Different

This year will be different. 

I suppose I end every year with the same sentiment, wanting the next three hundred and sixty-five (this year, 366) to be better, or, in some sense, happier.  Surely, I attempt to think I will be healthier, although the attrition of time is inevitable; I want to be wealthier, I think, or at least that's what I'm conditioned to believe that somehow wealth will make things easier for me; I want to be wiser - most assuredly, for in wisdom we find the most contentment in life.  That's why Solomon chose it.  Wisdom, and its genesis with the fear of God, is invariably where we find that life can be different.

But something else different has shifted in me, like the leading edge of a fault line and even though the earthquake (or lifequake in this instance) might not move the Richter scale, I feel like this forty-third trip around the sun will transform me.

Let me start again.

I watched a movie last night - About Time.  It was probably a mistake to watch it before I went to bed because the import of it confounded my dreams throughout the night and the waking moments of my today.  I won't spoil the entire movie, but it's essentially about a young man who is told, on his twenty-first birthday, by his father that he can travel backwards in time and with just a 'rumble, stumble and a flop around' he can go back to change little things in his life without upsetting the time/space continuum.

This is not a science fiction movie, but it is an incredible dialogue between living in the past and loving in the present.  So, the first question I asked myself was, "If I could travel back in the past to 'fix up' any of the more embarrassing or shameful things that happened, would I do so?"  The quickest response would have been 'yes, indeed.'  I would have loved to have avoided various points where I did not come out as the brightest spark from the fire.  The pain of embarrassment is one of the great motivating factors in life and to avoid them, well, let's just say that no (rational) human enjoys pain, whether physical or otherwise.

But the question I asked was the wrong one: It's not 'would I go back in time?' but 'how do I pay attention in the present?'  That's really the point of the movie and it is done in a masterful way; the desperate attempts to understand relationships and how love develops is where my mind should go, and I find myself essentially swimming in a shallow pool of guilt, because there are times when I believe that 'paying attention' has a price to it.  The more I reflected on the laps that I was making in this pool, the more I realized that 'paying attention' is really the only free thing that we do.  Everything else costs, whether time, energy or money - even love, which necessarily costs a beautiful sacrifice if done well. 

Paying attention is without cost and just because I notice one thing, that does not mean that my entire focus is absent from everything else.  For instance, I continue to recognize that my eldest daughter is now in her last year of high school and just lately, I've been seeing her in a different light, the bouncing curls of her hair which are so reminiscent of that small girl from fifteen years ago; the lilt of her voice and the ring of her laughter:  this does not distract my understanding of how my other two daughters, both of whom are loved equally as much, their own qualities of character; Josephine's steadfast sense of humor, the happy scrunching of her nose and how Greta's eyes light up at the thought of reading a book on the sofa all day long - I can think about those things all day long, how they used to be.  That's what photographs are for and sometimes we get lost in them because they are silenced happy echoes of what used to be.

Losing ourselves in photos is a necessary thing sometimes.  To remember is to be human, but it also allows us one more thing - to feel.  To feel and to sense is that which makes life completely livable. 

That's why this year will be different - all from watching a movie on a night when no one else was in the house.

Last night I spilled a glass of red wine all over our cream colored carpet.  First response?  A rush of blood to the brain and a resorting to muffled profanity while watching the wine drip down over my arms and down on my legs, like a hairy Plinko board, and soaking in to the carpet.  It looked like an artery had exploded in my arm.  I hurried to the kitchen to try to find anything that would soak it up; I had the forethought to leave the beautiful kitchen towels to grab rags and as I attempted to blot up the spilled wine, I paid attention to everything that was happening.

To be able to feel anger - it's blessing.  To be able to see the wine on the carpet - a blessing (mixed one at that).  To be able to hear the wind switching through the wooden slats - a blessing.  To feel the wine drying in red blotches between the moles on my arms - yes, a blessing.  You see, all these things, even though seemingly inconvenient, were an opportunity to remind me that to sense anything at all is what makes life livable. 

I would guess that most people don't pay attention, whether consciously or unconsciously, because they believe that what comes next is more important, and, more to the point, that the moment will come again.  But that's the tyranny of time, isn't it?  There might not be another opportunity, there might not be another day. 

I had a raspberry this morning and I tasted it's tartness like I'd never experienced it before and the walls of my soul were enlarged.  I smelled the freshness of the rain on the breeze - I closed my eyes and it reminded me of the early spring at my parents' house when the snow had been erased by the first warm day and the scents of the earth rose from a seemingly unlocked box.  I heard the BeeGee's this morning and although I find their sound variously fun and annoying at the same time, I reflected on why humans enjoy music.

This year will be different because I'm recognizing how fast it seems to be traveling.  If I could go back in time I would go back to that last Christmas my Grandpa Nacke was alive and I would hug him longer than I ever had before.  He always used to make a grunting sound as if I was squeezing him too hard but I always knew that was his way of saying "I love you."  In fact, I would go back to every important person in my life and embrace them for just a few brief moments longer than proper (probably) just to take in their feel and their touch, the sound of their breathing, the patterns of their voices and memorize them again.

But that's then, this year is different.  Perhaps this year I'll live life like I mean it.

Instead of spending days of my year on screens, which is the ultimate irony as I spend a good segment of the morning typing this in response to watching a movie, I'll power down and love up.  It sounds relatively cheesy, but love is the one thing we were truly made to do.  Instead of taking a nap, I'll take advantage of those who are in the immediate vicinity, because the time in which we cross paths may never come again. Our rivers might be divergent.  I'll play more board games with my kids; I'll hold my wife's hand at all possible opportunities; I'll Skype my parents and siblings; I'll give lots of gifts and enjoy the feeling of being wealthy beyond measure because I have made someone else happy.

I will refrain from swimming in my shallow pool of guilt because it does me no good - there is no benefit, no healthy exercise, in it.  I'll pay attention to things that have more value than guilt, which is everything else. 

In essence, I will be different.

Maybe you'd like to join me.  Pick up a pen and paper, enjoy the tactile contentment of the patience it takes to scribe words to someone you haven't spoken to in too long.  Eat something you've never tried before.  Go somewhere but don't take a picture of it.  Enjoy the present-ness of it.  Forget Facebook and selfies; refrain from Twitter and find other people to chat with without snapping.  Meet your neighbors and forgive your enemies.

Be different.

A Christmas Letter

Hello everyone,

Happy New Year from sunny Queensland, Australia.  I hope you had a blessed Christmas and a safe New Year celebration.

As it's the 21st century, I'm posting the Matthias Christmas letter on the blog.  I'm also beginning a new series on Two for One (the blog that Ryan and I share) called:  Stories I've Forgotten - Bible Episodes that I Don't Remember Reading, or Wanted to Forget.

Welcome to our family.

2015 – Twelve Mostly Factual Things That Happened.  (Inspired by real events)

1      January

(entry taken from Reid’s fictitious 2015 journal – none of these thoughts actually were written down, but they should have been…)

I woke up in fear this morning.  I’m old, well, old-ish.  Forty-one years old and now, starting today, I’ll have three daughters in high school.  Jeesh, where did the time go?  Elsa’s in eleventh grade; Josephine, ninth; Greta seventh.  I keep looking at all the baby pictures and those cherubic faces of little girls gracing our walls.  Up to this point I’ve done a pretty good job of ignoring the fact that now there are a gazillion bras on the line every time we do the laundry.

