Week of Dec. 18 Selections

Dec. 18-Sunday-Ps 80 uses an image a god tending a vine with a gardener’s car. Does this image hold power for you? How could you use in in your life now? Where does it lack power for you?

Monday-As our faith matures we come to recognize Christ’s hidden presence everywhere.” That’s because a maturing faith is paradoxically childlike. It is marked by openness to new ideas, points of view, and experiences, all of which enable us to see again our God, who knows neither time, nor place, nor limitation.Br. John Braught

Tuesday-To restfully wander means to me that I am in a unique position to follow my heart and explore – just don’t commit to anything yet. My instructions are to listen. In other words, be at home where I am planted and enjoy what is at hand. This has meant several months in Arizona living with my Dad, joining a long overdue exercise regiment, hiking; signing up for a writing pilgrimage in Ireland; joining a labyrinth gathering in Indiana, and hearing dog assistance training. I don’t know why my heart leaps at these certain experiences. I often find myself saying, really? Dog assistance training? Or, a labyrinth gathering?  I am realizing that I need to stop fighting the process and accept the strange formlessness of restful wandering. It is in relinquishing my will to see the situation as I want it to be that I will discover my own transformation and live at large as a monk in the world.  Life coach Martha Beck writes about “the still and curious of the threshold . . . to sit with the nothingness until your fear fades.”  That’s what I am working on. Abbey of the Arts

Wednesday-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin- .“Above all,” it begins, “trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.”

Thursday-“Humility means remembering our human limitations.  It is about learning that saying no is equally as important as saying yes.”--- Christine Valters Paintner, PhD

Friday-"Perhaps I am stronger than I think. Perhaps I am even afraid of my strength, and turn it against myself, thus making myself weak.Making myself secure. Making myself guilty.Perhaps I am most afraid of the strength of God in me.Perhaps I would rather be guilty and weak in myself, than strong in Him whom I cannot understand." (Thomas Merton)

Saturday-"God works through others and through me to lead me to a fuller and better life. I believe that God has big dreams for all of us and is constantly inviting us to choose freedom over fear, generosity over greed, compassion over comparison, and service over selfishness. As such, I’m sure that God is involved in all our decisions, no matter how seemingly trivial. But I’m also sure that God is there plotting to make me happy, so God is not there with a divine remote control but, instead, gently invites us to greater love." - Paul Brian Campbell, SJ

Week of Dec. 25 Devotional Selections

Sunday-"For those of us that believe, the whole world is decorated in love."-- Ann Weems,

Monday-We can shutter our souls with activity, but powerful spiritual silence, if we allow it, will blow fresh winds of the Spirit through us. Not like a safe spring breeze. More like a hurricane. When the power of God comes to us in holy silence, we might be blown about, or even blown apart.Brent Bill

Tuesday-Jesus himself is both the start of that new creation and the Lord who gives his own Spirit so that his people can continue the project. You see, from Genesis 1 onwards it’s clear that the Creator God wants to rule his world through wise, image-bearing human beings. There is a Trinitarian base for all biblical political theology: the Creator wants to work in the world by his image of justice and mercy being reflected through obedient, humble, wise humans. The Davidic king is seen in some texts as the true Adam. N. T. Wright

Wednesday-Barbara brown Taylor on Incarnation-"It was a daring plan, and once the angels saw that God was dead set on it, they broke into applause. ... While they were still clapping, God turned around and left the cabinet chamber, shedding his robes as he went. The angels watched as his midnight blue mantle fell to the floor, so that all the stars on it collapsed in a heap. Then a strange thing happened. Where the robes had fallen, the floor melted and opened up to reveal a scrubby brown pasture speckled with sheep and - right in the middle of them - a bunch of shepherds, sitting around a campfire drinking wine out of a skin. It was hard to say who was more startled, the shepherds or the angels, but as the shepherds looked up at them, the angels pushed their senior archangel to the edge of the hole. Looking down at the human beings who were all trying to hide behind each other (poor things, no wings), the angel said in as gentle a voice as he could muster, 'Do not be afraid

Thursday-That is the Gospel, this meeting of darkness and light and the final victory of light. That is the fairy tale of the Gospel with, of course, the one crucial difference from all other fairy tales, which is that the claim made for it is that it is true, that it not only happened once upon a time but has kept on happening ever since and is happening still." [Frederick Buechner)

Friday-you learn how to live in heaven now. And no one lives in heaven alone. Either you learn how to live in communion with the human race and with all that God has created, or, quite simply, you’re not ready for heaven. If you want to live an isolated life, trying to prove that you’re better than everybody else or believing you’re worse than everybody else, you are already in hell. You have been invited—even now, even today, even this moment—to live in the Communion of Saints, in the Presence, in the Body, in the Life of the eternal and eternally Risen Christ." Richard Rohr

Saturday-“Thomas Merton says that to be a saint means to be myself. This sounds so simple. And yet, we know how challenging it is, how many obstacles we set before ourselves, how many layers of fear and resistance have built up over the years, how much our egos are attached to being viewed in a certain way, and what we are grasping onto.” Christine Valters Paintner, PhD

Christmas Day Notes Heb. 2, John 1

Let’s  get a little more sophisticated this morning. We just had another fine Christmas Eve service. We read the words born of the virgin Mary in the creeds. We mean that God was one of us-deity was incarnated-the spirit god took o9n flesh.John’s Christmas story does not look like a christmas story,but it is the key to understanding christmas in a new way.

