Growing up a fundamentalist conservative my favorite two holidays were Christmas and Easter. Christmas was the beginning of the supernatural story of God becoming a human being and Easter was the story of the God-Man rising up from the dead and teleporting up into heaven.
The more books I read and the more engaged I became with the academic side of Christianity and Theology, I became what my fundamentalist friends call everyone who disagrees with them: A Liberal!
by Betsy Anderson, Office Manager/Building Supervisor
The church is decorated for the Christmas holiday. The tree is up in the Sanctuary lit with tiny white lights, pine cones are everywhere, and there is a feeling of anticipation that joy and celebration are ahead.
The church building is wonderful and historic. People passing by often comment on how lovely it is, and others come inside the Sanctuary to pause and reflect and have a quiet moment during a busy week.
One of my job duties is to keep all of our machines and appliances humming along. Our church building was constructed in 1949 with some original equipment that we still use. And as is often the case right before a holiday – the week before Thanksgiving and now the weeks before Christmas – our vintage stove needs a part and has stopped working. Stove repair people have said that plumbers can fix it, plumbers say fire safety people can fix it, and fire safety people say electricians can fix it. Thankfully, we believe that Palo Alto Plumbing and Heating has found a solution and we’ll be up and running very soon in time for the holidays.
Special events happening in and around the church during December include:
Happy December and Merry Christmas!
A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA
Sunday, January 10. 2016
Text: Matthew 2:1-12
So what did your horoscope predict for you today? My horoscope for the year says “You’re a rising star in 2016, Aquarius, when all hard work is acknowledged and rewarded…This year you will recognize potential that others may overlook. The Moon-Saturn opposition in your 2016 chart guarantees careful thinking and planning that won’t let you down. A Mercury-Pluto conjunction will give you the nerve to be bold, but only when it’s wise…Your 2016 strong Mars in Scorpio won’t let you sit still for long.” And finally, “Saturn in Sagittarius is your friend. Embrace it!” Well, who knew I needed to embrace Saturn in Sagittarius? It would take a wise one from somewhere outside my usual circles to make sense of all this for me.
I begin with this to exaggerate what we have come to know and expect of astrology today. But astrology was once an important scientific and religious field. Wise ones from more than one religious tradition studied the stars for signs of both secular and sacred import. These visitors who show up in Jerusalem looking for “the child who has been born king of the Jews” are serious scholars, high priests, respected figures held in esteem in the land from which they’ve come. Some contemporary scholars say they come from Persia and are practitioners of the Zoroastrian religion. Others say they were from the star-studying traditions of ancient Babylon.
Wherever they’ve come from, it is a curious thing that they show up in the Christmas story and play a major role in Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus. In our conflated version of Christmas, the magi have been hanging out in the stable, huddled around the manger, since the beginning of Advent. Of course, that’s not what Matthew tells us at all. In this gospel there is no stable or manger or animals, no shepherds or even angel choirs. The magi – note they are not kings, though they may in some way represent the king of their country – show up at a house in Bethlehem sometime after the birth, led there by the fantastic star they’ve seen in the early morning sky.
In Matthew, this is a story of political intrigue. As foreign dignitaries, perhaps ambassadors, the magi make their way to the capital city, to the palace of the current king. This seems like a logical progression. Where else would you find the new-born king except in the palace? Of the course the reigning monarch is delighted to greet them – not! In an effort to figure out what is happening, Herod summons his own wise men, the high priests and scribes. Note how all these religious figures play roles in the affairs of state.
When his advisers – I imagine somewhat reluctantly, given Herod’s despotic reputation – tell him about this special baby, this anointed one, this messiah who is to shepherd Israel, Herod begins to scheme. In his most beguiling and unctuous manner, he questions the magi and then sends them off to Bethlehem with instructions to “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” Right! He surely intends to bow down before some baby born in a backwater village to strangers and just turn the kingdom over to him on the spot. We know from what comes later that he fully intends to murder the baby and do away with the threat to his rule.
Fortunately, there is regular angelic intervention in Matthew’s story. The magi are warned to sneak out of town a different direction and Joseph is warned to flee with Mary and Jesus to Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod. It sounds like a refugee situation to me. Imagine, the king of the Jews, the messiah, the shepherd of Israel, begins his life fleeing political oppression, not unlike children of our own time, many of whom are not blessed to survive.
