The One of Peace

Micah 5:2-5a
Luke 1:46-55

Not all Christmas gift stories get remembered years later, but the year my friend didn’t get a bike that was a year to remember. She had been wishing for it for ages, or what seemed like ages to a 10 year old. It was a bright pink Beach Cruiser – a popular bike with thick framing and fat tires, all the kids were wishing for them in the late 1980’s Florida beach town where we lived.

My friend was pretty certain she was getting one. She had been to the store to be fitted with her parents. They wrote down all the measurements and made note of her favorite color paint. It seemed a done deal. Maybe she even spoke like it was certain to others, especially as she rounded out her Christmas list to other family members with all the matching accessories. The bike would be there Christmas morning; she was sure of it.

But maybe she shouldn’t have been. Christmas morning came, and she was ready to feign great surprise upon seeing the bike there in the living room, but it wasn’t. Old enough to know that she shouldn’t be disappointed about a present not received, but young enough to still be disappointed, she went through the rest of the morning with a little less enthusiasm than it might usually stir up. Things got a little harder, though, when she opened the present from her grandmother. It would have been the IDEAL present….

Inside the box was the perfect bike basket – white woven reeds were decorated with those absolutely, completely 1987 vinyl fluorescent flowers – neon green, neon pink, neon yellow. It would have been AWESOME on the front of her bright pink Beach Cruiser if she had, in fact, gotten that bright pink Beach Cruiser. But without the bike, the basket was, well, incomplete.

Up to this point in our Advent worship series the Scriptures we have shared have pointed out a gift of God at Christmas that I think is in contradiction to what we often ask for from God at Christmas, or anytime really. We wish for instant gratification and immediate solutions, but God gives hope, promises to be fulfilled in the future. We wish for nonjudgmental approval of all our actions, but God gives tough love, the refiner’s fire, a call to repentance. We wish for momentary happiness that hides our fears, but God gives lasting joy that comes from Christ’s presence in the midst of struggles.

This week, though, I don’t think our Christmas lists are in the same kind of contrast from God’s gift list. I think instead what we tend to mean by what is on our list is incomplete compared to what God promises to give. It’s like we’re asking for the bike basket, but have nothing to hang it on. How many Christmas cards have you received this year with some version of the message “Peace on earth” embossed inside or out in gilded script? It’s a message fit for the angels to sing, and I would be surprised to hear that any of us DON’T wish for it. Peace. It’s our wish for our lives, our wish for the world, and according to Micah, it’s definitely on God’s list to give.

Micah is the prophet toward whom the chief priests and scribes in Matthew’s gospel turn when telling King Herod that Bethlehem will be the birthplace of the Messiah. Bethlehem, Micah prophesies, will be the source of the new David as it was the birth place of the first David, the beloved king of Israel. Bethlehem, Micah prophesies will be the place from which God calls the new king, the Messiah, who will shepherd God’s people as David shepherded sheep, who will finish gathering them into one people, as David held the kingdom together united. Bethlehem will be the source of the Messiah, the new David, the new king, a new kind of king, who will bring them together, feed them and make them strong. He will make them secure against all their enemies. He will be the one of peace. It’s what God promises. It’s the gift God delights in giving. It is peace.

War was at hand. The horrors of battle and cities under siege were the common knowledge of the people of Bethlehem and throughout Israel. The thought of a king coming out of this battered land, and a king of peace, was absurd. Peace is not how you build a nation. Peace is not how you find strength against your enemies, how you display majesty to the kingdoms of the world, how you make a home for your people surrounded by nations that are different. Peace, the absence of fighting, the absence of aggression and destruction and devastation, won’t get you too far in rebuilding the glory days of old. Or so the common theory holds.

And I think that’s because the common theory holds a pretty limited view of peace – an incomplete view, you might say. “Peace on earth” - - what is it we’re asking for when we pray this along with the angels. What are wishing for when we send it in our greeting cards? What does it mean when we celebrate it’s coming in Jesus who was born in Bethlehem?

I had this similar conversation at a meeting in September, not at our church. The group I was with was trying to make a decision about a grant request for funds to be spent from a Peacemaking Offering. It was to be a challenge grant for an emergency shelter in a small town in central Nebraska. The shelter is operated by an ecumenical alliance in this small town and ministers to women and children who are fleeing homes where domestic violence is present. The request was not to completely bail the shelter out of its financial pit, but to offer funds that would only be given when matched by the other participating denominations.

In the course of our discussions the question was asked, “What does any of this have to do with Peacemaking?” At first our committee was silent. The one who asked the question wasn’t against the shelter. He didn’t desire for the women and children to have no place to go. His question was a legitimate one as one of the stewards of the gifts given by faithful Christians. What does this have to do with Peacemaking, the cause behind the offering?

His question was a legitimate one, but I think it also highlights our common thinking about peace. Peace, we tend to think, is the absence of war. Peace is a lack of fighting. That’s what we tend to think. That’s what we tend to be asking for when we ask for peace on earth, world peace, peace in our cities. But I think our definition, I think our hopes for what peace will look like, I think what we are used to asking for, is incomplete. Micah declares that the one of peace is coming, but Mary in singing her beautiful song of praise, tells us what that really means. She’s tells us what God’s complete gift of peace really looks like.

Now she never says the word “peace,” but the ability to sing that song in the midst of the life she’s living? Certainly, Mary knows what peace is as much as she knows what it means to need it. There have probably been more than a few battles for her to face in the last several months. A young girl, betrothed to be married, Mary has turned up pregnant, and even in a time and culture that was more open than ours to supernatural explanations for earthly affairs, the story of being visited by angel and conceiving a child by the spirit of God is more than just a little unbelievable. It could not have been a peaceful life for her, those early months of pregnancy – strife with her parents, the worry over what Joseph would think and do, the ridicule and shame from the neighbors, literally fearing for her life in a town where it was legal to KILL her because of the child she carried. Nothing in there sounds like peace even in the absence of an outright war.

Yet, even in the midst of all of that and more, Mary can sing, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” Even in the midst of the most traumatic time of her still short life, Mary can sing praises to God. In fact, over and over again, she seems to be the one in the birth narrative most at peace. She seems to know what peace, real peace, complete peace, is all about.

A young girl, from an unimportant backwater town, lifted up to be a blessed servant of God. As insignificant a girl in a world dominated by Roman occupation as Bethlehem had become in the time of Micah after a string of miserable kings had allowed foreign nations to rule the land, and she was the one being lifted up into service to God. She sings of a time coming with the gift of her child when the proud and arrogant are toppled down from the pedestals they occupy while the oppressed and the forgotten, the lowly in the eyes of the world, are raised to new importance. Those hungry for food are filled with what is usually only good enough for the wealthy, who hoard it away for themselves. The rich find out what it means to worry for a little bit. The world is reversed, but most importantly, the playing field is leveled. Everyone has a chance.

War is never mentioned in Mary’s beautiful song, but the conditions that lead to war, the conditions that lead to anxiety and violence, the conditions that lead to both offensive and defensive stances, they are all over her song, and ultimately, she sings they are eliminated by God who comes in the child she carries, by the one of peace. Pride and power abused, hunger and oppression, all these are promised to be removed by the one who is coming, the one of peace. Battlefields aren’t a part of the picture she paints, but the need for them is lost when peace comes completely.

The peace that is promised in the gift of God’s Son, complete peace – it’s about more than just the absence of war; it’s about the presence of justice. It’s the world that God displayed in choosing Mary to carry this gift. It’s the world that Jesus demonstrated by including the outcast, sharing meals with sinners, healing the broken and brokenhearted, loving the unlovable. It’s the world we’re called to bring about as his people, his disciples, the ones bearing his name, Christ, the Messiah – not just a world where fighting is silent, but a world where fighting isn’t even necessary.

May God’s gift of the peace of Christ be with us this Christmas. May the complete peace of Christ be with us and in us and showing through us this Christmas and always.

Lasting Joy

Zephaniah 3:14-20

Have you caught your favorite Christmas special on TV yet? I noticed “It’s a Wonderful Life” was on last night, but I didn’t watch it. In fact, I flipped through the channels last night and counted at least 6 or 7 different “classic” Christmas specials on at the same time. They’ve been going all week, and I know there are still more to come. We’ve watched some with our family as a last treat before bed. Recently we caught one of my favorites, “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” I just love that pathetic little tree!!

I realized as we watched this week that it had been a while since I had seen it, and I saw things I hadn’t seen before. I saw some very Advent things in the middle of that Christmas special – waiting, preparing, searching, discovering. I brought the opening scene for us to watch together.


Poor Charlie Brown! It’s one of the best times of year, and he just can’t get what he really wants – happiness. So much of Christmas is built around happiness, isn’t it? It’s what we’re spending all this time and energy and especially money on – happiness. We go shopping for the perfect presents so we can make our friends and family happy. Seeing them happy makes us happy, too. We throw parties or attend them, surrounding ourselves with friends, family, and acquaintances, dressing gaily, baking up a storm, pouring wine, singing the songs we love, so that together we can be happy! We decorate our houses and our town with lights and moving wire animals and inflatable snowmen, so that we can drive around or even just stay in at home on the couch and feel the happiness that comes from this special celebration.