Quick Greek the Word in Greek is logos, where we get our word, logic or study as in biology from. God’s logic became flesh, perhaps God’s wisdom or vision was made flesh, became one of us.by the time of Jesus his religious compatriots had mad ethe link between biblcial Wisdom and  the idea of the logos, a rationality, meaning, purpose in the world. Instead of talking about biology, the early theologians talked about  God’s logos entering into the very life of Jesus.What does it mean to have God incarnate, god in the flesh?  In a long process the term became identified with God’s Wisdom and indeed God’s instruction, God’s Torah. Here not only is jesus Emmanuel, god with us, but it is heightened as God is with us in the flesh. God tents, takes up residence here with us, in the flesh.the Sheltering One who gives us shelter from the storm resides with us.

Heen-The comparison of “the Son” with the angels is introduced in Hebrews 1:1:4. What does it mean to speak of god’s own in utero, as a nursing infant? What does it say of a God who enters fully into a created condition? We are so determined to emphasize the divinity of jesus, we often lose track of his humanity, even at this time of year. The old jesus Christ superstar asked why was jesus born in such a backward time in such a strange land?  Does God’s logic have to correspond to ours?

Son language had long been the word for a speical relationship, beyond biology.At the enthronement of Jesus at the right hand of God (a reference to Psalm 110:1; cf.; Hebrews 1:13), Jesus becomes “as much superior to angels as the name [kyrios, “Lord,” see Psalm 110:1; cf. Philippians 2:9] he has inherited. Then follows a “chain” (catena) of Old Testament citations that compares the “Son” to “angels” to evidence the superiority of Jesus (Hebrews 1:5-14).We continue to want Jesus to be more angelic than human, more spiritual and less physical.

It is somewhat difficult for us, perhaps, to understand the necessity of such an involved midrash on the relationship between Jesus and the angels. What lies in the background, however, is the death of Jesus. The theological question being addressed is, “How can the earthly Jesus who was crucified by the Romans be ‘more excellent’ than angels, who -- though created -- are of the spiritual order? On the face of it, the claim seems foolish. Incorruptible spirit should trump weak and mortal flesh. Why did the Son of Man, for a time, descend “lower than the angels?” The Son of God becomes vulnerable and weak flesh in order that the power of death might be  There is, for example, the light/darkness contrast of John 1:4b-5 that complements the “radiance/reflection” language of Hebrews 1:2. These visions of the Son born to Mary in terms of light, radiance/reflection (apaugasma can mean either), and glory are stunningly apt this time of the year. That radiance is not any less in the form of Jesus, as a baby, or an adult. That radiance was shown in teaching, in healing, in an attitude that spoke christmas in action.

Christmas Eve notes

Christmas Eve 2016 Lk. 2 Is. 9-Is. 9  birth that announced Emmanuel in a tough time-

-no room in the upper room/guest room-Upper room and communion all the readings point to messianic features-the expected one

Luke says  that the angels greeted the shepherds in the fields. They are transformed from the military power of the host of heaven into an angelic chorus, similar to when we have the Air force Band play locally.I vividly recall one Christmas Eve when I went to a nursing home to work with this reading with a number of dementia patients there. I decided to sing some hymns with them. For the first verse, most of the dementia residents could sing a carol, even though they had long ago lost their ability to read.

Following Dickens Christmas stories often deal with a poor child and a special gift. --Knows the year by political leasders at a time when Roman Emperors collected titles, including divine ones.Christmas peace v. Roman peace Pax Romana or Americana--Shepherds as a sign of across the board inclusion humility embodied--Manger from Isaiah perhaps feeding trough-feed by a miracle-feeds us spiritually in Communion romantic or dirty animal section of the house; some say a cave-Original may have been made of stone or even clay (bricks?) ox eats around 30-40lbs of hay a day. Usually, animals were kept for the night inside the house, a version of a garage.

Jerome wrote his great Latin translation of the Bible in a cave near the traditional site of the Nativity.The church of the nativity was built by Constantine of course. Over the years   it was felled by fire, by earthquake and disrepair. Silver star was stolen. Marble was looted. The Ottoman empire ceded control of the area to religious groups who continue to vie over its  use and liturgy. Now of course it is in occupied territory by the Israelis, and the Palestinians have sought to help restore the church just recently,as the roof is leaking and some .We have our own silver star here. So the one born and laid in a feeding trough continues to a have a difficult nativity site. Three groups try to share it, and they have gotten into a rock throwing riot when arguing about dusting the light fixtures.One procession will follow another and some jostling occurs. ON the other hand, if there were a number of animals in the guest area of a house in Bethlehem,Ii bet there was some pushing about as well. May have been the site of a temple to Adonis. Helena had the church built on her pilgrimage where she selected sites for a number of churches. Door of humility to repel looters-I recently learned of the nativity Stone, allegedly from the cave in Bethlehem and is made into jewelry.Hidden from view of Rome and hidden, elusive God in this new mixture of presence in the baby jesus.as Luther said, here is the God whom we cna embrace without fear, God made small enough for us.

Background of one or two hymns Where children pure and happy/Pray to the blessed Child,

Where misery cries out to thee,Son of the undefiled;Where charity stands watching

And faith holds wide the door,The dark night wakes, the glory breaks,And Christmas comes once more. Brooks rode on horseback to Bethlehem on Christmas Eve 1865 and joined in christmas Eve services there. O Little town of Bethlehem for a sunday School program.the tune came in the middle of the night for Rednerr.  .Manger lies within. The manger is in every church, not only as a symbol but a reality of holding the life of Jesus here.

