From the Heart - Matthew 6 (Ash Wednesday)

From the Heart

Tony E Dillon Hansen

Reflection based upon Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21, Psalm 51

Opening Prayer

Epiphany is over. We witnessed the light of Christ revealed before us through the Word made flesh for us.

Now, Lent is upon us, and this is a time for reflection and looking inward at what we do as well as what we don’t. The common misconception about Lent is that people have to “give up something.” That may be well and good, but maybe we need something more in our lives.

What in our lives that needs attention and what maybe could use a little less of it? Personally, this is matter of time who gets it how they get it and why they get it. Maybe this is also the case for you. 

For todays, lesson, we experienced a prelude in the latter weeks of Epiphany because Jesus was tell us how blessings will be bestowed upon people and why. Jesus says to be the light on the stand for all to see and the good salt of the Earth.

Now, Jesus tells us to beware of “practicing piety before others” & giving alms with musical proclamations. When we pray, this does not need to be done publicly. In fact, go into your room, close the door and pray in secret.

What a change – shine for all or pray in secret. (Someone in back is asking which is it Tony?)

I can see how some might, at first read, see a contrast that is drawn here, but I suggest for us to look into this deeper than a first read. Then, you will see how this aligns rather than contrasts.

Jesus says the practice of prayer, of giving, of fasting ought not be measures for us to boast but rather measures of something else.

If we look further into Matthew 6, we see Jesus teaching people how to pray with examples (the Lord’s prayer). We see Jesus telling us not to store up treasures but instead look for treasure where??  in your heart!

This is a direct point especially to the leaders in the crowd. The people with money and status in the community. Life is not about the clothes we wear, the food we eat or how well we sing a hymn. 

For Jesus follows this with “do not worry about life” for one cannot add any more hours to it. With almost Zen-like approach, Jesus reminds us how the flowers in the fields just grow, and birds just are. That is for us to model – parts of God’s realm on Earth. Thus, what part of God’s realm is in you and with you?

For us seeking money, fame and consumption, all we are doing is causing our own worry, worry of thieves, of having enough, of saying the right things. Yet if we look into our hearts, if we look at how poor our own worry is making our soul, and how we should be hungry for God’s peace – to be the peacemakers and comfort of God on Earth. Then – then our worries go away. For God gives us so much more than we can try to fill with threads, foods, coins and worries.

Thus, we begin Lent each time with this reminder from Jesus for those well-to-do and for us barely scraping by – one paycheck at a time or even those who have even less than that.

Piety, prayer, fasting, and worship are meaningless if our heart is in the wrong place and if our mind is always filled with hypocritical ideas – instead of God’s pure love and grace. 

We start Lent with this reminder that “tomorrow will worry about itself.” And we know the “each day has enough trouble of its own.” Thus maybe this Lent, we might add more of God’s love instead of material worries.

Beloved, that then helps us to put our practices, practice of Lent and our reflection into perspective of God’s love, welcome and forgiveness. 

When we look at the things we do and why we do them, 

when we truly do this (not ignoring nor trying to soften the sting) 

when we look to do what Jesus says from our hearts, 

when we pray with pure love and 

when we act mercifully, 

when we value the people around us and make them parts of our lives rather than objects of competing interests to our own, 

when we do this, 

then we make space for faith and for God. 

When we pray from our hearts, 

when we give from hearts, 

when do the work of God with God’s love as our guideposts and peace in our hearts, 

then we have no worry about saying the right things, or doing the correct things. 

Because we have God as our guide rather than materials and worries. 

That is when we show the light of Christ from our hearts and be the salt of the Earth because we let our faith in God work… We let God’s heart work with us, be with us, and help us.

Therefore, Beloved, look at your Lent, one-day-at-a-time. 

What can you do to improve your life and the life around you? 

What do you need less of that you might reduce? 

What can you do to bring the light of Christ into your hearts, into church, into home, and our community?

Perhaps, restoration and reconciliation are in order then confess before God with Psalm 51. Or do we need to return and open our hearts to God and remember God’s love for us?

Thanks be to God.

