During our Christmas Eve services here at Christ Church, Kate took a moment in her greetings to welcome our many visitors and also the many familiar faces who had returned home for the holidays. She remarked that it is always joyful to celebrate such a homecoming spirit this time of year. I couldn’t agree more. There’s something in air around Christmastime that taps into our home-going instincts - something deep and spiritual and worthy of our attention, and a great place to start is the book of Jeremiah.

Mary, John the Baptist, and all the new parents of the world have an important message for us in Advent. We, too, are heralds. We proclaim the coming of new ways of life all the time. But we should take care in choosing which tidings we bear, because whatever we help usher into the world, we will become beholden to. Whatever paths we make in the desert, we will have to travel down.

Even in the midst of our worst trials and tribulations, there are joyful glimpses of the coming Kingdom all around us. But in order to notice them, we have to broaden our imagination and be open to and ready for surprises. This is the message of the Gospels and it is anything but stale. It’s compelling, and it holds more promise than any modern headline we could read.

There is deep wisdom here from our ancestors in the faith. When our way of being in relationship with God isn’t working, as evidenced by all the pain and suffering in our world, and everything comes tumbling down, God’s approach will become stronger, and God will break into our lives in a new and more intimate way. We don’t even have to do anything to make that happen. In fact, resistance is futile, both resistance to the destruction of old ways of life and resistance to God’s advances.

Friends, he is not kidding. He’s not exaggerating. He’s not even using a parable. He is giving us a concrete example of how to live, and I don’t like it. I don’t like it because I worry it might be too hard for me. I hear that same worry creeping in when the disciples respond, “Lord, increase our faith!” Underneath those words, what they’re really asking is, “Lord, make us miraculously better at forgiveness,” or even “Lord, make things easier for us.”

Luke seems to be telling us that lost souls aren’t just God’s responsibility, they’re ours, too. And most importantly, It’s not just God who is pained when people stray from the fold. Our own lives, our experience of the Kingdom of God on earth, is incomplete in the absence of those who are missing.

But what Jesus sees that the Pharisees don’t, is that everyone present is enjoying their Sabbath day at the expense of a member of their community who cannot. With one swift act of healing, the chronically ill woman is finally able to observe a fuller expression of her Sabbath after being ignored for almost two decades. And in turn, the whole synagogue’s Sabbath observance is elevated.The Pharisee’s argument is strong, but Jesus’ mercy is stronger. As preaching scholar Jared Alcántara says, “if you don’t see other people, Jesus will confront you.”

In the parable of the rich fool, Jesus challenges us to look closely at the dangerous effects our earthly treasures have on us. And our Old Testament lessons invite us to engage in the spiritual practices that will protect us from these dangers. In order to loosen the grip that physical resources have on us, we must take action in worship and in prayer. We must recite to ourselves and one another God’s saving deeds in our lives and the life of our community. We must practice, really practice, placing our trust there.

I'm sure the Samaritan was a kindhearted and generous person by nature, but when we read his story next to Psalm 82, it’s clear to me that while he may cry out, “how long, O Lord?” He also hears God calling out these words to the world, and he answers them. He leans into his agency as a child of God to bring about the Kingdom on earth. This is what Jesus refers to when he tells us that we should go and do likewise.