It's Foreign...

Another take on the "its foreign" comment.  What we know is that when we practice rightly and regularly, God somehow works through that to grow our faith, grow our trust, grow our spirit.  (What "rightly" is is for another column.)

What we grow into, however, is foreign to our culture, our times, even sometimes, our friends.  What we grow into is a lifestyle that says we will pause in our gift buying/giving/opening, our family time, our parties and traditions, we will pause to worship.

Christmas Eve worship at our church is a service of lessons and carols, reading texts that reflect God's saving work on our behalf through the ages...culminating with the birth of Jesus which holds the ultimate promise of salvation and redemption for us.  By salvation and redemption I am not talking about fire insurance to keep us out of whatever "hell" we think we might end up in...but the salvation and redemption that Jesus modeled when he brought people together, shared wealth and opportunity, ended judgment and condemnation by humans toward humans, showed who God is and what God wants of us--namely to "do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God."(Micah 6:8, Matthew 23:23 for same idea)

But these are foreign languages, foreign ideas to a culture that seeks personal fulfillment and happiness as its highest power with power, status, and money--especially money--as means to this end.  What-works-for-me drives our very beings.  To understand the texts of the lessons and carols requires some familiarity with the biblical story.  Many people sit quietly through the first readings, waiting for the "good stuff" --i.e., the nativity story that has remained in the public eye through political fights over nativities in government locales, movies, and ubiquitous nativity sets available for purchase...(and to prove how ridiculous that has become, check these out.)

But the meaning of the nativity story has been shadowed as well.  The scandal of the nativity was not that a child was born "who was to be called Son of the Most High."  That happened all the time in the first century.  The scandal was that the child was dirt poor, laid in an animal's feeding stall, born to an unwed mother.  The idea that the power to change the world started (and ended, for that matter) in the most powerless position imaginable took people's aback.  How is that possible?  And even today, we wind up ascribing magical powers and unimaginative powerful status to a poor, itinerant prophet/preacher whose message of radical equality and full humanity inspired the powerless and enraged the powerful.  Ever seen a nativity full of fleas, animal poop, half eaten hay, and a scratch-and-sniff that evacuates the room?

The fundamental message of the nativity is foreign.  It's message that requires a lifestyle that is foreign.  It demands not our happiness, but our submission to God, God's Way as seen in the life of Jesus.  (Interestingly, happiness is often a by-product, but not always.)

And that leads to one more opinion (hey, it's my blog, after all...).  I think many churches have co-opted the "Way" of Jesus into the way of the culture.  Joel Osteen comes immediately to mind...all those churches that feed into the stereotypes of those outside our doors--judgmental, narrow-minded, self-centered--and they do seem to be the ones in the public eye. I often ask "Have they read the gospels?"  Perhaps I should ask "Have they studied the gospels?  Because, especially if you understand the stories in the 1st century context in which they originate, you see the radical, demanding message that Jesus actually brings--a message that is completely opposite the stereotype.

There are so many churches out there, of all denominations, that understand this radical, demanding message.  Some are large, some medium, some small.  None of us get it exactly right...the human tendency toward judgment, narrow-mindedness, and self-centeredness is really strong.  We all get sucked in sometimes.  But that why we worship.  It taps the power of the community working to interpret and follow the Way.  We keep each other accountable; we support each other in the effort to follow.  We focus our lives and our time and our resources on the Source of our life.

And really, this is a new move to an old "Way" for many of us.  We shouldn't have lost our way, but the growth and subsequent power of the church in America helped us forget.  As we live in a downturn, we look carefully at what and who we are called to be and do.  We, with God's help, right our course.

Want to take a trip to a "foreign" country without leaving home?  Maybe a faith journey is on your horizon for 2012.  Visit churches.  Listen carefully to what you hear.  Spend time in the education classes and Bible studies.  Ask hard questions and if you don't get answers that are challenging and, perhaps, disturbing, move on and keep asking.  Go churches you've not thought to visit.  When you find the hardest message of grace you've ever heard...stay and practice.  If not, try another.  God will bring you to a community that needs your gifts and will nurture your soul while calling you to nurture others.

