The Things Prepared

Just a quickie this week, I promise.  Mostly because I am still recovering from an upper respiratory thing (I love the precise medical definitions) that has knocked me for a loop this week.  Partly because Pastor Chris is preaching this week and he has put the work into this passage and I haven’t.  And a little bit because La Donna is at a UMW meeting since yesterday and I’m nominally in charge of a sick teenager, a dog with an eye infection, a cat with some sort of intestinal thing, and an on-going debate about whether there is enough snow to shovel or to just let it go in this cock-eyed, poor excuse of a winter, predicted to be upper 50's in a couple of days!

Such is life, eh?  You’ve got your list, I am sure.  What’s piling up on your desk, or your floor, or kitchen counter?  What’s screaming to be done, at the top of your to do list? Or at the top of your I wish I had time to do list?  Or maybe when we are snowed in and I’m forced to do list?  We are pulled in so many directions we hardly know which way is up any more. 

And we think the best we can hope for is to squeeze in one more thing, make a little more room, build bigger barns ... I mean calendars.  Or barns.  For more stuff.  Then ...  Leave it to Jesus to poke us in the eye with it.

Luke 12:15-21  And he said to them, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions."  16 Then he told them a parable: "The land of a rich man produced abundantly.  17 And he thought to himself, 'What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?'  18 Then he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.  19 And I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.'  20 But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?'  21 So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God."

Not the same thing, you say?  He was talking about amassing stuff.  We were talking about being really busy.  Doing important ... stuff.  Is it really that different?  Drowning in stuff or in responsibilities, losing ourselves in the process?  Does Jesus just hate stuff, or does he dislike what it is doing to us?  We are defined by our stuff, or by our jobs.  We don’t gather in professional meetings and show off our latest acquisitions, but we trot out our calendars - electronic and otherwise - just to show how busy we are.  How important we are.  We can’t turn off our cell phones because we are so indispensable that the world would grind to a halt if we weren’t there to manage it.  Or maybe because we are afraid that it would become known just how unimportant we really are, so we keep trying to justify our worth by working ourselves to death.

When I think about it, whether we are talking about stuff or about activity, it seems to me that what Jesus is concerned about is our attempt to define ourselves.  He seems to believe that this is God’s job.  Our job is to live into that definition.  Our worth, our value is determined by God, and it is inestimable.  We diminish ourselves when we use any other scale. 

In the end, we might still be doing the same things, Jesus isn’t against responsibility, isn’t against activity.  He just wants us to keep perspective, to keep hold of our true selves as beloved children of God.  Asking “what is our life for,” or “whose life is it anyway” might be a way to keep us on track.  Maybe he is asking us to spend a little less time preparing our calendars or our inventories and a little more time preparing our hearts to live the life he has given us.  In Him was life.  But is it in us?

Shalom,
Derek

Life Saving Surgery

How long can you stare at a blank screen before you come up with something to write?  I think I’m going for the record today. ... The problem is it matters.  I know that sounds pathetic.  Either it always matters or there isn’t any point in doing it.  Or in the greater scheme of things some words on a page aren’t going to amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.  So why get all bothered by trying to find the right ones?

I don’t know, to be honest.  Except that these next three weeks are a hinge upon which the plans for the whole year swing.  If I don’t get this right, then the impact of our “Year of Taking Jesus Seriously, Take Two” will be diminished.  And I realize that I may be the only one who cares about that.  But I do care.  For some God knows why reason, I do care.

The title of the three week series leading us up to the beginning of Lent is “In Him was Life.”  It comes from the prologue to the Gospel of John.  And it is, I am beginning to believe, the core of Jesus message to the church.  If we could come to grips with this message, the message of life, as Jesus presents it, we would be well on the way to being the church, being the body that he calls us to be.  It is because we have missed this, or obscured it, or moved it from its place of prime importance, that we are foundering on the rocks of doubt and despair.  It is because we have lost our grip on this essential truth that we are a shadow of ourselves at work in the world today, diminished influence, shrinking numbers, hesitant voices, empty shells.

Whoa, dude, chill out.  I know, it sounds ... well ... like I should take a pill and lie down for a while.  Don’t think I haven’t tried that.  And to make matters worse, I chose to open with a passage that doesn’t really explain it.  This life thing.  This gift that Jesus came to give, this thing that would make us never hungry and never thirsty.  This life that would so fill us that questions would recede into the background and doubts would be squeezed out. 

Instead I chose a passage that tells us just how important it is.  This one, remember?

