcomed friends, as the Lord, in whom it appears they were.

We’re entering a time in our liturgical calendar called “Ordinary Time.” We’ve been in the season of event after event, from Advent, to Lent, Holy Week and Easter, through Pentecost. Here at the Garden Church, we’ve added in Earth Day expos and two-year birthdays with Membership Sundays. I admit, there’s a part of me that thrives on that—the adrenaline, the hustle, the coming together, and the community that’s built when we all pitch in. This is a gift for a season. But today as we enter into it, I give thanks for ordinary time, because leaning into that right now, friends, is exactly what I believe we need.

Author and wise teacher Sister Joan Chittister wrote this about ordinary time: She says, “It’s what we do routinely, not what we do rarely, that delineates the character of a person. It is what we believe in the heart of us that determines what we do daily. It is what we bring to the nourishment of the soul that predicts the kind of soul we nurture. It’s what we do ordinarily, day by day, that gives an imitation of what we will do under stress. It is our daily actions—the way we act ordinarily, not rarely—that defines us as either kind, or angry, or faithful, or constant. No doubt about it: the daily, the normal, the regular, the common is what gives clarity to the essence of the real self.”

It’s in the ordinary time, that we focus on establishing these patterns, these practices, these ways of life that help us to respond to, and approach the world from a place of faith, of God, of love.

As we go out from communion here at the Garden Church, we pray these words, “Seeing the face of God in all we meet and engaging your love in all we do.” We pray those words after coming around this table, with people who we might otherwise have not sat with, shared with, prayed with, or eaten with. Each week, one of my favorite parts of being in this community is the honor of walking around this circle and looking into each of your eyes. Without this time, I might not have the honor of seeing that Divine Light shining out of faces, looking at the deep tanned lines or crumbling teeth, or looking deeply at the face that is usually up on stage or testifying at city council. When we gather around this table, when we greet each other in this space, I feel the truth of that thing that Abraham does, that thing that my friend does, when we approach the world with belief that the people we meet have the potential to be friends, that we have our humanity in common. Language, or culture, or class, or race, or ideology may divide us, but that there is something we share together in our shared humanity that is beyond that.

Isn’t this what we need in the world today?

There’s another story that has been very present with me this week— agitating and disturbing me—it’s a hard story, and a painful story, it’s a story that I believe needs to be told alongside the story of Abraham, and our stories here.

On July 6, 2016, Philando Castile was fatally shot by Jeronimo Yanez, a St. Anthony, Minnesota police officer, after being pulled over in Falcon Heights, a suburb of St. Paul. Castile was driving a car with his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, and her four-year-old daughter as passengers when he was pulled over by Yanez and another officer.^[1][2] According to Reynolds, after being asked for his license and registration, Castile told the officer he was licensed to carry a weapon, and had one in his pants pocket.^[3] Reynolds said Castile was shot while reaching for his ID after telling Yanez he had a gun permit and was armed. The officer shot at Castile seven times.

Diamond Reynolds live-streamed a video on Facebook in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.^[4] It shows her interacting with the armed officer as a mortally injured Castile lies slumped over, moaning slightly and his left arm and side bloody.^[5] The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s office ruled Castile’s death a homicide and said he had sustained multiple gunshot wounds. The office reported that Castile died at 9:37 p.m. CDT in the emergency room of the Hennepin County Medical Center, about 20 minutes after being shot.^[6]

On November 16, 2016, John Choi, the Ramsey County Attorney, announced that Yanez was being charged with three felonies: one count of second-degree manslaughter and two counts of dangerous discharge of a firearm. Choi said, “I would submit that no reasonable officer knowing, seeing, and hearing what Officer Yanez did at the time would have used deadly force under these circumstances.”^[7]

Yanez was acquitted of all charges on June 16, 2017.^[8][9] The same day, he was offered a voluntary separation agreement by the City of St. Anthony.^[10]

I have been struggling with these two stories, the story of Abraham and the story of Philando Castile and Jeronimo Yanez, the past few days. And I’ve been replaying both of them in my head. It was yesterday morning as I was lying in bed feeling so agitated that yet another police officer, after murdering an innocent black man, was let free, that I began to see the parallel with our text for today.

