HELLO!

If you missed last Sunday’s Brass and Choir Christmas concert, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UkS-aO4Bss Bethe and I wish you a Merry Christmas! https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1HUT8GpkZy/

Bethe encourages you to wear a Christmas sweater to church this Sunday.

This week I heard from Darrin McGurk, whom I have never met. He wanted me to know his father, Heber is keen to join us in worship this Sunday, December 21^st. Heber McGurk is a celebrity in his hometown of Carbonear, Newfoundland. Unfortunately, Heber has been in hospital, “two days ago winds of 168kms which blew lights off the house. Heber went out to secure them, and the wind lifted him up about four feet and threw him ten feet crashing him into deck with broken ribs.” https://www.facebook.com/landandseanl/videos/land-sea-heber-mcgurks-stories-of-a-lifetime/488415465748030/

And what can you expect this fourth Sunday of Advent? Our theme is Joseph, a quiet carpenter whose like is upended because of a dream. It is his willingness to lean into the impossible, to embrace the scandalous, to abandon his notions of holiness in favour of God’s messy plan of salvation, that allows the miracle of Christmas to unfold. Matthew’s gospel tells us Joseph wakes up one morning to find his world shattered. His fiancée is pregnant, he knows he is not the father, and suddenly, he has no good options to choose from. If he calls attention to Mary’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy, she will be stoned to death. If he divorces her quietly, she’ll be begging or prostituting herself to support her child. If he marries her Joseph will be tainted forever by the scandal of Mary’s illicit pregnancy, and by her ridiculous claim that the baby’s Dad is somehow God.

Interestingly, in the verses that immediately precede our Gospel reading, Matthew gives us a genealogy of Jesus’s ancestors. He mentions Jacob, the trickster usurper who humiliated his older brother. He mentions David, who slept with another man’s wife and then ordered that man's murder to protect his own reputation. He mentions Tamar, who pretended to be a sex worker, and Rahab, who was one. God chose a long line of brokenness, imperfection, dishonor, and scandal. No wonder that the angel Gabriel’s first words to Joseph were, “Do not be afraid.”

What have you been dreaming about lately? The greatest gift you can give this year is to believe in someone's dreams. The greatest gift you can give is to have faith in someone else; believe in their dreams. I know some folks do not sleep well. Too much worry. The reason we sleep is to dream. The reason we have relationships is so that we will have someone who will believe our dreams. God works through those dreams/relationships.

Peace, Kevin