Christmas Column

This column was titled Adult Christmas in my files, but I thought too many minds may go a slightly different way than what I intended. In the early days of computer protections I could never type adult education into a document.It is difficult for ministers not to don the role of Ebenezer Scrooge as a pastor. Too many conflicting pressures pile up in too short a time, too many pleas for help rush in. . Plus we fight the Advent v. Christmas hymn issue every Sunday.

Many churches will read John 1 on Christmas Eve and perhaps Christmas Day as well. John has no manger scene but a sophisticated notion that the logos, the communication, the logic, the vision of God took residence in the human being Jesus of Nazareth. It is the first account in the gospels that undertakes to wonder how the divine and the human can be joined when such a gulf exists between them. So, a christmas question asks, where do we see signs of the Incarnation, where do we find the Incarnation hidden, in the everyday?

I find the presence of the divine in family ritual. The first time I ate at my in-laws they had an enormous, heavy lasagna for Christmas that required a crane to remove from the oven. I enjoy seeing a two year old as entranced with the empty boxes as the sophisticated toy. When I was two, my father bought me an enormous blue tricycle for Christmas. It looked like a 56 Chevy and weighed about as much. He had to place blocks on the pedals for me to ride it. He would die that year, and my mother wondered if he saw me as bigger than I was, if he were being a glimpse into the future.

Our divorce was finalized around Christmas time years ago. The girls were always with their mother on Christmas, so I volunteered to give a chaplain a break at the local hospital. It is difficult to find God’s presence for a child hooked to a chemotherapy drip in a hospital on Christmas.(It even melts the heart of Steve Sallas in Bloom County).  I envision the Holy Family in a hospital room as they keep vigil in the harsh light.

I picture the Holy Family on the way to Egypt stopping by a  place such as St  John’s serving a meal today on Christmas Day.

To help capture the spirit of the season, I often turn to children’s books as a guide.The stories capture me first, but I often admire the stunning illustrations that accompany the bits of text.  I just came across The Third Gift, on myrrh as the last gift of the Magi. An Orange for Frankie is great to read for the elderly who recall getting citrus fruit only at Christmas. The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey has been made into a movie. Angela and the Baby Jesus. People like Christmas Tapestry and Gift of the Traveler.

For older readers, I still love Truman Capote’s Christmas Memory, O Henry’s Gift of the Magi. For the more cynical, go to  David Sedaris’s Christmas  collection.

In music, Tom Waits Christmas Card reminds me of human struggle at any time of year, but  its poignance now. The video of Dylan’s Must Be Santa makes me laugh. Hymns, of course, echo within. I like a really big voice for O Holy Night Hear the one  by Jussi Bjorling, or Jonas Kaufman,  or one of the Three Tenors.

Dickens grasped  the linkage of Christmas and redemption in Christmas Carol. We just went to the Wildey to see a 1938 version of its tale. May your heart grow four sizes too large. May you greet the season with an enthusiasm that  would rival that of tiny tim and the reformed Scrooge himself.

Column on Joseph

On Christmas Eve, we would set out our manger scene. I was a bit perplexed a tone thing. All of the pictures we saw of Joseph were of an elderly man, even older than  I am now. In our manger scene, Joseph looked like a powerful middle-aged man. Of course, later I learned that the pictures were to indicate that  Joseph  would not have sired any children. The word for brother and sister in Mark  6:3 could possibly be loosely interpreted as kin, but I rather doubt that interpretation as tendentious to maintain the “perpetual virginity” of Mary.

The first Biblical Joseph was one who dreamed and could interpret them, perhaps in ways similar to the Magi. He too was taken to Egypt outside his will, with the threat of death hanging over him.

Jesus was under threat even in the womb. Joseph could have had  Mary killed due to his understandable suspicion that she was not faithful to him before their  one year engagement period. In Matthew he resolves to divorce her quietly. That would have placed Mary and the infant Jesus in a terribly untenable social condition of abject poverty. Joseph is told in a dream that God has brought the child into being. Joseph swallows his pride. He makes a choice to ignore the whispers that must have accompanied him and Mary. He makes a decision to start a family.

When the child was born, Joseph again heeds a dream. Knowing murderous Herod is after the child, he heads to Egypt. In that sense, Jesus was a refugee in early life as he was taken to flee a murderous regime. Tradition has all sorts of stops on the mew family’s journey in exile. Lovely legends include a well blessed by baby Jesus whose waters would heal. The Holy Family rested by a tree that dipped its branches in homage to the infant Jesus.. Even the Koran cites Mary resting on a palm tree.

Dreams propel Joseph into doing the right thing. Part of me thinks he responds to dreams as that God  has a hard time getting through to males. Another part thinks that Joseph needed to go past sheer rational ethical action.  So punishment was off the table, but how would she and the child within her live in that culture, in that time? In both instances, he moves in a radical direction in order to protect and sustain life.

At this time of year, many of us are moved to go beyond rational self-interest and to give of ourselves and even takes risks connected to generosity. At times we are pulled in two directions when attempting to make an ethical decision. The dreams of Joseph move him past ethical strictures into  a discernment of conscience.

Joseph is usually called a carpenter, but the Greek word tekton (where we get our word, technical) could indicate a craftsman of some sort, a skilled worker of some type. He is a spiritual craftsman as well. He is called righteous, in the sense of right  relationship with god and neighbor.

