Bob Stillerman

These coffee grounds can be combined with steaming or dripping water, converted into a tasty bean juice, and shared with the humans with whom they now occupy the same ecosystem. And I’d like to believe that the energy, or the umph, or what John might call the logos/word these coffee grounds create in others will ultimately be transformed into acts of love and service.

I want you to think for a moment about significant events in your life. I’ll share a few of mine: a driver’s license (second try!), high school, college, and seminary graduations, an ordination day, a wedding day, the birth of our three children, the funerals of grandparents, just to name a few.

Last week, an important emissary for an African queen finds himself seeking good news in a faraway land. He is accomplished in every way, but his accomplishments are invisible in this strange place. His tongue, and his wardrobe, and his darker complexion betray him as an outsider to important Romans

We’re human. And sometimes what we give, be it our actions, our words, our time, our treasures, are not always received as we intended. But sometimes, we get it right. Sometimes we give in a way such that our praises make everyone, especially the intended receiver, better.

The shepherds’ knee-knocking begins at the appearance of the angel of the Lord and intensifies with the angel’s outrageous declaration. But their terror soon turns to joy and elation in seeing a new-born Jesus, swaddled in strips of cloth, laying in a make-shift crib, in the middle of a make-shift nursery, held in the arms of a frightened-but-determined young mother.

My interest is piqued by the word “very” in this morning’s text, especially when combined with the word “good.” We’ve read the first creation story in Genesis enough times to recognize the import of the phrase very good. God creates each part of creation: land and sky and seas, vegetation, morning and evening lights, heavenly lights, people, critters, swimming things, and everything else that fills up the universe. And then God calls all of it very good.