Obedient to Dreams
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For January 1, 2023:
Obedient to Dreams
by Tom Willadsen
Matthew 2:13-23, Isaiah 63:7-9, Hebrews 2:10-18, Psalm 148
Dream. Dream, dream, dream.
Dream. Dream, dream, dream.
Yes, start the New Year with the Everly Brothers! They know exactly how to get Joseph’s attention, so baby Jesus can be carried to safety, grow up in Nazareth, and save the people from our sin!
In the Scriptures
We’re still in the Season of Christmas, even though cards and decorations have been on a steep discount this week. Keep singing Christmas carols! Today’s Psalm tells us that everything on earth, indeed, everything in creation praises God, so I suggest “Joy to the World.” Let Heaven and Nature sing!
The Isaiah lesson is profoundly incarnational.
It was no messenger or angel
but his presence that saved them;
in his love and in his pity he
redeemed them;
he lifted them up and carried
them all the days of old.
It is not a stretch to see Joseph’s decisive action in getting up and going to Egypt, Judea — wait, no, not Judea because Archelaus — then, Galilee, to keep the baby and his mother safe. In doing so, Joseph also fulfilled a couple prophecies, as Matthew unsubtly points out. If you want to lift up an often overlooked part of the Christmas story, point the spotlight on Joseph today. He’s obedient and decisive.
Dreams play a huge part in today’s gospel lesson. Matthew is the only gospel to use dreams to further the action. In chapter 1 an angel in a dream urges Joseph to marry Mary and name the baby Jesus. In chapter 2 the magi are warned in a dream not to return to Herod. Then Joseph is warned by an angel to take Jesus and Mary to Egypt. Later, after Herod’s death in 4 BCE, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream back to Israel. Bad idea, Joe, Herod’s son, Archelaus is on the throne and he’s every bit as ruthless as his father. Instead, Joseph heads to Galilee, where most of the rest of the action in Matthew takes place. Archelaus only ruled until about 6 CE; by then Jesus had already started school and could be considered a Nazarean.
The strong incarnational theme is continued in the Hebrews reading. God made Christ to be a sibling for all people, not angels. While this text points to the universality of God’s salvation for all in Christ, history has broadened this message beyond its original intended audience. Since Christians and Muslims — two groups who did not exist when Hebrews was originally written — are considered children of Abraham, God’s salvific work in Christ is even broader than whoever wrote Hebrews imagined.
In the News
It’s January 1, so you’re not likely to have a big turnout for worship. Actually, a lot of my colleagues have pre-recorded worship so there won’t be anything going on in person this morning. The huge leap forward in broadcasting worship that Covid-19 spawned has made it easier for everyone to worship from home. In their jammies. Muting the pastor when she gets “political.” Given the weather that gripped most of the United States last weekend, staying in looks pretty good. But let’s be honest, even pre-Covid-19 attendance would be sparse on New Year’s Day. You may want to take a cue from January’s name-sake, the Roman god, Janus, god of doorways, transitions, beginnings, ending, and more, Janus has two faces, one looking ahead and one looking back.
Looking back, what were the top news stories of 2022? Certainly Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is at the top of the list.
Also the work of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol was newsworthy. Perhaps by the time you’re reading this some of its findings will have been distilled by the press.
The midterm elections are fresh in my mind, but was it really news that the Democrats didn’t get as clobbered as they were expected to be?
What will Congress look like in 2023 with the houses being held by different parties?
Elon Musk bought Twitter, finally, then things got crazier.
Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Academy Awards.
Argentina won the World Cup.
Inflation went crazy; the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, repeatedly, because inflation went crazy.
The Houston Astros won the World Series; this time they didn’t cheat.
The warming climate became increasingly difficult to ignore. The Village of Lytton in British Columbia set an all-time national heat record when the mercury hit 49.6° Celsius (128° Fahrenheit) in June.
What were the newsworthy, milestone events in your congregation in 2022? How have you rebounded from Covid-19?
The community I moved away from in September was experiencing a severe drought. The community I moved to is also experiencing a severe drought. That passage from Isaiah 35 that you preached three weeks ago surely sounds good in those communities.
In the Sermon
During a busy holiday season (don’t forget that “holiday” originally meant “Holy Day!”) look back over the past year, look ahead to what lies ahead. Lift up the steady, passionate desire our Creator has for all of creation. There is a profoundly comforting mood to Isaiah’s reading. Tender love and pity, and strong, fatherly arms lifting and carrying precious children. Us.
Those strong arms are incarnate in Joseph’s decisive actions. Carrying Jesus out of Herod’s realm to Egypt, carrying him from Egypt to Galilee. Joseph’s obedience to repeated nocturnal visitations from the Lord’s messengers is a model for all of us to emulate.
The world around us may be getting crazier and seemingly more difficult to understand. There’s nothing difficult to understand about a newborn’s father protecting his child and wife. That newborn’s father is a reflection the love that our Creator, the Father of us all has for each and every one of his children. Amen.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Why Just One?
by Dean Feldmeyer
Matthew 2:13-29
The Slaughter of Innocents
Scholars and historians estimate that the number of infant males killed by Herod’s soldiers in Bethlehem would have been between 18 and 21. It might have been 19-22 but one family was warned by an angel to get up and get out and the life of their infant son was spared.
Why just one? Since the first time I heard this story as a child that question has haunted me. Why just one?
If God had the ability to protect and save one child, didn’t God have the ability to save the others as well? Why didn’t God do something? Why didn’t the omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God we worship rise up and stay the sword hands of the soldiers and save those other children as well?
Why just one?
In the Scriptures: Just One Saved
The story is so familiar we need not belabor it, here, though a thorough retelling or reimagining of it may be useful, given the subject at hand. But for our purposes, just the highlights, please.