For those ideas that you want to reflect this season, write them on one of the pieces of paper and place them in one of the bowls of water. 

Let your wish be comforted with divine and love. 

Let your worries be cleansed and washed away, 

Let your heart find your path this Lent. 

Grow with God. Learn with God. Be with God

Value of promises - Matthew 5 - Epiphany 6A

Value of Promises

Tony E Dillon Hansen

Sermon based upon Matthew 5: 21-38, Psalm  119, 

Opening Prayer

This week’s Gospel continues our journey through the “Sermon on the Mount”.

The last couple weeks, we have been walking through the beautiful and fertile grounds of the beatitudes. Then, we tasted being the salt of the earth and be a light for all to see. Let the light of Christ shine within you! Be the living example of God’s love on Earth.

This week we come to a real page turner: law. I know many rush to read law books along with court decisions.  There are noble people that enjoy doing this. For others, this may feel like a good time for a nap. 

I submit to you, Beloved, there is something more here than just reciting laws because Jesus prefaces these statements with, “do not think I have come to abolish the law.. but to fulfill.” (Matthew 5: 17)

Jesus lifts up Deuteronomy - God’s life giving law (not speed limits or filing taxes). (But Tony Why?)

Jesus weaves a message in-between the lines, something more than ”just laws.”

Jesus reminds people (e.g. religious leaders, the disciples, and the community - privileged or not)…

This is not just for the poor and lowly but all people hearing, and Jesus knows that religious leaders are paying attention. They hear, (tis why many gripe over Jesus teachings… now whether or not they want to listen is a question for them)

Jesus reminds us that the law and truth apply to everyone and yes even to religious leaders. Why because they carry the banner of God with them. As religious leaders, they should be the example of God. That is not just an example for the well-to-do or the most generous because we all must follow the life-giving law from God. 

For what good is law professed by leaders (or anyone) who don’t follow them? What good is it for anyone to make professions they don’t practice.

When we get to Matthew 6 on Ash Wednesday, Jesus lays the hammer down arguing against the boastful misuse of tradition and loud prayer that ignores God’s call to us. Worship of God and prayer to God is for us as individuals to give of ourselves to God rather than as some theatrics that forget why we pray and why have faith.

This is why Jesus makes the point to the people to have their faith surpass that of the current teachers in deed and in thoughts. This is both a directive for all as well as a caution to the teachers. Thus, Christianity is not just a status symbol, but what we do with our intention, our identity and our word. 

So what do you, as examples of God’s love and all that has been bestowed upon you, what do you do with those gifts? Our intention has to be one with that of God’s and as part of God’s community rather than filling personal ego and treasure.

We are called to identify our community and to be in the community (all of it). We are to be the face of God and the compassionate hand of God to those who celebrate it, those who want it and for those at desperate hours. 

We know that we fail. Thus forgiveness from us is crucial because of this.  Otherwise, we are just hypocritical and just pointing fingers without the compassion and empathy that God shares with us. Therefore, let judgment be God’s not yours. Let your griefs with someone be reconciled because grudges can fester and grow into anger and distrust. God’s community lifts up rather than tear everyone down.

Then let us turn to “word.”

I submit to you Jesus turns to laws of adultery, divorce and vows because these are rooted in the value of a person’s word - and the truth. Mean what you say. Ultimately, these involve a promise and that is only as good as one’s word. For all the money in the world, our word is the only currency that shows your value. 

Mean what you say, and let your actions reveal those words. People can make grand assertions, but we pay more attention to the ones that actually live them. When someone speaks, hold their “version” of events to scrutiny and the person accountable. We need to be willing to call out when the emperor is wearing no clothes, and we need to call out when talking heads are not speaking truth.

Of that, marriage is a display of our promise to someone. Through God, we let that promise become something more than just two people in a moment of time but commitment to something worth struggle and growth. For my own, we made it ten years; it hasn’t been easy, but we look forward to another decade and more.

If personal and intimate vows between two people are carelessly given (crossed fingers behind the back), that suggests more about the person making these. When one flaunts promises and truth as mere suggestions or use it only for personal utility, what does that say about the person in other parts of life? 