Every new parent  is struck by the enormity of the responsibility of a new life. No one is fully prepared to be a parent. Imagine taking on the task of being the father to Jesus. I like to think that Jesus could speak so easily of God as abba, father, since he had such a role model in Joseph. He disappears from the narrative of the life of Jesus. We could assume he died at some point as Jesus moved into adulthood. In this season, we remember this simple man, with reverence.

Sermon Notes Dec. 18 Mt. 1, Rom.1

Dec. 18-Is. 7, Rom.1  Mt. 1:18-25

When I was a boy in Catholic school the pictures of Joseph were of someone who looked like a great grandfather next to the young Mary. Later, of course, it became obvious: the pictures were designed to remove suspicion about the biology of Jesus. In the account of Matthew Joseph(may he increase)  cannot accept Mary’s pregnancy, so he resolves to divorce her quietly instead of having her taken to a religious trial and possibly receive capital punishment.Joseph gets neglected. His namesake interpreted dreams.. Joseph receives one and acts on it.

We are in the middle of a fearful king looking for a sign to strengthen his resolve against attack.will God be with the people or not?(see Ps. 46) The child will choose the good at an early age, perhaps as a sign of being special in understanding as in Is. 11 from 2 weeks ago.Our Bible translates the Is passage properly, as a young woman. The Greek translation made a possibility into more of  a certainty, a virgin of marriageable age. A little more than a century ago the Presbyterian church insisted on five fundamental Christian precepts, and virgin birth was one of them. A few generations ago, it was said that when ministers went through their trials of ordination, they would respond that they agreed with Paul on the virgin birth; Paul never mentioned it of course, as you can tell from our Romans reading.. The mistake we have made is that we act as if the virgin birth is the end of inquiry instead of its beginning. Karl Barth warned that we ignore the doctrine to our peril.It is the sign of the Incarnation. God works through human beings but also breaks out of the way things are if need be.Youth v. age in OT. we have births that are a surprise due to old age-this may be one due to youth.Kings were called the offspring of god, but this king is born to the poor.this king is related to god in an especially deep, ontic way.Is. 7 lin kings 16 and child sacrifice. In the ancient world, special people were thought to be part of divine human intercourse, but at times, they too spoke of the power of God operating on a different plane.

All smoke and mirrors ?not be believed and established  taaminu- teamenu Now to 10-16 is ahaz right not to ask for a sign? A little kid will prove God is with us see Ps 46 mother names well ends in ambiguity-

Joseph had to come to grips with an astonishment..One of the reasons the word comes to Matthew in a dream is that what rational faculty could deal with the message? It is a vehicle for coming to grips with an astonishing claim. In Jesus  divinity and humanity exist together the name Jesus, means god saves/helps/delivers. It is Joshua to us. The Joshua a priest, and of course the great leader into the Promised Land.

Matthew is concerned with the divine pedigree of Jesus, but also the divine purpose for the birth of Jesus. I want to spend more time on Emmanuel, God with us, than the mechanism of the conception of Jesus..Not against us, with us. Not separate from us, with us. Not away from us, with us.2 names Jesus and Emmanuel. -fascinated by tracing the Jesse tree, and traces a set of ancestors all the way back to the founding partriarch Abraham.some of the people are famous; most are not. Some are women, and most of them were foreign women, or had connection with outsiders. Emmanuel is one of us.

Sermon Notes for Dec. 11 Lk. 1, Is. 35

I hate waiting passively, so I bring a book. John Mayer had a song waiting on the world to change.Is. 35, again goes to the opposite of what will happen to the enemies New exodus=-return-utter change/reversal, topsy turvy-alton riverfront changed-no grass in the sidewalks-take a look more closely at all of the reversals   Is. 35 Counters to the destruction of enemies in 34. cultic liturgical procession route or the transportation imagined, not the route of conquest.

Reversal abound. Announces end of judgment

As Walter Brueggemann has reminded us, “Israel’s doxologies are characteristically against the data.” We see and hear the data every night on the news . Add to that the data of our own lives: waiting for the test results from the doctor, mourning the death of a loved one, wondering if we’ll make it through the next round of layoffs.

Wilderness (midbar) has multiple contacts for Israel. It is a place of flight and of freedom (Genesis 16, 21; Exodus 3, 13), populated by deadly animals (Deuteronomy 8:15). Water is scarce (Exodus 15, 17),. It is dangerous (Exodus 14:3). . it is easy to get lost (Num 32; Psalm 107:4). Yet, Wilderness is where God's people learn to become a people. In wilderness God carried them (Deut 1:31), fed them (Exodus 16), and gave them improbable water (Exodus 17). In wilderness God found God's people, guarded and cared for them, and lifted them up (Deuteronomy 32).

When God empties the rich of their excess and fills the hungry with good things, the result is not social reversal -- with the powerless and the powerful changing places -- as much as it is social leveling. Thus God provides for the poor and honors the humiliated. When the arrogant are scattered and the powerful brought down, then every person has access to enough, and no one has too much.(Judith Jones) Every person is treated with dignity and respect, and no one uses power to harm.

-Mary sings about the God who saves not just souls, but actual living people.  God is not content  to point people toward heaven; God’s redemptive work begins here on earth. God fills the hungry not only with hope, but with food. Rather than being satisfied with comforting the lowly, Mary’s Lord lifts them up, granting them dignity and honor, a seat at the table and a voice . At the same time, God shows strength by disrupting the world’s power structures, dethroning the powerful. Jacobsen- songs are powerful-, know that when we gather together and sing to God, the hope and consolation of Israel and the world, are represented. We, like Mary, are swept into God's divine activity to save and redeem that world. A few voices drawn together in song in late December may seem a small thing in the face of the wars and worries of the age, but surely no smaller than those voices joined in Leipzig twenty years ago or those two voices joined in the Judean hill country twenty centuries ago. Mary's God, we should remember, delights in taking what is small and insignificant in the eyes of the world to do extraordinary and unexpected things. So it has been, is, and ever shall be "according to the promise God made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever."

