A Doctrine of Salvation for the Turning of the Year

A post about Systematic Theology may not be traditional for the last day of 2023.  But it's what's on my mind.  My seminary professors have until January 6 to turn in grades, and while I've wanted the feedback, I haven't been as anxious as some years--perhaps because I have fewer classes for this term.  

Yesterday I was thrilled to find out I got a 58/60 on my Systematic Theology final paper; at first I had a slight panic attack because I thought I got a 58/100, which would have been quite a blow.  Happily, it only took me 16 seconds to realize that I had made an A, not an F.  The paper counts for 60% of my grade, and the midterm paper counts for 40% of my grade; unlike other classes I've taken, there was much that could go wrong with so much riding on so few papers and a topic that was less familiar to me.  I've done a lot of theology writing, but very little that is systematic.

To be honest, I'm not sure I'm doing systematic theology still.  I had to show that I understood what we'd been talking about throughout the semester, and I had to refer to theologians and to passages from the Bible.  On the morning of the day that it was due, I worried that I should have organized it differently, but I also realized that if I had, it wouldn't have been as balanced, and I risked looking like I didn't know what I was supposed to know.  So I left it alone, while at the same time worrying that there were some doctrines that I had completely missed.

When I got my grade yesterday, my first impulse was to go back to read the paper again, for the first time since I turned it in on December 14.  I'm really impressed with the ending, and since my grade is in, let me post it here.  I think it gives a hopeful note as one difficult year comes to a close and another year, likely to be even more difficult, begins:

But here is where soteriology [doctrine of salvation] gives me hope. We have seen God overcome one of history’s huge domination systems, the Roman empire. Christ was killed by the Roman empire, in a brutalizing death designed to humiliate and to keep the population terrified of resisting. In The Way of Jesus Christ: Christology in Messianic Dimensions, Moltmann points out that under Roman law, “crucifixion was the punishment designed to deter rebels against the political order of the Roman empire, or the social order of Roman slave-owning society” (p. 163). Crucifixion was a death designed for those who were a threat to the state, which tells us how the empire saw Christ’s message, as a threat to empire. We can argue about how Jesus was raised from the dead (did God the Creator raise him? Did God the Spirit?); the Nicene Creed doesn’t tell us the particulars of the process, but all of our creeds assure us that resurrection happened to the physical body in a physical way.

Throughout human history, we’ve been at a similar crossroad, where it looks like the powers of earthly empire will prevail. But we’ve also seen that when people who believe in resurrection work together, the results can be surprising and empire disrupting.

So I will keep working for both human rights and the preservation of the planet. I believe in the Triune God who is making all things new (Revelation 21: 5). I believe in the Triune God who led people from slavery (Exodus) and who can raise the dead, both the literal dead, like Lazarus and Jesus, and the vast populations who are spiritually dead. In logical terms, it’s hard for me to imagine how God comes to our chaos and cures it all. In spiritual terms, I remember that God is the one who crafted it all from the beginning, and I trust that the Triune God has the blueprints and the plan.

Feast Day of the Holy Family

Today we celebrate the Holy Family.  This feast day is relatively recent; we've only been celebrating the Holy Family for the past 300 years or so.  Our idea of family, especially a family unit separate from multiple generations, after all, is really rather modern.

It's interesting to take up this feast day after all these days where we've celebrated Mary, and her decision to be the Mother of Jesus.  It's a great counterpoint to remember that fathers have a role in the family too.

I always wonder if these kind of feast days bring pain to people who grew up in dysfunctional families.  I know plenty of people who have been scarred in ways that only family can do.  What do they take away from these feast day?  Despair in all the ways that families can hurt each other?  Hope that families can really be a sacramental rendering of the love of God?

Below you see a huge sculpture, made from a tree that toppled in a storm, of the Holy Family fleeing Herod's murderous intent.  I think of the Holy Family as refugee family, fleeing danger, with only the clothes on their back.  I think of all the families torn apart or torn away from their homeland because of terrible dictators.  I yearn for the day to come when we will not experience these fissures in the family.

Here is a prayer I wrote for this day:

Parent God, you know the many ways our families can fail us.  Please remind us of the perfection in family that we are called to model.  Please give us the strength and fortitude to create the family dynamics you would have us enjoy.  Please give us the courage to minister to those who have not had good family experiences.  And most of us, please give us the comfort of knowing that the restoration of creation is underway, with families that will be whole, not fractured, when all our members will be accounted for, when no one will go missing.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, December 31, 2023:

First Reading: Isaiah 61:10--62:3

Psalm: Psalm 148

Second Reading: Galatians 4:4-7

Gospel: Luke 2:22-40

This Sunday, after the whirlwind excitement of Christmas Eve, we return to the Temple, where Simeon and Anna have been patiently waiting for God to fulfill God's promise. And in our scary times, that message is a wonderful reminder: God fulfills the promises that God makes.

Of course, it may not happen in the time period that we would like to demand. So what do we do in the meantime? We wait. Maybe we wait patiently, like Simeon. Or maybe we become impatient, like the Psalmist. But we wait. What else can we do? Scripture and Literature across many different cultures warn us of what happens if we decide that we're as powerful as God and can proceed on our own--nothing good can come of that.

What do we do while we're waiting? We can take Simeon and Anna as our models. We can surround ourselves with people who believe in God's promise. Hopefully, we find those kind of people in our Christian communities. Hopefully, we've spent our lives finding people who live in hope, even when surrounded by evidence that would make more rational people doubt. This past pandemic years has shown us that if we don't have those people with us in person, there are many communities out there that can offer us ways to connect with hope.

Of course, we don't have to just wait passively. The Advent lessons have reminded us of the importance of staying alert and watchful. The Scriptures tell us that God will appear in many guises, none of them what we expect.

We can also take our cues from Mary and Joseph, from Elizabeth and John the Baptist, from any number of spiritual predecessors. We can decide to take our part in the redemption of God's creation. Every day gives us the opportunity to practice resurrection, as Wendell Berry phrased it. We can choose to move towards renewal. We are called to be the light of the world, the yeast in the bread dough, the salt of the earth. We've got lots of ways to do that.

I would encourage us not to leave Christmas behind too quickly. We can leave our Christmas trees up for a few more days (twelve, even, until Jan. 6, Epiphany, or until Feb. 2, Candlemas, the end of the 40 days of Christmas that some monastic communities still celebrate) to enjoy the vision. We can eat one last Christmas cookie, while we reflect on the past year, and plan for the year to come. We can pray for the patience of Simeon, for the wisdom of Anna, for the courage of Mary and Elizabeth and Joseph, who said yes to God's plan. We can pray that we have the boldness of John the Baptist, who declared the Good News.

We can pray for the strength to evolve into people of hope, people who watch and wait, confident in the knowledge that God fulfills all promises.

Remembering All the Slaughtered Innocents

On Dec. 28, we remember the slaughter of all the male children under the age of 2 in Bethlehem in the days after the birth of Jesus. Why were they killed? Because of Herod's feelings of inadequacy, because of his fear. The magi tell him of a new king that has just been born, and he feels threatened. He will stop at nothing to wipe out any rival, even one who is still a tiny baby.

We like to think that we wouldn't have reacted that way. We like to think that we'd have joined the band of wise men and gone to pay our respects. We like to think that we'd have put aside our worries of not being good enough and our doubts.

But far too many of us would have responded in exactly the same way, if we had the resources at our command. You need only look at interpersonal relationships in the family or in the office to see that most of us have an inner Herod whom it is hard to ignore.

If you're old enough, you've had the startled feeling when you realize that the next rising star at your workplace or your congregation or your social group is a generation younger than you. It's hard to respond graciously.

Many of us are likely to respond to our feelings of inadequacy in unproductive ways. If we hear a good idea from someone who makes us feel threatened at work or in our families, how many of us affirm that idea? Instead of saying, "How interesting," we say, "How stupid!" And then we go to great lengths to prove that we're right, and whatever is making us feel inadequate is wrong.

So often I feel like I will never escape middle school, that particular kind of hell, where the boundaries were always fluid. Kids who were acceptable one day were pariahs the next. Many adolescents report feeling that they can't quite get their heads around all the rules and the best ways to achieve success.

Adult life can sometimes feel the same way. We fight to achieve equilibrium, only to find it all undone. Most of us don't have the power that Herod had, so our fight against powerlessness doesn't end in corpses. But it often results in a world of outcasts and lone victors, zero-sum games that leave us all diminished.