If we are willing to be unfaithful and dishonest in public promises before God, if we only do something because we get something back (as a transaction), it follows that one’s genuineness with all people come into question. It can take lifetime to build trust and only minutes to destroy it. Further, how do you explain that to kids? 

We hear politicians and religious folks alike make exuberant claims (you can even say that about me), but our word, our dealings with people, especially in the intimate, ought to be rooted in truth. 

We can have faith in the divine promise - a genuine promise never broken.

Thus, these laws are calling to us to be genuine and authentic - Make your word bound by truth in thought and action. 

No charades needed - just your humble self before God with truth as your guideposts. If you mess up, ask for forgiveness and know that God is with you. But if you go into each dealing with the intention of good and have faith in God’s unfailing promise (not personal utility), when you let your faith in God help you, then you will see that promise work for you. 

Then you may truly comprehend the value of God’s law as essential to good in our world for you and for our community.

Beloved that is,

Thanks be to God

Salting the Earth - Matthew 5 - Epiphany 5A

Salting the Earth

Tony E Dillon Hansen

Sermon based upon Matthew 5: 13-20, Isaiah 58: 1-12, Psalm 112

Opening prayer

There was a morning we had our neighbors kid to take to school. I thought breakfast should be in order.

I offered to make a small egg and toast breakfast.  Unfortunately, I accidentally poured a fair amount of salt upon the eggs. Suffice to say, when we all took a bite, there was collection of disgusted looks around the table. No amount of cheese or otherwise was going to fix this.

When I read this lesson for today, I remembered that event because 1) salt by itself does nothing, 2) too little salt does nothing, 3) salt in the right doses can be good and can help to enhance flavors in dishes. Salts can help bland meals turn into wonderful creations to enjoy. 4) Yet, salt In the wrong amounts can easily destroy them. 

I don’t think Jesus was talking about dinner here, but I do think the analogy applies to us here. 

1) Salt by itself does nothing really. It needs something (or someone) to complement. 

2) Are we not enough salt in our world that we are bland and forgetful? I just can’t be bothered right now. I can’t do anything.  We don’t even lift a finger. 

Or,  4) are we so much salt that we are overbearing in our attitudes, judgments, or insistence? Are we the ones that squash others instead of lifting them up? Are we ones that leave no room for others to share in this greatness that God has given to us?

Or, Are we the right amount of salt; that which enhances and brings out the best? Are we those whom raise a toast to imperfection because we are not perfect. Are we ones who extend hands of hospitality? Are we ones that make space for God to forgive and let live rather than imposing our will and wants?

Similarly, Jesus says that lamps are made for giving light for all to see. We don’t light a flame and then put it in a room by itself. Further as Jesus says, we don’t put lights of flame under a basket for two reasons, 1) hard to see and 2) the inevitable accident waiting to happen when that light goes from grace to burning the place down. What good is that?

For what good is a light that no one can see, or, even worse, a light so much that it burns down the house.

What does Jesus mean by these? We can look at these as personal questions, but also as collective community questions.

What does it mean to be a part of a community?  This is who you are; this is what you do. Or is there more. 

Maybe, it is about how we work together, how we need each other and then when we realize and live this… then maybe, we are a light for the world and the salt that the world needs.

What about our leaders or those broadcasting opinions? How do they embody those ideas in our community and remind us that we are all children of God? Do they?

Do those with privilege, status, and bullhorns recognize this or do they impose something upon us that is not God? Do we question these opinions or just “hem and haw” ?

Todays social winds are thick with carefree irony because they say “gimmie gimmie” because “I wants it.” & “don’t hold me accountable.” “Everyone else be damned and get in some invisible line - behind me.”

Give me tax subsides (aka. government payments to rich) but shame those without food or shelter. Which handout is bad again?

From drugs, medicine, guns to education (incidentally, why do I as a Protestant preacher have to pay for someone to go to Catholic school with my tax money?), we put wedges and barriers between each other. Then, we don’t need empathy, love and forgiveness but instead fingers pointing who to blame… or point guns, hold onto stereotypes and prejudices. Fester in your rotten distrust and let turn into hate. People distrust and see hooligans: folks that need to be controlled, instead of neighbors. That is a pessimistic and hostile dystopia.