James 5:7(patience) patient endurance or keeping at it. Is that the best you’ve got? Job clearly not patient but he never, ever gives up on his prayers of lament to god.  Mt. 11:2-11 Announcement of new age and the baptist-look at the Jesus program-He is clearly his mother’s son.Jesus is also immersed in Scriptural passages such as Is. 35.

Column on Local Santa

Every year, a team of dedicated volunteers makes Rock springs Park a festival of lights. Every year volunteers organize the procession through the park and  operate a Santa House. They then get a share of the proceeds toward their civic organizations.

I know one of the Santa team personally, and he catalogs events, but he also won’t let accuracy get in the way of good stories. A smart Santa covers his red trousers with a thick red towel, so that the Christmas sound of squish does not get uncomfortable in a drafty Santa House. This is important as Santa’s pants have a way of sliding off if he stands up to dance to Jingle bells.

The children are offered a candy cane, and many of them want to share them with the entire group with them. Older children are uncertain if they even want to be there, but Santa tells them this is an elaborate way to get a family picture, and those are very important to people. They will look back on them when they are older, even as it is a terrible chore right now.

The children seem little impressed with the lights as they drive. Santa can’t believe how late some little children stay up, especially as Santa is usually in bed by 9. Recently a one year old took his first steps, not to parents, but to Santa. Pictures can be an issue, as most small children are afraid of Santa. Sometimes Santa sings to them, but that can often make it worse, if the child is at all musical. Santa gets used as a discipline delivery device, as parent swill threaten the child with sleigh bell retribution if the child has been misbehaving, but Santa has never, ever, heard a parent say that they  deserve special favor since the child has been especially good.

Santa has to be careful not to promise what cannot be delivered. Santa has heard too many tales of ill relatives. A young girl spoke of Grandma in the hospital. Santa won’t promise her to be home for Christmas, but will pray with the child there and then for Grandma to find restoration through hands greater than those found on the North Pole.

Santa says Merry Christmas, ho, ho, ho, but if someone says Happy Holidays, Santa is always gracious and wishes them the same in return. Of course Santa knows that holiday comes from the words holy days. Santa has no patience with those who imagine a war on Christmas for their ideological agenda, and Santa appreciates that people try to be polite to a variety of religious beliefs and disbeliefs. After all, people complained about Santa as part of the imagined war on Christmas pushing Christ out of Christmas not that long ago. One of Santa’s favorite Christmas songs is Happy Holidays, after all.

It breaks Santa’s heart to hear tales of need and poverty at any time of year, but especially this season. Too many times, Santa has been asked to get a parent out of jail in time for Christmas. Santa tells the older ones to write letters and to make drawings or crafts as they miss their parent. We have turned Christmas into such a family holiday that the whole season feels broken when someone is absent. Santa has a hard time holding back tears when a child tells him that Grandma doesn’t know who she is anymore. Santa has heard too many children ask if Grandpa can see them at Christmas, as Grandpa is in heaven.

For many of us, Santa embodies the Christmas spirit. It is one of jollity and utter generosity. May you rediscover the spirit of Santa and Christmas this season.

Points for week of Dec. 11

Sunday-Ps. 146:5-10 links God the Creator to God the liberator. It is a shorthand for Hebrew ethics. The stability of creation  seems to flow into a stable form of social action.What would a prayer for justice look like for you in 2016?

Monday-"The second-century bishop and theologian St. Irenaeus wrote that the true pilgrim was to live life in a state of ‘apavia’, a Latin word which means “roadlessness.” He called for a posture of deep trust in the leading of the Spirit, rather than human direction. In essence, he taught that the place where we don’t know where we’re going is also the place of greatest richness.".--- Christine Valters Paintner

Tuesday-"God loves human beings. God loves the world. Not an ideal human, but human beings AS THEY ARE; not an ideal world, but the REAL WORLD. ...this is for God the ground of unfathomable love. God establishes a most intimate unity with this. God becomes human, a real human being. While we exert ourselves to grow beyond our humanity, to leave the human behind us, GOD BECOMES HUMAN; and we must recognize that God wills that we be human, real human beings. While we distinguish between pious and godless, good and evil, noble and base, God loves REAL PEOPLE without distinction.

Wednesday-"But it is not enough to say that God embraces human beings. This affirmation rests on an infinitely deeper one, a sentence with a more impenetrable meaning, that God in the conception and birth of Jesus Christ has taken on humanity BODILY. God overrules every reproach of untruth, doubt and uncertainty raised against God's love by entering as a human being into human life, by taking on and bearing bodily the nature, essence, guilt, and suffering of human beings. God becomes human out of love for humanity. God does not seek the most perfect human being with whom to be united, but takes on human nature AS IT IS. Jesus is not the transfiguration of noble humanity but the Yes of God to real human beings, nor the dispassionate Yes of a judge but the merciful Yes of a compassionate sufferer. In this Yes all of the life and all the hope of the world are comprised. —Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics, 84-85

Thursday-"We're standing the middle of an awesome mystery - life itself! - and the only appropriate response before this mystery is humility. If we're resolved that this is where we want to go - into the mystery, not to hold God and reality but to let God and reality hold us - then I think religion is finally in its proper and appropriate place" (73). Rohr