There’s so much around us that fights against us, so much that seems to rob us of the big and little things that bring us good feelings that just trying to grab on to a little happiness doesn’t seem like too much to ask. What do you want for Christmas? What do I want? Like Charlie Brown, I want all of this, all that we do, the presents, the parties, the perfectly trimmed tree, to bring some happiness to my life, to the world.

For years I have wondered why some churches have gone to using blue for the liturgical color at Advent. Traditionally, the season is a purple one - one of penitence, spiritual discipline, preparation of our hearts and our lives to receive the good news of the coming of our Savior. This year I finally learned that some churches have taken up blue for the season, still a color of darkness into which light will break, but not quite as intense and repentence focused as Lent. But for me a mini-Lent is OK. We have the traditional break on the third Sunday of Advent, today, for Gaudate Sunday, or Rejoice Sunday. The colors adorning sanctuaries in churches more liturgical than ours are rose this day, like our rose colored Advent Candle.

However, the color of purple for preparation is, I believe, appropriate. It signifies a time of honest introspection, of clearing away the cobwebs of our spiritual lives. You wouldn’t receive an important guest in your home without a thorough dusting, so turning Advent into a spiritual clean-up? That sounds to me like the perfect preparation for the impending arrival of Jesus, who is, as the angels say, Christ the Lord.

The song of rejoicing in Zephaniah is a wonderful aid on a Gaudate Sunday, leading us in singing and rejoicing and exulting. But it might be a little misleading to just read this section from Zephaniah and think we have a taste of the whole book. Zephaniah is a short little prophecy, just those three chapters long, and the portion we heard wraps it all up in triumphant and thankful song. But the rest of the book sounds completely different; it is all doom and gloom. It’s one of those books of prophecies that might lead some to doubt that the God of the Old Testament is the same God of the New Testament. It starts with a declaration from God that everything will be swept away from the face of the earth. “I will cut off humanity from the face of the earth,” says the Lord. The day of the Lord is described as a “day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of cloud and thick darkness, a day of trumpet blast and battle cry.”

All of that (and more) and then, “Sing aloud, O daughter Zion….Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O Jerusalem!” It hardly sounds like the same book; it hardly sounds like the latter can come out of the former. The bulk of Zephaniah sounds like the “Charlie Brownest” of prophecies. It’s a picture of life in ruins, people torn from what they know and love, livelihoods lost, communities and families not just disintegrating, but violently being ripped apart by forces beyond their control. It’s the world not as it should be, a depressed and fearful world.

Fear is a hard feeling to shake. It’s a pretty natural feeling. Survival is sometimes based on fear. Fear brings out our instincts for “fight or flight.” It’s what drives us to make decisions about whether to stay and battle for life and what we believe in or run and save ourselves as best we can. It’s normal. Maybe it’s even helpful at times, but living in fear is no way to live all the time. It isn’t peaceful. It isn’t comfortable.

It might also be the source of our search for happiness, happiness that seems just out of reach sometimes even in the middle of Christmas. Happiness that we try to create with all the usual trappings of the season may be something we’re reaching for out of the fears we don’t want to face in our lives – the fear of being alone, the fear of having no one to love, the fear of being unnecessary, the fear of no one loving back. The celebrations of the season can certainly come from pure and uplifting impulses in our lives, but if we find ourselves feeling like Charlie Brown, “Christmas is coming, but I’m not happy. I like getting presents and sending Christmas cards and decorating trees and all that, but I’m still not happy,” than maybe just maybe in shooting for happiness we’re missing the real gift of Christmas.

Zephaniah, for all his doom and gloom, tells us the answer to our fear. It isn’t about creating happiness. It isn’t about making lists and giving gifts. It isn’t about decorating and baking and getting dressed up and staying out too late at one more party. It might, though, be about singing. No, even singing is the result of this answer, not necessarily the cause of it. The answer to our fear, from the Charlie Brownest prophet, is the gracious and power presence of God. “You shall fear disaster no more….Do not fear, O Zion….The Lord, your God, is in your midst.” That is what removes all fear.

Happiness just tries to cover it up. Momentarily delights and instant gratifications just try to ignore the fears a little longer, but the presence of God that has come among us, the presence of the one who CAN destroy and distress and devastate, but who chooses instead to come among us remove all disaster, take away all judgments and turn away our enemies, THAT’S what will shatter our fears! That’s what will cause us to rejoice! Gaudate! Rejoice!

Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! O Church of Christ! Rejoice and exult as God rejoices and exults over us. The happiness we seek is just a fleeting feeling, but a life of rejoicing, a life of delight in the presence of God is lasting joy, a gift from God. Joy is more than a feeling we conjure up with nostalgia and traditions; it’s a way of life, a transforming reality that has come upon us because God has broken into this desperate situation. God is right here in the middle of our worries and our fears. And God’s very presence is cause to wipe them away, because God’s presence can’t go unnoticed. In Zephaniah we are called to sing and rejoice and celebrate with God who is already rejoicing. God is already singing and rejoicing and celebrating, and God invites us to this divine and lasting joyful party.

In Charlie Brown’s Christmas, Lucy advises Charlie Brown to get involved in the children’s Christmas play as a way to overcome his fears and unhappiness about Christmas. He does, but it only leads to more frustration. In another attempt to find meaning for the season beyond the “commercial racket”, Charlie Brown decides to get a Christmas tree for the show. He brings back, of course, the most pitiful, droopy, sad looking tree at the lot. The cast of children mock him and laugh at him, leaving him more discouraged than he was before until Linus steps in again.

That’s what God gives us at Christmas – good tidings of great joy, joy that will last, joy that will conquer our fears, joy that comes from God who is rejoicing and singing over us and in our presence. God’s gift of joy is God’s gift of presence. The happiness we spend too much time seeking at Christmas isn’t what it’s all about. Christmas isn’t about what we can buy or give or eat or decorate. Christmas is about God’s presence, God-with-us, God who comes to live right in the middle of us, just as one of us, but with love that will renew our love, and joy that can rid us of our fears. We are waiting and preparing and hoping for THAT joy, lasting joy, so that together we may sing and exult and give praise to God who comes to share it with us.

Tough Love

Luke 3:1-6
Malachi 3:1-4

Before he began his current career in national politics, most if not all of us know, Al Franken had a career in comedy. One of his best known characters originated in a recurring skit on Saturday Night Live, Daily Affirmations with Stuart Smalley. Stuart’s character, as described in the voice-over introduction of his mock TV show, “is a caring nurture, but not a licensed therapist.” Each episode of his show begins and ends with Stuart looking into a mirror and affirming himself, most famously with these words (feel free to join me if you know them), “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.”

Affirmations are a funny sort of thing. They are a popular and effective tool in therapy and counseling. Positive affirmations can give us the self-confidence to continue in tough times. They can give us the change of attitude we need to look at difficult situations in a new way, to believe in ourselves and work with the strengths and gifts we have been given.

But they can also walk a little on the dangerous side. During the introduction for one of Stuart’s fictitious TV shows, he once prepped himself with this affirmation, “I deserve good things. I am entitled to my share of happiness. I refuse to beat myself up.” Really? “Deserve?” “Entitled?” Are these helpful affirmations?

Of course, this is a skit, a television show for entertainment, but I’m not so sure that affirmation is too far off what the culture around us tries to tell us all the time. It’s a message we hear in commercials and read in advertisements. “You deserve a break today… a luxurious car… an indulgent vacation. You are entitled to your share (and another’s) of the pie. You’re entitled to feel cheated and victimized. And your entitlement gives you good reason to ignore the rest of the world.” These are the messages we hear over and over again until we somehow, in some way find ourselves looking into a mirror, affirming ourselves with them. That’s when the power of affirmation becomes dangerous.

We’re asking ourselves this year in Advent, “What do we want for Christmas?” This tendency toward affirmations and growing senses of entitlement leads me to one answer to that question, one gift on our spiritual list for God. We want affirmation from God that the way we are right now, right this minute is “good enough.” We want to be able to look in the mirror and not only say for ourselves, but hear the voice of God confirm what we believe, “My life is OK. It’s on track. It’s exactly what God is looking for.” What do we want from God for Christmas? We want to be affirmed in everything we’re doing.

Malachi’s ministry takes place about 450 years before Jesus was born. The Israelites had returned to their and a period of great exuberance and joy as they rebuilt their homeland and temple has sort of worn off. A feeling of ambivalence has settled in. There is a diminishing regard for the law, a sense that they can go it alone, without the guidance and direction of the Lord. Even the priests in the temple have become corrupt in their religious practices. God prepares and sends Malachi to deliver a message of warning, a message of changes that need to be made.