Think you have no interest in "church" as you think it is now?  Think its a great idea if only it was what it should be.  Then join us in this foreign practice, this foreign life.  Come in and find out what the Way is and help make the church community what it is called to be by the poor, powerless, itinerant preacher whose message and lifestyle changed the world.

It's Practice...

A comment heard during the Christmas Eve service at my husband's church...
"This is feeling more comfortable, but at the same time, more foreign..."

This from a person who doesn't regularly attend worship, and didn't attend any services for a long time...though born into the tradition and raised in the practice.

Right.  The more you do something, the more comfortable it is.  And, Right.  As you enter or re-enter something, especially on an occasional basis, it becomes more foreign.

Worship isn't magic, it's practice.  Any practice can be discussed in these terms.  One day I was visiting a church during the week and heard this strange shrieking sound coming out of one of the classrooms.  Many voices.  Shrill sounds.  All together.  Well, of course, it was children's choir practice.  They were warming up their vocal chords with this activity that, to the uninitiated, sounded strange at best and, with great imagination, much like a torture chamber.  Foreign...until you need to hit those high notes and understand the shrilling will get you to your goal.

Sports are the same way.  Writing--ditto.  When I taught middle school English and we taught writing, we did weird stuff.  We looked at pictures.  We listened to music.  We wrote nonsense.

"I don't have anything to say."
"Well, write that."
"Really?"
"Yep."  And in a few sentences, sometimes a page of repeated sentences that read, "I don't have anything to say," the kid with nothing to say would launch into something different.  They did have something to say.  They were writers.

People who watch a football game once or twice a year (yeah, guilty), find the experience a bit foreign.  What is there to get so passionate about?  Why are so many people interested?  But I do know if you connect with a team, follow that team, participate with other fans and do it all regularly, it makes sense.  It is even fun.  It might become a passion.

So all you folks who do the Christmas/Easter church thing and leave feeling like it is all foreign and you will never fully understand it...All you folks who don't know why anyone would worship weekly or spend time with others in Bible study...All you folks who assume if you don't have a completely awesome experience when you do occasionally come...Maybe, just maybe, you need some regular practice.

The carols, the candles, the clothes of Christmas are familiar.  But the meaning, the connection with life, the significance of the event will be foreign...unless we regularly practice.

Merry Christmas...

I wish I could say I had written this...but I share with you a poem written by a friend, Trish Holland titled "On Being Good--or Being Loved."

"I must have really been good 
        last year," our five year-old-mused,
"Santa brought me things 
        I didn't even ask for."
"He must have loved you a lot,"
       responded her mother.
"He makes a list of all the good children
       and all the bad children.
       I must have really been good!
       Doesn't he make a list, Mother?"
"That's what the song says,"
       her mother agrees
       preserving the myth,
       but adding:
"He must have loved you a lot,"
       gently preparing her
       for the greater truth.


Pharisees of every age boast:
       "I must have really been good!"
A child of the Living God confesses:
       "He must have loved me a lot."

The true gift of Christmas is realizing how much we are loved.

Thank you Trish...and Merry Christmas everyone!

Amazingly...

I have a picture of my son...amazingly, perhaps my favorite picture of him...sitting on a pathetically rusted tricycle with a busted rubber ball on his head.  Really?  I don't even remember where we got the tricycle.  The dog probably busted the ball.  What I love is the twinkle in his eye, his crooked little smile, and the attitude that says, "Yeah, I can get away with this.  I'm that cute..."

I wonder what Jesus did that elicited the same response in his mother.  Really?  This kid will change the world?  Amazing...

Truth is, every "hero" in the Bible could well have a busted ball on his or her head.  Amazingly, God works consistently through the ridiculously human.  So, thanks be to God, I'm putting a busted ball on my head, mounting my rusty tricycle, and waiting for orders.

(And, I have extra balls if any of you want to join me!)

Lessons...

