Preaching and Teaching

Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church

Washington, DC

January 25, 2009

Text: Psalm 62:5-12

I remember when I was in high school, and a group of my friends were camping out, and after we got the fire going, we began to talk about our futures. We were all applying for college. I still find it unnerving that many of us are pressured to decide what we want to do at the age of 16 and 17. There we were, teenagers, deciding what we were going to do with the rest of our lives. One of my friends surprised me when he said, “I want to be a doctor.”

“Really?” I asked. The occupation did not fit him. He was a gifted artist, and we had both taken every art class that we could fit into our schedules. “I didn’t know that you like biology.

“I don’t,” he answered.

I was more perplexed, so I took another stab at it. “Do you want to help sick people?

“No,” he responded matter-of-factly.

“Is it a family business?”

“No.”

“Well, then why do you want to become a doctor?”

“Because I like money.”

It kind of scared me a little bit, that someone was going to go into a profession as intense and demanding as medicine, a job that had so much direct impact on other people’s lives, without any desire to be a physician, but rather, for the money.

Well, I’m happy to announce to you that after twenty years, I found out from a Facebook reunion that my high school buddy is… an artist. An artist who makes good money

It was a relief when I read it. Of course, there are plenty of people in our country who go to work every day to make money. But, when that is the only thing that you set your heart on, when money is the only motivation in one’s life then that’s a recipe for misery

I like this term, “Setting our hearts.” It’s poetic, and so it seems to have various meanings. It can mean that we find our faith and security in something particular.

It also gives us a sense of direction. When we set our hearts on something, we know that we want something. We are navigating with an internal compass. We are realizing the direction on the path that we would like to go, even though we don’t realize exactly how we are going to get there. Setting our hearts can mean that we are identifying our passions, dreams, and gifts. Realizing those things that we can work on for hours, and the time just flies by, because we’re enjoying ourselves so much

Setting our hearts can also mean that that we are listening intently to the things that move us. Identifying the concerns, needs, and worries of our community and the world. Oftentimes, in life, we have our hearts set on alleviating a particular need. When we notice how our heart sinks when we find out how many people in our city are infected with HIV/AIDS. Or, we are angered about the abuse and pollution that our planet has to endure. Or, when we are moved with great empathy by those who are suffering from mental illness. When an article in the newspaper makes us suddenly tear up, or we become angry at finding out an injustice, we know that our hearts are being set on those things.

And it is often when these last two things can move together—when our gifts and passions can work with our heart-felt concerns—this is often the place where God is calling us. It may not be in our jobs. But, often, it is in what we do, how we spend our Saturdays, and what we do in this place.

The Psalms rightly tell us not to set our hearts on money. Sometimes the poetry of the Psalter is startlingly accurate, and this is one of those mornings. These verses portray the author’s internal dialogue. He’s having an argument with his soul. Reminding himself that his confidence, his strength, his refuge is in God, and not in money.

I don’t get the sense that money is a bad thing here. It’s just that the poet reminds us that it’s fleeting. One day it’s here and the next day it’s gone. You can’t count on it. You can’t set your heart upon it.

I know it’s true. I’ve seen it happen. When a person is in the right place at the right time, they are often blessed with money. And then other times, it disappears. We’ve seen it here, in our country, as markets have been on a roller coaster ride, making dives that make all of our stomachs nauseous. It seems like overnight, even the most prudent investments have lost their value.

And I am not here to dismiss how painful these losses can be. Our hearts ache for people who will have to put off their retirements, people who have struggled and saved for years, to watch what they own simply dry up. People who have put their entire paycheck into their homes month after month, and watch their housing prices fall, and hear people on the news ask questions like, “Will we ever see the bottom of this real estate market?” Or for students who have to drop out of college, because they just can’t borrow the money any longer.

It is devastating.

But, I also know that in this place, money is not where we set our hearts. It is not the only thing that drives us in our passions, and it not the only thing that moves us to care. In this place, this place where our souls wait for God in silence, we have learned to set our hearts on other things.

Not everybody realizes that about Western Presbyterian Church. When I first started as a pastor here at Western, I was talking to another minister of a prestigious, but struggling, church in North Carolina. He was well aware of our history. I naively mentioned some of the good things that were happening here, not realizing the trap that I was about to fall into.

