Dec. 20-We read the story of Mary today. Another lectionary reading is the famous quote from Micah on the place of the Messiah's birth. Bethlehem is still a hamlet. God does not always work with the large. God can work through the small to inaugurate a great work. We carry a Bethlehem inside of us; each one of us does.Our very lives are a manger for Christ to rest.

 

Monday- In the new Christian Century, Rodney Clapp ends his piece with this quote by the Blumhardt's (father and son) "our prayers are hammer strokes against the bulwarks of the princes of darkness; they must be oft repeated. Many years can pass by...before a breakthrough occurs. No single hit is ever wasted, if they are continued the most secure wall must finally fall. Then the glory of God will have a clear path to stride forth with healing and blessing for the wasted fields of mankind."

Where can you imagine that your hammer blow of prayer finds its easiest and most difficult object?

 

Tuesday Calvin on the Incarnation- "Jesus Christ is our mediator. We can know Jesus familiarly as one of ourselves. No one can be perplexed where to seek the Mediator, or how to reach him. He is near to us, no, contiguous to us, as one of our flesh.The proximity was near enough, the affinity strong enough, for us to see God dwelling with us." (Inst. 2.12.1, order edited)

 

Wednesday-The holidays can be difficult for the bereaved. I don't think pushing them out of one's mind is all that helpful. Perhaps  better is to admit you miss them and make a ritual, a letter, a special ornament, a memorial for them. Include your grief in your prayers, even at table grace. that way, the looming aura of absence is addressed and it loses some of its potency.

 

Christmas Eve-We are to light luminaries for tonight. A girl, maybe already older than Mary was, will sing O Holy Night. In our house, we eat when the first star appears at night. I don't know if anything can live up to the expectations that encompass this night. I'm glad that so many churches allow us to worship together tonight. May your time with family have a worshipful cast to it, so that your gathering has a semblance of Communion to it.

 

Christmas-For me Silent Night always applies a bit to this day. Just as I always think of Good Friday as cloudy and gloomy, I think of this day as peaceful quiet, even when the kids are ripping away at presents. When I was little, I would always go out at some point to luxuriate in the silence, especially if the only sound was the snow or sleet hitting my coat, or the runners of a sled going downhill. Christmas quiet is a peaceful spirit that knows Emmanuel, God with us.

 

Saturday-Do not let this day after Christmas take the spiritual wind out of your sails.With some of the business done, maybe you can actually give yourself the gift of time to reflect on Christmas. Some folks have a celebration today, as the needs for the families require. I always admire the generosity of folks who don't insist that their family must, must be there at a certain day and time. In that sense, we are not bound to the exact date on a calendar, so we can carry the spirit of Christmas no matter the date. Some things, such as family visits, are not at our control. the spirit we carry to our families is available to us, even the day after Christmas.

The worst part of Christmas stress is that it is often self-imposed. With the explosion of TV channels, the Food Network gives us hours of menus we could not hope to try to emulate. Perhaps the best antidote to holiday stress is to adjust our expectations. Really, after 30 years, do you think that the in-laws will suddenly turn gracious and sane just for this one week? All of a sudden you'll find that you like Aunt Clara's carrot-cranberry noodle pudding? Do we have to accept the illusion of making a perfect Christmas? Some folks bring themselves to expect that a perfect present is possible, and then, we poor gift-givers are treated to disappointment when the wrapping is ripped away. Of course, what law requires the recipient to go overboard in the face of a present for the benefit of the giver, anyway?

 

A good way to start to move away from the self-focus of Christmas disappointment is to look outward. Consider scaling back a bit, instead of succumbing into adding to the holiday needs. Then, use the time to help the community. Consider pulling back a bit from the gift list and donating he money to, say, the Cheer Fund. If it is difficult to get into the spirit of the season, consider the arts. We've been doing a class on A Christmas Carol as a guide to spiritual life. A Christmas Treasury has lots of poems and stories to get at the moods of Christmas. Music may move us from being Scrooge to someone capable of giving and receiving holiday cheer.

 

Of course, some stressors are not self-imposed, especially holiday grief. Instead of denial or keeping the absence of the loved one unspoken, it may be wiser to admit that we miss them at this time of year. that will reduce the tendency to make the holidays another memorial service, or to allow the absence to cast the sole, heavy pall over the season. Sympathies and compassion get awakened in this season, so tears may flow more copiously than usual. In other words, if we face the absence; we don't expend a lot of psychic energy pushing it away. In spite of the loss, we can find more room inside to be able to celebrate.

