​Prelude
*Call to Worship                                                                                Mark 1:15
The time is fulfilled
and the kingdom of God is at hand;
repent, and believe the good news.
 
*Hymn 611  Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee                          
 
Prayer of Confession
Loving God,
through your Son you have called us to repent of our sin,
to believe the good news,
and to celebrate the coming of your kingdom.
Like Christ’s first apostles,
may we hear his call to discipleship,
and, forsaking old ways,
proclaim the gospel of new life to a broken world;
through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.  Amen.
 
Hymn  698    Take, O Take Me as I Am                  
 
Assurance of Pardon
Whenever a people humble themselves,
turn from their evil ways,
and put their hope and trust in divine mercy,
God sees and forgives their sin,
and enfolds them in the strength and love of Christ.
Friends, believe the good news of the gospel.
Your sins are forgiven. Be at peace.  Amen.
 
First Reading         Isaiah 9:1-4
Time With Our Young Disciples
Gospel Reading      Matthew 4:12-23
The Morning Message
 
Epiphany 3
Isaiah 9:1-4
Matthew 4:12-23
Come and Follow
 
Does the name H. W. Brands mean anything to you? Me either, until yesterday.
H. W. Brands is a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin. When I sat down with my first cup of tea yesterday morning, he was speaking before an audience at the Gerald Ford Library in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It was carried by C-Span.
 
His subject was Watergate…appropriate for the Ford Library, right? But, he led into the presentation with a story about call, which is the theme we’ve been exploring in the lectionary for a few weeks. Jesus is putting his team together. He is calling his disciples, the people who will become his closest companions, the ones with whom he would share his most important objectives. The ones who would witness his agony first hand.
 
In 1972, Brands was 19 and a freshman in college.  Today he teaches a freshman history class at 10am on Mondays and Wednesdays. Many times it is the very first college class, in the very first week of a most-important time of his students’ lives. He always asks what brought them to college and asks about their hopes and expectations.
 
Brands says, all these many years and a head full of gray hair later, his 21st century students have some of the same concerns he and his classmates had in 1972. He voted in his first Presidential election in 1972. Many of his students will do the same while in college. While that serves as a milestone in his own life, another factor was even more important.
 
Because… what was on the minds of every male student, and the minds of his parents in 1972?
 
The draft.  Selective Service.  Deferment would end while Brands was in college. Conscription was still in place via the lottery.
 
Brands says while walking across campus in warmer weather, you could often hear shouts of relief or cries of dismay coming from the open dormitory windows as young men opened that envelope from Selective Service.
 
We can imagine then, the conversations with parents and girlfriends, employers, and others that would flow from this welcome or un-welcome call to leave everything behind in order to answer the call to serve in the armed forces of this nation.
 
Bishop Kevin Strickland says it has always struck him that the disciples whom Jesus called left their homes and families and livelihoods and followed without question. At least, we don’t hear much about hesitation or attempts by those left behind to change their minds.
 
In none of the gospels does a family member or co-worker text the new recruit with a “Have you lost your mind?”  That’s what my brother texted to me when he heard we had acquired a puppy. He may have sent that message in texting shorthand though.
 
But, the gospels tell us that Jesus simply says, “Follow me.” Apparently he didn’t worry about qualifications or pedigrees, he simply called and dealt with the benefits and consequences.
 
Indeed, they were sometimes hard to teach, like our new puppy. Sometimes they tried to change his mind about his plans. They squabbled about who was the greatest. One of them betrayed him. And they all fell asleep when Jesus was in his deepest moments of agony at the end of his life.
 
Jesus didn’t make it easy for them. He settled in the land near the “Galilee of the Gentiles.” He chose to be with people who weren’t just like him, and to live among people who were ostracized and alienated. Maybe some of the disciples resisted being thrown into this messy situation. Maybe they needed sensitivity training. But there was no time for that. They would learn by doing.  OJT. On the job training. We can imagine they would suffer some failures along the way.
 
One of the most formative events in the life of Jesus were those forty days in the wilderness, in need of food and water, he wrestled with the devil. He emerged from the wilderness sure of who he was and what he was called to do…to proclaim that the good news of the Kingdom of God had arrived.
 