It probably isn’t the message the people were looking for. That kind of message rarely is. They, like us, were looking not for correction, but for affirmation. Encouragement that what we’re doing is alright, good enough, smart enough, and doggone, just what God wants from us. Change? Preparation for a completely new way? That’s not really at the top of our Christmas lists most years.

But it’s what the prophets promise that God will bring. It’s what the prophets promise is part of the coming of Jesus to the world – dramatic change. Malachi’s image of God’s gift is frightening if we take it literally – a fire that burns to remove impurities, a soap so strong it bleaches dirty wool white. John the Baptist’s isn’t too much more comforting. The geography of the world will be turned upside down. They aren’t comforting, anyway, for people who like their comfort, for people who are looking for God’s divine pat on the back.

These images of preparing for Jesus in our lives aren’t images that affirm our hope for carte blanche authority. They aren’t images that give us permission to continue on familiar and possibly destructive paths. They tell us the exact opposite, actually. What you’re doing right now, in Malachi’s case corrupt and heartless worship, in John’s case set deeply and deliberately in the context of the oppressive Roman occupation, ignoring and harming the lives of others, what you’re doing right now is not OK.

What would that be for us? For what do we seek affirmation that God instead asks for us to change? It’s going to be different for each of us, so I hesitate to guess for us all, but what I am sure of is that there is something. There is something in each our lives and in our life together that just isn’t OK, that God just won’t affirm; that God wants to refine, to purify, to make straight. It’s why we begin our worship each week with prayers of confession; it’s an acknowledgement that each and every time we gather (and more often!) we need to make a turn back to God’s way, and be affirmed not in our misguided intentions, but of God’s faithfulness and forgiveness in Christ.

God loves us too much to just affirm without question or correction all aspects of our lives. God loves us too much to let our destructive habits continue unchecked. God loves us too much to just pat us on the back and say, “Keep up the…work.” God loves us too much to just sit back and watch as we continue to walk further and further away from the kind of relationships intended at our creation. God loves us too much!

In fact, God loves so much that God calls us to change, because love is not equal to uncritical affirmation. Love is not equal to co-dependency. Love is not equal to enabling. The love of God for the world, the love of a parent for a child is tough love. It’s love that seeks to correct mistakes, to improve what is struggling, even perfect what is already good, so that the beloved children can grow into all they have been created to bed.

Tough love means that God calls us out of our disobedience, our self-centeredness, our greed, our violence, our acts and decisions of injustice toward others, the environment, and ourselves. God of love isn’t going to repeat back to us the same lies we tell ourselves in the mirror – “Hurting others to save myself is understandable. Really, it’s OK.” “I deserve this more than they do.” “I can make it on my own.” “I am in control.” God doesn’t let us get away everything we want. God doesn’t just affirm us in everything we think and call that love.

Real love, God’s love, it’s TOUGH love. It is about calling us to repentance, refinement, a better and purer life according to God’s will. And tough love is God’s gift in Jesus at Christmas, because in Jesus we are called to make changes, DRASTIC changes in our lives. God’s gift of tough love in Jesus will completely disrupt our lives. It will change the very landscape of our being. The crooked paths will be made straight. The valleys will be filled. The mountains will be made low. The rough ways will be smoothed. In Jesus our sinfulness will not be affirmed. LOVINGLY, but not without disruption it will be confronted, refined, purified, and we shall see the salvation of God.

In the classic C. S Lewis book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe four children make their way through a wardrobe into the magical and mystical land of Narnia. When the children arrive, Narnia is stuck in the middle of an endless winter, gripped tightly by the spells of the evil White Witch. However, the children learn of prophecies about Aslan, the great king, a lion, who will defeat the witch and free Narnia from her power. The children learn from Mr. and Mrs. Beaver of THEIR part in the prophecy, the battle they must fight with Aslan. Susan and Lucy the second oldest and youngest, respectively, worry about fighting a battle in general and alongside such a ferocious creature as a lion specifically.

Susan asks their hosts,
“Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.”

God’s love is most certainly good, but it isn’t necessarily safe. It asks us to change our behavior, our attitudes, our priorities. It asks us to turn away, to repent, from the harmful paths we’re on. It asks us to turn away from the habits that hurt ourselves, hurt others, hurt God most of all. It asks us to turn back to God who is coming to us in love, not to affirm all our behaviors, but to forgive us, and mold us and shape us into who we have been created to be – loving and righteous children of God.

God’s love is most certainly good, but it isn’t necessarily safe. It asks us to prepare a way in the wilderness of our lives so the Lord, so Jesus can come right in and dwell within us, dwell among us, showing us and the world the salvation of God. And with great love, with tough love, and mercy and grace, the refiner works with those who offer themselves, the refiner works even with us, until we present the offering of our lives in righteousness.

May we prepare the way of the Lord, and may God’s refining and purifying love be the gift we receive this year.

Lewis, C. S. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Collier Books: 1970, p. 75.

A Garden View

At the end of September the Session of First Presbyterian Church made an overnight retreat at Wilder Forest near Marine-on-St. Croix, MN. In this beautiful setting, surrounded by majestic trees and strutting wild turkeys, we got down to the Spirit-filled business of discerning God’s purpose and will for our congregation. With hopes of keeping our retreat one that was grounded in the practices of our faith, I designed a process that incorporated prayer, Bible study, worship, and being open to the Spirit’s creative movement.

A large part of Saturday was spent studying the parables of the gospels. Parables are the short stories or long metaphors that Jesus often used in his teaching and preaching to communicate spiritual truths in an earthly way. The kingdom parables, in particular, were important for our work on the retreat. The kingdom parables describe in tangible ways the kingdom of God, God’s hope for the world at its best, God’s vision of the kingdom when everything is going according to the divine will.

After studying a few different parables, the session members were asked to join in small groups to write a “kingdom parable” for our congregation – an extended metaphor or short story that describes what our life together would like if we were at our best, at God’s best. The parables would each be a discernment of God’s vision of our congregation if everything were going according to the divine will. From the work of the different small groups we then collaborated to create one parable that best described God’s call to our congregation, God’s purpose for our ministry.

Below is the parable the session wrote to describe God’s vision for our congregation. Our understanding is that this is the ideal toward which we are working. There are some aspects of the parable at which we already excel, aspects of our call we follow faithfully. Other aspects need work; they have yet to be realized to the fullest in our life together. This parable, this vision, will help guide our congregation’s ministry and mission in the coming year.

In the kingdom of God, our community of faith is called to be a welcoming garden planted and sustained by the Spirit of God. Many hands work as one to plan, sow, nurture, and harvest. Inviting diversity, we bloom in all season of life. With compassion for those who are weary, we provide continuous shelter, healing, support, and growth. From the abundance of blessings we receive, we celebrate and share with those close and far the nourishing and life-giving love of our Lord.

After the first of the year, the session will be inviting you, the congregation, to join in our discernment process. We value your commitment to helping First Presbyterian Church grow in faithfulness to God’s call to be a community of hospitality, compassion, and worship. There will be an opportunities both in and out of worship for all of us to join in discerning how our current commitments and possibilities for the future fit into God’s vision for our life together. We hope you will join us in this prayerful and exciting process.

Grace and peace to you in the Advent and Christmas seasons. May the celebration of Christ’s coming prepare us to be his witnesses in the world.

(Those aren't "our" butterflies pictured above, but just as soon as I find my own pictures from our church garden I will replace it!)

After Thanksgiving Prayer

The following prayer was prayed and posted on Facebook by a "friend" of mine. He's a UCC minister and professor at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, OH, a former high school classmate of my mom's. Just had to share. Enjoy and pray along:

"As I return to worship today, overfilled with food, make me remember those still hungry. As I return to work, let me remember the millions with no work. As my grandchildren return to college, let me remember those whose grandchildren return to a war that seems to have no end. As I take my daily medications, let me remember the millions with no health care. Oh God, make me remember ... and restless"

Now or Later

Jeremiah 33:14-16
Luke 21:25-36

I can remember just one year when I went poking around for hidden Christmas presents. Did anyone else do this as a kid? I guess I don’t have to limit it to just children. Maybe some of us are present peekers even now! I, however, did it just once. Well, there was the year that my sister and I agreed to exchange one present secret before Christmas morning, but we only went looking for our presents once. I must have been in about 6th grade, definitely old enough to know better, but Kara was in 9th, so certainly she had even more responsibility than I did!

Anyway, one evening while our parents were out for the night we went snooping in the closet to see what might be hiding. I don’t remember even looking for something in particular that I really really wanted. I just remember wanting to look, to peek, to know right then when surprises were lurking, what presents were coming in the next few weeks. I wanted the excitement, the joy, the happiness right NOW and I didn’t want to wait any longer.

What do you want for Christmas? It’s a question we’re going to ask ourselves each week this year during Advent? What do we want for Christmas? As a child that year that I snooped I had wanted the stuffed bear that I found. It wasn’t a present at the top of my list, but it was a giveaway bear I had seen at the store – one of those promotions, if you spend a certain amount of money, they throw the teddy bear in for a few extra bucks. Those are the only presents my sister and I found, 2 of those bears. We had seen them at the store, these totally Florida bears in cute flowered swimsuits in the middle of December. We wanted them, but they weren’t on our “lists” or anything.