 

A Biblically inspired imagination reminds us that the Holy Family must have suffered  some serious Christmas stress, before we had the word Christmas.  She takes a look at the manger and says "I guess it could be worse." Can't you hear Mary wondering aloud why they have no place to stay, or why Joseph didn't get directions to Bethlehem? Think of the pressure on these new parents to be caring for the Messiah? Tragedy,well. terror in Bethlehem, almost immediately followed the visit of the Magi in Matthew's gospel. They were forced into exile in Egypt, uncertain of when they could return home.They had an \most decidedly imperfect Christmas.

 

Maybe that is one of the lessons of the Incarnation. God's own incarnate love for us is present in a most imperfect world. Lighting a candle in the darkness is the essence of Christmas lights. Christmas is the birthday of Emmanuel, God with us, not only in joys and sorrows, in times bad or good, but with us in our own human, creaturely condition. God moves from sympathy to empathy at Christmas, for Jesus had to learn to walk before he could walk in our shoes. Christmas opens the human task of making the world of proper place for a Messiah to live, to work with that saving power to make human life worth living. God waits fr our gift, to make love clear, at least once more.

Phil. 4:4-7, Zeph. 3:14-20 December 13, 2009 Sermon

 

Rejoicing is the link in our readings this morning. With all of the early decorations and endless Christmas music, I fear I become a bit of a Scrooge as I feel that we impose a feeling of holiday joy instead of inviting people into it. I don't like being told what or how I should feel. I trust those feelings when they emerge naturally. I went to Saralyn's Phi Beta Kappa banquet on Tuesday night, so I got to see a lot of parents bursting with pride at the academic achievements of their children. the prolonged applause for them wasn't forced, but an outgrowth of beaming esteem. I like to think of God often bursting with pride at our lives. 

 

Zephaniah's name may have the sense of God sheltering us.  Yes, we can be  in difficult times, but it does not always have to be that way. End times vision give purpose, a goal, a compass point to our travels. When your heart gets broken, you are engulfed by the sheer weight of pain. You cannot imagine that you will feel better again. You will. One day you will be able to rejoice again, to see the rainbow and not only the rain, again. Ministry needs a future orientation, beyond the brute tyranny of the way things are but imagine the way things could or should be. Is v. could be, what if. It is good not to live in the future, but the future does give us direction and energy to work toward its shape. Bonhoeffer said "the will of God is not a system of rules established at the outset, but a living will, the grace of God that is new every morning." 

 

I love this image of God rejoicing, even singing a song over us. think of it . God rejoices over you.  Is it classical or country, Mozart or Mellencamp? Does heaven sing Christmas carols? God rejoices over us when we are doing good, and for the sheer unique fact of your existence.I sometimes picture God as basically disappointed in me and the church in general, so I would picture God singling laments or the divine equivalent of a break up song. Does the music have words? What type of music is it?  So then, when does God sing the blues? Song lifts us beyond mere prose; the music lifts us to a different place. The translation in the next line is uncertain. The NIV has God to quiet us, like a mother soothing a hurt child, there, there, or is God quiet, silent, by no longer issuing condemnation, or even the quiet of people comfortable with each other? In the Greek translation it is renewing in God's love? How does that work? Does Advent serve to renew God's love? Maybe in our tired struggles to stay afloat instead of being overwhelmed, we get the strength we need when we no longer can do it all on our own.

 

In Phil. 4:4-7-the rejoice command fits the turn to a new phase in Advent and the lighting of the pink candle It's repeated. Can one rejoice in the midst of troubles? I don't know how that works, except that we continue to look for the good portions of life even in the midst of difficult times.  My sense is that Paul sees   prayer as giving us perspective that our troubles are not the only thing in our lives. As a virtue to deal with troubles, Paul recommends gentleness=magnanimity/generosity/ being considerate. Prayer works against against anxiety/worry-We certainly can hear those words in the face of the pressures of the season to try to make a perfect Christmas, or the best Christmas ever. Total well-being is the meaning of peace here. In all of life is in prayers, that includes thanksgiving,  So we can cover all of the holiday activity with prayer and see them as enacted prayers.

Micah 5:2-5  second cut

1)As usual in apocalyptic  pieces, this description of a better future is in contrast to issues of punishment and judgment.

2) Of course, one could emphasize that the immense god is one who seems to like to work at small scale. One could talk of the "butterfly effect"

3) I don't know why mosel=ruler is used and not king. Still God reigns, not kings.

4) The shepherd imagery is often used for leaders. This time he will be a "good shepherd.'