Matthew 18:1-10  At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"  2 He called a child, whom he put among them,  3 and said, "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  4 Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  5 Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.  6 "If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea.  7 Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks! Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to the one by whom the stumbling block comes!  8 "If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than to have two hands or two feet and to be thrown into the eternal fire.  9 And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into the hell of fire.  10 "Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven.

Being greatest?  Is that what this is all about?  Is that the hinge, the key, the big deal that is causing all this angst today?  That’s what draws our attention, I’ll give you that.  That is the question that disciples asked one day after a hard day of not getting what he was talking about.  Befuddlement is hard work, let me tell you.  This isn’t something that Jesus comes up with.  It isn’t a teaching point he planned on.  It came because of the question.  Who is the greatest?, they asked him, hoping the answer was going to be “you guys!”  They had their “we’re number one” foam fingers hidden behind their backs ready for the celebration.  Which became pointing fingers when they got the answer.  It always trips us up, that question.  We want to be special, we want to be first in line, we want it to be all about us.  But it isn’t.  Which is what makes this faith thing such a hard sell these days.  When hair color commercials tell you that you are worth it, prayers of confession, of unworthiness don’t go down so well.

But no, that isn’t what this is all about, this time.  Maybe it is the children, then.  We like children, we like talking about them, about sentimentalizing them, about thinking about Jesus holding them, blessing them.  We like that.  Cute, we think.  Better than cute, it is sweet.  And filed with all the other sweet things that we look at from time to time when we need a sweet fix, like baby bunnies and newborn horses trying to stand on their skinny legs, rainbows and precious moments figurines.  Ignoring completely that Jesus didn’t bring a child into the circle to be sweet, but to turn their worldview upside-down. 

But no, that’s not it either.  Look closer.  Originally, I only picked two verses for this week.  Verses 8 & 9.  "If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than to have two hands or two feet and to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into the hell of fire.”

Oh, you are saying, that’s what this about.  Hell.  Or avoiding hell.  Fire insurance.  We’re about fire insurance.  Yeah, that’ll bring them back to the pews.  Right.

Wrong.  Look again.  This is about life.  About living, not about dying, or final destinations.  This about passion, about wanting what Christ has to offer so much that you would do anything to have it.  It is better to enter life, says Jesus, enter life.  Don’t let anything, he argues, get in the way, drag you down, distract you, from the fulness that he has to offer. 

Jesus sits with the woman at the well and says “if you drink from the water I give you, you will never be thirsty again.”  Never!  Never?  Why are we still thirsty?  Why does it still feel like there is something missing from our lives?  Why does this abundance thing, this joy pressed down and spilling over, this water gushing up to eternity, seems to be ... lacking?  Less than advertized.

Oh, we’re used to that, I guess.  Used to things not living up to the press.  Things disappointing us.  It looked so good in the commercial.  It read so well in the advertizement.  But it never – whatever it might be in the moment - it never lives up to the sell.  So, we’ve lowered our expectations.  We’ve decided to not want so much.  Not pay so much.  Not sacrifice so much.  Learn to be satisfied with less. 

Which is great when it comes to the stuff all around us.  That stuff will never fill the longing in your soul.  Will never bring contentment to your heart.  Will never challenge your mind.  Will never build up your real strength.  But when it comes to life, the life on offer from Christ, the life that is eternal, the life that is abundant, then never settle for less.  Because less is fit for the fire.

The fire, not hell so much, as the garbage heap.  Not a place of torment as much as a place of emptiness, of uselessness.  “Throw it away” describes so much of our culture.  But please, Jesus implores us, let it not describe you.  Or us.  The church, the body of Christ.  The beloved of God.  What are you willing to surrender, to cut off, in order to know this life?  An arm or a leg?  Or what?  What is in your way?  What have you put in God’s way that prevents the outpouring of a life of meaning and joy and purpose?  What needs to be cut off? 

Shalom,
Derek

Heart Questions

Sixty?  In January?  Sixty degrees?  And then twenties next week?  I’m lost. Kinda makes you fall back on that classic question: Who’s in charge here?  A default query when things are falling apart.  When nothing makes sense, you are inclined to ask who got us here, teetering on this brink, up this creek, wandering in this wilderness?  Who’s in charge here?

That’s not just a random question.  It is what provides the backdrop to our text for this week.  It isn’t the main point, I don’t think anyway, but it is the undercurrent, the sub-text to this story.  It is the background noise that sometimes makes it hard to hear the symphony of grace and of love that issues forth from this watery yet fiery moment down by the riverside.

