Prophets are in the business of telling the truth. That is who they are, and what they do. In that sense, any of us can be prophets. But remember: In the words of Joe Klaas: “The truth will set you free, but first it will [tick] you off.”

We have tales of prophets today, and they bookend our passage. First, we have Jesus and his experience of returning to his hometown. Last, we have a flashback to the terrible fate of John the Baptist, who pays for his truth-telling with his life. And in the middle of these stories, Jesus sends out disciples, two-by-two...

I followed, I followed, partially, because… that’s where I was going anyway, the home of Rivka and Jairus. And I followed as part of this great crowd of people who seemed determined to go where these men were going. And I followed, too, because I had finally come to understand who this man was. This was Yeshua ben Joseph. It was the healer, Jesus...

If Jesus is preaching the “good news,” why all the secrecy?

“The time is fulfilled, and the reign of God has come near; turn around, change your thinking—and believe in the good news.”

Those are the very first words Jesus says in the gospel of Mark.

God is doing something big, it is happening, Jesus says, and it is happening now. In order to be part of this amazing God-thing, you’re going to have to change how you think. But trust me. It is good. Beyond good.

And yet, in our passage this morning, Jesus specifically says that parables, the very tools he is using to teach, are meant to confound, confuse, and befuddle...

I want to give you a gift.

I’ve been inspired, since we’ve just heard a story about three Wise Ones, traveling a very long distance, to bring gifts to a child whom they consider to be a king! And the gifts they brought! Costly gifts! Gold… a gift fit for a king. Frankincense… a gift fit for a god! And Myrrh… an aromatic resin used for everything from skin ailments (like diaper rash) to pain relief (you might, for example, place it in wine, and offer it to someone as they were dying). Myrrh… a gift fit for a human being.

I’ve been inspired by the other gifts we’ve read about this morning… the gifts given by Jesus in our other reading.

To the man who had an unclean spirit: freedom.

To the woman who had a fever: relief.

To the man with the skin disease they called leprosy: healing.

To those who were sick, or possessed with demons… more of the same. Healing. Relief. Freedom.

I want to give you a gift.

The unknown years of Jesus comprise the period between age 12, when he gave his parents such a scare by staying behind in the Temple, and age 30, when the gospel of Luke tells us, he began his public ministry.

This gap in storytelling has perplexed and frustrated Christians these last two thousand years. Karoline Lewis, a preaching professor from St. Paul (Luther Seminary) writes, “We cannot focus on Jesus as a baby and then fast forward to Jesus as Lord as if nothing happened in between.” We know something happened, but what?

It is such a familiar story. And we all can conjure up the scene: the stable, lit somehow, by soft flickering lamplight; the fragrant hay, offered up by the gentle cow for a bed; the protective father bending near; the mother in blue—always blue!—cradling her precious newborn baby. The whole scene is bathed in a holy glow. The music rises: Silent Night, Holy Night! Christ the Savior is born!

We can see it. We HAVE seen it!

And yet... it is a strange story, isn't it? Taking into account stories told in two gospels, a columnist in today’s Washington Post wrote, “Infertility, divorce, shame, mass murder, astrologers, injustice and doubt: these are a few of the topics that appear” in the story of our Savior’s birth. His advice? Don’t sanitize it....

Characters in the bible are known to burst into song from time to time, and the birth or even promise of a child often provides the context. Hannah sings in the Hebrew Scriptures, Mary and Simeon in the New Testament, and now, Zechariah, Temple priest, who has had a long time to sit and think in silence about all the events swirling around him...

What does it look like, the rebirth of hope?

Here, it begins with a boy king and the persistence of his goodness. It continues with the discovery, the recovery, of the law, the covenant between God and people. It culminates in all the people, from the smallest to the greatest, vowing to do everything, heart and soul, mind and strength, to do the right thing, from now on, no matter what.

We have two kings before us today; one, whom the prophet Isaiah knew well; one, whose words we have come to understand as the warm breath of the Holy Spirit, informing us of a king still to come.

