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Discipleship: Leaving and Letting Go"

1/25/2023

Isaiah 9:1-4; Matthew 4:12-23

      From the time he was born, Jesus has been prepared for the task of leaving. Remember how Jesus’ life begins when the decree to conduct a census by of Emperor Augustus so Mary and Joseph had to leave Nazareth to be registered in Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. Mary and Joseph fled with the young child Jesus from Bethlehem to Egypt in light of the murderous threats of King Herod. Only after King Herod’s death were they safe to return back to Nazareth.

Every story we have of Jesus as he prepares to begin his public ministry includes a journey, a leave-taking of sorts. The Holy Spirit led Jesus to the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And now, at the arrest of his cousin John, it’s time again to move on. To leave Nazareth for good which has been his home base for about 30 years. Jesus realized, and in turn taught, that ministry and discipleship means to leave behind the comfortable, the safe, the familiar and find a new home, a home in the will of God.

     So, Jesus left his home to start his ministry not in Jerusalem, the “it” place where anyone of importance would want to be seen to achieve some prominence --- the text tells us that Jesus left for the ancient tribal territories of Zebulum and Naphtali. As Jesus traveled those 18 or so miles from Nazareth to the town of Capernaum, surely the history of that area came to Jesus’ mind. The ground he waked on was the stage for brutal foreign invasions over and over again, then as it is now. Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Romans all marched through this pivotal and vulnerable area. The land was annexed, the people exiled. The territory was more or less a deportation zone   Defeat hung in the air. It was a land where over time, the population became mixed, containing both Jewish and Gentile peoples. The region was looked down upon by the Jerusalem Jewish establishment as tainted and backward.

       Why didn’t Jesus pick a more hospitable place to go? A place that didn’t recall such painful memories of slavery and hardship? Why a place where families were separated, never to see home again? A place that reminds us even today of the millions of refugees in our world, swallowed up by the storms of life, caught in the middle, conflict, unable to go back, unable to move forward, home lost no place to identify with, nowhere to escape. Right from the get-go, Jesus doesn’t join up with the safe and secure.   He makes a home with the uprooted and oppressed. In doing so, Jesus tells us something basic and fundamental about God. We have a who is willing to leave home. A God willing to leave the safety and comfort of heaven to join this messy, sinful, broken life on earth. God not afraid to wander with us. A God willing to take our sin upon himself. A God who shows us how to leave, how to let go in order to find a bigger world, a better place, a new spiritual home where we can follow Jesus without the past weighing us down. Jesus reveals to us a God who wants to meet us in our places where we have been trampled upon, scourged by conflict and hardship. A God, who St. Augustine says, is restless until God finds a home in us. And we find our home in God.

Our restless Jesus entered the fishing town of Capernaum on the north west shore of Lake Galilee and carried on where his cousin John left off: “Repent! For the kingdom of Good has come near” Jesus doesn’t baptize like John. He doesn’t wait by the lakeside for the crowds to appear. Jesus goes to them. He walks up to Peter and Andrew and says, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” He meets up with James and John and they too are called. They hear the summons and they too, leave all they knew, all that was familiar, behind.

    This is how the kingdom of God grows. How true home is found. By leaving and letting go. By trusting God who leads to the broken and downcast places of the world, where God seeks to use us to bring healing and wholeness to those who are down and out.

        In order to be a disciple of Jesus, we must leave. To leave behind old ways of seeing the world. To leave what is comfortable and safe behind. Where we do an about-face. Where we experience the discomfort of being uprooted, force out of a stuck position.

      It’s not as easy as we think. We have a natural inclination to hunker down with what’s familiar, to cling to the past, to stay comfortable even if what we are comfortable in is a situation we have outgrown, a place is holding our potential back.

        Remember how the people of Israel, living in slavery for 400 years but were freed by the power and compassion of God.   Why did they say once they were barely out Egypt- the dust hadn’t even settled: They were complaining:, “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” (Exodus 16:3).   We yearn to turn back for one last look, like Lot’s wife, wanting one last glimpse at home. The consequence of her looking back is that she turned into a pillar of salt. It’s like when Jesus says in Luke: 9: 62: ‘No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’” Jesus is calling us forward, and we can’t move forward safely if we keep turning around, keep pining for the past, if we keep longing for what is long gone. Remember the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. — Isaiah 43:18–19

