The Church Mouse Program will be starting up at Brick again this year to support Brick members at boarding school and college. If you have a child who is at boarding school or college and would like them to receive a care package from the Brick community, please fill out  this survey  by February 10. Our goal is to send one round of packages before spring break, and another during exam period. We will be gathering in the Carnegie Room after church on Sunday, February 22 to assemble care packages. If you would like to volunteer to help, please reach out to  Margaret Pennoyer  or  Sarah Johnson .

Please bring some extra cash to Sunday Worship on February 8th to donate and support our Confirmands' annual Souper Bowl Sunday. During this event, Confirmands research organizations that serve people in need and then have a debate on which organization(s) should receive the funds. Thank You!

What does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God? - Micah 6:8b Why at Brick Church are we looking at the 250th anniversary of our country?    Birthdays and anniversaries are times to reflect on what our life has been and what we hope it will be going forward. This year marks the 250th birthday of our country and its founding. And rather than focusing on a comprehensive history we will especially focus on the founding values.   It’s fascinating to look at these values because they are rooted in, and tied deeply back to, scriptural principles - such as “all are created equal,” “the rule of law,” and “we the people have rights bestowed by God.” Our founders, whether they were Christian or deists, all drew inspiration from Scripture’s witness to God, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.   Brick Church’s history is effected by the history of our country and in knowing our past we can better understand our present and more consciously shape who God wants us to become tomorrow; to shape a future in which we are more faithful to the call of Christ to love God with all our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves.     Let’s take “the rule of law.” Of course, we know that the great gift of the law was given to the Hebrew people on Mount Sinai. The Ten Commandments organized them as a people and showed them how to treat one another fairly and how not to repeat the enslaving tendencies of the Pharaoh who mistreated them.   Now let’s look at “all are created equal.” These wonderful words were  radical  when Thomas Jefferson wrote them, but they spring from, of course, from the first chapter of Genesis: “In the image of God, He created them; male and female, He created them.” We are all made in God’s image; therefore, we are all equal.   Another thread of our founding, “we the people,” also began in ancient Hebrew times, when Moses grew weary of carrying all leadership and responsibility on himself. At God’s command, he gathered groups of elders and empowered them to share leadership. Then, in the New Testament, Paul tells us that “each is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” In other words, everyone has a voice. The United States of America was amongst the first countries to embed these ideas into its founding principles.    Though we are not founded upon one religion - our founders were clear about that - we were founded to be a country with religious principles woven throughout our life together. Many of our founders believed that a country like the United States could not function without the moral influence of religion because it is neither autocratic nor dictatorial. They understood that for these principles to work, morality was required - and that morality grew out of a deep understanding of religion.  Even so, through the First Amendment they explicitly forbade the establishment of a particular religion while ensuring its free exercise.    Of course, we also know that our country has fallen short, from the very beginning, of fully living into the founding values. In this series, over the next several months beginning in February, we will start with a dynamic guest preacher, Rev. Dr. Darrell Armstrong, pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Trenton, NJ.   Rev. Armstrong is a fellow of alum of Princeton Seminary and he  will help us understand moments in our history - such as what happened with Liberia - and ask hard questions about what our country was thinking at the time. He gained this perspective from first hand experiences and thorough research.  He will also help us recognize that although “all are created equal” remains an aspirational goal, we have failed to live it out fully, and that acknowledging those failures is part of faithful witness.   And so, throughout this series, we will explore these founding principles - both to give thanks for who we have been as a nation and to challenge ourselves to more fully live into them in a way that reflects the will of God.   