QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“For outlandish creatures like us, on our way to a heart, a brain, and courage, Bethlehem is not the end of our journey but only the beginning - not home but the place through which we must pass if ever we are to reach home at last.”

~Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat

“Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?”

~The Gospel of Matthew 26:52-54

“The Trumpet Child will blow his horn

Will blast the sky till it’s reborn

With Gabriel’s power and Satchmo’s grace

He will surprise the human race;

The trumpet he will use to blow

Is being fashioned out of fire

The mouthpiece is a glowing coal

The bell a burst of wild desire.

The Trumpet Child will riff on love

Thelonious notes from up above

He’ll improvise a kingdom come

Accompanied by a different drum;

The Trumpet Child will banquet here

Until the lost are truly found

A thousand days, a thousand years,

Nobody knows for sure how long.

The rich forget about their gold

The meek and mild are strangely bold

A lion lies beside a lamb

And licks a murderer’s outstretched hand;

The Trumpet Child will lift a glass

His bride now leaning in at last

His final aim to fill with joy

The earth that man all but destroyed.”

~ “The Trumpet Child,” Over the Rhine

SERMON PASSAGE

Micah 4:1-7 (ESV)

1 It shall come to pass in the latter days

that the mountain of the house of the Lord

shall be established as the highest of the mountains,

and it shall be lifted up above the hills;

and peoples shall flow to it,

2 and many nations shall come, and say:

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

to the house of the God of Jacob,

that he may teach us his ways

and that we may walk in his paths.”

For out of Zion shall go forth the law,

and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

3 He shall judge between many peoples,

and shall decide disputes

for strong nations far away;

and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,

and their spears into pruning hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

neither shall they learn war anymore;

4 but they shall sit every man under his vine and

under his fig tree,

and no one shall make them afraid,

for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.

5 For all the peoples walk

each in the name of its god,

but we will walk in the name

of the Lord our God forever and ever.

6 In that day, declares the Lord,

I will assemble the lame

and gather those who have been driven away

and those whom I have afflicted;

7 and the lame I will make the remnant,

and those who were cast off, a strong nation;

and the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion

from this time forth and forevermore.