Now that I’m in my forties, I should probably think about when the mid-life crisis is going to swerve at me out of control down the highway of life.  I would guess that I avoided one of them just this last week:  I got a call to be a pastor at a school/church in Western Australia.  Christine and I flew out there to visit – the five hour flight was not my beautiful wife’s favorite thing.  I didn’t know fingerprints were strong enough to leave indents, but let’s just say my forearms bear the marks of her terror.  We didn’t take the call (every time it’s called that, I think of Tarzan calling the apes to himself), but it did reinforce the imposition of our own roots here in the Lockyer Valley.   When we returned, Elsa, especially wanted to know if we were going to take it.  Her words were, “Whatever God has planned for you, I’ll accept that,” which is pretty amazing for a kid entering her 11^th grade year of high school, but her face told a different story.  “Dad, if you move now, I’m going to start wearing dark makeup and dating boys named ‘Biff.’”

We made the right choice.

2      February

Okay, so now I’m forty-two.  It’s just a number, right?  Well, it is, until you think, I’ve double the number of years since my twenty-first birthday party.  That gets me back to reflecting.  We had my twenty-first birthday at my grandparents’ house in Frederika, Iowa.  I won’t go into incriminating details, but let’s just say about twenty of us including our parents and high school baseball coach stayed up well past the bewitching hour.  Twenty-one.  Now, that I’m twice that age, I can barely stay up at night until 21:00.  Where did my nocturnal stamina go?  Where is my ability to socialize?  Where is my hair?

The girls participated in the swimming carnival today.  I don’t know why they call it a ‘carnival’ in Australia.  Its origins are Latin – you know, Carnivale, must have something to do with meat.  Every time I think of a carnival, I think of clowns and elephants, the circus.  But when applied to swimming… Well, I guess it’s kind of a circus.  There were a few kids swimming in tutus, a Batman outfit and angel wings.  Our girls did well – Greta won overall; Elsa and Josephine finished second in their respective ages.  Pretty good swimmers obviously taking after their mother because my ability to swim came from years of training at Wood’s lake amidst the frogs and bugs and fear of putting my head under the water for fear of incubating e coli. 

3      March

Ah, the march of time.  Josephine is now a teenanger.  I mis-wrote that; it was supposed to be teenager, but the slip is completely Freudian.  She’s not angry in any way, but the thought that she is no longer a little girl is, as Rusty and Audrey would say from National Lampoon’s Vacation – Weirdorama.  Working with teenagers every day of my work life perhaps is where more of the ‘teen-anger’ issue comes from.   We live in a world that is strangely enamored with rage.  I was pondering that the other day – there was even an article in the paper that Lego doesn’t make toys with smiles on their faces anymore.  Superheroes don’t laugh – only the supervillains. 

Well, at least my girls aren’t angry – in fact, they are quite happy to be reading and playing music.  They have all been invited to be part of the school musical, Back to the ‘80’s.  I’m not sure we’ve ever left.  Elsa’s got a lead part and I’ll be looking forward to seeing ‘high hair’ back in the house.  Christine was looking back over some of her photos from the ‘80’s and by golly, she had some incredible height on her fringe.  Sky-scraper.  She could have made it rain with that hair.  I’m jealous.

So, my lovely wife is now a year older than I again.  She continues to be awesome.  A steadfast, beautiful, fluid force in my life.  She’s working hard roving between schools as a substitute teacher.  Not an easy gig, but she’s good at it.

4      April

On our way to South Australia.  We’ve been in Tasmania for nine days.  I’m writing this on our last night on the little island.  It’s been incredible to walk by Cradle Mountain, to ‘hang glide’ across a river and cruise the north coast near the ‘Nut.’  I really enjoyed the wombats.  Sometimes I feel like a wombat – always approaching the fine line of perpetual hibernation.  We trod on a wooden walkway and were delighted to see the lumbering beasts walking close enough to us that we could reach down and scratch them.  They grunted with either pleasure, or amusement (maybe even disdain) that we were scratching their backs.  I should try that with Christine – sidle up, grunt a few times, move my hairy back next to her hand and see if she’ll scratch it.

So now we’re finishing up in South Australia at a camp for high school kids called ‘Novo.’  What an incredible experience.  The kids are having a great time, not just running around and playing games, but real-life biblical learning.  The leaders have been excellent; I wish we could have this kind of worship and youth experience every weekend.  There’s something truly invigorating about spiritual renewal.  I’m almost ready to be done with holidays.

5      May

It’s May already.  For some reason I’m surprised, but that’s kind of silly, like waking up one morning and saying, “I can’t believe it’s Wednesday already,” even though for as long as I know, Wednesday has followed Tuesday.  It was good to get back to school, but I think I’m already looking forward to the two weeks off at the end of next month.  The girls are entrenched in the musical and I’m playing in the band.  We haven’t had practices yet, but the girls have been singing ‘Walking on Sunshine’ and I feel as if I’ll pull out the last three hairs on my head if I hear that song again.  I sure hope the voices can keep up with the songs.  “We Are the World” could be a real train wreck, high school voices left strewn all over the adolescent vocal highway.

Weather changes in Australia, not like the extreme swings in the Midwest of the United States, more like the little kiddie swings at the park where you have to strap the infant in so that they don’t fall out.  The seat can only go about four feet off the ground, but for someone who has not experienced that four foot drop, it can be scary, I guess.  Queenslanders have this skewed understanding of what cold is.  The other day a few of the kids were wearing their thick sweaters, coats and long pants.  After they were blowing on their hands, I asked them if it was really that cold.  They assured me that fifteen degrees Celsius is a real ‘shock to the system.’

6      June

Here we are at the halfway point of the year – June 2.  It’s like the half-life of a radioactive substance; it just keeps breaking down halfway at a time.  If you halve the distance between two ends at set periods, theoretically, the end should never get there.  That’s the way this term has felt.  I don’t know why term two is always like that.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been helping to teach religion and ethics this year.  I don’t remember classes to be like this – certainly it probably has to do with the fact that about .5% of the population at school want to talk about religion and even less than that feel a great desire to discuss ethics.  I asked the class three months into the year what the word ‘ethics’ means and I was greeted with the same expression as cows looking up while they chew cud.

Our girls are precariously balancing all their activities whether music (the new piano we have is marvelous which has increased their practice times), musical (I have heard some of the songs now that I’ve been playing with the band – I’ve got nightmarish visions of the end of Dirty Dancing occurring when “I’ve Had the Time of My Life” is being sung) and academics.  Girls are doing great.  Elsa loves her math classes, Josephine has been enjoying legal studies and Greta loves the arts.  All three are really good at German and Elsa is already counting down to when our German exchange student arrives in a few weeks.  Elsa goes to Germany at the end of the year which will be an interesting thing.

7      July

It’s July and I’ve been to Adelaide for pastors’ conference.  Big decisions to be made in October regarding the future of the Lutheran Church of Australia.  James and I stayed in a bed and breakfast in the little town of Hahndorf.  It was strange staying in a quaint, romantic little house with one of my co-pastors.  When he looked at my four poster bed, I think he got a little jealous because he stayed in the ‘pink’ room with the nice curtains surrounding the bed. 