As I reflected on these principles, I realized that if we were to sit down and write them today, we would likely arrive at a very similar list: “the rule of law,” “the equality of persons,” and “the people are sovereign,” not a king or a pope. In this way, our founding springs from the New Testament. The rights we hold do not ultimately come from a document in the Constitution; they are bestowed by God. From this conviction flows the notions of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all. And yet, we know that not everyone in our nation is able to fully pursue these aspirations. Therefore, we must acknowledge that rules and laws alone are not enough. Jesus tells us, “If you are free in me, then you are free indeed.”   We will also reflect on the nature of the Reformed Faith, which understands that faith is not a binding, duty-oriented effort to earn God’s favor. Rather, salvation is a gift from Christ - one that sets us free from constant anxiety about our worth or standing. It is, quite simply, a gift.   What does Christ expect of us in response? To go and change the world so that the kingdom on earth looks more like the kingdom of heaven. This is what we pray for every week in the Lord’s Prayer. In some ways, our nation incorporated aspects of this prayer into its founding values.   Throughout the series, we will engage the insights of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and others. We will also learn about the abolitionist David Walker, an African American writer of the 1800s, who warned of God’s coming judgment because of slavery and the denial of liberty - reminding us that if even one is not free, then none are free.   Finally, at Easter, we will shift our focus to the pursuit of happiness as defined by a biblical perspective: abundant life. True fullness of life is found in the gift of Christ’s love and life for us, and in God’s desire that we live abundantly. As a congregation, we will challenge ourselves to consider how we can live out our nation’s values through a Christian lens, so that all may know abundant life. Prayer of Confession:  Lord, 250 years ago a country was forged that affirmed all are created equal. Yet we have failed and continue to fail to treat everyone as beloved children of God. As Jesus Himself taught our acts compassion for others are also acts of love for Him. Show us the divine image within others that we might treat all as we would the Lord Himself. Amen.

Psalm 8:1-9  When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honour.  Psalm 8:3-5   “What are human beings?”  A deceptively powerful question from Psalm 8. The answer, of course, depends upon who you ask.  Ask a biologist:  Humans are classified under the genus  Homo , within the family  Hominidae (the great apes), order  Primates , class  Mammalia ,  phylum   Chordata , and kingdom  Animalia . Ask a chemist: We are a unique molecular arrangement containing the most fascinating molecule in the universe: deoxyribonucleic acid. Somehow, this amalgamation of atoms stumbled upon a way to replicate itself. And over four billion years, that molecule has come to dominate the earth through elaborate self-sustaining chemical interactions. But Psalm 8 has a decidedly different answer: Humans are a little lower than angels—or God, depending on the translation—crowned with glory, and given authority over the world. Modernity, however, has stripped away this perspective and replaced it with an operating definition that drains our true nature, making us blind to our noble state. Our culture tells us that we are our careers, our accomplishments, our families, our country, or our academic pedigrees. And we take these things very seriously—often to our detriment. Psalm 8 tells us we have been fed a lie. We are lofty beings, yet we have been brought low by a theory of knowledge that is purely empirical: that meaning can be measured. The French language gives us a helpful distinction here. (And I apologize in advance to the French for this oversimplification of their beautifully complex language.) It has two primary words for knowledge:  connaissance  and  savoir . I know that China is part of Asia. That is  connaissance . But I have never been to Asia. I know this fact, but I don’t know in my being what this implies. But I also know that golf is inhumanly difficult. And I know this because of my endless lost balls, shanks, and three putts. That is  savoir . I know the agony and ecstasy of golf. Our society has elevated  connaissance —the accumulation of information—over  savoir , knowing something in its depth, in its heart. And because of that, we do not know who we are. More tragically, we have forgotten whose we are. Even religion can fall into this trap. We can accumulate information about the Bible without allowing ourselves to be shaped by it. I saw this clearly when I wrote my doctoral dissertation on how people read the Bible. I interviewed one man—an engineer, a faithful servant of the church in Buffalo. He had retired and spent countless hours maintaining the church building, never charging us a cent. He knew more about the Bible than anyone else in the congregation, and he served more than almost anyone else. A good friend. But fascinatingly, though he knew, he did not believe a word of it and it meant nothing to him. He “ connaissance ”-d Scripture, but he was not known by it. Others, though not well schooled in Scripture, were clearly shaped by it. “ The Lord is my shepherd ” truly gave them the comfort of a pastoral God. They had  savoir  of the Lord. In order to know,  savoir , ourselves, we must first  savoir  the Lord. Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest and author, names this distinction powerfully. She writes: The last thing any of us needs is more information about God. We need the practice of incarnation, by which God saves the lives of those whose belief has turned as dry as dust… Not more about God. More God. Though institutional religion may be waning in our society, a strong majority of people still believe there is more to reality than the empirical. According to Gallup, roughly 70 percent of people believe there is something spiritual beyond the natural world, even if it cannot be seen. We can come to know God more by knowing more about God’s creation. This is exactly what the author of Psalm 8 experienced. One can imagine him standing outside on a clear, cool night, gazing upward, overwhelmed by awe:  When I consider the moon and the stars… what are human beings that you are mindful of them? He gazed in slack-jawed awe at creation, but the awe that you and I have should be multiplied many times over. He had no idea just how astonishing the universe truly is. Those tiny points of light are massive balls of gas ignited by gravity. Stars are formed by microscopic dust drifting through endless space, colliding slowly until—suddenly—light bursts forth. He did not know that all physical matter is composed mostly of empty space. Atoms are infinitesimally small, yet only about one trillionth of their volume is actual solid! Imagine placing a marble at the center of a football field. That represents the nucleus of an atom. The electrons swirl around the outer edges of the stadium. And here is the truly astonishing thing: you can levitate. I can levitate. Every time we walk, we are floating one angstrom—one ten-billionth of a meter—above the ground, held up by repulsive forces much like two positive poles of magnets pushing against each other. When the psalmist looks at creation—and when we do—and then realizes that God has made us greater than all of it, simply astounding. So the challenge before us is to live as beings of lofty light. Brian McLaren, a leader in the Generous Orthodoxy movement, puts it this way: Spiritual practices are about life—training ourselves to become the kinds of people who have eyes and actually see… so that we experience—with increasing consistency and resiliency, even in economy class—not just survival, but Life—abundant, examined, conscious, worth living, and good. He wrote those words twenty years ago, before economy class became what it is today. Imagine being stuck in the middle seat on an eleven-hour economy airline flight with no legroom and a screaming baby. McLaren’s point is not merely that we survive such a flight—but that even there, life can be abundant. You might rightly say, “ Tom, this sounds wonderful—but it’s not possible. Not in this world .” I sympathize. My instincts tell me the same. But note the context of Psalm 8; it follows a series of psalms filled with anguish and despair, typified in Psalm 6:  “ I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping. My eyes waste away because of grief; they grow weak because of all my foes. ” (Psalm 6:6–7) These psalms (including Psalm 8) were written in a time of war and threat, when Israel was surrounded by enemies. Yet Psalm 8 lifts our eyes beyond the immediate moment to deeper truths. Psalm 8 was revolutionary in the midst of war, hunger, and inequality. In ancient cultures, only kings were believed to bear God’s image and thus they held all the power. But Psalm 8 declares that all people are crowned with glory and given authority. We acknowledge suffering—but as people of faith, we also acknowledge greater realities that center us and give us strength. The Lord knows every hair on your head. And God has entrusted you with authority over this extraordinary world; that is what Psalm 8 tells us. What greater compliment could God offer? We understand the power of nurturing. That is why classrooms keep pets—to teach children responsibility and care. And this nurturing mirrors the work of Christ himself. Jesus comes down, loves us, and gives his life for creatures who are, in all honesty, far beneath him—yet he chooses to remain with us. The psalmist knows our flaws. God knows them too. We are greedy. We blame others. We push people aside. And yet—we are crowned with glory. There is a hunger, Harvey Cox, a Harvard professor and author of  God in the Secular City , saw a resurgence of spiritual curiosity at Harvard—students wearing crosses and yarmulkes, flocking to a course on Jesus not taught since 1912. But the enrollment was only bested by Econ 101. And I suspect this hunger for more God is in part a hunger to know, to  savoir , ourselves. What are human beings? I leave you with this quote, the attribution of which I could not find: “ A human is dust lit by the breath of God—a fragile frame carrying immortal longings .” May we all truly know God, and in so doing even come to know ourselves. Amen.

