Opening To Love (Advent 1 - Hope) – Matthew 1:18-25
After last week’s sermon on the reign of Christ – the reign of Love – I was asked a question that has stayed with me: “What is love?” It’s a deceptively simple question. We think we know love, and yet when we try to define it, words falter. Is love a feeling, a decision, a virtue, a way of life? And how do we measure ourselves against its call?
The first place Scripture takes us is 1 Corinthians 13, where Paul describes love as patient and kind, not boastful, rude, self-seeking, or easily angered. And Jesus deepens the challenge by calling us to love even those who do not return our love. These teachings can feel like a tall order. But Paul also reminds us in Galatians that love is “fruit”, something that grows naturally when our hearts are open to the Breath of God. When the Spirit moves in and through us, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control begin to take shape almost as naturally as fruit growing on a tree.
Alongside these biblical insights, two reflections help clarify the question: What is Love?
M. Scott Peck famously wrote that love is extending oneself for the spiritual growth of oneself or another. Sometimes that involves encouragement; sometimes it involves boundaries or “tough love,” but always it is aimed at growth.
And Thomas Merton adds yet another layer, saying, “Love is like a spring coming up out of the ground of our own depths.”
Love is not something we manufacture; it is something already present within us, waiting to be released. The work is often to remove the obstacles, fear, anxiety, trauma, so that the inner spring of love can rise and flow.
With these insights in mind, On this first Sunday of Advent, I want to consider the theme “Opening to Love,” and I want to do so through two stories: the contemporary story of Dr. Lisa Miller, and the ancient story of Joseph in Matthew 1. Both stories speak of how love calls us beyond fear, beyond hesitation, into a larger, more spacious way of being.
Dr. Lisa Miller is a leading psychologist, professor at Columbia University, and one of the foremost researchers on the science of spirituality. Her work bridges neuroscience, psychology, and contemplative insight, and she argues that human beings are born with an innate spiritual capacity, an inner awareness that can be cultivated and trusted.
In a podcast interview with Martha Beck, she tells her own remarkable journey through infertility, adoption, and conception. She describes the early years of infertility as a cycle of grief: “Every month felt like attending a funeral,” she said. Each new fertility treatment brought a flicker of hope, and each failure felt like that flicker dying all over again.
Being a scientist, she tackled infertility like a researcher. She sought the best clinics, the best success rates, the most cutting-edge procedures. She sat in prestigious medical offices, yet something inside her felt out of place. Despite her determination, she sensed she was not on the right path. There was an inner knowing, a deeper wisdom, that she tried to ignore.
Then came what she later described as synchronicities. One day her mother phoned, almost casually, to say: “Our neighbours adopted the most adorable little boy… from Russia. I’m just letting you know.” A simple comment—but it lingered.
Shortly afterward, after yet another failed IVF cycle, she sat on a nearly empty bus on Broadway, feeling despondent. A stranger boarded, walked the full length of the bus, sat right next to her, and said: “Lady, you look like just the kind of awfully nice lady who would go all around the world adopting kids.” And at the very next stop he got off. She later called him a “trail angel”… one of those mysterious figures who appear just when a message needs to be delivered.
Still she wrestled. Part of her remained committed to medical procedures; another part sensed a spiritual child waiting elsewhere. Then came a moment she describes as “beyond time.” One night she awoke to a powerful, sacred Presence filling the room; a numinous, holy awareness. She described it as “an opening into a divine space.” And the Presence asked: “If you were pregnant now, would you adopt?”
Honesty was the only response. “No,” she said.
The Presence withdrew. But months later, as she and her husband slowly inched toward adoption, it returned. Again the question came: “If you were pregnant now, would you adopt?” And she answered, “I’m getting closer… but no, not yet.” Something within her was softening, but not fully ready.
Then her cousin invited her to a Lakota healing ceremony in South Dakota. “It’s been five years,” her cousin said gently. “Maybe you need to look in another direction.” Lisa cancelled her university meetings and flew to the reservation. In the women’s prayer lodge - the inipi - something shifted. Each woman spoke in turn, and when her cousin introduced her, she said: “This is my cousin. She has been looking for her child, and I am wondering if we can help her.” All the women looked at Lisa, and for the first time she felt: “I am in the right place to find my child.” They prayed for her, “praying her child into life,” as she put it, sending their prayer upward through the opening in the lodge.
That very night, while she was still in South Dakota, the phone call came: a little boy in an orphanage near St. Petersburg needed parents.
Lisa and her husband had requested a girl. But she rushed back to her accommodation, opened the video link, and saw him. And in the very instant of seeing him, she loved him. “It was a soaring, euphoric love,” she said. “I loved in a way I’d never loved before. And [in that moment] I became a parent because that’s how a parent loves. I knew his soul and my soul were meant to be mother and child.”
That night, the night she first saw her son, the Presence returned. Again the question: “If you were pregnant now, would you adopt?” And this time she answered without hesitation: “Absolutely. This is my spiritual child.”
And on that very same night, she and her husband conceived naturally.
It is a story full of mystery, courage, surrender, and the widening of love, almost biblical in its scale and yet showing also how God is at work outside of a Christian framework. And yet it resonates profoundly with the ancient story of Joseph.