        So, our gospel text asks us, as we embrace the mantel of discipleship, what are we being called to leave behind? Each of us has a past. A past filled with both successes and failures. A past where we are both stuck and feel safe and comfortable.   One of my first jobs in ministry was working in a church program with homeless addicts. Living on the streets, consumed with getting the next high, there’s not much lower than that. Part of our tasks was to instill hope for a better future, to walk through the valleys, the ups and down of pulling a shattered life together. Like Willie who began as a volunteer in our soup kitchen, was promoted to chef, and eventually became a member of our Board of Directors. He went from a crack addict living on the streets to a college student enrolled in criminal justice studies – in his late forties. Like Shameik, also an addict constantly chasing that next hit, to becoming a respected drug and alcohol counselor, with the support and encouragement of the church. Like so many other brave men and women who take a chance on themselves, took a chance on God, and let go, and let God as the saying goes. They learned that looking back at the past, getting stuck in the has been, focusing on the mistakes, was the main obstacle to achieving their dreams, being healed, moving on. The point is, we can never find out the life God has dreamed up for us if are not willing to leave behind the old baggage, the familiar routines, all that weight that is so familiar but holds us down.

        Over the past few weeks, we’ve been learning that discipleship is not easy. We learn to expect the unexpected from God. We learn that discipleship is not a popularity contest. And now we need to let go of the familiar, the comfortable, and be willing to step out into the unknown. A place where scholar Frederick Buechner says ““…God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” God has a place for each of us that is awesome, beyond our wildest dreams, the best of our best. To get there, we have to leave and not look back.

As the first month of a new year comes to a close, what is God calling us to leave behind? What resentments, fears long-dead dreams, do we wear like a well worn jacket, that’s getting too tight? What arguments and fights do we hold onto, insisting we are right all the time but ending up alone? What is Jesus asking you to leave behind? More important, where is Jesus calling you? To sobriety? To loving more deeply and honestly?   To a more compassionate, fulfilled life connected to others? A new ministry of caring that’s been calling but we haven’t taken the risk to venture forth?

       It is ours for the taking. Let go. Leave. Close that door. Don’t hesitate or look behind. Become fishers of people, helping others find their purpose, and together let us discover a loving and forgiving God, who meets us in the world’s need. A God ready to take us to places beyond what we can imagine, more than we can comprehend, an experience of heaven on earth, if we, like Jesus, let go and take the hand of God. Answer the call and move forward and discover that wherever God is, we are indeed home.

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Discipleship: Following Jesus Like Martin

1/18/2023

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Isaiah 49:1-7; John 1:29-42

In 1934 a number of significant events happened in Germany.   The state passed the "Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring" which allowed for the compulsory sterilization of anyone with “questionable” genetic traits – for example, mental illness, blindness, deafness, alcoholism, as well as any number of inherited diseases.

In 1934, in Germany, all the police forces came under the direction of Heimlich Himmler, the leader of the “SS” -- the paramilitary organization of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.

In 1934, a minority of German Christian leaders opposing the church’s support of the Nazi movement issued the Barmen Declaration.

In 1934, beginning on June 30, the “Night of the Long Knives” occurred, where Nazi operatives murdered key political opponents. At least 85 people were assassinated in this 3-day purge; some scholars put the total number upwards to 1000. Shortly after the Night of the Long Knives, on August 2, Adolf Hitler is declared Fuhrer or head of state, as well as Chancellor of Germany.

In 1934, the Baptist World Alliance held its conference in Berlin, just shortly after Adolf Hitler rise to power. Many Baptists spoke boldly against the racism, nationalism and militarism so prevalent in the Germany of 1934. The Baptist World Alliance also passed a strong resolution on the separation of church and state. Others however, praised Hitler. They praised his prohibition of women wearing red lipstick in public. They praised Hitler because he did not smoke or drink. One prominent Baptist leader extolled that: It was a great relief to be in a country where salacious sex literature cannot be sold; where putrid motion pictures and gangster films cannot be shown. The new Germany has burned great masses of corrupting books and magazines along with its bonfires of Jewish and communistic libraries (Watchman-Examiner XXII 37 (September 13, 1934).

Present for these deliberations was the Rev. Michael King Sr., Pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA. King, who already had a reputation as a civil rights leader, returned home and decided to change his name, and the name of his five-year old son, from Michael to Martin Luther, the name of the prominent German reformer who sought to purify the church from corrupt practices back in 1517.    So, Rev. Michael King, in the face of Nazism, in the face racism in the United States, renamed himself and his son with the name of a powerful reformer.