Ephesians 1:3-14 Every morning in Africa, a gazelle awakens. It knows it must run faster than the lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion awakens. It knows it must run faster than the gazelle or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle  —  when the sun comes up, you'd better be running. This parable has become the theme song for modern American life. We wake up on the run; we leap out of bed, take our showers, wolf down breakfast, if we have any,that is, get the kids off to school, and throw ourselves together on the way to work. Even if you’re retired, you busily jump from one activity to the next, and it’s common knowledge that retirement is no retirement at all, but simply a shifting of chores. The frenetic activity stays the same, but without any of the pay! There is a beetle in Africa who, I think, epitomizes the modern struggle. It spends all day every day shaping, molding, rolling, patting, creating perfectly round balls of... you guessed it, elephant dung. We frantically jump from one task to the next, and at times we feel as if our lives accomplish nothing more than putting a good face on a pile of, ahem, refuse. Unfortunately, this hyper useless activity does more than keep us busy, it corrodes our well-being. The  American Heart Journal  suggests it can lead to a heart attack. It lists the following as contributing factors in heart disease: time urgency; being warned by others to slow down; haste in walking, eating, or leaving the table after a meal; intense dislike of waiting in lines; loss of temper while driving; teeth grinding, and excessive irritation at the trivial mistakes of others. This dis-ease results not simply from over activity, but a deeper sickness of the soul, loss of meaning, of purpose. This void causes pain, which we try to ignore through toiling at vain tasks. When we discover ourselves toiling away uselessly, our pain multiplies, which leads us to increase our activity even more, thus trapping us in a vicious cycle. By ignoring our lack of purpose, our spirits wither and decay, eventually leaving a blackened, mean-spirited soul, much like Liza Hamilton as described in John Steinbeck’s  East of Eden : ...a tight, hard little woman, humorless as a chicken ...with a dour Presbyterian mind and a code of morals that pinned down and beat the brains out of nearly everything that was pleasant to do. If you can sympathize with Liza, if you feel anxious or sad for no good reason, if you simply cannot slow down, if you find yourself asking, “What’s the point?”, then I have great news. Ephesians shows us the way of meaning, thereby showing us how to make the fleeting states of love, joy, and peace that pop up when the conditions are right into stations, which are those same qualities now integrated and installed into our daily lives. In Ephesians 1:12, the apostle Paul tells us the meaning of life, “that we...might live for the praise of God’s glory.” Paul claims our purpose in life, our reason for being, is to offer praises to God’s glory. Admittedly, a lofty, esoteric answer, which at first glance seems to have at best a tenuous connection to humanity’s struggle for food, shelter, peace, and health, much less your daily battles to simply not go mad from the onslaught of pressures in modern life. However, we come here professedly as believers, and if you’ll have a little faith in Paul, we can see how one simple objective can change your life for good! Paul teaches us that we must live for the praise of God’s glory, but you and I have forgotten how. We have allowed ourselves to be distracted. Before we can live for the praise of God’s glory, we must be aware of God at all times. Theophan the Recluse, Orthodox mystic, hints how we might recall: Remembrance of God is something that God Himself grafts upon the soul. But the soul must also force itself to persevere and to toil. Work, making every effort to attain the unceasing remembrance of God. And God, seeing how fervently you desire it, will give you this constant recollection of Himself. Mostly, we think of God once, twice, maybe three times a week. George Herbert, 17th-century English poet, suggests otherwise, Sev’n whole days, not one in seven, I will praise thee. In my heart, though not in heaven, I can raise thee. Small it is, in this poor sort To enroll thee: Ev’n eternity is too short To extol thee Despite Herbert’s lofty ideals, our attempts to remember God for the most part amount to feelings of guilt and confusion concerning God’s will. Nevertheless, if you remember anything from this sermon, please remember this, praising God through your life, being faithful to God, does not mean you must spend all of your time teaching Sunday School or going to church or volunteering in some service project. God does not want us to spend all our time in church. Rather, God invites us to live out our lives, our normal routines, as acts of praise to God! Brush your teeth, for God! Kiss your spouse and praise God! Clean the house, call your friends, eat a grand feast, share something with your neighbor, and do it all for God’s sake! This is where our work enters in. This is the hard part. C.S. Lewis observed: That is why the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not normally look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, ...letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. The challenge is to make the intellectual acknowledgment that we live to praise God a genuine, spontaneous thankfulness of the heart. Thomas Kelly, Quaker, insightfully comments, “ What is urged here are secret habits of unceasing orientation of the deeps of our being about the inward light... while we are also very busy in the world of daily affairs... ” A classic tale of Russian spirituality,  The Way of the Pilgrim , tells how to turn this desire of the mind into a prayer of the heart. It offers a path to make those fleeting states of love, joy, and peace, into