Of all the characters in the Christmas story, the ones we need to keep our eyes on, the ones most like us: the Magi, the wise men, the kings. I am not suggesting we are either so wise or so regal, but consider this: Mary is minding her own business when an angel of the Lord comes and addresses her: “Hail Mary!” Like that’s going to happen to us.
It is the single most painted story . . . ever. It has depleted more tubes of oil paint, exhausted more pastels, taken up more square feet of canvas, worn out more paint brushes, inspired and perplexed and challenged and engaged more artists, than any other scene1 . . . ever.
It is a Sunday in July. There are hammers on the communion table: brand new hammers just off the shelves of Home Depot … hammers with shiny steel heads and new rubber grips; and there are old hammers, their hickory handles worn dark and smooth.
You, Christians, you raise your arms toward the hammers, palms forward. You become a forest of arms raised in blessing over hammers … hammers soon to be carried on a mission trip where they will pound nails into freshly sawed wood, laying floors, building trusses, framing doors …
making things new … better.
Isaiah is angry. He is let-it-fly, take-off-the-gloves, pull-no-punches, damn-the-torpedoes angry.
“You’re coming to worship for the wrong reasons!” shouts Isaiah, two and a half millennia ago.
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy.
Each year on this Sunday before Thanksgiving, the congregation of the Old South Church in Boston returns to our ancestral home, the Old South Meetinghouse.
Here we turn our attention and thanksgiving to God for the beauty and bounty of the earth, as well as for God's guidance and providence.
Here, too, we recall our storied past and give thanks for our forebears on whose shoulders we stand.
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He is people-watching. Jesus is people-watching in one of the great people-watching capitals of the world: Jerusalem. He is resting from his teaching and preaching, from his healing and feeding. He is on a break. He is hanging and he is people-watching.
Something catches his attention. He does a double-take. He stares. You know how it is when you see something surprising, some eye-popping curiosity: you want to share it. It is too good, or too weird, or too wonderful to keep to yourself.
All Saints' Day is a solemnity celebrated on November 1st in Western Christianity in honor of all the saints, known and unknown, commemorating those who have attained the beatific vision of heaven. Today at Old South Church we mark the observance by remembering our own beloved dead.
When you are first introduced to him, what you notice is the sound of children's laughter filling his house and spilling out into the yard. You cannot help but observe that his gracious home is bright, cheerful and comfortable. His table is laden with good foods and fine wines. His lands and pastures are teeming with fat cattle.
When you are first introduced to Job, you cannot help but like him. He knows himself to be blessed. He has everything (riches and property, family and friends, health and happiness) and yet he takes none of these for granted.
Have you ever wondered why churches like this are so large? Why the ceilings are so high? Why there is so much space?
Let me explain.
In the 1970's and 1980's, Death Squads wreaked havoc and terror across Central and South America. Sponsored by government and business interests, these Death Squads acted with impunity. In El Salvador alone, they killed tens of thousands of peasants and activists, including nuns and priests who resisted the oppression.