Christmas and God's Love

            Christmas is certainly a beautiful time of the year.  I know that you have done a lot of shopping, decorating and getting ready for visits from relatives.  There is a wonderful sense of community that surrounds this day.  Certainly we think of Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward all people at this moment in our year.  It would be wonderful if we could extend this wonderful feeling to all of the rest of the year too.

            I have always been intrigued by God’s reasoning at Christmas.  In the beginning, God created humankind male and female.  God watched as we tangled with each other over every conceivable issue.  We fought over land, over wealth, over everything.  Our greed and our egos got in the way of our peace.  Even when we created religion, we built into it prejudices so that we could continue to harass each other.  When I read the scriptures, it is certainly apparent to me that our blindness to our selfishness continually got in the way of creating peace on earth and goodwill toward all people. 

            It isn’t possible to argue that we refrained from sin, even for a moment.  Continually, God worked to repair what we destroyed by our self-focused actions.  After a very long time of this, and after many, many destructive events, God decided to do something about our way of sin once and for all.  God decided that the only way to completely understand the human condition would be for God to come to earth in human form and live our lives the way that we lived them. 

            That decision by God produced the incredible occasion of the Angel Gabriel coming to Mary and giving her the news that she would be the bearer of the Son of God; that her child would be born    and live life with Mary and Joseph as parents.  It was astonishing news to Mary.  She was a virgin, a poor woman who was engaged to an older man, Joseph who was a carpenter and a man with not many prospects in this world. 

            The occasion of the birth came after the census was announced and Mary and Joseph travelled to Bethlehem, Joseph’s home city because he was of the lineage of the mighty King David.  The couple couldn’t find housing in Bethlehem and were given lodging in a stable.  On that evening, the child was born and laid in a manger with straw and the cattle and the goats watched.   .

            The story continues with an angel choir visiting shepherds, tending their sheep and telling them of the child’s birth.  The shepherds leave their flocks and travel to the city to see and to adore the child.  Shepherds are interesting as a part of the story because, like Mary and Joseph, they were people of little prospect, with no resources who were looked down upon by the rest of humanity.  Here, they are lifted up by God and given a first glimpse of a new creation and are able to see the Son of God at his birth. 

            Oh, the story has been disputed, called a fable and discounted.  But the essence of the story is that God has come to earth and to life as a human being to be able to understand exactly what it is that we go through in this life.  God came to experience poverty and being shunned so that by knowing that, a complete understanding of the human condition would be available to God.  Along the way, God would also encounter human arrogance and be able to see the source of this terrible condition.  Through all of Jesus’ life, he would encounter those who wished him ill, strangely the leaders of the religion were in the forefront of this effort.  It was the Pharisees and the Sadducees who finally conspired to bring Jesus before Pontius Pilate and condemn him to his death on the cross. 

            That is origin of this beautiful night.  The wise men come later, at Epiphany, but we bring gifts to each other in commemoration of the great gift that has been given to us in the birth of Jesus who became the Christ; the living presence of God on this earth and in our lives.  It is by that gift that we are forgiven our sins, our arrogance and our egotism and are given another chance to be the children that God created in the beginning.  That is a great reason for this holiday and all of the things that we do to celebrate it.  May you all have a wonderful celebration of our Lord’s birth and may God bless you richly.

            

Fear is Our Enemy

                

         This is a prophetic time that we are living in.  With all of the chaos in the world, and our own political situation in such turmoil, we wonder what may be coming.  Sometimes it seems to me that fear is the driving force in what we are told by the media and how our politicians relate to us.  I would like to tell you that everything will be all right, but when I look at what the world seems to be up to, I can't say that.  A new ground war sounds terrible to me, with all of the years that we have been fighting in the middle east, it seems to me that it is a time to refrain from further bloodshed.  The war in Iraq is what brought all of this mess to us and more war will simply inflame it more.  Fear is not the way to approach this calamity.

       In Luke’s gospel, John proclaims what he calls the “good news” to the people.  He tells them of the wrath to come, which doesn’t sound much like good news to me, but John is talking about the coming of the Messiah, the Christ who will redeem the world. The people listened to him and many of them thought that he might be the Messiah.  John told them no, that he would baptize them with water, but the one who was coming would baptize them with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  This is Jesus, who would come to lead the people toward God’s way.  