Welcome to the world of Hosea, the prophet whom God invites to dwell in the emotional world of rejection, betrayal, and abandonment. Hosea is the prophet whom God invites, insofar as any human can understand it, into God’s own inner turmoil. God looks at the covenant people, God looks at Israel, and all God sees is unfaithfulness, and violence, God’s own children hurting one another, God’s own children killing one another.

Just because no one is erecting altars to Ba’al (at least, I don’t think they are), doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of false gods and little idols vying for our attention. The problem for us is, they aren’t as easily identifiable as the altar to Ba’al or the Asherah pole. They masquerade as helpful devices (tell me, should I be concerned that last week I had a dream about an iPad?). They convince us they’re about what is best for us (this particular job, that one perfect diet). They call to us to envision a self that is immaculately contoured and clothed, perfectly airbrushed, and, in the end, entirely beyond our reach… without that particular magic product. The thing we need. The thing we turn to when everything and everyone else has let us down. There are gods competing for us, alright. They just have really excellent disguises.

I actually think this terrible story is a wonderful story about discernment. How do we make decisions? Who or what guides us? How do we listen to one another, and respond to one another in ways that are just and loving?

What if we were to look at the world with the assumption that God wants to please us? That God wants to give us joy—the kind of delight that can lift us out of ourselves, even when we think there may be no joy left for us? How might that affect us? How might it change us? How might it open doors in our hearts and minds with a new sense of wonder?

What is the point of our faith? Why are we here today? In particular, why join with a church, be baptized? These questions surely won’t be adequately answered in the next several minutes. But they are good questions, and definitely the kind we should ask ourselves now and again. We’ll at least begin pondering together.

...Moses had run away from slavery, from the situation his people found themselves in. He ran, because he was in danger. And, for a time he felt safe.

But the safety of one person when others are unsafe is an illusion, because we are all connected. Moses is connected to his people, whether near or far.

The freedom of one person when others are slaves is a lie, because when even one person is a slave, no one is truly free...

... I was looking for some paintings of this very famous scene from scripture, and based on the names of works by Rembrandt, Bambini, Moreau, Gaugin, and countless others, the consensus, at least among artists, is that “Jacob Wrestles With an Angel.”

That may be.

The Hebrew word, however, is “man.”

Angel, man, God… who is Jacob struggling with?

...

There are many kinds of laughter. Laughter is at the center of our story this morning, laughter from a woman “several decades past childbearing years,”[ii] who is married to a man who was last reported to be 99 years old. She laughs upon hearing three strangers opine that in less than a year she will give birth to a son.

Sarah laughs...

... This is our story. This is the story of God’s relationship with people. From the beginning. (Almost.) And this story is important. It’s important if you are, say, a high school student who’s being asked to read great English literature, because everyone from Shakespeare to Steinbeck has tried to explain what it is to be human by dipping into this deep well of memory and history and poetry. It’s important if you are interested in what’s going on in the world, because some of the rivalries and family feuds found in this book are still playing themselves out 5000 years later. It’s important if you are interested in things like why families and coworkers drive each other crazy, because the dynamics described in the relationships in this book are timeless. People have been people for a long, long time...

Is God close at hand, or is God impossibly far away?

Imagine this: Imagine you wake up from a fitful sleep, a sleep with unsettling dreams, even scary ones. And then you look out your window to see an unfamiliar person—no one special, not particularly remarkable in any way—standing in the yard, watching your house. You run outside to confront this person, because, it turns out, you’re brave like that. And when you stand face to face with him, he begins to tell you a story. In fact, it’s the story of your life. Some things he could have found out with a little sleuthing, like your birthday, and the names and occupations of your immediate family members. Other things… well, they’re the kinds of things you’re pretty sure you’ve never told a single soul. And yet he recites them to you, your private, inner biography, the things that make you, you. And when you ask him who he is, he replies, “I’m God, Pat.”

Would you do what the teen-aged title character in a TV show did? She pointed her finger in that guy’s face and say, “Don’t ever talk to me again”...