        “Little Mike” known to us as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister following his father’s footsteps in ministry and leader in the civil rights movement, did not know as a six year old the mantel his father placed on his shoulders.   That mantel could be summed up in King Sr.’s address to his colleagues with the words of Jesus, taken from the prophet Isaiah: -- We must not forget the words of God that describe the true mission of the Church: ‘‘The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor.… In this we ﬁnd we are to do something about the brokenhearted, poor, unemployed, the captive, the blind, and the bruised’’ (King, Sr., 17 October 1940).

        Today we acknowledge our spiritual debt to King, Sr. and Jr. Disciples are not born – they are molded by other faithful people. Disciples are forged in response to the love of God and in reaction to the evils happening in the world around them.   Disciples are called: “Come and see!” Jesus told Andrew and his friend, and Andrew in turn told his brother “Come! We have found the messiah!”

        Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was called to faith by many people, especially is father. Today, as we remember and give thanks for so many of his deeds and accomplishments in the civil rights movement, we remember one of his most important tasks that remain today. That task is to call us to come and see, his fellow brothers and sisters, the ministry of righteousness, justice and reconciliation in a world where racism, poverty and war still exist. Dr. King saw this as a natural, sacred duty that flows naturally from the gospel of Jesus Christ.

On March 31, 1968, King preached his last sermon at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington DC. It was appropriately titled, “Remaining Awake through the Great Revolution.” King began his sermon recounting the tale of Rip Van Winkle who fell asleep for 20 years.    When Rip fell asleep the picture of King George the III was on a sign board. Twenty years later, the picture on the sign board was George Washington. Rip didn’t know who he was or what had happened. He had slept through a revolution. Now King’s final church sermon to those people of faith who came to worship that day was the prophetic message which rings true to us today:

“…one of the great liabilities of life is that all too many people find themselves living amid a great period of social change, and yet they fail to develop the new attitudes, the new mental responses, that the new situation demands. They end up sleeping through a revolution.”

King in his legacy, teaches us to be disciples, true followers of Jesus. Before he was assassinated, King began to not only see the interrelatedness of all life and the threat of what he called the “the triplet evils of racism, materialism and militarism.” In his last sermon King reminds us “We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured.” Our life of faith is molded by others. Additionally, our life is molded in how we respond to others. So, part of King’s concern was awakening the white conscience – what he called the “the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, "Wait on time." The time is now to do what is right.

In his last sermon, King explained what awakened his faith to the human revolution taking place. It was seeing the poor throughout Latin America; Africa; Asia; coming to the realization that God’s children went to bed hungry at night; slept on sidewalks at night. Brothers and sisters of ours with no beds to sleep in; no houses to go in. The vast majority who have never seen a doctor or a dentist. These people brought him more deeply to faith.

King said, as he noticed these things, something within him cried out, "Can we in America stand idly by and not be concerned?" he started thinking of the fact that in America millions are spent to store surplus food, and he thought, "I know where we can store that food free of charge—in the wrinkled stomachs of millions of God’s children all over the world who go to bed hungry at night."

     In that last sermon King notes that his discipleship was fashioned by 40 million people in our own country that were poverty-stricken. In the ghettos of the North; in the rural areas of the South; in Appalachia – King found deplorable situations that left him crying. What ate at King’s heart was the knowledge that we have the resources to get rid of poverty. We lack however the will.

King was awakened to the fact that nothing would be done until people of goodwill put their bodies and their souls in motion and became true disciples of Jesus. Because King noted: “There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right. I believe today that there is a need for all people of goodwill to come with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "We ain’t goin’ study war no more.”

As we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. with a federal holiday tomorrow, it’s important to remember that back in the 1960s, King had many, many critics. He was considered the most dangerous man in America by the FBI. Most of the country didn’t like him. He was trashed, rejected, and dismissed. He was hated and maligned. He would probably be stunned at the turn-around of his image, and he would probably be disturbed, perhaps think his message sanitized for popular consumption. Jesus said in Mark 6:4, "Prophets are honored by everyone, except the people of their hometown and their relatives and their own family." Just as Martin was maligned in his day. we recall that Jesus was also criticized for eating with tax collectors and sinners, he was constantly tested, plotted against and ultimately put to death by the religious and political establishment that felt so threatened and challenged by him. Being a disciple of Jesus, like Martin was, means being willing to stand alone. To take the heat. To be rejected, dismissed, criticized, have people talk behind your back. To plot against you. Discipleship means taking the narrow path. The hard path. To carry the cross.