                Indeed, Jesus came and called his disciples and began the redemption of the world.  In his three short years of ministry in this world, Jesus challenged the powers that were in charge, the religious leaders and the political forces who ran the country.  It cost him his life, and it also cost the disciples their lives. But fear was never a part of Jesus work in this world.  He confronted every disaster that came his way.  He healed, he comforted, he raised the dead and he constantly preached compassion and forgiveness as the way that God chooses to interact with the world.  When he found people who were outcast, he included them.  One of my favorite moments in Jesus ministry is the calling of Matthew to be an apostle; Matthew, the tax collector who was rejected by everyone.  He was hated by everyone because he represented the Roman Government.  But Jesus included him and taught him; so Jesus does with each one of  us.  Even with our flaws, we are accepted and loved by our God who created us in the beginning.  We are promised eternal life by our Lord.  With that in our future, what is there to fear?  We have been given life and promise by our Lord. 

                 This is why we need not fear.  What those who want to oppress us want to use fear to drive their agenda.  When we look out our window and become afraid of what is there or who is there, we play into their hands.  When we lean on our Lord and remember his overwhelming love for the world and for everyone in it, our fear can dissolve.  Remember that Jesus was not a Christian.  He was a Jew and stayed a Jew through his death and resurrection.  It was his followers who created Christianity and the followers of Mohammed who created Islam.  All of these religions are loved by the God who is at the head of all of them.  God bless us as we try to live together in love and follow our Lord and show his compassion to this world that he  loved so very much.

God's Love in a Hurting World

            Once again, we confront the plague of mayhem created by angry people with firearms in our culture.  Twice on Wednesday, innocent people were shot down by angry assassins who had their own agenda that we probably will never understand.  What I do understand is the wreckage that this kind of activity creates in this nation.  The faces of those bereaved people in San Bernardino and Georgia were heartbreaking.  The statements by the political leaders were hard to listen to and our hearts went out to all of the brave police who responded so well when all of this happened.

            The problem that we face is inactivity.  These episodes all continue along the same path; we mourn the dead, call for action, blame other people and then do nothing.  We have the highest concentration of gun slaughter in any nation in the world.  Even Switzerland, where everyone is armed because they are required to be members of the army, has a very small incidence of this kind of activity. 

            It certainly isn’t hard to point to the source of the problem.  We have no difficulty regulating automobiles and requiring licenses and issuing tickets to those who don’t behave well when they drive them, but when it comes to firearms, we regulate very reluctantly, if at all.  There is well documented opposition to any kind of regulation proposed to limit the purchase of guns by people who just shouldn’t have them.  The worry that is always put forth is that simple regulation is a “slippery slope” leading to confiscation of everyone’s weapons.  That seems to me to be both unlikely and impossible.  We need to get our opinions in order so that we can deal with the mess that this lack of regulation has created.

            I’m sorry that I need to talk about this again.  I would love to talk about this beautiful season of Advent when we look for our savior to come to tidy up the ungodly mess that we have made of this planet.  It is ironic that the 20 plus nations are meeting in Paris to discuss Climate change, another subject that seems so often to be out of our reach, even when all of science seems to agree that it is an apocalyptic problem. 

            If I have ever seen a time when we needed a savior, it is today; a Savior to save us from ourselves and our foolish ideas that we can manage this world’s resources and activities all on our own.  For too long, we have trusted that those who have power and wealth will also have the good sense to regulate themselves for the good of us all.  That is obviously not the case.

             In the Gospel of Luke, John the Baptist appears in the wilderness proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin.  What I notice about this passage of scripture is the way that all of the leadership of the world is noted.  Tiberius was the Emperor; Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod was ruler of Galilee, his brother Philip was also a ruler, of Ituraea and Trachonitis.  It also says that Annas and Caiaphas were the high priests.  Here are the elite, but the repentance that God is calling for is for everyone.  Nobody is excluded.  John quotes the Prophet Isaiah saying Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.  He ends this with the words: all flesh shall see the salvation of God.  These words didn’t sit well with the elite.  They saw John as a threat to their authority.

