Week Of Jan. 1 Pts.

Sunday-Ps 148 starts off our new year with a song of praise.The psalmist gives voice  to nature. What element of nature would you like to provide words of pra9ise as 2017 dawns?

Monday-"All saving ideas are born small. God comes to earth as a child so that we can finally grow up, which means we can stop blaming God for being absent when we ourselves were not present, stop blaming God for the ills of the world as if we had been laboring to cure them, and stop making God responsible for all the thinking and doing we should be undertaking on our own...God provides minimum protection and maximum support--support to help us grow up, to stretch our minds and hearts until they are as wide as God's universe. God doesn't want us narrow-minded, priggish, subservient, but joyful and loving, as free for one another as God's love was freely poured out for us at Christmas in that babe in the manger." (William Sloane Coffin)

Tuesday-When you hold in your minds the promise that when all other help fails then Israel’s God will come in person to rescue and deliver; and when you start with the symbol of the temple in which heaven and earth belong together as a sign of creation and new creation, with a human being, a king or a priest, standing there to complete the picture then it makes sense, glorious sense, world-shattering sense, heaven-and-earth sense to see Jesus of Nazareth as the climax of this story, the fulfilment of this symbol, the living embodiment of this God. NT Wright

Wednesday-The Christian life, as eucharistic life, is one that rests not on calculating the odds but on God’s promise of a new creation—one that we can imaginatively characterize as a huge reunion banquet, a table set for all peoples. It will be a homecoming in which ancient separations and animosities will be left decisively behind. R. Byars

Thursday-"What has to be healed in us is our true nature, made in the likeness of God. What we have to learn is love. The healing and the learning are the same thing, for at the very core of our essence we are constituted in God's likeness by our freedom, and the exercise of that freedom is nothing else but the exercise of disinterested love - the love of God for his own sake, because he is God. The beginning of love is truth, and before he will give us his love, God must cleanse our souls of the lies that are in them." (Merton)

Friday-The gift from God of God’s very self for the sake of you being your very self so that the world might indeed know God’s love -- in, through, and because of you." in a humanity of  "fullness and foibles, its power and pain, its joys and sorrows."K. Lewis

Saturday-"Whoever you are, you are human. Wherever you are, you live in the world, which is just waiting for you to notice the holiness in it. So welcome to your own priesthood, practiced at the altar of your own life. The good news is that you have everything you need to begin."

~From An Altar in the World

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.