God Moves Into the Neighborhood

God Moves Into the Neighborhood

God Moves Into
the Neighborhood

a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

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Audio from worship at the 10:00 AM Worship Service December 28, 2025
at St Peter’s Episcopal Church, Carson City, Nevada

edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.

  John 1:1-18

 Sermons also available free on iTunes

When Bette Lynn and I moved, I don’t want anyone to think that we’re breaking up or anything, people go crazy when I talk like this. When Betty Lynn and I moved over to our house at Hanson Drive, across the street was a forlorn vacant sad house. We were 2600; they were 2601. But what a difference. It was vacant. There were some very stubborn tufts of grass among the dirt in the front yard. There were actual tumbleweeds on the porch. There was an eviction notice in Times New Roman font, so you know it’s official, on the door, telling everyone get out, no one belongs here. And of course it was dark all the time. Dark through the nights, dark at Halloween, dark at Christmas, dark for long, empty, vacant, sad.

I saw it every time I left the house and every time I came back. And I saw it through our kitchen window. It was like centered, front and centered. And I confess that it did bother God. And I said, “God, could you do something about that? Could a nice family move in?” It’s so sad to see the house just falling apart, dark, abandoned. It’s not good for the neighborhood, either. And it’s certainly not good for my soul.

Well, watch what you pray for. But boy, did they move in. Oh, my gosh. The landscaping. The new roof. The painted garage door. The lights for Halloween? Oh, my gosh, you were so scared to come home. And then Christmas, there were airplanes that go, oh, no, that wasn’t the airport, and they move on. So many lights. And they were so active. I can’t count the number of cars, four, five cars coming out, going in, going around. There was even – every weekend there’s a table saw in the driveway, he’s doing some project. You know, activity everywhere. And every weekend and holiday an RV the size of a Supreme Court Justice Land Cruiser shows up in front of the house, blocking everything. And I said, okay, God, you can dial it back a bit.

And they would call me at night about 11:00 o’clock, being good neighbors; you know? And they would say, “Hi, Christy. This is your neighbor across the street. Did you know your garage door was open?” I’d go, “No, I didn’t. Thank you very much.” It got so when it rang I picked it up, I said, “Is my garage door open?” They go, “Yes, you did it again.” Okay. Thank you.

Eugene Peterson has a paraphrase with John 1. In the 14th verse, where it says in a reading that God came and dwelled among us, he says: “God moved into the neighborhood.” How different that is. God moved into our neighborhood. Because this, John 1, is the Christmas story in the Gospel of John. It talks about God coming to Earth.

Now, in Matthew and Luke, we have shepherds and kings that come to see the Baby Jesus. Say come, come, let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing that we have been told. Let us go and follow the star and go see it is God. But in John we don’t go to God. God comes to us. And that is the message to take. We don’t go to God. God comes to us. It is the most epic, the most momentous, the most beautiful border crossing you’ve ever seen. The greatest wall hopped over. The wall between Heaven and Earth.

Imagine, if you will, like Philippians, where the Philippians too, where the great Christ hymns talked about how God, Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be taken to seize, to grab, to say that is mine, mine, mine, but instead throughout all the stuff of his heavenly home, all the privileges, all the power, all the glory, threw it all away and came, jumped the border wall, and came to be an immigrant among us.

And not just an immigrant king. There are no kings. But a servant, a doulos in Greek, which is slave. An immigrant that gave up everything in their homeland, all their status, their friends, their money, their heritage, their language, and came to live among us to serve us, to get to know us, that came and stayed, even though he was rejected, even though he was thought a stranger, know that Jesus, he hangs out with those lepers. You know, they’re probably vaccined. He hangs out with loose women. They’re probably piggies. But Jesus hangs out with them. He gave them, gave it all up.