The musical went off with very few hitches other than one of the spotlight boys threw up in the booth causing a good deal of commotion and odor.  Fortunately, there was someone to, ahem, pick up the pieces while the ensemble did their thing on stage.  Elsa sang a solo and was one of the leads while the other two were part of the chorus.  The last night Josephine came down with something akin to laryngitis and couldn’t sing her solo.  So, big sister Elsa, already having heard enough of Josephine’s solo in practice, did a lip sync a la Milli Vanilli, or Blues Traveler.  No one could tell because their voices are so similar.  I wish I could have seen it, but I was busy playing in the band.  We all dressed up in 80’s gear; I pulled out the old high school baseball coat, rolled my jeans and donned a big black wig.  It was nice to have hair again, but very itchy.

Eline has come to stay with us, a very nice young lady from Wiesbaden in Germany.  Her English was fantastic; she enjoyed the sights and sounds of Australia and it seemed that she didn’t really want to go back to Germany yet. 

8     A ugust

Two words.  Elsa… Driving…  The first time I took her out, I’m not quite sure who was more afraid, Elsa or all the cats in the neighborhood.  She did pretty well other than a few issues with braking, accelerating, changing lanes and parking.  Sweet sixteen.  I remember when I was sixteen.  Kind of.  The Berlin Wall was just about to come down and it had been three years since the Mets had won the World Series. 

We celebrated our eighteenth wedding anniversary.  This, too, has been a shock to think that two decades have come and gone since I met the love of my life. 

Now that the musical is done, we’re having difficulties figuring out how to fill our time.  Not.  Someday we’ll soak in the fact that there is such a thing as a ‘weekend,’ which I think means, literally, ‘that there is an end to the work week.’  It seems like volleyball, weddings, church commitments, family outings – all good things – create a nice steady stream for life.

I hope we don’t drown.  Or, if we do, there is some nice person in that crazy little red and yellow hat strapped under their chin (the beach life guards wear these things even while they swim!  It’s awesome; some of the life guards wear these tight florescent pink tank tops.  All the better for the sharks to see them first.), who could perform CPR. 

9      September

Officially – tired.

We finished up the third term at school; the girls are truly on their way to getting great grades and I am seeing how difficult the job of teaching really is.  Christine has been laboriously working at both Peace and Faith (Lutheran Schools) but laboriously working at both of these fruits of the Spirit also.  Peace of mind has come now that we have journeyed to our second home, an apartment right on the beach at Tugun.  There is something completely and wonderfully amazing about standing in the place where the ocean meets the shore, planting your feet there and let the water sculpt the sand around your toes.   For hours, we could listen to the relentless roar of the waves, watch the cloud dapple sky change from brilliant blue, to sparkling orange and enjoy the ocean breeze as we decompress from a school term.  Christine’s family has come for fiftieth birthday parties and are staying just up the beach also.  I have stayed back a couple of times to watch my AFL team lose to the most hated team of all – the Hawthorn Hawks.  Bad umpiring.  It always is.

10 October

After the disappointing decision at the national synod (women’s ordination voted down by fourteen votes – only 64% voted in favor of it) we’ve come back to school and enjoyed the last few weeks of Greta’s confirmation experience.  In some ways, it would have been good to have triplets: confirmation done in two years.  But, we’ve had girls in confirmation since 2010.  It’s not like I want to avoid confirmation, I really like, but it’s good to have the confirmation part done and now they are (hopefully) going to invest their time in service and worship.

It’s been a month into the Fantasy Football Season already.  Christine thinks I’m addicted.  If I were addicted I’d have more than five teams.  My team at school has been a great source of enjoyment and community.  There are lots of things in reality that are as fun as fantasy, but during fantasy football season, it’s harder to see them.  Reality:  Elsa is still driving and the only difficulty she has is an inherited gene from me – straight parking.  Josephine is really enjoying her friendship group and is constantly with them during school breaks.  Often, I am on playground duty.  I volunteer not because I love it, but because I’m checking up on my girls to make sure that the boys are understanding who’s the boss.  Greta has made some good friends and all three are in the chapel bands enjoying the music/worship life of the school.  Well, maybe ‘enjoy’ is a strong word, but they like the comraderie. 

11 November

Ah, like the sweet smell of the spring after the winter snows have melted and the earth is releasing its dormant scent.  The school year is almost finished and what a year it’s been.  The girls have all received academic awards which I take full credit for – well, the credit is for driving them to school.  They’ve done the rest.  But getting them there, that’s a big deal.

On top of academic awards, they received music and athletic awards.  All of the girls have done well – real renaissance women (pronounced in Australia ‘re-nay (accent on ‘nay’)-saunce.’  Australians pronounce all sorts of things differently like ‘shedule – they forget the ‘c’ and even ‘maroon’ pronounced ‘maroan.’  I just go with it.  It’s the beauty of a multicultural family. 

 

We had Christmas this weekend because Elsa is flying out to Germany.  I remember when we flew to Europe for the first time.  It was February and the plane threatened to break apart from the newly acquired polar caps on the wings.  It wasn’t quite as cold this year, but Elsa still took along her winter coat from our last year’s trip to the States.  She’s going to be staying with Eline, the young lady who came to stay with us.  Eventually she’ll spend time at the school, go on a tour of Salzburg (the Sound of Music Tour – Eline’s cousin is named ‘Louisa’.  I wonder if Brigitta will be there too?) and a skiing adventure into the Italian Alps.  I guess they call this an ‘educational’ experience.  She’ll have a great time. 

12 December

It’s New Year’s Eve. 

We have been watching movies, playing games and desperately trying to stay awake for the last couple of hours.  It’s 10:00.

We’ve had a whirlwind adventure of a December.  Not only did school finish well, but we’ve had multiple opportunities to sing Christmas carols and revel in the Christmas spirit.  Enough of this bah-humbug-there’s-no-such-thing-as-joy-to-the-world.  We’ve reveled in traveling to Melbourne to visit Christine’s brother, cousin and aunt.  I’ve petted more dogs in those ten days than I have since I was growing up.  The highlights – a yacht experience with friends of Russell’s who took us out into the bay.  It was a little rough, but the girls stood at the front of the boat on the (jeesh, I wish I was a sailor) pointy thing sticking out from the bow and rode it like a roller coaster.  We went on an old steam train called the Puffing Billy.  I naively thought that because Australians make up names for all sorts of things, that a ‘billy’ was another word for a train.  But it’s not – they just called it a billy.  A billy can mean a multitude of other things include a can in which you heat water, a goat, a place that is far far away (to billy-o) and I’m sure other things that I have not yet encountered.  It was great to spend time with family and friends. 

 

I was able to talk with some of my family by skype today – they look happy and healthy and wise.  I am grateful to God for this year and for all the adventures with which we have been blessed.  I’m raising a toast with the new wine which I bought for my Christmas present – Happy New Year to all!

A Savior to You

And there were shepherds living out in the fields near by, keeping watch over their flocks at night.  An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.  But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid.  I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.  This will be a sign to you; you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 
'Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth, peace to those on whom his favor rests.'

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, 'Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.'

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby who was lying in a manger.  When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.

