One of the apparently central tasks for the people of Judah returning from exile was to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. How strange, then, for a prophetic word from God to come that “Jerusalem will be a city without walls,” instead bounded by God acting like a fire that has room for lots of people from lots of places and backgrounds. How can we have our resources and programs be so shaped by God’s vision and values that might also find God’s refining spirit defining what choices we make with “bricks and mortar,” and in the priorities of what is most important in the salvation we live and share?

God commonly uses imagery of refining and washing to describe the process of repenting and being restored to fully participating in salvation life when we have wandered and been exiled. That process might sound encouraging and empowering, or challenging and stretching - especially depending on what position we find ourselves in relative to God’s vision and purposes. God also regularly points to the positions we can find God and salvation life - with those who are usually left out and cast aside, making a new kind of community (rather than being with those seeking power and privilege). Refining ourselves to that position can take a lot of transformation, but it is ultimately good for us and everyone.

A lot of modern stories in culture highlight the tension from seemingly competing commitments, like making decisions for business sustainability at a hospital versus making them based on the ideal plan for care. Similar tensions have been a part of the life of the people of God as well - like apparent tensions between what people associate with the “spiritual” and what people associate with the “practical” and how our faith is supposed to operate in both. Salvation life that is generative and brings out the fruit of the spirit recognizes that our God of all creation holds both together, and so our faith and ministry is meant to as well.

God frequently uses the imagery of a refiner’s fire to the people of Israel and Judah in trying to encourage repentance before the exile, and in giving a sense of meaning to the exile and return. Often our experience of ashes is painful, but can also remind us that God moves in our frailty for transformation and thriving. Like the exiles, even our ashes can also become the bricks and mortar of the new salvation life God leads us in rebuilding. May our ashes to ashes and dust to dust that we sit with this year be so meaningful.

Even the most impressive collective movements are made up of individuals with unique circumstances and needs. There is always a tension in balancing personal needs and participating in a larger mission and vision. Sometimes it is tempting to focus most on our preferences, power and advantage, but that can ultimately leave things for everyone undone and undermine our own thriving because something best for everyone is missed out on. Examples throughout the Bible, like those returning from exile and the early church, give examples of how participating in the Kingdom of God includes and empowers all individuals and cultivates connection and thriving for all led by the God who brings us together.

There has been a growing acknowledgment of the wisdom that when we’re in the middle of trauma and pain or panic, it is very challenging, and even likely to make things worse, if we feel pressure to do something for others when we haven’t been cared for and built up our capacity ourselves. Yet, we can also end up stuck in feeling overwhelmed and missing out on healing and transformation that comes from having what we have to share acknowledged and given an outlet. We can be defensive, or contentious to try and protect ourselves, but God gives the gift of interdependent community in the Kingdom where God’s love empowers us to care and be cared for and find transformation together.

When things feel overwhelming and difficult, our impulse can often be to seek our own control, our own comfort, our own preferences most of all - but that type of white-knuckling can actually just pull us in more destructive directions. That’s why navigators learn to “trust their instruments” and we as disciples can learn to trust God’s movement and God’s values for how we all thrive together in the Kingdom rather than just grasping for our own advantage as what will make everything ok.

In previous times for the people of God that we see in scripture, learning to both reflect back on how God has walked with us and discerning what is ahead that God is guiding us through brings with it important communal practices. Perhaps surprisingly, these can be full of complicated emotions rather than just triumphalist. We can not only trust that God will help us process through emotions of mourning or worry or repentance, but also that God will likely call us to hold our expectations loosely to be formed to the Kingdom as well - and that while that may be difficult, it is still safe… and essential for our discipleship and full experiencing of the thriving of salvation life.

Our church is entering an intriguing year as we continue to follow God’s calling of our unique identity - celebrating a legacy of 90 years as a local body, and also discerning how best to live our faith in a year promising new circumstances and resources to steward. The Bible has examples of God’s people navigating relatable (even if not exact) circumstances, like the Jewish people returning from exile to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. We can take encouragement in being able to hear from God timeless insight from such examples for our specific situations - especially about connecting with God, understanding our circumstances, and partnering with others.

Even early in his life, Jesus showed passion for being in his Father’s house, or perhaps better rendered, “being about the family business.” Since we are also invited into God’s family and to participate in the Kingdom through Jesus, the same values and practices that Jesus demonstrated (and have foundations throughout the history of God’s people) are important for our lives and faith today, too - so we can be faithful participants in the family business as well.