permanent stations. It tells of a peasant whose first concern is to fulfill the biblical injunction to pray without ceasing.” Seeking for someone who can explain how, he wanders through Russia and Siberia with a knapsack, finally, he finds an old man who teaches him a constant, uninterrupted calling upon the name of Jesus, “ Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, ” during every occupation, at all times, in all places, even during sleep. At first, he says it 2,000 times a day, then 4,000, but still it is only a prayer of the mind. Eventually, he can repeat it more than 12,000 times daily without strain. This frequent service of the lips imperceptibly becomes a genuine appeal of the soul. The prayer becomes a constant warming presence within that brings a bubbling joy. Soon, he discovers he no longer needs even  to  say the words, for they truly have become a prayer of the heart. The ancient practice of reciting the Jesus Prayer, called Hesychasm, stems all the way back to the fourth century. Huston Smith, expert on world religions, wrote, “ Washing or weaving, planting or shopping, imperceptibly but indelibly, these verbal droplets of aspiration soak down into the subconscious, loading it with the divine. ” Once we become deeply aware of God within us, through us, and around us, then what we do inevitably takes on the cast of acts of service to God and moments of praise. Suddenly, the meaning of life becomes clear to us. The sense of purposelessness disappears, even though for the most part we still perform the same tasks as before. Even though our daily routine remains unchanged, but for one small detail, the unceasing recitation of the name of the Lord. Our purpose is to simply do what we do each day for God. Paul is so excited over these truths that our entire scripture is one long sentence! And  it  all builds up to our climax: We were chosen in Christ, destined for adoption,instilled with wisdom, blessed with every spiritual blessing, forgiven, and redeemed... All so that our meaning of life might be fulfilled, so that we might live for the praise of the divine glory! Simply by existing, by walking, eating, crying, laughing, living, dying, we are a witness to the praise of God’s glory! Frederick Buechner said it very well, “ Each life is not just a journey through time but a sacred journey .” Amen.

We are delighted to welcome our new Wilson Family Sacred Music Intern, Kingsley Wood! Kingsley will be with us for the month of January. Hailing from Leonia, New Jersey, Kingsley is an organist, pianist, and vocalist. He is currently enrolled in his fifth year in the dual-degree program at Oberlin College, where he studies organ performance with Professor Christa Rakich, as well as mathematics. He is presently serving as organist at the First United Methodist Church of Elyria, Ohio. Outside of music and academia, he is an advocate for sustainable urban development. The Wilson Family sacred music internships allow students from Yale and Oberlin to work at Brick from September through May, developing musical skills in performance, accompanying, and conducting, and enriching the life of our congregation. Brick Church is deeply grateful to Don and Lynn Wilson for their continued support of this valuable program.

Registration is now open for Winter Musical Theater classes! Featuring artists from Brick Church Community Theater, these performing arts classes will help students increase their confidence, build self-esteem, and explore self-expression in a supportive environment. View our 2024-2025 class photos and video below! Winnie-the-Pooh - Photos | Winnie-the-Pooh - Video  (Ages 4-6) Matilda – Photos  | Matilda - Video (Ages 7-10)

Shared during Sunday Worship on December 28, 2025. Incarnate God, with the angels we glorify your name, and with your servant Mary we treasure the good news of your coming in our hearts. We thank you for all that you have given us. For times of rest and relaxation; for friends and family to cherish; for warm shelter on cold days; for communities that nurture us. We are especially thankful for your presence with us. You have spoken to us through your prophets and lived among us in Christ. And you continue to dwell among us, speaking to us through your Word, guiding us by your Spirit, and drawing us to you through worship and the sacraments. It is easy to forget that your presence is a precious gift. For that gift, dear Lord, we give you thanks and praise.   Glorious God, when the angels announced your Son’s coming, they proclaimed your will for deep and lasting peace. We pray for the redemption of the world from the forces of evil, for the growth of your Kingdom, for reconciliation and renewal.  We lift up all the nations of the world, especially Ukraine and Russia, Israel, Palestine and Syria, Nigeria and Venezuela, and all other countries facing violent conflict.  We pray for our own nation, that our shared life will be characterized by justice and that we will be a source of peace throughout the world. We pray for New York City and its leaders, that they will seek the common good in all that they do, and that they will promote harmony and the flourishing of all the city’s residents. We pray for the church universal, its mission, and its leaders, that together we will bear fruitful witness to your grace for all people. And we pray for our congregation, especially for our ministries and ministry partners. May we be a beacon of hope and a source of light for all those who need it. Finally, Lord, we pray for those with particular needs during this Christmas season: for all who are sick or suffering; for all who are isolated or lonely; for all who are weighed down by anxiety or sorrow. Comfort, comfort your people, O God.   Gracious God, make your presence felt in each situation, and empower us to be instruments of your peace. We pray this in the name of he who took on flesh and lived among us, Jesus, our Lord. Amen.