He came from the wilderness ready to teach in the synagogues. He came ready to lay hands on the sick, restore families, confront heresies, correct injustices, and establish God’s priorities for life in the beloved community.
 
The Greek word “to follow” literally means “to come behind.” When Jesus says, “Follow me,” he is saying, “Come behind me.” The command is to re-order one’s life so that in everything we look to Jesus for our example.
 
When we were kids and played Simon Says or Follow the Leader, or Red Light-Green Light, we tried to make one another to do something silly or daring so that players are eliminated when they fail to meet a challenge.
 
But, that isn’t the way Jesus plays the game. When he says, “Follow me,” he is not interested in eliminating people. His purpose is to add people, to sweep more people into this realm of God and make them heirs of the abundance of good news.
 
The first class I took in seminary was New Testament Studies. I was excited but not sure I was cut out for graduate school. I was thirty-something and had been out of the classroom for a long time. I had three kids at home. One each in preschool, elementary, and middle school, with lots of needs.  I wasn’t at all sure I was up to the tasks this course of study would take. It was expensive and we certainly weren’t wealthy.
 
When I took my seat that first day, I noticed that the room was filled with all ages of students. So, I relaxed a bit. And when the professor, who was also the seminary president, began the class, he didn’t pass out a syllabus, at least not right way. The first thing he did was to teach us a song. Actually, two songs.  The one I remember most goes like this:
You, you are my wholeness.*
You are my completeness.
My soul, my thirsty soul, can rest in the depths of your love.
 
In you I find forgiveness.
In you, I find release.
It’s a wonder you take all the blunders I make
and so graciously offer me peace.
 
In you I find true friendship.
Yes, your love is so free of demand.
Though I must hurt you so,
you keep letting me go
to discover the person I am.
 
Like a Father, you long to protect me.
yet I know I must learn on my own.
Well, I’ve made my own choice to follow your voice
guiding me back to my home.
 
You, you are my wholeness.
You are my completeness.
My soul, my thirsty soul, can rest in the depths of your love.
 
The professor spoke with a thick German accent. It was one of the things that endeared him to the seminary community. As the days unfolded, we learned more of his life story. It included themes of oppression and sadness, of fear and brokenness, of courage in the face of danger, of the cold hard truth that where you are born and to whom you are born are a matter of life and death in many places of the world. His citizenship was very important to him, his citizenship in the U.S. and citizenship in God’s realm.
 
He had chosen to follow Jesus. Jesus understood abundance and scarcity, hunger and thirst. Jesus knew about oppression and freedom. Jesus understood bigotry and discrimination and rejection. Jesus knew about health and wellness and being separated from family and loved ones, sometimes forever. Jesus knew that, though it may be hard to achieve, life on this earth  can be a reflection of the kingdom of heaven.
 
And that was his purpose. To open the hearts and minds of students and church folk to the greatest story ever told that they might claim it as he had, as their life’s purpose. For all the challenges he had faced, he set them aside to follow Jesus, in whom he found wholeness, freedom, and peace.
 
You, you are my wholeness.
You are my completeness.
My soul, my thirsty soul can rest in the depths of your love.
 
*Ray Salmond and Mike Mulder
 
 
*Affirmation of Faith   Apostles’ Creed  p. 35
*Hymn  581  Gloria Patri
 
Sharing Our Joys and Concerns
Pastoral Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer
 
Presenting Our Tithes and Offerings
Offertory
*Hymn  606  Doxology
*Prayer of Dedication
 
*Hymn 175   Seek Ye First
*Blessing
Go now, follow where Christ calls you
and proclaim the message God gives you.
Wait in hope for God.
Avoid becoming bound up in the business of the world,
but live in readiness for the Kingdom.
And may God be your haven and your glory;
may Christ Jesus give you courage for his mission;
and may the Spirit enfold you in love.  Amen.
 
*Postlude

​*Call to Worship                   Amos 5
We are called to seek good and not evil,
that we may live; and so that the Lord,
the God of hosts, will be with us.
We are called to hate evil and love good,
and establish justice.
Let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
We seek to be a people that embodies God’s justice.
By the power of God at work within us, may it be so.
 