Love leads on. It burns in a mysterious star, leading serious seekers for wisdom and truth from Iraq or Iran to Israel. It speaks in dreamy angel whispers, leading pilgrims and refugees to safety from vicious despots and the threat of destruction. It draws peasant parents into welcoming and caring for Emmanuel, God with us, the Word made flesh. Love leads on and nothing will ever be the same.
This is wonderful and intriguing story, in particular because it tells how love leads us out of religious convention, into strange and unexpected relationships. Here are pagan priests and princes, kneeling in adoration at the crib of a Jewish peasant child who becomes, for Christians, the Lord of all life and Savior of the world. Wonder of wonders! How can this be? Yet there it is in the very beginning of Matthew’s good news! A religious pluralism implying that in God all things come together.
Thinking on this lovely story led me to consider others related to it. I re-read O. Henry’s wonderful tale of “The Other Wise Man.” If you want a richly imagined account of who the magi were, where they came from and what their life was like, I recommend you take a few minutes and look at this classic short story. The gist of the story is that Artaban, the other wise man, is to meet his compatriots, Balthazar, Caspar and Melchior for the journey to Jerusalem. His gifts are three magnificent jewels, a ruby, a sapphire and a pearl.
As he rushes to meet the others at the appointed time and place, he comes across a dying man. He knows that stopping to care for the man means he may miss the rendezvous with his fellow travelers. He is torn between pausing to help or racing on. “Should he risk the great reward of his faith for the sake of a single deed of charity? Should he turn aside, if only for a moment, from the following of the star, to give a cup of cold water to a poor, perishing [man]?”
“‘God of truth and purity,’ he prayed, ‘direct me in the holy path, the way of wisdom which Thou only knowest.’” He chooses to help the man, losing the opportunity to join the caravan of the other magi. He must sell his sapphire to outfit his own caravan for the long, perilous journey across the desert. Eventually, he arrives in Bethlehem a few days too late. There he is welcomed by the mother of a small child who tells him of the other strangers who were indeed there but left mysteriously under cover of night and of the young family who fled to Egypt. He finds he must use his ruby to ransom this mother’s child from the murderous hands of Herod’s henchmen as they move through Bethlehem, slaughtering the innocents.
After years of wasted wandering and fruitless seeking, he finds himself back in Jerusalem. The city is crowded for Passover and there is an ominous undercurrent to the day. Now old and despairing of ever finding the king, he gives his last jewel, his pearl of great price, to pay the debt of a young woman who is about to be dragged off to debtor’s prison. At the moment, an earthquake rumbles and a falling tile strikes the old man a mortal blow. As he dies in the young woman’s arms, she hears a faint, indistinct voice. The old man looks up and, with his dying breath, exclaims, “Not so, my Lord! For when saw I thee an hungered and fed thee? Or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw I thee a stranger, and took thee in? Or naked, and clothed thee? When saw I thee sick or in prison, and came unto thee? Three-and-thirty years have I looked for thee; but I have never seen thy face, nor ministered to thee, my King.”
We all know the answer. Love leads on. What we expected, what we hoped for, may never be realized. If our prayer is truly “God of truth and purity, direct me in the holy path, the way of wisdom which Thou only knowest,” love will lead us on the way of compassion and healing, peace and justice, generosity and hospitality. In the end, we may hardly be aware of the good we’ve done, of the transformation we have helped engender, of the sacred we have encountered in the everyday – and God will say welcome home.
In one other favorite story, Gian Carlo Menotti’s beautiful contemporary opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, the three magi stop for a while in the humble hut of a poor woman with a crippled child. When the woman is caught trying to steal some of the gold for her poor son, the wise Melchior sings:
O Woman, you may keep the gold; the child we seek doesn’t need our gold.
On love, on love alone he will build his kingdom.
His pierced hand will hold no scepter; his haloed head will wear no crown.
His might will not be built on your toil.
Swifter than lightning he will soon walk among us;
he will bring us new life, and receive our death.
And the keys to his city belong to the poor.
To return a lighter note, I posted a couple of related items to our Facebook page this week. To give a little consideration to wise women, I shared the observation that floats around this time of year: “Three wise women would have arrived on time, helped deliver the baby, brought practical gifts, cleaned the stable, made a casserole and there would be peace on earth.” Surely there is humor and wisdom here – and a kind of practical love that makes enormous difference in the world. There is a place for high-minded seekers and devoted religious practitioners. There is also space for practical folk who roll up their sleeves and take care of business. There is room for both, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t overlap on occasion.