He gave up his home country to come and to live, to move into our neighborhood, to be with us as a servant. And we treated him horribly. But still he was here to stay. That story of John is that God came, and God stayed. Not to conquer. Not to take over. Not to be at something sightseeing, oh, well, there’s no politics today. We can go to church. As long as there’s nothing important to talk about, we can go see Jesus, and then we can leave. And leave everything behind. No God came to live with us across the street. And that humongous Land Cruiser comes in, and there’s no missing that he’s here.

God. With us. Emanuel. That pesky immigrant that tells us to live a different way. That challenges our assumptions. That is there wherever, when we go out of the house or come in the house, when we look out the window, God is there. He moved in. God is with us. Maybe now and then we get out away. We get a little call that said, “Christy?” “Yeah?” “You forgot to open your heart.” “Oh, sorry. I’ll get that done.” “Christy? Christy? You’re closed up. You’re not welcoming. You’re not loving.” “Well, thanks. Thanks for reminding me. I’m so glad you’re in the neighborhood. Who knows where I would be if that place was still vacant, and tumbleweeds were blowing through where care and concern shine out now.”

A Presbyterian minister – I always like to drop that – Mr. Rogers says – have you noticed he says “Will you be my neighbor?” He doesn’t say will you be my friend, will you be my brother, will you be my sister, will you be my companion. He says “neighbor.” And a neighbor is not a friend. Friend is someone that you’re on the same journey with. You’ve got something in common. You’re moving toward a certain place, and sometimes, you know, it could be college, it could children, it could be church, whatever. And as long as you’re on that same journey, you’re with a friend, and you go do things together. But that’s a whole ‘nother sermon. We’re almost there. Let’s quit doing that.

But neighbor is someone that’s with you. That’s near you. That’s come to be with you, to abide with you. And you may not like them. You may not have anything in common with them. But you’re going to get along with them because they’re your neighbor. At tech camp we have a lot of kids that come, and I tell them that they’re neighbors now this week. They may be friends, and that’s great. They may make a friend. Every now and then that happens. Sometimes they hang out together. That’s fine.

But I said, you know, that’s not an expectation. Expectation you’re a neighbor. You’re a neighbor, and you put up with one another. You help one another. You watch out for one another. You certainly don’t hurt one another. And you are all in this together for each other’s success and to have a good tech camp. You’re neighbors. Someone needs something, you lend it to them. Someone needs help, you give it to them. Someone needs encouragement, you give it to them. Because we’re all in this room together. We’re neighbors. Won’t you be my neighbors.

What would this radical hospitality, this neighborliness, this acceptance as Joan Osborne said of one of us, she goes, what if God was just one of us? What if God was just a slob like one of us? What if God was just someone on the bus? A neighbor that came to town with strange ways, and different ways. But we’re all in this together. We’re all going to get through this together. We’re all going to help each other. We’re all going to make sure we’re not going to run away. Christianity is not something you go and see. Christianity is not something you put in your back pocket and bring out when there’s nothing important going on. Oh, my gosh, that’s important. That’s politics. Shut up about religion.

When did that start? Religion used to be important. Faith used to be important. People used to say things about how we should live as a people, as a country, treating one another. And people, oh, you, now you’re talking politics. No, I’m talking my faith, and don’t you dare put your politics above my faith. Don’t you dare tell me that because of this vote or that election, that I cannot follow my faith. My faith says that God came to the neighborhood. God immigrated here. And God lives among us. And I’m not kicking him out because he’s different. Because he teaches love and care and compassion instead of profit and self-interest. Don’t tell me that’s politics. That’s faith. That’s mine. It was given to me by Jesus Christ at tremendous cost. And I’m not throwing that away.

God is one of us. God is here to stay. We’re not kicking God out. We’re not deporting God. God gave up everything to be here. God traveled the furthest of the furthest ways to immigrate to human kind land. And we struggle. But it’s too good if we welcome, we pick up that phone when they call and say, “You’re not really living up to what you’re supposed to be doing, Christy. You’ve really got to do better.” Thank you, neighbor. Thanks for watching out for me.

