Rev. Don Erickson

When I was 12, I did something cool. I played a trumpet solo for my church’s Christmas Eve service. Of all the Christmas carols, what did I choose? Well, I had already learned a carol in middle school band – We Three Kings of Orient Are. That’s the one I played. I was nervous as heck. But I got through it okay, and it sounded, well, it sounded okay. Knowing what I do now, I wonder if anyone, including my pastor, were glad I only played the tune and did not sing the words. Those three kings – many protestants, well, they protest! Those three kings of orient were not! It gets the story wrong, I can hear a Bible stickler say. They were not kings from the orient, but Magi. As for three, the biblical text does not say how many there were. We guess three because there were three gifts – gold, frankincense and myrrh. But two people, or four or five, can give three gifts, right? And the Magi visit Jesus as a two year-old. Did the author of the carol John Henry Hopkins, Jr. change the...

At just the right time, the poem was handed to me, A poem clothed in bands of soft cotton, a poem resounding between a cry and a coo upon his first sight of this world. From his mother’s arms, quietly given for me to hold, That poem came when I needed it most, a necessary word of comfort, a meaningful word to a day starved for meaning, a beautiful word to an ugly, angry age. A liberating word to the world, to me, latched to loneliness, hurt, grief. This fragile, resilient poem, I held him in my arms, read his face, his eyes, his soft sounds, marveling through tears at the holy moment. How quickly a heart revives. This child, this perfect poem, heaven swoops straight down down to these earthy eyes, this pining heart, these empty hands, this restless mind, grounding me in a love I kept forgetting, a love I kept forgetting never lets me go, resurrecting love’s truth, making it new again, hallowing this life. Awake, I give the poem Emmanuel back to Mary, return home, and like her ponder – ...

I’d like to begin with a Psalm that all of you likely know. Maybe even know by heart. The 23 rd Psalm. Let’s recite it together in the old KJV, shall we? The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He may-kith me to lie down in green pastures: he leedeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leedeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yay though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Keeping that ageless Psalm of David in mind, let’s turn to John 1. Near the end of the chapter, we meet John the Baptist. He is all grown up. He is a baptizer, preaching repentance. And after someone repents, which ...

We’ve already met Elizabeth and Zechariah, the parents of John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin. Now we meet Mary through a visit from Gabriel. Mary’s a young woman betrothed to Joseph, meaning they are legally a unit, but do not yet live together. Both Mary and Joseph are descendants of David. But most would have deemed them nobody. First of all, they are from Nazareth. What kind of town is Nazareth? Well, a verse from John 1 gives us a hint. In the last part of John 1, Jesus is calling his disciples. He’s already brought Andrew and Peter on board. He then recruits Philip. Philip wants his friend Nathaniel to join, too. He tells Nathaniel about this Jesus from Nazareth. Verse 46: Nathaniel quips, what good comes out of Nazareth? In other words, Nazareth is a nothing town. Gabriel has come to Nazareth to tell Mary universe changing news. His first words to Mary (v. 28): “Favored one! The Lord is with you.” It’s nice to feel favored, isn’t it? Or to know the Lord is with you. Bu...

This may sound like a strange topic. What did the Jewish priesthood of the day have to do with Jesus’ birth? Why do they matter to us? Well, the priesthood matters to the story and to us in very interesting and meaningful ways. The Christmas story found in Luke begins with a priest. And not just any priest. This priest will be Jesus’ uncle. John the Baptist was Jesus’ cousin. And John the Baptist’s dad was Zechariah. We meet Zechariah in the book of Luke, chapter 1. Verses 5-10 helps us understand the role of the priest a bit as well as Zechariah. 5  In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah; and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6  They were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord.  7  And yet they had no child, because Elizabeth was infertile, and they were b...

  “I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice." What is the truth Jesus testifies to?  The truth of Love! A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  35  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Pilate doesn’t know this truth. Maybe in the end he learns it. But right now, he doesn’t understand what Jesus is getting.  If I am a king, Jesus seems to tell Pilate, I am not a king in the worldly sense. I lead and guide in a much deeper sense. I reign in the spiritual sense. My kingdom is made up of those born of the spirit. I’m king of the heart. What Pilate doesn’t get, and what so many ever since haven’t gotten, is that the revolution Jesus forges is a revolution of the heart! If hearts are changed, people are changed, communities are changed, nations are changed, the world is changed. Jesus’ revolution is a ...

Politically, we are a purplish church. There’s a mix of red and blue here. I don’t know the shade of purple exactly. I don’t monitor how you vote. I don’t look for red and blue. I look at the Jesus in you. Whatever the makeup, Democrats, Republicans, independents unite in Christ here. This to me is a beautiful thing.  That said, for some this Sunday after the election Tuesday is not so beautiful. For some, this election was especially difficult. Some are heartbroken. Really heartbroken.  However, others are heartened. And some are somewhere in between. Knowing this, how would you as a pastor here approach this meditation? How do I speak to these rather different groups of Christians at Plainville Congregational? It’s not so easy. Well, the idea that makes the most sense to me this morning is to do just that, speak both to those feeling heartbroken and to those feeling heartened.  To the heartbroken – your pain is real and difficult. I have no easy answers to give. I have...

Sarah dies at the age of 127. We read about this at the beginning of Genesis 23. She dies in Canaan, away from home. The loss is profound for Abraham. Genesis 23:2 offers such a tender description. Abraham goes to her to mourn and weep over her. He sits shiva, in other words. This tender picture of individual grief and loss comes amid the often-hard story of Genesis, full of falls, failures, folly, and forsakenness in the wilderness. This kind of grief, it can’t be stopped. Yes, there are different kinds of losses we experience. The loss of a sense of safety, the loss of a job, the loss of hopes coming true, the loss of our preferred political campaign, the loss of a good vacation. But there are levels of grief. Losing a child, losing a parent, losing a spouse – that is next level grief, and it must be especially honored. The rest of the chapter focuses on the task of burying Sarah. A beloved husband, Abraham wants the perfect spot for his wife’s burial land and landscape. He speci...

In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson responded to a question  written to him by the Danbury Baptist Association, asking him why he doesn’t “proclaim national days of fasting and thanksiving, as had been done by Washington and Adams before him.” Jefferson in a letter to the Danbury Baptists wrote this: “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.” In the 1644, more than 160 years before Jefferson, Roger Williams, one of the most important early Americans in U.S. history and America’s first Baptist, wrote this in a letter to John Cotton: “When they [the Church] have opened a gap in the hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world, God hath ever broke down the wall itself, removed the ...