The magi stop in Jerusalem to enquire of Herod where the child who is to become king of the Jews has been born, or failing that, where do the Hebrew scriptures predict he will be born? What’s the popular wisdom on this subject?
Herod calls together his own magi (wise men, magicians, counselors) and they bring him an obscure passage from Isaiah that looks like it may be pointing toward Bethlehem. He determines from the magi when, exactly, the star appeared in the sky and he sends them in that direction with instructions to return to him when they’ve found the king-to-be so he can go and worship the child, himself.
The magi follow the star and, when it stops, they find Jesus and worship him, present him with gifts that are more symbolic than they are practical (gold excepted) and then, not trusting Herod, they go home via a different route than the one they came by.
(Three quick observations: 1) The magi are gentiles, not Jews. 2) We are never told how many wise men there are, only how many gifts are given, and 3) It does not say that the wise men went to Bethlehem. It simply says that they followed the star to where it stopped and found Jesus, there. It could very well have been, as some scholars believe, at Nazareth.)
Once Herod discovers that the magi have tricked him, he sends his soldiers to Bethlehem with orders to kill every male child under the age of 2, giving rise to the speculation among biblical scholars that it has been something like 2 years since Jesus was born.
Before the soldiers arrive, however, an angel appears to Joseph in a dream and warns him to take the child and Mary and flee to Egypt where they will be relatively safe and from where the angel will call them back when the danger has passed. Meanwhile, something like 20 infants and toddlers are killed by soldiers “just following orders.”
One child survives, thanks to divine intervention. But, just one.
In the News: Standing by and Watching
If you’re even a little bit like me, your heart breaks for the 20 innocent children who were killed. Oh, we’re glad for Jesus that he made it out alive, but 20 kids. Why didn’t God save them? What kind of loving god could save just one and then stand by and watch as 20 children are massacred? If God could save one, why not all?
If we were God, we would never allow such a thing. We’d do something! Except you don’t have to be God to do something. You don’t have to be YHWH to step out on behalf of the innocent children.
Do you? Do you? Because children are dying every day while we do nothing, or as little as we can get away with.
War
In Ukraine, as of November 21, 8,300 Civilians have been killed, 437 of whom were children. 11,000 civilians have been injured, 837 of whom were children.
Nuclear War
It is not possible to know for sure but it is estimated that 110,000 total civilians (Japanese, Korean forced laborers, American POWs) were killed by the bombs that fell upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki but estimates put the child fatalities at about 20% of the total, about 20,000.
Guns
CDC data shows 4,368 kids died from gunshot wounds in the US in 2020. Of those, 2,811 were considered homicides, 1,293 were suicides. An additional 149 were listed as “unintentional” deaths, and 25 were classified as “legal interventions.”
More children than on-duty police officers are killed by guns at school every year. It’s now more dangerous to be a child at school than to be a police officer patrolling the streets.
Gun violence is, as of 2020, the leading cause of death among children and teenagers.
2022 was the 10th commemoration of Sandy Hook. “Never again” was the mantra after Sandy Hook, yet the situation has been repeated 54 times since, with more than 100 persons killed. As NBC notes, “despite the devastation, the prayerful vigils and the pleas for change, not a long time passes until another shooting occurs. In 2022 there were seven school shootings that met NBC News’ school shooting criteria, the most since 2018.”
Covid
Between 900-1,000 children have died from Covid 19 since the outbreak in 2020.
Hunger
Approximately 3.1 million children worldwide die from undernutrition each year according to UNICEF. Hunger and undernutrition contribute to more than half of global child deaths, as undernutrition can make children more vulnerable to illness and exacerbate disease.
Holocaust
Nazi Germany and its collaborators killed about 1.5 million Jewish children and tens of thousands of Romani (Gypsy) children, 5,000-7,000 German children with physical and mental disabilities living in institutions, as well as many Polish children and children residing in the German-occupied Soviet Union.
Drugs
According to the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics 4,777 American teens were killed by drug overdoses in 2019. The number has increased every year since.
Virtually every one of the above deaths could have been prevented had we stepped up and taken a stand on the behalf of the children.
God, history has taught us, does not do for us what we are capable of doing for ourselves. If we choose to sacrifice our children on the altars of idols like nationalism, or the 2nd Amendment, or some anti-vax superstition, then God will allow us to do so and will not intervene.
If more than one child is going to be saved, it’s on us to save them.
In the Sermon
It’s hard to preach this text without looking like you are intentionally trying to bring everyone crashing down to earth after the exuberant high of Christmas. The story of the massacre of the innocents is, to be sure, a severe downer.
On the other hand, when we are all thinking of New Year’s resolutions, what better one than the resolve to be a better advocate for children, especially children who need a spokesperson, a protector, someone to stand up for them.
One need not use all of the examples above. A few will probably be sufficient but enough should be used to keep the sermon from being a “gun sermon” or an “anti-war sermon.” The point here is that we are accusing God of a cavalier attitude about the welfare of children, an attitude that we demonstrate daily without realizing it. And such an attitude is not acceptable for people who follow the Lord of love who said, “Let the little children come unto me, for to such as these belongs the kingdom of God.”
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:
Matthew 2:13-23
Rachel Weeping
Herod’s massacre of the children in Bethlehem happens on a monthly basis in the United States, which reached a new level of weeping for Rachel and her kin in 2022. Gun violence became the leading causes of death for children up to age 19 in 2022, surpassing motor vehicles. “According to a separate study, motor vehicle crashes were the leading cause of child deaths for more than 60 years. But over time, cars have become safer and driver education has improved. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and others have pushed for better child safety in cars.” No similar scientific advances have been made in gun deaths.
