Holy Trinity Parish

.

It's here that we pray for God to deliver us from evil, to vanquish the demons, that is, whatever binds us and prevents us from loving God and our neighbor as ourselves.

On this day of our Annual Parish Meeting, we might ponder these things. Are we faithfully calling to God? What are the great and mighty things God is showing us? Are we being faithful stewards of what God is enabling us to see? And what great and mighty things are we revealing to others about God's realm?

It is into this mystery and force that we are baptized in spirit baptism. And entry into this spiritual realm is made possible through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Not as a ticket of admission but as a sign of the love of God. Not as a gate to freedom but as a life-long passage of trust. Baptism calls us into the deepest communion with Christ through faith and action. It calls us into communion with the very life force behind creation.

God comes to us not only in ancient stables but also in all sorts of unlikely places and not simply on Christmas day. We are asked only to be ready to behold Christ among us, calling us to be prepared, to celebrate with joy and to do the work of Christmas.

Are you ready for Christmas? That's a question we hear a lot. And the truth is we are never fully ready for Christmas. We are never totally prepared for the birth of the Christ child. The good news is that's ok. Getting ready for Christmas means in part realizing that it is not all up to us.

On this first Sunday of Advent, as we begin to wait for Christ's coming - both on Christmas and in the Second Coming - we are invited again to reflect on this question. How are we living our lives? Are we living in accordance with the kingdom of God as described by Jesus in the Scriptures? Are we choosing to love? Are we pointing to God in all we do? Are we caring for the most vulnerable members of our society? Today marks the beginning of a year of carefully and intentionally asking those questions of our common life together.

The Kingdom of Christ is built upon relationships, built around community. Sometimes that means a one on one relationship, but it can also mean reaching out to people we will never meet. It means seeing Christ in our next-door neighbor and also in our neighbor on the other side of town or on the other side of the world. Wherever there are people who hunger, wherever people are imprisoned, wherever people suffer, Christ is there. To reach out to anyone in need, anyone left behind is to reach out to Christ.

The third servant from our Gospel reading today is afraid, but in the sense that he is immobilized by his fear to somehow step out and do something great. I wonder about the natural greatness that lies dormant in each of us. Do we ever really know that the God who made us, the God who loves us with that beautiful, eternal love, made us for something great?

The life of a saint is embedded in the beatitudes. It is the paradox of the gospel. But there is nothing more blessed, more powerful, more heaven-oriented than meeting God in the left behind places in our lives and in the lives of others.

What does it mean to be a saint? If our scriptures for today are any indication, perhaps to be a saint means to recognize the blessedness in the things the world often devalues, avoids, or shuns.

We are called to see God at work in our lives even in the worst situations.

These are important words for anxious times. Do not despair; put on the hope of Christ. Do not be enraged; put on the grace of God. Do not be hard-hearted; put on the generosity of Jesus. Do not be afraid; put on the faith of the apostles. It is in challenging times that our faith becomes both a test and a comfort. Both a judgment and a strength.

The Rev. Gerald Varner, guest preacher, is economic development coordinator for Honduras Outreach. He is working with villagers in the Agalta Valley of Honduras to support the development of local crafts that will financially benefit these very poor villages. He is a pastor in the United Methodist Church. **Sermon is a partial recording only - batteries to the recorder died mid-sermon!**

This is Rally Day, a festive celebration of the ministries of Holy Trinity. Our ministries reflect the commitment to serve as Christ's disciples here and beyond.

Discovering the Messiah's presence has always been difficult. Jesus compared it with being born again, an imaginary phase that now has become a slogan. The point is discernment calls us to do something that is beyond our power, what the Presbyterians like to say is beyond our will. We can speak of it best in metaphors, in images and through the poetry of listening to the silence, opening our hearts, and walking in love.

What the woman in the story does in her persistence is call into question Jesus' boundaries. She refuses to honor the limitations Jesus has set. So Jesus is found with the choice of continuing to dismiss the woman - no easy task in the face of her determination - or adjusting his understanding of his mission. That is, changing his boundaries to include compassion for the foreigner.

The deeper miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is in Jesus's rejection of the patterns of disconnection in society that say, "let them go off and buy food for themselves," and insisting instead, "they need not go away. We will provide for them here."

There times when it is risky to separate the weeds from the wheat. In our desire to get rid of weeds, we may destroy the plants we treasure.

Expectations color and even shape our relationships with God, others and ourselves.