The Power of Christmas

      We had a wonderful Christmas.  Our daughters, and two of our grandchildren were here along with both of our great-grands.  Rosie cooked a ham, everyone brought something and we feasted.  It was the best Christmas gift we could have received.  We have a delightful family who gives love extravagantly.   I now have a picture of Samson, my great-grandson looking at a dessert that Jennifer brought to us.  It is the background on my computer and it reminds me of the wonder of this family.

  I spent Christmas eve at Calvary Church with its glorious music and awesome liturgy.  This is the second year that I have done this.  That place provides all of the pomp and glory that this season requires.  The choir, the brass and the harp all make the power of this night rise and shine.   The theology of the incarnation is full of incredible mystery and is difficult for most of us to comprehend.  The very idea of God coming to earth in human form eludes most of us.  It is the whole reason for this magnificent festival.  The very idea of God walking this earth in our shoes brings tears to my eyes as I even think about it.

This is why God understands what human life is all about.  This is not some white bearded God up on a cloud judgeing us from afar;  this is God who has known human being also, who has felt hunger, thirst, want and judgement, who knew the pain of loss and death and who can see through our eyes the frustrations of human life.  That is what makes the Christian experience so dynamic.  When we celebrate this feast of the Incarnation, we are celebrating the human face of God who knows us better than we know ourselves.

The first eighteen verses of the Gospel of John expresses the theology of the coming of God to earth in brilliant poetry.  If there was ever argument about including this Gospel in the New Testament, these verses refute it.  The elegance of the words are overpowering and give us the best reason to hope that I can ever imagine.  Our loving God gave himself for our salvation.  That is breathtaking and certainly true.  Despite the way that Christmas has devolved into a festival of craving material things, this is the best gift that any of us could possibly crave.  We are not judged by our failure to live up to the law, but by the Grace of our loving God, who wants us to belong to God more than he wants us to be perfect.  That, I think has become the cornerstone of my life.

I hope your Christmas was full of beauty and hope.  With all of the pain and turbulence in the world, it is a measure of God’s glory that we can reach out to each other and offer hopefulness.  God blesses us in all that we do.

Guns and Hope

All of our hearts are broken after the massacre at Newtown, Connecticut.  The killing of twenty small children by a gunman who possibly had Asberger’s syndrome is monstrous.  The simple availability to him of an assault rifle and lots of ammunition is a terrible indictment of this culture of ours where the second amendment to the Constitution is revered above all things.  The National Rifle Association has been able to defend with impunity their ridiculous stance that guns are appropriate in just about every situation.  The absurd idea that we ought to be able to buy as many guns as we want has led to trafficking in guns in almost unbelievable ways.  The proposal to allow people to buy only one gun a month is in itself absurd.  Twelve guns a year?  Good Lord, what is in our minds.

I don’t expect congress or the president, or anybody else to come up with an adequate solution to this terrible gun problem that plagues this country.  We don’t need a conversation about guns, we need action and we need it now.  We tolerate guns in our video games, guns in our movies, guns everywhere.  We subtly teach our children that guns are a reasonable part of our lives.  I don’t know any hunters who take assault rifles with them when they go to hunt deer.  That doesn’t even make any sense.  But we have allowed senselessness to inhabit this argument for far too long.  We are now reaping the wild wind that overarching gun ownership has brought us.  It isn’t enough for us to ban the sale of assault weapons.  There are enough of them already in people’s hands to continually cause events such as Newtown.  We need to get these weapons out of the hands of people who aren’t qualified to possess them.  No one outside of the military ought to have these weapons.  That seems to me to be just common sense.

We are in the last week of Advent.  We are waiting with anticipation for the birth of our Messiah, the one who will bring peace and hope to this world.  I am attracted to Mary’s beautiful Magnificat and the past tense that she uses in describing God’s work in the world to touch our lives.  She says:

He has shown the strength of his arm; 
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.

