The First Sunday after Christmas, December 31, 2023

I love to preach “low Sundays,” and will be preaching at the congregation to which I belong on December 31.  I believe low Sundays provide an opportunity for a great message, and some of the most dynamic scriptures are scheduled for low Sundays.  December 31 is no exception.  As we look toward a new year, we can ponder themes such as restoration, the universality of revelation, the prophetic messages of Anna and Sarah, and God’s welcoming of all of us as God’s beloved children.  The challenge this week is which scripture to highlight or how to weave together several themes in a creative synthesis of homiletical wisdom.

The Isaiah passage is ripe for a children’s sermon or time for all God’s children.  What are garments of salvation and robes of righteousness? Use your imagination.  What garment would God give you? What spiritual cloak would you like to have as your attire?  I would choose Dumbledore myself.  In a time of celebration, we can be decked out in all God’s finery. We can wear God’s crown of beauty!

In this time of celebration, don’t be silent, so says the prophet.  Shout your praise, Isaiah counsels.  Let your voice ring out.  Let the word go forth. What might your song of praise be? What words or music would you sing on behalf of God’s fullness and restoration of the lost and broken?  Process theology privileges imaginative worship and the consideration of provocative possibilities. Within the norms of your congregation’s worship, you can explore new possibilities.  After all, God is more than we can imagine, and the universe is more amazing than we can fathom. All is miracle, as Walt Whitman said, and you and your church in all their ordinariness are miracles.

Psalm 148 is one of my favorite Psalms.  It portrays a world of praise in which all creatures sing out in joy, thankful to the Creative Wisdom that brought them into being and guides their paths. A living universe.  A democracy of praise, and whatever praises deserves our honor and ethical consideration. “Joy to the World the Christ has Come, Let Earth Receive Her King,” “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee,” and “All Creatures of Our God and King” are appropriate hymns for the day as the human and non-human world celebrates Christ’s coming.  The process-relational preacher might tuck Francis of Assisi’s “Canticle of the Creatures” in the service along with the scriptures.

Galatians 4 speaks of God’s Spirit whispering “Abba, Father,” in our hearts.  The voice of creation, celebrated in Psalm 148, resounds in our lives.  We are God’s children, and we are God’s beloved.  Ernie Campbell, the celebrated preacher of Riverside Church in New York, once asserted that there are only two kinds of people in the world: those who are in God’s hands and know it and those who are in God’s hands and don’t!  We are in God’s hands, we – and all -are chosen by God, and we can fulfill our vocation as God’s companions in healing the Earth.

God is constantly speaking within us, aiming us toward God’s vision and the wellbeing of our Earth companions.  Take time for silence, for prayerful listening. Ask for the Spirit and you will experience that it is already here inspiring you.

The story of Jesus’ Presentation at the temple highlights male and female mysticism as it presents the God’s revelation to Anna and Simeon.  When the Holy Family went to the Temple for the purification of Jesus, they were perceived as just ordinary folk.  No one would have singled them or their child out as unique in the crowd of peasants who came to buy pigeons for their sacrifice. Yet, Simeon and Anna see divinity in a little child.  It is said that the monk is all eye, or all sense, and that day Simeon and Anna saw what everyone else missed, God’s revelation and beloved child in an ordinary baby. The aged among us still make a difference: the limitations give birth to possibilities and some limitations heighten our sense of God’s presence in our lives.

Process theology proclaims a ubiquity of revelation. Even non-religious or secular moments, as Whitehead says, are chockful of divinity. God is not always viewed in the unique and exceptional.  While there are special moments – feast days, celebrations, ecstatic experiences – God’s revelation and inspiration is widely broadcast.  Anna and Simeon had been on the lookout for the Messiah.  They had trained their eyes for wonder and holiness, and when they saw the child, they rejoiced.

We ask often, “how can we keep the Christmas spirit throughout the year?” and on the verge of the new year, these passages give us good counsel:

• Let you imagination run free. Awaken to impossibilities.  Don’t restrain what God can do.  God’s vision for us and the world is more than we can ask or imagine.
• Recognize that you live in a world praise and that all creatures, even the least of thee or those who see as “despicable,” reveal deep down something of the Holy. Rejoice in the non-human world. Give thanks often for those non-humans and humans around you.  Sing praise along with the birds, flowing streams, scudding clouds, and whales.  Let your gratitude lead to Earth honoring and saving action.
• Listen for God’s voice whispering in your life. Pause, meditate, listen, and respond.  In the new year, devote yourself to spiritual practices.  Indeed, congregational spirituality classes are called for to nurture our experiences of the Holy.
• Look deeper than the surface. Train your eyes to see the Holy. Practice the presence of God (Brother Lawrence) in the ordinary and extraordinary, simple and complex, joyful and challenging moments of life. Celebrate the ordinary with mindfulness throughout the day.  You are on Holy Ground!
• Look for God in every child, and then act accordingly to ensure a safe and healthy world for all children, in your land and across the globe.

Leaning toward the new year, let us have senses wide open to God’s incarnation in our lives and the plethora of possibilities that emerge with each new day.

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Bruce Epperly is a pastor, professor, spiritual guide, and author of over seventy books, including JESUS – MYSTIC, HEALER, AND PROPHET; THE ELEPHANT IS RUNNING: PROCESS AND OPEN AND RELATIONAL THEOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS PLURALISM; PROPHETIC HEALING: HOWARD THURMAN’S VISION OF CONTEMPLATIVE ACTIVISM; MYSTIC’S IN ACTION: TWELVE SAINTS FOR TODAY; WALKING WITH SAINT FRANCIS: FROM PRIVILEGE TO ACTIVISM; MESSY INCARNATION: MEDITATIONS ON PROCESS CHRISTOLOGY, FROM COSMOS TO CRADLE: MEDITATIONS ON THE INCARNATION, and THE PROPHET AMOS SPEAKS TO AMERICA.  His most recent books are PROCESS THEOLOGY AND THE REVIVAL WE NEED, TAKING A WALK WITH WHITEHEAD: MEDITATIONS WITH PROCESS-RELATIONAL THEOLOGY, and SIMPLICTY, SPIRITUALITY AND SERVICE: THE TIMELESS WISDOM OF FRANCIS, CLARE, AND BONAVENTURE. He can be reached at [email protected].