​Intro: John the Baptist is a figure that captures my imagination: before the television reality show Survivor – here is the original winner of survivor. He lives off the land – by eating wild honey and insects. He sleeps in caves and dresses in animal skins. And he preaches the Word of the Lord in the desert.
What is surprising is that people arrive to listen to him: 
They have to travel 45 miles east of Jerusalem – and this is not welcoming terrain: To the east the city looks down on the Dead Sea and across the Jordan River to the arid mountains of Moab. And there at the river in the wilderness, is a preacher who looks like a Wildman.  Why would anyone go to listen to him:
Luke gives us a clue: 18  So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. 
John preaches Good News. And the people are in desperate need of Good News – because they lived very difficult lives: here are people taxed by a Roman oppressor, and taxed again by the temple leadership. Here are people who are trapped in the political schemes of King Herod (who is a local tyrant), and Joseph Ben Caiaphas the Chief Priest (and an astute politician), and Pontius Pilate, the Roman authority. 
And John is preaching Good News at the river. And at this point we discover John teaching an important thing about good news – John says that we cannot get to the good news by ignoring the bad news. John speaks of the difficult things of life: He speaks of some people having more than they need while others have nothing; he notes tax collectors extorting the people, and soldiers using their military domination to rob people. And he tells them to change their ways:
"Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." 12  … tax collectors:  "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." 14  Soldiers:  "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages." 
This is absolutely not how our culture works: we live in a world that likes to speak of the good things: this is the season of a  “Jolly, holly Christmas” and “ merry festive greetings”. And in order to have a Happy Holiday - we resolutely ignore the bad stuff. This is even more pronounced here in the mid-west: what is called “Midwest niceness”. Be nice and sweep the bad stuff under the carpet. John teaches us something different. 
1. Speaking about Good News does not deny the bad news.
John does deny the bad news. But, says John, there is Good News, because Christmas is coming.   Well he does not say it like that : here are his actual words: One more powerful than I is coming: Jesus is on his way. 
We live is a culture that has been persuaded to think that in order to be happy – we must not speak about the difficulties: not so says John: name the difficult stuff, and then discover that God is with us. Let me be clear: God does not take the difficult stuff away. Far too many preachers seem to suggest that following Jesus means that we will not have any more difficult stuff in our lives. God does not save us from our mistakes, or our stupidity. And God does not prevent the challenging stuff coming our way. But here is the Good News: God accompanies us through the difficult stuff to the other side. And for this reason we can speak about the Bad News and ask God to be with us and help us turn Bad News into Good News. 
2. Speaking of Good News offers an opportunity for a New Beginning
John is preaching at the Jordan river: he could have chosen to preach in Jerusalem – but instead he travels 45 miles East to the Jordan River. This is a significant place: because he is preaching at the place where the children of Israel had crossed this River to enter their promised land 1000 years earlier. And John is inviting the nation to begin again. In essence he is saying: “Come and cross the Jordan again. Come to the river and start over. Be baptised as if you were not born Jewish – and cross the river into your promised land.” This is the good news says John: you can begin again. And at this point John helps us all to understand that in order for Good News to happen – we must speak about the bad news: The Word of God for those who have become accustomed to living unaccountable lives:
In a sentence: Do not use your power to make yourselves rich at the expense of others. If you have more clothes than you need and see someone who has nothing - then share what you have so that you both have enough. Do not use you position in government to get rich off the poor; and if you are in the military – do not use military office to get advantage for yourself.  
Here is the Good News, says John: if you live your lives generously, and with compassion for the weak and the poor – you will discover that God is with you.  In the light of this I invite us to expect Good News this Christmas.  
Too often in our lives, we don’t expect Good News. Yet here we are, invited to not only know there is Good News intended for us – but invited to participate in it. We are invited to live with a sense of expectation: to shout aloud because our God is with us. We have a Christmas word for this: Emmanuel – “God is with us”. This is the core truth of Christmas – that God has come to live with us: and it is this that will lead us to reform our selfish ways in preparation of the coming of the Lord. We are to share our hearts and lives with one another, to show love and kindness to all people, and in so doing to become the Good News of Christmas. I close with the example of someone who made the presence of God visible around him: 
José Mujica, was the President of Uruguay between 2010-15. He chose to live on his modest farm instead using the majestic Presidential residence, and drove his old car instead of using a Presidential cavalcade. Because of his simple living, he became become a topic of discussion around the world during his tenure as President. 
But here is my point: he understood what he needed for his life: and so donated around 90 percent of his $12,000 a month salary to charities that benefited poor people and small entrepreneurs.
The joy and love of Christmas come alive in our acts of generous kindness. I am inviting us to be God’s sign of Christmas in our community. 
    