Suddenly, I could almost feel the professional jealousy swell up and he responded, “Yeah. Well, if someone dumped a whole pile of money onto our church, we’d be doing great too.”

I’m pretty sure that my mouth fell open, and I began to remind him of the multi-million dollar pipe organ renovation that his church just completed. But then I closed my mouth and held my tongue.

Since that day, I have encountered the sentiment over and over again, usually by eye-rolling colleagues who tell me that the reason why Western can do all of the work with the homeless, the reason we can run on wind-power energy, the reason that we can reach out to college students, the reason that we can help start churches, the reason that we keep our pastors for a long time, the reason that we can do all of these things that we do, is because we have an endowment. And I bite my tongue.

As many of you know, about fifteen years ago, when we sold our church property, we were moved here, in this beautiful structure, and set up with an endowment. It was a huge blessing. As a congregation that struggled financially for decades, that fought being closed down, that had pastors who could not always be paid on time, I am sure it was a huge relief. 

But, of course, the endowment is not the reason we can accomplish the things that we do. There are plenty of churches that have overflowing endowments and they have allowed the money to define who they are. But we know that the strength of this congregation has never been in its bank account.  The strength of this congregation has always been with the generosity of its members. It has always been in the fact that we have set our hearts on serving this city in the best way we know how.

The strength of this congregation was seen, when the Great Depression hit, and we were unexpectedly saddled with an extra building. So, our members asked for contributions on the street corners. They would have rather done that than watch their church go under.

The strength of this congregation could be seen when the suburbs were growing. So many of our members moved out of the city, and we were left with sparse numbers. The denomination wanted to close the church down, but the core membership was not convinced that their ministry in this city was over, and so they fought to stay open. 

The strength of this congregation could be seen when our church felt a call to feed the homeless, even though our building was not able to hold the hungry men who streamed into it each morning. Our plumbing was too old and the electrical system was too fragile to handle all of those people. The members in this church did not set their hearts on pristine buildings, but on being the hands and feet of Jesus Christ to a troubled city.

In the process, we have been blessed. We got a new building. We received an endowment. We have gifted financial managers who have been extremely smart about the money. The money has gone to all sorts of things. We have taken care not only to invest in our portfolio, but to also invest in lives of poor men and women in this city, invest in green energy, invest in planting new church developments, and invest in housing for the pastoral staff. We have put the money into innovative programming, children’s art education, and into the lives of students. We have looked at our passions and the needs of this city, and we have set our hearts on them.

As many of you know, and as many of you will learn in greater detail at the Annual Meeting, our endowment numbers have suffered, just like everyone’s endowment has suffered. And so, we will need to make adjustments to the budget. We will need to look long and hard at where our resources will be going, and what we will do in the future. And the discussions, always have a bit of anxiety to them. And they should.

But, even in the midst of all of this, we have always known that we cannot set our hearts on riches that increase. But rather, we are to set our hearts on God’s steadfast love. It is the love that I have seen here, in this place, among all of you. It is the love of community that has sustained people in every economic circumstance. And it is the love of God that reaches far beyond the doors of this sanctuary, that reaches the men, women, and children of our city.

It is in that great love, that we can do what we do. It is in that great love that we will find our strength.

To the glory of God, our Creator,

            God, our Liberator,

                        And God, our Sustainer.  Amen.

a sermon by John W. Wimberly, Jr.
Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
January 18, 2009

Text: Amos 5:11-15

In February, 1968, just months before he was murdered, Dr. King preached a sermon in Atlanta in which he said, “God didn’t call America to do what she’s doing in the world now. God didn’t call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war as the war in Vietnam. And we are criminals in that war. We’ve committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I’m going to continue to say it. And we won’t stop (the war) because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation. But God has a way of even putting nations in their place. The God that I worship has a way of saying, ‘Don’t play with me.’ He has a way of saying, as the God of the Old Testament used to say to the Hebrews, ‘Don’t play with me, Israel. Don’t play with me, Babylon. Be still and know that I’m God. And if you don’t stop your reckless course, I’ll rise up and break the backbone of your power.’”

We didn’t change our ways, did we? It took eight long, bloody years before the Vietnam War finally ended in 1975. Sadly, Vietnam wasn’t the end of U.S. war-making. At great sacrifice to our military and their families, our nation has continued to engage in combat actions from Central America to Kuwait, Afghanistan to Iraq. Our wars create chaos that lingers for decades, devastating civilian lives and the local infrastructure, while accomplishing little, if anything, for our national interests.