You wonder sometimes,  don't you, if God is really in control?  I know in my head the sovereignty of God, but my gut gets knotted up sometimes.  Not as much as it used to.  Early in our lives together, Carl expressed frustration with his job by telling me he was quitting.  No more ministry.  Too hard.  Too frustrating.  Can't do it.  I'm going to do something else.  I quit.  I would then panic and start trying to figure out how I could go to work...you know...insurance and all that kind of stuff.  Couldn't nurse those babies forever.  At some point we had to put food on the table.

But then, the next day, he loved his job, and my guts would unravel and we would go about our business for a bit, until he quit again.  I was not a quick learner.  It took me almost a year to figure this one out.  I said, certainly to myself and perhaps to Carl, I'll panic when he shows me the pink slip.

I'm much better about trusting God.  Jesus instruction "Do not worry" is one I do pretty well.  Some things you can control and some things you cannot.  But I still forget.  I can still periodically waste a whole day fretting about people or actions that might happen/shouldn't happen, and I get all knotted up inside and I wonder why God hasn't fixed everything and...well you get the picture.  I beat God up and I beat myself up.

So it happened this week.  No really good reason.  No particularly significant threat.  But the knots began to multiply and the frustration bubbled up and a whole day was spent angsting over the apparent lack of God's sovereignty in the world.

And all throughout the day, God taught me lessons.  Faith and contentment oozed out of the people I saw and talked to, people who really had reason to be knotted up.  And then, nothing I was worried about happened.  Nothing.

It could have happened.  And if it had, I would have still been blessed.  But it didn't.  And I wasted a whole day living in fear and anger.

While waiting for the Messiah, the world's situation was grim.  God certainly could have come in and wiped enemies with a blood bath.  There could have been a list of winners and losers.  We could have celebrated in the streets, knowing our enemies would suffer, knowing we had triumphed!  But there would still be losers, still be tears, still be someone with knots in their gut.

Instead, God came as an infant.  God grew into a man who reached out to enemies.  God died at the hands of those whose guts were so knotted they thought that crucifixion was their only option.  God spoke a resounding NO to death and sin through the life of a man who knew how to trust God with no knots.

I think the great gift of Christmas is the moment of love that washes over us when we experience the Baby.  For a moment, all of us, on whatever side, in whatever circumstance, celebrate the birth of a baby.  And there's nothing that unknots your gut like holding a newborn.  Period.

I have been reminded, again, that God is sovereign.  God is at work and no human brokenness will ultimately prevail.  We will still live in mess for awhile.  Unfortunately, God is still shaping us and we, the world of humanity, are not yet shaped as we need to be.

But I listened.  And I pledge to work (with God's help) for that world in which we respond to each other the same way we respond to the infant Christ by living in ways that respond to people in the same way I would respond to that baby.  It won't always work.  I won't always succeed. It may cost me.  It cost Jesus his life.  But ultimately, God is and will be at work.

And that is where and how I choose to live.

Wonderings...

I wonder if we had told people at this time...several days before the birth of Jesus...that God was about to change the world, would they have listened?

I wonder if we had told them that God's salvation would come through a carpenter's son nobody, would they have rejoiced?

I wonder if we had told them that the willingness to be with all people--pure or unclean, Jewish or Gentile, saint or sinner--to offer all the presence of God's love, would they have accepted?

I wonder if we had told them that everything would change, that even their most revered institutions would have a new face and a new focus, that the only thing that would hold steady through all time would be the love of God for God's people, would they have let go?

God wants to change our world.  God will come to work through powerless, unexpected people, God will include everyone, especially those we don't expect should be included.  God will restructure and refocus, revamp and remake all our institutions.  Will we go with God?

I wonder...

Chaos to Charming...

We rehearsed the Christmas program this morning for our Jan. 8 performance.  We've invited some adults to help us out.  I supposed some might question their status as adults...including themselves...but officially, they are.

Chaos ensued.  I think they got most of the instructions.  I know the youth and children did.  I think we will be good to go.  I used to really worry about whether these things would come off, but they always do.  When it comes time for the actual performance, all will pay attention and not talk unless they are supposed to.

