Seeing the Sacred in Each Other – 19 December 2021

This Advent season is a season of dreaming. Perhaps you’re dreaming of a white Christmas, or a visit from Santa. Or maybe closer to your heart is a dream for peace to truly take hold in the world, or for economic recovery, or for an end to hunger. Maybe you have a really specific dream—like hearing from a loved one at Christmas time, or finally staying sober, or bridging the distance that has crept into a relationship . . . I believe the most powerful dreams, the truest and holiest dreams, are given to us by God. They reflect God’s deep love for us and for all of God’s children. –– Aaron Couch

Luke 1:39-45 [46-55]

Today’s Gospel reminds us of the real potential of some meetings. Some can become truly sacramental encounters . . . That meeting of Elizabeth and Mary can be a paradigm for us of what such a coming together can potentially become and how to make that type of happening possible. Unfortunately, so many of our meetings with one another can seem to be far from sacramental; we don’t sense or experience any moment of grace or contact with a divine presence . . . The question is: what can we do to make sacramental encounters in our meetings with one another more common?

If we were to find a book entitled How to Make Every Meeting a Visitation, what might that book say? I think it would suggest that we need to cultivate an awareness of the potential of any given moment and to focus our attention on the other more than we do . . . Certainly Mary and Elizabeth . . . truly pay attention to one another. They receive the word which each is for the other, a sacred word . . . Pay attention to the Spirit’s inspirations, attend to the Spirit within, listen to the inspirations that the Holy Spirit puts into your heart and in the other’s heart.

The Spirit not only enables us to pray but also enables us to relate in an upbuilding way. Be aware of God’s many gifts, grow in gratitude toward the other, acknowledge the source of all gifts, and let gratitude overflow in your relationship . . . If we can truly appreciate the other and the moment, our awareness and paying attention could turn more of our meetings into sacramental encounters. –– Raymond Studzinski

Micah 5:2-5a

Our scripture readings for this morning are full of the deepest dreams of God’s people. The prophet Micah lived in the kingdom of Judah through a time of violence and war and fear . . . The northern kingdom of Israel was finally overrun by the Assyrian army, and Judah was invaded by Egypt.

Meanwhile, Judah’s leaders in Jerusalem seemed capable of little more than dithering and posturing, except when it came to cheating and exploiting their own people . . . But Micah dreamed that one day God would raise up a leader for God’s people who would be like David, born in David’s own city of Bethlehem, who would trust in God, who would be strong, and who would care for the people like a shepherd. He would make them feel secure and would lead them in the way of peace. –– Aaron Couch

Hebrews 10:5-10

If the Epistle reading is about the church, the body of Christ, and the goal toward which God’s desire for us calls us to move, this text calls us to examine what we think it means to please God. Christ speaks to the Creator, saying the efforts of those who believe their “sacrifices” are offered to God are mistaken. Their “sacrifices” are responses to what the law seems to be requiring. On the contrary, Christ is the one who fulfills the law by being sacrificed on the altar of human ego and greed. Whatever it is that we are doing today that continues to enhance our self-importance, our power, our acquisitiveness is not what God finds pleasing. We are made holy only by God’s own doing. We cannot achieve holiness by following our paltry desires. –– Melinda Quivik

Aaron Couch is a co-pastor of First Immanuel Lutheran Church in Portland, Oregon.

Raymond Studzinski, OSB, a monk of St. Meinrad Archabbey, is associate professor of spirituality and catechetics in the School of Theology and Religious Studies at The Catholic University of America in Washington DC. A recent publication is Reading to Live: The Evolving Practice of Lectio Divina (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2009).

Melinda Quivik, an ordained ELCA pastor (who served churches in Montana, Michigan, and Minnesota) and former professor of worship and preaching, is the Editor-in-Chief of Liturgy, a writer, and a preaching mentor with Backstory Preaching at backstory-preaching.mn.co.

Homily Service 43, no. 1 (2009): 32–40.

David Turnbloom