Dr. King said that if we didn’t change our ways, we would pay a price. Indeed, we have. As Dr. King predicted, we are learning that God is not someone with whom we should toy. God has risen up and dealt our power a mighty blow. Whether it be our economy or our moral standing around the world, we have been brought low from where we were just eight short years ago. The spoils of injustice are bitter.

As you know, when I say God has dealt us a blow, I don’t believe God intervenes in history to punish us. God has designed the universe in such a way that anyone who breaks God’s laws is struck down by creation itself. It is kind of a spiritual boomerang effect.

We are supposed to protect the creation. When we don’t, our lives are plagued with cancers, asthma and other diseases. We are supposed to share. When we get greedy, our avarice brings our financial houses down on our heads. We are supposed to live in peace with one another. When we live by the sword, we die by it. God’s rules are self-enforcing.

The prophet Amos was well aware of this reality and feared for his people. He lived during the reigns of Kings Jeroboam and Uzziah who ruled over Israel and Judah respectively. Both kings had unusually long reigns—almost fifty years each. Not unlike America’s recent past, their reigns were marked by economic prosperity and military campaigns designed to expand the power and influence of their nations.

In a fascinating parallel to what we have been witnessing over the past couple of decades in this country, both kings had spiritual advisors who supplied them with ample theological underpinnings for their behavior. They assured the kings that God was on their side. Worse, the religious leaders told the kings to ignore the prophetic messages of Amos, Hosea, Micah and Isaiah. This marriage of religion and state contributed to Israel and Judah’s subsequent problems.

The era of Jeroboam and Uzziah was also marked by the accumulation of massive wealth by a few. As a result, the situation of the poor grew dramatically worse. As the poor suffered, the prophets described a religious community more concerned with looking religious than being religious; practicing rituals rather than righteousness.

In one of Amos’ most famous rants, he cried out, “I hate, I despise your festivals and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt-offerings and grain-offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

The heart of Amos’ message is identical to the heart of Dr. King’s message: sinful behavior inevitably destroys the sinner. If we expect special treatment from God simply because we utter the words “I believe,” forget about it. It takes more than prayers at inaugurations and speeches ending with “God bless America” to please God (I might add that every inaugural prayer, opening and closing, since 1989 has been a Protestant prayer. In a diverse nation, our inaugural prayers have become just the opposite.).

God has one and the same expectation for every nation. National life, like personal life, is to be driven by a hunger for justice and commitment to peace. Anything less is unacceptable in the eyes of Almighty God and should be unacceptable in our eyes.

On this weekend in which we celebrate the inauguration of a new President and welcome a new Congress, as the church, we reject the models of religious leaders who condoned, reinforced and blessed the sinful behavior of the kings of Israel, the preachers who blessed segregation in this country and those today who bless the accumulation of massive riches and privileges for the few. Instead, we recommit ourselves to the models provided by people from Amos to Dr. King.

Our waywardness as a nation is rooted in disparities and inequities in the way people are treated. I was talking to a college buddy this week who is in year nine of a ten-year prison sentence. He owned a bar where drugs were being sold by some of his customers. I said, “Bob, are you all talking about the way Bernard Madoff is still living in his penthouse?” He replied, “John, that is about all we are discussing.”

The federal prisons in which Bob has been located over the past nine years in Michigan, Minnesota, California and now Alabama are filled with individuals who deserved punishment. But the crimes most of them committed pale in significance compared to Mr. Madoff’s crimes. Some of Bob’s fellow inmates stole a few hundred or a thousand dollars, not $50 billion. And while they waited for trial, they were in local jails, not a Manhattan penthouse.

When I was growing up, Oscar Mayer was a member of the church my father served in Madison, Wisconsin. Yes, there was an Oscar Mayer. Even better, he looked like an Oscar Mayer—a tall, thin, very German looking gentleman. Best of all, he was a Presbyterian elder.

Oscar and his family lived in a nice house in a nice neighborhood. But neither the house nor the neighborhood were all that special. They certainly were not ornate or ostentatious. Many of his meat cutters lived in more modest but still very comfortable housing less than a mile away. His children and his workers’ children went to the same public schools.