Luke 2:8-18 (NIV)

It's the Christmas story, all right.  Or, I guess for arguments sake, it is the Christian's story.  As discussed ad nauseum, much of the Western world recognizes the holiday that is Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa, but not everyone celebrates it.  Some tolerate the intrusion that the Savior has in the world; others are adamantly against it.  Some would say the story of Christ's birth is a blue time of year, that because something dreadful has happened in their lives, nothing can bring joy to the Yule.  With each passing year of the inculturation of Christmas and the excision of spiritual meaning from it, we find that the day becomes a gluttonous consumer orgy of shredding wrapping paper and overeating.  The blue part of Christmas, for me, is that the angel's message has been pruned of joy; instead of a proclamation that the Savior of the world has come for you (plural), we find an announcement of commercial frenzy.  Once the presents are unwrapped, we find an emptiness because God's presence is, unfortunately, left undiscovered.

Which is why I really, really, enjoy the shepherds' story.  They are, if you will, the first Christ-ian converts.  Think about it:

For centuries, the people of Israel had been bereft of hope and joy because they had been acclimatized to living in the bondage to foreign invaders.  Whether Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks or Romans, these middle eastern Semites had known only alien rule.  My guess is that all of the Israelites, young or old, would gladly have opened the gift of the Messiah that dark night.  He came when they least expected - the Romans, just like every other conquering country, gave them a small amount of control, in this case Herod and his family.  The Israelites would have dreamed of the day when the Messiah wandered in from the wilderness, like their contemporary version of Moses, overthrown the Philistines and set up rule in Jerusalem.  

These shepherds, and presumably Israelites, (we're not told how old they are, but in my mind they've always been young, but my guess is that's not necessarily true), were tediously doing their jobs minding their flocks. And it was nighttime which could have been boring and, at times, scary.  Any noise might have thrown them off; a lack of noise might have sent them off to sleep - certainly a fine line between alertness and asleepness.

Then suddenly an angel appears - from where they don't know, but it is definitely out of the ordinary to have a messenger from God show up in the meadows at night.  So the angel, the messenger, delivers the message of good news (the gospel) to the shepherds first: Not (and I hold up a finger to stress the point) the wealthy businessmen or doctors or lawyers or movie stars or pop stars or even pastors for that matter, but to those who held the lowliest of jobs; those who weren't even able to have a roof over their heads.

And the good news, the gospel preached to them from above their heads, from on high, from the radiant light and voice of God, good news that will bring joy from the chasm of misery, sorrow and hopelessness:  Today, in the town of David (somehow the shepherds already knew this was Bethlehem) a Savior has been born to you ----- and it's plural, which we don't read in English.  Usually, we read the soteriological, (salvation's) story from the the unique perspective of the individual, but the gospel is brought to the masses in the plural, or in the translated deep south "A Savior has been born to y'all y'alls."  

Far too often we believe that this salvation is a private, personal thing, that Jesus' life, death and resurrection was for me, that Jesus loves me this I know - but the very first message is that God has come for everyone.  The one born is the Messiah, the Lord.  The anointed one.  The King.  The Prince of Peace.  The Son of Righteousness.  You know the synonyms - For Us.  

The shepherds do not react with how, perhaps, the wealthy businessmen would have reacted:  "What will it cost?"

Or the doctors, "Certainly there is a logical, or psychological explanation, for an appearance by these 'messengers from God.'"

Or the lawyers, "Does the holy family need a court representative for the living conditions that they've been put in?  Do we need to talk to the carpenter's union?"

Or the movie stars, "There's only one star here - and that's me."

Or the pop stars, "Can we sing 'O Holy Night' one more time so I can hold the high note and you can be impressed?"

Or even the pastors, "There has to be some kind of theological explanation why God would not arrive to the learned brethren."

But even the pastors have to be impressed by the faith of the shepherds - they leave their livelihood, follow their Sunday School understanding of the scriptures, hurry to Bethlehem, all because they believe what they had heard.

The scriptures do not use any words like, "The shepherds were considered righteous in God's eyes so he came to them first," or "The shepherds went to church every week in order to be the first to be worthy of the words of grace," or "The shepherds invited Jesus into their hearts and then they were ready to run off and see this great thing that had happened."

That's the beauty of this story; the fact that it is all God's doing - the salvation is HIs and there is no scriptural evidence that the shepherds had to do anything at all which includes accepting Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior before the Savior actually did the saving.  God's grace was devoid of any prior holy rolling or acting by humankind.  None were worthy.

That's the good news at Christmas:  We believe because we hear.  So, we tell what we've been told.  And in doing so, Christmas (the arrival of Christ in enemy occupied territory) becomes a daily event.

A Savior has been born to you and you and you, and although it would be much easier to believe that somehow we have a hand in our own salvation, working towards being 'really good', that's not the way it happens.  

It's all God's doing.

This good news should cause great joy in you today, for a child has been born for you... A Savior.

Give it Back

Like a good Facebook fisherman, I've been trolling through the posts casting out my own nets, sifting through the digital detritus in an attempt to figure out what is important in the collective world psyche in the Year of Our Lord, 2015. 

We spend a lot of time re-posting funny videos of dogs and cats.
We spend a lot of time trying to decide how to view the Muslim religion.
We spend a lot of time attempting to look more beautiful.
We spend a lot of time putting people down.
We spend a lot of time deciding which politician is the worst.
By 'liking' things, we substitute social perusal for actual relationship.

Lastly, Christians spend an inordinate amount of time trying to 'reclaim' Christmas from the so-called 'secular' world.

It's the last one that I'd like to focus on for, probably, the last post of the year. 

If we were to put a token into a time machine and travel back to the arbitrary year of 300 (or even 600, 900 or 1,200) A. D., I think that we'd find a different understanding about Christmas.  According to scholars, the early Christian church had three main holidays.  They were, in order of occurrence in the year, not in significance: Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost.  Notice, in the large scheme of things, there was no importance placed on Christmas.  Why was that?

Christmas, as hopefully most Christians know, began as a pagan holiday, a festival for the longest day of the year and the return of the light, and then Christianity, in order to prove its superiority, subsumed the pagan festival and turned it into Christmas.  (They did the same with some of the pagan worship sites also.  They actually built the church over the pagan churches.)  In essence, Christmas swallowed the pagan festival.  The symbolism is obvious and it made sense at the time.  In order to teach the pagan culture and the traditions of the time about the Light that has come into the world, the Christian leadership wagged its finger at the pagans and said, 'Let us tell you about the true God that came as a baby.'  But as the years have gone on, even in the last century, that Christian message of Christmas has actually started to be swallowed by paganism again.  This time, the pagan god is called 'materialism' and it is a powerful idol seemingly imbuing the worshiper with strength to overcome any anxiety they encounter in life, especially the 'idea' of sin and the impending understanding of death.  This pagan 'god' is a tsunamic force in our 21st century culture and in some ways what I'm thinking, and about to propose, might cause some tension. 

But really, who am I but one more blogger in an ocean of blogsites.

As I reflect on the tidal wave of consumerism and advertising that destroys the irenic coastlines of our lives, I think to myself:  "Give it back."

Why not give Christmas back to the pagans?  Why not let them have the holiday for avarice and greed; of gluttony and pride?  Let them call it 'X-mas' or 'happy holidays' or whatever replacement that is out there in an attempt to not actually speak the name of Christ.  My thinking is this:  Is it really helping for Christians to batter their collective hands against the closed door of corporate greed?  Do we not actually turn people away because of our pietistic railing against something that most people really desire?  Why not the same righteous indignation over Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost? 