There are so many things that need to change in our justice system, in the way that laws and sentencing happen, with who we elect, etc.—that is overwhelming in itself. We see this locally, we see this nationally, we see this globally. And alongside the intertwined work that needs to happen, there is also a deeper layer that is true—our hearts and minds need to change. The way each of us have been formed in ways of and prejudice—be it white supremacy or against immigrants or Muslims, all those who are “other” than who we are, of fear of what we don’t know and assumption about the hearts and motivations of others before seeing them as a precious human being—need to change.

What if Officer Yanez had approached Philando Castile as our ancestor Abraham approached his unknown guests? What if we all saw the face of God first and foremost in others?

I know, I know, this is tricky, because yes, in each of us humans there is both the face of God and the potential for evil and harm. And please hear me, I am not suggesting that we stop being wise and discerning, trusting our gut when we feel something might be dangerous to ourselves or our loved-ones. But don’t you think, don’t you think the world would be a better place if we could move our minds and hearts from a primary place of suspicion, and fear and defense to a place of offering wise and open-hearted trust? To move our hearts from the place where our first reaction is to differentiate ourselves from other people—sorting in our heads how we are not like them—to a place where we first look for how they too are beloved children of God?

This is deep work, friends, and work that we are each called to over and over and over again. It’s one of the reasons I believe it is so crucial that we keep coming around this table, because we keep getting changed as we share the sacrament and the meal with each other, with people that maybe in the past we would be quick to classify. That guy in a suit who walks quickly by the corner, that woman who clutches her purse when she walks by me in the alley, that rich person who drives the fancy car, that conservative with the Trump sign in their front yard, that homeless person, that black person, that Hispanic person, that white person, that straight white male, that big black man, you finish this list for yourself.

Ordinary time is the spiritual invitation to cultivate in ourselves and in our community not just the big exciting things, but the deeper things, the everyday things, the things that sustain us and keep us strong and together. To notice and cultivate as Sister Joan invites us to, “the kind of soul we nurture.” How is it that we are nurturing our souls, individually and collectively, to be people that respond to the world around us with compassion and justice and the good of all people in mind?

It’s a time to consider your prayer practice, a time to explore what it means to pray together as a family. It’s a time to commit to going on that daily walk, or getting a spiritual director, or finally going to therapy to give yourself space to sort through the things you need to sort through. It’s a time for us to consider how we nurture one another in this spiritual community, to notice how our practices and our time together is spent, to pay attention to how God is at work through us together and how we are fed as we feed each other.

Ordinary time is a time to see, and feel, and believe, that this is actually exactly where we find God, in the ordinary, in the every day, in the face of the people we interact with and meet. The thing about the ordinary is, that within it we find the most sacred. The bread, the cup. The faces around this circle, the interaction on the sidewalk. In our deep breaths, in our prayers too deep to utter.

We focus and remember in ordinary time how these simple acts are deeply profound. Sabine and Avila serving communion. The grubby hands reaching out for a blessing. The depth of pain in those who are experiencing loss. The inner churning as we yearn for justice. The tender look between parent and child, or between lovers. The simple touch. God is in the ordinary. God is in the day to day. God is here. And so, in this ordinary time, may we practice our faith, seeing God’s face in each we meet, and engaging God’s love in all we do. Amen.

2/26/17
Rev. Anna Woofenden
The Garden Church
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Scripture: Exodus 24:12-18
24:12 & Matthew 17:1-9
17:1

A couple of Sundays ago at the Garden Church, I saw the scripture come to life in front of my eyes. We were reading the text from Isaiah where the prophet is calling out to the Lord about what kind of fast they should take.