Joseph also faces an unexpected and deeply emotional crossroads. He discovers Mary is pregnant, and he knows the child is not his. In his world, this was not only a personal crisis but a public moral scandal. Matthew tells us Joseph was a “righteous man.” But now righteousness becomes something he must wrestle with. According to convention, righteousness meant maintaining purity and honour. And so Joseph resolves to “dismiss her quietly.” It is the least harmful option available, and it protects his reputation. But it will still leave Mary vulnerable for the rest of her life.
Then the angel comes, that same kind of numinous Presence Lisa Miller describes, interrupting Joseph’s fear and social conditioning. In his dream a deeper voice rises within him, a voice from beyond calculation and reputation. It is what Merton called “the spring of love rising from the depths,” the place where divine compassion and human courage meet.
The angel calls Joseph into a new kind of righteousness: not the righteousness of protecting his reputation, but the righteousness of love. Love that, as M. Scott Peck puts it, seeks the growth of oneself or another. And perhaps in this instance it is Joseph who does the most growing.
Suddenly Joseph sees Mary not as a threat but as someone whose well-being has been entrusted to his care. Something in him shifts. His heart opens wider than he imagined possible. He takes Mary into his home. He accepts the whispers, the raised eyebrows, the judgments. And in doing so he he steps into a story larger than his own, a story of God’s unfolding love in the world.
Thomas Merton wrote: “Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.” Joseph does exactly this. He does not demand proof or explanation. He trusts the deeper knowing that has risen within him. He acts for Mary’s good. And in doing so, he becomes part of the birth of Christ into the world.
Opening to love stretches us. It invites us beyond fear, beyond hesitation, beyond the small, self-protective versions of ourselves. And like Joseph, and like Lisa Miller, we rarely open up all at once. Often there is struggle, questions, uncertainty. But somewhere deep inside, the spring of love begins to rise and the way opens up. Something nudges us into a larger story, one in which love is not manufactured, but received. Not forced, but allowed. Not earned, but given.
And this is the invitation of Advent: to open again to the flow of God’s love already rising within us; to trust the quiet promptings, the inner angels, the synchronicities, the springs rising from our depths; to let love bear fruit in our lives.
Lisa Miller opened to love and found herself both adopting her spiritual son and, to her astonishment, falling pregnant as well. Joseph opened to love, and made space for Christ to be born into the world.
This Advent and Christmas season, may we open our hearts too, to love’s depths, love’s courage, love’s surprising invitations, so that Christ may be born again in us and through us, for the healing of our world. Amen.
After last week’s sermon on the reign of Christ – the reign of Love – I was asked a question that has stayed with me: “What is love?” It’s a deceptively simple question. We think we know love, and yet when we try to define it, words falter. Is love a feeling, a decision, a virtue, a way of life? And how do we measure ourselves against its call?
The first place Scripture takes us is 1 Corinthians 13, where Paul describes love as patient and kind, not boastful, rude, self-seeking, or easily angered. And Jesus deepens the challenge by calling us to love even those who do not return our love. These teachings can feel like a tall order. But Paul also reminds us in Galatians that love is “fruit”, something that grows naturally when our hearts are open to the Breath of God. When the Spirit moves in and through us, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control begin to take shape almost as naturally as fruit growing on a tree.
Alongside these biblical insights, two reflections help clarify the question: What is Love?
M. Scott Peck famously wrote that love is extending oneself for the spiritual growth of oneself or another. Sometimes that involves encouragement; sometimes it involves boundaries or “tough love,” but always it is aimed at growth.
And Thomas Merton adds yet another layer, saying, “Love is like a spring coming up out of the ground of our own depths.”
Love is not something we manufacture; it is something already present within us, waiting to be released. The work is often to remove the obstacles, fear, anxiety, trauma, so that the inner spring of love can rise and flow.
With these insights in mind, On this first Sunday of Advent, I want to consider the theme “Opening to Love,” and I want to do so through two stories: the contemporary story of Dr. Lisa Miller, and the ancient story of Joseph in Matthew 1. Both stories speak of how love calls us beyond fear, beyond hesitation, into a larger, more spacious way of being.
Dr. Lisa Miller is a leading psychologist, professor at Columbia University, and one of the foremost researchers on the science of spirituality. Her work bridges neuroscience, psychology, and contemplative insight, and she argues that human beings are born with an innate spiritual capacity, an inner awareness that can be cultivated and trusted.
In a podcast interview with Martha Beck, she tells her own remarkable journey through infertility, adoption, and conception. She describes the early years of infertility as a cycle of grief: “Every month felt like attending a funeral,” she said. Each new fertility treatment brought a flicker of hope, and each failure felt like that flicker dying all over again.
Being a scientist, she tackled infertility like a researcher. She sought the best clinics, the best success rates, the most cutting-edge procedures. She sat in prestigious medical offices, yet something inside her felt out of place. Despite her determination, she sensed she was not on the right path. There was an inner knowing, a deeper wisdom, that she tried to ignore.