*Hymn    307   God of Grace and God of Glory     
 
Prayer of the Day
Almighty God,
You sent Jesus to proclaim your kingdom
and to teach with authority.
Anoint us with your Spirit,
that we too may bring good news to the poor,
bind up the brokenhearted, and proclaim liberty to the captive;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.
 
Old Testament Reading              1 Samuel 3:1-10
 
Time With Our Young Disciples
 
Gospel Reading           John 1:43-51
The Morning Message
 
1968. It was both a good and bad year. My sister was born in 1968. We moved into a beautiful new home. The year saw violent demonstrations in many major cities in the US and across the globe. The focus of the US protests was the Vietnam War. It was also the year that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Sen. Robert Kennedy were both assassinated.
 
That was also the year I started junior high school. I went to Lincoln. Walked to and from every day. It wasn’t a problem. It was exciting. For years, I had watched the pretty junior high girls in my neighborhood walk to school in their Bass Weejuns and hose. I had finally arrived, wearing penny loafers and hose.
 
And when I walked those new shoes through the doors of that school, my worldview would change. I would be in a community that included African American students. I had a lot to learn. The first lesson was about fear. Words of truth and hope, learned in Sunday School, ran through my head and heart. “Perfect love casts out fear.”  And this…we may not love perfectly, but Jesus does and I could follow his example. So, my experience included both failure and success, but I count it all helpful.
 
A lot has changed since then, thank goodness, but we have not yet completely healed the divisions caused by racism, or really, any “otherness.” This week commemorates both the birthday of Rev. Martin Luther King and Holocaust Remembrance. It lifts up the ministry of MLK and activism of the American Civil Rights Movement and recalls the heinous attempt to annihilate the Jewish citizens, men, women, and children, of Europe. Six million Jews died during this most cruel regime.
 
And I know we don’t like to think or talk about these things, we certainly don’t want to identify with them, for to do that is to make ourselves vulnerable to pain. But, I believe what makes us human is our ability to do just that…to have empathy-to feel what others feel.
As I was reading the paper yesterday morning, I noticed two articles in particular. Both of them were describing social justice issues to be on the West Virginia Legislature’s agenda this session. They addressed the needs of vulnerable and voiceless people in West Virginia. People in desperate need of our empathy. One article focused on the foster care system and its inability to adequately serve the children and young people enrolled in it. The other issue was about the reality of human trafficking in our state and region. We really don’t hear much about this in our community, but, we were warned when vacationing in another city not long ago to be alert and cautious for our own safety, and to be aware of any signs that someone may be a victim of trafficking.
 
These issues do not immediately seem to be related to MLK or the Holocaust, until we consider that those who are mistreated or trafficked are most often those who are already vulnerable, powerless, and non-white. I plan to follow any actions related to these concerns as the legislature meets over the next few months.
 
Just a few years ago, our country was all churned up with discomfort and unrest. It seemed to come about following the death of George Floyd. Complicating things were the problems, frustrations, and grief of a world ravaged by Covid. The tone of so many conversations was , “Ain’t it awful that…” You can fill in the blanks. So many seemed angry and accusatory, full of suspicion and mistrust. I craved order and security, and peace. Maybe you did, too.
 
Two years ago, just when I nearly gave in to pessimism and cynicism, a young woman appeared. And standing out in her yellow coat before thousands of people at the inauguration of President Biden, Amanda Gorman  reminded me, and maybe some of you, that there is hope and there can be change for this country and maybe the world.
 
Change had indeed already come to her. She was living, shining proof.
Ms. Gorman is the first Youth Poet Laureate ever in the United States. She was born in Los Angeles and raised by a single mother, a sixth grade teacher. She was academically gifted and won a scholarship to Harvard University. She is both a poet and an activist, as is her twin sister, Gabrielle.
 
But it wasn’t always an easy path for her. Amanda has an auditory processing disorder and is hyper-sensitive to sound. She spent years in speech therapy. She says her disability is also her gift, because being intensely focused on auditory and vocal processes made her really good at reading and writing.
 