I wonder if God feels the same way.  Perhaps these "between times" are simply God trying to run the rehearsal and us not paying attention, talking instead of listening, and having more fun than is humanly imaginable while not getting things accomplished.  Perhaps God is shaking God's head in private and hoping that everything will come together when it matters.

I pray to God to get it done.  I wonder who God prays to...

Transitions...

Finally...empty nest.  At least technically.  Hannah bought a house.  Claire moved in with her.  So they are moved in...but not moved out.

It's a weird time.  The chaos of the move...mess and belongings tucked everywhere call out to be found and transferred.  The creation of new routines and revamping relationships have begun but only barely.  It will take a while to create this new world of empty nest.  Blessings are to be found in the creation of new life.  And old ways will have to die for new ways to take hold.

It is, perhaps, appropriate that this coincides with the last days of Advent.  Because the comfort of Advent is we are waiting in the old life.  We wait impatiently, but at least we wait in the comfort of what we know.   When God comes, both then and now, a new life starts.  Things are not the same.  Things can never be the same in the starlight that illuminates the redemption of humankind.

Its a weird time, and about to get weirder if we really let go and follow God into this new way of life.  Watch that star...it's getting closer...

See and Hear...

Crazy days...long, crazy days.  Ridiculous schedule  Ridiculous life.  Not that it's not fun, but a couple of "those days" that you don't even breathe.

Working with seniors midweek on their youth Sunday sermons, we read Isaiah 40:21...
Have you not known?  Have you not heard?


The people of Israel, coming back from exile (a whole bunch of "those days") are reminded by the prophet that God is in control and God is and has been working on their behalf.  Are you paying attention? says the prophet...you've known in the past...you've heard this all your lives.  So what are you doing?  What are you thinking?

For the people of Israel, exile was ridiculous...long, crazy days...sometimes they couldn't imagine where God was or what God was doing.  I bet, some days, they didn't even think about God.

It's the very craziest days, though, that we need to be reminded, "Have you not known?  Have you not heard?"  We know that God is at work.  We know how God is at work.  We have heard the stories.

One more week of craziness before the celebration of the coming of God to us...to our crazy world.  Have you not known?  Have you not heard?

Toast...

Sign on the church I have to drive past every morning on my way to church:

"If you don't have the Bread of Life, you are TOAST..."

Sign I want on my church:

"The love and grace of God has already insured your salvation.  Come on in and celebrate with us!"

Do I hear an AMEN?!

Eugene Peterson, Earth and Altar

Solitude in prayer is not privacy.  The differences between privacy and solitude are profound. Privacy is our attempt to insulate the self from interference, solitude leaves the company of others for a time in order to listen to them more deeply, be aware of them, serve them.  Privacy is getting away from others so that I don't have to be bothered with them; solitude is getting away form the crowd so that I can be instructed by the still, small voice of God, who is enthroned on the praises of the multitudes.  Private prayers are selfish and thin; prayer in solitude enrolls in a multivoiced, century-layered community: with angels and archangels in all the company of heaven we sing, "holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty."

I wish for you, some moments of solitude this week.  May we all be nurtured and blessed by God's presence so we might re-emerge ready to stand in relationship with God and with each other.

A Debate with Eric Weiner...

Eric Weiner is the author, most recently, of Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine.  I heard him on NPR and asked for his book for Christmas.  I wanted to read the book because I would like to understand why some Americans are "nones" (his language--as in "Religion?  None"). His article today in the New York Times raises some of his issues.  Since I am never likely to be invited into a conversation with Mr. Weiner, I will pretend I have been.  So here are his comments and my replies.