Highly successful CEOs in Oscar’s day typically made about 20 times what the average worker in the company was making. When I was working as a meat packer at Oscar Mayer from 1970-72 (we won’t discuss how I got the job), I was making about $15,000. So as CEO, Oscar was probably making something around $300,000.

Compare that scenario to what we see today. Using a 20 to 1 ratio, when we read about an executive making $20 million, the average employee in that company should be making one million dollars! Obviously, that isn’t happening. Indeed, surveys by Business Week and others report ratios in the 300 or 400-1 range being all too common today.

But let’s not pick on business. Compare what the President of a university is making to the janitors and secretaries; what the pastors of large churches are making to what the pastor of a small, rural church is making. We all understand there will be differences in pay due to differences in responsibility and risk. But pay ratios in our country are completely and totally out of whack. Parenthetically, a significant exception to this phenomenon is the U.S. military. A General with 20 years experience makes about eight times what a private makes.

I suppose someone could say that I am just old and describing an era that is dead and gone. Well, I am old. And to much of that era, with its sexism, racism, and homophobia, I say good riddance. But growing up, my generation rarely saw the grotesque and widespread displays of excessive personal wealth we see today.

I do not think the biggest challenge before our nation is the economy, Guantanamo Bay, or Afghanistan, as enormous as those challenges are. The biggest challenge is restoring fairness and equity in the way we relate to one another. The unfairness shows up in stats like CEO-to-worker pay ratios, male-female pay ratios, white collar crime sentences, inner city versus suburban schools, and other indicators. Until people feel as though the playing field of life is reasonably level, until everyone feels that they have a fair chance to reach their dreams or, at a minimum, their children have a fair chance to reach their dreams, we will flounder as a nation.

An equitable, just society: this is what Amos wanted; what Dr. King wanted; what we want as the church in 2009. Using a prophetic Ockam’s Razor, we will accept no obfuscations, indecision or delay regarding the day when righteousness streams down like waters.

There is so much to love about this nation. At the top for me is the fact that our identity is not rooted in racial makeup like the Irish or Japanese, nor in a history that extends back thousands of years like the Italians or Iranians, and not even in geography like the British, since our boundaries have expanded regularly since our inception. Our identity is shaped by a shared dream—a dream of opportunities, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all.

Our shared dream is very visible this weekend in the person of Barack Obama. As much as any President in our history, he demonstrates that we remain a nation where people of many different types can dream about rising to the top and get there. As a result, his inauguration has captured the imagination of Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike.

He is our first President with African roots. Like many people in our nation, he was raised by a single mother and later his grandparents. He embodies one of these wonderful generational changes in leadership that come along every 20 years or so. To many, he is the fulfillment of key portions of our national dream.

As you and I work for social justice and peace, we are well to remember the power of dreams. Amos and Dr. King had critiques of their nations. But their critiques were rooted in a positive vision, a dream of a society where justice rolls down like waters. They not only chastised. They inspired.

In the 1968 sermon I quoted earlier, where Dr. King had very harsh words to say about the U.S., he also told the congregation that he had no problem with Americans wanting to be first in the world. He said, “Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be first in love. I want you to be first in moral excellence. I want you to be first in generosity. That is what I want you to do.”

In that spirit, Dr. King would love hearing our new Secretary of State talking about wanting to reestablish the primacy of diplomacy; our new Attorney General saying that no one, not even the President, is above the law; our new Secretary of HHS saying it is time to insure that everyone has access to health care. Let us hold the feet of this administration not to the fire but to these wonderful dreams of who we can be as a nation.

And, for God’s sake, let the dreaming continue and expand its scope. In the preciousness and power of this moment, let us dare to dream with God of a day when undocumented immigrants won’t fear unexpected knocks on their doors; when hand guns and semiautomatic weapons will be viewed in museums as curiosities from a primitive age; when a woman will be elected President of these United States; when the homeless won’t be swept, like trash, out of the way of an inauguration; when teachers and artists will be valued as national treasures; when polar bears, rhinos and spotted owls will be protected and thriving. As our dreams expand, our righteousness will expand in direct proportion.

We have come too far to stop now. May the hopes of these next few days become the realities of tomorrow.

