“Close to Home: Home By Another Way”
Preached Sunday, January 2, 2022
Happy New Year! Can you believe it’s already 2022? Honestly, I feel like a part of me got stuck in 2020 and I’m still processing the events of that year. Anyone else? I know I’m not the only one due to a plethora of internet memes on the subject. You know, memes take images from pop culture and add captions to them - very shareable. Kinda like cartoons. Anyway, Here’s one of my favorites:
And as we just turned the corner in 2022 it feels like we’re moving backward into 2020…Covid is running rampant. The hospital bed shortages and overrun ICUS and ERs that we feared and took lockdown measures against in March 2020 are here and, as a whole, we seem to be doing startlingly little to flatten the curve…and I actually had to think back as to what the phrase was we were all using in March 2020. Cause no one is using it. Cause it seems like we’re doing nothing to stop the ever growing peak.
A parishioner in healthcare said to me the other day: “If it feels like we’re moving backward. It’s because we ARE.”
Which has brought on a whole SLEW of memes that say: When you realize 2022 is 2020…too.”
Their faces are my faces.
I don’t know about you but I don’t like backward movement. I always want to feel like I am progressing, moving forward, improving. But that’s not what life or being human is. There are times we need to hit pause. Times we need to reassess. Times we need to take several steps back so we don’t just focus on moving forward - but focus on moving in the RIGHT direction.
A famous true-ism often attributed to Albert Einstein is “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” And so, as we move into 2022 and thinking “oh great, 2020…too” - maybe we have to take several steps back and do things a new way, a different way, so we can move forward in the right direction.
And I’m not just talking about our pandemic response - although that certainly is related to how we treat the more vulnerable among us - the elderly, sick, immunocompromised, children…
I’m talking about that and also how we live together and treat one another and our world:
In a world marked by deepening political divisions
Preached Sunday, January 2, 2022
Happy New Year! Can you believe it’s already 2022? Honestly, I feel like a part of me got stuck in 2020 and I’m still processing the events of that year. Anyone else? I know I’m not the only one due to a plethora of internet memes on the subject. You know, memes take images from pop culture and add captions to them - very shareable. Kinda like cartoons. Anyway, Here’s one of my favorites:
And as we just turned the corner in 2022 it feels like we’re moving backward into 2020…Covid is running rampant. The hospital bed shortages and overrun ICUS and ERs that we feared and took lockdown measures against in March 2020 are here and, as a whole, we seem to be doing startlingly little to flatten the curve…and I actually had to think back as to what the phrase was we were all using in March 2020. Cause no one is using it. Cause it seems like we’re doing nothing to stop the ever growing peak.
A parishioner in healthcare said to me the other day: “If it feels like we’re moving backward. It’s because we ARE.”
Which has brought on a whole SLEW of memes that say: When you realize 2022 is 2020…too.”
Their faces are my faces.
I don’t know about you but I don’t like backward movement. I always want to feel like I am progressing, moving forward, improving. But that’s not what life or being human is. There are times we need to hit pause. Times we need to reassess. Times we need to take several steps back so we don’t just focus on moving forward - but focus on moving in the RIGHT direction.
A famous true-ism often attributed to Albert Einstein is “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” And so, as we move into 2022 and thinking “oh great, 2020…too” - maybe we have to take several steps back and do things a new way, a different way, so we can move forward in the right direction.
And I’m not just talking about our pandemic response - although that certainly is related to how we treat the more vulnerable among us - the elderly, sick, immunocompromised, children…
I’m talking about that and also how we live together and treat one another and our world:
In a world marked by deepening political divisions
By violence and hatred
By ignorance and pride
By destruction of the planet
By a long list of things that we are called to repent from - maybe it’s time to not just focus on moving forward, but to focus on moving in the right direction:
A direction of healing divisions and the wounds they cause
A direction of peace and love
A direction of equality and humility
A direction of restoration and stewardship
A direction of better striving to love God and love neighbor as self
And to move in that direction, sometimes that means we have to stop moving forward on the path we’re on. Cause the path we’re on - well, it’s led to here. And so we need to ask: is here where I really want to be? Is here the path I want to continue on?