Mass shootings attract our attention, and they have drastically increased over the past 30 years. Still, the majority of kids are killed by guns in smaller, day-to-day incidents. Black children are the most likely to be killed, with Black boys in the most danger.
Rachel and her sisters in the US have plenty to weep about, as we all do.
* * *
Isaiah 63:7-9
Looking Back, Looking Forward
As the prophet recounts God’s mercies, he looks to the past with thanksgiving. There’s also a feeling of looking to the future with confidence because of God’s gracious care, and “all that the Lord has done for us.” As 2023 begins, we also look back at God’s mercy, and anticipate the future with hope. To live in that grateful, non-stressed place all year, Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, suggests that we live with attention to time. Not jamming more in, but the kind of thanksgiving that Isaiah talks about.
Burkeman suggests that we use our to-do lists differently and “keep two to-do lists — one for everything on your plate, one for the 10 or fewer things that you’re currently working on. Fill up the 10 slots on the second list with items from the first, then set to work. The rule is not to move any further items from the first list onto the second until you’ve freed up a slot by finishing one of the 10 items.”
Also, “Serialize. Focus only on one big project at a time… Multitasking rarely works well — and you’ll soon find that serializing helps you to complete more projects anyway, thereby helping relieve your anxiety.” Also, we can “decide in advance what to fail at.” Some things will never get done, and we can choose “in advance areas of your life in which you won’t expect excellence — helps you focus your time and energy more effectively. For example, you might decide in advance that it’s okay to have a cluttered kitchen while you finish your novel, or to do the bare minimum on a particular work project, so you can spend more time with your children.”
Another piece of advice that Isaiah would approve of is, “Seek out novelty in the mundane. Time seems to speed up as we age, likely because our brains encode the passage of years based on how much information we process in any given interval. While children have many novel experiences and time therefore seems slower to them, the routinization of older people’s lives means that time seems to pass at an ever-increasing rate. The standard advice is to combat this by cramming more novel experiences into your life. That can help, but it’s not always practical. An alternative is to pay more attention to every moment, however mundane — to find novelty by plunging more deeply into your present life. Try going on unplanned walks to see where they lead you, taking up drawing or birdwatching, or playing “I Spy” with a child — whatever draws your attention into the moment more fully.”
We can follow Isaiah’s wisdom, and pay attention to God’s time in our lives.
* * *
Isaiah 63:7-9
Thankful for the Unexpected
“I will recount the gracious deeds of the Lord,” the psalmist says, calling us to thanksgiving as the New Year begins. We’re accustomed to thanking God for the good things in our lives. Belinda Munoz says that we can give thanks for the negative things, too. We can find “the praiseworthy acts of the Lord” as we experience challenges, too.
On her unusual gratitude list are things like “our shortcomings, so that we may learn to look to others who can offer to integrate an extension to our limitations. Confusion, so that enlightenment may grace us if only fleetingly. Insecurities, so that we may move past pretending and arrive at the truth that we share many and instead of hiding them, perhaps we may one day celebrate them. Doubts, so that we may either learn to live with them or conquer them by believing when proof evades us. Fears, so that we may acknowledge the falseness and irrationality in them in order to recognize what tremendously good things lie beyond them.”
She also gives thank for “the flaws in all of us, so that we may revel in our blemished wholeness. Problems that sometimes make being alive difficult, so that we may remember that there’s always a solution around the corner to make living worth every second. The sadness that may land upon us occasionally, so that we may value the highs of life by fully feeling the lows.”
Isaiah invites us to add these thing in, as we consider all that the Lord has done for us.
* * * * * *
From team member Katy Stenta:
Matthew 2:13-23
Be Afraid Herods
Treason riots, insurrection, the threat to democracy. Whatever you call what happened on January 6th, it was not good for the United States in general. I remember driving around, running errands all day thinking, “But its Epiphany.” This is in contrast to everything that Jesus Christ stood for, and here is a group of people attacking the capital in the name of Jesus and White Supremacy; two things that are polar opposites of each other. Because violence is Herod’s way, peace is the way of Jesus Christ’s. Here is a prayer about that.
* * *
Hebrews 2:10-18
In the Waiting Room
One of my favorite Christmas sermons was about this couple who was waiting to adopt a child in Africa. The birth mother, in this case, was fully aware of the adoption. The teen mother, who named her son Tariku, did the paperwork and waited with the other families. However, there was an error and the paperwork said they could only adopt a child up to four months old. Tariku was older than four months. They reached out to social workers, but it looked like all was doomed. Meanwhile all the other adoptive parents received their paperwork, and their children, and it all worked out fine for them. But instead of going home, these adoptive parents waited with them for hours. They all waited together for Tariku’s paperwork to be sorted out — and when it finally was they all flew home together. They are now an extended family who continues to gather. In this way, we are all in the waiting room together, waiting for Christ, and becoming family to one another, while we do the hard work of waiting together.
* * *
Psalm 148
Worlds of Praises
I think sometimes we do not have to praise God; we can instead remember that all the earth is doing it for us. We can look at purring kittens or tail-wagging dogs. We can listen to tweeting birds in the morning. Or even walk out into the silence of new fallen snow. The idea of going for a walk, or sitting outside, or snuggling a creature to praise God is very comforting, especially in the seasons of Christmas and Epiphany.
* * * * * *
WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Praise God! Praise God from the heavens; praise him in the heights!
All: Praise God, sun and moon and all you shining stars!
One: Praise God, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!
All: Let us praise the name of God, who commanded and all were created.
One: Praise God young men and women alike, old and young together!
All: Let us praise the name of God whose alone is exalted. Praise God!
OR
One: God comes to dwell among us as one of us!
All: We rejoice in our God who lives with us.
One: The likeness and Spirit of God dwells in all creatures.