But feelings of inadequacy can have lethal consequences, especially when played out on a geopolitical scale, the powerful lashing out against the powerless. We live in a world where dictators can efficiently kill their country's population by the thousands or more. Sadly, we see this Herod dynamic so often that we're in danger of becoming jaded, hardened and unaffected by suffering.

Now as the year draws to a close, we can resolve to be on the lookout for ways that our inner Herod dominates and controls our emotional lives. We can resolve to let love rule our actions, not fear. We can also resolve to help those who are harmed by the Herods of our world.

Thinking of Herod might also bring to mind the flight into Egypt, the Holy Family turned into refugees. We remember the Holy Family fleeing in terror with only the clothes on their backs -- and we remember that this story is so common throughout the world.

As we think about Herod, let us pray to vanquish the Herods in our heads and in our lives. Let us pray for victims of terror everywhere, the ones that get away and the ones that are slaughtered.

The Feast Day of Saint John

The day after we celebrate the life of the first Christian martyr, St. Stephen, we celebrate the life of the only one of the original 12 disciples die of natural causes in old age. Tradition tells us that John was first a disciple of John the Baptist, and then a disciple of Christ, the one who came to be known as the beloved disciple, the one tasked with looking after Mary, the mother of Jesus.There is much debate over how much of the Bible was actually written by this disciple. If we had lived 80 years ago, we'd have firmly believed that the disciple wrote the Gospel of John, the letters of John, and the book of Revelation. Twentieth century scholars came to dispute this belief, and if you do scholarly comparison, you would have to conclude that the same author could not have written all of those books.

Regardless, most of us remember St. John as the disciple who spent a long life writing and preaching. He's the patron saint of authors, theologians, publishers, and editors. He's also the patron saint of painters.

Today, as many of us may be facing a bit of depression or cabin fever, perhaps we can celebrate the feast of St. John by a creative act. Write a poem about what it means to be the beloved disciple. Write a letter to your descendants to tell them what your faith has meant to you. Paint a picture--even if you can't do realistic art, you could have fun with colors as you depict the joys that God has to offer.

Here's a prayer for the day, from Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime:

"Shed upon your Church, O Lord, the brightness of your light, that we, being illumined by the teaching of your apostle and evangelist John, may walk in the light of your truth, that at length we may attain to the fullness of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

The Feast Day of Saint Stephen

Today we celebrate the life of St. Stephen, the man who is commonly known as the first Christian martyr. What does it mean that we celebrate the life of a martyr so soon after we celebrate the birth of Christ? After all, it's not like we know the birth day or the death day of St. Stephen. Our ancient Church parents could have put this feast day anywhere. Why put it here?

If you pay attention to the Lectionary readings, you will see that the issue of death is never far removed from the subject matter. Time and time again, Christ is quite clear about what may be required from us: our very lives. And we'd like to think that we might make this ultimate sacrifice for some amazing purpose: rescuing the oppressed from an evil dictatorship or saving orphans. But we may lose our life in the midst of some petty squabble; in some versions of St. Stephen's life, he is killed because of petty jealousy over his appointment as deacon, which triggers the conspiring which ultimately ends in his martyrdom.

Many of us live in a world where we are not likely to die a physical death for our religious beliefs. What does the life of this martyr have to say to us?

We are not likely to face death by stoning, but we may face other kinds of death. If we live the life that Christ commands, we will give away more of our money and possessions to the destitute. We will end our lives without as much wealth and prosperity--and yet, we will have more spiritual wealth. If we live the life that Christ commands, we may have uncomfortable decisions to make at work or in our families. We will have to live a life that's unlike the lives we see depicted in popular culture. That's not always easy, but in the end, we can hope the resistance to the most damaging forms of popular culture will have been worth it.

And history reminds us that events can unfold rather quickly, and we might find ourselves living under an empire that demands us to live a life different than the one Christ calls us to live. We may face the ultimate penalty. Could we face death? Could we pray for the empire that kills us? As Christians, we're commanded to pray for our enemies, to not let hatred transform us into our enemies.

Let us take a moment to offer a prayer of thanks for all the martyrs who have come before us. Here's a prayer for the day, from Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime:

"Almighty God, who gave to your servant Stephen boldness to confess the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ before the rulers of this world, and courage to die for this faith: Grant that I may always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in me, and to suffer gladly for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

Christmas Eve in Two Mountain Churches

Yesterday, we had a leisurely Sunday morning for the first time in a long time.  But it was different in a way; we knew we needed to be on the road by 11:30.  Faith Lutheran Church in Bristol, Tennessee, where I am a Synod Appointed Minister, had only one service yesterday at 2:00.

When we got there and plugged in some lights, the church looked like this, with sun streaming through the red glass windows in the front:

The candles couldn't really compete, but it was beautiful in its own way.  The service went well.  Everyone was in a good mood, and most things went smoothly.  I did get tangled in my words when I consecrated the bread, but I corrected.  And this congregation is fairly unflappable as far as I can see.  I get the idea that if I'm making a good effort, they won't cause a ruckus.  Part of it is because I'm temporary, and part of it just seems to be the congregational personality.

I do feel lucky.  I think about my younger self and how judgmental I was and how I wanted so much more than I was getting from church, whether it be sermons or fellowship or volunteering opportunities.  Then I got the kind of job that made it difficult to take advantage of those things, the 45-60 hour a week job in education administration, which gave me a different view.  And yesterday, when I got tongue tangled, I thought about my younger self who would have said, "You say these words week after week--why can't you say them without screwing it all up?"  Now I know.

My sermon went well, and I'll post it on this blog site at some point soon.  When I was writing it, it seemed rather radical at first, and by the time I was done revising it, I thought it was blah.  That's often a trajectory with my writing, whether it's sermon writing, poetry writing, academic writing, or something else.  The congregation stayed focused, and no one seemed outraged or bored or eye rolling.

We mingled a bit after church and then headed out.  Some of the church folks planned to come back after sunset, re-light all the candles, and then take pictures.  I thought we were heading home to veg out and go to bed early.

Instead, my spouse started thinking about going to the 7:00 service at the Lutheran church just minutes from our Lutheridge house.  We put our dinner dishes in the dishwasher (left over pot roast that had turned into beef stew), threw on our dressier clothes, and headed over.  This sanctuary is very different than the little country church in Bristol:

It was great to be back at that church where we have so many friends from so many different stages of our life:  Create in Me friends, choir friends, quilt group friends, neighborhood friends, and even friends of my nuclear family, meaning friends from the time my mom was a camp counselor in the very earliest days of Lutheridge. 

Today is likely to be a rainy Christmas, which is fine with me. We are not traveling, and any cooking that we're doing can be done either indoors or out.  We have no one coming over.  We will make at least one phone call, but mostly, yesterday was our big holiday celebration.  Some years I might feel sad about that, but this year, a low key Christmas day sounds good.

Christmas Eve and the Ghost of Christmas Past

Today is a day unlike our regular Sundays.  Instead of getting ready to leave for Bristol, Tennessee by 7:30, we don't need to leave until 11:30.  Faith Lutheran, the church where I am a Synod Appointed Minister, celebrates Christmas Eve at 2, with no morning or evening worship.  I have never gone to an afternoon Christmas Eve service, but it makes sense for this congregation.  I have noticed that many churches no longer do the late night service, the one that begins at 10 p.m. or later.

I have my sermon written, which I'll post tomorrow.  I had thought I might bake a small braid of Santa Lucia bread for every household at the small church, but I didn't have time for that.  It's fine.

We might be home in time to go to a local church's evening service, but we probably won't.  A regular Sunday leaves me a bit worn out, what with traveling and leading worship.

Last year, by this time, we'd be on our way to Hawaii.  Or would we still be sitting in the airport?  In the gate area of the airport, waiting to board the plane, we were near a crew member who was sick; we knew he was sick because he collapsed and vomited.  I thought the flight might be delayed because of the lack of a crew member, but we were told it was because of some airport issue.  Still, soon we were on our way--but we would spend that week in Hawaii with various family members getting sick.  It was not our best family vacation, but we tried to make the best of it.

So today we will travel, but it will be by car, over the mountain.  I am fast approaching the point where I will avoid air travel as much as I can.  Last year we flew to Hawaii and got sick; in September, we flew to Maine and got sick.