When she stood at the podium on Inauguration Day, we didn’t see all the struggles of her young life. But, we witnessed her poise, confidence, intelligence, skill, presence, artistry, and grace. We witnessed a young woman claiming her call. It’s a call that is still forming, but, we know she will be equipped to embrace it.
 
When young Samuel was called by God, he didn’t even recognize God’s voice. Eli had to steer him in the right direction. We still read Samuel’s story and acknowledge the role he played in salvation history.
 
When Jesus called the fishermen, he was calling them into a life of uncertainty and risk. But, they followed anyway, learned by Jesus’ side, and helped birth the early church. Their lives still influence us today.
 
Hear me clearly as I make the next statement. The citizens of our land have been blessed by good leaders and harmed by others. Many people looked to the advocacy and spiritual work of Martin Luther King to bring about change for the vulnerable, the poor, the minority citizens of the US. Some saw this not as progress, but saw it as unwelcome revolution. Reasonable minds can disagree.
 
Some time ago, the Office of General Assembly published a study guide for “Presbyterians in Times of Disagreement.” It recognizes that Presbyterians, and all Christians, are called upon to pay attention to changes in church and culture that tend to divide rather than unite reasonable people of faith. The document offers strategies for moving from impasse and hostility to a rational and mutually acceptable outcome even at times of strident debate and polarization.
 
Such things give me hope that one day we will be ready to make peace in our land.
 
So, with a new year’s hope, from a fresh mind and in a positive spirit, I offer you the words today of Amanda Gorman for the New Year:
 
May this be the day
We come together
Mourning , we come to mend,
Withered, we come to weather,
Torn, we come to tend,
Battered, we come to better,
Tethered by this year of yearning,
We are learning
That though we aren’t ready for this,
We have been readied by it.
We steadily vow that no matter
How we are weighed down,
We must always pave a way forward.
This hope is our door, our portal,
Even if we never get back to normal.
Some day we can venture beyond it,
To leave the known and take first steps.
So let us not return to normal,
But reach toward what is next.
What was cursed, we will cure,
What was plagued, we will prove pure,
Where we tend to argue, we will try to agree,
Those fortunes we forswore, now the future we forsee.
Where we weren’t aware, we’re now awke.
Those moments we missed,
Are now these moments we make,
The moments we meet,
And our hearts, all together beaten,
Now altogether beat.
Come look up with kindness yet.
For even solace can be sourced from sorrow.
We remember not just for the sake of yesterday,
But to take on tomorrow.
We heed this old spirit,
In a new days’ lyric,
In our hearts we hear it,
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
Be bold, sang Time this year,
Be bold, sang time.
For when you honor yesterday,
Tomorrow ye will find.
Know what we’ve fought,
Need not be forgot for none.
It defines us, binds us as one,
Come over, join this day just begun,.
For wherever we come together,
We will forever overcome.
 
May that be our hope and our intention in the year ahead.  Amen.
 
 
*Affirmation of Faith (from A Brief Statement of Faith)
We trust in Jesus Christ, fully human, fully God.
Jesus proclaimed the reign of God:
preaching good news to the poor and release to the captives,
teaching by word and deed and blessing children,
healing the sick and binding up the brokenhearted,
eating with outcasts, forgiving sinners,
and calling all to repent and believe the gospel.
Unjustly condemned for blasphemy and sedition,
Jesus was crucified,
suffering the depths of human pain
and giving his life for the sins of the world.
God raised this Jesus from the dead,
vindicating his sinless life,
breaking the power of sin and evil,
delivering us from death to life eternal.
With believers in every time and place,
we rejoice that nothing in life or death
can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
Alleluia. Amen.
 