The baptism of Jesus is the second of three moments of epiphany that we celebrate in season.  The season of Epiphany begins with a dubious pack of foreigners struck by a star and ends with a collection of Jesus’ “best and the brightest” stunned by a transfiguration and a voice in a cloud.  In all three there is this sense that we are merely spectators, watching something just beyond our understanding.  Feeling our hearts pound with hope and with joy though if asked we can’t really put on finger on what it was that struck us so.  But just watching from a distance fills an emptiness we didn’t even know was there.  Answers a question we didn’t know we were asking.

Watch again as he comes down to the water.

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22  As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah,  16 John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." ...  Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened,  22 and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

What is interesting about Luke’s depiction of the event is that the baptism hardly figures in at all.  The verses we skip serve to usher John the Baptist off the stage in favor of Jesus who now begins his ministry.  But after John’s bluster, the next thing we know is that the baptism had already taken place.  We missed it.  Ain’t that always the way?  We come for the show and by the time we got our seats, it had already happened.  “Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus had also been baptized...”  Darn it! 

You’d think that if Luke had a clue about the centuries of struggle the church has had about the detail of baptism, he might have spent a little more time with it.  We don’t know if Jesus was immersed or sprinkled.  We don’t know which liturgy John prefers, or if the vows that Jesus made were the same as the ones we make or not.  We don’t know if John was properly credentialed or if Jesus followed the rules.  We don’t know who signed the certificate.  We need to know these things, don’t we? 

Luke doesn’t seem to think so.  “Jesus had also been baptized...”  That’s the sum total of the description here.  If Luke is saying that the methodology isn’t what is important, then what is?  If the methodology of baptism isn’t what we are supposed to be asking about here, then what is the question?  The fact that all four gospels spend some time wrestling with the relative position of Jesus vs John is a hint that at least one important question is “who’s in charge here?”

The people gathered on the riverbank and wondered.  They hoped, they leaned into the moment, into the phenomenon that was John the B.  They watched him wade in the shallow waters and call for a change, for real change.  Quit playing games, he said, quit fooling yourself.  Get down to the hard work of living right.  There is more to this life than status and power and riches.  Get right, or get left out!

Maybe it was his confidence as much as his content, but they began to wonder.  Maybe he is the one.  Luke says that in their hearts they were questioning.  Not their heads.  This wasn’t an intellectual pondering of possibilities.  No, this was a heart thing.  They were leaning in, they were wondering, they were hoping.  They had begun to recognize that they were indeed sheep without a shepherd and they were seeing some possibilities in the one who churned up the waters of the Jordan River.  Is the one?  The one we’ve been waiting for, the one we’ve been praying for? 

Maybe they began to murmur to one another, maybe someone shouted it out loud, or maybe he just saw the hunger in their eyes, but somehow John heard the question and jumped in to answer.  Not me, he declared, as forcefully as he had called for repentance.  No, someone bigger, someone stronger, someone with a shovel who will toss you up into the wind to rip away the empty husks of your sinfulness, someone who will see down into the depths of your soul.  No, it’s not me, said John.  But watch out, the one is on his way.

Or already in line.  That’s Luke’s subtle point.  No grand entrance.  No miraculous appearance.  No, not him, not Jesus.  When the people have been baptized, and when Jesus had been baptized too.  Too?  Jesus shouldn’t be a “too.”  An also-ran.  A member of the crowd.  It is Jesus, for heaven’s sake!    Why is Jesus even there in the first place?  That’s the question that has puzzled biblical scholars since the beginnings of the church.  John was preaching a baptism of repentance.  But we know that Jesus was without sin.  So, why would he need to be there?  What’s going on here?

Are you the one?  Yes, but not the one you want.  Instead he decides to be the one you need.  The one who stands in line with all the other broken ones.  The one who takes his place among the bruised and the hurting.  The one who wades into the mess of the world and buries himself in it.  The one who climbs up out of the anxiety of living in this world and falls to his knees.  That’s the one John was ranting and raving about.  It isn’t a shovel he carries, it is a cross, and by that implement we are all cast into the winds of the Spirit to be transformed.  But instead of condemnation we hear those words that he heard, “You are my Beloved.  With you I am well-pleased.”

Who’s in charge here?  We live our lives asking that question.  Most of the time we think it is us.  We are in charge.  In charge of our own lives, our own wills.  Yet, in our saner moments we know we need help.  We know we need someone to follow.  We need an example, a guide, a hope.  We need a savior.

Who’s in charge here?  An epiphany question.  A baptism question.  Your question.  And mine.

Who’s in charge here?  Hear O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one.  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.  And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Who’s in charge here?