Let us pray: God of history, we are blessed to stand on the shoulders of dreamers—women and men who refused to be satisfied with the world as it was. Faced with racism and fascism, homophobia and sexism, they challenged the status quo in courageous and daring ways. For their faithful efforts on our behalf, our hearts are filled to the overflowing with thanks. Fill us with your Spirit so that we may continue their work, building a world worthy of our children and our children’s children. Amen.

Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church

Washington, D.C.

January 4, 2009

Text: Ephesians 1:3-14

If you have been seeing the Inauguration trinkets being sold around town–the stocking caps with an O and a red and white striped landscape, the Shepherd Fairey stickers, the “Audacity of Soap” cleaning products–and you’ve been wondering who’s buying all of it. We are. The Merritt Family is buying it.

You may mock us, and that’s okay. My husband, Brian, has a wonderful collection of political paraphernalia: Ronald Reagan buttons that say, “Morning in America” and Richard Nixon noisemakers that read, “Click with Dick.” He has a Bill Clinton watch and a Jimmy Carter ashtray. He began collecting as a kid in Nebraska. All of it was difficult to come by thirty years ago in Lincoln. But now, our Nebraska nieces will not have such a difficult time, because they have a connection right here in the District, so we’re sending them all kinds of stuff from this election and upcoming Inauguration.

And, of course, there is a sense that it’s more than just any election. There is a sense that or country is turning a corner in some significant way. Just as we come upon the New Year and think about all that we have done and accomplished, as we’re making out our top ten lists of movies, and the news shows are highlighting all the best and worst moments of the campaign, there also seems to be something deeper going on.

On Friday, we were walking down the streets of Georgetown, and my daughter said, “Someday I’ll tell my children about this, won’t I?”

And we smiled, and said, “Yes. Yes, you will.”

Our first African-American president nominee delivered his acceptance speech on the anniversary of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and he is going to be installed the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. These little tricks of the calendar seem to be whispering to us: Pay attention. This is a very important time.

This week reminded us, as we looked back on our calendars and listened to every critic’s “best of ‘08” list, it seems that we are doing more than simply compiling lists. It seems that as a country, we just might be looking deeper. We are, of course in a time of great crisis, globally, looking at the unending wars, and trying to figure out how to bring a new peace to broken lands, imagining how to strengthen diplomacy.

We are examining our financial situation, and trying to figure out how to keep families in their homes. We are scrutinizing how we lend money, and beginning to rethink our predatory practices of lending money and charging outrageous interests to people we know cannot afford it. We are realizing that the cost of housing has inflated far above what most people can afford.

We are beginning to understand how the expense of college can far outweigh salaries, and the imbalance is putting an entire generation into debt that they will have a very difficult time getting out of.

We are realizing that many Americans cannot afford the high cost of retirement. As the stock market stays on this rollercoaster, people are watching their futures go up and down. And in all of this, we are realizing that our safety net for the poor, disabled, mentally ill, the sick, for people who need it the most, has grown far too thin in our country.

This is a very important time. The theologian, Paul Tillich, described what we are going through right now, when he speaks of kairos time. He says that kairos time comes when “there are crises in history, which create an opportunity for, and indeed demand, an existential decision by the human subject.”

Tillich, echoes the scriptures as he thinks about time theologically. We get a sense of that here, in our passage this morning. The scripture in Ephesians speaks of the fullness of time.

In the Greek, the language that the New Testament was written in, there are two different senses for time. There is chronos time and kairos time. Chronos is where we get the word chronology. It stands for the moments that the clock ticks by, the calendar, the everyday passing of the hours. It is when the ball drops in Times Square, everybody screams, and Dick Clark wishes us a Happy New Year. Those predictable moments.

Kairos time is a bit different, because it seems to drip with meaning. While chronos refers to the quantity of time, kairos refers to the quality of time. It is that moment in history that has weight and fullness and depth. It is that moment when we can feel in our very own bodies that something is about to happen, that an important moment is about to occur. It is what the author of Ephesians is referring to, and I think, what we are going through.

In our spiritual lives, we have a lot to learn about time. There are ways of looking back and there are ways of looking forward, and our tradition has something to teach us as we do both things.

It is good to look back, to cherish memories, or even to see difficult times in your life and realize how you overcame them. The stories of the Old Testament are filled with people looking back, realizing that God brought them through difficult times, and God will take care of them in the times ahead.