So, I see the collective, shrinking Christian community battling against something that really isn't that important.  What I mean by that is, the ancient Christian church put no large emphasis on the birth of Christ other than that of its miraculous nature.  Paul places significance on Jesus' birth; Peter does not speak of it; the epistle writers don't even mention it. 

All of the strength of ancient Christians' argument for Christ has nothing to do with his birth and everything to do with his death and resurrection, which makes me wonder why we are so bent out of shape about Christmas sinking into the consumeristic hole at the end of December.

I say, "Give it Back."

C. S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity writes this: 

"Enemy-occupied territory  -  that is what this world is.  Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.  When you go to church you are really listening-in to the secret wireless from our friends: that is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us from going.  He does it by playing on our conceit and laziness and intellectual snobbery."

How many times does this play out in our 21st century Christian culture?  We presume that recipe for the contemporary Christian life has significant portions of the ingredients of conceit (in the form of superiority over those 'unsaved' people) in laziness (if I just tell people that I will pray for them, that is all that God really needs me to do) and intellectual snobbery (Let me tell you why my understanding of Christ is unlimited in the way that it gives me power over you).  When we attempt to 'take back' Christmas, we actually reconstruct the wall that Christ tore down at his death and resurrection.  We tell people who, while becoming at least partially subservient to a culture of consumerism, that they are sinners if they don't recognize the Christ of Christmas. We attend church, the listening in to the secret wireless, for the second or third time during the year because it's socially acceptable to do so; and we build up, brick by brick, a barrier between 'us' and 'them,' which, in essence, is the biggest problem of all, because whether we admit it or not, we see the 'non-Christian' as the enemy, not the true enemy - as Luther puts it, the devil and all his empty promises.

We, as Christians, can give up the necessity to feel like we need to protect 'Christmas' and do what Lewis calls the 'campaign of sabotage' not by railing against misunderstandings of the meaning of Christmas, but by being enemy agents against Satan by reclaiming God's children through the love that came down at Christmas, the light that came into the world (Epiphany). 

I say, "Give it back."  Enjoy the festive celebrations, and if your own piety allows you to experience Christ at Christmas, you are truly blessed because the Light that came into the world illuminates everything.  Go to church on Christmas Eve, or Christmas Day, or the Sunday after and listen in to God's plan for the world as he came to us in disguise. 

Enjoy listening to the battle plan for God's will in our lives.

Merry Christmas.

Advent IV - The Wishing

For the first decade or so of my life, Santa's list was quite important to me.  For the weeks before Christmas, I would scribble furiously, etch out, erase, copy from other lists - there was no wish too big, but quite a few too small.  Frankly, I think my list was lost somewhere in the U.S. postal system, or else the North Pole system, because Santa always mixed my list up with someone else; someone entirely bereft of underwear and socks. 

Oh well, part of Christmas is wishing for something different in life and it's not just about the materialistic cravings which we constantly feed, or at least the older I get it seems that way; it's the feeling the life can be different.  As I think about the things that I wish for this year, I ponder that first Christmas and imagine Elizabeth, Zechariah, Joseph and Mary having a discussion about the things that they wished for.  Here is a brief, made up dialogue which I have concocted in my own head regarding the first fifty-five verses of Luke.

(At Liz and Zech's house, the doorbell rings - I know, it is anachronistic to put a doorbell in, but it feels good to have it.)

Liz:  (wiping her hands on the dish towel)  Who is it?
Mary:  It's your cousin, Mary.  (they shriek with delight - Liz opens the door and embraces Mary.) 
Liz:  Oh, it's so good to see you (she raises Mary's arms out to the side) You're looking fit.  Been to the gym lately?
Mary:  (blushes) There's just no time.  With Joe at the shop all day, the washing to be done, the cabinets to be dusted - oh, that dust here in the Middle East!  (Joe is loitering behind her)  Come over here, Joseph, meet my cousin Liz.  (they smile awkwardly)
Liz (grabbing Mary by the arm and pulling her into the kitchen but speaks over her shoulder)  Joe, make yourself at home - I think my husband Zech is just back from Temple.  I hear the trumpeters were a little off today; some problems with this contemporary music.  Can you believe it?  They want to get rid of the drums, and have more chanting?  How ridiculous.  I'm going to go to the traditional service, the early one, where all the old people are.  (sits Mary down at the table and goes to make some tea)  Listen to me ramble, Mary.  Tell me how things are going?  You've got a new... (wiggles her eyebrows and smiles).
Mary:  Yes, our fathers picked us out for each other.  We're engaged, but... (she paused) that's not the end of it.
Liz:  (lowering her voice) Do tell.
Mary:  I... uh... I don't know how to tell this without sounding crazy, but...
Liz:  Joe doesn't have six fingers on each hand, does he?  (Mary laughs nervously)
Mary:  A few nights ago, while Joe was in the shop finishing some rocking chairs for the Roman counsel, an angel came to me...
Liz:  That's amazing!  What did it look like?
Mary:  It looked a lot like Fabious, the Roman gladiator, but much scarier.
Liz:  What did the angel say?
Mary:  (swallows)  He said "Greetings, you who are highly favored!  The Lord is with you!"
Liz:  Wow!
Mary:  I've always known that God is around the edges of my life; certain circumstances where life seemed different - thin, almost translucent - is the best way to describe it.  I've never experienced anything like this and then to be greeted with 'Highly favored one!" that's crazy, right?
Liz:  (Liz nods) Yes.  Crazy.
Mary:  There's nothing favorable about me.  I'm just a teenager, I haven't really done anything; my family is not necessarily poor, but we aren't wealthy.  I don't have many talents other than I'm a pretty good singer.
Liz:  Tell me about it.
Mary:  But then he says this, "Don't be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.  You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever; his kingdom will have no end."
Liz:  (quiet for a moment, but then a smile spreads over her face.)  You're right, Mary, it sounds crazy.  But there is something welling up inside me, some strange emotion that I cannot put a finger on, something that is telling me to let go and sing!  You know, almost like one of those musicals they've been putting on down at the theatre. I think the newest one is called Les Happy Ones.  God does miracles even today!  For all these years, I've wished to have a child.  Now I've got one! A wish is a dangerous thing, don't you think?
Mary:  But I never wished for this!  It's like I'm setting myself up for a death sentence.  When people find out, they'll stone me, or at the very least, shame me until I have no part of the community.  What will Joseph say?  What will my parents say?
Liz:  You haven't told Joe yet?
Mary:  I couldn't.  I don't know how to bring it up.   He's caring and considerate, he treats me with gentleness, but we hardly know each other.  How do you tell someone you're engaged to:  Honey, can we sit down and have a little chat?  I know that we're new to this relationship and all, but something's come up in my life that will change things a little bit.
Liz:  Yes, and then throw in an angel, an overshadowing by the Spirit and a pregnancy... Oooh (she grabs her belly) my child just leapt within me! It must be a sign!  (starts singing a la operatic style)  "Blessed are you among women and blessed is the child you will bear!  But why am I so favored the mother of my Lord should come to me?"
Mary:  What are you doing?
Liz:  Singing!  I can't help it!
Mary:  Let me try.  My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.
Liz:  That was magnificent!
Mary:  Thank you, but my one wish this Hanukah is to have Joe believe me.
Liz:  When you open yourself to God's will, God always makes a way.  (She smiles)  How wonderful to see you...