In the birth of Jesus, our Messiah, we have the guarantee that God has adsorbed the intense hurt and pain of this world,  most of which is caused by ourselves.  I know that God’s tears have joined ours in our mourning over the precious lost lives in Newtown.  As we have caused this problem, it is up to us to find a way to solve it.  That is what God gave us minds and hearts to do.  God bless everyone touched by this horrible disaster, and God bless all of us as we find a solution.

Finding Christmas in a Difficult World

This is the last Sunday before the Mayan prophecy of the end of the world hits us on the 21st of December.  Frankly, I’m not particularly worried about it.  I really believe that this world that God created and saved will go right on.  Doomsday prophecies seem to be a part of our heritage.  Every couple of years or so, there is somebody claiming that the end of the world is approaching.  It never seems to occur, even though we don’t seem to understand that pumping endless supplies of CO2 into the atmosphere is not doing it any good and that climate change is much more than a theory, that it is upon us and that we may at this point be beyond salvation.  We’ll have to see about that.

In the meantime, we are in the middle of Advent and getting ready to celebrate the birth of our savior.  If you can ignore the commercialism all around us, this is a good time to quiet down and meditate on the goodness that also surrounds us.   Every week the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette publishes a column dedicated to the kindness that is shown by people in the city.  They get letters about good things that people have done, such as returning lost wallets, helping children and the such.  It always makes me feel good to read these things.  I know that there is an innate goodness inside each of us that can transcend the badness that is so obvious.

When I had my prison ministry, I was always impressed with the way that the men in my group cared about each other, and the way that others in the prison population came to the fore when there was need.  That was not obvious to those outside the prison who held all inmates in disregard and who seemed to want increased not decreased sentences.  That is probably why our prisons are so full today.  We incarcerate one out of five people in this country.  That is one of the highest figures in the world.  We are on a par with China and Iran in this regard.

But Christmas is coming.  Once again we are reminded of God’s glorious love for all of humanity, particularly including those in prison and those in need.  Instead of our intense desire to gather more and more things around us, it would be better if we could focus our financial attention on those who live their lives without even the basic things that we all take for granted.

I know that if Christianity disappeared from the face of the earth, Christmas with all of its merchandising would go right on.  We long ago lost control of the theology behind it.  God’s love is a powerful part of the message of this season.  When we become calm and small and meditate on the real meaning of this time, we can see that the need of those around us is more than cards and baubles.  The need is certainly for food, shelter and care.  And more than that, the need is simply for kindness.  God blesses us richly when we provide it.  Do something nice for somebody today. You might get your name in the paper!

Finding Peace in a World of Conflict

      The English church has rejected the idea of consecrating women to be bishops.  This was because the vote was a few shy in the lay order after the bishops and the priests had voted for it.  They say that there will be a delay in this, but the incoming Archbishop of Canterbury says that he will consecrate a woman to be bishop during his tenure.  In the meantime, Presbyterians in Pittsburgh are splitting over doctrinal matters in the same way that the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh did a few years ago.  It is really becoming more and more difficult for all of us to live with the contradictions of opinion that we all have.

I am also a bit surprised at how stunned the Republican party was after their defeat by President Obama in the presidential election.  They believed the polls and Fox news and got most of it wrong.

We live in a time when differences of opinion become fiscal cliffs or reasons for war, not peace.  We have a hard time finding compromise and accepting the profound differences that we all have with each other.  I suspect that it has always been like this, although it seems to me that we have in the past been better able to resolve our differences and to get along better with each other.

The problem is our common sin.  The idea that we get in our heads that we are the center of the universe and that only our opinions matter.  That has been going on throughout all of the human experience.  Over the ages, we have looked to God to solve this terrible problem, to somehow bring peace to a world where we are constantly the reason that there is no peace.

God has tried a number of times to get our attention, to help us to find ways to agree with each other and to stop our constant arguments.  God sent the Law to Moses, then the prophets to speak to us, and finally God came to us himself in the person of Jesus of Nazareth to show us in his humanity the way that God would have us to live.  Jesus healed, took care of the poor, lived with those who were called sinners and chastised the rich.  And for his efforts, he was crucified by all of us because we have the same trouble with God that we have with each other.  We love ourselves more than we love each other.