They were, basically, meant to be an impulse buy. A gimmick to get you into the store and a way for the store to get a few extra bucks. I’m sure plenty of bears were bought my frustrated and tired moms and dads who just wanted to make their kids happy during a long and tiring shopping trip. Instant gratification. That’s what the gift of the bear really was. That’s what my sister and I went looking for when we went snooping. That’s what we wanted for Christmas more than anything. Happiness. NOW.

I imagine that Jeremiah’s audience wanted a little instant gratification themselves. We heard last week from the book and prophecy of Daniel, who ministered during the exile in Babylon. Jeremiah’s ministry started a bit before that, right when God’s people were on the edge of exile, when Judah, the southern portion of the united kingdom we usually think of as Israel, was becoming more and more corrupt in the eyes of God, and Babylon was threatening to invade and destroy Jerusalem, the nation, God’s people. Jeremiah delivered messages of warning to God’s people and especially the leaders. Change now while you can. Turn away from idols. Turn away from the useless little “g” gods to which you have been looking.

He delivered indictments against the leaders of Israel for taking the people of God down wrong paths – paths of idolatry, paths of unrighteousness. Not surprisingly, his message even landed him in jail. Babylon was knocking on Judah’s door, but the people were too focused on the wrong things and quick fixes to work with God to prevent their own demise. Freedom of speech and huge cultural changes weren’t high on the king’s list of worries as Babylon was threatening the land. Repentance and reform probably didn’t seem fast enough. King Zedekiah wanted solutions and wanted them now. Happiness. NOW. But with their attention on false idols, as they ignored God’s call and even God’s lament for them to come back into right relationship with their Creator, they couldn’t resist falling to the powerful empire.

As we have talked about, the time of the exile was one of tremendous distress. The Babylonians went about exile in a unique way. The Assyrians before them had come into Israel, the northern portion of the kingdom, and completely removed the inhabitants. All of them, swept a way and scattered around that empire in exile. They were lost forever as a united community and completely swallowed by the empire and those that came after it.

The Babylonian exile was different. First the leaders were taken away, just the political and social leaders of Judah, the king at the time, his court, and others respected in the community. Jeremiah was in ministry, was prophesying the whole time, warning the people of the coming empire, pointing to the loss of their leaders and a sign of their need for a change, lamenting as their world was crumbling around them, trying DESPERATELY to get the new king to lead them in a new direction.

But it was without success. The new king wasn’t any better than the last, and with the people turning from God and ignoring the prophet once in their midst, now in jail for his messages, the Babylonians returned to finish what they started. A second wave of the exile took place. Again, leaders in the government and community were ripped from the land leaving a desperate and hopeless people behind. Jeremiah was actually given a choice by the invaders – did he want to stay or go? It seems he kept in contact with those whom he had tried to warn, those far off in Babylon, but ultimately when given the choice, he decided to remain in Judah and speak God’s word to the helpless, the hopeless, the defeated remnant left behind.

Their world had been shattered. The temple, as I mentioned last week had been destroyed. The leaders who had provided them, they thought, with all they needed were gone. Their direction, their guides, their perceived wisdom, their way forward, was all ripped from their land, and they were left behind with no security for the future, no infrastructure, no help, no hope, and without the Temple to hold Yahweh in their midst, it even seemed they had no god.

For many times seem pretty desperate even now. In this country anyway, we have no obvious empire breathing down our necks, but our threats seem pretty daunting anyway. Health care costs and debates seem to stifle quality services. An economy beyond struggling, jobless people, and growing level of poverty add anxiety to the national atmosphere. The completely polarized political system leaves many of us feeling like there’s no one leading anymore, just two sides with locked horns fighting each other, but not for anything. Meanwhile the poor keep suffering, the middle class keeps dwindling, and the rich seem to be moving in completely different realms.

All of us are grabbing at straws looking for quick fixes, instant gratification, happiness NOW through advice for shopping or saving, relaxing or working harder, taking time for me or pitching in to help others. The answers are all about easy things to make now feel better. There seems to be little focus on the long haul and lasting changes for the future.

An old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon might speak to the situation today. This particular installment originally ran in 1990, almost exactly 19 years ago from this date. Pictured are the young boy Calvin, actually named for our theological parent John Calvin, and his stuffed tiger, Hobbes. In the first frame Calvin speaks to Hobbes and says, “Live for the moment is my motto. You never know how long you got.”
In the second frame he explains, “You could step into the road tomorrow and WHAM, you get hit by a cement truck! Then you’d be sorry you put off your pleasures. That’s what I say – live for the moment.” And then he asks Hobbes, “What your motto?” Hobbes answers, “My motto is – Look down the road.” (In Bill Watterson, Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons [Kansas City, Missouri: Andrews and McMeel Publishers, 1992], p. 66.)

Jeremiah’s prophecy is about looking down the road. Instant gratification is lasting. Searching for happiness NOW is no way to live life for the long-haul. Instead Jeremiah points to what is coming down the road towards us, the promises God has made to Judah, the promises God makes to us when it was said, “The days are coming, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that I will cause a righteous branch to spring up for David, and he will execute righteousness in the land.”

What do we want for Christmas? Like Calvin, many of us want this moment to be the best moment of our lives. We want happiness NOW and maybe that doesn’t seem like too much to ask. Maybe like the people of Judah we’re feeling devastated, torn apart, stomped all over, and defeated. Maybe it feels like the world we know has been pulled out from under us and we’re ready to cling to any half-good idea, any fleeting wish for enjoyment, any momentary delight that will calm the anxiety even just for a second. Maybe it feels like it’s our turn to “live for the moment.” What do we want for Christmas? We want happiness and comfort and stability, and we want it now.

But what do we get for Christmas? Well, that’s a little bit of a different story. A lot bit, really. God usually isn’t about quick fixes, things like instant gratification. God is all about looking down the road. God isn’t known for handing out happiness NOW, but instead delivers promises for later. “The days are coming,” says the Lord. Promises will be fulfilled, promises we can trust because come from the one who is most trustworthy. Promises that can be counted on even if their fulfillment doesn’t seem obvious now, because they come from God whose promises are always fulfilled. They come from God who makes and keeps covenants even with the must untrustworthy of all – us. What we get for Christmas is a look down the road, or even better we get a look in both directions, and that means we get hope.

Looking back we can see the promises that have been made through the ages, the promises that have been fulfilled – the promises to Sarah and Abraham, the promises to Noah and his family, the promises Moses and the Israelites, the promises to the people in exile and the remnant that remained. I will not leave you. I will not forget you. Looking back we can see the promise for a Redeemer to come from David, a Redeemer who came not with happiness NOW but a Redeemer who came with the hope of a new baby, a Redeemer who came to bring hope, the trust in promises yet to be fulfilled.

That’s what we get for Christmas. We get hope. We get the reminder that God keeps promises. God is with us. God is for us. No matter how desperate the situation, no matter how gloomy the look, no matter how TERRIFYING our reality may seem – God is coming to redeem it. The image of that coming doesn’t seem so comforting in Luke’s gospel, signs in the sun, the moon and the stars, distress and confusion by the roaring of the seas, the shaking of the heavens. But the signs of God’s coming are part of the promise. When things are at their worst, when the world is THIS close to caving in, God is THIS close to redemption. When the promises seem least likely to be fulfilled, that’s when we can have the most hope, that’s when we can trust in the birth of our salvation, that’s when we can believe that God’s hope is not lost.

Jeremiah chose to remain with those who were left behind in the exile. He chose to stay and be a witness to God’s hope for the future, to testify to the truth that God fulfills promises even when the future looks bleak, maybe even ESPECIALLY when the future looks bleak. The days are surely coming, says the Lord. The days are surely coming when God’s promises will be fulfilled as they have in the past, and for that day we have great hope. Trust in the Lord, our righteousness, who is coming down the road not with happiness NOW but with the promise of justice later. Stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

Thanks and credit to The Rev. Richard Fairchild for pointing me to the Calvin and Hobbes illustration.

Grace

It was a very busy Sunday morning a couple of months ago that had not been going well. I was frustrated and anxious. I stepped out of my office and looked down the hallway toward the Fellowship Hall and said hello to Phil, Karoline, and William. All of a sudden William came running full speed toward me. I’m thinking to myself where is he going…what does he see? Thinking he’s going to run past me, I squat down to catch him as he goes by. Much to my surprise he runs right into my open arms and gives me the biggest and longest bear hug! In that moment my frustration and anxiety melted away. William’s hug changed me that morning. As I was driving home that day I realized that this was grace!

William’s hug was a gift from God. God knew what I needed that morning even though I didn’t know I needed it-at least until after the gift was already given. It was undeserved-there was no earthly reason that I should be given such a gift by God other than the pure fact that I’m a child of God and God loves me. This is grace. Grace is a gift from God that comes when we least expect it but most need it and brings us joy.