Finally, I found this parable of a wise woman. It seems she was traveling in the mountains and found a precious stone in a stream. Shortly afterward she encountered a hungry traveler who begged her for something to eat. She shared her food with him and then he saw the beautiful stone. He asked her for it and without hesitation, she gave to him. Not exactly the response we would expect from others or ourselves. Just a little too much, yes? A few days later the man found the woman and returned the stone. Again we wonder why such unexpected behavior. He should be long gone with his treasure. But here is what he said to the very wise woman, “I know how valuable the stone is but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something more precious.” Greed? No. In all humility he asks, “Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me the stone.” Love leads on. It makes a way where there seems to be no way. It makes room where no space appeared available. It opens closed minds and cracks hearts of stone to let in the light, the light that illuminates all life and brightens every shadowed corner of existence. Love leads on. Will we follow? Amen.
My friend Brian McLaren, known mostly for his many wonderful books, is also a very talented songwriter. He and I and a number of other folks are about to launch a new worship music company called The Convergence Music Project or CMP (click here if you’d like to learn more about CMP).
Brian is quite humble about his singing and performance abilities, but a few days ago he sent me a simple demo of a new song of his called “Not Welcome Here.” I asked him if it would be okay with him for me to share this song publically, and he agreed. I hope you’ll listen to it. Not only is it timely in terms of the Christmas Story, but it speaks deeply to this whole tension between fear and Love.
Read more at Bryan Sirchio Blog
Thank you to all who helped make Sunday a special day – to Jan for all her efforts to make sure the music was lovely, to Daniel Ramirez for adding his saxophone, to our extra singers, to Carolyn Shepard and everyone who helped with set up, serving and clean up for our Christmas Brunch, to Gregory for gingerbread houses and to Chip, who is our factotum. It was a great day.
Before all the festivities of Christmas, I invite you to a time of music and reflection as we celebrate the nativity in our annual Christmas Eve service of candles and carols at 5:00PM Thursday in the sanctuary. This is a brief service for the whole family
I will be flying out on Christmas morning to spend a week with my family in Idaho. Gregory will be here in case of pastoral emergency. He also is leading worship and preaching this Sunday, December 27. In a time of worship for the whole family, the theme will be “Christmas Carries On” and the text Luke 2:41-52. Please be present to support Gregory as you join together to worship. Invite a family member, friend, neighbor, colleague or stranger to share the experience with you.
My love and gratitude to each of you for your care and support of our community. This has been a rich and rewarding year in our life together. I wish you all the blessings of Christmas and the joy of a new year ahead.
May we continue to grow together as God’s people.
Pastor Rick
This Week at First Baptist
LOOKING AHEAD:
Thank you for everyone who joined us for caroling last Sunday. We sang for most of our residents at The Terraces of Los Altos in the health facility and the main dining room. It was fun to greet Janet Maxwell, Ruth Owen, Mary Martin and Ron Fredlund. Special thaks to Sachiko Berry and Carolyn Shepard for staying behind to make sure there was a delicious chili supper waiting for us on our return.
This is a busy weekend. Please join us at 10:00 AM on Saturday to set up for Sunday’s brunch. Then at 11:00 AM the choir will rehearse in the sanctuary. Sunday morning the choir will gather again at 9:00, followed by worship for the whole family at 10:00. We are grateful to Bay Choral Guild, iSing Girlchoir and Daniels Ha and Ramirez for providing extra music. Right after worship we will hold our annual finger-food Christmas brunch. Please bring food to share. The word is that the children and youth are working on a special video pageant that will be premiered at the brunch. (Move over Star Wars!)
Sunday’s theme is Love Comes Down. We will focus on Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, with the shared dreams of these two remarkable pregnant women. Then we turn to Mary’s great hymn to the justice and equity that will be central to God’s Beloved Community. Love comes down, is born in them – and in us – and nothing is ever the same.
See you Saturday morning and again on Sunday at 10:00 AM ready to worship, learn and share. Bring someone with you to experience the beauty, the wonder, the challenges of life lived in hope, peace, joy and love.
May we continue to grow together as God’s people.
Pastor Rick
A big thank you to everyone who stayed Sunday to help decorate the church for the Advent/Christmas/Epiphany season. Many hands made light work and the result is beautiful. As the mind is fed by words and the ear by music, so is the eye fed by art and decoration. May all our efforts be blessed in this sacred season.