A year ago, I had no idea where I would be in a year, but I was coming to think I wasn't likely to be in seminary housing, since it seemed certain to be torn down.  A year ago, I didn't know what I was about to set into motion, by thinking about the possibilities of not living in seminary housing.  And now, here I am with a Synod Appointed Minister position, an internship with the Southeast Synod of the ELCA, and a teaching job at Spartanburg Methodist College.   I am thrilled with these changes.

I thought it would be nice to have a more leisurely Sunday morning, but I really prefer our regular schedule.  It will be nice to have time to go for a walk, to think about this sermon one last time.  I need a sentence or two that explains why any of it matters.

Rethinking My Christmas Eve Sermon

I'm in the process of rethinking my Christmas Eve sermon. Let me capture a few details here.

--Wednesday, I went for a walk with a pastor friend and mentor who lives in the neighborhood. She told me about some ideas that her pastor son presented to the University of South Carolina students, where he is campus pastor. The Greek word for inn is actually much closer to guest room. If we say there was no room for Mary and Joseph in the guest room, does it change our understanding of the Nativity story in the second chapter of Luke? I'm going to write a sermon suggesting that it does, and I'll post it next week.

--If we accept the narrative in the Gospel of Luke that tells us that Joseph returned to his ancestral city, that doesn't square with our current vision of a couple far from home, all alone.  And we tend to forget that Mary's relatives were nearby too; Elizabeth and Zachariah live in the hill country of Judea, which is not that far from Bethlehem.

--If Joseph's relatives wouldn't turn them away, yet there was no room for them in the spare room, Mary may have given birth in the living room, surrounded by far-flung family come back for census/tax reasons.

--What about the manger?  In first century Palestine, people brought their animals inside for the night, and there were feed troughs.

--The work of Dr. Kenneth E. Bailey is important in so many ways.  This article gives a sense of the scope of his argument and how it can reshape our view of the life of Jesus.

The Feast Day of Saint Thomas

Today we celebrate the life of Saint Thomas. It's also the Winter Solstice. It's the time of year for doubting, as we finish another year full of doubts and dread.  The specifics of our doubt and dread may vary from person to person.  But here we are, at the end of the year, dealing with disappointments and changed expectations and more pivoting to be done. Those of us in the northern hemisphere may feel that the dark will never recede. It's a good day to celebrate the most famous doubter of all.

Who can blame Thomas for doubting? It was a fantastic story, even if you had traveled with Jesus and watched his other miracles. Once you saw the corpse of Jesus taken off the cross, you would have assumed it was all over.

And then, it wasn't. Thomas, late to see the risen Lord, was one of the fiercest believers, legend tells us, Thomas walking all the way to India.

I wonder if Thomas is near and dear to the heart of the more rational believers. We're not all born to be mystics, after all. I worry about our vanishing sense of wonder. We've all become Thomas now. We don't believe anything that we can't measure with our five senses.

We've spent significant amounts of time recently even doubting what we can measure with our five senses. We've spent even more time arguing about what it means to measure. We seem to be in a time when we can't even agree on some basic truths, let alone more complicated information.

The more I read in the field of the sciences, the more my sense of wonder is reignited. Just this morning, I read this article in The Washington Post about trees and what their rings tell us about the changing climate.  I love the term "latewood," a term I hadn't known before today.  I started thinking about my own bones, and what they might tell a researcher.  I created some lines that might become a poem.  Later today, on my neighborhood walk through the church camp Lutheridge, I will look at trees differently, with a new sense of wonder.

So today, in the Northern Hemisphere, as the earth leaves its darkest time and inches towards light, let us raise a mug of hot chocolate to St. Thomas, who showed us that we can have doubts and still persevere. Let us raise a mug of hot chocolate to solstice celebrations and all the ways that the natural world can point us back to our Creator. Let us pray that our rational selves live in harmony with our sense of wonder. Let us also offer a prayer of gratitude to those around us, Divine and ordinary humans, who don't cast us away for our inability to believe, to trust, to accept.

Here's a prayer from Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Winter for this day:

"Everliving God, who strengthened your apostle Thomas with firm and certain faith in your Son's resurrection: Grant me so perfectly and without doubt to believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord and our God, that my faith may never be found wanting in your sight; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen."

God of Love or God of Vengeance?

Each morning, I do a morning devotional on my Florida church's Facebook page; I call it Morning Watch.  I begin by reading the day's Bible passages from Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours, we take 5-7 minutes for creativity and/or contemplation, I pray the closing prayer out loud and offer some closing thoughts.  It takes about 10-15 minutes altogether.

I've been doing this activity since the end of March, 2020.  I set it up to begin at 5:30 a.m., and it's live.  At the time I set it up, I envisioned going back to spin class each morning and wanted to figure out how to offer devotional time and still get to spin class.  I didn't realize I would never go to that particular spin class again; although the gym survived the pandemic, the spin class time slot did not.

I have found this morning watch practice very nourishing.  There are 5 people who tune in regularly each week, and others who come and go.  But even if no one tuned in, I would still be willing to do it for me; indeed, I did do a variation of this practice for years, although it wasn't broadcast.  When I first started doing it, back in 2005, there wasn't an easy way to broadcast without better equipment than I had.

This morning, I suggested a resolution for 2024.  What if we behaved like God was our biggest supporter?  What if we moved away from the idea that God is disappointed with us?  Would our behavior change?  Would we feel emboldened?

People who know me know that this approach isn't new to me, meaning both that I am not the first to think about the idea, and I've been working on changing my view of God for years now.  I do think that many of us internalize God as the voice of an angry parent who is always so deeply disappointed in us.  As I read the Bible, I see where people have come to believe that idea, but I think it comes more from some of the letters in the New Testament (or Old Testament passages) than from what Jesus tells us.

Of course, I'm also aware of some of the passages where Jesus seems to tell us of the Creator's disappointment in us all.  I am also aware that I might be wrong about God's deep and abundant love for creation.

But I see more evidence for a Creator that is a deep wellspring of love for creation than I do evidence of a vengeful God.  That's the only Good News I can preach.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The Readings for Sunday, December 24, 2023:

First Reading: 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16

Psalm: Luke 1:47-55 (Luke 1:46b-55 NRSV)

Psalm (Alt.): Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26

Second Reading: Romans 16:25-27

Gospel: Luke 1:26-38

We’ve heard the story of Mary so many times that we forget how remarkable it really is. We forget how bizarre the story told by the angel Gabriel must seem. A young girl growing God in her womb? A post-menopausal woman conceiving? It’s all too much to fathom.

It’s important, too, to notice that God’s glorious vision doesn’t always match the way we would expect God to act. We see a history of God choosing the lowly, the meek, the outcast. Moses the stutterer, David the cheater, Peter the doubter. What business school would endorse this approach to brand building?

But our Scriptures remind us again and again that God works in mystical ways that our rational brains can’t always comprehend. If God can accomplish great things by means of a young woman, a woman beyond child-bearing years, a variety of wandering preachers and prophets, tax collectors and fisherman, just think what God might accomplish with all of our gifts and resources.

Of course, first we have to hear that message, that invitation from God. It’s hard for this message to make its way through all the fear-based messages beamed to us from our culture. The angel tells Mary not to be afraid, and that is a message we need to hear. Don't dance with your dread. Don't keep company with your fears, your worst case scenarios.

We have much to fear, but we’re not that different from past cultures. Our culture gives us stories of war and a planet's climate near collapse and refugees who can find no shelter. Our Scriptures tell us those same stories.

But those Scriptures also tell us of a God that breaks into our normal lives to remind us that God is redeeming creation even if we aren’t aware of that process. Our prophets remind us that ruin doesn’t have to last forever.

Now, that is Good News indeed. That is something to ponder when our brains want to swirl around global disasters or personal disappointments. Listen to Gabriel again: “Nothing is impossible with God.” Ponder that promise. Believe it.

Children's Sermon, Advent 3: Stay Alert for Stars

Yesterday, instead of giving a second children's sermon on John the Baptist, I skipped ahead to Epiphany, sort of.  I looked back to last Sunday's sermon about John the Baptist and talked about what points us to God.  

Sometimes what points us to God is something noisy, like John the Baptist.  I talked about angel choirs--if an angel choir appeared, that would be something obvious.  But often what points us to God is something quieter.  I passed out glow in the dark stars.  I'd gotten a box of 100 for about $6.00 for Amazon and divided them into sandwich bags.