Today, through King’s words that were spoken 55 years ago, we are awakened to faith. We are called to reform in us what isn’t in line with the gospel of love, truth and righteousness. Like King Sr., who was awakened in Germany as Hitler took control -- we must be awakened in the trials of our time – that very same issues of racism, poverty and warfare. Will we be like Rip, busy with our technological distractions, and not see what is happening around us? A revolution of conscience is taking place. It is calling us. Let us hear the call: “Come and see.” Let us take on the mantle of discipleship and follow Jesus, Like Martin – both father and son. Amen.

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/599266/us_has_fourth-highest_income_inequality_rate_in_the_world
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2012/03/13/11351/the-top-10-most     -startling-facts-about-people-of-color-and-criminal-justice-in-the-united-states/
https://www.uua.org/worship/words/reading/flawed-understanding-martin-luther-king-jr

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Discipleship: Expect the Unexpected

1/11/2023

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Isa. 42:1-9, Matt. 3: 13-17
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Whether or not you are a football fan, Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin, has become a household name this week. In a game televised last Monday to determine which teams would advance in the NFL playoffs, Damar Hamlin collapsed nine minutes into the first quarter of the game, suffering a cardiac arrest after completing a tackle.

You could hear a pin drop in the stadium as medics worked to revive him. Members of both teams formed a circle around the critically injured player as he was being resuscitated. Tears streamed down their faces as they knelt in prayer. Fans from both teams held candlelight vigils outside the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where Hamlin remains in treatment. Hamlin’s GoFundMe page for his children’s foundation, set up to raise $2,500, has now surpassed 7 million dollars, with donations pouring in from around the country.

It is clear that Damar Hamlin is a man of faith. The slogan on his helmet says, “Choose Love.” The athlete spoke opening about his faith saying, stating, “My faith is in God. So, whatever he has planned for me, that’ll be it.” “I feel like that's God talking to me,” he told a reporter in 2021, referring to his charitable work. “I really feel like that's what my purpose is. That's why He put me here.” While Hamlin is still in ICU, he is improving, and his witness continues to touch countless millions of people. It is a reminder to us of God’s power to bring good out of even adverse situations, as Paul in Romans 8:28 declares: “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

People of faith are not immune from pain, suffering, difficulties. Have you ever had something unexpected happen to you, whether it was something good or something scary? Your life is going along as planned and then out of the blue, something unexpected happens and life’s journey takes a turn in a new direction. You discover you are expecting a new baby. You’ve been turned down for a promotion. You get into fender bender. You suffer a health scare. You incur an unexpected expense on an already tight budget, and you have to decide which bill to pay. We’ve all been there. Plans suddenly change. We’re caught unawares. We can count on one thing on this faith journey: Expect the unexpected. Where have you experienced the unexpected in your life?

Remember Abraham and Sarah? There they were, sitting on the porch in their rocking chairs, enjoying their retirement, when God commands: “Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. (Gen. 12)
There was Moses, minding his own business, tending the sheep, when he sees the burning bush and God tells him he is on holy ground. God then declares: “I have seen the suffering of the Israelites in the land of Egypt. I want you to lead them into a land of freedom and save them from slavery and suffering.”

Remember the notorious Samaritan woman at the well, going to fetch water at the unheard-of hour of noon, only to encounter Jesus, and after a lengthy discussion, she leaves her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 'Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ? ' They went out of the town and were coming to him.”

There was Saul, the great persecutor of the early Christian movement, who encounters Jesus on the road to Damascus, and ends up being the greatest missionary, a renowned apostle for the early church.

Today’s gospel finds John the baptizer with an unexpected situation. Jesus comes to him wanting to be baptized. But John’s baptism is a baptism of repentance, and Jesus didn’t need to repent. Try as he could to understand, John just couldn’t get Jesus’ motives. It seemed messed up: Jesus should be baptizing John, not the other way around. But Jesus has his reasons. Jesus did the unexpected, allowing himself to receive John’s baptism in order to demonstrate his complete identity with sinful humankind. John’s baptism of Jesus is a baptism into the fullness of humanity with all its joys and sorrows. And the Son of God chose this. “Let it be so now,” Jesus says to John. “Then he consented.” Our lives our like John’s. Like Abraham and Sarah, like Moses.
To be a disciple means to expect the unexpected. To do the unexpected. To learn to consent to the will of God and in doing so, to hear and see God in new and amazing ways.