Beginning in my college years I realized that I was afraid of grace. I didn’t even like to utter the word. It was something I avoided like the plague. In seminary and a close friend and I were having a conversation and I shared with her my feelings around grace. She gave me Philp Yancey’s book What’s So Amazing About Grace? told me to read it and pass it on when I was finished. With hesitation and trust I read the book (I still have the book J). It changed my whole perception of grace. It finally clicked in my head that grace was not something one earned. Grace comes from a loving God who loves me beyond my sins and imperfections.

I think this quote from Yancey’s book sums up what grace is all about
Grace does not excuse sin…but it treasures the sinner. True grace is shocking, scandalous. It shakes our conventions with its insistence on getting close to sinners and touching them with mercy and hope.

My hope this Advent season is that we as a community of faith will see and respond to God’s love filled gift of grace with our own gracious actions towards on another.

Among the Beasts

We don’t read a whole lot from Daniel in our worship. If anything we can possibly tell the basic story of Daniel who was thrown into the den of lions when he refused to bow to the king, but that story, and maybe a couple of others told of Daniel and his 3 faithful friends are just the first six chapters of the book. For many of us, the second half is largely unknown.

At chapter 7 the tone changes. The stories of faithfulness in exile in the first 6 give way to the visions of God’s deliverance in the last. Mystical and mysterious visions. There are winds and strange beasts – lions with eagle’s wings, bears with giant tusks. The angel Gabriel even comes to help Daniel understand what his dreams are all about. The language and mood might remind us of the New Testament book of Revelation, another book we tend to know very little about. This kind of literature – apocalyptic literature – is often foreign to us, intimidating to come across, and, therefore, unfortunately, is larger left behind in our biblical study. But we’re going to try it today.

The book of Daniel, his story of great faith in a time of great trial, and his dreams meant to encourage others to maintain trust in the faithful God, is set during the Babylonian exile. The people of Judea have been taken into captivity and live under foreign rule, in a foreign land, surrounded by the worship of foreign gods. The temple back in Jerusalem has been destroyed. The sign of God’s presence among them has been demolished; their faith and their lives have been disrupted and decentralized.

But not only have the Babylonians devastated the Judeans, but several kingdoms BEFORE them have also laid ruin to their land. A string of beasts in the opening of chapter 7, each devouring the one that came before, represents the numerous conquerors of the Israel and Judah. When the 4th beast is introduced, however, it is more terrible than the rest – exceedingly strong, with iron teeth, horns, one with human eyes and a mouth speaking arrogantly. The 4th beast is that which represents Babylon, the nation that ultimately destroyed the Jewish land and people.

Listen now for Daniel’s first vision and its words of hope in God in the midst of a terrifying reality.

Daniel 7:1-14

Christ the King Sunday. Or as some have come to call it, Reign of Christ Sunday. That name avoids the gender specific “king” language in the traditional name. This feast day in the Christian calendar is one of the newest that we celebrate or acknowledge, I learned this year, and I was surprised. It began only in 1925 by an edict of Pope Pius 11. King language and imagery usually takes me back farther than just 84 years ago. Probably because of our own national and political history and strong resistance to rule by kings, royal language and imagery just seems so…old to me, antiquated, or even fantastical.

Our family just returned from a trip to visit my family in Orlando which included our first trip to Disney World, so I’ve got a particular set of images close to my mind – huge castles and deep moats, fortresses, battles, beautiful gowns and sparkling scenes, princes and princesses, kings and queens, lords and ladies. The image is one of untouchable strength, separation from the common world and everyday life.

In fact, this fairy tale-like image is not too unlike the one that got Princess Diana into so much trouble, or earned her the title of “the people’s princess” depending on which side of the fence you occupy. Princess Diana left the usual realm of the British royalty, the castles and the ceremonial life, and moved among the people, and not just the “perfect” people, the “clean” people. She held sick and starving babies. She visited the homeless. She touched patients with AIDS. It made her a heroine on one hand, but it alienated her from her royal position on the other. She wasn’t acting the way royalty acts.

The initial glimpse of royalty in Daniel fits the usual bill. A long white beard suggests longevity. An enormous number of attendants, worshipers even, suggests durability, respect, honor. The Ancient One is seated on a throne of fire, issuing fire from his very being. Unapproachable maybe? To say the least? At least that is what it seems.

But the Ancient One and the human being, some translate it poorly as the Son of Man, who comes riding the clouds of heaven into his presence, these larger than life, grander than grand, king of kings and lord of lords, don’t stay separate. They don’t stay sanitized and sparkling. They don’t stay in a grand throne room, but the royal throne of fire has wheels; the cloud from heaven descends. The divine royalty come down and mix it up among the ravaging, violent, unholy beasts of the earth.

In Daniel the beasts are the kingdoms of the earth that threaten God’s people. They represent the Assyrian, the Persian, the Greek, and the Babylonian empires that have devoured God’s people even as they devoured one another. These days, if we were to take a political reading of this passage, the various people of God in the three Abrahamaic faiths are just as likely if not MORE likely to be the devouring empires than the ones eaten alive, so the imagery in the vision may have more than one meaning.

To a people who risk being the empire more than the exiled, the caution is as strong as the hope. The true king will come. The true royalty will come right down in the middle of the terror you are wielding and defeat the beasts who threaten the weak and the outnumbered in the world. The fear and danger that are your weapons will no longer hold power. The king of glory will be victorious.

To all people feeling threatened by the beasts of the world, however, it is a word of hope. Just as it was a word of hope for the Judean people struggling to stay faithful to God in exile, it is a word of hope as we struggle with our own beasts today. Your true king will come. Your true king will come right down in the middle of your terror and defeat the beast who seems to rule over your life. Your true king has more power than any beast that threatens your life, and you will be delivered from your fear and danger.

But I don’t know about you, but the beast imagery seems so far removed from my understanding, my world. Sure the vampire movies are a hit and some of the comic-based characters like Wolverine draw huge audiences, but as a whole our culture doesn’t dwell in that space between reality and what we would call fantasy today the way cultures did centuries ago. Beasts aren’t a part of our everyday thinking.

But anyway, while physical literal beasts aren’t food for thought for most of us on a daily basis, the fairy tales of our childhood remind us there are beasts among us, beasts, even, inside us that we do face every day. Beasts that threaten to devour our lives and our spirits.

From the outside we face beasts of illness and injury. Sicknesses of body and mind. We face beasts of financial collapse that cause us worry, leave us struggling to provide for ourselves and our families. We face beasts of broken relationships and personal loss – beasts that steal our companionship and circles of comfort.

The inner beasts as just as dangerous, if entirely different. The ugly beast of misjudging others eats away at us as we look down on them with contempt and pride. The beast of greed gnaws at us with the desire to accumulate all that we want, even beyond our need. The beast of superficiality nibbles at our character as it digests our ability to see beyond the surface of other human beings. The beast of arrogance feasts on our humility until we see our selves as slightly less than gods. These beasts threaten to consume our hearts and carry away into exile the beloved creatures God created us to be. The beasts of sin are dangerous, iron-toothed, multi-horned, vicious and savage beasts that battle for reign in our lives.

Beasts that, I think, would be victorious in the battle if I were fighting it alone. That temptation to accumulate? It’s just so strong. There is always more I think I need, but really it’s just what I want. That temptation to judge those I see before I even meet them? Well, we justify it by calling it stranger awareness. It’s a safety measure, isn’t it? You can’t be too careful. Left to my own devices there’s no way the ruler in my life would be anything but the beasts that eat from the inside out.

Which is why this vision from Daniel is so hope-filled. We aren’t left to our own devices. The king of creation, the Ancient One, doesn’t leave us alone to fight the beasts, those inside or outside of ourselves. The ruler of the universe comes down to earth, among the beasts, right into the middle of the battle, to deliver us from the threats. On a powerful throne, on heavenly clouds, the king of all the earth, Christ the King, comes to live and move among us, dirtying his hands, breaking down the barriers between heaven and earth, to battle the beasts we face one after another.

We saw that battle just about at its culmination in the reading from the gospel of John (18:33-37). Jesus in the LEAST kingly attire and posture we could ever imagine, hands tied behind his back, beaten by the powers of Rome, stood in front of Pilate, the representative of the Caesar, the king, in Jerusalem. His hands were certainly dirty. His hands, his face, his feet, his back. His life was covered in the dirt of human brokenness, and he stood there face-to-face with the beasts that threatened his life. His response doesn’t seem that kingly. It doesn’t seem that victorious at first.

But it is. His entire life, lived among the beasts of fear, disbelief, prejudice, and false judgement, his entire life and battle with the beasts of all time is taken up in this scene and the few that follow. Hung on a cross and buried in a tomb, the beasts seem to have won, but three days later his dominion and glory and kingship were made clear. Resurrected from the dead, ascended to heaven, and seated on the throne in the divine court above, Christ the King was revealed to us all.