            I have always pictured John as looking like a homeless man – dressed in a camel hair garment with wild hair, holding a staff and making great gestures as he talked.  I think he would have been a little bit scary and intimidating to the people who were watching him.  For most of the poor people who were watching him, I think he might have looked like a savior.  He made a wonderful person to introduce our Lord to this world.  The poor and the needy have a champion and he will bring hope to those who have nothing.  What could be better news?

            That God would present Jesus the Christ to the world in this way is a great testimony to God’s priorities in this world.  He was not a friend of the elite and those who have it all.  He was and continues to be a great friend to those who are oppressed, homeless, poor and afraid.  That is to whom the good news of the Gospel is directed.  God has no expectation that those who have power and wealth will always seek the best for all of the people.  That is why Jesus is sent by God to be one of us; to take on human flesh so to understand what it means to be a limited human being in this world.  That is why the understanding that Jesus is God’s only son is such a critical distinction.  God coming to earth and living like one of us; knowing hunger, thirst, grief, sorrow and finally death.  Along the way, he sees with human eyes what so many people have to go through in this world.  He heals, gives strength to the weak, and even raises up the dead.  It is clear that the priorities that Jesus brings to this world are not the same as those who are in charge of it, but are a firm indication of the heart of God.  That is why our worship is so critical to who we are and what we do.  We are the inheritors of the goodness that Jesus brought to this earth.  It is our job to continue to love, have compassion and do the work that he laid out for us.  Will we win in the long run?  Certainly.  But in the meantime, there will be difficult times like the ones that we are in.  It is our job to make sure that God’s love always shines forth, not our own private desires.  Let us keep our hearts and minds open to the possibility of solutions to the problems that we face.  God’s will is that they be solved.  God’s love abounds

The Promise of Advent

            It is hard for me to remember when we weren’t engaged in a war.  When I was a kid, it was the Second World War.  I heard the news about Pearl Harbor while I was listening to the radio in our living room.  We had no television set then.  We had blackouts and civil defense wardens walking though our neighborhoods making sure that no light was shining out of our houses.  We had ration books and I took them to the grocery store and got food with the stamps.  At school we had drills when we huddled under our desks when supposedly German bombers were threatening our peace.

            As kids, we would play ball in a vacant lot in back of our houses.  There was a war veteran living nearby who would come out on his back porch and yell at us because of the noise that we were making.  Somebody told us that he was “shell shocked”.  We didn’t really know what that meant, but it served as an explanation for his behavior.  We now know that he had PTSD from the war and we should have been a little bit more compassionate with him.   

            There was great celebration when the war was over.  I remember VE day when the war in Europe was over and VJ day when finally the Japanese surrendered.  We were a bit worried about the atomic bombs that were used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the war, but we were very glad that the conflict was over.

            It was only a few years before we became engaged in Korea and then Viet Nam.  The Cold War overshadowed all of these times.  Peace is certainly an elusive thing. 

            I am struck by the Gospel on this first Sunday of Advent predicting the coming of the Lord Jesus in great power and majesty in the middle of extreme turbulence on this earth.  The message is that we will be troubled beyond our understanding; that wars and rumors of wars will be constant and we will begin to wonder what was to become of us.  But God in His wisdom will send our savior to us and our redemption will be at hand.  That is the Good News of the Gospel.  What I know about that is that it is none of our doing.  We are the ones on this earth creating the havoc and the multitude of difficulties.  Our political systems simply aren’t strong enough to get us out of our misery and we need the hand of God to help us.  Our help is in the name of the Lord and he will finally, at last, bring redemption. 

            The problem with that is that it has very little to do with our own ability to solve our own problems.  By ourselves, we can do very little to make peace in this world.  We can love one another, care for one another and do our best to make this world a better place.  That is what Jesus taught us and asked us to do as his followers.  But when it comes to creating a world full of harmony, we don’t have the ability to do that. 

