Sermon on Luke 2:22-40

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Today’s Gospel reading is all about endings and beginnings.

Mary and Joseph were observing the rituals that came with the beginning of their baby’s life.

Simeon was waiting for an end to his waiting. He was looking forward to the consolation of Israel and the fulfillment of the Holy Spirit’s promise that he would see the Messiah before he died. And, though the Bible doesn’t actually say how old Simeon was, perhaps his life was coming to an end with the completion of God’s promise to him. There’s at least a sense of an end to his task of watching as he sings, “now you are dismissing your servant in peace.”

Anna was continuing her faithful practices in the Temple until she encountered the baby Jesus and then began to speak about the child and this new beginning to everyone around her, spreading joy and hope.

Endings and beginnings can be hard. And waiting is also hard. God’s people had been waiting for a long time for the fulfillment of God’s promise of a Messiah.

But with the endings and beginnings in this story, the waiting was over. God’s promised Messiah was here!

Mary and Joseph were setting out on the journey of parenthood.

Simeon had received God’s promise and had seen the Messiah with his own eyes and held him in his arms.

Anna became one of the first preachers of Jesus as she shared her encounter with him with those around her.

The waiting was over.

It’s what we celebrate at Christmas—that God’s promises were fulfilled and heaven and nature sang theirjoy to the world.

The day we remember Jesus’ presentation at the Temple is called Candlemas. It’s the final holiday in the Christmasy season cycle, and the candles in the church would be blessed as a reminder that Jesus is the light of the world.

Candlemas involves endings and beginnings for us too, not just the characters in today’s Gospel. We’re ending the cycle of reading about Jesus’ birth. Other than one when he was twelve, there are only stories about the grown-up Jesus from now on. We’re beginning the rest of his life and ministry.

We’re turning our focus from the Incarnation, when God became human and lived among us, to Jesus’ death and resurrection, when we killed God because we couldn’t stand someone upsetting the power structures and daring to preach that all people are beloved by God and are included in God’s mercy, justice, and freedom.

The Messiah was here, but he didn’t act the way people expected.

And while the waiting was over for Simeon and Anna and for all God’s people, because the Messiah was here, our waiting isn’t over yet.

We’re still waiting for the world to be as it should. We’re waiting for the completion of the Reign of God. We’re waiting for the fullness of God’s justice, mercy, and peace.

We’re in the middle of some endings and beginnings ourselves.

I know we’re a month into the new year, but it still feels like a new beginning to me.2025 still feels like a blank slate, full of opportunity and also uncertainty.

The wildfires have brought about endings and scary new beginnings for a lot of people, not to mention all the people affected by hurricanes and storms in other parts of the country last year who are still picking up the pieces of their lives and finding new normals.

There’s a new administration in our government. There are probably different feelings about that in this room and among those watching from home. For some of us, it may feel like a beginning, and for some of us, an ending. Regardless of our political leanings, let’s continue to follow Jesus, whose mission statement we read last week:

1.    to bring good news to the poor,

2.    to proclaim release to the captives

3.    and recovery of sight to the blind,

4.    to set free those who are oppressed,

5.    and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

And as always, let’s continue to be the church that feeds people body and soul.

Last week, we also elected new council members who will meet to set a new vision for this congregation this Saturday at our council retreat. We need to set a new path because our world is changing, and we need to be responsive to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

But change is hard. Even good change is hard.

And the world still isn’t as it should be.

This is one of the paradoxes of our faith: “already and not yet.”

On the one hand, Jesus already came and lived and died and rose again to show us God’s love and bring reconciliation.

On the other hand, there’s still great need and war and tragedy and disasters and cruelty and selfishness in our world.

We’re still waiting for the completion of God’s promises, for the restoration of our world. And considering it’s been 2,000 years since Jesus’ earthly ministry, there’s a good chance that completion won’t happen in our lifetimes.

Sure, we spend every Advent preparing the way of the Lord and remembering that it could happen at any time, but we also have to live with the possibility that we won’t witness it on this side of life.

We have to decide how to respond to that.

Do we throw up our hands and give up because we won’t see the results?

Or do we resolve to do whatever we can by the leading of the Holy Spirit to make earth a little more as it is in heaven?

Simeon and Anna did the latter.