All: We will honor God in each one we encounter.
One: We cannot love God if we don’t love those whom God loves.
All: We will care for all God’s children on this earth.
Hymns and Songs
We Three Kings
UMH: 254
H82: 128
PH: 66
AAHH: 218
NNBH: 97
CH: 172
W&P: 233
STLT 259
Go, Tell It on the Mountain
UMH: 251
H82: 99
PH: 29
AAHH: 202
NNBH: 92
NCH: 154
CH: 167
LBW: 70
ELW: 290
W&P: 218
AMEC: 122
STLT 239
What Child Is This
UMH: 219
H82: 115
PH: 53
AAHH: 220
NNBH: 86
NCH: 148
CH: 162
LBW: 40
ELW: 296
W&P: 184
That Boy-Child of Mary
UMH: 241
PH: 55
ELW: 293
W&P: 211
O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright
UMH: 247
PH: 69
NCH: 158
CH: 105
LBW: 76
ELW: 308
W&P: 230
O Little Town of Bethlehem
UMH: 230
H82: 78/79
PH: 43/44
AAHH: 204
NNBH: 90
NCH: 133
CH: 144
LBW: 41
ELW: 279
W&P: 180
AMEC: 109
STLT 246/247
Love Came Down at Christmas
UMH: 242
H82: 84
NCH: 165
W&P: 210
Let There Be Peace on Earth
UMH: 431
NNBH: 450
NCH: 589
STLT 142
Cuando El Pobre (When the Poor Ones)
UMH: 434
PH: 407
CH: 662
ELW: 725
W&P: 624
Our Parent, by Whose Name
UMH: 447
LBW: 357
ELW: 640
Behold, What Manner of Love
CCB: 44
Open our Eyes, Lord
CCB: 77
Renew: 91
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who deigns to come among us as one of us:
Grant us the wisdom to see your present in each of your children
and help us to guard each one in love and hope;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you come to us as one of us. You do not held yourself apart from us be dwell within and among us. Help us to see you present in each and every child of yours so that we may treat them all with care and dignity. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our failure to see your present in each of your children.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We glibly say that humans were made in your image and likeness and yet we do not honor that likeness as children perish through our indifference. We proclaim that your life-breath is what makes us human while paying scant attention when that breath is taken from the littlest and most vulnerable among us. We do not even have the decency to be ashamed. Help us to open our eyes and hearts to you and your incarnate presence among us. Help us to love others as Christ does. Turn our stony hearts to hearts of warm compassion and love. Amen.
One: God came among us as the Christ to redeem us and to set our feet on the path of holiness and life. Receive God’s good gift and allow that gift to turn your heart to God who dwells in those around us.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory are yours, O God who takes on our flesh. You are the God of the incarnation.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We glibly say that humans were made in your image and likeness and yet we do not honor that likeness as children perish through our indifference. We proclaim that your life-breath is what makes us human while paying scant attention when that breath is taken from the littlest and most vulnerable among us. We do not even have the decency to be ashamed. Help us to open our eyes and hearts to you and your incarnate presence among us. Help us to love others as Christ does. Turn our stony hearts to hearts of warm compassion and love.
We thank you for your presence among us in all of creation. We thank you for your presence in the people we encounter each day. We thank you for your presence in Jesus who showed us how to discern and honor you in others. We thank you for the light which shined to dispel our darkness and reveal your truth among us.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need. We pray for the little ones whom we so callously ignore as they are taken by death at such a young and tender age. We pray for those caught in places of violence; those who are starving, poorly clothed, and unhoused. We pray for those whom poverty limits their opportunities. We pray for courage for ourselves that we may stand with Mary and offer love and care for all your children.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN'S SERMON
New Year’s Gifts of Love
by Chris Keating
Matthew 2:13-23, Isaiah 63:7-9
There are a couple of options for conversations with children based on this week’s texts in ways that will connect with their experiences of Christmas and New Year’s holidays. The Isaiah text offers an opportunity to connect “New Year’s Resolutions” with the idea of recalling God’s covenant of faithfulness. Isaiah engages in an act of holy remembering, just as we might look back on where we have noticed glimpses of God in the past year. Based on those memories, we can build lists of resolutions (covenants) for how we will journey with God in the new year.
As an alternative, you might explore Matthew’s gruesome story in ways that would make sense to children. On the face of it, Matthew’s account of Herod’s murderous rage hardly seems fitting for a children’s sermon — at any time of the year. But the broader arc of the holy family’s Egyptian exile holds an opportunity for a conversation about the needs of children and family across the world.
Matthew’s portrait of Jesus’ family in transition is a reminder of the fragility endured by refugees, immigrants, and the working poor. (Check out the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kid’s Count Data Center for reliable data on children and families in the United States.) On this first Sunday of the year, perhaps the story of a family’s plight to survive might nurture awareness of struggles faced by so many contemporary families.
Perhaps a backpack filled with a few things a family might grab quickly — socks, a couple of t-shirts, wipes, soap, and personal care products — might help illustrate the sort of struggles many families in transition experience every night. You might consider connecting this to Epiphany and the arrival of the magi by having a mini-mission project to collect items for homeless children, or foster children in your community. Most communities have a foster care coalition that can help connect you with agencies near you that would benefit from a partnership with your congregation.
Consider using Howard Thurman’s classic poem “When the Song of Angels is Stilled” as a closing prayer:
When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, January 1, 2023 issue.
Copyright 2023 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
- Obedient to Dreams by Tom Willadsen. Joseph’s obedience to repeated nocturnal visitations from the Lord’s messengers is a model for all of us to emulate.
- Second Thoughts: Why Just One? by Dean Feldmeyer. If we choose to sacrifice our children on the altars of idols like nationalism, or the 2nd Amendment, or some anti-vax superstition, then God will allow us to do so and will not intervene.