I talked about the wise men who noticed a new star because they had been paying attention.  I said that it's easy to pay attention to what points us to God in a time of Advent--there's lots of beauty to remind us.  I gestured to the tree behind me.

But more often, we're going to have to be paying attention--and that's what our texts have been telling us, to stay alert, even when we don't have beautiful trees and lights to remind us.  I suggested that they take the stars and hang onto them, maybe keep them in a pocket or by their bed, where maybe they'll glow in the dark, and remember to keep watch for God at work in the world.

After the service, we stayed to help decorate the church for next Sunday; we are doing one service at 2 p.m.  One of the children's mothers told me how much she loves the children's sermons that I do and how her daughter loves them too and finds so much richness in them.  It is a moment I will treasure--I feel less sure about my children's sermons than other elements of being a minister.  I like the children's sermons that I give, but I've never had formal education in children's intellectual and moral development, so I don't know if they're at the correct level.  This encounter helped me think that maybe I'm doing OK.

The Holy Trinity and the Renewal of the Church

My small group from the spiritual director certificate program has continued to meet, even after we all graduated.  We check in with each other, and if anyone has any questions/concerns about directees, we have a group to help process it all.  Of course, most of us aren't doing much as spiritual directors, so we don't spend much time problem-solving.

On Tuesday, I told my group that I was working on a paper where I had to explore the Holy Trinity, and parts of the theology that I didn't think really mattered to many 21st century Christians.  Was God alone at first, before God begat the Son and then the Holy Spirit?  Were they all together from the beginning?

One of my group, one who has spent much of her career being a seminary professor at Lutheran seminaries, and her face lit up at the thought of the Trinity.  She said that whenever the Church has been in a quandary about what to do, the Church has found the answer through considering the Trinity.  A study of the Trinity has renewed the vigor for God's work in the world--which happens through the Trinity.

I wanted to ask for specific examples, but I felt I had already used enough of my time talking about the Trinity--not every group member is as into theology as I am.  And even I, who am into theology, am not as interested in issues of the Holy Trinity as other issues.  

I thought about using her comments in the conclusion of my essay, but I went in a different way.  Still, my group member's comment stuck with me, and I want to record it here.

Fall 2023 Semester Comes to an End

Today is my first day of winter break.  Yesterday I turned in my final paper, the big one for Systematic Theology class.  I had hoped to have a complete rough draft by the end of the day on Wednesday.  I didn't make that deadline, but I was close enough to sleep well.  I knew that the second and last section, the soteriology section would be easy for me to write, with its task to answer the question, "What is salvation for?" and tie it in to a current issue we're passionate about.  I chose climate change, because I thought there was a chance that fewer people would write about that issue than others we could have chosen, and I knew I could make it work.

Yesterday I got up and wrote the last section, while also circling back to proofread and to look through my notes from class lectures and the PowerPoints to try to determine what I still needed to add to the first section.  Around 10 or so, I thought, maybe I should have organized this paper a different way.  For a brief second, I thought about trying it, but then I told myself to stop being ridiculous.  I had about 12 hours before the deadline, and that's not enough time to rewrite the whole paper.  Plus, I was almost done.  

I went for a walk, and then we had our simple lunch of leftover hambone bean soup.  After lunch, I added some more Bible references to the paper and fixed some spacing.  I proofread and proofread again.  Finally, about 2 p.m., I went ahead and turned it in.  By then, my spouse was asleep, and I waited for him to wake up so we could celebrate.

I had thought of ways to celebrate.  I've been craving pizza for days, but a heavy meal like that is not something I wanted later in the day.  I thought about going to a brewery, but I didn't want to be out in rush hour traffic, which meant my spouse would need to wake up from his nap soon.

In the end, I went to the public library to get the books I had on hold.  In a way, it's fitting.  I've always spent my school breaks reading whatever I wanted.  I've always taken great pleasure in going to the library and getting whatever I wanted to read without having to pay.

But it was early enough in the day that I knew I would want something to eat before bedtime--but what?  I knew that I didn't want anything that was in the fridge, and I didn't want to cook or bake.  So I headed over to the nearby specialty bakery, hoping it was late enough in the day to get some discounted baked goods.

It was late enough in the day, half an hour before closing time, that there was not much left at all in the bakery at all.  I couldn't decide between the focaccia and the 3 cheese garlic bread, so I got them both.  Part of me thought that I overpaid, and part of me thought that I got 2 loaves of bread for what I would have paid for a pretzel and beer cheese dip at the brewery, so I got the better deal.

I got home and heated up the bread, which I enjoyed with a glass of wine and a stack of books as I glanced up periodically to watch the progress of the sun setting behind the mountains.  It was a low-key, but satisfying, celebration of the end of a semester, 

Advent Treats of the Reading Variety

I am trying to convince myself that I have enough time to write a blog post.  My Systematic Theology paper is due today, at 11:59 p.m.  I have been hard at work, and I am in the writing stage where I don't know if any of it makes any sense.  I have one more section to write, about what salvation means, and that's the part that will be easiest.  The part on Trinitarian theology requires me to weave together many ideas that show I've done the readings and understand the history.  Part of me worries that I'm relying too much on notes and the theology of others.  But that's what the assignment requires; I'm not asked to create my own theology of the Trinity.

I've been enjoying an Advent reading, Gail Godwin's Evensong.  I read it when it first came out, back in 1999, and then I reread it again a few years later.  So, it's been about 20 years since I've read it, and I don't remember much about it.  

It's about a woman who is an Episcopal priest; it's the sequel to Father Melancholy's Daughter, a book I loved deeply.  Twenty years ago, I loved Evensong because it told me what happened to the main character of Father Melancholy's Daughter.  This year, I'm loving it because it's set during Advent and because it's about church life in a mountain town similar to the one where I live and the one where I serve as Synod Appointed Minister.

This morning, I'm enjoying the Fresh Air interview with poet Christian Wiman--lots of great thoughts on faith, pain, and creativity.  Here's a quote to give a taste:  "I think you can believe in God and not have faith. I think faith means living toward God in some way, and it's what you do in your life and how you live it. I don't feel the sense of mystery or terror alleviated by faith. I don't feel that at all. I don't understand when people present God as an answer to the predicament of existence. That's not the way I experience it at all. I have this hunger in me that is endless, and I think everyone probably has it. Maybe they find different ways of dealing with it, whether it's booze or excessive exercise or excessive art or whatever. I tried to answer it with poetry for years and hit a wall with that. And finally ... I discovered ... the only solution to me was to live toward God without an answer."

Well, speaking of quotes, let me get back to that paper for Systematics.

The Feast Day of Santa Lucia

Today is the feast day of Santa Lucia, a woman in 4th century Rome during a time of horrible persecution of Christians and much of the rest of the population, and she was martyred.  The reasons for her martyrdom vary:   Did she really gouge out her eyes because a suitor commented on their beauty? Did she die because she had promised her virginity to Christ? Was she killed because the evil emperor had ordered her to be taken to a brothel because she was giving away the family wealth? Was she killed because a rejected suitor outed her for being a Christian?  We don’t really know.  

She is most often pictured with a crown of candles on her head, and tradition says that she wore a candle crown into the catacombs when she took provisions to the Christians hiding there.  With a candle crown, she freed up a hand to carry more supplies.  I love this idea, but it wouldn't surprise me to find out that it isn't true.

Truth often doesn't matter with these popular saints like Lucia, Nicholas, and Valentine.  We love the traditions, and that means we often know more about the traditions than we do about the saints behind them, if we know anything at all about the saints behind these popular days.

This feast day still seems relevant for two reasons.  First, Lucia shows us the struggle that women face in daily existence in a patriarchal culture, the culture that most of us still must endure.  It’s worth remembering that many women in many countries today don’t have any more control over their bodies or their destinies than these long-ago virgin saints did. In this time of Advent waiting, we can remember that God chose to come to a virgin mother who lived in a culture that wasn’t much different than Santa Lucia’s culture: highly stratified, with power concentrated at the top, power in the hands of white men, which made life exceeding different for everyone who wasn't a powerful, wealthy, white man. It's a society that sounds familiar, doesn't it?

On this feast day of Santa Lucia, we can spend some time thinking about women, about repression, about what it means to control our destiny.  We can think about how to spread freedom.

It's also an important feast day because of the time of year when we celebrate.  Even though we're still in the season of late autumn, in terms of how much sunlight we get, those of us in the northern hemisphere are in the darkest time of the year.  It's great to have a festival that celebrates the comforts of this time of year:  candles and baked goods and hot beverages.