*Hymn 581   Gloria Patri
 
Sharing Our Joys and Concerns
Pastoral Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer
Holy One, as we have called for your justice to roll down like waters, we are painfully aware that many in our nation and in the wider world have never or rarely known justice and righteousness. As we pause to recognize Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, we admit that the issues of racism are far from resolved.  Most of us will never know the hurts and offences and even violence our brothers and sisters have suffered their whole lives long. Our experiences have been very different. Save us from contributing to their pain and all the offenses born of discrimination and the de-valuing of others. Help us to walk some miles in their shoes that we might be your faithful children seeking understanding. We pray for that day when we are all truly at peace with the differences in color, race, culture, gender, orientation, and any human attribute that can be used as a weapon against another. Forgive us for our failures and fill us with strength and conviction to live after the manner of Jesus Christ, who came not to be served, but to serve,
 
We make our prayer and petitions in Jesus’ name, saying, Our Father…Amen.
 
Presenting Our Tithes and Offerings
Offertory
*Hymn  607     Doxology
*Prayer of Dedication
Gracious God, we are so aware of the abundance of gifts you have provided. We know, too, the great joy of sharing those gifts with others. As we offer our tithes and offerings this day, prompt us to commit more than dollars, but also those gifts you have written on our hearts- gifts meant to announce peace and understanding to the world. In the name of the Prince of Peace, Jesus, Amen.
 
*Hymn 644   Give Thanks, O Christian People
 
*Blessing
Go now. Listen for the voice of the Lord and follow wherever it leads.
Do not be dominated by anything.
Allow no room within yourself for deceit,
but offer yourself as a temple for the Holy Spirit.
And may God be with you and speak through you;
may Christ Jesus be one with you and raise you to new life;
and may the Holy Spirit dwell in you richly.   Amen.
 
*Postlude

​Prelude
 
*Call to Worship      Isaiah 60:1-3
Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
Nations shall come to your light
and rulers to the brightness of your rising.       
 
*Hymn  143   Angels From the Realms of Glory
 
Prayer
Eternal God,
A thousand years in your sight are like a watch in the night.
as you have led us in days past, so guide us now and always,
that our hearts may learn to choose your will, and new resolves be strengthened.
Forgive what we have done that denies our devotion to you.
and forgive us for failing to do kindness in your name.
Set us free to love and serve you in this new year,
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and forever. Amen.
 
*Hymn   Take, O Take Me As I Am
Assurance of Forgiveness                              Romans 8:34
Hear the good news!
Who is in a position to condemn? Only Christ and Christ died for us, Christ rose for us, Christ reigns in power for us, Christ prays for us.
The old life is gone and a new life has begun.
This is our peace.  Amen.
 
Old Testament Reading   Ecclesiastes  3:1-13
 
Time With Our Young Disciples
 
Gospel Reading      Matthew 2:13-23
 
The Morning Message
 
Her first Madame Alexander doll. A soft-bodied creation, the right size for almost one-year-old Freya to hold and cuddle. A Lego village with at least 800 pieces. A telescope, safely packed in a box the size of a small piano.
 
They all sit in our living room this morning because they didn’t make it to their Christmas destinations. The weather and illness and blended family arrangements have played havoc with our plans to visit children and grandchildren. We’re trying to let it go…we will see them soon. And we’ve learned over time to be content with what is. And we have many pleasures of the season to enjoy and are most thankful for the blessings which have come our way.
 
So, thank you for the beautiful Christmas Eve service. All of you willing to change your own plans long enough to come here and read scripture and sing and light candles. To attest to our faith in God’s only Son, Jesus, and claim his light as our own. 
 
All day long on the 23rd and 24th, I received texts and calls from church and neighbors and family reporting various problems being encountered due to the severe winter weather. On Christmas Eve I joked that some of you deserved extra credit for coming out on such a frightfully cold night, knowing you would be returning to a cold house or a cold house with frozen water pipes or a cold house with frozen water pipes and no electricity.
 
But, for those moments together, all was calm, all was bright.
 
In the moments following Jesus’ birth, all was calm, all was bright. The gospel writers have told us that Mary swaddled and fed her newborn son with tender care and Joseph guarded their safety. Stabled beasts and grazing sheep filled the place with  pungent warmth. Lowing cattle and cooing doves sang lullabies to the newborn babe, a straw-filled manger for his bed.
And all was calm. All was bright.
 