Some responses to these challenges might be, “Keep your opinions to yourself. Besides aren’t you, Tony, throwing much salt on these yourself? - A valid concern. 

Why would you think too much salt?  What makes these points any less valid than others? 

Why does this salt of truth sting? Why do we choose this dreadful community over the community of God? 

People come to God in many different ways and different “salts:”  Sometimes our salt comes as bit of curry, sometimes sea salt, sometimes soy, and still other ways.

Why can’t people let people have different viewpoints and perspectives? When we position ourselves as the only arbiter of truth, we no longer seek to be in community or to learn from different tastes and ideas. We seek to impose. 

Does what I state rub against latest fallible airwaves? 

Incidentally, When did we forget that we (you and I) can have a voice too? People are letting loud, exuberant claims dominate over the Spirit. These, may somehow feel good but miss important points and actually reject what God has called us to do. 

You may assert that the pulpit should not argue these “political” points. For one, Jesus taught things like these that clashed with political and religious elites. However, these aren’t just political points because God calls us to action despite the rhetoric of the airwaves. 

Yes, Jesus did this and challenges us to go beyond words, traditions and ceremony.  We are challenged with what Isaiah says us here. 

When we crowd our minds with selfishness rather than community, then, there is no room for God’s love and forgiveness to work.

If you think about it, that is people fasting from the wrong things and for the wrong reasons. Perhaps people are fasting from community knowledge to protect privilege or something else.

If you say all the “things,” keeping the rhetoric, but do not follow with action as Isaiah reminds us, what are we seeking but our own ego (or what some media ego claims?)

If you can’t be bothered to question that or to share your food, to help the homeless, to speak against the bonds of injustice, then what good is your fasting and what are you saying about God who has called you to do these things/

On the contrary, people dont have to think like “us” to be good or to have the so-called correct opinions. 

For when you do these things that have been asked of you, 

when you put away the finger-pointing and the negative speaking… 

when you lift up your neighbor, 

when you walk with them and learn their pain, 

when you do what you can to help you community, 

then, as Isaiah 58 reminds, 

then you put the light of Christ on the stand to be seen 

rather than trying to burn down the house.

You don’t have to worry about putting too much salt when you live the love of God and you don’t have to worry about peoples’ disgust over egg breakfast.

As I said, salt by itself does nothing - it needs something/someone.  Let us be the salt together that this world needs, and let us witness God in every person regardless of the talking heads.  That is the community that God calls us to be. 

In those moments, Be what God wants you to be.

Be God’s keeper here on Earth.

Give hope, Lean into faith, 

Lean into the community and help it to be the best of God’s world here on Earth. 

When you share your gifts and not hoard them as selfish desires, 

When you do these things that God calls of you, 

you will find burdens lifted from you and divine paths revealed for you. 

That Beloved is…

Thanks be to God!

What is Blessed - Matthew 5 - Epiphany 4A

Do you feel blessed?

Tony E Dillon Hansen

Sermon based upon Matthew 5:1-12. Micah 6: 1-8, Psalm 15

Opening prayer

What gems we have in this week’s lectionary from Matthew and Micah! Micah 6:8 is prominently engraved in the halls of Chicago Theological Seminary. I wanted to ask why.  When we pair this with Matthew’s sermon on the mount, we can see how this text is a question and a statement at the same time. 

I will get to this in a moment. First, let’s look at Matthew. 

This is a well known scripture from Matthew and among my favorite pieces of scripture. We begin to hear how Jesus will turn everything upside down. For the parts of the Gospel that are difficult, this text is nice and has good vibes to it. This is one you put in your back pocket and lean into during difficult times. 

Yet today, I am reading something different this time.

Jesus leans heavily on blessings. The question then for us today is, What does it mean to be blessed?

