[Sermon] What Do You Fear, My Child?

Hector Garfias-Toledo, Lead Pastor

December 14, 2025 + Third Sunday of Advent

On the Third Sunday of Advent, Pastor Hector invites reflection on fear not as a failure of faith, but as the very place where God often begins. Through the stories of Jeremiah and Mary, fear is named honestly—fear of inadequacy, fear of being alone, fear of not being heard. Rather than dismissing those fears, God meets them with presence and promise. God’s call does not depend on confidence or readiness, but on God’s deep knowledge of who each person already is. Even when voices tremble and knees shake, God calls forward those who are willing to say yes.

Sermon Transcript

From YouTube's automatic captions, lightly edited by AI for readability.

Grace to you and peace from God, Father, Mother, Creator, and the Lord Jesus Christ—our savior, our lord, our friend, the little baby who was born in Bethlehem. And we say, amen.

Well, again, this keeps happening to me. I prepared something, and then either David or David—Joelle—they take away my sermon. So I don’t have anything to say now because she took part of the sermon. Joelle, thank you for helping me. Now, let me make up something. Give me a minute.

Seriously. Seriously.

The way that I was going to start this was by telling you that the past—uh—the last Wednesday and Thursday I was in charge of teaching our students here at our school’s chapel. And the same story that Joelle brought to our young worshippers today is the story that I brought. In asking the questions, I am always amazed at the receptive curiosity of our own young children, our young—uh—students here at our schools.

It was amazing for me to hear, when I was asking them—just as Teacher Joelle did—when I was asking them, “How do you feel that Mary felt when she saw an angel?” Were these feelings or emotions of being surprised or confused, of not knowing what to do, because she had never seen an angel before?

So as I hear these children speaking, it makes me feel—and invites me and challenges me—how we as adults can continue to hear these stories with such openness and desire to hear them differently, to really surprise us, to really amaze us again, to hear them a little bit different.

Last Sunday we were talking about these inner feelings that sometimes we have—that we are not good enough. We were talking about the apple, remember, and the star that is in us, or the star that is in the apple. We were talking about John the Baptist as he was perhaps wondering himself, when he was in prison, whether he was enough for what was happening.

So today I would like to invite you to reflect with me on how all these stories bring joy to us, at a time when we continue to hear that we are not enough, or that we are too different to be loved, or that we think too different that we cannot belong, or that we just don’t belong to this place because you don’t share the same view that I have of the world or of other people.

“I am only a boy,” Jeremiah said.

“How can it be?” Mary said.

The passages that we have for today are as assigned to this Third Sunday of Advent. And you may agree with me that most of the time the approach and the interpretation to these passages is that Jeremiah is just this young man who accepts God’s call. And then the story of Mary is about this young woman, young girl, with no status in a male-dominated society, who accepts God’s call to bear God’s son.

And she goes from being a scared young girl to be almost this kind of heroine of the stories of the Bible, because she sings the Magnificat that we love so much to sing and to read—especially because sometimes it gives us opportunity to say, to use it, to desire that those who we consider our enemies, that God is going to step on them.

In other words, it seems that Jeremiah and Mary are the main decision-makers. Their actions are seen as the thing to do and the way in which we can rise against the powers of the world.

But—and you know me by this time—I’m asking God, help me to hear this from a different angle, from a different perspective. Help me to hear the stories afresh and bring me the joy of being part of this story.

What if the passages that we just read convey a deeper message about God’s invitation to do an introspection of our own fear, which prevents us from seeing what God is already doing in us and through us, and in others and through others, for the sake of all creation?

The invitation is about joining God’s mission and trusting that God has already seen in us the star that is in our hearts, and that God sees us as partners and bearers of the good news. The unfolding of God’s reign is not thwarted by the perceived limitations of ourselves and others, because nothing—nothing—can stop God from breaking in and from disrupting our establishment, and even our own fears that have sometimes taken root in our hearts.

Jeremiah and Mary were struggling with the idea of proclaiming God’s good news. They find reasons—and possibly valid reasons—to say, “God, I’m not able to do that.” But that wouldn’t stop God from working through them and in them, because God knows the star that is already in them.

And I’m making reference again to last Sunday’s message of the star in the apple and the star in each one of us.

God’s response does not dismiss their fear, but disrupts and transcends the stated limitations.

“I am just a boy.”

“I’m only a boy.”

“But I’m a girl.”

“I don’t even have a husband. How is that even possible?”

This reminds me of what I have heard from 30 years of ministry—or maybe beyond that, because maybe I was part of that too. When I invite a person in the congregation to take positions of leadership, or to lead the people of God through some kind of ministry in the congregation, the answer that I hear is, “I’m just a member. I’m just a person who comes to church. I’m not a pastor. I haven’t received theological training.”