Friday-"If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear as it is, infinite." -William Blake

Saturday-"Socrates had it wrong; it is not the unexamined but finally the uncommitted life that is not worth living. Descartes too was mistaken; 'Cognito ergo sum' -- 'I think therefore I am'? Nonsense. 'Amo ergo sum' -- 'I love therefore I am.' Or, as with unconscious eloquence St. Paul wrote, 'Now faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.' I believe that. I believe it is better not to live than not to love." (William Sloane Coffin)

Column on Shoes for the Needy

For the first time in fifty years, the majority of American school children come from low-income homes. It infuriates me that the United States of America has a poverty rate so high that the International Monetary fund made suggestions for our economy that sounded as if we were part of the developing world.  In Alton, fairly recent data indicated that around 60% of students are in need by using the school lunch criterion.

This past week I was at the mall early, as I tried to avoid being run down by hordes of morning walkers. A group of people gathered at Famous Footwear. No, they were not part of the Al Bundy Fan Club. There, volunteers from Rotary, the police, and other service groups were there to help 2 sets of children pick out a pair of shoes. Bell Telephone employees bought shoes for children in the late sixties, when utility workers noticed children heading home without shoes. Atlantis Pools has kept up the program. All God’s Children Shall Have Shoes is a charitable organization that gathers support for this program. Last year almost one thousand area children received shoes.

One boy asked for Nike shoes. He then asked me if old people knew about Nike shoes. I told him that I asked people who wore Nike shoes to get off my lawn. Patiently, people helped children select and check if the shoes fit well. Then, the children received a batch of socks from gracious employees. A truly kindly man gave cookies to the kids as they filed out to wait with their teachers, as the students clutched their bags.

My mother was a Depression era child and teen, and I heard stories of children wearing two different shoes and two left shoes to school. Cardboard helped keep shoes going if the uppers were still good. Sometimes one flopped about in shoes several sizes too big, and the children were told: it’s for your growth. When I was growing up, children were often told to wrap plastic bags around their feet to “waterproof” their shoes. I suppose a lack of proper footwear is a symbol of poverty in my mind.

Charity ennobles the giver, but it rarely gives a sense of respect to the receiver. I am thrilled when basic human needs are met. I hate that we are creating a generation of young people too dependent on spasms of charity to make it through.

At this time of year, I often read Christmas stories. I always go back to Christmas Carol by Dickens and the movies based on that work. Scrooge would fit well in 2016. He is consumed by the accumulation of money. He blames the poor for their plight and does not want to enable their stress on scarce resources. A series of visions gives him a new perspective on his past, the present of the family of his abused employee, and a dim view of his future. He is transformed and gives from a “glad and generous heart.” So many Christmas stories use poverty as a template and then some sort of surprise gift that lightens the burden of a family.

We all have big shoes to fill. We need an economy in this area that will not consign so many children to poverty. We bring children into the world who are guaranteed to be vulnerable to deprivation in too many ways. This season melts the coldest of hearts and opens th3e tightest of fists to give to those in need. For our community the great Christmas gift would be a concerted effort at expanding and creating job opportunities in any sector that could provide stable employment opportunity. In the meantime, may Christmas be a bit easier for all those struggling under terrible burdens, as we offer helping hands.

Sermon Notes-Advent 2 Rom. 15, Is. 11

I would like to seize on the word, welcome. You are a welcome presence-we want you to feel welcome. Is. 11-gifts of the spirit here- (we attribute to baptism) worldwide hope for peace-look at the tools of this messianic figure-3 pairs of gifts-all related to the wisdom figure of Prov. In the previous chapters trees have been felled as the result of a conquering army, out of that stump, that remnant will come a leader, an antithesis of the boastful Assyrian of chapter 10.Justice, dispassionate justice will be a mark-V. 3 probably means dispassionate disinterested who looks beyond appearance and hearsay better standards

. Is.11- trees from 10 Assyria may stay down but Judah will rise  a cutting?  Lo a rose- --rod virga in Latin -the Hebrew word for "shoot" (11:1) can also mean "rod" or "scepter." Virtues in paris Assyrian boast of 10:13 counsel and might could be strategy and strength spirit given

. Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation's final law-    Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw/    With ravine,2 shriek'd against his creed (Tennyson) -Peaceable kingdom again-Rod shifts to verbal rod or standards the wolf passage is precisely against the predatory role in 9 and 10. v. 10 magnetic image  root of Jesse changed in LXX it is a signal -11:10 as christ’s tomb .

Rom. 15:4-13 Welcome (accept, embrace, get hold of take their hand, make a companion)one another-not division but harmony-not polarization We ar ein the holiday time of hospitality, of making people feel welcome.

Romans 15 accept/welcome inclusivity as Christ has welcomed you. How does Christ welcome us? Opens arms for  Zaccheus-the open arms of a cross, the holiday gathering of communion.

Build up This advent of Christ, can never be claimed as a privilege by one group. Rather, everyone is invited, those who are inside and those who are not, into song!. The goal but also the witness of living together in harmony, of welcoming one another, is communal song!  Psalm 72, appointed for this Sunday, picks up on this theme. The psalmist prays for the king of justice, for the righteous one to come, whose kingdom will bring justice to all, who is like life-giving showers, covering the earth and whose peace will abound until the end of time. Again, the vision and hope is broad, communal and all-encompassing.