And when other people come and say, those people aren’t your neighbors, those people aren’t one, how can we do that? How can we divide up when we are the benefit of the greatest leap over the border that has ever happened in the history of the universe of God becoming one of us? How can we say somebody is not good enough to be one of us? God has become one of us. What are we talking about when we talk about, oh, you’re different. Oh, you’re strange. Oh, you’re not here. Oh, you’re not supposed to be here. God’s not supposed to be here. Yet God came. God with us. Ramana Maharshi asks the question: “How do we treat others?” And he answers the question: “There are no others.”

Amen.

 

Clip from To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995),

 dir. Beeban Kidron. © Universal Pictures.

Surprise Judge

Surprise Judge

Surprise Judge
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

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Audio and text from worship at the 10 AM Worship Service November 26, 2023
at St Peter’s Episcopal Church

edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.

  John 8:12-19

 Sermons also available free on iTunes

Surprise. This is a surprise scripture. Most everybody in the scripture was surprised except the king. They were all going, “What? What’s going on here?” Remember that, that’s a surprise. Today is Christ the King Sunday, difficult place for us. One, we’re not fond of kings in the United States. Two, we’re not fond of having politics in the church, and you can’t get much more political than talking about a king. You get in trouble with that. We don’t like King Jesus. We’d rather just move right on to Advent, you know, maybe a Thanksgiving Sunday, even stewardship, Christy. But not king. And when we do, we’d like to make it our own personal Jesus king. You know, I have a king. King is Jesus.

That’s not how kings work. Kings have a whole nation. That’s the whole point of being king. It’s no fun being king of one person. It’s not a thing. But we like it that way. We like to have a personal Jesus, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. My lord, my savior, personal, all about me, me, me, I, I, I. We like to make Jesus about ourselves. And Christ the King is when we get the surprise. It’s not about me, me, me and Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

Now, I did not come this year to the Thanksgiving dinner at the Episcopal church, and I’m pretty confident it didn’t go the way we’re going to look in the video. But here’s a way that people like to make their Jesus their own personal Jesus. It’s from “Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby.”

We all like to make Jesus in our own image, and you can choose your own Jesus if you’re an American. But surprise. It’s not what the scripture’s about. Surprise. Now, some of you think, and I’m trying not to look at anybody, again, some of you think the surprise is that the right get to go to heaven, and the left go to hell. Well, that’s not the way we planned it out. We always thought the left were the heavenly people, and the right, you know, we’re not too sure about them. You know. But calm down. Just remember, Jesus was looking at the people. So the people on the left were on the right, and the people – so, yeah. Take a little comfort in that. But that’s not the surprise I was talking about. Not a surprise.

Everyone there is surprised that Jesus led them out and said, called them out and said, you know, you helped me when I needed help. And they all said, “What?” Or that you didn’t help me when I did. And they said, “What? How is that possible?” You know, when Jesus tells a story, and it’s just more a story than a prophecy, I think; could be, I think. And you look for the weird part, the part that you stumble over, the part that surprises you. Because that’s what God’s doing.

Why is everybody surprised? Because it’s not your own personal Jesus. What’s the first part of the scripture? He called the nations together. And all the way through it, you can’t see it in the scripture, it’s in the plural. You nation. You group of people. You did not provide for the sick and the sad, the sick and the imprisoned. You did not provide for the hungry and the thirsty. You did not provide for the naked and the impoverished. As a nation, as a people. No wonder everyone’s surprised. Because they thought their own personal Jesus, their own King Jesus and them were on good terms. I go to church. I do my things. I try to help out. I went to fish. I went, dropped off a turkey at a Salvation Army Turkey Drop. I haven’t really impoverished anybody this week. You know, I’m good. Me and Jesus, me and my own king, we’re good, one on one. Not looking around at everybody else.

Surprise. He’s not just your king. He’s the king of everybody. He’s the king of nations. We’re on the hook for it all. I was told the first time that universal healthcare was brought up in our nation in the presidential elections – anybody know?