Shalom,
Derek

Polaris

Happy Epiphany!  I know!  You must be thinking: “Can it get any better?  What a run on major celebrations!  Christmas, then New Years and now,” drumroll and fanfare, “Epiphany!”  Wow.  Take a breath.  Slow it down.  Wouldn’t do to get too excited.  Please, pace yourself. 

OK, enough silliness.  But, there was a time when the big celebration in the life of the people of God was Epiphany.  Christmas was at best a minor celebration, a story read at night accompanied with hymns and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.  Epiphany, on the other hand, was the big feast day, worship and singing, feasting and gift-giving.  This was the day that the community of faith looked forward to with joy and with hope.  It was a day of orienteering.

Wait.  What?  Orienteering.  Ask a scout, if you know one.  I first discovered this activity when we lived in England many years ago.  It was an outdoor kind of activity.  And getting lost and then found again kind of thing.  Orienteering is about using the tools of navigation to find your way around the wilderness.  Maybe with just a map and a compass, maybe with more sophisticated global positioning devices now days, perhaps it is easier than it used to be.  But there are still choices to be made, a commitment to follow whatever star you choose to follow. 

I believe that is why the symbol for Epiphany was the star that guided the wise men to the child in Bethlehem.  Not to spend more time on the cute baby stories, but to symbolize the need for a guiding star that will take us where we need to go.  Or to help us become who we need to become.

The Christian life is often depicted as a journey.  John Bunyan’s classic work Pilgrim’s Progress is but one example of this.  Hidden in all these metaphors is the concept of the map, the guide, the star that leads us along the way.  We like to think we can find our own way.  But the truth is we need help.  We need mentors and guides, we need helpers and leaders as we journey through this life.  And of course we, being good church folk, would say that Christ is our guide, Jesus is our leader. 

Of course that is true.  But also kind of vague.  Jesus is our guide when he turns water into wine?  Christ is our leader when he walks on water?  Step right up, you first.  I’m not just poking fun, well, not just.  I’m asking a serious question.  If Epiphany is about the light that shines forth, about seeing and knowing that presence and that invitation, that call from God through Christ, then what is it that we follow?  What is our star?

Mark 12:28-31  And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, "Which commandment is the first of all?"  29 Jesus answered, "The first is, `Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one;  30 and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.'  31 The second is this, `You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

Polaris, or Alpha Ursuae Minoris, is the official name of the star we usually call the North Star.  It is the one that sits above the north pole and has been a guide to navigation for almost all of human history.  When you see those time lapse photographs of the stars, Polaris is the one around which all the others spin. 

The scribe who approaches Jesus is asking for Polaris.  What is the law by which all the others are measured?  What is our guiding light, the mentor that will take us in hand and lead us toward the Kingdom?

In 2004, Dr. Scot McKnight wrote a book titled “The Jesus Creed.”  In it he argues that this passage is that guiding star for all of us as Christians.  If we could let these “commandments” be our guide, shaping our behavior, directing our decisions, transforming us as individuals and as the community, then we too would be “not far” from the kingdom which is what Jesus says to the scribe who asked the question in the first place.

The question was “which commandment is first of all?”  At least in our translation. Others say “foremost” or “most important.”  Jesus had just come through the Palm Sunday experience, had been sparring with other leaders of the Jews over issues like politics and authority and power, and now was approached by this scribe who seems a little different.  Not trying to trap Jesus into saying something intemperate or inflammatory, he was genuinely curious, or earnestly seeking.  Sum up the law, he asked, tell me what path to take, what priority to follow.  Tell me who I am supposed to be.  The law defined them, they were people of the law, but now this one at least was asking what does that look like. 

Sometimes Jesus was frustratingly complex in his responses and stories.  Other times he was clear as crystal, and the struggle is not in the what - as in what did he mean - but in the how - as in how do we possibly do this.  This is one of those crystal clear yet overwhelmingly troubling times.  The axis around which all we are and all we are called to be and do is worship and service, or devotion and ethics.

Love God with all heart and soul and mind and strength.  Mark misquotes the OT (Deut 6:5) and adds in “mind” as part of the formula.  His intention was that we hear Jesus as being all inclusive - emotional, spiritual, intellectual, physical power directed toward God.  God is the center, the source, the reason for our continued existence, source of our joy and contentment.  God is all in all.