The text reads: Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?
Then the verse goes on to say these powerful words:
Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Now, let me set the scene a little more. For those of you who haven’t been there, the Garden Church is not your typical church. We took an empty lot in the heart of San Pedro and transformed it into an active urban farm and outdoor sanctuary. We worship outdoors in the middle of the garden, with the ground beneath our feet and the birds and wind and sun above. And we work and worship and eat together right in the heart of our community. People are always walking by, all kinds of people, and we get to know our neighbors as we work and worship and eat together.

So on this particular Sunday…
I noticed a man hovering outside the gates; he stopped and stood at one side and I waved at him, but he didn’t come in. Then he walked a little further down the fence and looked through.

As I was passing the Bible to the next person to read, I whispered to Connie, “Would you go do your friendly welcoming thing?” and she popped up and went over.

As we were hearing the powerful words of the prophet Isaiah read, “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?”

I watched as Connie tenderly listened to this man who was standing there in his slippers and tousled hair. After talking to him for a bit, she went back to the food table and walked back towards the gate with a full plate. I saw her gesture welcoming him in, but when he did not, she took the plate out to him. And as they were standing, Nora started to sing the interlude and he stopped, and he and Connie stood there and listened together, And then they said goodbye and he walked down the street with his plate of food.

When Connie came and sat down we were about to start the sermon, but rather than opening my prepared texted, it seemed right to first acknowledge the sermon that had just happened in front of our eyes. Connie shared that the man had not eaten for two days and was so hungry. He knew that The Garden Church was a safe place and wanted to come in and knew he was welcome, but “just wasn’t ready quite yet.”

We went on to read and reflect on the scriptures, God’s call not to just do pious acts of worship, the acts of fasting are not what God asks, but that our fasts are fasts that break the yoke of injustice and share our bread with the hungry. Tears were in many of our eyes as we heard the scripture, as the Word came to life, it shimmered, in shown, it was transfigured in the face of this hungry neighbor at our gates and the simple act of sharing compassion and a meal.

Our scripture text today has me thinking about moments that change us, that shimmer, moments where something shines differently in the face or an interaction that we have come to be familiar with.

In the cycle of the church year, today is Transfiguration Sunday, marking the day in the cycle through the stories in the Word where we land on this powerful mountaintop moment where Jesus takes Peter, James, and John (his close disciples and friends) up onto a high mountain, apart, by themselves, and he was “transfigured” or transformed—he was “changed in face.” His clothing became dazzling white and then, up on that mountaintop with Jesus, Elijah and Moses appeared and were talking to Jesus.

Whenever I read this text, I have to put myself in the place of these disciples and wonder at what they might have been thinking and feeling. Here they are, hanging out on a mountain, just like any other day, and all of a sudden this guy they’ve been hanging out with, the one they have claimed as Messiah, anointed one, changes. And not just slight change, he in TRANSFIGURED, and the light that shone from him sounds as if it was beyond their experience of worldly like. Such dazzling white, “such as no one on earth could bleach them.”

And then with him are these figures from the scriptures, not just any figures, but the well-known and important ones: Moses, the receiver of the Ten Commandments, representing the law, and Elijah, the prophet. And there they are, all together on that mountaintop—with Jesus.

And it makes me wonder, what were the disciples thinking, witnessing this moment, wondering at this change in the one they thought they knew?

Now by no means have I ever had an experience quite like this mountaintop moment we read about in our scriptures. But I have seen the Divine shine through and take a face that I thought I knew about and change it to another. I experienced a face being transfigured back in 2004 when a woman walked into the women’s group I was leading at the time and began to share her story. Other women in the group pushed back and were impatient; this person wasn’t “a good fit” for the group and changed the tone. Until, a few months later, after we had prayed together, and eaten together, and shared life stories and we all learned to call each other friends.