People don't talk this way anymore, I know.  This partially made up dialogue interspersed with twenty-first century fears and doubts is, by and large, an example of how dreams are often expressed.  Wishes are couched in terms of anxiety about what we may miss out if our wishes are actually granted.  For instance, if I wish for a car for Christmas, will I miss out on a sleeping bag?  When we wish for the savior to be born, we automatically think about the things that might have to be sacrificed:  if I encounter Jesus as Savior, I will have to give up a lifestyle, perhaps decadent, perhaps prudish and not centered on love; perhaps I will have to give up those things that distract from the greater good of the people around me. 

But the reality of the Christ wish is not that it we who are sacrificing, but it is God who is sacrificing.  In our wishing, we actually are imagining that we receive something that is missing.  When we wish for Christ's peace this Christmas, it does not mean that we lose out on everything else, it only means that we are transformed, like Mary, from an instrument of waiting to an instrument of God's song in Christ. 

Both Elizabeth and Mary could not help singing, something which doesn't happen as much nowadays.  We listen to the 'stars' of music; we plug our earphones in and are captured by digitally enhanced sound waves, but there is a certain beauty to the un-amplified human voice that makes the darkest soul tremble, even if it is not professional quality.  I have no idea what either Elizabeth's or Mary's voices were like, whether they were like Taylor Swift's or Taylor Slow's.  In this case it doesn't matter, because it is in the lyric of the Magnificat that we find all the joy that the world will need.  No matter how long we have been waiting, or for what we've been waiting, here has come our Immanuel.  God with us. 

This Christmas, as you write out your Christmas list, whether to Santa or some other professional gift buyer in your family, think about what you wish that God would do in your life this year.  How will God unwrap your heart?  How will the Christ child enter in?

What will you wish for?

Advent III - The Watching

It must be almost ten years since my Grandpa Matthias made the Christmas crèche for us.  Made out of rough timber, about two feet wide and a foot tall, the crèche always sits in a place of prominence in our home during Advent.  My grandma painted all of the figurines.  Of course there is the holy family; Jesus an only child lying in a bed of painted straw, mostly naked except for a modestly wrapped cloth diaper around his waist.  I guess Mary was washing the swaddling clothes at the time.  Joseph, Mary, the shepherds and especially the wise men, are wearing incredible amounts of linen.  The magi must have come from a place of warmth because they look really cold shivering beside their cows.

Oh, yes, the camels are parked in the back.  The shepherds take care of them as well as a few of the frolicking sheep, but the cows seem content to be leading the Ancient Stargazers to the place where Jesus lay.  There is an angel, a beautiful cherub in a blue dress, pinioned to front of the wooden stable, affixed by a single nail in its back.  I'm sure she loves to hang their, suspended by the spike singing songs of great joy about how her back is killing her.  Sometimes, though, the angel flutters down on translucent wings to rest ever so gently on the back of the donkey which has its legs folded under it just trying to get any sleep.  So much racket going on with all these heavily dressed people, an infant baby, Magi-bearing cows and snorting camels.

Silent night, my ass.  (donkey speaking here)

It's the beauty of the crèche, though, that we can manipulate the characters to play whatever role we want.  Sometimes one of the shepherds fills in to babysit the infant savior while Joseph and Mary go on their first date as parents.  The camels, permanently reposed, have angel dust (not the hallucinogenic drug) sprinkled on them so they can fly to Never Never Land.  Sometimes the wise men have to leave for a Professional Development class, i.e. go outside to gaze at the stars and see what they're going to have for dinner.  It's all part of the wonder of what we used to do as kids, to place ourselves in dolls, or toys, or imaginations and make believe...

To make us believe.  To make us believe the Advent message we sometimes manipulate the characters of the Christmas story to fit our own ideas of what faith should be like.  We watch, or stand guard over the figures of the Advent story, or our version of it, so that Jesus sleeps peacefully - he would never cry, he's perfect.  His mother is perpetually watching him because she's not tired at all.  After giving birth to the baby (which in our crèche makes the baby look like he is thirty-eight pounds), Mary assumes the holy position, hands pushed tightly together in front of her, head bowed treasuring the beauty of childbirth in a stable. 

Yeah, right.

The wise men are really intelligent men who have watched the stars and yet have somehow have been unable to watch the one, great big moving star that settled over Bethlehem.  They, in all their intelligence, go to ask the king where the newborn king has been brought into the world.  The shepherds, watching their flocks by night, (who knows what they were actually doing at that time of day) have been permanently transposed into joyous young boys capably adept at jumping and springing for joy at being released from their full time job of keeping their sheep safe. 

I wonder if the sheep were alive when they returned?

But my own watching over the Christmas crèche and my own vision of its story is skewed a little bit, I think I like to manipulate the Christmas figures to bend to my will.  Joseph and Mary will never suffer hardship, the baby Jesus no crying he makes, the angel sings praises to God and hangs delightedly above the stable and the animals.  The manger is filled with fresh, fragrant straw and always will be and the wise men are perpetually wise and love to drop their Christmas gifts and run.

I'm almost positive that's not the way it happened, but one figure who gets changed in my own brain most of the time is John the Baptist.  We talk about him every Advent, the one who brings the good news of peace on earth and goodwill to men.  His message, as I manipulate it, is one of tolerance and good wishes at Christmas time, never mind the fact that in his preparation for the Christ, his first words out of his mouth are:

You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?  Produce fruit in keeping with repentance and do not begin to say to yourselves, "We have Abraham as our Father."  (Luke 3:7)

In other words, to the crowds who flock to the Baptist, he does not promote tolerance for sin and selfish acts; he does not cozy up to the adoration of the multitudes, he offends them, as the gospel always seems to do.  It does no good to make people feel good about themselves, when in themselves there is nothing good.  They have made themselves righteous by claiming Abraham as their father, that somehow his inherent faithfulness is passed on in the righteous gene, and somehow have been deluded that faith comes through birth and is not deceived through disbelieving actions.  John speaks to a crowd of people who could have been his biggest supporters, could have made him a big deal in the temple just like his father, but he cuts right through it to the very heart of his message:

Repent.  Turn around, quickly!  The kingdom of God is at hand!  If you don't look up from yourselves and your addiction to ego, you'll miss him!  He is not saying this to anger them, although it probably did, but he cares about the efficacy of the Good News and how hard hearts tend to be a difficult barrier for the Gospel to break through.

What should we do, then?  It's interesting the crowd that asks this, because I often place myself in the crowds in biblical stories.  Included in the mob are faithful Israelites, tax collectors and soldiers, the latter to groups often looked upon with disdain, but John doesn't turn them away and he doesn't change the message in order to get them to 'come to Jesus.'  The message is the same; the only difference is the depth of the ears and hearts receiving them, and for tax collectors and soldiers, it's a miracle that they even listen at all because John's message basically is this -

Erase what you've learned about gathering 'stuff' and its importance in your life.  To the crowd he says, Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.  To the tax collectors who call him 'Teacher,' Don't collect anymore than your job requires you.  You don't need any more to make it through life, especially if it means robbing others.  To the soldiers, Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely - be content with your pay.

