So, Molly already gave you a preview of tonight’s sermon. I’ll expound on that a little more tonight.

One of the things you might notice as you read through the Scriptures is the important roll food and eating play throughout the history of creation. And not just in the history of this creation, but also of that in the world to come.

In the beginning, when God created living creatures, He gave them, including Adam and the woman, every plant yielding seed and every tree with seed in its fruit for food. (cf. Genesis 1:29) As slaves in Egypt, the Israelites lived in the fertile land of Goshen where they ate well. Abraham rushed to have a great meal prepared when the Angel of the LORD appeared to him. (cf. Genesis 18:1-8) Isaiah prophesied great feast of rich foods and fine wines (cf. Isaiah 25:6) And in the New Testament, Jesus was often condemned by the scribes of Pharisees because he ate with the wrong people, implying that there was right people with which to dine. (cf. Matthew 9:11; 11:19) Many of the apostles wrote about love feasts at the various New Testament congregations (think potlucks and hosted dinners held here, but more frequent). The apostle John was allowed to get a glimpse of the marriage supper of the lamb in His kingdom, attended by a great multitude. (cf. Revelation 19:6-10)

God has never been a distant God, at least, not in the sense that He was never around.

In the beginning, on the Sixth Day, God created man from the dust of the earth. He breathed into the man’s nostrils the breath of life. He walked with the man, talked with the man, watched the man name all the animals, and had compassion on the man when, among all the animals there wasn’t a helper suited to him. Then, he caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, took a rib from his side, a fashioned it into that suitable helper. Adam saw his helper and exclaimed, “Woman! For she was taken out of man.” Furthermore, it seems that it wasn’t unusual for God to take regular strolls in the Garden of Eden, during which, on one particular occasion, Adam and the woman hid themselves from Him. (cf. Genesis 1:26-27, 31; 2:5-24; 3:8)

“Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

Redemption draws near when Christ is present…when Jesus begins to happen and is happening. Advent is a sort of beginning:

• It’s the beginning of the Church Year. This, in fact, is the first day of the new Church Year.
• It’s the start of looking at Jesus beginning to happen as He first came in the flesh. Being about a month out from Christmas, you might imagine looking at Mary and her belly, eight months along, and seeing the Kingdom of God right there in her womb.
• It’s the preparation and the beginning again of preparing for Jesus to happen for the last time as He comes again to judge the living and the dead. Looking back at His first coming is always done with a view toward expecting His Second Coming.

Jesus coming and being present is the nearness of your redemption.

The counter to that is when Christ is not present, redemption is nowhere near. And, lest I’m not clear, in His omnipresence, Jesus the Christ, in His full humanity and full divinity, is everywhere He wants to be. When I say, “when Christ is not present,” what I mean to say is where Christ is excluded.

You have heard the story of Jesus and the Ten Lepers countless times. It comes up every year at Thanksgiving, and depending on the lectionary used, it’s read a second time. You might even know some of it by heart. Consequently, you might already know some of the things I’m going to say about it. Jesus and His disciples were traveling through Samaria. As they came near a village, they were approached by ten men with leprosy. They cried out to Jesus, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” They didn’t call out with the usual cry to stay away since they were unclean. However, having heard of Jesus, they knew He could make them clean. “Go and show yourselves to the priests,” Jesus replied. On the way, all ten are made clean and would be declared as such by the priests, allowing them to return to their regular routines and lives. However, one of the ten, realizing that he was clean, returned to Jesus to thank Him; the priests could wait—Jesus had done to this man what he believed Jesus could. (cf. Luke 17:11-19)

You have also heard St. Paul’s exhortation to St. Timothy, though not as often. The second reading for a national day of thanksgiving can be taken from 1 Timothy 2, as was done today, or from Philippians 4. Still, the words to St. Timothy are also quite familiar to you, and you also might know what I would say about this text. There, St. Paul exhorted the young pastor and his flock to make supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks for all men, for kings and all who are in authority. Kings and those in authority would not be kings or have authority apart from God granting it to them. God gives government so that all people can live a quiet and peaceable life—so that believers can do so in godliness and reverence to Him. So you ought to pray to God for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and Donald Trump and JD Vance and Jared Polis and Dianne Primavera and the whole host of those to whom God has granted authority to govern this great land; and thank God for them and for this government, that by it you are able to live a quiet and peaceable life. For another, with regard to all men, including kings and those in authority, you ought to give thanks because God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (cf. 1 Timothy 2:1-14)

And you have also heard from Moses and his account of Israel as they were about to enter Canaan after their long exodus from Egypt. “Remember,” God told his chosen people; “[R]emember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness…” Through those 40 years, their clothes and shoes did not wear out, and God provided them just enough manna and quail to survive one day to the next. This He did to teach them that “man does not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” And why? Because He was about to bring them into a good land flowing with brooks and springs of water, land filled with wheat and barley and vines and figs and pomegranates and olive trees and honey. God’s chosen people were about to receive much more than they could have ever imagined after 40 years of want and destitution. And God says, “And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.” (cf. Deuteronomy 8:1-10)

Jesus spoke about two types of people in today’s Gospel: the scribes and a widow.

The scribes were men who were trained in the Scriptures; “teachers of the Law” the Bibles in your seats call them. You could say these were the Pharisees right-hand men, their apprentices…they were practically Pharisees—so much so that they were often mentioned together in the same breath: “scribes and Pharisees.” They liked to put on a show, much like the Pharisees: they “like[d] to walk around in long robes and like[d] greetings in the marketplaces and [having] best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts,…and for a pretense make long prayers.” Jesus pointed out their hypocrisy.

Then, there’s the widow: she had very little. Jesus sat with His disciples watching people make their temple treasury donations. Those who were rich put in much. Then, the lowly widow happens by and puts in her 2 cents: “two small copper coins, which make a penny.” She gave two coins—barely a penny; nevertheless, it was all that she had. While the rest of the people gave a portion of their earnings—most probably keeping in line with the standard tithe donation—the widow gave all the money she had to the temple, keeping nothing for herself.

What can you take away from this?