I’ve seen a person transfigured who I had written off, along with a whole swath of other voters, when I had the opportunity to sit down at their kitchen table, experience their hospitality and welcome, and find the things that we connect on and mutually care about.

I saw myself change back in 2011 when I met my now good friend Brent at seminary, and heard his story about his transition from being Brenda, to embodying his gender identity as a male and finding peace and grounding and integrity in himself and with his God. Brent was so kind and gentle to me as I learned and asked questions and began to understand something that I had not encountered closely before. And through listening to his story of transformation, I too was transformed.

I see this change in people’s faces every time I have the privilege to hear someone’s story, to shift their identity from “that homeless person living on the street” to our neighbor with a story and a journey who becomes a friend. When I hear the stories of any of you, many of you, and we find the connection points, we listen to the particularities, we see the imprint of the Divine in each other’s eyes.

I’m sure you all have your stories. Stories about how you saw a person, or a group of people in one way, until something changed and shimmered, and your assumptions and ideas of that person or group changed.

Maybe it was when you had that long, real conversation with a relative who has a different political stance than you. Maybe it was sitting across the table from one of our un-housed neighbors and hearing their story. Maybe it was the time you met a Muslim for the first time and encountered them as a fellow-human being, rather than an unknown group. Maybe it was when you hear someone’s faith story, or learned you grew up in the same town, maybe it was through a photograph, or a piece of art. Maybe it was the quiet knowing that your heart needed to soften, to change, to be open to the many ways that the image of God shines and transforms humanity all around us.

These are the moments when a little wind blows the thin veil between heaven and earth out of the way. Like when Peter saw in his teacher the face of God, within the deep wrinkled flesh, the imprint of the divine. It’s fleeting, but it’s an experience that I think all of humanity shares. It’s something I find myself on the lookout for… These moments of transcendence. These moments where I can see beyond the everyday, or beyond my veil of prejudice and not knowing, and see in another person the face of the Divine. It’s a precious moment, something beyond what I can manufacture, something I long to replicate and hold on to.

I can’t blame Peter for wanting to build those little dwelling places, to keep the face of God preserved forever, for him (and others) to go look at as often as they needed to see God and the kingdom revealed, and restore their faith in humanity, in the earth, in God herself. I think that’s totally human. To want to cling as long as possible to moments where we see everything that’s bigger than ourselves so clearly and we glimpse the face of God.

And yet, like the disciples in the story, wanting to build a dwelling place, to capture this moment and not let it go, Jesus says to us, “Get up and do not be afraid.” And then things are back to how they were. Moses and Elijah are gone and Jesus is no longer glowing like the sun. But something has changed. Something has shifted. We know that that moment of transcendence is possible and that God’s presence is shinning within the faces of all that she has created, whether we immediately see it or not.

And I can’t help but believe that something still shimmered as they sat there on the mountain and reflected on what had just happened. Everything returned to normal, yes, but something was also forever changed. Once we see the face of God in another, we really can’t ever go back. Once I have seen that person who I once despised, instead as a fellow human with a story, I can no longer dismiss their entire grouping or person. Once we see that spark of the Divine in that face we wanted to lower our eyes and walk by, it starts to sparkle elsewhere. And we might just find that these moments of transcendence, these moments of God shining through start happening more frequently, as we open our eyes and hearts.

When our hungry neighbor came by the gates later that week, I waved from the back where I was deadheading basil. He paused by the front gate, in his shorts and old bed slippers. He still wasn’t ready to come in. But as he paused, and waved, I saw a faint glimmer and glow in his face. God shining through. Amen.

Rev. Anna Woofenden
The Garden Church
1/1/17
Readings: Ecclesiastes 3:1-13 Revelation 21:1-6a

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THE YEAR AS A HOUSE
A Blessing
Think of the year
as a house:
door flung wide
in welcome,
threshold swept
and waiting,
a graced spaciousness
opening and offering itself
to you.