- Sermon illustrations by Mary Austin.
- Worship resources by George Reed.
- Children’s Sermon: New Year’s Gifts of Love by Chris Keating. Based on Matthew 2:13-23 and Isaiah 63:7-9.
Obedient to Dreamsby Tom Willadsen
Matthew 2:13-23, Isaiah 63:7-9, Hebrews 2:10-18, Psalm 148
Dream. Dream, dream, dream.
Dream. Dream, dream, dream.
Yes, start the New Year with the Everly Brothers! They know exactly how to get Joseph’s attention, so baby Jesus can be carried to safety, grow up in Nazareth, and save the people from our sin!
In the Scriptures
We’re still in the Season of Christmas, even though cards and decorations have been on a steep discount this week. Keep singing Christmas carols! Today’s Psalm tells us that everything on earth, indeed, everything in creation praises God, so I suggest “Joy to the World.” Let Heaven and Nature sing!
The Isaiah lesson is profoundly incarnational.
It was no messenger or angel
but his presence that saved them;
in his love and in his pity he
redeemed them;
he lifted them up and carried
them all the days of old.
It is not a stretch to see Joseph’s decisive action in getting up and going to Egypt, Judea — wait, no, not Judea because Archelaus — then, Galilee, to keep the baby and his mother safe. In doing so, Joseph also fulfilled a couple prophecies, as Matthew unsubtly points out. If you want to lift up an often overlooked part of the Christmas story, point the spotlight on Joseph today. He’s obedient and decisive.
Dreams play a huge part in today’s gospel lesson. Matthew is the only gospel to use dreams to further the action. In chapter 1 an angel in a dream urges Joseph to marry Mary and name the baby Jesus. In chapter 2 the magi are warned in a dream not to return to Herod. Then Joseph is warned by an angel to take Jesus and Mary to Egypt. Later, after Herod’s death in 4 BCE, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream back to Israel. Bad idea, Joe, Herod’s son, Archelaus is on the throne and he’s every bit as ruthless as his father. Instead, Joseph heads to Galilee, where most of the rest of the action in Matthew takes place. Archelaus only ruled until about 6 CE; by then Jesus had already started school and could be considered a Nazarean.
The strong incarnational theme is continued in the Hebrews reading. God made Christ to be a sibling for all people, not angels. While this text points to the universality of God’s salvation for all in Christ, history has broadened this message beyond its original intended audience. Since Christians and Muslims — two groups who did not exist when Hebrews was originally written — are considered children of Abraham, God’s salvific work in Christ is even broader than whoever wrote Hebrews imagined.
In the News
It’s January 1, so you’re not likely to have a big turnout for worship. Actually, a lot of my colleagues have pre-recorded worship so there won’t be anything going on in person this morning. The huge leap forward in broadcasting worship that Covid-19 spawned has made it easier for everyone to worship from home. In their jammies. Muting the pastor when she gets “political.” Given the weather that gripped most of the United States last weekend, staying in looks pretty good. But let’s be honest, even pre-Covid-19 attendance would be sparse on New Year’s Day. You may want to take a cue from January’s name-sake, the Roman god, Janus, god of doorways, transitions, beginnings, ending, and more, Janus has two faces, one looking ahead and one looking back.
Looking back, what were the top news stories of 2022? Certainly Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is at the top of the list.
Also the work of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol was newsworthy. Perhaps by the time you’re reading this some of its findings will have been distilled by the press.
The midterm elections are fresh in my mind, but was it really news that the Democrats didn’t get as clobbered as they were expected to be?
What will Congress look like in 2023 with the houses being held by different parties?
Elon Musk bought Twitter, finally, then things got crazier.
Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Academy Awards.
Argentina won the World Cup.
Inflation went crazy; the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, repeatedly, because inflation went crazy.
The Houston Astros won the World Series; this time they didn’t cheat.
The warming climate became increasingly difficult to ignore. The Village of Lytton in British Columbia set an all-time national heat record when the mercury hit 49.6° Celsius (128° Fahrenheit) in June.
What were the newsworthy, milestone events in your congregation in 2022? How have you rebounded from Covid-19?
The community I moved away from in September was experiencing a severe drought. The community I moved to is also experiencing a severe drought. That passage from Isaiah 35 that you preached three weeks ago surely sounds good in those communities.
In the Sermon
During a busy holiday season (don’t forget that “holiday” originally meant “Holy Day!”) look back over the past year, look ahead to what lies ahead. Lift up the steady, passionate desire our Creator has for all of creation. There is a profoundly comforting mood to Isaiah’s reading. Tender love and pity, and strong, fatherly arms lifting and carrying precious children. Us.
Those strong arms are incarnate in Joseph’s decisive actions. Carrying Jesus out of Herod’s realm to Egypt, carrying him from Egypt to Galilee. Joseph’s obedience to repeated nocturnal visitations from the Lord’s messengers is a model for all of us to emulate.
The world around us may be getting crazier and seemingly more difficult to understand. There’s nothing difficult to understand about a newborn’s father protecting his child and wife. That newborn’s father is a reflection the love that our Creator, the Father of us all has for each and every one of his children. Amen.
SECOND THOUGHTSWhy Just One?
by Dean Feldmeyer
Matthew 2:13-29
The Slaughter of Innocents
Scholars and historians estimate that the number of infant males killed by Herod’s soldiers in Bethlehem would have been between 18 and 21. It might have been 19-22 but one family was warned by an angel to get up and get out and the life of their infant son was spared.
Why just one? Since the first time I heard this story as a child that question has haunted me. Why just one?