Christ the King Sunday falls at the end of the Christian year. It is the final celebration in the cycle of remembrance of God’s relationship with creation. But at the same time it is also the threshold, the doorway, into the new year, the new year that begins with the celebration and honoring of the incarnation of God, God made flesh in Jesus our Christ, our King. The rule of Jesus in the world is all about God dwelling with God’s people. It’s all about the promise that we are not alone; we don’t face our beasts alone. Christ our King doesn’t stay locked away in a fortress of protection. Christ our King gets his hand dirty. Christ our King fights our battles. Christ our Lord and King defeats the beasts and frees us for lives of gratitude and worship under his reign.

PC(USA) Children's Website

Kids4Kids, a new Web site, helps children ages 8-11 find information about children around the world, and learn ways to advocate and act on behalf of other children. Created by the General Assembly Mission Council's Office of Child Advocacy, it includes stories, activities, suggestions for mission involvement and practical tools to help children develop lifetime skills.

Check it out by clicking the link above or typing www.presbykids4kids.org into your web browser.

Doers of the Word - Challenge 3

In worship on Sunday, August 30, our Scripture lesson included James 1:22: "But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves." We spent time brainstorming alone and as a congregation ways we can be doers of the word and in the world as we live as Christ's disciples in the realms of economics, society, and environment. I collected our brainstorming sheets and have been sharing them here as "discipleship challenges." There is a quite a variety of responses that range from the changes we might make in our personal, family, church, and community lives. Feel free to take some of these on, and let us know in the comments how it goes! (For instructions about leaving comments, see the post from Sept. 1 "Joining the Conversation.")

1. Leave a lasting desire in my family to be thankful for their blessings inherited and taught.
2. Volunteer work at daycare or CCH
3. Challenge injustice
4. Evaluate how my activities and lifestyle and that of the church's ministry support sustainable communities
5. Take true interest in everyone that I meet this day. They might be a lonely, troubled, or need a friend.

Bread for the Journey

Exodus 12:1-11
Luke 22:1, 14-28

The dispute over who is the greatest among the disciples is recorded in some way in several gospel accounts. In fact the Mark version of the argument was the central text in our worship even just about a month ago. I have to admit, for this reason, I felt a temptation to deviate from the worship and devotional materials provided by the Finance and Stewardship committee for this stewardship season. It was feeling a little redundant at first. But, obviously, I didn’t. Yes, we have heard the same basic outline – the disciples argue about which among them is the greatest, but we also have differences to the story, differences that bring us a different word from God.

In Mark, we heard about them arguing on the road immediately after hearing Jesus’ second prediction of his suffering and death – the argument pointing out their total cluelessness over what Jesus thinks it means to be great. In Matthew the argument comes after a teaching about taxes and the question of honoring the rules of the status quo. The argument we heard today, though, takes up an entirely different meaning because of where and when it happens.

It doesn’t happen on the road. It doesn’t happen in front of the crowds. It doesn’t happen while Jesus is out and about in the countryside ministering to the crowds and introducing his disciples to a new way of life. It isn’t during a test posed by his challengers. It happens here. It happens at the table, a very specific table, the Passover table, the last table Jesus will share with his disciples on this side of eternal life, and that setting makes all the difference.

The Passover celebration brings with it a deep and abiding connection with history, the saints of the faith, those remembered as the greatest of the faith tradition, like Moses or Elijah, who figure prominently in the Passover liturgy and traditions.

Take Moses. He was raised a foreigner in the palace. He never fully fit in. We see him struggling as a young adult with who he really was, where he really belonged. Then he is called to lead, but he has a speech difficulty. It doesn’t seem like a great match, really. Identity crisis, self-esteem problems, problems with public speaking. And this is the guy we remember for his obvious greatness? I’m sure it didn’t seem so great in the moment. Even the Israelites he helped liberate complained against and about him. Why didn’t you leave us in Egypt to die, they cried while wandering around in the desert for 40 years? That doesn’t sound so great.

Then what about Elijah and the other prophets? Sure their words to the people of Israel and Judah are inspiring and admirable after the fact, but hardly anyone would consider them great in their own time. Preaching to the people, hounding them even, calling them to repentance and a new way of living before God, rarely won them friends and great influence. It hardly seemed to work at the time. Despite their efforts, God’s people still ended up in exile in Assyria and Babylon. Their homeland and their temple destroyed more than once by occupations from all sides. Elijah and the other prophets – they had their moments, but in terms of overall effectiveness in their jobs in their generations – not too many would be considered great.

Yet the greatness of these saints isn’t doubted today. They, their words, and their work are honored in memory, lifted up in ritual, studied for emulation and spiritual growth. We know they are great and don’t doubt that or dispute it, but what made it true?

I’d say it was their faithful service. Their faithful and humble service to God and others. Their response to God’s call to put the needs of the community above their own reputation, their own comfort, their own popularity and credibility, even their own desires, in order to follow God’s call and be sent to serve the people. Moses had a pretty cushy life in the palace. He had power over others. He lived in luxury with servants serving him. He was pretty disconnected from his oppressed ethnic and religious community, and could have continued living that way if he could have just pushed down his worries about the way the people were being treated. He could have continued to live in a position of authority over the slaves. But he didn’t.

Yes, he was the leader of the Israelites, but his leadership was in obedience to God, for the good of the people. He served them by working for their good, risking his power and his position to free them from Pharaoh, going on their behalf into the dangerous and overwhelming presence of God, enduring the discipline of God for their transgressions. Moses was great not because he wanted to be or tried to be or even ASKED to be. Moses was great because he humbly served God and his community.

And what now of the circumstances of this dispute among the disciples in Luke? What significance do they lend to its meaning for us today? It was the observance of the Passover. It was the time when the Jewish people of God remembered and celebrated the miracle of their exodus from slavery in Egypt, the leadership and faithfulness of Moses, Elijah, and the other saints who preceded them. It was the time of year when they honored and worshiped God for sending them a leader, a servant of God’s will and a servant of God’s people, who led them into the Promised Land, a time of year maybe, when they who lived under the rule of the Romans again longed for a sign of their chosenness, their greatness before God and the world.

It was also, we are told, when the hour had come. Satan had come to Judas Iscariot. He had conferred with the chief priests and officers of the temple about how to betray Jesus. He was now on the lookout for his perfect opportunity when no crowd would be present. Having entered Jerusalem a few days earlier to shouts of, “Blessed is the king!” Jesus and the disciples were huddled away in a borrowed room in a town that was turning hostile. Daily, he was preaching to crowds peppered with spies who were out to catch him, to challenge his word and question his authority.

But even in the face of this hostility he continued his ministry, he continued to serve God. Cleansing it first of all injustice and greed, Jesus preached in the temple to everyone who would listen. He faced challenge upon challenge from this opponents, standing up for the message God sent him to deliver. He wept and prayed over the city of Jerusalem.

He didn’t hide away to protect himself. He didn’t stay out of the limelight to put his safety first. He didn’t relish in the crowd’s shouts from Palm Sunday, “Glory in highest heaven” excusing himself from the dangerous and foreboding work still to be done. He didn’t leave the people who had not yet heard, not yet believed his divine message out in the dark. He served them. He served them with love and served them with urgency. He served them as God had sent him to do. He served them, setting aside his safety. Setting aside his concern for his future, he served them. And likewise he served the disciples at the Passover table.

Likewise he serves US at this table. He serves us. Jesus is the host of the celebration we share today. He has provided the gifts, the bread we will break together, the cup we will pour for all. He provides the seed and the wind and the rain that causes it to grow. He gives the life and energy and means to those who harvest and ship, who pound and mill, who bake and press, who sell and buy, who prepare and serve these elements to us this day. He is the host, and the source, and the grace-filled Spirit we receive in this sacrament, but he is also the servant, the one whose body was broken that we might have life, the one who meets all our needs, satisfies our deepest hungers, and the one whose blood was poured out to quench our most desperate thirst. He is the example for us to follow. He is God calling us join his ministry.

The Israelites in Egypt ate the Passover with their traveling pants on, their shoes on their feet, their walking sticks ready to go. They ate their meal in a hurry, knowing that it wasn’t an end to their story itself, but it was just the beginning of their journey. This is how we should eat at the Lord’s Table. This is how we should worship in God’s presence. Our traveling clothes should be on. Our shoes should be on our feet. Our walking sticks should be in our hands, because this table, this grace, this love and forgiveness of God that we receive together in the sacrament is not an end in itself. It is just the beginning.