Let it be blessed
in every room.
Let it be hallowed
in every corner.
Let every nook
be a refuge
and every object
set to holy use.
Let it be here
that safety will rest.
Let it be here
that health will make its home.
Let it be here
that peace will show its face.
Let it be here
that love will find its way.
Here
let the weary come
let the aching come
let the lost come
let the sorrowing come.
Here
let them find their rest
and let them find their soothing
and let them find their place
and let them find their delight.
And may it be
in this house of a year
that the seasons will spin in beauty,
and may it be
in these turning days
that time will spiral with joy.
And may it be
that its rooms will fill
with ordinary grace
and light spill from every window
to welcome the stranger home.
—Jan Richardson

New Year’s Day….it holds such a momentous ring to it, doesn’t it? We can put such power and pressure on New Year’s Day. It’s the time I’m finally going to start that new exercise program, or start a regular prayer practice, or budget better.

We put these high expectations on the power of those digits changing over, as if the change in the calendar somehow wipes clean all of the things that have gone before. But then, we woke up this morning and we were still the same people we were yesterday, maybe a bit more tired than usual, after staying up past our bed-time. We still have that annoying habit we want to change, we still have that debt that gives us a pit in our stomach, we still have that routine we want to do differently.

The world seems to be pretty similar to what it looked like yesterday as well—we’re still anticipating what this new year will bring, wondering at how the changes in the political leadership will shape our world. We look around with trepidation, or hope, or resolve, wondering if this new year brings forth a change in everything. But then we see that some of our neighbors still slept outdoors last night, acts of violence happened around the world even before we woke up, and while we hold hope for the new year to bring transformation and change, the world looks quite a lot like what it looked like yesterday.

In our scripture from the book of Revelation today, from the very end of the Bible, we hear these words that are reminiscent of the new year, about all thing being made new. The text reads:
“See, the home of God is among mortals. God will dwell with them as their God; they will be God’s people, and God Herself will be with them;
God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”
And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also God said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
Then God said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.”

This is in the same passage that we invoke each week as we begin our worship together, thinking about this heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, descending on earth, this new way of being in the world, the river of the water of life, the tree of life, these images that inspire us to be cultivating this land and cultivating more peace and justice in our community and in the world.

This image of all things being made new is one that is appealing and has been used throughout Christian history in a multitude of ways. Readings of this text can lead to apocalyptic constructs about the return of Jesus and the destruction of this earth. Or the text can be taken completely symbolically, that this is something that is a myth or story with a message. These images can and have been used to dismiss the physical needs of the world, to focus only on the spiritual, or to urge on natural destruction to hasten the new heaven and new earth.

It probably won’t surprise any of you who’ve been hanging around the Garden Church for long that we have a different take on this passage and what these images and stories are calling us to.

I hear the message of this passage as something that is a little less clear cut than it being all about the destruction of this physical world or only about some spiritual realm. I hear a message that is a little more inclusive of the messiness of humanity and the power and beauty of divinity and the heavenly influence.

The vision of a new heaven and a new earth is a vision both of what the future may bring, and a vision that calls us to engage right here, right now—today—in this new year.

We need to be active and engaged in bringing this vision into reality, a vision of a new way of being is not something that is beyond our human efforts to attain. And it is also not solely a human endeavor. There is a God and force of creative and healing love in the universe that is the source of this work, and whose transformative Divine Love is reaching and pulsing through the universe, and always urging and pressing to be received and to work through us for healing and peace in the world. Engaging this vision shows up in so many ways.

This past week, I had the opportunity to meet a wise sage named Andrew, who is a pastor in the Community of Christ, my fiancé’s faith tradition. Andrew and his wife Jewel have spent their lives dedicated to the work of the church, and particularly to work of peace and justice in the world. They now live in Harvest Hills, an intentional community built in the 1970s outside of Kansas City by a dedicated group of people who wanted to experiment with what it might mean to live the peaceable kingdom in a neighborhood.