Expecting the unexpected calls us to be present to whatever is before us and whatever is coming to us, even if it is difficult, painful, or the last thing we wanted. Expecting the unexpected isn’t about being in control or having all the answers. Expecting the unexpected means being open to new and radical ways God is working in and through our lives. It means we are not in control. God intervenes. It's being like Damar Hamlin, allowing God to use a painful accident to bring all sorts of people to their names, joining their hands in prayer.

Expecting the unexpected is a profession of faith, hope, and love. That’s how Jesus lived his life. Every time the disciples expected Jesus to act a certain way, he did the opposite. He called ordinary fishermen, tax collectors, zealots, and traitors to follow him. He ate with tax collectors and sinners. He healed on the sabbath, a big no-no for the frustrated Pharisees and Sadducees that closely followed his ministry. He went to weddings and turned wine into water. He raised people from the dead, expelled demons. He allowed women to touch him, and he spoke to them with respect. His teachings turned everything upside down: love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. Receive the prodigal son. Act like the good Samaritan. Give the widow’s mite. Take up your cross.

Jesus never turned away, backed down, or walked away from dificulties. He welcomed the unexpected, even the betrayal of his own, and being put to death by jealous leaders conspiring with foreign powers who just wanted to “keep the peace.” Jesus accepted the teachings of the prophet Isaiah (55:8-9): “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," …. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

The unexpected comes to us every day.   In these situations, God seeks to use the unexpected to help us love deeper, give more, be more open to service, pray more fervently, to give witness to the power, majesty and glory of God. The unexpected reminds us of what Paul says to the 1 Corinthians 1:24-29: “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength…. God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things-- and the things that are not-- to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. (NIV)”

As we enter a new year, we will be exploring different aspects of discipleship. Today, let us be on the lookout for the unexpected ways God is reaching out to us and to use us for his holy purposes. Whether we face hardship or new exciting opportunities, let us embrace it. Let us place the unexpected in the sure hands of God, who will make his good will come to pass through us. Who knows whom you will touch, whose lives you can change, whose heart you will transform, by turning over all the unexpected in our lives to the loving mercy of God. As we live through all the unexpected situations life throws at us, let us be assured that the knowledge that God makes all things work together for the good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. As a post from Damar Hamlin’s twitter feed from last month read: “from losses to lessons to blessings. Thank you, God!” Thank you, God. For the faith to expect the unexpected. Amen.

https://sports.yahoo.com/damar-hamlins-go-fund-me-hits-6-million-after-bills-safetys-cardiac-arrest-on-monday-night-football-231541893.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACe7srWO6Mtk18GYp6TR_fCNFaxZftD-ON0zIiV-MCiIy3wv-FS8DHMXTSFqnyEltFkgS8KE_mNxxxTC1S7va49vvcDgrS-Pb7_bAXCsCrwpDKdfVPEVpE5NibF2via3zNz6FhLxZt56vY8SQBlvGkOloXlhS3bZVAtKpBh0vL5Q
https://interruptingthesilence.com/2020/01/15/consenting-to-life-a-sermon-on-matthew-313-17/
https://sports.yahoo.com/choose-love-damar-hamlins-motto-offers-a-way-forward-after-tragedy-132139931.html
https://thedeaconsbench.com/damar-hamlin-i-see-myself-through-gods-eyes/

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2023: Journey to Jesus (Epiphany)

1/4/2023

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Matthew: 2: 1-12

Happy New Year! The New Year is a time of festivities, family and friends coming together to ring in the New Year. The beginning of the New Year is also a time of introspection, reflecting upon where we’ve come during the past year and planning goals for the new year. Although 43% of resolutions don’t make it past February, and 9% survives until the end of the year, setting attainable goals, having a vision for one’s life, is important. Time flies by, and before we know it, another year has gone, and for many of us, we have been stuck in a cycle of work, sleep, eating, watching TV. We need to take the time to dig into our hearts, decide on what we want to change or improve or have an idea where we want to be in a year’s time.