But, not for long. Just a few days after singing Silent Night, the glow of candlelight on our faces, we come to Matthew’s story of terror and furtive flight.
The world into which Jesus is born is full of brokenness. The stain of human sin is all over the world God created and called “good.”
 
Real life involves pain and suffering. Not one of us is spared. Evil is real and every generation faces a Herod or two.
 
Back in December of 2013, the world watched with horror the atrocities taking place in Syria. The war produced record numbers of refugees…people fleeing for their lives. According to Unicef, one Syrian baby was born in a refugee camp every hour. The weather was bitterly cold and an outbreak of polio further threatened everyone. The need for medical care, food, clothing, and shelter overwhelmed relief organizations.
 
More than one million Syrian children in that year were declared refugees. Children. Children whose grandparents might have given them presents in some other year. Children whose parents and grandparents may have taught them to sing carols or entrusted little hands to place the Christ child in the family nativity set.
When all was calm and all was bright.
 
Rachel wept for the children of Israel. Who is weeping now?
 
Pastor Sharon Blezard says in a sense, we are all refugees…aliens in a foreign land, a place that is not our ultimate home. Years ago, at the Beverly Hills Church, one of the beloved members instructed me that the song he wanted sung at his funeral was “This World is Not My Home.” I assured him that this world had benefitted by his presence and not to plan on leaving it anytime soon. He complied but we did eventually have to let him go to that other world, to the tune of his requested song.
 
The truth is, he had it right. We, who call ourselves Christian, are citizens of that other realm as surely as we are citizens of this one. We dwell in tension between discipleship and culture, faith and fantasy…the temporal and the eternal. Such is the story of faith.
 
Jesus escaped the death Herod sought for him. Thank you, God.  But, the powers of the Roman Empire and the powerful religious leaders of his day would seek to destroy Jesus for the duration of his brief life.
 
Sharon Blezard reminds us that most of us have some insulation against the harshness of life. We have family, or work, or a faith community to support us.
 
Jesus, as far as we know, never married. Although his mother, Mary, seems to have been present for the entirety of his life, we hear precious little of a relationship with Joseph, the man who raised him, taught him the faith and a trade.
 
We don’t think Jesus had any children and we know he owned no property and depended on the hospitality of others food room and board.  Jesus, we are told,  had no place to lay his head.
 
And yet, this infant king we celebrate, who grew in wisdom and stature, full of grace and truth, was God incarnate. The Savior of the world, Emmanuel, God-with-us, walking around in skin and bones. He modeled a way of life that lifted up the refugees and dispossessed, the needy, the un-loved and the un-lovely, all to usher in the reign of peace.
 
Jesus established the kingdom of heaven right here on the earth…laid out for us the possibility that all un-holy terrors of might and fright may be vanquished by selfless love and sacrifice.
 
So, on this first Sunday after Christmas, as we sit among the season’s beauty, we acknowledge the reality of sin, and the plight of today’s refugees at all the borders of safety and security. Cry for the children…and their mothers and fathers.  Lament harsh and cruel treatment of the vulnerable. Decry and protest it.
But don’t stop there.
 
Then bow your knee, your head, and your heart, and hold out your hand. God will fill you with purpose and power and praise for the Word made flesh, who came that we might live, not only for Christmas and its innumerable blessings, but for its Christ.
 
*Hymn   147   The First Nowell,  verses 1 and 2
*Affirmation of Faith             The Apostles’ Creed  p. 35
*Hymn   581   Gloria Patri
 
Sharing Our Joys and Concerns
Pastoral Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer
 
Presenting Our Tithes and Offerings
*Hymn    607    Doxology
Offertory
*Prayer of Dedication
 
*Hymn      The First Nowell, verses 5 and 6
 
*Blessing
Go now, and bear witness to the light so others might believe.
Since you are chosen in Christ,
live before him in love, holy and blameless.
Live with hope in Christ, for the praise of his glory.
And may God fill the earth with peace;
may Christ give you grace upon grace from his fullness;
and may the Holy Spirit, the pledge of your inheritance,
lead you on straight paths where you will not stumble.  Amen.   Laughingbird.net
 
*Postlude