But Jesus doesn’t stop there.  That would answer the question - the greatest commandment.  But Jesus continues on.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  “The second is this.”  Deutera autois. Could be second, probably is, that is the most common translation of that phrase.  But it could be “and also” or “next is.”  Meaning not second of a series, but a continuation of the first.  It is more, one commandment love God and love neighbor.  Two sides of the same coin.  Or the practice of one is found in the other.  How do we love God? By loving neighbor.  How do we find it possible to love neighbors?  By loving God.  We circle around these guiding thoughts, guiding commandments like stars orbiting Polaris. 

Practicing Jews still today, like they did centuries ago, write this commandment on a little piece of paper and attach it to the door-frames of their houses.  It is called the mezuzah, and it is the little reminder that they are guided by the law, summed up in these words.  It has become their Polaris.  This year at Aldersgate, I am inviting the congregation to meditate on the Jesus Creed every day of 2013.  Last year we read our way through the whole bible a day at a time, this year we are carrying with us the summation of that text.  We will be handing out magnets with the Creed printed on it.  Which is the passage included in this bible study.  And we are inviting families to put it someplace prominently so that when they come in and when they go out they can be reminded of the light that guides us, the Word that shapes us.  I’m asking them to follow this star throughout the whole year.  You can join us in whatever way works for you.

By the way, in looking up information about Polaris, I learned something interesting.  The north star, is not just a star.  In fact it is a collection of stars, a multiple star it is called.  First of all it is a collection of three stars - a trinity if you will - and then there are two others that are a little more distant but come together to make up the light that we see.  Interesting, don’t you think.  A trinity with a dual emphasis.  God the three in one, approached by worship (love God) and service (love neighbor). 

Shalom,
Derek

Gift Exchange

Are you ready for Christmas?  I can’t count how many times I’ve been asked that question.  Most often by retail sales folk who are trying to make conversation, to come across as friendly.  Well, and the woman cutting my hair.  An occasional member of the church passing me in the hallways or out in the world somewhere will sometimes ask me that too.  A few of the askers are, I believe, interested in a deeper, more spiritual readiness.  Am I ready to celebrate incarnation, do I have a sense of the presence of the holy, am I in touch with the joy of more than a season - that’s what the few are asking, I believe.  Most however, want to know if I have spent enough money yet.

OK, cynical, I realize.  Yet, when I engage these folks in conversation the next level often goes to a discussion of whether the presents have been purchased and wrapped and hidden, or whether we are still stumped by schedules or crowds or the loved one who is incredibly hard to buy for. 

Everyone has at least one of those, I am sure.  You know what I mean.  It’s not that they have everything and there is nothing left to get them.  Rather it is more like they don’t want anything.  Drives me crazy.  “Do you have a list?”  “Well, no.  I don’t know what to put on it?”  “Everyone else has a list.”  “I know.”  “We want to get you something.”  “I know.”  “Well?”  “I’ll think about it.” Argghh.

OK, the not wanting thing is probably good.  Who am I to tell her she needs to want more stuff.  Sometimes I wish I had a similar attitude.  And actually, I think I do pretty well with the wanting, or the not wanting.  What I struggle with is the giving thing.  Or rather the wanting to give thing.  And I don’t mean I don’t want to give.  The exact opposite in fact.  I want to give a lot, everything and anything.  I’m not usually given permission to go shopping for the kids, because I’d get everything on the list and few things that weren’t there but should have been.  I almost can’t help myself.  I love giving stuff, losing myself in the exquisite agony of selecting something that says just what you want to say to someone who means more to you than you are able to put into words.  I feel as though I carry them with me as I am out and about, looking for that something special, that will make their eyes light up, that will let them know that someone was thinking of them.  But not just them in the generic, but in the specific.  The someone who likes this, who thinks this way, who hopes this hope, who rejoices in that joy.  I want them to feel known and loved by the whatever it is that gets wrapped and slipped under the tree in the front room. 

I know, a lot of weight to a gift that you pick up off a shelf somewhere.  Or point and click on.  Or make a phone call to get.  Which is why there is often a vague sense of disappointment when the gift is opened and the life transforming moment doesn’t occur.  Gratitude, yes, even joy at times.  But not ... well ... not a life changing moment, or life affirming moment.  A confirmation moment.  That’s what we want at Christmas time.  That’s why we give the gifts we give.  That’s why the gift was given.  THE gift.  You know, the “reason for the season” and all of that.

Our gift giving is a reflection of God’s giving.  And though we know we can’t out give God, we want to give with as much investment as we can muster, with as much commitment as we can generate.  We want our gifts to redeem lives, or relationships, or at least make those we care about feel good about themselves. 

But maybe that is too much for a gift to carry, any gift, no matter how carefully chosen or constructed.  Maybe we are wasting our energies, hoping in the wrong vehicles to communicate love and joy and hope to those we love around us.  Maybe we ought to rethink Christmas.