ATTENDEE: The ‘20s?

1916. I could be wrong, 1912. FDR. You know him, a crazy guy, taking care of people. Haven’t got it done. We got it done for people over 65. Why is it moral for people over 65 to get government universal healthcare over here, but the people under 65, oh, no, no, no, no, can’t have that. That’d be politics. That’d be ruining the whole nation. Well, what happened with the 65? You know, what if we just took out “65 and older” and went all the way down? Got rid of the health insurance company. Oh, no, Christy, not the health insurance companies. I love mine, said no one ever.

Oh, Christy, that’s politics. You’re talking politics. You’re talking politics. Well, yes. If your politics are that sick people should suffer and die without healthcare, well, I guess I’m talking politics. If one of the planks on your platform for your political party is that sick people shouldn’t get care unless they can pay for it, and they should just suffer depending on how much money they have, well, if that’s your politics, yeah, I’m talking politics. But I’m telling you you’re talking religion. I’m not stepping into your arena. You’re in my house. I’ve got us a king that says the sick are taken care of, end of story, period. So when you tell me the sick are not taken care of, they don’t have insurance – oh, it’s a preexisting condition. Every condition is preexisting unless you develop it in the waiting room.

My king says the sick are taken care of. My king says the hungry are fed. And not just me and mine. The king of y’all. I’ve got news for you. Surprise. The king is of y’all. It’s a plural. It’s not just me, well, if you want to, you and the church can go and do this and help out the people. Well, yeah. But that doesn’t let everybody off the hook. The nations get gathered together, not the church people. They don’t have the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and divide them up. Unh-unh. The nations. Everyone. You’re supposed to do all this.

And that’s why everyone is surprised. They say, what? You really meant that thing about love one another? You really meant that thing about everyone’s our neighbor? That was a real thing? I thought it was just, you know, me and my actual neighbor next door to me on my street, who I’m pretty sure is named Kit. No. It’s the whole nation. It’s everybody. It’s a community.

So I’m not telling you to be political. I’m telling you to be religious. When someone says, oh, that’s politics, your politics don’t trump my religion, man. I’ve got it right here in the scripture. The nations are judged by Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is not judged by the nation-state. Oh, no, Jesus, you can’t go there. That’s a no-go zone for you. No. No. Be so much nicer to have our own personal Jesus, talk about king and allegiance, maybe even throw in a little controversy about flags in the sanctuary, you know, your traditional Christ the King Sunday. But no. Surprise. Surprise. It’s about all of us, not just one of us. Amen.

Surprise Judge

Abides

Abides

Abides
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING

Audio from worship at the 10 AM Worship Service January 15, 2023
at St Peter’s Episcopal Church in Carson City, Nevada

edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.

John 1:29-42

 

Sermons also available free on iTunes

Well, it’s 4:00 o’clock somewhere. Why is that in the gospel reading? Why is it important for John to tell us that it was about 4:00 o’clock, it was at 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon? What? What? Why do we care, John?

Now, John is – it’s a strange thing for John because John is, can we say it, he’s chronologically challenged. He’s not a time guy. I mean, we’ve got Matthew, we’ve got Mark, and we’ve got Luke. And they say things happened this way. And then we got John said, oh, it went all over here, craziness. All over here. Crazy. I mean, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, one year, they’re done. Jesus done. Over here John, three years. This guy’s not about the timekeeping. You know, Fitbit, all that kind of – nothing. Why does he say 4:00 o’clock?

Now, you might say, well, you know, he’s about light and dark and coming into the light, you know, and going out of the dark, and there’s light, and the times of day are emblematic of the lightness and darkness of the day. Well, what’s 4:00 o’clock? What crazy time zone is there kind of light and dark change at 4:00 o’clock? Not even the craziest daylight savings get us there. And so I look at this, and I’m reading, okay, they’ve got the spirit, and they go and get Caiaphas and all. And he goes, it was about 4:00 o’clock. What? Why does he say that?

