“He taught Sunday school about 30 times a year.” I drove to GA this week, the home state of former president Jimmy Carter. The whole trip down, across a half dozen NPR stations, I listened to news coverage and interviews with the President, his family, cabinet members, and historians. But of all the things I heard that I knew or learned about him, that one quote from his grandson struck me the most deeply. I’ve spent nearly two decades in church work, and a significant amount of my time and energy has spent recruiting and training teachers. I don’t believe I’ve ever recruited a teacher to spend that many weeks in a Sunday school class or small group, and Jimmy Carter did it for decades. In fact, he relished it more than anything else he got to do in his 100 years.

 

It is my biggest professional regret that I lived for eight years down the road from his home church in Plains, GA and never carved out the time to make the short pilgrimage to hear him teach one Sunday morning. It bears the same name as the Dominican church and mission group I’ve worked with for years - Maranatha. The name comes from an Aramaic word found in I Corinthians, and translates to “our Lord comes,” or an invitation, “Our Lord, come.” Carter had a deep faith that guided his private and public life of service. He believed that God was real and present in the world and intended to serve others with humility and faithfulness, promising always to be truthful and never to shy from anything controversial.

 

In the coming days, a lot will be said about the accomplishments and failures of our former president, but I’m certain they will all mention his faith, his service, and that he is universally acclaimed as our finest former president. In the lull that follows the busy holiday season, it’s worth reflecting on someone who lived a century as a man who spent every moment of his life in service to others and building the kingdom on earth that he imagined in heaven. We do well to draw inspiration from the peanut farmers of our world who seek leadership as an opportunity to serve and establish justice. If we truly believe the Lord is coming, we’ve got a lot of work to do.

 

 

For thus says the Lord: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

 

“It’s. So. Haaaaard. To. Wait.” My youngest son said. Each word deliberate and groaned with emphasis. This was his response when he asked if it was Christmas Day and I told him it was still weeks away. We don’t even have a tree yet. He was right. I can’t imagine what it was like for Mary, waiting on Joseph’s reaction to her pregnancy, her family’s reaction to their unfolding plans. I can’t imagine Joseph’s own journey of trust, being asked into this arrangement. His anxiety at their sudden departure as refugees to the land that enslaved his people, to keep his young family safe, with no reliable hope for employment but the lowest jobs no Egyptian wanted had to be deeply discouraging.

 

I think often of the long journey of the Magi that probably ended in Egypt, much farther than they initially anticipated. I’ve traversed the Sinai peninsula between Israel and Cairo. It’s an absolute wasteland. It’s no wonder God’s people wandered 40 years. It had to be so hard to wait. It was 12 years before they saw him begin to delve into his calling and maybe another 10-15 beyond that before beginning his ministry. It was a long wait for Mary and Joseph and Elizabeth and John, and all their expectant relatives and friends.

 

And yet, the promise in Jeremiah is an even longer wait. Those people were being told it would be decades before they would see relief and generations before the coming of their savior. But the promise is not that God will one day be faithful. The promise is that God remains faithful in the waiting, present and compassionate, wise and loving, and makes plans with us and for us. Waiting is hard, but we don’t do it alone. I tried to reassure my son that I find waiting hard too. And that we will wait together by stringing lights, reading God’s word, and hearing the ancient stories each day until the day is here. “And God will be watching us?” he asked. “Yes, watching and waiting and with us, I told him.” And that was enough for him. And in sharing that good news, it was for me too.

 

 

 

 

“Hey, Kevin.” Last weekend, I got to go back to one of my favorite places on earth, where I went to college in Chapel Hill. I’ve never been to a college reunion. However, my campus ministry, where I spent every single Thursday night for four years, hosted a reunion for everyone who’s ever been part of the campus ministry in the last several decades. At the Saturday afternoon, activities, and dinner and program that evening, I saw a lot of my old friends. Kevin was a Chapel Hill friend from 20 years ago. But Kevin wasn’t actually at that dinner.

 

Kevin is a homeless man that I met during my years at the university. My good friend Frank, from my campus ministry group, would go with me on weeknights in our college days and offer to take folks to dinner with us on Franklin Street, north of campus. Folks would panhandle for change, and Kevin was a regular. We got to know him well over our dinners. Kevin had a generous sister who provided him a couch, but she couldn’t afford to support him, and his mental health challenges kept him out of stable employment. So, he was perpetually unhoused and in need of food. He was kind and chatty, and always said yes to a meal with us. Twenty years later, he did remember me and our dinners… but his situation was the same.

 

If you had asked me in college if I had hopes that my state and nation would make progress toward housing or helping people like Kevin within ten years or twenty, I would have said yes. Jesus himself said the poor would always be with us. But he didn’t say the same people would always be poor or would have no hope. I shared my experience with my fellow campus ministry alum, who remembered our dinners. They were as disappointed and troubled as I was. Ordinarily, in my reflections, I try to offer a word of encouragement or a challenge we can all accept. Today, I’ll simply say this.

 

We’ve made monumental progress in technology, innovation, safety, health and science in the last twenty years. In the coming months and years, we must choose leaders, hold them accountable, and prioritize in our own lives, faith communities, and municipalities the care for the poor. Kevin is not the only person for whom nothing has changed under four presidents, three governors, and twenty classes of graduates from our nations’ universities. If your faith home has ministries to the homeless, do you participate? If there are opportunities to provide housing or advocate for it, are you supporting it? If families in your community need extra help at the holidays, are you a part of those efforts? Things may not be noticeably different in 2025 than they are now. But in twenty years, they must be.

 

 

 

 

 

I was reminded of this text when our pastor preached last week. It describes the events surrounding Paul’s visit to Thesalonica. Jason hosts Paul and Silas at his house while they preach the teachings of Jesus. Fearing the repercussions of this revolutionary message, the locals, who are occupied by Rome, turn on Paul, and even recruit “ruffians” to help them attack Jason’s house. Like the angry mob that demanded the crucifixion of Jesus, they side with the oppressive authoritarian regime, rather than those preaching the ancient message of justice and mercy from the prophets of their Lord.

 

What was Jason’s crime? Hospitality to the stranger, welcome to the refugee, and standing against the Emperor (not them). Paul isn’t bringing a new message. The teachings of Jesus are the words of the prophets of Israel, quoted and explained in parables, and lived out by example in his life, his advocacy for justice, and ministry of mercy. This is so dangerous to the status quo that they attack Paul’s entourage and their hosts. They would rather be agents of an authoritarian regime and its promises of peace and stability and economic certainty than to adhere to the commands and ethic of their faith. They willingly cling to loyalty to the emperor, rather than risk welcoming the sojourner in their land.

 

The story from scripture reminds us that hospitality and justice are prophetic calls to a life that is faithful and dangerous. Christ calls us to build a kingdom of peacemakers, vulnerable outcasts, and the tempest tossed. Empires are built on fear and enmity, threats and borders and barriers and violence. The world and our nation have troubling histories of a rejection of the prophetic message of hospitality.

 

We will always be faced with the challenge to open our homes, churches, and communities to those in need. Sometimes it’s a neighbor whose house burned down, sometimes 80 counties of displaced people who lost their homes to hurricane flooding. Sometimes it’s entire people groups fleeing political violence and economic collapse in their home country. And sometimes it’s a young family of three fleeing the brutality of a king who fears the prophecies of magi from the east. In the coming weeks of recovery for our state, the advent season, and changing powers that govern, will we be people of welcome and refuge like Jason? Or will we join the mob and ruffians who seek to ignore, attack, or expel the vulnerable?