This season we’ve been asked to think differently about Christmas.  To remember that “Christmas is not your birthday!”  Which, by the way, I believe is true even for those few who are born on December 25th.  Their birthday is December 25th, not Christmas.  Christmas, or the Mass of Christ, is about someone else.  And it is that someone who should shape our celebration of this day.  But not just in the background, not just the reason for the season, but the motivator, the shaper of the celebration itself.  Not just the pale outline, but the focus, the object of our devotion and gift giving.

What does Jesus want for Christmas?  That’s the question of this fourth week of Advent.  And since the snow shower of catalogs we receive in the mail each day isn’t really going to be much help, maybe we ought to look elsewhere.  Like to Matthew.  Maybe he can give us some insight into finding the right gift for the guy who has everything.

Matthew 25:31-46   "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.  32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,  33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.  34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;  35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,  36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.'  37 Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?  38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?  39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?'  40 And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.'  41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, 'You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels;  42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,  43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.'  44 Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?'  45 Then he will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.'  46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

Of course, you sigh, we knew that.  Jesus wants us to get out there help people.  OK, right, get to it.  Another responsibility, another task, another chore to get done before we can get to the business of enjoying our holiday.  Work it into our busy schedules to make Jesus happy.  It is his birthday after all. 

Except that just saying it that way makes us realize we are still missing something.  What is really asking for in this story?  What are we supposed to get?  The goats missed it, but then you would expect them to, they’re goats after all.  But, is it surprising that the sheep seem to have missed it too?  “When was it that we saw you hungry...?” 

Maybe their surprise is the whole point of the story.  Jesus is saying that the goal is not to complete some task, like competing in a reality show of some sort, but rather to be the kind of person who loves like Christ loved.  Not because we’re supposed to, but just because we do.  What Christ wants for Christmas is for us to give the gift of who we are, the loving, caring, giving person that he has enabled us to become - or that we are becoming, since we are all in process.  Which, I guess, is all anyone wants, the gift of ourselves.  Our better selves, our true selves, our Christ-like selves. 

So, are you ready for Christmas?

Shalom,
Derek

The Other Side of the Manger

How do you receive bad news?  I’m sorry.  That wasn’t the question I meant to ask at all.  That wasn’t the entry into this moment that I was looking for.  That question was a throw away, an unintentionally benign time-filler to while away a long drive or a late night dorm room bull session.  That question was more along the lines of what would buy first if you won the lottery? Or if you were stranded on a desert island what three things would  you want with you?  An ice breaker game in a small group meeting, or a baseline psychological assessment before getting into anything serious.

Let me try again.  When your world shatters from words delivered like a sledgehammer to your gut, how do you stand?  When you are plunged underwater by news you can scarcely comprehend let alone respond to, how do you take your next breath?  When all your visions of a joyous tomorrow are spoken out of existence by whispered words of tragedy or denial how do you put one foot in front of another on your way into the void?

We watched in horror as yet another well armed individual destroyed the comfort and joy of a quiet community, tipped the scales from hopes to fears of all the years in a few moments of terror, a modern day slaughter of the innocents.  The echoes from the weeping prophet all too evident – Thus says the LORD: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more. (Jeremiah 31:15) 

One of the threads online last night was a story headed “How the father of the shooter got the news.”  His wife was dead, shot by his son who was also now dead.  Do we need to know how this father heard this story?  How does it help us comprehend a world gone awry?  Besides, I hesitate to even mention, but we’ve been there.

No, not such news.  At least I pray that you have never been told such a thing as this poor father and husband was told.  Though, in my years of ministry I have sat alongside those who have been told some devastating news.  I’ve watched them stagger under the weight, like a lifter who has taken on more than the body can bear.  I have whispered “breathe” into the ear of one gasping for meaning in the vacuum of a terrible moment.  I have felt my soul vibrate in sympathetic pain to the keening a mother needing to give voice to her pain. 

Though we shrink from comparing, from measuring suffering, but it is a rare soul who has known none.  And it frequently reorders one’s existence in unforeseen ways.  So, the question remains, how do you live into this new reality?  How do you go on when you stand in the rubble of your hopes and a step in any direction is a step into the unknown?  What do you choose when there aren’t any choices to be made?

It had to be a long night for Joseph as he wrestled with a terrible decision.  As usual, the Gospel account leaves so much unsaid that we can’t help to try to fill in the gaps.