Another thing that is going to be John is that he uses a word called  ”μένω” (men-o). It is used about 40 times, and over half the times of in the New Testament that it’s used, half the time is in the gospels of John and the letters of John. He loves that word. And the word is in here three times in this scripture. And it’s translated different ways. It is “remained” when the holy spirit descends like a dove. 

And then it comes also in kind of a throwaway line in that when Jesus asks a question, you know, “What do you seek?” you know, why don’t they say answer that question? You know, like oh, we seek the four spiritual laws. Or we think the theological ramifications of the Eucharist, you know. Why don’t they say that? They’ll say no, they say, “Rabbi, where you stay?” Men-o. That word is a big word for John. It’s one at the feeding of the 5,000. Feeding of the 5,000, there’s no food, suddenly there’s a bunch of food, everybody eats, everybody’s happy, it’s, you know, like Thanksgiving. They’re all full. And Jesus brings the crowd down, you know, really sucks the energy out of the room when he says, “Yeah, that’s good food, but get the food that men-o, that endures, that stays, that remains, that abides.”

John also likes that word when he talks about how to come to faith, how to be in faith. It’s faith about abiding. And remember it goes, “He who abides with me, I abide in them.” Same word. I abide in them. And John also says wherever the spirit abides, that’s where you can come to faith. It’s a big word. A big word in John. Abiding. Staying. Now, that one word, that one concept has several different meanings in our culture.

So several different meanings in our culture. And one of them was demonstrated in the classic film which please don’t watch on my recommendation, there’s a lot of cursing in it, is The Big Lebowski. So let’s take a look. “The Dude abides.”

Now, Sam Elliot character there, only named “The Stranger,” tells him “Take care. I know you will.” And Jeff Bridges’ character, Lebowski, The Dude, says “The Dude abides.” Now, what does he mean by that? Abides had several different readings, not only in our scriptures, but also in today. It could be you abide by the law. It could be obey. I obey. I abide by that law. I abide by that.

And it could also mean usually in the negative sense that the things you put up with or not, you know. Oh, I just can’t abide by someone who is constantly sniffling instead of using a tissue. I just cannot abide by that. There’s that kind of abide.

There’s also – doesn’t that bother everyone? Am I the only one? No? That bothers everyone; doesn’t it? Okay. So, yeah, abide is also, in a more positive sense, an abiding memory; you know? We talk about the memories of childhood, vacations at the lake, continued to abide with him throughout his life. So there’s that kind of abiding. And there’s also the kind of abiding where it’s a staying, it’s an enduring. He abided by her throughout her illness. Where do you abide? Where do you stay? Where do you live? Where do you keep your soul? The abiding. Several different kinds of abiding.

Remember that 4:00 o’clock thing I was talking about earlier, you thought I forgot about? What about that? That’s really the place they talk about abiding with Jesus, and right before they start bringing in other people to him. Peter, yay, Peter. We like Peter here. So abiding, it was 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon. What’s 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon in your life that abides? What time abides with you? I’ll tell you a time for me: 2:30 p.m. 2:30 in the afternoon. July 12th, 1980, I got married. I remember Dr. Paul F. Bauer. I was okay until he turned to me and said, “We just have to wait for the chimes, then we’re going in.” The chimes were at 2:30. That’s when I started abiding as a husband. And when I took the vows, Bette Lynn said “obey,” ha ha ha ha. So, but we took vows for each other and cherished one another, and that was the beginning of abiding together as husband and wife. And that was about 2:30 in the afternoon.

10:10 in the morning. Not just the way people set clocks that look pretty, but 10:10. That’s when my daughter Rachel was born. I remember looking at the clock. That’s when I became a parent. And that was – she’s less than 40. But that was a moment that abides. That abides with me. So I’m thinking that when John includes the 4:00 o’clock thing, it was when the disciple says, yeah, I remember the day that Jesus says “Come and abide with me. Come and see where I am abiding. What are you seeking? You’re seeking to abide with me.” It was 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon. I remember it was yesterday.