But that wasn’t the end of the story.  God brought Jesus from the grave in the miracle of the Resurrection. The followers of Jesus gathered together after this powerful event and became the church.  They worshipped God and continued the work that Jesus had begun.  The interesting thing is that the church over the centuries continued to argue and bicker just as they had before the church existed, even though the work of love continued.  During the season of Advent, our yearning is once again for the coming of the Lord to free us from ourselves and to make the world whole and peaceful.  That is certainly the Spirit of Christmas.  Somehow deep inside, we know that without the help of God we will always be unable to live the lives that God intended for us.

The way of peace, however is not for us to wait expectantly for God to come and fix us.  That has been tried.  The way of peace is for us, the Church, to live in the love that God provided for us in the teaching of Jesus.  To love God and to love each other above all things.  That is the only way that God’s will can be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.  It is up to us to make this world better.  And it is within our power.  Thank God for all of the love that has been lavished on humanity.  May we show our thanks by the way that we respond with our love for each other.

The Renewal of the World

       When I was in seminary, I worked one summer in Washington, D.C. out of a Lutheran church at  16th and V Street.  It was in the upper 14th street area that was burned by arson after the assassination of Martin Luther King.  The arson spread all the way to DuPont Circle, where St. Thomas Episcopal Church was torched.  It was a terrible time for the whole community and the devastation was evident as I walked the streets learning how to do pastoral ministry.

The poverty and the lack of proper housing was almost overwhelming.  I had one white family living on a street of mostly abandoned homes.  Social workers visited and tried to help.  The father stayed in his room most of the time and his wife and kids lived their lives trying to make do with whatever came their way.  The community developed a beautiful scheme to get food at the end of the month when the checks ran out.  They would take turns going to the relief agencies to get help.  They would then come back to the neighborhood with what they were able to obtain and share it.  It was remarkable to me the way that underneath all of the poverty, that community found a way to work.

The father lived in a sea of depression.  The pastor of the Lutheran church where I worked asked me one day what my plan was for him.  I told him that I wanted to get him to come out of the room, talk to me, somehow alleviate his depression and then set him on a path to getting a job.  The pastor was a remarkably wise man, who then said to me about my plan, “And finally by your grace, he will achieve everlasting life.”   That put in perspective for me the limits of my ministry and the probability of my success.  Ultimately, I don’t know what happened to that family.  I was there for the rest of the summer, but I left before there was any resolution to their problem.  As always, they taught me much more than I was able to provide for them.

I was reminded of all of this because of the reading from the Book of Jeremiah.  In the 33rd chapter, the prophet says:

                              The days are surely coming, says the LORD, 
                             when I will fulfill the promise I made to the
                              house of Israel and the house of Judah.  In
                              those days and at that time I will cause a 
                             righteous Branch to spring up for David; and
                             he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

  The people in those neighborhoods were certainly yearning for righteousness,   but they could find it nowhere.  Their lives were full of poverty and distress.  There was nobody to change what was so oppressive outside.

Change was what I thought I was there to do, but it wasn’t up to me.  Ultimately, the work to effect change came from many organizations that brought wholesome change to that neighborhood and brought many people out of poverty and brought hope where there was only despair.

My work in Washington was forty years ago.  The pain is still felt.  I saw an article yesterday that said that Gene Robinson, the Bishop of New Hampshire who created such a stir when he was chosen because he is a gay man living with and married to his partner is planning after his retirement to go to D.C. to be Bishop in Residence at St. Thomas Church.  There is another chapter in the healing of the pain of the world that will begin.  I thank God for that and know that the renewal of the world can’t be far behind.

Quirks and Acceptance

     Thanksgiving is such a wonderful day.  It is filled with all of the relationships that have become a part of our lives.  As Rosie and I have gotten older, more and more people have joined our family.  We not only have our three beautiful daughters, but there are also our five grandchildren and now two great-grandchildren.  This is something that I never really thought I would experience.  Looking at those two young boys that our Alison has brought into this world gives me great pleasure.  I know that they will grow up and learn to appreciate all of these people who crowd around them and learn to love them, even with all of their quirks.