I love our various festivals to get us through the dark of winter. In these colder, darker days, I wish that the early church fathers had put Christmas further into winter, so that we can have more weeks of twinkly lights and candles to enjoy. Christmas in February makes more sense to me, even though I understand how Christmas ended up near the Winter Solstice.

I always thought that if I had a more flexible schedule, I'd spend December 13 making special breads, but that will have to wait.  My schedule is flexible, but much of today and tomorrow will be spent working on my final paper for Systematic Theology class.  But on Friday, once the paper is turned in, I have a vision of creating small Santa Lucia braids of bread, one for each family at Faith Lutheran, which I'll distribute on Sunday.

You could do baking too! If you’d like to try, this blog post will guide you through it. If you’re the type who needs pictures, it’s got a link to a blog post with pictures.  Enjoy.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, December 17, 2023:

First Reading: Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

Psalm: Psalm 126

Psalm (Alt.): Luke 1:47-55 (Luke 1:46b-55 NRSV)

Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

Gospel: John 1:6-8, 19-28

Today's Gospel returns us to John the Baptist. John proves to be such a compelling figure that the religious people in charge try to determine who he is. This interchange between John and the priests and Levites fascinates me. I love that John knows who he is, but he's not interested in explaining himself to institutional figures. Still he'll answer their questions.

One answer in particular keeps banging around my brain: "I am not the Christ" (verse 20). Some interpretations have him say, "I am not the Messiah." He's also not Elijah, not the prophet. When asked to explain himself more fully, he refers to Isaiah: "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,' . . ." (verse23).

The first lesson from Isaiah seems more appropriate as a mission for the modern Christian, with its language of binding up the brokenhearted, proclaiming liberty to the captives, and comforting those who mourn. We are to be a garland, instead of ashes, to be the oil of gladness.

And yet, some days I feel it might be easier to be one of those old-fashioned Christians, who have the mission of telling everyone that Jesus loves them. And of course, the next question from many people would be, "Yeah? How does that change anything?"

And during times when I feel despair, either because of the brokenness that I witness all around me or the larger evils that I see in society, I see their point. It's easy to get bogged down in that despair.

The message of today's Gospel is that we must be careful to remember that we are not the Christ. There are days when I shake my head and think, "I've been working on hunger issues most of my whole life: writing letters to legislators, giving away money, working in food banks. Why isn't this issue solved yet? How long will it take?"

I must practice saying, "I am not the Messiah." That doesn't mean I'm off the hook in terms of my behavior. I can't say, "I am not the Messiah," and stay home and watch reruns of The Simpsons and do nothing about injustice in the world.

But I am not the Messiah. We struggle against a huge domination system, as Walter Wink termed it. The lives of John the Baptist and Jesus serve as cautionary tales to me, when I get too impatient with how long it takes for the arc of history to bend towards justice (Martin Luther King's wording). They struggled against injustice and died in the maw of the system they worked to dismantle.

This week I shall practice a John the Baptist approach. I will recognize the importance of making the pathways straight, while continuing to insist, "I am not the Christ."

Advent Stories and Midwinter Poems

It has been a week-end of tough health news, not mine or my family members, but close friends and their family members.  I've been thinking about the holidays, about getting tough health news, or any tough news, during the holidays.

I've been thinking about Advent, and how our Advent texts give us a story for any mood we're feeling.  There's the Mary story, perfect for the "Oh dear, what have I done?" moments in life.  There's John the Baptist, perfect for when you're ready to burn it all down, but at the same time, you're not quite ready to walk away.  There's the Elizabeth story for all of us who feel old and past our prime.  And who could forget Elizabeth's husband, whose big mouth and questioning gets him a time out.  For those of us who had dreams that seem to be crumbling, there's Joseph and the dreams that do not die.

All the stories revolve around waiting.  And since all of the stories revolve around waiting, I project changing emotions onto them.  Of course there's nothing in the text that tells us that Mary has any qualms, but it's hard for me to imagine that she never had that moment in the middle of the night where she second guessed herself.  Similarly, it's hard for me to imagine that Elizabeth never said, "I am much too old for this pregnancy gig."  We know that Joseph wrestled with the death of his hopes for a family and thought about his options before the angel appeared in the dream to tell him what to do.

Our Advent texts can be quite a startling juxtaposition with the messages that popular culture and the American consumer economy sends us.  The holiday cheer in commercial places is such a contrast with our Advent texts.  The juxtaposition can be jarring, but most years, I like having options.  I can have a contemplative Advent one day, followed by festive cheer the next, followed by a sorrowing December the next.

These ponderings made me wonder if I have the perfect poem for this mood of mine.  I do not, but I did find one that spoke to me, with this week of strange weather and gloomy political news.  I wrote it long ago, and it has remained unpublished, perhaps because it is such an odd mix of images.

In the Bleak Midwinter


In another climate in a different age,
these clouds would portend snow.
Instead it’s a strange winter thunderstorm
that swoops from the south to pelt
us with weather more suitable for spring.

In this year when winter came early,
two trucks collide to litter
the side street with stuffed
toys. The children complain
that the toys don’t speak.

Someone arranges child-sized
shoes in pairs, ghost feet
heading off into the wilderness
in search of honey or a home.
Installation art or portent?

The full moon keeps its counsel.
Through the centuries, it has watched
over many developments
and led many a slave to freedom,
but it will not interfere directly.

The angels sing their news of good tidings
of great joy, but we cannot hear
them. We can’t see the stars,
much less the rarer sight
of celestial beings who call us blessed.

Adventures in Gingerbread

My Florida church has their annual gingerbread decorating today.  My pastor has been baking all week, and today people will bring tubs and tubes of icing and other decorations for the festive, post-worship event.  

Note for future project:  why do we make these things post-worship?  Could we create a liturgy that uses gingerbread people?  I bet that we could.  Hmmm.

I knew the event was coming, and I wanted a gingerbread person of my own, not to decorate, but to eat.  I prefer my gingerbread unadorned.  I saw a decorating kit in The Fresh Market:  $12 for 6 gingerbread people and decorations.  I thought that was a bit pricy, and I know how those cookies would taste.  I kept walking.

I was at an upscale bakery later, and they had gingerbread people, mostly unadorned except for some white icing piped around the edges.  I was prepared to buy several, until I asked the price.  "Five dollars," the nice lady said.

Before I could stop myself, I said, "Never mind.  I have molasses at home."  I smiled, so that it might have come across as less rude.

I did not point out that the larger cookies with chocolate chips were half that price.  Maybe molasses is just that expensive.  It was last year, when I decided not to pay $10 for a jar of molasses--not artisanal molasses, just the kind of jar that once cost two or three dollars.  This year, I found that jar for $3.98 and bought it.

Friday afternoon, I made gingerbread people, and I have since been eating gingerbread people.  One of the reasons I thought about paying at the bakery is so that I wouldn't eat 4 dozen gingerbread people mostly by myself.

This year's batch is harder than I would like--you could build a house out of this gingerbread.  It's so hard to get gingerbread right:  hard enough to decorate, but with a soft interior.  I didn't use my family recipe which is in a box somewhere.  That recipe calls for cooking the molasses and the butter together and letting it cool before proceeding.

Let me stop eating gingerbread people and take one last look at my sermon.  Soon it will be time to head across the mountain to Bristol, Tennessee to Faith Lutheran.  There were thunderstorms last night, but at least no snow or ice yet.

Drama Kid Powers Activate! The Return to Bethlehem

I spent some time this week working on getting the space ready for the Return to Bethlehem experience.  Two months ago, a friend of mine asked if I would help, and I said yes, even though I wasn't exactly sure what would be involved.  I thought it might be something like a living Nativity scene, maybe with a few extra scenes.

I was wrong.  It's a whole living Nativity village.  One of the supervisors walked me through the space, telling me about how the visitors would stop at each station to hear actors tell about the space.  For example, there's a weaver's house, and the Temple, and a place where a person dyes cloth.  Eventually the tour ends up at the inn and the stable outside of the inn.

I do wonder a bit about the content.  I hope it's not anti-Jewish, and with the subject being Christ's birth, maybe it's not.  But the man who was working with me did say that the stop at the Temple has the priest talking and children asking about the star and the priest talking about the backwards shepherds.  Hmm.  And there's a spot on the tour where a Pharisee is holding forth.  I know that the potential for antisemitism is there.