January 3 is Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus and it’s a great opportunity to reflect on the meaning of Jesus in our lives and in the world. Advent season reminds us that we use a range of names and titles to refer to Jesus, and to God, to try to reflect the breadth and depth of God’s character and how God works. Jesus also cared a lot about making sure disciples understood what those names are really meant to express and reflect so we are being formed by God rather than making God in our image. Those temptations can still be with us today, but so are the clarifying principles of God’s character

Genealogies can seem like dry reading, but in the bible, they can serve as really insightful examples of God’s character based on how different people are included in God’s identity that we might normally think would be expected to be relegated to skeletons in a family closet. When we see this meaning, and think about what that means for us that are also invited to be a part of God’s family, it can be transformational for our sense of self and how we extend belonging to those around us.

There is a slightly between the lines, but incredibly vital and compelling thread of comparison that weaves through the birth narratives of Jesus. We can see very different values of power and glory and authority in the contrasts like Joseph of the house and line of David and Caesar Augustus… and the Magi and King Herod. They help emphasize the difference between the humility, grace, love and lifting up in the salvation that God offers, and the oppression, advantage, exploitation and dehumanization of earthly rulers that claim to be best. And so we must also wrestle with the comparison of who we sometimes desire Jesus to be - in the image of such earthly rulers - and who Jesus actually came to be - which will transform our expectations, our values, our lives and all creation.

We most associate Joy with happiness and excitement, but God promises a persevering tool even deeper than regular emotions in how Joy can function in our lives. It helps root us in our reliance on God’s faithfulness in all circumstances that can bring meaning, resilience and hope as we go through anything. Jesus arrival in the world with all of its ups and downs is our greatest source and example of this Joy.

Some of our favorite Advent carols can be a little bit sappy when it comes to describing Jesus - like saying he didn’t cry as a baby, or had beams of light coming off his face. We can appreciate the artistic license, but maybe it also reveals something about our human struggles: it is hard for us to love in struggle and imperfection, so we can seek to prop up people and things in our eyes to make them easier to love. It is striking that Jesus himself shows how God does not have to do that for us, even if we do that a little for our perception of Emmanuel. How amazing that God loves us in our struggle, weakness and sin, and also sees the best in us to transform us and include us in the Kingdom.

As Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s words in “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” honestly reflect, the world persistently works against peace and towards dominance and chaos. In the arrival of the Prince of Peace, we can still see how God’s peace perseveres and transforms unconquerably, though. While the privileged “peace through destruction and elimination” cycles between forces fighting to be at the top, those practicing care, solidarity and dignity for the downtrodden have never been defeated. And while empire always tries to take and accumulate more and more for its own comfort, it has never spread as far as the generosity and hope of those knowing another way of life is possible.

In general, we don’t normally tend to put our hopes and expectations on things without some level of impressiveness or dominance as proof concept. Yet God’s chosen arrival was vulnerable and amongst conquered people, and seems to care about a whole different way of defining power and what is important. It is encouraging when we feel like the least to be seen and have hope for something more, but can we also hope that our salvation comes the least and the last (at least as the world defines things)?

Faith calls us to follow and put our faith in God, but scripture also shows how frequently any of us, and even (and sometimes especially) those who are zealous in their excitement in seeing what God can do and in declarations of how great they think God is need to have their understandings of God converted from projections based on personal privilege and earthly power to the real values of the Kingdom. This is especially clear in times in the gospels Jesus lays bare that the question we must ask ourselves is not “Will I say Jesus is king?” but “Will I actually follow the kind of king Jesus really is?”

We know in faith that the balance of grace, empathy and forgiveness alongside justice, accountability and transformation can often feel difficult - with people regularly pushing towards assumptions in one direction or another. One oft quoted phrase in discerning this is Jesus statement to the woman caught in adultery he protected from those who had to face if they were without sin before stoning her: “go now and leave your life of sin.” We might hold to this as an excuse to remain in judgment, but what of the possibility that the emphasis is on dignity, freedom and new possibility in God’s Kingdom that can be looked forward to and lived into rather than shame or finding ways to lord over others?

A significant part of the amazing work of salvation is how God is pulling together a beloved community in the Kingdom of all different kinds of people - being reconciled to God and each other. However, that’s not always easy for us when people we might distrust and be worried about are included in that group. God has been doing this throughout history with God’s people, though, and we can participate in the process of redemption and trust God offers to experience that transformation for the thriving of us and all creation.