5) In history this goes back to David, around 300 years. Christians see it as taking 700 years to come to pass. I see a tinge of exilic material here, but that will not happen for some time, unless we are seeing some insertions over time.
6) I tend to read this less as direct prophecy of Jesus and more in line with the apocalyptic themes in 4:9-10, for instance, as Paul does in Rom. 8 It uses the pain of birth as a prelude to a miracle to come.

7) One could look at Bethlehem, house of bread. A then and now approach could work. One could plumb its association with David and Ruth

December 6-Let's deal with one of our neglected readings from today, Phil. 1:3-11. It's a good reading for the time after Thanksgiving, as Paul says that he tanks God for the church there. . Look at v.6 about the completion of good work in you on the day of Jesus Christ. Notice that Paul transform the day of the Lord from the OT into the day of Jesus Christ with no fanfare. For whom are you thankful in your life? Do you tell them that? Who is thankful for your life? Are you told? 

 

Monday- Calvin on Mt. 1:20 when Joseph is considering his position: "We see at this very point that God aids his people.When it appears that God does not observe our cares and distresses, we are under his eye. How slow or late God's assistance may be thought to be, it is for our advantage that it is delayed."

 

Tuesday-Our resistance to seeing Jesus as fully human is revealed when we think of him as a child. We may stumble on young Jesus learning to walk and talk and read. Somehow we figure that the divinity within obviated the need to learn those things. It is good to read the hymn in Phil. 2, where "Christ emptied himself." We can ever come to grips with the reality of the Incarnation, of two natures and one person somehow being integrated, but it is certainly worth prayerful consideration.

 

Wednesday-We don't have many Advent hymns, but look at verses 2 and 3 of O Come Emmanuel (God with us Is 7:14). " O come thou Dayspring (Job 38:12, Lk.1:78) come and cheer/our spirits by Thine advent here/Disperse the gloomy clouds of night/and death's dark shadows put to flight/ 3) O come Desire of nations (Hag.2:7)  bind/all peoples to thy heart and mind/bid envy,strife and discord case/fill the whole world's with heaven's peace"

 

Thursday-A Christmas Treasury has a section from Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather. A Mexican woman is enslaved to a Protestant family from Georgia. They hate Catholics, so they forbid her from going to church. She sneaks out on a frigid night and encounters the archbishop who lends her his cloak. they pray together. she returns the cloak but he is able to press a medal on her, all the better as she cannot read. When have you felt the need to pray when it may have proved dangerous, at least risky? Do you have an emblem of the faith that means much to you? What does your Nativity scene look like, if you have one at home?

 

Friday-By the time of Jesus, the image of shepherd as suffered with failed leaders and in the occupation itself. So, it is a surprise to have shepherds be the first recipients and speakers of the gospel. Of course, the gospel reaches the most unlikely people, people who resemble us, or better, the gospel is directed toward us, failed leaders, failed shepherds, all bit shiftless and suspect. If you were writing a Christmas movie, what unlikely people would be the carriers of the good news?

 

Saturday-How many Presbyterians does it take to change a light bulb at church? ...What do you mean change it, my family donated that light bulb"? Advent is all about keeping alert to impending change or our eyes fixed on the changes that must come for human society to become better, to catch a glimpse of them now.

December 13-Lk. 3:7-18 wasn't read in church today, but it is part of the lectionary on john the Baptist as the opens who prepares the way for Jesus.. The Baptist talks social justice in v. 10, even the poor should share with one another clothing and food. In v. 18 Luke says he preached good news, gospel. It sounds  fairly strict. How was it good news? For whom was it good news? What good news should we, who are more comfortable, hear? What do you need to hear?

 

Monday-Calvin on Lk. 2:7-"When Jesus was thrown in a stable, and placed in a manger, and a lodging refused him among people, it was that heaven might be opened to us, not as a temporary lodging, but as our eternal country and inheritance, and that angels might receive us into their abode." I don't generally see Calvin as someone appreciative of irony, but here it is. If I read him correctly, he wants us to use the Nativity scene as a starting point, not a goal for our spiritual lives.

 

Tuesday- When to be tender, when to be tough? I am thinking of Zechariah speaking of God's tender mercies. It is a matter of the art of discernment when to demonstrate tough love and when to be tender. Pushed too far, or using one at the wrong time, can have effects opposite of what we desire.We probably would do well to keep those sides in balance as we look at god's dealings with us, even as they seem to lean toward the tender side.

 

Wednesday-We don't know if Bethlehem had inns at the time of Jesus. The word, kataluma, has the sense of way station or rest area, a break from the journey. The word appears in the infancy story but also at the end of the life of Jesus, where it is the "upper room" of the Lord's supper. In the first use, no room was to be had. In the second, Jesus opens up room for everybody.