But it's a script that has been paid for, written by a national group.  It might have a more conservative skew than I would like, but at least with the Nativity story, it's not likely to go as wrong as the Crucifixion end can go, with substitutionary atonement theory and antisemitic messages right and left.

I thought it was a church that puts this on, and I marveled that Groce United Methodist Church in Asheville was big enough (in terms of people, money, and space) to do this.  Come to find out, it's a different group that puts it all together, and different churches can host.  Of course, very few people have a big enough space.  There needs to be a fellowship hall that's the size of a gym.  Here's a picture of people getting the space ready for us to finish--you can see the theatre flats that we're using:

Each space had a picture of what the space looked like in a past year, along with tubs of supplies.  We assembled as best we could.  Here's a picture of what the Temple looked like before:

And here's the after: 

It took over an hour to assemble the Temple.  I did start counting all the spaces and thinking about the fact that the show opens Thursday night.  Happily, not every space will take that long.  I was part of the two person team that did the dye shop, and it only took about half an hour to get this space ready:

I'm enjoying the work.  It takes me back to my undergrad days, when I had a student worker job in the theatre department, creating sets.  It brings me the joy that fashioning worship spaces for my Florida church gave me.  And I'm needed--yesterday we didn't have many volunteers to do the work.

The Feast Day of Saint Nicholas

Today, all over Europe, the gift-giving season begins. I had a friend in grad school who celebrated Saint Nicholas Day by having each family member open one present on the night of Dec. 6. It was the first I had heard of the feast day, but I was enchanted.

Still, I don't do much with this feast day--if I had children or gift-giving friends, I might, but most years, I simply pause to remember the historical origins of the saint and the day.

In different years, I might have spent some time looking at my own Santa objects. One year, my step-mom in law and my father in law gave me these as Christmas presents:

They're actually cookie presses, and the Santa figures are the handles of the press. I've never used them as a cookie press, but I love them as decorations that are faithful to the European country of origin.

It's always a bit of a surprise to realize that Saint Nicholas was a real person. But indeed he was. In the fourth century, he lived in Myra, then part of Greece, now part of Turkey; eventually, he became Bishop of Myra. He became known for his habit of gift giving and miracle working, although it's hard to know what really happened and what's become folklore. Some of his gift giving is minor, like leaving coins in shoes that were left out for him. Some were more major, like resurrecting three boys killed by a butcher.

My favorite story is the one of the poor man with three children who had no dowry for them. No dowry meant no marriage, and so, they were going to have to become prostitutes. In the dead of night, Nicholas threw a bag of gold into the house. Some legends have that he left a bag of gold for each daughter that night, while some say that he gave the gold on successive nights, while some say that he gave the gold as each girl came to marrying age.

Through the centuries, the image of Saint Nicholas has morphed into Santa Claus, but as with many modern customs, one doesn't have to dig far to find the ancient root.

I don't have as many Santa images in my Christmas decorations. Here's my favorite Santa ornament:

I picked it up in May of 1994 or so. I was visiting my parents, and I went with them on a trip to Pennsylvania where my dad was attending a conference. I picked this ornament up in a gift shop that had baskets of ornaments on sale. I love that it uses twine as joints to hold Santa together.

In the past decade, I've been on the lookout for more modern Saint Nicholas images. A few years ago, one of my friends posted this photo of her Santa display to her Facebook page:

I love the ecumenical nature of this picture of Santa: Santa statues coexisting peacefully with Buddha statues. And then I thought, how perfect for the Feast Day of St. Nicholas!

More recently, I have a new favorite Saint Nicholas image, courtesy of my cousin's wife:

In this image, Santa communicates by way of American Sign Language. As I looked at the background of the photo, I realized Santa sits in a school--the sign on the bulletin board announces free breakfast and lunch.

The photo seems both modern and ancient to me: a saint who can communicate in the language we will hear, the promise that the hungry will be filled.

In our time, when ancient customs seem in danger of being taken over by consumerist frenzy, let us pause for a moment to reflect on gifts of all kinds. Let us remember those who don't have the money that gifts so often require. Let us invite the gifts of communication and generosity into our lives.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, December 10, 2023:

First Reading: Isaiah 40:1-11

Psalm: Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13

Second Reading: 2 Peter 3:8-15a

Gospel: Mark 1:1-8

Today's Gospel takes us to John, a fascinating character. In today's reading, we see him, clothed in his strange costume, eating locusts and wild honey. Other Gospels present him as the cousin of Christ. Who is this guy?

I find him fascinating for many reasons. Maybe I'm always intrigued by a prophet. This year, I'm thinking about John's place in the drama of Christ's life, and how he seems completely comfortable with his place.

In earlier years, I've wondered if it would be hard to be John, with his more famous cousin Jesus overshadowing him. This year, I notice that he has the perfect opportunity to upstage Jesus--people of the time period were desperate for a Messiah, and there were plenty of predators wandering around, trying to convince people that they were the Messiah. John had more legitimacy and a wider following than most of the other people with their wild claims.

But John knows who he is. And he fills out his full potential by preparing the way for Jesus. Not only does John know who he is, he knows who Jesus is. John knows for whom he waits and watches.

We might be wise to see John as a cautionary tale too. John is one of the earliest to know the true mission of Jesus--indeed, in some Gospel versions, perhaps he realizes the mission of Jesus before Jesus fully does. Notice that John's life is turned upside down.

Many people are shocked to discover that being a Christian doesn't protect them from hard times. Being a Christian doesn't mean that we won't suffer sickness, that we won't lose our jobs, that we won't lose almost everything we love. To be human means that we will suffer loss--and thinking people know in advance that we will suffer loss, which means that we suffer more than once.

But we have a God who has experienced the very same thing. Think of the life of Jesus, who had no place to lay his head and died by crucifixion.

The good news is that we have a God who fully understands all the ways in which we suffer--and wants to be with us anyway. We have a God who fully understands all the ways in which we will fail--and loves us fully anyway.

John reminds us of our Advent goal, which is to keep watch, to stay alert. Of course, our Advent goal should spill over into the rest of our life. It's easy to keep watch in December, when the rest of the world counts down to Christmas. It's harder to remember to watch for God in the middle of summer. That's why we need to develop daily spiritual practices that will keep us watchful.

John also reminds us that we are not the Messiah. It’s Christ’s role to save people. It’s tempting to think that we can save ourselves and each other. But we can’t. It’s comforting to say, “I am not the Messiah,” as John the Baptist does, in John 1:20. In our daily lives, we’re confronted with scores of problems that we can’t solve, from various national debt crises to meetings about missed numbers and opportunities to friends and family who make disastrous choices. We can only do so much. We are not the Christ for whom the world waits.

That phrase can keep us humble too. Many a powerful figure has been disgraced by forgetting that someone else is the Messiah.

These days, perhaps we have the opposite problem. Far from feeling powerful, we may feel oppressed by forces outside our control. But our scripture readings offer comfort. We have a larger salvation, even when our daily lives feel like a persecution. Christ came to claim us, the Holy Spirit stays with us, and the day will come when we will be reunited ever more deeply with the Divine. Watch and wait and work for "a new earth, where righteousness is at home" (2 Peter 3: 13).

Advent Eve

I have ordered some Happy New Year headbands for the children's sermon tomorrow.  It's a good time to talk about how the lectionary year works and to think about all the ways a new year can work and not work (but I'll probably talk about how it does work).

It's a strange Advent this year.  It starts very late, because the 4th Sunday in Advent is also Christmas Eve--my least favorite way of having Advent and Christmas Eve.  At the church where I serve, we will have a 2 p.m. service, and I'm fine with that.

Once I would not have been; I would have been insistent that we must have Advent 4 in the morning and Christmas Eve later in the day.  I have always loved a Christmas Eve evening service, so that candles look more beautiful, but I am aware of how many people are not going to be able to join us at night.  These days, I may be that person myself.  My night vision is not what is used to be.

It's also a strange Advent because we're at that time in the lectionary cycle where we have more John the Baptist and apocalypse than other years.  When I thought of being a SAM and leading the church through Advent, I had forgotten about this set of readings.  But given the world events, I think I'm up to the task.

In some ways, it feels like Advent has already started, the way that it usually does, with the Sunday after Thanksgiving, or even earlier.  I wonder if that could be a starting point for a sermon?  

As you can see, I'm still not ready with sermons for tomorrow, either the children's sermon or the adult sermon.  Let me go for a walk and ponder it all.