In our everyday, people like to think of blessing as being somehow fortunate or gifted something. For those, we should pause and be thankful for those gifts. We should also be reminded as well to follow up these gifts with what are we doing with them…

For I am glad to have good health until I don’t, whether I get sick or injured. For youth, and especially for athletes, we have health, but it can be fleeting to think we will always be in good health. Watching Patrick Mahomes limp around the football field with sprained ankle is a reminder to all of us that bad things do happen to good people at inopportune times.  

Even when we have something bad happen or fall sick, we are reminded that we can be blessed at the same time. Be thankful for the gifts because things happen. We are only a random shot, a health bill, a car accident, a layoff away from disaster. I bet, in those moments, many of don’t feel very “blessed.”

Why do people, who are poor in spirit, are those who get a slice of heaven doled out, (as Jesus says)?

What does Jesus mean "blessed are those who mourn?"  What part of mourning is a blessing when we are trying to make our way through emotion after emotion.

Think for moment. If blessing is supposed to be some sort of “comfort of heart,” how does mourning bring us comfort. This is where a verse can help during difficult times. Listening to commentators talk about this reminded me; I wish I would have landed on this for my own mourning of my dad. 

When we are swimming in oceans of emotion or walk through a desert of feeling because we attempt not to feel, blessings will comfort us. It is in the trials that we learn to persevere and learn to find divine love within us - That we are not alone.

That we, the meek, have as much claim to love and the good of life as the boastful.  Think about that the next time you see someone on the corner holding up a sign for food. That I and my family are cozy in a warm car while winter blows all around us and those who have no heat or home. How blessed/comforted do they feel? 

Maybe the question is: How can we be a blessing to them? (Hold onto that.)

When someone reviles you, how can you feel blessed? 

Personally, I might feel angry or bewildered asking “why?” Yet, there are people in the world that want to pick a fight  and pick on my queerness, my privilege, or someone’s skin color, someone’s religion or culture. Pick something, anything and there’s excuses.  How justified! Still, people honor traditions by wearing face coverings and that makes some angry. Why?  It does nothing to them personally, but still, they lean into anger instead of understanding.

That, Beloved, moves us away from God rather than closer. I think that is a point of these blessings because Jesus tells us to start from nothing to gain something. Jesus gives to those who have none and gives whatever is missing, to find purpose, to find a path, to find God.

We could ignore the homeless, we could find another excuse, we could enjoy the privilege of status, but God wants something else from us. God wants us to find the kingdom of heaven, the realm of divine love, here on earth. 

That begs, what does that realm look like and who belongs there? 

At UBFM, we ask the question to volunteers where and how we might see “God moments” when out in the routes. I flipped the question back to the group because we were forgetting something when asking the question, that we could see an answer right with us.

God’s kingdom (realm) looks like people doing God’s work here on earth.  It looks like volunteers who meet every week to make food and deliver to homeless with radical hospitality. It looks like people who visit the elderly In the nursing homes or the children in the hospitals waiting for treatment.  It is the neighbor who lifts up the vet  and the police to thank them and to listen to their stories. It is us who march to seek justice. 

Because when we do these things, we open space for God to fill our hearts through God’s community, and God will meet every want with what truly can fill us.  

Who belongs in this realm? Funny - you should ask because the answer is You (and everyone around you who believes that blessings are not just for those with privilege and social status.) 

God’s love and peace belongs to anyone who is truly seeking, wanting to learn and truly wanting to be with God. For those who seek comfort will find some in the manifestation of God’s love through Jesus. Blessings are not just for those who speak the perfect words and wear perfect dress, but those who search from the heart and soul. The blessing is for those who leave spaces for God to fill rather than clutter all the nooks and crannies of our souls with our egos. 

Thus, being merciful and having hunger for God’s everlasting and welcoming love can fill you this day in many ways

The question “what is blessed?” can be answered, I am more than “me,” the ego and own wants. We leave space for God to work. We demonstrate God’s work here on earth. Then we can plead our case to God.

In Micah 6, we plead our case to God, and we question. We question how we might please God. Look at that question find the answer is also given. God tells to remember what God has already said and promised. The blessings we seek are manifest in our own hearts when we look deep enough and when we let God lift us and be with us.

That, Beloved, is… 

Thanks be to God.