Shared during Sunday Worship on December 21, 2025. Lord, Your joyful radiance shall be born into our world sooner than we can imagine. It is good news of a great joy for all people.  Good news that came first to a young girl named Mary, who shouted with joy at Your love and justice for all people.  It came to Peter and Paul when You called them by name and forgave them for their weakness and sin. This joy could not be contained into one time and place and so it spilled over the world and down through history, though there have been many dark times which threatened to dispel it.     The depth of human sin has sought to quiet it, greed, lust and war have tried to pervert it.  Others try and hold onto it so that it is all their own and no one else’s.  But thanks be to You O God that it cannot be quenched because the songs of angels reach through the clouds into many surprising places. When we see this joy on the faces who have so little; we realize that our own joy, peace, and love could be so much more. It will come not through more things but through greater justice, and deeper sharing— sharing not just what we have but who we are. We pray that this good news of great joy might work to heal the wounds which so trouble our lives and our world.   We pray that reconciliation might come to our world. We pray that Your forgiveness and the gift of the Christ child might serve to heal the breach of politics in our land.  Make us one people again and help us to work as one for the betterment of the whole planet. Be with those who dive into places that are most bereft of this joy. Our military, keep them safe. Give those serving overseas and away from family a special measure of your Spirit’s presence that they may not feel alone though they are an ocean away.  We pray for all of those who work deep into the night when others are at home, warm in their beds: utility workers, emergency room nurses, doctors and technicians; janitors who clean our building buildings until late at night, and truck drivers who travel on dangerous roads to bring our goods. Keep all of them safe and help them feel a measure of our thankfulness.   We pray that each one of us might know the fullness of the good news in the depths of our hearts that our own joy might infect all with Your grace and love, the name of the one whose life gives us life. Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Christ, the one who was, who is, and who is to come, world without end, amen.

The All-Church Nominating Committee (ACNC) is seeking your suggestions for Brick Church officers. Your involvement is crucial to identify the best possible candidates whom God is calling to take positions of responsibility at The Brick Church. The ACNC is identifying candidates for Deacons, Ruling Elders, Trustees, and 2027 ACNC members . Please prayerfully consider recommending members of The Brick Church as candidates for these positions. Important criteria to consider include a commitment to the Church, regular attendance at Worship, time, and willingness to serve, and personal characteristics of dedication, good judgment, and the ability to work well with others. Self-nominations are also accepted. The deadline for recommendation submissions is January 18.

Dearest God who promises peace, love, joy, and hope- We reflect upon the unknown and how you come to your people in the midst of disorientation and uncertainty.  Though we may not be able to make sense of it all, the best we can hope for is to be like Mary, grounding ourselves in our identities as your servants. We lift up prayers to you that emanate from what we have experienced in the world.  For all peoples who experience war, we pray for peace.  For those who experience instability and fear, we pray for peace.  For those who are forced to leave their homes, we pray for peace.  For those who lack their daily bread, we pray for peace. For those whose hearts grieve, we pray for peace. We also pray for our community and our city.  Even as the city lights up with holiday lights and laughter, we pray for those who suffer, for those who lack their daily bread, who experience homelessness, who experience violence, who are in prison. We thank you, dear God, in the face of brokenness and material need, for the ways in which this church continues to be a beacon of hope in the community.  We pray for Brick’s leaders, and also for the members who form this community.  We also thank you for the partnerships we have in the community, who promote peace by addressing community needs in such significant ways, especially, Grassroots Grocery, Interfaith Prison Partnership, and the host site of the youth-group mission trip, the First Baptist Church of Reading, Massachusetts.  Continue to bless their outreach into our communities. Finally, we bring to you our own personal petitions for ourselves and those we hold dear.  Please hear our personal requests in the space of this silence (space for silent petitions). We thank you, God, because even in the darkness, you come to us with signs of peace with promises of the most wonderful gift, Immanuel, God-with-us, today, and always.  In the name of the coming Christ child we pray, Amen.