For the past few years, I have been trained and learning about coaching. Coaching is this skill of being able to bring out the full potential of a person through questions. I am a life coach, and I’m also a grief coach, and I have been coaching for many years.

One of the things that brings me joy is when I see a person growing and finding and realizing that many times—most of the time—the answers that they are looking for in their life are already in them. And the only thing that we need to do as coaches is to walk with them and create a space for people to be able to discover what is already in them.

I have seen it through the years. And I don’t think it’s me, or because I am a good coach. I think it is because God has already given to each one of us a gift that is in us. And sometimes, because of the challenges of life, they get kind of buried under layers and layers and layers of experiences—of feelings and emotions, of hurts, of hopes that are unfulfilled, promises—that we forget what God has already given us and placed in our hearts.

I believe that this is what these passages are about.

God had already seen in Jeremiah: “When you were formed, I knew who you would be and what you are going to bring for God’s creation.” When God visits Mary through the angel, God says, “You are going to be the bearer of my son Jesus, because I have seen what you will be and what you can be—the full potential of what it means to be my child.”

And that, my siblings in Christ, brings joy.

Joy in a world that tells us completely the opposite—day after day telling us how inadequate we are, how young we are, how different we are, how old we are, how sick we are—making us feel that there is no worth and there is no joy in this journey that we call life.

Mary and Jeremiah were minding their own business. Perhaps they were resigned to live the life that this world and this society had dictated for them.

But this was a surprise, when God comes and says, “You. Yes, you. You are going to be an extension of my divine compassion. You are going to be an extension of the disruption that I am bringing to this world, so that everyone can see and remember what I have already placed in the heart of every person.”

Jeremiah says, “Lord, I don’t know how to talk.”

Last Thursday, I had to go to the dentist, and I was thinking of this passage. I was thinking of a previous experience at the dentist. Disclaimer: I’m not talking against dentists or anyone studying dentistry right now, but this is what happened.

There are times in our lives when we want to talk and we can’t. And there are times when you can talk and you don’t want to.

I went to the dentist, and they were explaining to me, “Well, we’re probably going to check, and maybe you will need a procedure, but we will be checking on you, and we will let you know how it’s going to work with your insurance and all that. So why don’t you go, and they will start working on you, and we will keep checking with the insurance.”

And exactly when everything was going on—right there, when I had the need to talk—they said, “Well, Hector, we got the information for your insurance, and it’s going to cost you…” and my mouth was full.

There are times in our lives when we want to talk, and we can’t. No joy.

We live in a culture, my siblings in Christ, where sometimes we want to be the voice for others. And in becoming the voice for others, we also become the limitation of those who we say do not have a voice. Because when the so-called voiceless are able to speak, sometimes the truth they tell is not the truth we want to hear.

God’s breaking in is disruptive, because it shatters our bias, our ideologies, and our desire for certainty and eternal stability. But it also tears down our fear.

To Jeremiah, God said, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy,’ for I am with you.” And to Mary, God said, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, for nothing will be impossible with God.”

God’s call often arrives through our fear and perceived inadequacy. The call itself is the first disruption.

How many times have you been disrupted? How many times have you heard the call of God? How many times have you and I brought good excuses why to say, “This is not for me right now”? How many times has our self-perception been infused by others into us?

I believe that the words “Do not be afraid” that we hear today convey a deeper message. What if, instead of being an imperative, it is a question?

What do you fear?

What do you fear, my child?

I have been with you.

I am with you.

I will be with you.

And that is the joy of this message.

Jeremiah and Mary are explicitly afraid, and they articulate their perceived limitations. But the invitation they receive is based on who God knows them to be—consecrated, favored ones.

It is not about their social credentials or self-perceived readiness. God sees us for who we are: precious children of God.

Each one of you, my siblings in Christ, has a star in your heart to be bearers, participants, and partners with God in the unfolding reign of God that is coming to us daily.

The ultimate joy of God’s reign does not depend on our flawless courage or capability, but on God’s faithful, disruptive, incarnational love in Jesus.

Jeremiah and Mary are not just models of heroic individualism, but paradigms of grace-filled participation.

What do you fear, my child?

I am with you.

God specializes in calling the unlikely, meeting us in our fear, and calling us forward—not only to action, but to become fully ourselves.

And this, my siblings in Christ, is the Advent invitation: to open ourselves to that same disruptive, empowering grace.

Even in our fear, you and I are called forward.

And for that, we thank God.

Amen.