For some reason, John's preparation of the way for Christ taps into the very materialistic nature of 21st century society also.  If you have more than you need, share.  If you think you need more, you're probably wrong.  If you've been doing something you feel ashamed of doing with regards to money, you should probably be ashamed and change it because Mammon has become your god and there is no serving two masters.

So the people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah.  (Luke 3:15)  They still didn't get it, but they understood that the message he was preaching, even if it meant giving up the very thing they idolized, was new and revolutionary and could, perhaps, put them in line for the coming of the Messiah.

So, watching and waiting expectantly, how do we, as faithful Christians, watch over John's preparation in the wilderness speech and not manipulate to a lukewarm, half-baked, cheap grace covers all message, and prepare our lives for the coming Messiah?  Does it include financial dis-ease to see the healer of all ills?  Does it include exiting our palaces of prosperity to encounter the Christ on his own terms?  Do we cease and desist keeping up with Mr. and Mrs. Jones so that the love of Christ can settle into the mangers of our own hearts this Christmas?

Watch and see.

Advent II - The Wandering

In the book of Mark, he is described this way:

And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him.  Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the River Jordan.  John wore clothing made of camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist and he ate locusts and wild honey.  And this was his message: 'After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.  I baptize you with water, but he will baptize with the Holy Spirit.

For some reason, my brain connects so much more with the visual of this Grizzly Adams type mountain man wearing a tunic of camel's hair and eating grasshoppers dipped in a bowlful of honey.  Imagine one of John's after hours party - all the countryside and all the people of Jerusalem out to hang out with him, the celebrity, and he says, "Hey, can someone pass the crickets?  I've got the munchies."

But he is a celebrity, it seems.  He wanders in the wilderness preparing an opportunity for one who is greater than he is, one more powerful, one who can do much more than baptize with what little water can be found in the wilderness. 

He is coming.

And we believe, because they inhabit our minds through a screen.

Celebrity is as celebrity does, as Forrest Gump should have said.

John the Baptist can't escape the celebrity status that he has gathered but with it comes great responsibility, and unlike present day stardom, he is not drawing the light to himself.  There is no self-aggrandizement, no braggadocio. no false sense that he thinks to himself, "Maybe I should think a little closer about my own sense of power." 

He recognizes that there is someone greater than he is and his job, as foretold by his own father, Zechariah, in Luke 1:77-79,

And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the most high; for you will go on before the LORD to prepare a way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven, to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.

What incredible poetry (this is entitled Zechariah's Song)!  He is singing about his child's future right after he is born and with the vivid understanding that his son has a role in showing God's mercy whose light shines down from heaven...

And guides our feet into the path of peace.

Isn't that what we all want this Christmas?  It seems like every Christmas I profess peace with my mouth, but it is still far from my heart.  I wander around in a trance-like state thinking about 'Christmassy' things and yet the gift that I truly want is one which John brings to us first and foremost.

Peace on earth, goodwill to all people.

We're not told much about John's early life only what Luke recalls after Zechariah's song:  And the child grew and became strong in the Spirit; and he lived in the wilderness until he appeared publicly to Israel.

Can you imagine the frustration of both Elizabeth and Zechariah at mealtime every night?

Elizabeth:  Zechy, have you seen John?  He's supposed to be washing up for supper.
Zechariah:  (shaking his head)  Last time I saw him he was by himself, heading out into the hills.
Elizabeth:  What does he do out there anyway?
Zecheriah:  Who knows?  I tried to find him once, follow his tracks, but they always lead to beehives.
Elizabeth:  What?
Zechariah:  I have no idea.  My guess is he likes honey.  Good thing his metabolism is still working.  Wait until he gets our age.  He'll have to hit the YMJA  (Young Men's Judean Association) and work off some of that desert fat.
Elizabeth:  Well, I suppose it's true.  He never seems to be hungry when he gets home.  I just hope he is getting enough protein.

I would have loved to see what Elizabeth and Zechariah would have said when he showed up with grasshopper wings stuck in his teeth.

But the scripture says that he lived in the wilderness.  He wandered and waited for something.  Perhaps he really didn't know what that would be or what that would look like.  Maybe John just assumed that he was destined for nomadicism and after his parents passed on it was only natural to think, just like the rest of the Jews living under Roman thumb, that God had forgotten them.

(Luke 3:2-6)  During the priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, son of Zechariah, in the wilderness.  He went into all the country around the Jordan preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

John went from place to place and talked about that which would set the people's feet on the path of peace.  Forgiveness of sins.  Here is the place which in our spiritual lives we find crooked paths of jealousy, rough roads of hatred and soaring mountains of pride.  When baptism occurs, those potholes are filled in, and sin ceases to have power over our salvation (or damnation, as it were), because the power of Christ allows us to be 'baptized into a death like his' which gives us life with him.  It was in this wandering that John encountered the word of God at long last.  Perhaps in a quiet morning when he least expected it, just finishing a morning stroll, and at the perfect time, God beckoned in his own way to this rugged man of the wilderness, who would soon be a celebrity in his own right, and said, 'Dearest John, I've got a plan and I need you near the front and center for a while.'

For this man who wandered, who probably was not unfamiliar with hardship, life would never be the same and for one who wandered by himself, great crowds would probably have caused him great stress.

But it is in the wandering that perhaps all of us can encounter God and the call to something bigger than ourselves - to allow the light of Christ to reflect off of us to show others one who is greater than us.  In this way, even in the midst of the struggle of making the path straight for God this Christmas, we might encounter the path into peace.

Advent I - Waiting

I've decided that during this Advent, I'm going to write to myself, the things that I need to hear in Advent.  In essence, I'll be preaching to myself.  I don't do that very often.  Usually, I try to picture my audience and the context in which they survive; and then I imagine the intersection of the biblical story and where the echoes of it make waves in reality.  That's just a fancy way of wondering how the Word of God comes alive today.

So, here I am in the struggle between writing to myself and recognizing that other people read this, which means I'm back at the intersection of individual context and biblical narrative.  It's the first week of Advent - the preparation for the coming of Christ and I've had a week's worth of Christmas music already playing.  We put up the Christmas tree last weekend while Elsa was still with us (she has since flown to Germany, which I'll get back to in a little bit); we sorted through all the memories which look a lot like ornaments but they turn into stories every year, and in the retelling of the ornaments, we get lost in the adventure of Advent.

The first week is always the most difficult, I think.  And that is not only from my saturation in American culture when the first week is also the Sunday after Thanksgiving Day.  After a gluttonous meal masticated at various speeds of consumption depending on which football game is playing at the time (equally gluttonous, if I'm honest with myself), we fade into opposite poles of wondering whether we should be preparing our shopping lists for the upcoming financial strain approaching, or taking a nap.

The Sunday comes quickly after a day that's supposed to be marked for giving thanks for things that have already arrived, but Advent contrives to make us expectant for that which is yet to come.  Or, in the Christian sense, come again.

It's a strange thing that we celebrate Christmas in this way every year.  We already know that the baby has been born; we know of this baby's growth into adulthood, his inconspicuous death and miraculous resurrection and his considerable influence on the middle east which radiated into the outer spokes of the known world.  We don't hope for something that has already happened.