Sure, Simeon had the promise that he would see the Messiah before he died, but I wonder if, as the years wore on, he started to doubt or get weary of waiting.

And Anna lived faithfully for decades, fasting and praying in the Temple, waiting for God’s promises to be fulfilled with no assurance that she would live to see it.

And yet, both continued to listen to the Holy Spirit and live their lives centered on God.

I came across a poem this week that encapsulates that feeling of powerlessness to fix a world that’s not as it should be and what we can do even as we contend with that sense of frustration.

BECAUSE

by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

So I can’t save the world—

can’t save even myself,

can’t wrap my arms around

every frightened child, can’t

foster peace among nations,

can’t bring love to all who

feel unlovable.

So I practice opening my heart

right here in this room and being gentle

with my insufficiency. I practice

walking down the street heart first.

And if it is insufficient to share love,

I will practice loving anyway.

I want to converse about truth,

about trust. I want to invite compassion

into every interaction.

One willing heart can’t stop a war.

One willing heart can’t feed all the hungry.

And sometimes, daunted by a task too big,

I tell myself what’s the use of trying?

But today, the invitation is clear:

to be ridiculously courageous in love.

To open the heart like a lilac in May,

knowing freeze is possible

and opening anyway.

To take love seriously.

To give love wildly.

To race up to the world

as if I were a puppy,

adoring and unjaded,

stumbling on my own exuberance.

To feel the shock of indifference,

of anger, of cruelty, of fear,

and stay open. To love as if it matters,

as if the world depends on it.

So, this Candlemas, let’s remember that God will keep God’s promises, and while we wait for the fulfillment of the Reign of God, whether we see it on this side of life or the next, let’s walk around heart first, showing the love that God is always pouring into us.

God has already saved the world, and God will make all things right one day. As we live in the tension of the “already and not yet” paradox of our faith, let’s be ridiculously courageous in loving our neighbors with all our hearts and feeding them body and soul.

Sermonon Luke 4:14-21

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Our story today comes right after Jesus was baptized and spent forty days in the wilderness.

At his baptism, Jesus heard a heavenly voice saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Then, the Holy Spirit led him into the wilderness, where he reckoned with the things humans tend to be willing to compromise their values for: our basic bodily needs, authority and glory, and identity and reputation.

But instead of turning stones into bread, Jesus quoted scripture: “One does not live by bread alone.”

Instead of changing his allegiance in exchange for worldly power, he quoted: “Worship the Lord your God,and serve only him.”

And instead of needing to prove that he was the Son of God, Jesus simply quoted: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Jesus was secure in his identity and values. He was the Beloved and clung to that identity as he faced what so often leads us humans astray.

Then, he read scripture in the synagogue, revealing his identity and mission to the world.

I like to think of this passage from Isaiah as Jesus’ mission statement.

After Jesus was grounded in his identity and values, he came back to his community and said, “This is what I’m about. This is what I’m here to do.”

It wasn’t received well—in fact some of his audience tried to throw him off a cliff. But being grounded in his mission statement and identity in God gave Jesus the strength and courage to keep going despite opposition—even to the cross.

So what was Jesus’ mission that he found important enough to die for?

He said he was here to:

1.    Bring good news to the poor

2.    Proclaim release to the captivesand recovery of sight to the blind

3.    Set free those who are oppressed

4.    Proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor

I actually want to focus on the last one first: proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

We talked last year about the Year of Jubilee, a practice God gave the Israelites in the Law. Every seven times seven years, there would be a Sabbath of all Sabbaths—a whole year where property would return to its former owners, enslaved people would be freed, debts would be canceled, and the land and the people and the animals that worked it would get a year off.

As with allthe Sabbath practices, it reminded them of who they were and Whose they were. It pointed back to Creation, when God rested on the seventh day, and pointed forward to the end of time and the fulfillment of God’s shalom, or peace.

The other parts of Jesus’ mission statement fit within the year of the Lord’s favor. They’re ways to live out the justice, peace, and mercy of Jubilee.

Good news to the poor isn’t about a far-off heaven, but a full belly and roof over one’s head now.

Proclaiming release to the captives is about restoring people to freedom and community.