It is our bread for the journey. It is the sustenance we need for our lives of service to God and others. It is just the beginning, the example even, of our life in Christ. As he has freely given himself to us, so we are called to greatness, not through some special status at his right hand or as a guest of honor at the banquet. We are called to greatness by freely serving others as he serves the world, selflessly, indiscriminately, and among the least of these, the outcast, the shunned, the discarded of society. We are called to greatness not that will be recognized in this time, in this age, but greatness that will be recognized by God when someday we will join the great cloud of witnesses who are blessed to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Invitation to the Women

From Nancy Gin:

An African proverb 'It takes a village to raise a child'. It does take a 'village' to raise a child in the 21st century - but now the village is a GLOBAL one.
Yesterday at the Women's Retreat at FPC, we defined and 'experienced' community, Christian community and Christian community in action.
I would like to extend an invitation to ALL, especially the women of FPC to join in a 'movement' to partner with our 'sisters' who have incredible selfless vision to further women's well being 'globally'.

Read 'Half The Sky' Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide' by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, and lets get together to brainstorm and find a way to 'invest' in young girls and women's future.
May God bless you as you become a blessing to many.

Your sister-in-Christ,
Nancy

The Call to the Depths

Luke 5:1-11
Monday nights are swimming lesson nights for our family. I say for our family because William is still in a parent-child class, so when swimming lesson night comes along it means some parent must join a child in the pool. Two weeks ago it was my turn. While I was in the zero entry shallow pool with William, Karoline was with her class in the big pool. This is her first session with lessons in the big pool. She’s learning to swim, but she is by no means a strong swimmer. She’s getting better, but she’s really much more comfortable in the end where she can touch the bottom.

The other week her class started in the shallow end of the pool, but I could tell as the lesson went on it wasn’t the teachers’ goal to stay there. They had the noodles, the floating devices out, and the teachers were sort of coaxing the class into deeper and deeper water.

After the lesson, when Karoline was giving me her play-by-play version of what happened, she said to me, “Mommy, they wouldn’t let me stay where I could touch. They kept calling my name and making me kick farther and farther to the deep end. It was so so scary!”

And it was for her. It was terrifying. Try to remember that time, if you can, when you first felt that feeling of NOTHING below you in the water. How uncertain it felt, unfamiliar, confusing even to have nothing on which to place your foot, to have no ground on which to stand. Imagine, remember if you can, what it felt like to have that chaotic emptiness, even in the stillest of pools, that feeling of the unknown, wide, empty space just below the surface of the water that seemed endless, swallowing even. Remember the deep water.

The deep water wasn’t unfamiliar to Simon and the rest of the fishermen. They knew exactly where it was and EXACTLY how to avoid it. There was no tricking them out there with floating noodles or promises of gold stars. They knew the depths were nothing to mess with. The depths represented chaos, the wild uncontrollable power to destroy and overwhelm. The depths have only ever been contained by the one who is uncontainable. The depths have only ever been restrained by God. No one in their right mind would CHOOSE to set sail for the depths, no matter how desperate.

And those fishermen were desperate. All night long they had fished the usual spots, the spots flush with fish to feed themselves and their families. All night long they had cast their nets and waited, expectantly, hopefully, to pull them in full and heavy. But it was all for nothing. Catching nothing they pulled their boats to shore and began to clean the debris from the night’s fruitless efforts out of their nets.

So really, Simon had nothing to lose when the wandering preacher asked him to put his boat out a little way so that he could speak to the crowds of men and women going about their daily chores on the shoreline. There weren’t any fish to clean and prepare anyway. He took the man out and listened to him teach with authority enough to warrant calling him “Master.” But when the man made an even more ridiculous request, Simon had to argue.

Go out again into the water, and not just the water, the deep water? Cast his nets out there after a full night of catching nothing? Who is this man and what is he thinking? Does this wandering preacher think he can do better than the professionals?

And go out into the deep water, is this guy kidding? It’s the deep water! It’s unknown. It’s murky. It’s dangerous. It’s terrifying. It’s so, so scary. It’s everything Simon feared. It’s everything we fear. It’s lack of control. It’s where we can’t touch. It’s loneliness. It’s out of reach. It’s just plain crazy. No one sails into the depths on purpose. No one faces those fears if they have a choice. In fact lots of us ignore the depths even if we DON’T have a choice. We make the choice NOT to learn to swim, not to face the pressure that is mounting, not to deal with the reality that is right in front of our faces – the reality that we can’t control it all, we can’t be safe all the time. We can’t avoid the depths.

Illness comes. We don’t invite it in, but it comes and it can grip lives. Bankruptcy comes, we don’t go looking for it, but it comes and it beats our spirits down. Joblessness comes, we don’t give them up willingly, but it comes into our lives and shakes the very foundations of our security. The depths come, and while some of us would rather turn our heads and try to ignore their presence, steer our boats around them, avoid facing the reality of their tumult, Jesus has another idea all together.

“Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch,” he invites. We may think he knows NOTHING about what we’re going through when he invites us to follow, but we have so much to learn.

“Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch,” he calls. Come with me into the deepest, darkest places in your life, the deepest darkest places in your soul. I’m going with you, and there you’ll find a catch, there I will touch you with a blessing.

"Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch,” he PROMISES. Your fear can’t stop you. Your fear doesn’t stop me. Together, let’s go to the depths and see what blessings we can catch.

The deep end of the pool at swimming lessons seems a terrifying thing at first. It really does, but it doesn’t come without its rewards. Immediately after declaring it “so so scary,” Karoline continued to tell the story of how she made her way out there. “My teacher kept calling my name, so I just kept kicking. You know, it’s not swimming if my feet are touching the ground.”

She’s exactly right. It’s not. It’s not swimming if your feet are touching the ground. It’s not fishing if you aren’t throwing your nets into deeper water. It’s not believing, if we aren’t trying things that seem outrageous when we already feel like we’re in over our heads.

The deep waters aren’t the first or the last place any of us wishes to be, but the deep waters are there, and sometimes, just sometimes, like it or not, we have to go right into the middle of them. And right there in the middle of them, right there where the bills are piling up, right there where the kids are getting sick. Right there where our parents are aging, right there where memories are fading, marriages are crumbling, friendships are slowly slipping away. Right there in the middle of it all, sitting next to us in the boat is Jesus telling us to cast our nets, telling us to trust him, calling us to follow.

Because the deep water is no time to turn away. The deep water is no time to lose faith or give up following. The deep water is where we learn to swim. The deep water is where our believing becomes real, not because of some false promise that God will magically turn all our tribulations into triumphs. Not because our risk is worthy of a reward or passing the test will grant us admission to God’s treasure trove. The deep water is where our believing becomes real because it is there we have to trust and believe that the God we know in Jesus Christ is not afraid of the depths we find most frightening.

Whatever Jesus said from the boat to the crowds must have been very convincing, because Simon went. He put his boat out in the deep water, against his better judgment, against the disapproving and flabbergasted looks from shore. He pushed his boat out farther and farther into the lake of Gennesaret until he reached the deep waters. There he and his partner put out their nets and caught so many fish the nets were bursting at the seams. They pulled in more blessings than their boat could carry. They piled so many fish in there the boats they even began to sink!

Simon knew then who he had met in the deep water. He knew then he would believe the truth and this comfort this man would speak – “Do not worry about your life. Are you not of more value than the birds?” “Daughter, son, your faith has made you whole.” “I will not leave you alone. I am coming to you.” “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The God we know in Jesus Christ is MORE than capable of using the deep waters as a place of revelation, if we are willing to meet God there. The God we know in Jesus Christ can turn the deep waters into a source of blessings more than we can carry. Even in the middle of the deepest waters, we can find friends and companions for the lonely journey. We can find relief when commitments are overwhelming. We can find compassion in cold and impersonal systems. We can find understanding when all our cries have gone unheard.

In the deep end we learn how to swim. In the deep waters, we learn how to follow and believe.

Not Safe, but Saved

Mark 10:17-31

I heard a couple of news interviews this week that sort of stuck out to me. The first was early in the week on a morning news show. The interviewer was working hard trying to get some answers out of one of the lawyers in the David Letterman scandal. She pushed and pushed for an answer, but the lawyer just kept dodging the question. Answering unasked questions and ignoring the one really at hand.

Later in the week it was a radio news story. The interviewer was speaking to an administrator for the US National Park system. A question came about the law that allows guns to be carried in the National Parks. The administrator was asked, “Do you agree with this law?” Expertly, the administrator answered, “My job is to find the best way possible to make sure the laws set by Congress are upheld.” He must have taken Interviewing 101 from Jesus, the first rule of which is, “If you don’t like the question they are asking, simply answer another one.”

Jesus does this all over Mark’s Gospel. Jesus has something to say, a particular message to advance in the world, and he doesn’t have a lot of time. The gospel speeds from one scene to another, from one village to the next, and Jesus has a message he needs to share. If the people interviewing him, questioning him, and learning from him aren’t going to ask the right leading questions, Jesus is just going to answer the question he wants to hear anyway.

A faithful man approached him one day. He fell to his knees in humility at the feet of Jesus, the sign of one who comes seeking healing, restoration to wholeness, a blessing. In humility he asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” By his body language and his words we can only assume that he is sincere. A faithful man, devout and sincere, a man who recognized the goodness of God in Jesus, has come to the good teacher and asked for the key to everything! The secret for obtaining that last piece of security for a righteous man – assurance that life as he knows it will never end.