As the community is invited into this praise so it is invited into this radical welcome. Christ has become the "servant" (verse 8) of one community but only to make this community's praise a praise that opens up windows and doors. in order that the promises given to the patriarchs, the promises given to all (like stars in the heaven) might be fulfilled. We might say that the vocation of this circumcised community is precisely to now be a servant to all people.

We have here a version of Luther's happy exchange: Christ takes upon himself everything that separates us from God and in return gives us all Christ's benefits, as we welcome the neighbor and as we are welcomed, as we live in harmony with one another in accordance with Jesus Christ Dirk G. Lange |

Jesse Trees-visual way of drawing our Isaiah passage to Jesus directly. It  follows the lineage of jesus from Jesse to David through the centuries. Others link prophecies to the birth of Jesus. God welcomes the  history of his people, history of a family, into the very life of jesus. "God loves human beings. God loves the world. Not an ideal human, but human beings AS THEY ARE; not an ideal world, but the REAL WORLD. ...this is for God the ground of unfathomable love. God establishes a most intimate unity with this. God becomes human, a real human being. While we exert ourselves to grow beyond our humanity, to leave the human behind us, GOD BECOMES HUMAN; and we must recognize that God wills that we be human, real human beings. While we distinguish between pious and godless, good and evil, noble and base, God loves REAL PEOPLE without distinction. (Bonhoeffer)

Devotional Pts. for Week of Dec. 4

Sunday- Ps 72 is a royal, political psalm.  For this season, vv. 10-11, 15 are linked to the Magi. Also, after the election look at how a ruler is judged at vv1-4,12-14. What prayers will you offer for our political leaders?

Monday-One of the beautiful practices of both the Celtic and Jewish imagination is blessing the world, blessing each and every encounter, experience, every ordinary moment. In the Jewish worldview, each act becomes worthy of blessing. Gratitude is offered for all gifts: upon awakening, when crossing a threshold, eating a meal, lighting candles. The Talmud calls for one hundred blessings each day.".--- Christine Valters Paintner

Tuesday-Dedicate one day this week to the casting of one hundred blessings upon all the myriad encounters and experiences that occur as you walk through the ordinary magic of your day.

Wednesday-Humanity cannot take Advent and God's coming among us to heart if we bypass the prophets. God's people struggled mightily with faithfulness and faithlessness. Their struggle and lack of discernment often brought dire and desperate consequences. Yet through the cacophony of pleas, arrogance, and wars, God's prophets spoke to the people of a redemptive future of joy, kindness, and peace—all made possible by God's steadfast love born into the world. When we allow God's prophets to speak a word to us, alongside those of the Gospel writers, we discover an even more stellar and glorious gift in the manger: Because of the darkness, the Light comes to us. Pamela Hawkins

Thursday-Eckhart asks: 'What is life? God's being is my life. If my life is God's being, then God's existence must be my existence and God's is-ness is my is-ness, neither less nor more.' He is speaking of identity with God’s being, not humans becoming God."

Friday-Hope has the power to sustain us in the midst of a life of uncertainty and dis-ease as well as a world of dissonance and violence. It is so not because of the one who hopes but because of the one in which that hope is placed."

Saturday-Scotus-We suffer from the "soul's forgetfulness," he says. Christ comes to reawaken us to our true nature. He is our epiphany. He comes to show us the face of God. He comes to show us also our face, the true face of the human soul.

Column on Advent

The Christian season of Advent is upon us. Many older Protestant churches adopted the practice of Advent in the last few generations. Many Christian churches do not acknowledge it. Our culture does not. Christmas stations started before thanksgiving this year.  Then we have some conflict in churches when we should start singing Christmas carols. Basically the culture call off Christmas at December 26, but that is when the season just starts in the church year.

It is ancient, but it does depend on the firm dating of Christmas on December 25^th, so it took a while to be adopted. Its preparation was basically a call to fasting and prayer prior to the great day.  Please recall that Christmas was barely celebrated in this country until the mid 19^th century, with a wave of German immigration. The frosty asceticism had started to wear away from our Puritan culture.

Advent means arrival, especially in the sense of a great person moving in a grand procession.  In current tradition, it points first to the Second Advent of Christ, that time when god’s vision for the world comes to fruition. Given the childish views of most of us on this great promise, reflection on this theme could well mature our faith. On the Third Sunday we shift gears and look toward a consideration of the first Advent, the birth of Jesus Christ. Again, the Incarnation is a pillar of the faith, but we scarcely consider it but merely salute it and move on past.

Some churches have adopted the use of candles to mark each Sunday. Typically, Protestants have made this a free expression of the untethered religious sentimental imagination, so the candles often represent whatever themes the church wishes to present. Unwilling to even consider that Advent could be a call to radical repentance; many churches have chosen royal blue as a color for the candles, to push Lent into the only season of discipline in the church year.

Many of us have adopted  the relatively recent German practice of the Advent calendar. Alton High School students sell the chocolate treats for each day of the season as a fundraiser. One is rewarded with a daily treat and then beneath one could reflect on a bible passage or virtue as one counts the days until Christmas. I was reminded just today of the venerable tradition of the Jesse tree that traces the lineage of Jesus and uses it as a way to give narrative to the Bible.

Let me clear. I hope I do not sound like the Christmas Grinch. I have no issues with the spectacle of Christmas. I do ask for respect for religious traditions. I do hope that we prepare our souls with some of the attention we lavish on Martha Stewart decorations and labor-intensive goodies.

In a time of anger being stoked into simmering rage day after day, we can all use a sense of Christmas inner peace. Possessed of the power of inner peace, we can face down our violent impulses. We can find a center to do work of putting Christ back into being Christian, let alone Christmas.