The top goals people choose for a new year are often to exercise more, lose weight, get healthier, get more organized, save money or spend less, quit smoking, learn a new skill or hobby, or find a way to live life to the fullest. As Christians, we need to set spiritual goals. How exactly can we grow in faith and draw closer to Jesus? Should we pray more? Read the bible more? Attend a retreat? Come to church more? Serve our neighbor more? Journal or spend time in other uplifting ways? What are other goals you can think of? In order to be successful, we need to choose goals that are attainable, goals we can actually measure, like volunteer at the food pantry once a week, journal daily, say our prayers every day.

Our gospel passage today of the magi’s, or more popularly called wisemen’s, journey to see the Christ Child contains excellent pointers for us to set spiritual goals and guideposts to plan our spiritual growth in 2023.   Let’s look at some of the features of the story that give us pointers as we plan to grow over the next 12 months. I invite you to take out the worksheet in your bulletin and follow along.

The magi/wisemen knew the purpose of their journey, to see the baby borne King of the Jews.   They were guided on this journey by the Star, rising in the east. If we want to follow in the footsteps of the magi, we too need to make encountering Jesus our priority in 2023.   We need to assess where we are now and make improvements. We need to reflect back on our spiritual high points and low points of 2022.   How well did we live out gospel values in our life?   Be honest: What did your spiritual journey of 2022 look like? What did you do well? Did you deepen a pattern of forgiveness or humility? Learn to be patient or more tolerant? What were the low points? Getting angry too easily? Gossiping too much? Expressing too much pride? The more specific you can be with yourself the better.

So today, as we move forward, Let’s look at the magi/wisemen story for guidance. What stars are God placing on your horizon to move you forward? How is God working in your life? What persons through whom is God speaking to you? What other incidents have happened that God is using to reach you? It could be anything from a song you heard, a health scare, to a comment someone made to you. Did you have a dream, or an encounter with someone or something that is speaking to you? Identify the stars that are calling you forward and name them. Write them down.

Let’s move on. The second step to clarify your 2023 spiritual journey is to identify the Herods in your life. Who or what is blocking your way? What’s fears or faults are trying to distract you from obtaining your goal of being with Jesus? What people or situations drag you down, bring out the worst in you, make you selfish instead of outward centered? We all encounter Herods. Evil is always working, trying to derail our efforts. What is important is that we name it. We give it to Jesus. The magi chose not to engage Herod. After they found Jesus, they returned home by another path. We need to be able to know when we are tempted to stray and pray for the strength to maintain our focus on Jesus. We need to learn to avoid Herod whenever we can. Name your Herod. Ask the Holy Spirit to point it out to you. It can be a personal trait or an actual person or situation we find ourselves in.

Finally, third step the magi/wisemen led us to in 2023 is to name the gifts that we bring. We are called to dedicate our gifts to Jesus, so he can bless them and use them for the benefit of the good news. What are your gifts? Can you name some of them now?   The next thing to ask is how do you use these gifts on behalf of the Lord? If you sing, do you use your voice to lead others in singing? If you are a listening person, do you extend yourself to a lonely person, a shut in, or someone who is ill? If you have been blessed with finances or resources, do you place them at the disposal of God?   We are all abundantly gifted, sometimes in ways we don’t even see. Another important step we might do is name the gifts we see in each other. During this upcoming week, I invite you to tell three people what gifts you see in them. Another good step is to ask them to name the gifts they see in you.

As you name your gifts, I invite you to pay homage to Jesus by dedicating your gifts to him. Place your gifts in his hands. Let him direct you to best use your gifts on behalf of the gospel.

So, our passage tells to do at least three things to mark our journey to Jesus in 2023:
1. Name the stars in your lives that lead you to Jesus.
2. Name the Herods operating in your life that block your way to Jesus.
3. Name the gifts God has given you and dedicate them to the Lord, placing them at the disposal of the good news.

Please take a minute to jot down anything more that comes to your mind.

Let us pray: Precious Lord, today we chose to dedicate 2023 as a year we come to you. Help us to find you each day, throughout the year, so we can pay you homage. Place stars on our path that guide us to you, help us to see them and follow them. Help us identify the Herods in our midst that would seek to snare us away from you.   Finally help us to name the gifts you have blessed us with. We dedicate these gifts to you for your use, for the uplifting and salvation of all you place in our lives. Make 2023 a banner year a year in which we draw even closer to you, to each other, and may your star shine bright in our lives, and may our lives in turn be a way to you that others may follow to know you and serve you.   This we ask in your holy name, Amen.

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