What does it mean to abide altogether? There’s definitely staying, and definitely enduring, and definitely some kind of toleration and putting up with, a little bit of obeying, not in terms of I have a command, but to get along with you I’m going to abide. And boy, has that been a challenge in the last few years, to abide with our relatives. Oh, my gosh, and friends. It’s been – and Facebook, oh, my gosh. Who can abide by Facebook anymore? It’s so difficult.

When I left, tried to leave the ministry for a few years to go work on computers, I was sucked back into a church, and my boss, the pastor there, John, was – not his real name – John went through a very traumatic divorce. There was actually violence against him, and he was staying in my basement for a while. It was a mess. And one of the times I got a call from the Christian educator at the church on Friday night. In case you’re wondering, that’s not accepted practice in the Presbyterian circles. We don’t usually call at Friday night about something in the church. And she called up and said, “John’s been arrested.” Oh? And that’s also something that doesn’t happen in Presbyterian circles much, the pastor’s been arrested. And she says, “I can’t go there. I don’t want,” you know, because of the divorce, she didn’t want to go down there and the soon-to-be-ex-wife go crazy about the other woman, whatever she was thinking. And I said all right.

So I go on down. And I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t hang out with people that got arrested. I don’t know. Went to the little police office in our little town. And they wouldn’t let me in the door. But I said, “Hey, I’m looking for John. He just got arrested. I don’t know where he is.” He goes, oh, yeah, yeah. And he went in, and he brought out the court order that he violated. He was supposed to stay, I don’t know, 50 feet away from her and all those things that he’s supposed to do. He was definitely less than 50 feet away her. He was definitely on the porch saying, “Why can’t I see my kids? Why are you keeping my kids from me?” And that was definitely within 50 feet. He definitely did that wrong. And they called him, they hauled him off

And the police officer was arguing with me about the 50 feet and that he did something wrong, and he should have been arrested. And I wasn’t there for that, you know. I said, “John’s my friend, and John does stupid things. Here’s one of them. This was stupid. He definitely violated that, and definitely you should have arrested him. He was in the wrong. But even though he does stupid things and violates court orders, he’s still my friend. And I’m here trying to figure out how to help my friend. How can I help my friend?”

So the cop put the arrest report away, and he said, “He’ll be down at the detention center, and his arraignment is about in an hour. He’ll probably get out, and he’s going to need a ride.” I go, “Thanks.” So went down there, and they decided they could maybe trust the local Presbyterian pastor to behave. So they did let him go, and I picked him up. That’s abiding. I mean, he was wrong. The cop was right. You know. He shouldn’t have done that. But he’s my friend. And we put up with each other. We abide.

Some people think Christianity is, you know, when I made a decision for Christ, when I said the four spiritual laws, or when I confessed my sins, or when I came up to the altar, the Presbyterians were having a little fight about whether or not we can come up to the communion table. We don’t have altars, a big stink in the [indiscernible]. So people say this, you know, that made me a Christian. Okay. If you think that, that’s fine. But it’s like a wedding, a marriage, the difference there. A wedding takes part in a specific time and place and location, and it starts and stops. And the wedding is over, but the marriage endures. The marriage abides. And there’s a lot of, you know, I will abide by that, or I will endure that. I will go with you through that. I will cherish you in sickness and in health. That’s all about abiding.

And the gospel writers and the epistles writers often talk about the relationship with Christ and the Church, which is us, the Church, is like a marriage in that we abide with one another, that we put up with one another, that we stick through with one another no matter what. “The Dude abides” I think means I get through it the best I can with the help of my friends. And isn’t that the faith? Isn’t that what God calls us to do? What are you seeking? I’m seeking to abide with you. Amen.

Abides