And while the way the Bible conflates blindness and lack of understanding has unfortunate implications for the blind and visually impaired community, many of whom do not feel the need for “healing,” we can still interpret “recovery of sight to the blind” as meaning that Jesus was there to bring understanding and healing to all kinds of people.

Setting free those who are oppressed again evokes a restoration to freedom, community, and abundance.

And that’s all part of the year of the Lord’s favor.

God became human in Jesus to usher in the year of the Lord—Jubilee, full of God’s justice, mercy, and peace.

Today, we’re having our annual congregational meeting.

We could view this as a boringtask—an obstacle to our breakfast plans.

Or, we can remember who we are and Whose we are and see this as an opportunity to live out our mission.

We are the church that feeds people body and soul.

Today,

1.    we’re electing council members to discern where God is leading us.

2.    We’re ratifying the changes to the constitution that we approved at last month’s congregational meeting. We’re refreshing policies that help us be clear in how we operate.

3.    We’re also deciding on a budget, which is a moral statement that shows what we value.

These are important decisions that help us live into our mission as the church that feeds people body and soul.

Let’s keep our focus on that mission and on Jesus, in whose example we strive to live in and in whose love we rest in now and always.

Sermon on John 2:1-11

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Focus:Just as Jesus provided what they needed at the wedding at Cana to keep celebrating together, God forms us into Beloved Community where we can lament and celebrate and love our neighbors together.

Function:This sermon will provide permission to hearers to lament in a difficult time and remind them that they can lean on each other and God as Beloved Community.

Weddings are supposed to be joyful celebrations. And yet,they’re events where emotions of all kinds run high, and one small mishap can turn into a great deal of crying and yelling. Imagine getting a stain on the wedding dress or one of the groomsmen gets the flu and upsets the balance of the attendants. Or the wine runs out.

Hospitality was a huge part of the culture in the first centuryin the Middle East. Running out of wine would have been a Big Deal.

But fortunately, Jesus was able to fix the problem before any crying or yelling.

Not only did he turn a massive amount of water into wine, but he produced wine that was better than what had already been served. Crisis averted!

But of course, it wasn’t just about getting the hosts out of a tricky situation. The Gospel of John marks this as the first of seven signs that point to who Jesus is and what work God is up to in the world.

This might seem like a strange sign to start with. It’s certainly very different from healing people or raising Lazarus from the dead.

But this sign does say several things about Jesus and God’s work in the world. Here are five:

First, when Jesus defied the laws of physics, it tells us that Jesus is powerful. Creation obeyed Jesus’ commands. In Jesus, God was at work in the world in a tangible, powerful way.

Second, we have a God of abundance. Jesus didn’t just make enough wine for one more toast—Jesus filled 6 jugs for a total of between 120 and 180 gallons of wine. I don’t know how many people were at the wedding, but we can safely assume that there was enough for the party to go on for a lot longer.

Third, Jesus helps foster community. He helped the families of the wedding couple save face from the embarrassment of running out of wine—of not having sufficient resources to offer the expected hospitality to their guests. Jesus made it possible for this community-enriching event to continue.

Fourth, there’s a ton of symbolism in this story that tells us who Jesus is. We see Jesus described in Revelation and elsewhere in the Bible as a bridegroom and the fulfillment of the Reign of God as the wedding feast of the Lamb. The Gospel of John uses this story to say from the very first sign that Jesus is the host and guest of honor at the banquet that will never end.

Finally, God likes a celebration. It can be easy to stereotype religious folks as stern and joyless. But that’s not what we see in this story. In addition to all the rich symbolism, we can’t forget that here we see Jesus and his disciples at a party.Critics of Jesus would later complain that he partied too much. Jesus was not the ascetic John the Baptist living off the land in the wilderness. Jesus likes a party. God likes it when we celebrate.

But right now, there’s a whole lot in our world that doesn’t feel celebratory.

There are the wildfires that are causing so much damage in LA. Many of us know someone who has had to evacuate or has lost their home, workplace, or faith community. Bishop Brenda Bos from Southwest California Synod lost her home.Some people have lost their lives. The destruction is immense. It will take years not only to rebuild the structures, but to heal from the trauma of what’s going on.

And in our own faith community, we’re grieving with the Wood family after John’s memorial service yesterday. Of course, this is only the beginning of the grief journey, and sometimes it’s hard to know what to say or do. But keep praying for John’s friends and family, check on each other, and don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know what to say, but I’m thinking of you.”