If God had the ability to protect and save one child, didn’t God have the ability to save the others as well? Why didn’t God do something? Why didn’t the omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God we worship rise up and stay the sword hands of the soldiers and save those other children as well?
Why just one?
In the Scriptures: Just One Saved
The story is so familiar we need not belabor it, here, though a thorough retelling or reimagining of it may be useful, given the subject at hand. But for our purposes, just the highlights, please.
The magi stop in Jerusalem to enquire of Herod where the child who is to become king of the Jews has been born, or failing that, where do the Hebrew scriptures predict he will be born? What’s the popular wisdom on this subject?
Herod calls together his own magi (wise men, magicians, counselors) and they bring him an obscure passage from Isaiah that looks like it may be pointing toward Bethlehem. He determines from the magi when, exactly, the star appeared in the sky and he sends them in that direction with instructions to return to him when they’ve found the king-to-be so he can go and worship the child, himself.
The magi follow the star and, when it stops, they find Jesus and worship him, present him with gifts that are more symbolic than they are practical (gold excepted) and then, not trusting Herod, they go home via a different route than the one they came by.
(Three quick observations: 1) The magi are gentiles, not Jews. 2) We are never told how many wise men there are, only how many gifts are given, and 3) It does not say that the wise men went to Bethlehem. It simply says that they followed the star to where it stopped and found Jesus, there. It could very well have been, as some scholars believe, at Nazareth.)
Once Herod discovers that the magi have tricked him, he sends his soldiers to Bethlehem with orders to kill every male child under the age of 2, giving rise to the speculation among biblical scholars that it has been something like 2 years since Jesus was born.
Before the soldiers arrive, however, an angel appears to Joseph in a dream and warns him to take the child and Mary and flee to Egypt where they will be relatively safe and from where the angel will call them back when the danger has passed. Meanwhile, something like 20 infants and toddlers are killed by soldiers “just following orders.”
One child survives, thanks to divine intervention. But, just one.
In the News: Standing by and Watching
If you’re even a little bit like me, your heart breaks for the 20 innocent children who were killed. Oh, we’re glad for Jesus that he made it out alive, but 20 kids. Why didn’t God save them? What kind of loving god could save just one and then stand by and watch as 20 children are massacred? If God could save one, why not all?
If we were God, we would never allow such a thing. We’d do something! Except you don’t have to be God to do something. You don’t have to be YHWH to step out on behalf of the innocent children.
Do you? Do you? Because children are dying every day while we do nothing, or as little as we can get away with.
War
In Ukraine, as of November 21, 8,300 Civilians have been killed, 437 of whom were children. 11,000 civilians have been injured, 837 of whom were children.
Nuclear War
It is not possible to know for sure but it is estimated that 110,000 total civilians (Japanese, Korean forced laborers, American POWs) were killed by the bombs that fell upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki but estimates put the child fatalities at about 20% of the total, about 20,000.
Guns
CDC data shows 4,368 kids died from gunshot wounds in the US in 2020. Of those, 2,811 were considered homicides, 1,293 were suicides. An additional 149 were listed as “unintentional” deaths, and 25 were classified as “legal interventions.”
More children than on-duty police officers are killed by guns at school every year. It’s now more dangerous to be a child at school than to be a police officer patrolling the streets.
Gun violence is, as of 2020, the leading cause of death among children and teenagers.
2022 was the 10th commemoration of Sandy Hook. “Never again” was the mantra after Sandy Hook, yet the situation has been repeated 54 times since, with more than 100 persons killed. As NBC notes, “despite the devastation, the prayerful vigils and the pleas for change, not a long time passes until another shooting occurs. In 2022 there were seven school shootings that met NBC News’ school shooting criteria, the most since 2018.”
Covid
Between 900-1,000 children have died from Covid 19 since the outbreak in 2020.
Hunger
Approximately 3.1 million children worldwide die from undernutrition each year according to UNICEF. Hunger and undernutrition contribute to more than half of global child deaths, as undernutrition can make children more vulnerable to illness and exacerbate disease.
Holocaust
Nazi Germany and its collaborators killed about 1.5 million Jewish children and tens of thousands of Romani (Gypsy) children, 5,000-7,000 German children with physical and mental disabilities living in institutions, as well as many Polish children and children residing in the German-occupied Soviet Union.
Drugs
According to the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics 4,777 American teens were killed by drug overdoses in 2019. The number has increased every year since.
Virtually every one of the above deaths could have been prevented had we stepped up and taken a stand on the behalf of the children.
God, history has taught us, does not do for us what we are capable of doing for ourselves. If we choose to sacrifice our children on the altars of idols like nationalism, or the 2nd Amendment, or some anti-vax superstition, then God will allow us to do so and will not intervene.
If more than one child is going to be saved, it’s on us to save them.
In the Sermon
It’s hard to preach this text without looking like you are intentionally trying to bring everyone crashing down to earth after the exuberant high of Christmas. The story of the massacre of the innocents is, to be sure, a severe downer.
On the other hand, when we are all thinking of New Year’s resolutions, what better one than the resolve to be a better advocate for children, especially children who need a spokesperson, a protector, someone to stand up for them.
One need not use all of the examples above. A few will probably be sufficient but enough should be used to keep the sermon from being a “gun sermon” or an “anti-war sermon.” The point here is that we are accusing God of a cavalier attitude about the welfare of children, an attitude that we demonstrate daily without realizing it. And such an attitude is not acceptable for people who follow the Lord of love who said, “Let the little children come unto me, for to such as these belongs the kingdom of God.”
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:Matthew 2:13-23
Rachel Weeping
Herod’s massacre of the children in Bethlehem happens on a monthly basis in the United States, which reached a new level of weeping for Rachel and her kin in 2022. Gun violence became the leading causes of death for children up to age 19 in 2022, surpassing motor vehicles. “According to a separate study, motor vehicle crashes were the leading cause of child deaths for more than 60 years. But over time, cars have become safer and driver education has improved. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and others have pushed for better child safety in cars.” No similar scientific advances have been made in gun deaths.
