…and so this day can feel painful for a lot of people. It can feel confusing and complicated. And so isn’t it kind of incredible, that we do have this ideal form of motherhood to always look to in Jesus?

…we don’t get anywhere without love. Once we are at the point in which we love one another, when we don’t feel a need to one-up each other, we can really connect and move forward… move forward to a world where a peaceful protest isn’t immediately met with violence… move forward to a world in which this true love of friendship, of connection, of really being one with each other, with humanity, is possible…

The pruning metaphor here is key—yes, pruning begets more fruit, but it means that in order to blossom and fruit, we need to cut back. We need to slow down, we need to figure what what’s really important in life, and what allows us to thrive…

Our faith will not make us immune to the cruelty of others, or to the unjust systems of this broken world. But it will guide us. It will show is right from wrong, even amidst the gray areas. Our faith will be there with the unconditional love of God, and the fact that Jesus, as the wounds on his hands and feet show, knows our every deepest pain and in the Holy Spirit, continuing to shepherd us along the right path in this strange world…

We have to work together, really together—these experiences have to be embodied. We have to be face-to-face, we have to be the church out in the world and show people what binds us together…

What connects us at this point? Is there anything that can bring people together to work for the good of all? Is there anything short of seeing the savior rise from the dead that can possibly unite us to become one heart and soul like these apostles in our passage today?

If the resurrection if anything, Church, it is a promise. It is a promise that a better world is possible. It is a promise for the future—the future that is already here, that could be here, if we were only ready for it. If we only stopped holding onto all the trivial things that don’t matter; if only we stopped holding onto the structures of violence in this world that harm so many…

And so, Jesus enters into Jerusalem on a donkey, as the peaceful leader Zechariah hoped and prayed for. And he does this to be one with the least of them. He does this so he, though divine, is on the same level as the children, the widow, the lowliest of all…

…it is in this unknowable God that our faith must lie. We give our lives to this unknown, because it means letting go of any control, of any sense that we have any power over our own lives. It means we let go of our ego, and when we let go of our ego, it means we can act in service to others, always…

We do good works to benefit not ourselves, but the world as a whole. We do good works because that’s what we were put on this earth to do— “…we are what [God] had made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works…prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”

This world will break your heart. That’s what those in power want. Broken hearts can lead to despair… unless you find that fellowship with others that comes out of that heartbreak, that comes out of that isolation, as Moltmann writes…

…we don’t know our fates. We don’t know what our futures hold. There are times in which we will find ourselves in the wilderness, wandering, lost, angry, confused, feeling so far from the love of God, and in those times, and I know this all too well, we will despair, and we will feel absolutely sure that nothing will work out. We will feel absolutely sure that we are doomed. But we can never be sure. And as distant as God can feel sometimes, God is always there…

Admittedly, I haven’t given up much for Lent over these past few years. And more and more I’m less moved by the idea of giving something up, as opposed to adding something to our lives…

…when we take a step back from our curated media feeds, when we take a step back from our own troubles and anxieties and take a moment to really connect with someone, face to face, there’s a real freedom in letting go of our past and our own biases for a bit and really listening to someone, and doing our best to understand where they’re coming from, why they’re hurting, what makes them tick, what makes them happy, what they’re looking for in life. There’s a real freedom to know that we’re doing this for something greater than us…

…these rules for prophesy, they’re all about being able to properly discern what God is saying to us through prophets, through people like us, right in our midst. And if we’re constantly trying to control things that are out of our control, if we’re trying to find loopholes and workarounds to get ahead in life, or to get our way, we can’t focus on what God is actually saying to us…

So it seems to me, that the book of Jonah, which is more fantastical and over-the-top and ridiculous than maybe any other book in the Bible is sort of a lesson on how not to be— don’t be like Jonah! Petulant, jealous, avoidant, he’s kind of the worst! So how should we be? Well in my research for this sermon, I discovered that there’s an opposite of schadenfreude—it’s freudenfreude…

…what would make things even worse is if we all fall into complete despair and just assume nothing’s going to change. As usual, we have to start small. We have to figure out ways to find the divine in our personal lives, in the mundane, in the unfortunate...

…it really was all about a deep connections and understanding. That’s the peace that comes with the Holy Spirit…

…if we ignore the tragedy, the violence, and the anguish, we lose sight of God in the midst of it—our God who came to us in the form of a vulnerable human baby… our God who came to us in mortal human form to feel all that we feel, the joy and the sorrow… to deny that these emotions are there, to deny the tragedy and the horrors of the world, is, in a way, to deny God…

Our 2023 Christmas Pageant performed by our amazing youth!