 

Thursday- As you know, I look to children's books for worship time with young people. here's a quote from a new one, Voices of Christmas by Nikki Grimes on Anna. "I have welcomed the serene routine of prayer, fasting, and worship in the temple for sixty years....I glimpse his sparkling eyes and my withered hand flies to my chest." Anna waited a long time to see the embodiment of the hopes of Israel. Here the prophet sees the present reality of God's plans coming into sharp focus.

 

Friday-Lots of people set up Christmas decorations right after thanksgiving this year. So, it makes it harder to deal with Advent themes of preparation for Christmas when the culture has Christmas songs going before Advent even starts. the trick is in not letting the decorations take over the spirit of the season. How do we combine the yearning of a child for Christmas into a spiritual yearning for a better world? A Christmas gathering acts as a foretaste of the spiritual joy of Christmas.

 

Saturday- From a poem in Weavings, Heather Murray Elkins on the Magnificat (Mary's great prayer in Lk. 1). ""Nothing's as soft as a young mother's song/ Who but God could trust it/ to sustain creation with a thin thread of breath?/...Nothing's as strong as a young mother's song/ vowels of the gospel start her. Think of the enormous risk god was taking in entrusting the Savior of all to a young woman from Nazareth. think of the risk for continuing creation God gives to each of us with children. Imagine Mary singing a lullaby to baby Jesus. Imagine Jesus singing a lullaby to us.

Sermon Dec. 6, 2009 Lk. 1:68-78 mal. 3:1-5

Advent is a time of waiting in the dark, where the light of love is obscured by violence, in its variety of terrible shapes and guises. All of us continue to live under the shadow of death, in mortality and as a nation. The president with his Nobel Peace Prize announced another troop increase in Afghanistan, with a date to start to remove them. I sincerely pray that this will be a path toward peace, but I fear that we are throwing more blood and treasure down the drain. Zechariah's prayer spoken under Roman occupation,  is certainly appropriate to our day and time. I have long loved the words, tender mercies. in a tough world, we certainly need the tender mercies of heaven, to ease our way through.

 

In a dark time, Zechariah's prayer sees the private matter of a surprise birth as a harbinger of a change for the people of Israel, a multi-layered salvation. His prayer is one from the side of the underdog, more sinned against than sinning. The prayer get more and more specific as it moves toward his new son. Zechariah strikes me a a thoughtful person. of course, he's had time to think, as he has been struck mute during the pregnancy of Elizabeth. He sees deeper meaning behind the birth of John.The birth of John is a signal flare that a new day is coming. The hymn, O Come Emmanuel, speaks of a dayspring, instead of the more pedestrian dawn. It's the dawn of a better days, that sees signs of tender mercies, of forgiveness, of light in the darkness of trouble.

 

Malachi means my messenger or my angel. He too awaits a messenger to bring news of a change. Our passage is directed at the people's complaints that life is not fair. Malachi's messenger is turned into John the Baptist or Jesus by Handel. God is wearied by a mixture of personal and social sins. The image is different here. God's judgment is portrayed in terms of removing impurity or stain, refining metal or doing laundry. Judgment is directed against improper worship. It reminds me of the priestly Messiah of the Dead Sea Scrolls where the temple would be cleansed; think of how Jesus cleansed the temple in the gospels. When worship is purified then judgment will be directed against  public sins, sins that stain social foundations and institutions. Older cultures often saw sin as polluting or staining the community. When I would stain something, my mother would tend to its cleaning and say, "it's like it's as good as new." Here, the judgment is directed against the destructive, corrosive effects of social evils, but it is not annihilation but a clean-up operation. Social sins affect the quality of our lives together. A better world would remove those blights that keep human life from flourishing. 
 

To close, we can take a clue from the name of the Scripture, Malachi, my messenger or my angel. Our lives are messages about the Christian life. They broadcast our commitments, worship-our sins-our prayers. When people gathered at the Methodist church and brought 75 meals to the jail, they were angels with food. Two folks, Carol and Joann, who have done Bible Study as the Lake Santee group with Marilyn as long as we have been doing it, took off on Thursday as they had to prepare a 75 person meal for Tony Miller's funeral. Right around Thanksgiving two people were ringing bells for the Cheer Fund at LoBill/Marsh on Main St. Their message announces paths of peace and tender mercies. What we choose to do with our time announces to heaven and earth what gospel mesage we want to publicize or waht bad news we prefe to shout from the rooftops.