​We read earlier of a man who was called by God to go to the city of Nineveh: Jonah, son of Amittai.  He was a prophet who lived 700 years before Jesus – but the story in the book of Jonah is bigger than a historical figure: it is the kind of story that has become a parable that can speak to every generation since then. Invite us to pause with this story and be challenged to grow in our faith: 
God tells Jonah to go and preach in Nineveh.  And so Jonah was on a mission – to go in the opposite direction to the way God had called him! God said “Go to Nineveh – and Jonah went to Tarshish”. 
This is not strange: we human beings often ignore the stuff that God tells us to do.  In fact we often do the exact opposite of what our Christian faith teaches us: 
Listen to some of the words of Jesus from Luke Chapter 6:
“Do good to those who hate you” And yet if I am insulted – I will return the insult ….preferably with interest!
“Do not judge” – but we fill social media with our judgement of other people: or at the very least we fill our homes with our opinions of other people. And there is more: Jesus tells us to - 
 Forgive easily
 Lend your possessions to other people
 Give generously
But our human preference is bitterness, and selfish accumulation, and endless debate about my rights and my freedoms. We are not very different from Jonah who heard God, and then went in the opposite direction. 
The amazing thing about the story of Jonah is that God’s love never wavered! God kept track of Jonah, even when he was in the middle of a storm – a storm that he brought on himself. Even when Jonah’s world fell apart and he was overwhelmed by a fish: God never walked away from him.  
God would have been justified had he abandoned Jonah: it would have made sense if God had decided to find another messenger instead of Jonah. But at this point we see the truth of our God: God does not repay us as we deserve:
Jesus says this in a number of different ways:
Luke 6: 35 “God is kind to the evil and the ungrateful.”  
Luke 6: 36 Your heavenly Father is merciful
Luke 6: 37 You will be forgiven
Luke 6: 38 He will bless you - A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap
This is the beginning point of our gratitude in life: When we discover that God loves us we do not need to hold onto to our bitterness and to our pain and to our anger…. We can unclench our fists and open our hands in gratitude 
When we discover that God loves us we do not need to cling so tightly to our possessions, and to our collections of things. We can release our tight grip on our possessions and become gratefully generous. Let me return to the story of Jonah:
There comes a moment when Jonah comes to his senses:  
From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the LORD his God. 2 He said:
“In my distress I called to the LORD,
    and he answered me.
From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help,
    and you listened to my cry.
……………
But I, with shouts of grateful praise,
    will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
    I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the LORD.” 
Here is what gratitude looks like: “I will make good”. Grateful praise is expressed in obedient service.

And the best way to express this is to become generously open handed: 
I challenge us to pledge sacrificially to the work of God in this church so that we can become a witness to the generosity of God. Let this city learn about the kindness of God in the generosity we show as a church. We can only do this if you as members commit to this: if you, like Jonah, are willing to give generously and regularly to our church. 
Please fill in your pledge forms for 2023. This is your moment to say thank you to God. 

I challenge us to express our gratitude by being generous to every person that walks through our doors: everyone is welcome: Open Hearts, Open Minds Open Doors. Everyone – adults and kids / physically challenged/ Mentally challenged / straight and gay and transgendered / people caught up in substance abuse / regular people who listen to country music and drive pick ups, and city people who listen to classical music and drive a Toyota Prius…. (and even guys like me who ride a motorcycle and listen to rock music)
Here is your welcome – and if you have been welcomed through the doors and cannot welcome someone else – you were not grateful for your own welcome:
Because this is the house of Jesus: we will be grateful people. 