The Feast Day of Saint Andrew

Today is the feast day of Saint Andrew, remembered as the first disciple. He's the brother of Simon Peter, and Andrew is the one who told Peter about Jesus. Andrew followed John the Baptist, and John the Baptist introduced Jesus as the true Messiah. Andrew believed, and Andrew brought his brother to see what he had seen.

Tradition has it that the brothers didn’t give up their family fishing business at first, but eventually, Christ requested full commitment. I’ve always wondered about the family relationships that simmer in the background of the Gospels.

I remember one Gospel reading that mentioned Jesus healing the mother-in-law of Simon Peter. I thought, mother-in-law? That means there must have been a wife. What did the mothers and wives and mother-in-laws think of the men abandoning their fishing business to follow Jesus?

I also think about the sibling relationships here. What does Andrew think about Simon Peter, who quickly moves into the spotlight? Is Andrew content to stay in the background?

We know from the passage in Matthew that begins with Matthew 20:20, that there is competition to be Christ’s favorite. We see the mother of James and John who argues for her sons’ importance. We see the other disciples who become angry at the actions of this mother. I extrapolate to imagine that there’s much jockeying for position amongst the disciples.

Christ never loses an opportunity to remind us that he’s come to give us a different model of success. Again and again, he dismisses the importance that the world attaches to riches, to status, to a good reputation. Again and again, Jesus instructs us that the last will be first. Jesus tells us that the way to gain prestige with God is to serve.

We see stories that show that Andrew is the kind of disciple who is working for the glory of Christ, not for other reasons. In John’s Gospel, Andrew is the one who tells Jesus about the boy with five barley loaves and two fish, and thus helps make possible the miraculous feeding.

Andrew was the kind of disciple we could use more of in this world. Andrew so believes in the Good News that he brings his family members to Christ, and he continued in this path, bringing the Gospel to people far and wide. We see him beginning this mission in John’s Gospel, where he tells Christ of the Greeks that want to see him.

Andrew gets credit for bringing Christianity into parts of eastern Europe and western Asia: Kiev, Ukraine, Romania, Russia. He’s the first bishop of the Church of Byzantium and patron saint of all sorts of places, from Scotland to Cyprus to Russia.

On this day when we celebrate the life of the first disciple, let us consider our own discipleship. Are we focused on the right tasks or are we hoping that our Christian faith brings us non-Christian glory? How can we help usher in the miracles that come with the presence of Christ? Who needs to hear the Good News as only we can tell it?

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, December 3, 2023:

First Reading: Isaiah 64:1-9

Psalm: Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18 (Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19 NRSV)

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:3-9

Gospel: Mark 13:24-37

You may read the Gospel for Sunday and wonder if I've pasted the right lessons into the space above. You may have been prepared for angels appearing to Elizabeth, Mary, and Joseph. You might have already decorated your tree and started listening to Christmas music; you may be hoping for a glimpse of Christmas in Advent.

Instead, again, you get this apocalyptic text from Mark, about tribulation, and a darkened sun and moon and stars falling from the sky. Yikes. Isaiah's not much better; we're not to the comforting texts yet.

But the end of this chunk of Mark is important. It implores us several times to watch. We're not very good at watching. We're not very good at waiting. These statements are true throughout the year, but they're especially true during the liturgical season of Advent. The pace of our socializing goes into full-throttle frenzy, and we give ourselves over to trying to create a perfect holiday. Then we spend the month of January nursing a cold (or succumbing to more serious illness) and the rest of the year paying our credit card bills.

Seen in this light, the Gospel chunk of Mark makes sense. The way we celebrate Advent is indicative of the way we spend the rest of the year, and in this way, the apocalyptic tone makes sense. So many of us are making a ruin of our lives. What can we do so that our lives do not end up in ashes?

The Gospel tells us to keep watch, and we might return to some ancient spiritual disciplines to help us with that. We think of Lent as the time of year for spiritual discipline, but Advent might be an even more important time, since our culture gives us more pressure in the season of Advent than Lent.

Return to the old practices. Light an Advent wreath each evening. Or buy yourself an Advent calendar. Those of us without children often let these traditions slide. Maybe we could take them up again.

We could return to some even more ancient practices.

Add some devotional time to your day. There are many books set up specifically for Advent or you could resolve to read more of the Bible.  Add some prayer time.

You might keep a journal to record your thoughts as you move towards Christmas. If you don't have time to write much, write a haiku or a sentence to capture your thought for the day. Or take a picture. This practice can help you stay alert.

Instead of adding something to your life, you could subtract.  Consider a fast of some sort.  Give up sugar for Advent instead of Lent.  Set your devices aside and give up time on the internet.  Have a meatless day of the week to encourage you to remember that you have other ways to nourish your body and your soul.

You might decide to give some of your time and/or money to charity. Or you might resolve to help those charities in January, when the fervor of charitable activities at year's end dies down, and those organizations really need you.

Whatever you do, choose a discipline that will help you keep watch. When we train ourselves to be alert, we'll be amazed at how much evidence of Divine Love surrounds us every day.

Children's Sermon for a Baptism Sunday

I am a Synod Appointed Minister at Faith Lutheran, a small country church near Bristol, Tennessee.  When I look at the population who comes to church each Sunday, I don't anticipate many baptisms or weddings; it's an older population for the most part.  But there are 5-9 children every Sunday, mostly grandchildren of members.  

We did have a baptism on Sunday--we baptized the grandchild/great grandchild of family members who attend.  The parents live in Nashville and were in town for the week-end.  Back in early autumn (late September?  early October?) the church members asked if I could do a baptism, and I treasured the look of joy on their faces when I said yes.  We began to plan for a baptism on the Sunday of Thanksgiving week-end.

I offer a children's sermon every week, so I didn't want to let this opportunity pass.  I knew that this baptism might be the only one the children see.  My sermon talked a bit about sacraments, in a less mystical way than I might have presented the ideas to adults; as I reflect on it now, I realize that children might be able to grasp the mystical ways in a more capable way than most adults.

I wanted to talk about the other aspect of baptism in the Lutheran (ELCA) church--that we're making promises that later the child will decide to continue with or not.  I also talked about the fact that we as a congregation are making promises too--we will promise to support the child and pray for our new sibling in Christ.

I had a family tree chart that my mom made for our September family reunion.  I saved it and brought it to our smaller family reunion at Thanksgiving.  I showed them the chart and added my name to it and Stephen's name to it--he and I are people they know, and we are part of this family tree as the generation goes on.  I added our names on sticky notes.

Then I talked about the Christian family--imagine a family tree that contained the name of every baptized Christian.  Imagine how we are all connected.  We are individuals in different times, and yet our baptism connects us.

I could have done more, of course.  There's the interconnectedness of literal trees through root systems and the fungi that support them.  There are ways that older trees protect younger trees (for more on this fascinating research, read this article from Smithsonian Magazine).  There's always more I could have done and so much church history that I always decide not to include.

I think it worked well, but I often think that.  It's a sobering fact of both teaching and being a minister that I will rarely know whether or not I've been successful in what I hope I am passing on to others.  But I'm also aware that this preaching and teaching feeds my soul too; I'm lucky to be able to do it.

First Baptism

Yesterday was my first baptism as a minister.  I've assisted with baptisms before, but I've never been the one who put water on the baby's head.  I felt a bit nervous, but I reminded myself that it wasn't a funeral or a wedding, both of which come with many more hopes and expectations.  In short, it seemed there wasn't much that could go wrong.

In retrospect, I was lucky.  I baptized one of the happier babies I've ever met.  When water went down his head onto his face, he smiled.  When water dripped off my hand onto the baptismal font as I moved my hand to his head, he reached for the water drops on the font.

I had planned to meet with the parents before the service to strategize about how to hold the baby, but they weren't there when the service started.  I did have them move the baby closer to the font, but the father held the baby upright, which is why the water dribbled down his face.  I tried to catch some of it with a baptismal cloth, but it wasn't very absorbent.  Happily, the baby didn't mind.

If there's another baptism, I'll do more to practice with the baptismal font and the water.  Or maybe it's always going to be messy, and I should embrace the idea of water going everywhere.

The baby being baptized never cried, but his older brother did.  I didn't realize that the wailing child in the narthex was part of the baptismal family; if I had, I'd have had the child join us earlier.  As it was, the relative who had been trying to console the wailing child brought the child forward to the mom.  Something to remember to ask for next time.