Bad News Motivation - Matthew 4 - Epiphany 3A

Bad News Motivation

Tony E Dillon Hansen

Reflection based upon Matthew 4:12-23, Psalm 27, Isaiah 9

Opening prayer.

Happy Lunar New (Rabbit) Year!

There are a few themes that can be lifted out of Mathew’s text as it references Isaiah, Jesus calls upon disciples to follow and the arrest of John. In the midst of all that, Jesus does something very human.  Following bad news about John, Jesus withdraws.

Why does Jesus do this? Anxiety, fear, sadness, or reflection? Could be all of this, but this gives us a notion of Jesus as human in a real sense because withdrawing at news like this is a perfectly human response. Am I next? What about my family and friends? What happens now?

In this moment, Jesus calls upon the words of Isaiah, “for those who sat in darkness have seen a great light.” We often read this during Advent and Christmas times, but read it with new eyes in the season of Epiphany.  

Through this text, Jesus observes the world around and finds motivation. It is time to do something.  Woe it is to have a good friend arrested and jailed. Woe is it to have modern saints (like MLK, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, or great volunteers of UBFM) face adversity.

Speaking of MLK, we just celebrated the late doctor’s birthday and it is fitting perhaps that we read this lesson today.  People, like MLK, were thrown in prison for doing nothing more than speaking truth to power. Yes “Now is the time” for it still happens today. Shame on you oppressive manipulators (Putin).

Yet, with God we have life and we have voice. This life however is not always bright sunshine and easy paths, but this life pushes people to see beyond their misery. To see beyond the terrible and to see what is possible instead. This can be frightening, but even more, ever so exciting! 

Yes that is the crux of Isaiah’s message because we need to see, we need to observe that life with God is more than fanciful speeches and colorful robes - but life with truth, with love, with the peace and light of Christ. 

People may disagree on the ways we see God and how we come to God, but there is truth in God and there is possible. That life is real and ready for us to observe as well and for us to find sorely needed motivation.

Beloved, this is the lesson that those great people (who we mentioned moments ago) learned and taught. It can be too easy for us turn away from the truth and light - to discount all that could be -because we get complacent in our living, in our complaints, and comfortable in our misery.

Experiencing bad things like watching a friend, colleague, a real life person get CPR on the field makes us think. Suddenly, we realize that life is precious and living it needs something more than complacency. That experience motivated people all over the country to give generously to charity and to pray for the well-being of Damar Hamlin. Even though the Bills are not my favorite team, I am however a fan of good people and good works.

Still this begs the question: Why is it that we have to see or hear bad things before we are motivated ?  Why not provide sandwiches and burritos for homeless folks every week with us at UBFM?  We don’t need to wait for the next protest over injustice or wrongful deaths. We do not need to wait for an excuse to help people or to participate in  non-violent protest of those injustices. For people can always find another lame excuse to do nothing. 

Beloved, we do not need to wait for the next event to help people because being a part of God’s community, God’s church, we should be out there helping people find God through us and through our work. There are plenty of ways we can do this.

Loving God and following God may not be easy, but there is so much good that we get from it. That Beloved, needs no excuses because God gives us so much, and God is there - even when we turn away. 

Don’t just go home and close the scriptures until next week.  Don’t just leave God in the pews.  Take God and the light of Christ with you. Get up off the couch and let us together witness and live with God in this world! Find friends to help along side you, just like Jesus did with James and John -because friends can help keep you honest.

Let’s get to living in God’s kingdom here on Earth today! 

Offer the sandwich, the blanket, the coat. Walk with the widow, the parent, the brother; those who lost someone because we know what it is to lose someone too. Help and be with the child recovering from sickness or suffering adversity. Help the injured vet find purpose. Be with your neighbor in whatever way is needed. It can start with a smile because that can go a long way. Be the good that God knows you can be. 

Leave fear aside for a moment and go with confidence of God’s guidance before you.

What is your witness; how does God motivate you? Share with us so that we might learn.

God reveals to us, in these seasons, a path and light through darkness. God came to be with us so that we might be motivated to (as we say) “do church.” These are just a few of the many ways, and you know of even more.  