Then came what she later described as synchronicities. One day her mother phoned, almost casually, to say: “Our neighbours adopted the most adorable little boy… from Russia. I’m just letting you know.” A simple comment—but it lingered.
Shortly afterward, after yet another failed IVF cycle, she sat on a nearly empty bus on Broadway, feeling despondent. A stranger boarded, walked the full length of the bus, sat right next to her, and said: “Lady, you look like just the kind of awfully nice lady who would go all around the world adopting kids.” And at the very next stop he got off. She later called him a “trail angel”… one of those mysterious figures who appear just when a message needs to be delivered.
Still she wrestled. Part of her remained committed to medical procedures; another part sensed a spiritual child waiting elsewhere. Then came a moment she describes as “beyond time.” One night she awoke to a powerful, sacred Presence filling the room; a numinous, holy awareness. She described it as “an opening into a divine space.” And the Presence asked: “If you were pregnant now, would you adopt?”
Honesty was the only response. “No,” she said.
The Presence withdrew. But months later, as she and her husband slowly inched toward adoption, it returned. Again the question came: “If you were pregnant now, would you adopt?” And she answered, “I’m getting closer… but no, not yet.” Something within her was softening, but not fully ready.
Then her cousin invited her to a Lakota healing ceremony in South Dakota. “It’s been five years,” her cousin said gently. “Maybe you need to look in another direction.” Lisa cancelled her university meetings and flew to the reservation. In the women’s prayer lodge - the inipi - something shifted. Each woman spoke in turn, and when her cousin introduced her, she said: “This is my cousin. She has been looking for her child, and I am wondering if we can help her.” All the women looked at Lisa, and for the first time she felt: “I am in the right place to find my child.” They prayed for her, “praying her child into life,” as she put it, sending their prayer upward through the opening in the lodge.
That very night, while she was still in South Dakota, the phone call came: a little boy in an orphanage near St. Petersburg needed parents.
Lisa and her husband had requested a girl. But she rushed back to her accommodation, opened the video link, and saw him. And in the very instant of seeing him, she loved him. “It was a soaring, euphoric love,” she said. “I loved in a way I’d never loved before. And [in that moment] I became a parent because that’s how a parent loves. I knew his soul and my soul were meant to be mother and child.”
That night, the night she first saw her son, the Presence returned. Again the question: “If you were pregnant now, would you adopt?” And this time she answered without hesitation: “Absolutely. This is my spiritual child.”
And on that very same night, she and her husband conceived naturally.
It is a story full of mystery, courage, surrender, and the widening of love, almost biblical in its scale and yet showing also how God is at work outside of a Christian framework. And yet it resonates profoundly with the ancient story of Joseph.
Joseph also faces an unexpected and deeply emotional crossroads. He discovers Mary is pregnant, and he knows the child is not his. In his world, this was not only a personal crisis but a public moral scandal. Matthew tells us Joseph was a “righteous man.” But now righteousness becomes something he must wrestle with. According to convention, righteousness meant maintaining purity and honour. And so Joseph resolves to “dismiss her quietly.” It is the least harmful option available, and it protects his reputation. But it will still leave Mary vulnerable for the rest of her life.
Then the angel comes, that same kind of numinous Presence Lisa Miller describes, interrupting Joseph’s fear and social conditioning. In his dream a deeper voice rises within him, a voice from beyond calculation and reputation. It is what Merton called “the spring of love rising from the depths,” the place where divine compassion and human courage meet.
The angel calls Joseph into a new kind of righteousness: not the righteousness of protecting his reputation, but the righteousness of love. Love that, as M. Scott Peck puts it, seeks the growth of oneself or another. And perhaps in this instance it is Joseph who does the most growing.
Suddenly Joseph sees Mary not as a threat but as someone whose well-being has been entrusted to his care. Something in him shifts. His heart opens wider than he imagined possible. He takes Mary into his home. He accepts the whispers, the raised eyebrows, the judgments. And in doing so he he steps into a story larger than his own, a story of God’s unfolding love in the world.
Thomas Merton wrote: “Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.” Joseph does exactly this. He does not demand proof or explanation. He trusts the deeper knowing that has risen within him. He acts for Mary’s good. And in doing so, he becomes part of the birth of Christ into the world.
Opening to love stretches us. It invites us beyond fear, beyond hesitation, beyond the small, self-protective versions of ourselves. And like Joseph, and like Lisa Miller, we rarely open up all at once. Often there is struggle, questions, uncertainty. But somewhere deep inside, the spring of love begins to rise and the way opens up. Something nudges us into a larger story, one in which love is not manufactured, but received. Not forced, but allowed. Not earned, but given.
And this is the invitation of Advent: to open again to the flow of God’s love already rising within us; to trust the quiet promptings, the inner angels, the synchronicities, the springs rising from our depths; to let love bear fruit in our lives.
Lisa Miller opened to love and found herself both adopting her spiritual son and, to her astonishment, falling pregnant as well. Joseph opened to love, and made space for Christ to be born into the world.
This Advent and Christmas season, may we open our hearts too, to love’s depths, love’s courage, love’s surprising invitations, so that Christ may be born again in us and through us, for the healing of our world. Amen.
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