Luke 1:26-38 “ If they would rather die ,” said Scrooge, “ they had better do it and decrease the surplus population. ” Dickens wrote these words in 1843 during the height of the Industrial Revolution. London was a world-class city with dazzling shops… dark alleyways. The rapid urbanization made cities like London, Manchester, and Birmingham vastly overcrowded, with unsafe working conditions—hunger was rampant. People of means rode in fine carriages, while the poor slept under bridges. In 1834, the Poor Law Amendment Act made it even harder for them to obtain assistance, forcing people into destitute workhouses which separated families and were intentionally designed to be worse than any conditions outside. The society of Victorian England was deeply Christian, but all too often, they neglected compassionate love after the way of Christ. Dickens’ goal was to stir the conscience of a nation. In the preface to  A Christmas Carol , he wrote, “ I have endeavored in this ghostly little book to raise the ghost of an idea. ” Having worked in a factory himself as a boy due to his family’s straitened circumstances, Dickens always felt a kinship with people who were struggling, particularly children… In 1843, Dickens visited schools for the poor in the slums (called ‘ragged schools’ in reference to the worn clothes of many attendees), where he encountered children who lived as thieves and prostitutes to survive. ( Biography.com ) His intent as he wrote was “ to strike a hammer blow on behalf of the poor man’s child .” The idea was to expose the hypocrisy of a nation that was deeply Christian yethad replaced the compassionate love of Jesus with duty and obligation. For Mary, her present context was no better—and perhaps worse. The common person suffered under the weight of high taxes to Rome and the temple, living on a subsistence level. Meanwhile, their ruler Herod the Great, rather than defending the people, looked to his own interests, and served as a lapdog to Rome. He was a powerful, paranoid, and cruel sycophant who wantonly massacred infants as described in Matthew 2. This is why Mary responds to the Angel’s announcement that she will bear the Messiah, “ Let it be done to me as you have said. ” All she needed to feel the power of hope was a promise from God that in her time, the Messiah was coming. Knowing the context—the present in which she found herself—she was rejoicing because she knew the Messiah would meet the moment, the same kind of moment Dickens was hoping England would rise up to: to bind up the brokenhearted and to bring good news to the poor. She rejoiced because she would have known the scriptures of Zechariah 9:9—“ Your king comes to you, humble and riding on a donkey .” She would have known Isaiah 11—that the  Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, and with righteousness he shall judge; with equity he shall decide for the meek . She would have known Isaiah 53:9—that  he would do no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth . He would be nothing like Herod! And indeed, we saw throughout His life that Jesus Himself saw this as His mission, for He tells others that He is gentle and lowly of heart, and that He was anointed, as Mary said, to bring good news to the poor. When the Ghost of Christmas Present took hold of Ebenezer, he was taken to various places around London. In one scene: Dickens incorporated a glimpse of the devastation He witnessed in real life. Scrooge discovers a feral boy, Ignorance, and a girl, Want. The two children are described as “ wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. ” When Scrooge asks if they can be helped, the spirit throws the miser’s earlier words back at him, asking, “ Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? ” ( Biography.com ) He then visited the humble abode where his clerk, Bob Cratchit, lived. He was struck as he looked into that home, for he saw not despair in the midst of poverty; he saw not anger in the midst of isolation, but instead he saw a loving family for whom the spirit of Christmas shone beyond their present circumstances—even as it did with Mother Mary. And in this scene, we begin to see his cold, stony heart melt when he gazes upon Tiny Tim and hears that without some kind of help, Tiny Tim’s future would not exist. It was the power of seeing real people not only suffer in devastating circumstances but also having within them a spark of light and life. And Ebenezer begins to change. Our present Christmas here on the Upper East Side is glorious. It is my favorite time of year. First of all, the thousands of people singing Christmas carols in front of our church; the Lessons and Carols Service; Christmas Eve and candlelight. We have so many incredible