This year the readings from Isaiah have a decided focus on peace. It is always an appropriate focus.  This year I am praying for an element of the advent of peac3e: the reduction in violence. We have enjoyed a long period of a reduction in violent crime and losses in war time in our country. At the same time, its pall casts gloom on those its cold hand touches. The host of heaven turned into a non-violent choir making the fields an arena for worship in the very teeth of power not far away in Jerusalem.

Advent 1 sermon notes-Is. 2, Ps. 122 Rom. 13, Mt.24

Is 2:1-5, USSR statue in front of the UN. with Micah the great hope for peace-turning guns into art-East Germany slogan as well

We are far from peace of course, but the vision propels us. We are far  from from inner peace. Violence grips our thoughts and emotions. Violence erupts constantly in homes and neighborhoods. Right now, too many people suffer under brutal violence. We had a shootout on 7th and Spring street as I was taking notes.St Louis is riddled with violence, and Alton has more than the national average of violence. While I was gone, someone was murdered across the street.Many days I cross 7th and Spring where we had a morning shoot out.

Rom. 13 live in the armor of light. What a great image. I think of the beam of light in Lord of the rings when the wizard Gandalf appears with some troops.

The neighbor is always an unexpected appearance in our midst, in the midst of our lives.The neighbor, understood in this way, represents  Christ. And what are we waiting for? Where lies our hope? Christ's advent  perhaps the one whose return comes unexpectedly is precisely the neighbor who encounters us in the street. Perhaps Christ's second coming is this continual return of Christ in and through the neighbor. (WP)

Our enemies are "not flesh and blood." we are to fight against the destructive powers that enslave. That might be a history of mistrust and injustice, addictions, thirst for revenge, prejudice and fear, greed. Paul calls these "the works of darkness," . It is often the petty manifestations of these powers that erode our relationships. Violence  exists against flesh and blood. Peace has to  struggle against the  mind set of war.While we work toward peace and look for a more peaceful time,MT. 24:36-44-being alert and on guard-both do the same things but one gets it and one does not-working for a world of peace (see Parker Palmer on soul change for social change) We work toward God’s vision. We make the world a fit place for God to dwell. Soul change of course is just another version of the the notion that personal repentance  is sufficient to  create social change. Change of collective hearts and minds, a change in mindset in culture is needed as we for peace to occur at long last

Miroslav Volf writes, "Christians have believed that the day is coming on which our past, marred by wrong doing, will be bathed in the warm light of God's truthful grace. ...

-Ps 122 ends with words of peace- I love this vision of the nations, including enemies, being drawn like a magnet to jerusalem. Israel will fulfill the ancient hope of being a blessing to all nations. That is its ancient purpose. Approaching Jerusalem was a march of conquest, now it becomes a peace march of pilgrimage. Wisdom language permeates this passage. The temple stands for justice.Let us walk in the light of the Lord.(Steve Earle song on Jerusalem Well maybe I'm only dreamin' and maybe I'm just a fool/But I don't remember learnin' how to hate in Sunday school/But somewhere along the way I strayed and I never looked back again

But I still find some comfort now and then/Then the storm comes rumblin' in/And I can't lay me down

But I believe there'll come a day when the lion and the lamb/Will lie down in peace together in Jerusalem/And there'll be no barricades then/There'll be no wire or walls/And we can wash all this blood from our hands/And all this hatred from our souls//And I believe that on that day all the children of Abraham/Will lay down their swords forever in Jerusalem

Pts for Week of Nov. 27

Sunday-Ps,. 72 is a great prayer for the king, so we should have little trouble transferring it to political leaders.  Notice how peace, prosperity, and security are linked. Look carefully at what makes a good king in this prayer.May we pray for all of our political leaders.

Monday-Gratitude is a practice that can begin with the smallest acknowledgement and be expanded out to every facet of our existence. A simple way to nurture this awareness in our lives is to end each day with a gratitude list. You might write 5-10 things for which you feel grateful each day, lifting up both the large and small moments of grace, rather than dwelling on where life came up short for us. Consider saving these grateful noticings together somewhere, and after a season of time reading back over the things that made your heart expand and notice what patterns you find there.

Tuesday-There is not a flower that opens, not a seed that falls into the ground, and not an ear of wheat that nods on the end of its stalk in the wind that does not preach and proclaim the greatness and the mercy of God to the whole world. There is not an act of kindness or generosity, not an act of sacrifice done, or a word of peace and gentleness spoken . . . that does not sing hymns to God." ~ Thomas Merton

Wednesday- Kierkegaard-Jesus Christ remains our exact contemporary still meeting us directly. From a theological perspective, we know that the Spirit of God makes the words of the text come alive in our hearing, so that through the power of the Spirit the Word of God, Christ himself, speaks directly to us, claiming us, calling us to follow. In some ways, the original disciples actually experienced a disadvantage of historical proximity from which we do not suffer.

Thursday-All the blessings we enjoy are committed to our trust that they should be dispensed for the benefit of our neighbors." John Calvin (1509-1564)

Friday-

" the innocent sleep, Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,

William Shakespeare

Saturday-"Advent invites us into the holy practice of waiting and attending the birth that is coming. Christmas calls us to celebrate that birth with wonder and awe. Our culture tells us the season should be filled with shopping and rushing. The wisdom of ancient monastic practices tells us that this is a time for pausing, savoring, and soaking in joy and gratitude. There are rich treasures within the stillness when we slow down long enough to let them be revealed.