Last Sunday was the final Sunday of the liturgical year. Next Sunday, we will celebrate the first Sunday of Advent usually with a Hanging of the Greens Service. So today, I would like to revisit with you the journey we have made through the Scripture over the last almost three months. My first Sunday blogging was September the 7th and the Scripture for that day was Matthew 18:15-20. I talked about our identity in Christ, who we are as Christians and how we should act radically different than the culture around us so that we are a witness to God’s love and the unifying nature of the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

As I read through the sermons that I have preached in this pulpit (and from this blog), I found again and again that I spoke about the hard work of being in community with each other, the difficult and often emotionally messy work of relationship, about call and change, leading our hearts instead of our hearts leading us, God’s glory and God’s goodness. We have journeyed through Exodus, Deuteronomy and Joshua, through the Red Sea and the Wilderness with the tribes of Israel. I reminded you through the words of a song that God won’t play ‘Second Fiddle’ in our lives. We have walked with Jesus through the eyes of Matthew as Jesus told parables that tell us what His Kingdom, the kingdom of God is like. Wise and foolish bridesmaids, fearful servants who sit on the gifts the Master gives them, and today, sheep and goats, those who are hungry, naked, thirsty, strangers, sick and in prison. Again and again, Jesus told his followers and he tells us what time it is and what we are to be about. And just as Jesus’ followers stood looking up to the sky after his resurrection and ascension, we stand on the edge of a great adventure.

There are signs of the inbreaking of God’s Kingdom all around us. Last week at the Martha Project (in Belhaven, NC), I watched a lot and helped a little. And it came to my mind two criteria that I had learned to assess a mission project. There are two questions to ask: “Do they see Jesus in us?” and “Do we see Jesus in them?” It was humbling and gratifying to see that the answer in both cases was a resounding “yes!” And also to see us work alongside folks from outside our church here witnesses to the unity of Christ, to his call that we all be one in Him.

There are also signs of change as we look to new people doing new things here. Change is hard but it is a characteristic of the ‘with-God’ life. The ‘with-God’ life is a life that doesn’t say “what about me?” It is a life that says “It’s about God.” It is when we re-frame our lives to not tell our story from our tunnel vision. But we re-frame our stories in the light of who God is in the world. That is the true and good history, when history is seen in the light of it being “His-story” and not simply being about us.

How do we live into this ‘with-God’ life? Through practicing the spiritual disciplines we see demonstrated in the life of Christ: prayer, fasting, caring for the poor, teaching, healing and self-sacrifice. Richard Foster wrote a book called Celebration of Discipline. In that book, he talks about each of the disciples of the spiritual life, the life ‘with-God’ and he says that for each discipline there is a corresponding freedom but when we turn the discipline into a law that must be obeyed, into legalism, that freedom disappears.

I see many signs here of people beginning to stretch out into God’s freedom, into gift-based service. It is exciting to watch and humbling to be your pastor, the one God has called to empower and to educate as this Christian community begins to individually and communally name and live into God’s vision for this church. As the tide of loving service rises, it runs along the channel that keeps it within the banks of God’s love and discipline. What forms the banks are Scripture, human reason and experience of God and the traditions handed down to us by those who came before, those others who have lived life with God in this world.

As we move into a new season in the church calendar and in the life of the church here, we can look forward with faith and confidence and hope knowing that the Christian life, the ‘with-God’ life isn’t something so mysterious we can never comprehend it, something so difficult we can never achieve it, something so painful we can never bear it. But when we look at the mystery, the difficulty, the pain from God’s perspective, it all gets put into focus. Our circumstances may not be easy to bear but we know we are safe within the sheepfold of God’s love, that he is the good Shepherd, in whom all things work together for good for those that love Him.

In today’s text from Matthew, Jesus reminds us of the coming judgment, when the sheep and the goats will be separated. But almost in the next breath, he tells us how to live in the reality of that judgment. How do we know what we are to be about? The message rings loud and clear through both the Old and New Testaments. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and love your neighbor as yourself. That sums up all the law and the prophets. And whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me.

In the coming days, we will begin to articulate a vision, a mission statement and a strategic plan. But there is no better mission statement than those words of Jesus. Every vision that is cast, every statement and strategy must fit securely within that parameter.

Let me leave you with one final image. As we move into the Advent season, we will begin to talk a lot about waiting for the light, watching for the light of Christ to come into the world. Advent is a time that is balanced by lent. They are both times of waiting, times of discernment and prayer. They are both culminated by the major celebrations of the church: Christ’s birth into our space and time and his death and resurrection in our space and time. And the image of light is important in both.

I challenge you in this season of Advent to look for the light of God’s grace and goodness in your world. It seems there isn’t much light these days. We barely have lunch before the darkness sets in. Many people go to work in the pre-dawn darkness and go home from work in the post-sunset darkness. You can work all day and never see the sun. And you can live all of your life and never see the light of Jesus Christ shining though the power of the Holy Spirit all around you. How do we find the light? By asking two simple questions? Do they see Jesus in me? And do I see Jesus in them? Amen