In this week in which the focus theme is peace, it is hard to face another horrible act of gun violence. One friend said she is tired of thoughts and prayers and looking for action to end the madness. She has a point. Prayers for peace are important; sometimes that’s all we can do. But prayer without some involvement in being the change we want seems like an exercise in futility. Passivity is not peace. What can we do as peacelovers to be peacemakers as well? Surely one thing is to continue to press our legislators for reasonable gun control laws. Speaking up, loudly and clearly, for justice (without which there can never be real peace) and compassion is crucial. It is not enough to sing our songs and pray our prayers of peace. We must find ways to follow actively the Prince of Peace.
The ancient word for Sunday is Zechariah’s song at the birth of his son, John. As he exults in the improbable child of his old age, he also holds hope that the “dawn from on high” will “guide our feet into the way of peace.” It’s not just our hearts or our minds that need to know the transforming way of peace. It’s also our feet that need to put us physically on the path that leads to God’s Beloved Community.
In Adult Spiritual Formation, we will continue with the video series, “Saving Jesus Redux.” This week we will consider “The World into which Jesus Was Born.” Was it so different from our own time? If so, what can we learn from his context about Jesus’ ministry and our own?
See you Sunday at 10:00 AM ready to worship, learn and share. Bring someone with you to experience the beauty, the wonder, the challenges of life lived in hope and peace.
May we continue to grow together as God’s people.
Pastor Rick
A sermon preached by Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA,
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Texts: Matthew 1:1-17; Luke 2:8-20
It was quite a racket that night. I awoke with a start, thinkin’ it was an earthquake or one of those rare winter thunderstorms that sweep these old hills. Then I thought I could make out words and a voice, loud as a trumpet. My first notion was, don’t these young’uns know that an old man needs his sleep. This is no time to be carryin’ on, out here with the sheep, in the middle of the night. We all need a nap now and then to make it through these long, cold nights. Have they been into the wine again?
But then my eyes were drawn up, toward a dazzlin’ light hangin’ in the sky, just above the flock, and I realized somethin’ strange was ahappenin’. I could see the lads down on their knees, shieldin’ their eyes against that light. What was goin’ on?
The voice seemed to come right outta that light, “Don’t be afraid,” and us all quaking in our boots! “Don’t be afraid?” Sure, that’s easy for you to say. You seem to be runnin’ this show. But me and the lads were shiverin’, and I can tell you it weren’t from the cold. Still, the voice kept repeatin’, over and over, strong, yes, but also gentle, kinda’ soothin’, “Don’t be afraid.” After a while we got kinda’ used to it. Some sort of heavenly presence, so it seemed to me. “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people…” I guess we were ready to think about that possibility. Lord knows we coulda’ surely used some good news. You know shepherds don’t have a lot to celebrate – out here with the sheep day and night, rain or shine, hot or cold. It’s a crummy job but someone’s gotta do it. I can tell you it ain’t the “cream of the crop” that ends up out here tendin’ the flocks.
Alright, we’ll bite. What’s this good news that’s gonna give everyone such great joy? “…to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” Now wait a minute, you’re sayin’ that the Messiah is comin’ to us, to a buncha tired, dirty shepherds out here in the hills? How can that be? We know all about the promise of the Messiah. We be may be ignorant but some of us listen, ya know, maybe even hope a little. We’ve been awaitin’ all our lives for the Promised One, but this is too much. To us the savior comes? How can that be?
“…to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” You say the Messiah is agonna’ be born over yonder in Bethlehem, that sleepy little back water? I dunno’…and we’re agonna find him wrapped in some old rags, lyin’ in a feed trough? Well, if that don’t beat all! You expectin’ us to buy that? We may be livin’ out here on the edge of everything but we’re not abuyin’ that line.
You can see my point, can’t you? Why in the world would an angel show up with such a crazy message for a ragtag buncha shepherds on some hillside in Judea? Weren’t angels supposed to show up in Jerusalem, somewhere around the temple, to make such an announcement? And weren’t the Messiah supposed to powerful and rich and leadin’ an army outta heaven? Weren’t the Messiah supposed to liberate us from the Romans and make us all rich and powerful, too? What are we supposedta make of some poor peasant babe born in a barn in Bethlehem, of all places?