It’s an important thing for all of us to remember. A friend of mine, who has been negotiating through the topsy-turvy world of restaurant management in New York City, often explains to me how things do not phase him much any longer. After all, he grew up in a small rural town in the Midwest. He was the sixth child in his family, and they learned to share his father’s meager salary. Through that experience, he knows how to work hard, and to live without much money. He has mastered the art of looking back on his life, and realizing that his family made it through extremely difficult times, so he can do it as well.

When depression and anxiety begins to arise in our lives, often that simple exercise of going back and listing the things that we are grateful for can be a powerful tool. It is important to think back on what we have accomplished in the face of hardship, realizing the little miracles that occurred to bring us into that moment of time. We can think about the people who taught us, sacrificed time, energy and money, so that we could become who we are.

Even in the difficulties, we can look back on the times when we never thought we would have enough financially to make it that month, or we felt so depressed that we couldn’t imagine a way out of a difficult or abusive situation.

And then a way was made. You received the check that you needed or the job that was right. Or you met someone who changed your life. Or the professor who took who was just passionate enough about something that it rubbed off on you, and your realized that thing that you wanted to do for the rest of your life. Our lives are made up of these moments. And it’s important to cherish them.

It is also important to look back and think about all of the things that we regret. We cannot change our ways until we begins to look back and realize the things that we have done wrong. That is why, every Sunday morning, we have a time of confession. It is so that we can take a fearless inventory of the people we have hurt, those we have harmed, people we have lied to or been unfaithful to. It is our chance to look back on our lives, and name those things that we want to change and do better. It is part of a discipline of what we can do to become better humans. Corporations, governments, churches, and individuals rarely change unless they take an honest look at their mistakes and patterns in the past.

Not only do we look at the past, but we also look to the future.

When a person has hope, then she begins to plan. A person begins to think about where she wants to be twenty years from now, and she charts out a course of how to get there. It is one of the fun things about life, especially if you’re ambitious. Sometimes we get to the end point, but it is rarely in the way that we imagined. And often the end changes, and our life take a completely different direction.

But there is something else that can happen when we get too wrapped up into what is coming ahead, what will be, and how we try to make it all happen. We can become so worried about the day ahead that we forget today. We know that we want a certain job, and we get entirely frustrated that we are passed up on promotions over and over again. And many very successful people can never enjoy their success because they are always wanting more.

Or, when we know that we want to be in a relationship with someone, but we cannot seem to find the right person. We have in mind what we want, who we want to be, and we are so concerned about it, that we lose sight of the happiness of our present moment.

We can get caught in becoming too eaten up with regret in the past or too anxious about what the future might hold, that we forget the beauty of our present situation. 

But we are reminded this morning, that this is a full moment. It is a moment of crises and opportunity. And, this is a place where we come together, look back, confess the wrongs of our past, and imagine a future. This is a place where we speak of peace and justice, even when the world is full of violence and a lack of fairness. When we talk about the reign of God, we are imagining a moment that is to come, and we are working for justice.

Let us cherish this moment, for all of its crisis, for all of its opportunity, and for all of the hope that it is generating.

To the glory of God our Creator,

God our Liberator,

and God our Sustainer.  Amen.

Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church

Washington, DC

December 24, 2008

Text: Luke 2:8-18

I used to pastor this tiny church in Abbeville, Louisiana. It was in the heart of Cajun Country, on the last bit of swampy land, before the coastline sank into the Gulf of Mexico. I fell in love with the strong oaks and the rich culture. There is something magical about that area of the country. Every home is filled with people who sing, dance, and tell stories.

A hundred years before I arrived there, the sweet little church building had been constructed by members of the congregation. They had a group of women, who sold quilts, baked goods, and crafts to raise the money. They hired one carpenter, who instructed people where to put the nails and made sure that the wood was cut correctly. And the men in the congregation did all of the hammering, framing, and climbing, until they assembled a lovely slat-board sanctuary.

It was beautiful. Just like a white church you might find in New England, except that it was built on stilts. They constructed it, far above the ground, so that it would withstand the storms and flooding.

During my time, I would always hear about the hurricanes and tornadoes. The area seems to be a magnet for brutal storms, and if we were not recovering from the last one, then we were preparing for the next one.