Before we had lunch together, we took the tour of the community. We walked out onto the circle, a lovely grassy area surrounded by the town houses, and down into the room where the community meets for worship. Andrew took us straight over to a banner hanging on the wall and said: “This, this is where it all starts.”

We looked up and read these words:
“And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them;” [Community of Christ Doctrine and Covenants, Section 36:2h-i]

For Andrew, a man who has dedicated his life to the work of peacemaking and ministry in many forms, this passage is a guiding principle. It tells him that there is both a hope and a vision of a future that is beyond what we see among us right now, and that it is realized by the tangible and present work of engaging each other in one heart and one mind, living in right-relations with God and each other, and doing the very real work of justice and equity that will bring our world to a place where no one is lacking in basic human needs.

As he spoke about it, I could feel the resonance in myself and in the call on my life, the work we’re doing here, the work so many people throughout the world are dedicated to, in so many ways. And the tension.

The tension between the image, the vision, the Divine narrative of making all things new, and the day-to-day reality of the world we’re living in, and the struggles and things that need to change here and now.

Some apocalyptic theories operate out of the idea of everything being washed away, taken away, people rising out of graves and disappearing from beside you. This is one way to interpret some of this imagery. But many traditions—from the Quakers to the Community of Christ, the Swedenborgians, to main-line theologians—explore what in technical theological terms is called: realized eschatology.

This new heaven, and new earth are here and now as much as they are in a future and spiritual realm. The kingdom of heaven is not something that is beyond us, or a completely different realm. It is in all the places where heavenly ways of acting and being and treating each other prevail. That the peaceable kingdom—Zion, the New Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God—these images are not simply ethereal, but tangible. They include people being fed and an end of violence and war, respect for all people, and the honoring of the many ways to engage love in the world.

This does not take away the spiritual part of it, the heavenly realm beyond the physical, and the imperative of the Divine doing this work with us. But it brings all of that into focus in the here and now around us. We are each part of doing the work of this transformation. The peaceable kingdom, the New Jerusalem comes, not all in a flash in one moment of apocalyptic time; it is the work that we are constantly called to.

And this is what it seems appropriate to focus on here, together in worship, on this New Year’s Day.

The kingdom of God is within us, between us, among us, God is here. How are we each going to engage the Divine Love with us as we step forward into this New Year?

Because yes, we were still the same people when we woke up this morning. But it also is a new day, a new start, a new moment to listen and commit to the work that God has in front of us this year. Listening to what we are each called to—individually and collectively—in this new season we are entering into.

We are still the same people, but we also are the people who have the opportunity to begin anew, to turn, turn, turn as the passage from Ecclesiastes tells us. This turning reminds me of the Greek word “metanoia” which is often translated “repent” or “repentance,” while one of its other simple messages is a “change of mind” or to turn. As we enter into this new year, we are reminded of the ever present offer from God to turn, to turn towards love and away from hate, to start anew, to turn away from that selfish habit that commandeers generous loving in a relationship, to turn towards respect and mutual care. To turn from the things that hold us back from being present to the work in the world, from believing our belovedness in God, from connecting with other people.

And so, as we close out one year and start the next, we can offer gratitude together, for all the lessons and gifts and blessings this last year gave. And we can let the rest fade a bit. The slate does not get wiped all the way clean, but we’re given a moment to pause and remember that God is in all of it, and holding all of it, and that God is always making all things new. Always offering us the opportunity to be made new. It doesn’t clear everything away, but we can always turn and receive.

The Divine Love is that Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end and holding out the vision for each of our lives and our world that is both beyond what is right in front of us, and grounded in it. And because of this loving presence, we can walk forward with courage. The message of “do not be afraid” from the Christmas story is still here with us. Calling us forward, as we walk into this new year knowing that, Emmanuel, God is with us. Amen.