Mass shootings attract our attention, and they have drastically increased over the past 30 years. Still, the majority of kids are killed by guns in smaller, day-to-day incidents. Black children are the most likely to be killed, with Black boys in the most danger.
Rachel and her sisters in the US have plenty to weep about, as we all do.
* * *
Isaiah 63:7-9
Looking Back, Looking Forward
As the prophet recounts God’s mercies, he looks to the past with thanksgiving. There’s also a feeling of looking to the future with confidence because of God’s gracious care, and “all that the Lord has done for us.” As 2023 begins, we also look back at God’s mercy, and anticipate the future with hope. To live in that grateful, non-stressed place all year, Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, suggests that we live with attention to time. Not jamming more in, but the kind of thanksgiving that Isaiah talks about.
Burkeman suggests that we use our to-do lists differently and “keep two to-do lists — one for everything on your plate, one for the 10 or fewer things that you’re currently working on. Fill up the 10 slots on the second list with items from the first, then set to work. The rule is not to move any further items from the first list onto the second until you’ve freed up a slot by finishing one of the 10 items.”
Also, “Serialize. Focus only on one big project at a time… Multitasking rarely works well — and you’ll soon find that serializing helps you to complete more projects anyway, thereby helping relieve your anxiety.” Also, we can “decide in advance what to fail at.” Some things will never get done, and we can choose “in advance areas of your life in which you won’t expect excellence — helps you focus your time and energy more effectively. For example, you might decide in advance that it’s okay to have a cluttered kitchen while you finish your novel, or to do the bare minimum on a particular work project, so you can spend more time with your children.”
Another piece of advice that Isaiah would approve of is, “Seek out novelty in the mundane. Time seems to speed up as we age, likely because our brains encode the passage of years based on how much information we process in any given interval. While children have many novel experiences and time therefore seems slower to them, the routinization of older people’s lives means that time seems to pass at an ever-increasing rate. The standard advice is to combat this by cramming more novel experiences into your life. That can help, but it’s not always practical. An alternative is to pay more attention to every moment, however mundane — to find novelty by plunging more deeply into your present life. Try going on unplanned walks to see where they lead you, taking up drawing or birdwatching, or playing “I Spy” with a child — whatever draws your attention into the moment more fully.”
We can follow Isaiah’s wisdom, and pay attention to God’s time in our lives.
* * *
Isaiah 63:7-9
Thankful for the Unexpected
“I will recount the gracious deeds of the Lord,” the psalmist says, calling us to thanksgiving as the New Year begins. We’re accustomed to thanking God for the good things in our lives. Belinda Munoz says that we can give thanks for the negative things, too. We can find “the praiseworthy acts of the Lord” as we experience challenges, too.
On her unusual gratitude list are things like “our shortcomings, so that we may learn to look to others who can offer to integrate an extension to our limitations. Confusion, so that enlightenment may grace us if only fleetingly. Insecurities, so that we may move past pretending and arrive at the truth that we share many and instead of hiding them, perhaps we may one day celebrate them. Doubts, so that we may either learn to live with them or conquer them by believing when proof evades us. Fears, so that we may acknowledge the falseness and irrationality in them in order to recognize what tremendously good things lie beyond them.”
She also gives thank for “the flaws in all of us, so that we may revel in our blemished wholeness. Problems that sometimes make being alive difficult, so that we may remember that there’s always a solution around the corner to make living worth every second. The sadness that may land upon us occasionally, so that we may value the highs of life by fully feeling the lows.”
Isaiah invites us to add these thing in, as we consider all that the Lord has done for us.
* * * * * *
From team member Katy Stenta:Matthew 2:13-23
Be Afraid Herods
Treason riots, insurrection, the threat to democracy. Whatever you call what happened on January 6th, it was not good for the United States in general. I remember driving around, running errands all day thinking, “But its Epiphany.” This is in contrast to everything that Jesus Christ stood for, and here is a group of people attacking the capital in the name of Jesus and White Supremacy; two things that are polar opposites of each other. Because violence is Herod’s way, peace is the way of Jesus Christ’s. Here is a prayer about that.
* * *
Hebrews 2:10-18
In the Waiting Room
One of my favorite Christmas sermons was about this couple who was waiting to adopt a child in Africa. The birth mother, in this case, was fully aware of the adoption. The teen mother, who named her son Tariku, did the paperwork and waited with the other families. However, there was an error and the paperwork said they could only adopt a child up to four months old. Tariku was older than four months. They reached out to social workers, but it looked like all was doomed. Meanwhile all the other adoptive parents received their paperwork, and their children, and it all worked out fine for them. But instead of going home, these adoptive parents waited with them for hours. They all waited together for Tariku’s paperwork to be sorted out — and when it finally was they all flew home together. They are now an extended family who continues to gather. In this way, we are all in the waiting room together, waiting for Christ, and becoming family to one another, while we do the hard work of waiting together.
* * *
Psalm 148
Worlds of Praises
I think sometimes we do not have to praise God; we can instead remember that all the earth is doing it for us. We can look at purring kittens or tail-wagging dogs. We can listen to tweeting birds in the morning. Or even walk out into the silence of new fallen snow. The idea of going for a walk, or sitting outside, or snuggling a creature to praise God is very comforting, especially in the seasons of Christmas and Epiphany.
* * * * * *
WORSHIPby George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Praise God! Praise God from the heavens; praise him in the heights!
All: Praise God, sun and moon and all you shining stars!
One: Praise God, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!