Matthew 1:18-25  Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.  19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.  20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.  21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."  22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:  23 "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us."  24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife,  25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

You’ve heard the word “betrothed” defined before.  Even our newer translations turn it into “engaged.”  But it was a fully legal designation.  They belonged to each other, even though the formalities had not yet been performed.  It was a binding covenant.  But now it was broken.  Joseph’s hopes spilling out into the night like a clutch of eggs dropped on a concrete floor.  He planned, Matthew tells us, to take the high road, the quiet, unassuming, sweep it under the carpet route and just step away.  It was within his rights to do so much more, to take revenge, exact a punishment for embarrassment, for shame, to present himself as the injured party, unsullied by this sordid affair.  But in the dark of the night he chose distance.  Just get out, get away, try - as impossible as that would be - to forget, to move on.  Having made up his mind, he slept.

As disturbed as his waking moments had been, so too was his sleep made uneasy, as choices were given to him.  Here’s a question I have never heard discussed: did he already consider and dismiss this option?  Did it even come to his mind that he could have simply accepted her wild narrative that stretched any normal mode of thinking to the breaking point?  Or did he simply refuse to even let that thought enter his conscious mind, so that it could only be considered when he was asleep?  Was the angel - from a word that translates as both message and messenger - his own beating heart that wanted to hope what was impossible to hope?

Matthew doesn’t relate and further struggle.  He woke from sleep, did Joseph, and did just what the angel commanded.  Just did it. Against what had to be opposition from family and friends, he did it.  He took Mary in.  That’s how these things were sealed.  After a betrothal, she legally belonged to him, but it wasn’t sealed until he took her into his own home.  The old translation “he took his wife” sounds almost embarrassingly intimate.  So we changed it to “he took her as his wife.” 

But the truth is, it is embarrassing, it is intimate.  He took her into his house.  He declared in a public way that he didn’t care what was being said behind his back, he took her in.  He announced that while he might not understand the story, he chose to believe it, and he took her home.  He took a step that he couldn’t even comprehend before.  And chose to love with an unexplainable love.

Pastor Mike Slaughter, in his book Christmas is Not Your Birthday, titles this third week of Advent “Scandalous Love.”  He tells of other moments in the story of God’s people where God asks for a love that seems beyond belief.  He writes about Hosea who loved a woman who was unfaithful, and then to love her again when she wandered away.  That seems to be God’s M.O.  To love the unfaithful, to love the undeserving.  To love when nothing else makes sense. 

Joseph took Mary home and loved her.  More than that he claimed a son not his own.  When the child was born Matthew says “he named hm Jesus.”  That’s not just a sweet moment in the delivery room with proud dad and exhausted mom.  No, this is a statement, a proclamation.  This is scandalous love lived out.

In any life event we have a choice.  We can rage, we can crumble, we can become bitter and withdrawn.  Or we can love.  We can love the wounded and grieving into wholeness, we can love the broken and the damaged, we can even, if we are bold enough, scandalous enough, love ourselves when it seemed no one else will.

 We can, like Joseph choose to look at life from the other side of the manger, and see love be born.

Shalom,
Derek

When a Plan Comes Together

I’m kinda grumpy, just be warned.  But only kinda.  Out of sorts.  Off track a little bit.  Forced into patterns different from my norm.  It is Friday and I’m working on my Bible Study.  That’s not right.  This is supposed to be a Saturday morning thing, that helps get me in the mood for preaching on Sunday morning.  It is a journey that begins a long time ahead (September of 2011 to be precise) and then gets specific a few weeks out as we finish up one series and look ahead to the next.  Then the process really heats up each week as one sermon is completed and immediately I begin to work on the next one, gathering information and images, reading, reading, reading, listening, writing, thinking, until Saturday when it all gels in my head (or is supposed to anyway) in preparation for Sunday morning.  That’s the way it is supposed to work.  That is the image of the perfect preparation for preaching that I carry around with me week by week.

And now we are off track, and it is unsettling.  Here’s the deal, one of the legacies we inherited from La Donna’s dad, who died this past January, is a couple of season tickets for Notre Dame Women’s Basketball.  Don and Beverly wanted to support Notre Dame, but were more interested in the sports that didn’t get all the attention, so they chose women’s basketball.  They were attending ND games before they were good.  Even before Muffet - that’s the coach, Muffet McGraw, who has taken them to the tournament and won it at least once recently.  I watched them lose to Baylor on Wednesday night (again, Baylor beat them in the tournament finals last year - darn those Texas Bears anyway).  So, I’m all in favor of the team, would love to attend the game.  But it is Saturday.  And because we don’t live in South Bend, it means losing most of the day.  Traveling, parking, watching, lunching (because I’m going with Maddie, so you know we are going to eat most of the day too).  No promises for a sermon that makes any kind of sense on Sunday morning, just sayin’.