            There were times when we tried. After Constantine recognized Christianity, the cross marched ahead of the Roman army and we began compelling adherence to the Christian faith at the point of a sword.  That didn’t work very well.  Certainly the Crusades were an example of this.  We sent armies into the Holy Land to defeat Saladin and his armies and to free Jerusalem from those who had conquered it.  That resulted in more, not less war.  After all of the crusades were over, we had the burden of the Inquisition, which tried to impose Christianity on humankind by force and terror.  That didn’t really work very well either.  When I look at our history, it is hard for me to understand how we ever believed that we could remake the world in God’s image by force and argument.  It just doesn’t work.

            What we have been taught by our Lord is that love is the way to the human heart.  When we love each other, hearts are drawn to us.  We don’t need guns or swords to do this; our compassion and our love are what works best. 

            What our Lord promises us in this season of Advent is that eventually, God will make the world over in the way that it was always intended to be by sending his only Son back to us to be our savior and redeemer.  That good news is what we are celebrating in this magnificent season.  We celebrate Advent as a time of anticipation that God’s incredible goodness will at last triumph over the egotistical misery that our human nature breeds. 

            That is welcome news in this time of increased conflict and fear.  We wonder where the world is going and our political systems don’t seem to be able to give us much in the way of answers about what will happen next.  But when we love one another and accept each other the way that we come, there is a beauty in that that comes from the heart of God.  While we wait for our Lord to come, we can make the world much better when we love.

Loving the Refugees

             At Christ Church, when I was the rector, we always did a re-enactment of the very long Palm Sunday Gospel.  People would dress up and come down the center aisle and take the part of all of the people in that incredible drama.  I was always Pilate; somehow I thought the priest ought to take that role.  There was Judas, throwing the money at the feet of the chief priests and running away.  Someone would take the part of Jesus and cry out in agony as the cross was employed.  I always loved that long gospel because it encompassed the whole of Jesus’ teaching at the moment of his death.  It wasn’t yet time for the resurrection and we were faced with the horror of what we had all done in the name of ourselves. 

            At the moment that Jesus entered Jerusalem on the back of a donkey another procession was also coming into the city.  This was the leadership of the Roman Empire accompanied by an army, coming into town to show the might of the people who controlled the nation.  It was the Romans who governed everything and to whom the chief priests and the scribes owed their allegiance. 

            What has always stood out for me in this wonderfully ironic story is the cheering of the crowd and the laying of palms at the feet of Jesus as he came into the city and how those cheers were turned to jeers not long after as the crowds called for his crucifixion when he was brought before Pilate and charged.  It wasn’t only Judas and Peter who denied Christ at that moment.  The message is that we all have done that.  I have betrayed Christ by my selfishness and my fear and by my constant intent to live primarily for my own welfare.

            I think of this curious contrast in this moment as we have mourned the loss of the lives in Paris in the terrorism that we witnessed last week and the response to it by those who would blame all of this on the Muslim religion and deny the refugees who are fleeing Syria and Iraq any admittance to this country.  The negative response to the call to admit refugees has been anything but inspiring.  It is a measure of the fear and hatred that we have in our hearts that keeps us from doing anything to help these people.  I remember the words on our Statue of Liberty that says simply: Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.  I lift my lamp beside the golden door.  Emma Lazarus caught the spirit of America in that wonderful poem that expressed our welcoming spirit.  I have seen pictures of ships sailing past that statue on their way to Ellis Island with a cargo of refugees from many countries. Both of my grandfathers came from abroad.  My mother’s father from Sweden and my dad’s mother and father came from the English midlands.   Our nation has been populated by skilled people from Italy, Hungary, Ireland and many other places where life was hard.  Look at the names of the people that you know.  We come from many places.  We are a wonderful amalgamation of the human race.  We have become Americans.  Because of what has so gracefully happened to us, we certainly can continue to offer a welcoming hand to those who are oppressed today.

             Jesus came and taught us to love one another. It is not bombs and guns that are a good response to the hatred that we have seen; but love and compassion.  Certainly, we have shown a measure of that to the people of Paris and Beirut who have suffered; but we need also to have some compassion and love for those who have been a part of the perpetration of these tragedies.  When we can learn to love our enemies, then there will be peace on this earth.