Quirks is what we are all about, really.  We all have rough edges that life sometimes sands down, but they are always with us.  What we need to do about our quirks is to forgive them, mostly.  That isn’t always easy.  We can become annoyed with each other over all kinds of things.

This past political campaign gave us ample opportunity to display our opinions, not all of which were shared by others.  How we coped with that is essential to our relationships.  Rosie has a good friend who is very conservative.  When they talked during the election, Rosie kept the conversation away from the politics as best she could.  When that didn’t always work, she would become a bit annoyed and wonder what she ought to do to change her friend’s attitudes.  The problem isn’t in changing her friend, it is in changing ourselves so that we can accommodate the opinions that we don’t share.  Now that the election is over, their conversations are a bit more comfortable.

My parents were strong Republicans, who disliked Franklin Roosevelt with a passion.  I grew up to take a different course and have a different opinion.  I know that my parents would probably not approve of my choices in elections, but that is not something that is going to make me change.  I know that the reason that we have elections is so that these differences that we all have can be somehow sorted out and that this society of ours can move forward.  That includes all of us, no matter what our political affiliations are.

I thank God not only for my family, but also for my friends, who also know my quirks and mostly accept them.  I don’t think that is always very easy.  I am self aware enough to know that I can be somewhat irritating with my opinions, which I don’t easily hide.  That can be a barrier sometimes.  In my ministry, I have mostly had people in my parish who accepted me, even when they disagreed with what I had to say.  I am thankful for that.

In the book of Daniel, there is a vision of the Ancient One on his throne with the appearance of “one like a human being” being presented to him.  The Ancient One gives this person dominion, glory and kingship over all of the peoples, nations and languages.  This is a powerful vision.  It predates the coming of the Christ, but is certainly descriptive of our Lord.

If all of us who live in this world are living under the vision and the command of the Ancient One, we are therefore unified under this “one like a human being”.  We have come to understand this as our Lord Jesus, our King and our savior.  Somehow that makes me feel rather small with my quirks.  I believe that these are known to my God and that I am accepted with them, just as are my friends and relatives with theirs.

The End of the World

Predictions of the end of the world aren’t new.  We have been hearing them for ages from people who ought to know better.  Certainly the world will come to an end.  The sun will flame out, become a red star and we will have no source of heat.  The oceans will dry up and the air will become unbreathable.  But that isn’t now, or even close to now.  Environmentalists are rightly concerned about the state of our earth, the melting of the polar icecap, the terrible pollution of our atmosphere, and if we do nothing about these things, there will be terrible consequences for this planet.  Already the temperatures seem to be rising and storms more frequent.  The devastation of the storm on the east coast over the past couple of weeks is certainly evidence that we can’t ignore the climate.

But it is one thing to be actively concerned about our environment and another thing entirely to predict the imminent end of the world.  But somehow, we are fascinated by the idea that something terrible is going to happen to all of us.  The Mayan Calendar ending on December 21 is an example of this.  Until we get to December 22, this won’t be put to rest.  So it becomes fodder for people who thrive on predicting disaster.

Jesus speaks to his disciples who are admiring the great temple.  He tells them that all of the stones in that building will be thrown down and not one stone will stand upon another.  They ask him privately when this will happen and he tells them to be careful not to be led astray, that there will be those who come and claim to be the leader, but not to follow them.  Nation will rise up against nation, he says, but these are the birth- pangs.

What follows from all of this is that God holds us all in the palm of his hand.  We need not fear whatever we see around us.  The birth that is coming is of God’s ultimate Kingdom in which we all will live in peace and harmony.  When will this happen?  It’s impossible to say, but certainly nations are still rising up against each other, there are earthquakes and other signs.   Just as Jesus said, the terrible signs are all around us.

The message is clear.  Our God loves this planet and all of us.  Despite what we do to one another, we will not lose that love and that care.  Jesus came to us to demonstrate with his life the love that completely resides in God.  Despite his crucifixion, and our rejection of Jesus, he rose from the dead to help us to know that we will rise also, no matter what the world looks like, our salvation is complete.