Let God reveal to you and move your heart this day, this hour. Like the Psalmist says, “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is my stronghold…” 

and that Beloved is…

Thanks Be to God.

What is your path - Matthew 2 - Epiphany A

What is your path?

Tony E Dillon Hansen

Reflection based upon Matthew 2:1-12, Isaiah 42: 1-9, Isaiah 60:1-6

Opening prayer

Why is it that people in power are the ones that get frightened by good news?

Why is it that people feel so insecure about what they have and what they can do, especially when someone new shows up? (or perhaps someone that we may have forgotten)? 

Doesn’t it seem like that with God?  Out of the blue, God shows up. God interrupts - no matter what we are doing or where we are. God shows up!

Today, we mark the beginning of the season of Epiphany.- This is the divine manifestation - the revelation - of Jesus to (not only Heard and wise astrologists of old), but to the world.  

God shows up and reveals life and light even amidst corrupt social systems and corrupt politicians. God reveals the true wisdom that is worthy of gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to pay homage, but maybe we could ask, what gifts do you bring? 

They bring these gifts to the infant by following a star - a light in the heavens that points to life on earth, hope on earth, and more. They follow a divine path revealed to them to witness the divine presence. 

They followed a path that led them to this child - the manifestation of God in our lives, in our world.  Maybe the question for us is, what is our path? Are we listening to God revealing to us our path or something else? 

We can turn to fear or we could turn to adoration and witness of God’s love. How do you witness God’s revelations in your life?  

When you do,  when you truly witness God in your life, what is our response to God’s spirit in our life? Do you walk away and dismiss what you witness, or do you turn to the light that God has revealed to you.

What is your path?

(If you were to be in the audience with the wise people, what homage would you  bring? Remember our gifts don’t have to be material things, but what do we bring to honor and pay homage to all that has been given to us.) 

This piece of Matthew is a bit of interfaith cultures coming together to witness the love of God in a child - a child that causes some to quiver in fear and anxiety due to the “good news” that he didn’t want to hear. They bring gifts to pay homage while a certain politician connives and makes sinister plans. 

Still we have a true interfaith meeting where people of different cultures, different perspectives, and different traditions come together to witness. They somehow figure out that there is someone here that is worth a long voyage, that is worth faith, while people in the same country reject this prophecy.

Beloved, that is because this is true power that can be trusted, and worthy of that faith. That, Beloved, is because this is not the corrupt and fallible politicians like Herod because trust in God should be our response rather than fear and trepidation. 

That should be your path - the one that God lays out for you.!

Thankfully, the wise peoples trust God; they listen to spirit  and opt to take another path home - a different path.  For us the question is thus begged, Is it time for us consider our path, our journey in this life? Is God asking of us to take a path and are we listening?

For all the good that we have seen and heard on our current path, are we listening to the spirit in our lives? What is that spirit telling you? Are you on the correct path or maybe there is a new direction for you in this new year, new season - this season of revelation and manifestation? 

Yes! God has done and is doing marvelous things for us. God is speaking to us as we say in this church, but what is our response? Fear and trepidation, or homage and thanks?

So lean into what God is saying to you this new year and new season. Listen to what god has revealed to you and is revealing to you now. 

Each year we come to this time after Christmas time and in our part of the world, it is winter, and cold January. It is a time to refocus, and to turn away from what we have held onto that we don’t need and instead turn to God and follow the path that God has set before us. 

Yes, this time of the year where we hear about light piercing darkness, yet the question for us is how does one arise and shine in that light - in the light of God? Ask God. 

Take amount and listen to what god is saying to you right now in this space and time.  What is God revealing to you?

Beloved, let God shine upon your heart and soul.  

When you do that , when you let God shine upon you and reveal to you, find your heart tickled and soul lifted. Find the possibilities and the true power and wisdom is inside your heart waiting for you. 

In that moment, In this moment, let go of fear, insecurities, and social status and let God show you all that is possible for you!

Beloved, listen to the words of Isaiah, “arise, shine, for your light has come!”

And we all say…

Thanks Be to God.