Yet, here we are, every year, waiting for him to reappear.  It's like Jesus flew off on a plane to the other side of the solar system and we're waiting in the airport for his step through the customs gate, baggage in hand, prepared for hugs from family and friends.  We hold signs like, "Welcome back, Savior!"  Or, "We missed you, Jesus!"  Maybe, "It's about time, God." They are all true feelings in one way or the other, but sometimes I think the day of Christmas actually distracts from the greater picture.  We are so inured to Advent, and the skipping past it to the birthday party, that sometimes I actually think Christians believe that Jesus is going to come back as a baby.  

It's weird when we celebrate Christmas in this way.  It's as if I'm a first time parent, pacing back and forth chewing fingernails and drinking coffee, when my child is already sixteen years old.  That's ridiculous.  None of my daughters are going to be re-birthed every year (which Christine thanks God for every year), so why do we treat Christmas that way? 

That's the beauty of Advent.  It's the genius of waiting.

Elsa just left yesterday and already we are expectantly awaiting her return and subsequent description of all the details of her journey.  Due to twenty-first century technology, we can actually follow the flight of her plane while it coasts over exotic places like India and Dubai.  We can connect with her via applications on my phone and yet the whole time we look very much forward to her physical presence in this place, with us.  At the same time, it does us no good to simply watch the skies for the next six weeks waiting expectantly for her.  That would be silly, right?  In order to endure the time between sightings, we do that which God has called us to do - we live.

Our gospel lesson today, from Luke 21:25-30  There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars.  On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.  People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming in the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken.  At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.  When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

Surely, in recent weeks, there is anguish and perplexity in the world.  Some are fainting from terror, and a little section in my heart has that same fear that we should have just kept Elsa close to us, to keep her safe.

But we're meant to live, to keep our feet on the ground (unless we are flying in airplanes), not to have our heads in the stars amidst the signs of the sun, moon and stars.  Yes, we can take a peek at what's happening above us, theologically speaking - way beyond our pay grade.  And, when God decides that the time is right and ripe, Jesus will find a way to appear in the clouds. 

Not the iCloud, by the way.  I'm positive that Jesus will not arrive via the SaviorApp on my phone.  And when the scriptures say, "Stand up and lift your heads," I'm kind of thinking that we're not supposed to be looking down at our phones when that happens.  Redemption is a little bigger than the next funny youtube video.

So we wait.  We prepare for the coming of Christ, not in the form of a baby, or at least I don't think the Son of Man is going to reappear as a screaming infant freshly de-umbilicaled from God.  He will come with power and glory and majesty of the likes we have never seen.  We wait at the gate neither holding signs or waiting for arrival signs but talking to our neighbors who stand shoulder to shoulder with us waiting for the doors to open.  We hear their stories of hope and joy about who is to issue forth from customs.

Imagine if the customs security asked Jesus if he had to declare anything and he responded, (from Mark 1:15 after his baptism) "The time has come.  The kingdom of God has come near.  Repent and believe the good news!"

Imagine the sputtering of the guard as he proclaims, "That's not what I meant.  You know, any plants, fruits or nuts."  Jesus shakes his head. 

"Any dangerous items?" The guard finishes his query.

Jesus smirks.  "You've got no idea."

I can't wait to see that.

Child Abuse

Last week, Paul Ehrlich, a doctor of biology and ecology, accused Christine and I (and countless others) of child abuse.  The program Q and A, a television show dedicated to discussing sensitive topics by a diverse panel of scientists, entertainers, mathematicians, clergy and the like, invited Paul Ehrlich to be part of a panel which discussed a question regarding whether or not a Muslim school in Sydney was right to refrain from singing the national anthem because in their religious calendar year they are in a period of joylessness.  A time of lament.  As the Australian national anthem opens, "Australians all let us rejoice..."

Ehrlich's body posture signified all the academic arrogance one has seen time and time again with regards to the "Science vs. Religion" question (as if the two have to be diametrically opposed.)  He reclined in his chair, arms crossed, one leg over the other almost rolling his eyes as the question was put forth and as his turn came to answer, the snobbery in his voice oozed.  The questioner asked, "Didn't you sing your own national anthem in school when you were growing up?"  (I think he meant the Pledge of Allegiance which states: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God...)

Ehrlich then smirked and said, "Yes, of course, but we didn't have child abuse required in the schools in those days."

Religious instruction.

There it is.  He just implied that by teaching students the value (and values) of faith in a supreme being, we are purposefully and systematically abusing children.

After these outrageous comments were spoken (Ehrlich himself tried to backtrack slightly and say that 'he didn't want to be outrageous' but sometimes when one is on camera one likes to see what kind of reaction one can get) there was a warm smattering of applause from the audience.  They liked what he had to say.  Enough of this old time religion.  Enough of this outdated philosophy of bowing in servanthood to non-sensical, all-powerful being which mysteriously controls the universe.  We want a god like everyone else.  We want a god that does exactly what we want, when we want.  We want a god to be

Us.

Isn't that where our culture and society has evolved?  We no longer need to look outside of ourselves for salvation, or even hope, for that matter?  Doesn't our culture tell us that our own narcissistic ecclesiology need only worship at the altar of the ego?  Instead of speaking of God as the Great I Am, we have simply replaced him ourselves and we intone, I am god.  In the process of replacing the true God of the universe on the throne of our hearts, we have erased the hope of the world, the light of the nations, and the true ability to care for each other, because if, as Ehrlich presumes, there are only 'supernatural monsters' that the religious unintellectuals believe, there is no reason to be anything but hedonistic.

Life is short, do what you want.  Be happy.

It's in this cultural understanding that I think we find a true source of abuse.  When we teach young people that there is no lament, there is no sadness and that our true, and only, advice for life is to try to be happy and then die, we don't give them the tools to deal with the inevitable darkness and desperation that occurs during our breathing years. 

Recently, in an assessment task in our Religion and Ethics class at school, the students were to come up with twelve pieces (or things) that gave their life meaning.  i.e. What makes my life worthwhile?

Of course family and friends were first, but for a few, the majority could not understand why they give life meaning, only that 'they are there for them.'  The rest of the answers included, cars, sports, music and almost always some kind of on-line activity and with it came the 'meaning question' when they responded,

"It gives me an escape from life for a while."

I repeat that in my head each day now, because these students were expressing what I'd been thinking for a while.  Our culture teaches them that it's all about them; be happy; if you don't like something or you think it's boring, change it until it makes you happy; and for goodness sake, if it makes you sad, run like the wind away from it.  Don't deal with it.  Run.

But sooner or later, this kind of cultural child abuse leaves these kids with nowhere else to run.  With no meaning in life other than to be happy, and no tools to deal with sadness or hopelessness, depression and anxiety become almost an inevitable conclusion.  When we don't teach students how to use lament as an expression of one of the mysteries of life, this is the form of abuse we should be talking about.

So Paul Ehrlich may be speaking for the popular culture which popularly replaces God with themselves, and by quoting famous scientist Stephen Hawking, he seems to think it will give his argument greater authority without receiving any of the negative backlash, we find ourselves in a 21st century conundrum.

Who is God here?

I Am.

You can decide which.