Many of you are also navigating illnesses, surgeries, other challenging life events, and anxieties about difficult things going on around the world.

It can seem like there’s not much to celebrate. And that’s okay.

There is room for lament also.

The dominant US culture isn’t great at lament. There’s not much time for lament when you’re trying to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. We’re encouraged to get over things fast and not bother other people with our troubles.

But the Bible is full of lament. Just look at the Psalms or the book of Job! Look at Naomi in the book of Ruth changing her name to Mara, or bitterness, in her grief. Look at Jesus himself praying in the garden of Gethsemane until his sweat fell to the ground like drops of blood or crying out on the cross, asking why God abandoned him.

Lament is holy.

And one thing that lament and celebration have in common is that they’re good things to do in community.

Two of the most significant events we gather for are weddings and funerals. We need our communities for big life changes like that, whether they’re joyful or grief-filled.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus was forming community. Right before this story, he collected disciples. There are many stories of him healing people and restoring them to their communities. He ate with “tax collectors and sinners,” not caring if he was making the “right” impression, but choosing to spend time with people in the margins. He called us to love our neighbors.

He spent his life on Earth gathering people into the Beloved Community, and at the end of time, the doors to the wedding feast of the Lamb will be thrown open, and there will be a place card with your name on it, with everyone’s name on it.

And while there will be great rejoicing at that eternal banquet, we’re not there yet. The world is not as it should be. And it’s okay to grieve that.It’s okay to lament, to shout, to cry, to lie in bed until you can face the world again.

That’s also what community’s for. We’re not mean to do life alone. We’re meant to share the joys and the sorrows with our friends, family, neighbors, and siblings in Christ. We’re meant to care for each other, and that also requires allowing ourselves to be cared for.

We also have different gifts to contribute to community, which is what our reading from 1 Corinthians talks about. None of us can do everything, so we have to depend on each other and the Holy Spirit to fulfill our mission in the world. For us, it’s to “feed people body and soul,” and thank God for each of your gifts!

The outgoing Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, wrote an essay called “My Parting Prescription for America,”[1] and, while you might expect it would be about the benefits of exercise or nutrition, it’sactually all about community.

Here’s what he says about why this is his prescription for our country:

“With every conversation, I saw the stakes more clearly: the fracturing of community in America is driving a deeper spiritual crisis that threatens our fundamental well-being. It is fueling not only illness and despair on an individual level, but also pessimism and distrust across society which have all made it painfully difficult to rise together in response to common challenges.

“Through my work over two terms as Surgeon General, I saw that the answer to “What’s missing?” is simple, yet profound: community. The loss of community has become one of the defining challenges of our time. In response, we need a fundamental shift in how we build and prioritize community.”

And this is what he says about how to make that shift:

“So, what makes community possible? Three core elements: relationships, service, and purpose. And one core virtue: love. Together, they create the ecosystem of meaning and belonging that are essential for fulfillment.”

If that’s not a good description of what church should be, I don’t know what is. Relationships, service, and purpose, held together by love.

God has formed this faith community, building relationships, helping us serve our neighbors and show God’s love to our neighborhood. This is a place where we should be able to bring our whole selves: our grief and lament, not just our celebrations and service.

Jesus came to usher in the Reign of God. I often use the term Beloved Community interchangeably with the Reign of God. Beloved Community was a term popularized by Dr. King, who we will be remembering tomorrow. Beloved Community can be summarized as “a community to which we all belong, in which all live in freedom. King described it as a space of social equity and belonging, peace, and freedom from prejudice.”[2]

Jesus spent his life forming Beloved Community, restoring human dignity, and expressing God’s love to the world.

We are the Body of Christ, striving to live in his example.

He was fully human, so we’re allowed to be fully human also.

Let’s bring our whole selves—our gifts and our griefs—to this community as we celebrate each other’s joys and lament with each other in difficult times.

You are not alone. God is with you, and we are with each other.

In the name of Christ, Amen.

[1]https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/my-parting-prescription-for-america.pdf?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

[2]https://www.aclu-wa.org/story/fighting-justice-inclusion-reach-mlk%E2%80%99s-beloved-community%C2%A0