The Magi asked themselves this question after being warned in a dream to not return to Herod. The path they had been on, the known path - where they maybe had connections, stops planned on the way home, took less time, the convenient path - it was a way back that was no longer safe. It was a way back that could not be trusted. It was a way back that, while might reward them - who knows how Herod would reward them for bringing them this info - but this way back wasn’t safe. This same path would put Jesus and his family at risk. They needed to change paths for the sake of a world that had Jesus in it. And a world with Jesus is a more loving, just, and peaceful world.
Going home by another way isn’t always the easy thing. But it’s the right thing.
This Advent and Christmas season we have talked about the theme of home. Home is God’s Kingdom. Home is what we build together. Home is where love flourishes. Home is what God made this Earth so that God could invite us all to find our home in Jesus. We experienced that miracle on Christmas and heard God’s invitation to us - so now we need to think about the route we want to take to get home.
And that route may involve a little, as my GPS says, recalculating.
How we treat others.
What we read. What we watch, the media we consume
The conversations we have - about people we know and people we don’t
The way we treat each other - those like us and those that aren’t
Even in the things we share on social media, those things we hit like on
What we give our time, our energy, our resources
All these things are taking us down a path so on this first Sunday of the new year, of 2022, let’s pause for a moment and say: is this the path we want to be on? Is this taking us home? Is this taking us closer to God’s Kingdom? Closer to a more loving, just, and peaceful world? If not, maybe it’s time we did something differently.
All of us, myself included, can make a positive shift so that what we do here on earth better reflects love of God and love of neighbor. This year, let’s try something new instead of 2020…too. Let’s be kinder, more peaceful, more loving, more like Christ in this world.
Amen.
By ignorance and pride
By destruction of the planet
By a long list of things that we are called to repent from - maybe it’s time to not just focus on moving forward, but to focus on moving in the right direction:
A direction of healing divisions and the wounds they cause
A direction of peace and love
A direction of equality and humility
A direction of restoration and stewardship
A direction of better striving to love God and love neighbor as self
And to move in that direction, sometimes that means we have to stop moving forward on the path we’re on. Cause the path we’re on - well, it’s led to here. And so we need to ask: is here where I really want to be? Is here the path I want to continue on?
The Magi asked themselves this question after being warned in a dream to not return to Herod. The path they had been on, the known path - where they maybe had connections, stops planned on the way home, took less time, the convenient path - it was a way back that was no longer safe. It was a way back that could not be trusted. It was a way back that, while might reward them - who knows how Herod would reward them for bringing them this info - but this way back wasn’t safe. This same path would put Jesus and his family at risk. They needed to change paths for the sake of a world that had Jesus in it. And a world with Jesus is a more loving, just, and peaceful world.
Going home by another way isn’t always the easy thing. But it’s the right thing.
This Advent and Christmas season we have talked about the theme of home. Home is God’s Kingdom. Home is what we build together. Home is where love flourishes. Home is what God made this Earth so that God could invite us all to find our home in Jesus. We experienced that miracle on Christmas and heard God’s invitation to us - so now we need to think about the route we want to take to get home.
And that route may involve a little, as my GPS says, recalculating.
How we treat others.
What we read. What we watch, the media we consume
The conversations we have - about people we know and people we don’t
The way we treat each other - those like us and those that aren’t
Even in the things we share on social media, those things we hit like on
What we give our time, our energy, our resources
All these things are taking us down a path so on this first Sunday of the new year, of 2022, let’s pause for a moment and say: is this the path we want to be on? Is this taking us home? Is this taking us closer to God’s Kingdom? Closer to a more loving, just, and peaceful world? If not, maybe it’s time we did something differently.
All of us, myself included, can make a positive shift so that what we do here on earth better reflects love of God and love of neighbor. This year, let’s try something new instead of 2020…too. Let’s be kinder, more peaceful, more loving, more like Christ in this world.
Amen.
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