He’s looking for that golden ticket, that perfect retirement investment opportunity. Bankers and brokers have shown him countless options. He has read the portfolios of life insurance plans, mutual funds, IRAs, and 401 ks. He has searched the web, asked friends, talked to advisors, all so that he can build that perfect, responsible, safe nest egg for the future. And, heck, if it’s lucrative, too, well that wouldn’t hurt too bad either, would it?

A little safety net, that’s all he’s looking for. A little something to point to, to look at every once in a while, to hold on to, to know that even though he has kept the faith for his whole life, this is the one thing he has done to ensure that he possesses the most important thing a righteous man can seek – eternal life.

I mean, he isn’t asking for all the riches in the world. He isn’t looking for wealth to add to what he has. He doesn’t sound greedy or sinfully ambitious or like all he is after in the world is money. He has come to the teacher he has heard is good. He has come to the man he understands is next to God. He has come to the one he believes can give him a little security, help him rest a little easier knowing that his future is taken care of, his children will be fed and education, he and his wife will have a place to live, a place, in fact, in eternity. He has come with a very important question.

But like a well-practiced interviewee, and he certainly is by this point in the gospel, Jesus, doesn’t answer his question. First, he affirms what the young man has already acknowledged; he is in fact a man of committed faith. “You KNOW the commandments,” he says. Listing them one by one, almost straight from the stone tablets themselves, Jesus confirms not only what the man knows, but what he has done – faithfully pursued the godly way of life through his obedience to the letter of the law. So, next Jesus answers the question he wished the man had asked, “How good teacher, do I live with you in the kingdom of God?”

Do you hear the difference? Not “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” But “How do I live in the kingdom of God?” Not “What can I hold onto for security of the life to come?” But “How can I live life to the fullest, life with you, in this one?” It’s a huge difference. We find out, of course, that the young man is used to looking for things to hold onto. It doesn’t say he’s greedy, although that label has been placed on him by tradition. It doesn’t say that he has been unfair to others, although some say that’s why Jesus added the “extra” commandment “You shall not defraud.” It just says that he is rich; he has many possessions, and because of these he walks away grieving at Jesus’ answer to the question he didn’t ask, “How, good teacher, do I live with you in the kingdom of God?”

That’s the question that really matters – not “How can I live forever?”. Oh sure, he tells his disciples later, eternal life is part of the story, but it’s the part that comes in another age. Before we get to that age, there are some things we need to do. And like it or not, comfortable or not, those things can be hard for those of us considered rich by the world’s standards – not impossible, but hard.

The man is told by Jesus to sell what he owns and give the money to the poor. This is more than a heavenly garage sale with the proceeds going to the food shelf. This is a complete reversal. This is a radical request! Sell everything you own. Let go of EVERYTHING you hold onto. Give up your security, your safety net, your nest egg for the future, your assurance that you will be taken care of. Sell it all, sell everything you own, everything that owns you, and give it to the poor. Make yourself poor.

For that’s another aspect of Jesus’ answer, isn’t it? If this man were to sell everything he had and share all that he got for it, he would become one of those he was serving. If this man were to do as Jesus says, if he were to follow the directions for living in the kingdom of God, he wouldn’t just serve the people with less while holding on to what he possessed, he would become one of them, without wealth, without possessions, without tangible comfort or security for the future. He would do more than walk in their shoes; he would give up his shoes to walk barefoot next to them, knowing his is just as needy as they are.

Jesus doesn’t answer the man’s question about what he can do to be sure he has comfort and security for his future; he doesn’t tell him what he needs to do to sock away the insurance policy for eternal life. Instead, he tells him the exact opposite. He tells him everything he needs to do to risk entering the reign of God, not in some undefined and eternal future, but here and now, in this world, surrounded by these people afflicted with this need.

Go, sell what you own and give the money to the poor. If I stopped there, where would we be? Left with a challenging, if not impossible, instruction for life in the kingdom. Go, sell your house, sell your car, sell all your clothes, but the shirts on your backs, sell your toys, your books, your bikes, your time shares, your cabins, your pensions, your retirement funds. Go, sell it all, and give it to the poor. If I stopped there, where would we be?

“For mortals it is impossible, but not for God. For God all things are possible.” We can’t do it. Most of us can’t do it. There are some who do! There are nuns and monks and maybe others who live this kind of completely ascetic and sacrificial life, but most of us can’t do it. Does that mean we’re left out of the kingdom? Does that mean there’s no hope or no chance for all of us? “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God. For God all things are possible.”

God can push our stubborn camels through the eye of that needle. God can, and does, call us into kingdom living and show us how to do it. “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God. For God all things are possible.” The God of possibilities shows us how to live in the kingdom, leaving the wisdom and convention of our families behind – turning “look out for number one” into look out for the poor among you. Leaving our love of money and desire to stockpile it behind – turning pay yourself first, into give the first fruits to God. Leaving our desire for more clothes, more food, more resources behind – turning “Keep up with the Joneses” into “When I was hungry you gave me food, when I was thirsty you gave me something to drink, when I was naked you gave clothing.”

But this way of life, entering the kingdom of God here and now, doesn’t come without its risks. Leaving conventional wisdom behind often means separation, even if not physically than ideologically, from brothers or sister or mothers or fathers. Setting the collective norm aside to risk living according to the kingdom rules can mean leaving the comfort of the “home” we all know. But Jesus doesn’t promise us a safety net. Following him, entering the kingdom of God isn’t about the safety of the gift of eternal life. It’s about being saved from our misplaced trust and dependence and sense of security based on the things we own, the things we can hold onto, the things that we possess and that possess us.

In the end the question for Jesus is not, “How will I be saved?” That’s a question about eternal life which, while a precious gift from God, is a gift to be enjoyed in the age to come. The real question, then, is, “What am I saved for?” Jesus didn’t come to hand out safety nets. Eternal life may be the gift to be enjoyed some day in the age to come, but it isn’t just another possession to cling to, a balance in our spiritual bank accounts, put away for safe keeping. Eternal life is the sign of a new way of life, life under God’s rule, life in God’s kingdom, where living in the footsteps of Jesus is risky, but by the grace of God, not impossible.

Jesus came to invite us into the kingdom of God, a kingdom so radically different than any on this earth that the invitation comes with a risk. You may leave sister and brother; you may leave mother and father. You may leave your home, your fields, your safety and your security behind. You may end up dead last.

But the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it; the world, and those who live in it. This is the kingdom of God, only it just doesn’t look that way all the time. Some are rich, while some are poor. Some are joyous while others are grieving. Some are healthy while others are ill. Some are strong while others are weak.

The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it; the world, and those who live in it. Entering the kingdom of God isn’t something to look forward to in the distant future and the age to come. Entering the kingdom of God – a kingdom of equality, a kingdom of healing, a kingdom of forgiveness and compassion and grace – joining the risen Christ as he continues to build the kingdom of God is something we are called to do right here and right now. “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God. For God all things are possible.”

Why Christian Education?

In a recent blog entry Pastor Stephanie asked “Why are you Presbyterian?” This sparked the questions Why Christian Education? Or more accurately Why is Christian Education important to ones faith journey? However before we can answer this question I think we have to ask a more basic question; What is Christian Education?

In recent years the idea of Christian Education has taken on several other names which I think are helpful in our understanding of Christian Education. One name is faith formation. The name faith formation hits home that we are not just educating people about God and Christianity but rather helping individuals recognize, accept, and respond to God’s gift of grace (this concept comes from theologian Craig Dysktra). A second name is spiritual growth. I like this name because it emphasizes God presences in and around us as well as the fact that we are always learning and growing. For me Christian Education is a combination of both of these ideas.

With this in mind we can ask the question Why is Christian Education important to ones faith journey? I think the most important reason is that God wants us to continually recognize, accept and respond to the gift of grace he gives to us freely. We are continually changing and our world is continually changing so we need to rediscover how to recognize, accept and respond to God. Thus, it is our job as children of God to do so. In order to discover or rediscover and begin to understand God’s grace we have to be in relationship with God and with the community of faith. This is not to say that God only gives grace to those who know him but rather that when one knows God and is in a relationship with her it is easier to recognize, accept and respond to the grace given. One cannot be in relationship with someone that they do not know. Because God is not here in flesh and blood we have to learn about God through the Scriptures, through others encounters with God and through the world around us. In other words we have to know something about God to know God. Once we know about God we can continue the important work of exploring our relationship with God. We can together in community see where God’s grace is give and discover how we are called to respond to that grace.

Christian Education provides an opportunity for begin and grow in our relationship with God. Christian Education also helps us build relationships with those in our congregation. Christian Education provides an opportunity to learn about the ways we can respond to God grace in our lives, in our homes, in our congregation and in our community. Christian Education is important for everyone because God’s calls us to be faithful people recognizing, accepting and responding to the gift of grace in our lives! And God keeps on giving grace anew each day!