             Jesus taught us to love one another.  He didn’t specify any conditions for that.  He even said particularly that we are to love our enemies.  That isn’t easy for any of us to hear, not in the wake of 9/11 or the Paris or Beirut bombings.  Our instinct is to retaliate, to eliminate; to strike back with the same measure of hatred that we are experiencing.  If there is anything for us to learn from human history, it is that this doesn’t work.  It simply produces more of the same.  When we can respond with love instead of hatred, we will turn hearts and minds toward peace.  A good start toward that would be compassion for that great crowd of people who are yearning to breathe free; who need a new place to start.  They bring with them their skills and their lives.  We will be blessed by their presence, if only we can get past our fear and open our arms to receive them.   May God bless us and them in this struggle and bring us all out on the side of hope and justice.

The Heritage of Children

            When I was a kid, children were beginning to be wanted, not needed.  There was a time when children were required to help on the farm or in the business and it was a great thing for a family to have a number of children.  My father-in-law was one of ten children in his family and was sent out to work on a farm as a child.  Like his brothers he was “farmed out” to work on a neighborhood farm. This was almost a norm in our society.  We had children because we had to have the hands to do the work that was so essential.  In this time, we have come full circle. 

            I read an article the other day talking about how families now have both parents working and are worrying because they don’t have the time to take care of their children.  They are making enough money with two people being employed; but the kids don’t have the full-time care that they would have with a stay at home mom or pop.  We see it in our family.  Our granddaughter and her husband have two small boys.  When their mom is working and the kids don’t have school, they need to find somebody to care for them.  Sometimes, that is Rosie and me.  We love it when one of them comes to spend the day; but I see the anxiety in their mom’s eyes.  She would really love to be home full time to take care of them.  These are good kids who have excellent, loving parents and who will grow up to be good people.  They are obviously loved and nurtured and really have everything that they need.  I have no doubt that they will be excellent adults.

            The section of First Samuel is a wonderful tribute to God who has given to Hannah a child that had been denied to her for years.  She pleaded with God to open her womb and let her have a child and when this happened and her son Samuel was born, she praised God with what looks to me like the Magnificat of the Old Testament 1 Samuel 2: 1-10 . Hannah praises God in these words:

                       

             The LORD makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap; to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and on them he has set the world.

            In Luke’s Gospel, after Mary visited Elizabeth to tell her of her own pregnancy and the coming birth of Jesus, and learned of the coming of the child who would grow up to be John the Baptist, Mary raised her voice in that elegant song of praise that we know as the Magnificat     Luke 1: 46-55. These are songs that come from the hearts of women who know that they are very blessed to be able to look forward to having children who they will nurture and who will grow up under their care.  That is a glorious gift.  All of us who have children know the wonder of that.  And what a gift John and Jesus were to the whole world.  Neither of them lived very long and had tragic endings.  Mary watched as Jesus was crucified and she wept bitter tears. She came to understand the power of God through the resurrection of her son.  We have all been blessed by that incredible event.

            I have also watched when something like that happened. . When a child is lost, it is a terrible tragedy in a family.  I have seen parents struggle for years with that kind of loss.  It certainly defines us.  I know one couple who lost a son who then had a terrible time for several years after that death and who finally came out of it more blessed than I could have imagined.  Grief is a way that we are healed after a tragedy.  It is a miserable time of life and we need care and comfort when we experience it; but it is possible to come through it to a time of renewed hope and promise.

            Samuel was indeed a gift to Hannah.  He went on to greatly bless the Hebrew people.  They had been leaderless for a long time.  Samuel was essentially the last Judge of the Hebrews.  He led them through difficult times when their religion had almost vanished.  Eventually, they demanded a king.  Samuel talked to God who told him to appoint Saul as their king.  He did so and Saul disappointed the people as God was certain that he would.  He then commissioned Samuel to find another king.  He sent him to the house of Jesse where God said that one of his sons would be the next king.  Samuel saw all of the sons of Jesse who were present and none of them was the one designated by God.  Samuel asked the father if that was all of his sons and Jesse replied that there was yet another who was at that moment tending the sheep.  Samuel asked that he be brought home and it turned out that this was David who was the one chosen by God to be the great king of the Hebrews. 

            This is a great story, linking the book of Ruth, who conceived Obed who was the father of Jesse and Samuel who came to anoint Jesse’s son David as the king.  It was the way that God made a new beginning for the Hebrew people. 