blessings. And for this, I am truly thankful. But indeed, sadly, there are numerous parallels between our time and Victorian England when Dickens wrote his ghostly tale. Wealth inequality is at perhaps its greatest height it has ever been. People—hard-working people—cannot afford a roof and medicine and childcare and good food. At least they can't afford all of those put together. Which one of those is optional? If I had to choose—for you—what would you cross off your list if there wasn’t enough money in the bank? Now, we are not nearly as cruel as Ebenezer. But we are not too far off—roundingpeople up, treating people who have lived here all their lives since they were children as criminals, throwing them into cages as they are torn from their families. I don’t pretend to have the answer to the immigration challenge for our nation. But I believe deep in my heart that Jesus would not approve of what happened to Ms. Belloca. A few weeks ago, Lucia Lopez Belloca was flying home for Thanksgiving to surprise her family. Instead, she was seized at the airport and swiftly deported to Honduras—a country she had not been to since she was nine years old. In some ways, it does feel that we have become like Scrooge. “ He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog days, and didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas. ” And in some ways, like Scrooge, it seems there is a spiritual emptiness while Cratchit’s is filled. Dickens paints so well the striking dictum of Jesus, “ Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ” Bob Cratchit and his family had a wealth of spiritual love that made their home a little piece of the kingdom here on earth. Since Christmas is about Christ—and it is; it’s right in the name—we have a responsibility. Years ago, I was standing at the airport counter when the agent started dancing a jig; I was completely flummoxed. He said, “ I am getting busy! ” and he pointed at me. I had forgotten my shirt said, “ Jesus is coming! Get busy! ” Forgotten what it represented. I thought it was a fun T-shirt, but at that moment I realized I was a witness. I had a responsibility—as the young people say—to “represent.” This is the essence of Advent: getting busy right now to prepare for His arrival, to be sure when He comes, He will be proud and be able to see that we love Him, not by our words but our actions, by caring for those whom He treasured. We have the foundation well established at Brick. And as a congregation we work through: Summer Steps , which gives children from economically diverse homes a start on the path for the best education on the planet. The Angel Tree , which brings your donated presents to children whose parents are incarcerated. The Tuesday Night Dinner Party , which creates a feast for those from the Neighborhood Coalition for Shelter. Our incredible Grants Committee and Women’s Association work so diligently to offer His love on all our behalf: Trinity Place Shelter , which “creates a safe, affirming shelter where LGBTQ youth and young adults experiencing homelessness in New York City can access the skills and resources needed to exit the cycle of homelessness.” Health Advocates for Older People , which “[provides] tools, techniques, and support to age with vitality and independence.” And there are many more. The list goes on. We do so much—but we could do more. With rising fixed costs, our grants budget has shrunk. That is our stewardship challenge: to be sure our budget reflects His priorities. These programs change lives. I have seen it. In 2017, I had the amazing experience of attending a Women’s Leadership Luncheon when I lived in South Carolina. Four women were recognized, each very professional and accomplished, but the last woman, Wilma Moore, had a story. As she came to the podium, she was bent over in tears, overwhelmed by the moment. She had suffered self-hatred, devastating addiction, and years and years of heartache and pain, including extreme violence and poverty as a child and later the murder of her son. She freely told not only what happened to her but the many times she had failed herself and others. But before those hundreds gathered, she shared how our Lord magnified her true self, revealed her inner beauty, strength, and worth. This happened through community programs just like the ones we support. So now when she looks in the mirror, she sees someone of worth, of power, of love, and of hope. Jesus showed her her true self, and it sent all our hearts soaring. Incredible. We stood up and cheered—cheering not only her courage but the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave her this gift. Let’s get busy—right now, in the present. Each act can change a life…especially yours. Amen.