Guest Sermon

Sermon

As you may know, Christmas has passed. Big shock, I know. There are not in fact, 28 days of Advent. This means that we, or at least, I, am looking out onto the next holiday: New Year’s. Personally, I love to celebrate New Year’s. I like to take stock of my life, think about the past 12 months, and look forward to the next year and all that it may bring. I get to think about what my life looked like a year ago and how it looks now. As a college student, it feels like everything is always changing rapidly, and this touchpoint allows me to look back on just how far I’ve come. I like the hope I feel as the clock strikes 12: that maybe I will carry out a new year’s resolution, or maybe a month that was terrible in the year prior will be wonderful in the next one. More than any other holiday, except maybe my birthday, it is a reminder of all the life I have lived and will get to live.

As I get older, however, it feels like every year when I show up on January 1st’s doorstep I carry more and more worries with me. I remember in 2019, when I was 14, how excited the whole world was for the magical and enticing year of 2020. I and everyone else cracked many jokes about having 2020 vision, and then through the year, continued to joke about how clearly nobody had had 2020 vision. After that year, I don’t think that feeling of uncertainty ever left me. I knew how quickly and unexpectedly everything can change.

January 1st means I will be looking out over the looming cliff of 2026, and I don’t know what is going to happen in the next 12 months. I don’t know how my friendships will change at college, or what developments my family will have, or if my dog will decide to try to bite a squirrel as he did once successfully. I don’t know how the fit of my clothes will change, or if I will do well in all my classes, and I don’t know when I’ll be disappointed or delighted or bereaved or joyful. And I really, really don’t know what’s going to happen in the greater world.

I feel both very, very young and strangely also getting older, and the combination leaves me with so much unknown. How to balance, for example, the dynamics of this past summer: at work, six-year-olds would ask/guess that I’m forty and married, and then after work, I return to eat dinner with my parents. And yes, I may be in college, but I don’t know what I’m going to do with my theater degree, even though many people like to ask. With all of this weirdness and uncertainty, I do have a built-in, pragmatic faith. The adults in my life have also navigated uncertainty, and for the most part, are content with where they are now. They overcome challenges as they come, so logically, I will too. When I told my dad the other night, half-kidding, that I would just like to skip the next ten years of my life to be a somewhat-more-stable 30-year-old Sarah, he laughed at me, and as he should. I can pray to avoid uncertainty, but you can’t really ever be certain until you face the unknown head on. And also, your 20s are fun, so I’m told.

But the logic is still not enough. I can know logically I will be okay when a friendship ends, but it never feels that way in the moment. And it is hard to be logical about the world when it feels like the people in charge are continually illogical and at their core, unkind. How am I supposed to trust that 2026 is something to look forward to?

Thankfully, I have had a lot to distract me from these big questions, having just finished an action-packed third semester of college, and now being home and finally having some time to rest. I have been back in Portland for almost two weeks now, and in that time, I have seen many friends from different eras of my life. With my friends from Westminster, since we often would go weeks or months without seeing each other during the school year anyhow, it always feels like no time has passed. There is an understanding of each other that never needs explaining. We know each others’ families, and they especially know mine. We have the shared intimacy of going to church together, which often feels taboo to talk about with people who don’t attend religious services. There is a trust that has been built over many years just by showing up to this place, and it has created lifelong friendships for me. When we see each other, it’s almost like our own New Year’s, talking about the last months of our lives, and then looking forward to what we’ll all be up to next.

So, when I share with them about the next months of my life—finishing my sophomore year of college, trying out new roles in theater, traveling around the country—my church friends, along with all my loved ones, never express any doubt at me. They ask follow-up questions and express their pride, but they don’t question. They’re not worried about me. And I’m not worried about them. I love hearing about what my friends are studying, where they’re living, and what they’re planning for next. And I love hearing what my parents’ life has become like with me out of the house and my aunt now living next door. I believe in them all, more than I believe in myself, and more than I believe in the greater world right now.

In Matthews 2:13, Jesus says to the people that he will put his trust in God. Now, one of the earliest things I was taught in Sunday School and then was retaught in Catholic school was that God is the world, is love, and is a part of all of us. And I don’t know how to continue on without trusting the people I love, and so I do. I trust that I will be surrounded by the people I love in 2026, and that when I show up on January’s doorstep with a suitcase full of doubt, my loved ones are showing up to help carry the load. This church community is showing up with me and has throughout my entire life. Many of my earliest memories of Portland are of being five years old in a church member’s house, sharing a meal with you all. When I come back here, I am surrounded by people who believe in me, and who also don’t know what the future holds. But you all continue showing up—to Westminster, to your families, to communities. And that gives me hope that there will always be people persevering together.

In one of my favorite TV shows of all time, Fleabag, the priest character delivers a wedding homily that is a little off-kilter. It starts with him talking about how love is awful, painful, frightening, and maddening. But he continues this to say that if love is awful, then it’s no wonder it’s something we don’t want to do on our own. In 2026, I will hit many speed bumps. I will fail and I will cry and I will make mistakes. The world may not be what I want it to be, and the road ahead for our country feels dark and long. So no wonder I am not on my own, and while community doesn’t always feel like a direct, actionable solution, it is how we survive. I will ring in this new year with my community, with dinner with my parents and aunt and a joyful celebration with my friends. I may not know a lot right now, but I believe in people. And I think that’s enough. Amen.