It is unsettling.  There are just certain ways that my life is supposed to go, and when they don’t ... well, it isn’t pretty.  But you know that, don’t you.  I don’t mean you know my life, I mean you know yours.  Besides, this is Christmas time, we’ve all got plans.  We’ve got order.  We are going to make this one work out the way we envision.  We are going to have just the right presents and just the right decorations, we are going to serve just the right meals at just the right time and everyone is going to have the Christmas of their lives!  Right!?!  This is going to be the Christmas that they talk about forever, the one they measure every other Christmas by.  And, frankly, all those others are going to pale into insignificance compared to the one that we are going to put on this year!  As God is my witness, I’ll never mess up Christmas again!!!

Sorry, not sure where the Gone With the Wind misquote came from there.  But you get my drift, don’t you?  We don’t always deal well with things that come along and upset our plans.  We want things to go a certain way, we want to take charge of our lives, our plans, our events.  And then stuff happens.

That would be a good title for our text for this week.  Stuff happens.  Remember this incident?

Luke 1:30-34  And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.  32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David,  33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end."  34 And Mary said to the angel, "How shall this be, since I have no husband?"

Just a snippet of a story this time.  Just some key verses, the core of the dialogue for us to dwell on for a moment.  Don’t go skipping ahead to fill in the rest of the story.  Don’t be too quick to turn to the resolution, to the all’s well that ends well part of the tale.  No, just sit here with Mary, in the rubble of her wedding plans whatever they might have been and wonder “what now?” with her. 

What now?  A question you’ve asked before, maybe recently.  What now?  A very human question, to be sure.  One that we get thrust at us from time to time.  One that comes unbidden to our lips or that echoes in the silence of our minds as we face again the news that has turned our lives upside down.

It may be something simple, a disruption in your carefully planned out patterns of behavior.  It may even be something good and pleasant, something hoped for that you never thought would come, and therefore causes disruption.  Or it may be an unimaginable tragedy that shakes you to the core.  That angel in your living room might have news you can barely comprehend, let alone consider “good news.” 

“How can this be?” seems the most benign of questions in this situation.  And yet it speaks of being turned upside down, or inside out.  This isn’t they way these things are supposed to work.  This Christmas was supposed to be the way it looks on the cards we send.  Our family was supposed to be healthy and happy.  This job was supposed to be a career for my whole life.  This relationship was supposed to last into our twilight years.  “How can this be?”  How can this be that I’m left alone?  How can this be that it didn’t work out?  How can this be .. this disappointment, this hurt, this humiliation, how can this be?

You have to wonder if there were moments in the weeks and months and years to come where Mary remembered the words “you have found favor with God” and had to suppress an inclination to snort with derision.  If this is God’s favor - when she gazed into the confused and disappointed face of her betrothed, when she heard her beloved son say “Who is my mother?” when she came to retrieve him from his madness, when she felt the nails drive into his hands and feet and then knelt underneath him as he handed her over to another even as he died - if this is God’s favor maybe she should have said thanks but no thanks to the angel standing in her living room.

Thanks be to God, she didn’t.  Though the passage ends with the question, we know how the story goes.  The angel gives a less than satisfactory answer - little detail except that God is in charge - and she says yes.  God knows why, but she says yes.  God knows how she had enough information, enough wisdom, enough moral courage to say yes to a life of uncertainty, but she did.  She does.  And so do we.

Don’t we?  Only every day, when we set out, plans in our mind and hope in our heart.  We say yes to the presence of the Spirit who sometimes blesses our plans and sometimes doesn’t, sometimes lets us determine our paths and sometimes takes control of events.  Because God knows we can’t.  Control events, that is, even the events of our own lives.  As much as we would like to, as much as we want to shape our lives and the lives of those around us into pleasant patterns and comfortable networks of safety and contentment, it is beyond us to do so.

When we realize that, then saying yes to God makes the most sense of all.  Why not lean back into the arms of the One who loves you more than you can imagine?  Why not trust that these convoluted series of unimaginable happenstance we call our lives just might have a meaning bigger than we can see in any one given moment?  Why not follow the One who invites us into the greatest adventure that there is? 

In the end plans do come together, they just might not be our plans.  I’m willing to trust that they are plans worth keeping, however, plans to prosper you and not to harm you.  So, we let go of our need to control. 

And go with God. 

Shalom,
Derek