The baby was the grandchild and great grandchild of members of the little country church where I am a Synod Appointed Minister.  The family lives in Nashville.  I had a phone conversation in advance, but in retrospect, I should have covered more; I shouldn't have assumed we would have time before the service.

The baby smiled throughout the rest of the baptism ceremony, and I suggested that the family walk with the baby so that we could all greet our new sibling in Christ.  That baby has a future in politics or movies or some other arena that needs friendly charisma.

Afterwards, we went downstairs to the fellowship hall, where the family had invited us all to stay for a barbecue lunch, another treat especially in a week where we're all getting tired of Thanksgiving leftovers.

I'm calling my first baptism a success, while at the same time thinking about ways I could be better, if there's a next time.  I found myself wishing we could do a baptism once a week, the way we do the eucharist once a week.  But then it wouldn't feel as special and holy--and yes, I do realize that's an argument for having once a month eucharist than once a week.

Here's the Facebook post I made:

"The baptism went well--the baby was the happiest baby I've ever met, and baptismal water got all over the place (the baby, me, the font), and the baby put his little hands on the water drops and made happy noises, and everyone was smiling and laughing. I halfway expected a dove to descend and a voice telling us how beloved we all are (there was that voice, but it was my voice, never losing an opportunity to tell us all how much God loves us)."

Earlier, I made a pre-baptism post that said I was both nervous and joyous.  One of my pastor friends gave me this encouragement, which is worth preserving:  "Know this…you are a child of God, dripping wet in the same promise as the one who will be baptized today. We celebrate the promise that holds us all!"

Low Tech Thanksgiving

I have just spent much of a week in a house with no internet access--no, not mine, but the ramshackle house that my family rents each year.  In the past, we've been given a hotspot from the camp that rents the house, but last year, we discovered that they no longer provide that service.  We used our smart phones as hotspots, and I had the highest mobile phone bill I've ever had, since I don't have unlimited data.  

Last year I learned how much data gets used when the phone is a hotspot, so this year I was more careful and intentional.  No more mindless scrolling of sites in the morning before everyone else work up--I read a book! No more checking various sites in the afternoon because I was bored--I went for a walk or started up a conversation.

I used my phone as a hotspot in the morning to do the morning devotion time that I started doing during the pandemic and have kept doing it.  It's a 12-15 minute time of me doing the reading from Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours, a time for contemplation and/or creativity, and a time for prayer and reflection/benediction at the end.  I lead it by way of my Florida church's Facebook page.

I also checked in on e-mails at one other point in the day, but happily, nothing was there that required my attention.

On Tuesday, knowing that I would have limited internet access, I made a push to get all of my grading done--hurrah!  I did go down the mountain to Spartanburg just in case my students needed face to face attention.  I saw very few of them, and even the ones who had scheduled conferences decided not to come.  That was fine with me; I wanted to be available, in part so that if anyone later says that I wasn't, I can say, "I came in on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and you weren't here."

They likely won't say that.  In all my years of teaching, that's not a common complaint, of me or any other college teacher I've known.  It's far more common that they just disappear with nary a peep.

Tomorrow I will write more of a Thanksgiving wrap up/retrospective, but today I need to get ready for church.  I am still the Synod Appointed Minister at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee, and today I am doing a baptism.  I am both nervous and feeling good about it.  I have assisted at many a baptism, so it's not an unfamiliar rite to me.  The church congregation is kind and supportive, so I don't feel like it's a day fraught with peril if anything goes wrong.  And there's not much to go wrong--it's not like a funeral.

Let me go get organized.  Let me be peaceful and filled with joy.

Thanksgiving 2023

Here we are, very early on Thanksgiving morning; I'm writing at the kitchen table while my uncle fries bacon.  Soon the younger parts of the extended family will get up to do the Turkey Trot down in Hendersonville.  Later, we'll eat a feast.  This afternoon, we'll try to replicate my grandmother's yeast rolls.

We can do that because my mother thought to preserve the recipe.  My cousin's wife asked if I had it, and I did not, so I asked my mom and sister.  My mom brought all the recipes she had, including the one for yeast rolls.

Yesterday afternoon, my cousin's daughter copied the recipes, and I made this Facebook post:  "My heart is so happy - - the next generation copying the recipes from my grandmother, which my mom preserved."

It may be one of my most-liked post in recent years.  For me, it captures so much about this holiday and why I love it:  family recipes, family time, family feasts, family traditions.  I realize these aspects are also the elements that can make this holiday, and life in general, painful.

I have had to use my cell phone's hotspot capacity to access the internet, which feels miraculous, but also makes me aware of being online.  I don't have unlimited data, and this hotspot consumes data as if it's a Thanksgiving feast.

That, too, is a blessing--it makes me move offline and enjoy being together in person.  It's an interesting insight.

One last thing I want to record:  last night, over dinner, we were talking about books that have been helpful.  My cousin said that the most important and profound book he'd ever read was Man's Search for Meaning.  I said, "You mean the one from the middle of the 20th century?  By Viktor Frankl?"  Yes, that very one.  I was surprised I could pull Frankl's name from my memory, and surprised my cousin had read it.  

Have I read it?  Surely I've read at least part of it.  Still, based on my cousin's recommendation, I'm planning to reread it again.  I am grateful for these connections.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel: Christ the King Sunday

The readings for Sunday, Nov. 26, 2023:

First Reading: Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24

Psalm: Psalm 95:1-7a

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 100

Second Reading: Ephesians 1:15-23

Gospel: Matthew 25:31-46

This week, the liturgical year comes to a close with Christ the King Sunday. In some churches, this will be a high festival day that celebrates the power of Christ. But the Gospel reading makes it clear that Kingdom power is not the same as worldly power.

We might expect a Gospel reading that reminds us that Jesus transcended death. We might get a Gospel reading that tries to scare us with a vision of Christ at the next Coming, descending in glory to judge us. Well, in a way, we do.

But the vision we get is not the one that we might expect. We might expect to be judged and found wanting because of what we've been told are sins: our drinking, our gambling, our bad sexual choices. We might expect to be judged for all the Sundays we decided we'd prefer sleep to church. We might expect to be judged because we've been lazy, and we didn't go for that promotion at work.

This Gospel reminds us of how God will judge us. Did we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, visit the imprisoned? If so, then we have been attending to our royal tasks.

And why do we do this? The Bible is full of stories of the Divine showing up in circumstances where we wouldn't expect to find God. The Bible tells us that God prefers to hang out with the poor and the marginalized. If we want to find God, we need to go there. We have a history of thousands of years of Christians whose lives support what the Bible tells us--we will find God in the meekest of places.


Next week, we begin the season of Advent, where we remember one of our central Christian stories: God comes to be with us two thousand years ago, but not in the power center of Rome. No, God comes to us in one of the outposts of Roman civilizations, and God lives with one of the groups of people that the worldly, dominant power structure of the time despised.

This Gospel also reminds us that we are to see God in everyone. It's easy for me to see God in the eyes of my husband as he looks at me lovingly. It's harder for me to see my difficult coworker as Jesus incarnate. In any given day, we are besieged by people who aggravate us, from our family members to our colleagues to strangers who drive the road with us or shop in the same stores or send their children to the same schools. By forcing myself to treat everyone as Jesus-in-Disguise, I will transform myself into the Christian that I want to be.

Jesus was the model, after all. Jesus had dinner with the outcast. Jesus treated everyone with love and respect, even people who were out to sabotage him. I could let myself off the hook by saying, "Well, yeah, he was God incarnate. I could do that too, if I was God incarnate."

No, you can do it, because Jesus did it. Jesus came to show us the full potential of a human life. Jesus came to dwell among us and to show us a better way to live. It's not the way the world tells us to live. The world would scoff at a king who sought out the poor and dispossessed, who sold his possessions so that he would have more money for the poor.

But Christians know that our power lies in our compassion. We don't achieve compassion by sitting in our homes, working on being more compassionate. We become more compassionate in the same way that God did, by getting involved in the world.

And we're not doing this for some after-death reward, although many preachers will use this Gospel to lecture on that. We do this because God has invited us to be part of the redemption of creation--not in some far away time, but in our very own. We don't have to wait for Jesus to come again. When we model Jesus in our everyday behavior, Christ re-enters the world.

We're not here to make money, to have a good retirement, to accumulate stuff. God has a greater purpose for us, one that will leave us infinitely more satisfied.