All: Let us praise the name of God, who commanded and all were created.
One: Praise God young men and women alike, old and young together!
All: Let us praise the name of God whose alone is exalted. Praise God!
OR
One: God comes to dwell among us as one of us!
All: We rejoice in our God who lives with us.
One: The likeness and Spirit of God dwells in all creatures.
All: We will honor God in each one we encounter.
One: We cannot love God if we don’t love those whom God loves.
All: We will care for all God’s children on this earth.
Hymns and Songs
We Three Kings
UMH: 254
H82: 128
PH: 66
AAHH: 218
NNBH: 97
CH: 172
W&P: 233
STLT 259
Go, Tell It on the Mountain
UMH: 251
H82: 99
PH: 29
AAHH: 202
NNBH: 92
NCH: 154
CH: 167
LBW: 70
ELW: 290
W&P: 218
AMEC: 122
STLT 239
What Child Is This
UMH: 219
H82: 115
PH: 53
AAHH: 220
NNBH: 86
NCH: 148
CH: 162
LBW: 40
ELW: 296
W&P: 184
That Boy-Child of Mary
UMH: 241
PH: 55
ELW: 293
W&P: 211
O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright
UMH: 247
PH: 69
NCH: 158
CH: 105
LBW: 76
ELW: 308
W&P: 230
O Little Town of Bethlehem
UMH: 230
H82: 78/79
PH: 43/44
AAHH: 204
NNBH: 90
NCH: 133
CH: 144
LBW: 41
ELW: 279
W&P: 180
AMEC: 109
STLT 246/247
Love Came Down at Christmas
UMH: 242
H82: 84
NCH: 165
W&P: 210
Let There Be Peace on Earth
UMH: 431
NNBH: 450
NCH: 589
STLT 142
Cuando El Pobre (When the Poor Ones)
UMH: 434
PH: 407
CH: 662
ELW: 725
W&P: 624
Our Parent, by Whose Name
UMH: 447
LBW: 357
ELW: 640
Behold, What Manner of Love
CCB: 44
Open our Eyes, Lord
CCB: 77
Renew: 91
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who deigns to come among us as one of us:
Grant us the wisdom to see your present in each of your children
and help us to guard each one in love and hope;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you come to us as one of us. You do not held yourself apart from us be dwell within and among us. Help us to see you present in each and every child of yours so that we may treat them all with care and dignity. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our failure to see your present in each of your children.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We glibly say that humans were made in your image and likeness and yet we do not honor that likeness as children perish through our indifference. We proclaim that your life-breath is what makes us human while paying scant attention when that breath is taken from the littlest and most vulnerable among us. We do not even have the decency to be ashamed. Help us to open our eyes and hearts to you and your incarnate presence among us. Help us to love others as Christ does. Turn our stony hearts to hearts of warm compassion and love. Amen.
One: God came among us as the Christ to redeem us and to set our feet on the path of holiness and life. Receive God’s good gift and allow that gift to turn your heart to God who dwells in those around us.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory are yours, O God who takes on our flesh. You are the God of the incarnation.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We glibly say that humans were made in your image and likeness and yet we do not honor that likeness as children perish through our indifference. We proclaim that your life-breath is what makes us human while paying scant attention when that breath is taken from the littlest and most vulnerable among us. We do not even have the decency to be ashamed. Help us to open our eyes and hearts to you and your incarnate presence among us. Help us to love others as Christ does. Turn our stony hearts to hearts of warm compassion and love.
We thank you for your presence among us in all of creation. We thank you for your presence in the people we encounter each day. We thank you for your presence in Jesus who showed us how to discern and honor you in others. We thank you for the light which shined to dispel our darkness and reveal your truth among us.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need. We pray for the little ones whom we so callously ignore as they are taken by death at such a young and tender age. We pray for those caught in places of violence; those who are starving, poorly clothed, and unhoused. We pray for those whom poverty limits their opportunities. We pray for courage for ourselves that we may stand with Mary and offer love and care for all your children.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN'S SERMONNew Year’s Gifts of Love
by Chris Keating
Matthew 2:13-23, Isaiah 63:7-9
There are a couple of options for conversations with children based on this week’s texts in ways that will connect with their experiences of Christmas and New Year’s holidays. The Isaiah text offers an opportunity to connect “New Year’s Resolutions” with the idea of recalling God’s covenant of faithfulness. Isaiah engages in an act of holy remembering, just as we might look back on where we have noticed glimpses of God in the past year. Based on those memories, we can build lists of resolutions (covenants) for how we will journey with God in the new year.
As an alternative, you might explore Matthew’s gruesome story in ways that would make sense to children. On the face of it, Matthew’s account of Herod’s murderous rage hardly seems fitting for a children’s sermon — at any time of the year. But the broader arc of the holy family’s Egyptian exile holds an opportunity for a conversation about the needs of children and family across the world.
Matthew’s portrait of Jesus’ family in transition is a reminder of the fragility endured by refugees, immigrants, and the working poor. (Check out the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kid’s Count Data Center for reliable data on children and families in the United States.) On this first Sunday of the year, perhaps the story of a family’s plight to survive might nurture awareness of struggles faced by so many contemporary families.
Perhaps a backpack filled with a few things a family might grab quickly — socks, a couple of t-shirts, wipes, soap, and personal care products — might help illustrate the sort of struggles many families in transition experience every night. You might consider connecting this to Epiphany and the arrival of the magi by having a mini-mission project to collect items for homeless children, or foster children in your community. Most communities have a foster care coalition that can help connect you with agencies near you that would benefit from a partnership with your congregation.
Consider using Howard Thurman’s classic poem “When the Song of Angels is Stilled” as a closing prayer:
When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, January 1, 2023 issue.
Copyright 2023 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