You know that angel weren’t havin nothin to do with our lacka believin’. He repeated the message one more time to be sure we heard it. Then just so we knew he was darned serious, there was whole mess of that dazzling light, like an angel choir, singin at the top of their lungs, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” After a good long while wrapped up in that sound the music seemed to fade away. We were all alookin’ at one another with our mouths wide open. Did you hear that? Did ya see the light? Whaddaya think? I’ve never seen anythin’ like it. Suppose we oughtta go on over to Bethlehem and check it out? Well, I don’t suppose there’d be any harm. Once we get the sheep quieted down, we could leave Benjamin and Nathaniel and Jacob. They’re good, strong lads. They could look after the flocks for a while. Now, now, don’t fuss. We’ll tell you about it when we get back, and if there’s anythin’ to it, you can make your own way into town after. It’s settled then. We’re off to Bethlehem to check out this thing the angel told us.
This is the redeeming truth, God comes to surprising people. No one at the time of Jesus’ birth would have predicted angel choirs, singing to shepherds on a windswept Judean hillside. No one would have expected the Messiah to be born in a stable in the little village of Bethlehem to an unwed, teen aged mother. No one, except God who seems to delight in surprising us by coming near when and where we least expect it.
Our McLaren resource gives us two texts for this morning. One is this familiar and beloved tale of angelic airs and earthly echoes. The other is much less glamorous. In fact, it’s so obscure, it doesn’t make the lectionary. Matthew, like Luke, gives us a genealogy of Jesus. Matthew’s begins with Abraham and traces Jesus’ heritage through David to Joseph, which, of course, is curious because he claims Joseph is not Jesus’ father. Luke, as some of our guests from Choral Project will remember, traces Jesus lineage from Joseph backward through David, Abraham and Adam to God. Though you wouldn’t think singing someone’s family tree would be desirable, a few years ago we sang a very moving rendition Luke’s list by the great Estonian composer, Arvo Part. However our point today is not to sort out the intention or meaning of these highly creative genealogies.
In support of his argument about surprising people, McLaren notes that in Matthew’s list, five women are uncharacteristically mentioned. Tamar, who pretended to be a prostitute; Rahab, who was a prostitute and Gentile; Ruth, a Gentile, who climbed under the covers with the wealthy Boaz to ensure a future for herself and her mother-in-law; Bathsheba, married to a Gentile but drawn into adultery by the great King David himself; and finally the teen-aged Mary who claims to be pregnant without the assistance of Joseph, her betrothed. A curious collection, to be sure, yet all are plucked from Jesus’ family tree.
McLaren writes that this “must be Matthew’s point. Jesus isn’t entering into a pristine story of ideal people. He is part of the story of Gentiles as well as Jews, broken and messy families as well as noble ones, normal folks as well as kings and priests and heroes. We might say that Jesus isn’t entering into humanity from the top with a kind of trickle-down grace, but rather from the bottom, with grace that rises from the grass roots up” (Brian D. McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking, pp. 75-6).
Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of the World comes in and through a collection of women who were not only undervalued simply for being women but in these cases were women of questionable reputation – at least by the world’s standards. Of course, we know from their stories that each was remarkable in her own right and one of God’s delightfully surprising people.
Women of questionable reputation and shepherds, surprising people indeed! McLaren says, “Shepherds were marginal people in society – a lot like Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary. They weren’t normal ‘family men,’ because they lived outdoors most of the time, guarding sheep from wolves and thieves, and guiding sheep to suitable pasture. A younger son, for whom there was no hope of inheriting the family farm, might become a shepherd, as might a man who for some reason was unsuitable for marriage. It was among poor men like these that Jesus’ birth was first celebrated” (Op. cit., p. 77).
So often it is the least and the lost and the last to whom God reaches out, embracing them with everlasting arms, regaling them with good news, empowering them to transform their own lives and the world around them. Surprising people, like fishermen and tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners of every stripe. Perhaps even people like you and me. Can you hear the angelic voices calling again? Don’t be afraid. We bring good news of great joy for you and all the world. Friends, to you, to me, to all of us is born this day a Savior who is Christ the Lord. Are you ready to go where the angels send you, to see for yourself what God has done? Are you willing to hang out with women and men, who, having been shoved to the margins of society, now gather around a tiny baby, born in improbably difficult circumstances, offering to them and us hope for the world? Angelic airs and earthy responses – Glory to God in the highest; peace and good will to all the earth. Amen.
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