When I was there, they were recovering: rebuilding houses, cleaning up fallen trees, and trying to sort out the latest monetary scandal (there was always someone running away with the relief money). I was reading the newspaper about the cleanup efforts of one community, and found myself holding my breath while I read it. Within the brief words, conveyed with journalistic, blunt accuracy, was the most amazing story.

You see, there was a parish (that’s what they call counties), just down the road from our church that was hit by a terrible tornado. Wiped out home after home. As one of the pastors in the town was walking around, surveying the damage, he saw a tattered photo on the ground. He picked it up and admired a bride and groom, surrounded by friends in matching dresses and suits. They stood in a straight line, looking a bit too stiff, as they smiled for the photographer. He had no doubt that, even though it seemed like a worthless piece of paper, he was holding a treasure. There was a family in that community that was heartsick from losing their photo album.

Carefully brushing the dust off of it, the pastor unfolded the tattered edges, placed it in his pocket, and wondered how he was going to get that picture to its rightful owner. Soon it occurred to him that he should place the photo in the hall of his church, and open up a community lost-and-found for photographs, so people would have a central place to take the pictures that they might find in their clean-up efforts.

It worked. The church neighbors came pouring in with bits of tattered paper, small glimpses of the longing grins of lovers and the enraptured eyes of children. Through the discolored water stains, there were infants, so tiny that their eyes were barely open and black-and-white scenes of men, standing proudly in front of their first car with fins.

All of the photos covered the long Formica tables, and people who had completely lost their homes and everything in them, streamed in, looking for the bits and pieces of their lives. And there they found all of those moments, memories made salient with the snap of a camera, scattered around. People identified their neighbors, loved ones, and themselves, and suddenly, with that momentary recognition, those worthless pieces of paper became great treasures.

The story reminds me of what so often happens here, in this place, on this holy night. As we gather, we read the ancient words and recall the beautiful story of how the angel came to Mary and told her that she was going to become pregnant with an extraordinary child. And Joseph, Joseph had a dream telling him that his fiancée was pregnant, and the baby wasn’t his, but he still needed to marry her. It’s a story full of miraculous visions, political intrigue, murder, betrayal, and treachery, and in the center of it all, there is this event, this birth—such a common occurrence for all of us, and yet, there is no denying the miracle of it. The Scriptures, they say a very interesting thing. They say that Mary treasured the words, and pondered them in her heart.

I imagine her, capturing the moments of that amazing birth. Trying to remember every detail, so that she could explain what it was like to be the Mother of God.

Somehow, in this event, our story and the story of Jesus intersect, as the miraculous and the profane find a home in that stable, and God puts on flesh and walks among us. As divine history and human history are entwined, and our ordinary moments, the ones that seemed to have lost all of their value, become extraordinary.

We gather here, we stream into this place, with our broken and torn lives. We know what our families ought to look like. We know that every one should have happy homes, and that we should all have perfect offspring, and loving parents. But, the photo has been torn, and we know how the holidays can remind us of the father who passed away and left us yearning for his warmth. We know how Christmas can remind us of shattered relationships, and bonds that have been broken through abuse and addictions. We bring all of this with us to our holiday celebrations.

On top of it, we have all been affected, in one way or another, by the stormy economy. As the housing bubble pops, as stocks plunge, as endowments suffer, retirement funds dwindle, and dedicated worker lose their jobs.  We have been struck by the reality that those things we thought were so valuable, suddenly are not.

We are struggling, as Americans, as people who have put so much energy and pride into being productive. We work hard, and find tremendous worth in what we do; we all too often make our self-worth contingent on our careers. And so as people get laid off, it can lead to them feeling, even in their own selves, worthless.

But then, we gather in this place, with the bits and pieces of our shattered lives, we hear the story of Mary, and we hear that she “treasured these things in her heart.”

And somehow, just as that community in Louisiana streamed into the hall of that church, picking and sorting through the broken bits of their lives, we stream into this place. Carrying the sweet and proud memories of our lives. In this time when so much of what we thought had great value has turned up to be worthless, we gather, we are reminded that those things that seemed to have little value have become treasured.

Through this story, through these songs, through our communion, and through the treasured words of Mary, may we find wholeness and peace.

To the glory of God, our Creator,

God, who is with us,

and God, our Sustainer.  Amen.