​Text for the day: 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5)
Introduction: Have you given thought to your Thanksgiving gathering? For many, this day is a time for joy, merriment, and amazing food — but for others, it's a source of stress and anxiety, thanks to family drama around the dinner table. So here is the question for today: Is it possible to be thankful under difficult circumstances?
St Paul seems to think so: here is our text for the day: 
16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Let me give us some context to this text: to do so I need to take you to an ancient city in Greece called Thessalonica. 
It was founded in 315BC and named by a Greek King after his wife – who was the sister of Alexander the Great.  Thessalonica was important because it had a seaport on the Aegean Sea and so became part of a major trade system.  In 148BC it became the capital of the Roman province of Macedonia – and 50 years after Jesus, the Apostle Paul visited this city.
His visit did not go well: He spent three weeks teaching about Jesus in the Jewish Synagogue, and a number of people chose to follow the way of Jesus. But the Jewish leaders of the city heard rumours that Paul was teaching about a new King called Jesus who would oppose Caesar. They were afraid of Roman soldiers shutting down their businesses and they chased Paul out of the city. This was a messy and unpleasant event, which involved a mob dragging Paul’s host through the streets, and rioting people, and a gathering of city officials. Paul and Silas escaped Thessalonica after dark, and travel 45 miles at night to the southwest city of Berea.
This was not a happy event: and here is where things get weird:
Do you know the very first letter Paul writes – in fact the oldest writing in the whole of the New Testament? It is the letter to the followers of Jesus in Thessalonica. The city that chased him out at night – is the first city on Paul’s heart: and here it gets even more weird – because of the tone of the letter!
I would have expected Paul to write a letter that refers to the difficulty of being a disciple / perhaps a complaint about how hard it was to leave like that – and how hard the rest of the journey was – because people from Thessalonica followed Paul to the next city and persuaded them to chase Paul out of Berea.
Listen to the letter Paul writes: He is reflecting on what happened to him in his visit to Thessalonica: 
5 Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you. 2 For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 When they say, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape! 
: Paul speaks of how life can change in an instant – and just when you think that there is peace and security, sudden destruction will occur. He was peacefully preaching in the Synagogue …..and then he was running for his life. Paul’s life was not securely fixed: And all of us say “Aha I understand this” 
This is the one big thing I have learned in South Dakota – life can change in an instant:
• For example: do not think that you understand the weather: just when you think it is a lovely day – everything changes!
• The same can be said of the economy, or of the politics of our day, or of our own personal circumstances: we think we are healthy, until we are not; we think that all is well with our family, until it is not.
I am reminded of Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher, who is quoted as saying "change is the only constant in life." The fact is: we do not have control of the environment around us. (of course we wish that we did – and some even try to keep control by making more rules, or by erecting walls, or in my case - by telling my daughter to keep away from the long haired musician!) What we do have control over is our response to what happen s to us:
Let me read a bit more of the writing of St Paul:
15 See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 19 Do not quench the Spirit. 
Paul – who had suffered great evil at the hands of the people of Thessalonica – responds by saying : “do not repay evil with evil”. This runs counter to the world we live in – ours is a world that says – make sure that you get your revenge for the evil done to you. No so says St Paul: instead seek to do good to all people.
Paul then goes further and says that when you are doing good, do it with a heart full of joy. Give thanks in all circumstances. Here is Paul reminding us of an important lesson. He had struggle in his relationship with Thessalonica. Even so, he is thankful: he is grateful that there were people who heard the Gospel – and that God had accompanied him. 
Again this is counter to our culture: We come to expect the good things and complain when things do not go our way. We give thanks when we are happy and we curse when we struggle.
Here is the invitation for this month: let us learn to give thanks: Giving thanks is not a natural action: we have to learn to say thank you / we teach our children to say thankyou / and as we grow older it is easy to forget this lesson. 
Four Opportunities:
1. Keep a Gratitude Journal 

2. Come to our Thanksgiving Breakfast

3. Complete a Pledge Card.

4. Join in celebrating the people who set us an example of faith: the Saints who have gone before us. 

​How good are you at languages that are not English: Today I want to take you to three phrases of our faith – that are in a foreign language. 

The First is in Italian.
These words are used by Dante Alighieri in his poem called “Divine Comedy” – which was completed in 1320.
In his poem these were the words written over the gates of hell – 
“Abandon hope all you who enter here”.
This poem expresses the ideas of the Medieval Church of the 14 Century: put more simply: if you did not belong to the Christian Church when you died you went to hell – where there would was no more hope for you.

There are still many Christian who cling to this idea 800 years later. That some people have no hope of salvation and they might as well give up now. 
My task today is to say to us that this is simply not true: There is never a moment when we abandon all hope: And I know this because Jesus went to the place without hope – and Jesus redeemed it.
And here I take us to the second bit of foreign language:
Here are the words of Jesus on the cross: 
 eli eli lama sabachthani

We read the translation in Matthew 27:46: 
My God, My God – why have you forsaken me?
Here is the place where Jesus abandons all hope:
Here is the moment that the image of Dante becomes real:  Jesus has entered that place of no hope – he is using an ancient prayer of desperation – Psalm 22 -  and those standing at the cross hear him literally enter the gates of hell.

But here is the good news of our faith: not even the gates of hell could hold him….

Do you remember the Creed we say:
 I believe in ….. Jesus Christ…
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead;
He ascended into Heaven, 
This is our faith:  that nobody should abandon hope, because on the third day Jesus bursts the gates of hell and offers hope to all who trust in him

Nobody should believe that they are forsaken by God.
Because each person is God’s, and no matter how far you have strayed,  God keeps loving you.

It is time to teach the last word:
At the end of 1 Corinthians St Paul Uses a word that is written in Aramaic: “Maranatha”

A statement of faith – and a cry of hope:
Translated as “The Lord has come – and may the Lord come”.
Today I am inviting us to replace our despair with hope – to learn the word “Maranatha”

Invite Jesus into our lives
Choose to live your life in the shadow of the teachings of Jesus
Instead of despair – speak this word each morning: Maranatha.