            Our children are always a new beginning.  They are the herald of the future and those who tell the story of the past.   My grandson, Michael is a writer.  He will chronicle all of the things that this family of ours has seen and done in our time.  He will be an eloquent voice to remind those who follow that life has a purpose, even when we can’t quite see it.  May God bless all of those who come after this generation of ours.  Our children are our future and they are indeed a gift.

Hope Through Simplicity

             The problems in the Middle East just won’t go away.  When Rosie and I were in Israel and Palestine a few years ago, there was an obvious strain in the relationship that the Israelis had with the Palestinians.  The Palestinians had different license plates and there were many check points on the roads that they could not go through.  In the West Bank, there were numerous places where settlers were reclaiming territory that they thought had been given to them by God and that the Palestinians had no claim to the territory at all.  This attitude strained relationships beyond any tolerance and there were frequent violent clashes.  In Northern Jordan, we visited a Palestinian refugee camp filled with people who had lost their homes.  Their fears and disappointments were quite obvious.

            I am intrigued by the Book of Ruth and the wonderful integration of the cultures that it represents.  Ruth was a Moabite.  That probably means little to you, but the Moabites were created when the daughters of Lot found their father drunk in a cave following the escape from Sodom when their mother was turned into a pillar of salt because she looked back at the destruction of the town.  The daughters each got pregnant by their drunken father at their own insistence.  The eldest daughter gave birth to a child named Moab, who became the leader of the tribe that eventually produced Ruth.  The remarkable nature of the story is that in due course, Ruth married Boaz and they produced a baby named Obed who became the father of Jesse, who was the father of David, the great King of Israel.  There was a fully integrated family that came from both the tribes of the Moabites and the Hebrews.  That integration served them all very well when the opposition was from the Babylonians and the Assyrians.  It is harder to see today when the opposition is from the God given-ness of the Jewish state and the Arab people who have lived in the area for centuries. 

             I am convinced that there isn’t much that you and I can do to fix this mess.  We can only keep it in our prayers and our hearts and hope that by God’s infinite grace this problem will find a solution.  Simplicity seems to me to be a better place to start than the wielding of power. 

            In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus talks about the Scribes, the religious leaders,  who like to walk about in long robes and take the best seats at all of the gatherings.  He says that they will, in the end, receive condemnation.  He watches as people put money into the treasury.  He sees the rich people put in large sums very ostentatiously.  Then a poor widow comes and puts into the treasury two small copper coins that are worth a penny.  He tells his disciples that this woman has contributed more than any of the others because they have given out of their surplus, but she has given all that she has.  This is a wonderful sermon about simplicity; how less is often worth much more.

           I know that is true for you and me also.  It is also probably true about the problems that affect so much of our world.  We complicate them with our egotistical need to control and to fix.  What separates most people is their need to be right and for those who oppose them to be wrong.  That is certainly true in our politics.  Blame and finger pointing seem to substitute for relevant conversation about what we need to do in this world.  When we can remove our egos from the argument, it is always easier to find answers.  That, I believe, is what Jesus is telling his disciples and what he is telling us. 

            One of the prime reasons for our involvement in the Middle East has been a strong desire to plant democracy in those different nations.  That is what we had in mind in Iraq, in Libya and certainly what we hoped for in Syria.  Obviously, that isn’t happening.  Those countries have their own tribal governments that have no desire at all to have what we call democracy.  They are simply tribes struggling in their own areas to keep their own control.  Our vision for these people is much too large for them to understand what we have in mind, and more the problem, it is our vision, not theirs.  I wonder if we would learn to listen more and talk less that we might be able in this world to find more inclusive answers to the questions that confront us. 

            When Jesus was given a coin and asked if it was right to pay taxes to Caesar, Jesus asked whose picture was on the coin.  When the people answered that it was Caesar’s picture, Jesus told them to give to Caesar what belonged to Caesar, and to give to God what belonged to God.  He didn’t tell them to not pay the taxes, he simply told them to get their priorities straight.  If we could pay more attention to what God wants, which is for us to love one another as we are loved by God and not try to make everyone over in our own image, we might discover that the answers that seem to elude us are much easier to find.