We are more religiously polarized than ever. In my secular, urban and urbane world, God is rarely spoken of, except in mocking, derisive tones. It is acceptable to cite the latest academic study on, say, happiness or, even better, whip out a brain scan, but God? He is for suckers, and Republicans.
Agreed that we are more and more polarized and that God is "rarely spoken of except in mocking, derisive tones," especially in your "secular, urban, and urbane world."  I, too, live in a secular, urban, and urbane world, but participate in a faith community who speaks of God in completely different tones. I hear about God's faithfulness from a 93 year old African-American woman who was an educated professional in a time of extreme discrimination for her color and her gender.  Her stories inspire me to seek faith.  I hear young adults speak of God who challenges them to get outside their own skin...to live first for others, to seek justice and practice compassion.  I hear folks who seek and grow in faith, excitedly experiencing God's active presence in their lives.  I participate in a faith community made up of Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and perhaps a few more...but a community that attempts to put God as the primary focus of their lives and livings, not their political stripes.  I can assure you the people in my faith community aren't "suckers," though the secular world focused on themselves and their own welfare often thinks "loving your neighbor at the risk of your own life and happiness" is foolish.

I used to be that way, too, until a health scare and the onset of middle age created a crisis of faith, and I ventured to the other side. I quickly discovered that I didn’t fit there, either. I am not a True Believer. I am a rationalist. I believe the Enlightenment was a very good thing, and don’t wish to return to an age of raw superstition.

Nothing about my faith practice is "raw superstition."  I read a text of a people and their encounter with God.  I participate in faith practices that have, over time, shown their power to bring me as human into an encounter with God.  Some days, I wonder if there is a God.  Shortly thereafter, God overwhelms me with God's presence and I doubt no more--until I do.  Some days I hate organized religion--it is, after all, a human institution.  Most days, I am humbled and honored that God chooses to do God's work with and through us.  God doesn't benefit from my/our participation, but I/we surely do.  

If I want to play sports, I cannot spend time bouncing around different sports finding the best "fit."  I will never be successful.  Instead, I find the place I want to start and I commit to practice every day, small skill by small skill, until I begin to succeed.  Religion is not God.  The responsible practice of a religion is a gift from God that helps us open ourselves to a God who is always there waiting for us.  (The irresponsible practice no doubt can be harmful...but so can the irresponsible practice of science.)

We Nones may not believe in God, but we hope to one day. We have a dog in this hunt.

I am glad you hope to.  But it usually takes more than hope.  Believe me.  I've hoped to be tall and skinny for 53 years.  I've got the tall part...but only "hoping" doesn't accomplish a hill of beans.

Nones don’t get hung up on whether a religion is “true” or not, and instead subscribe to William James’s maxim that “truth is what works.” If a certain spiritual practice makes us better people — more loving, less angry — then it is necessarily good, and by extension “true.” (We believe that G. K. Chesterton got it right when he said: “It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.”)
So, do we.  Many of us believe less in "belief" and more in the "practice" of a way of life.  For me, this is Christianity based because that's where my foundations are.  It could be Jewish.  It could be Muslim.  But the practice must be based on others over self, on loving God and loving neighbor.  Nones don't get hung up here...neither do most in my faith community.  

By that measure, there is very little “good religion” out there. Put bluntly: God is not a lot of fun these days. Many of us don’t view religion so generously. All we see is an angry God. He is constantly judging and smiting, and so are his followers. No wonder so many Americans are enamored of the Dalai Lama. He laughs, often and well.

My question...where are you looking to see this God?  Media depictions?  Politicians?  One or two churches?  TV preachers?  Keep looking.  We laugh, and laugh hard.  We cry with each other when we suffer.  We know who God is because we study...and I mean study scripture...wrestling with the passages we hate...loving the ones we love...but listening and not choosing "what kind of God we want."  God often laughs.  God often cries.  God also judges and cleanses and occasionally smites.  When God does smite, humans usually deserve it.  I'll jump on your bandwagon with both feet on God's followers judging and smiting.  Not our job.  Ever.  But many of us know that and fight against our very human propensity to do so.  But I need a God who is more than just "fun."

Precious few of our religious leaders laugh. They shout. God is not an exclamation point, though. He is, at his best, a semicolon, connecting people, and generating what Aldous Huxley called “human grace.” Somewhere along the way, we’ve lost sight of this.

Not all of us.  Not all of us.

Religion and politics, though often spoken about in the same breath, are, of course, fundamentally different. Politics is, by definition, a public activity. Though religion contains large public components, it is at core a personal affair. It is the relationship we have with ourselves or, as the British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead said, “What the individual does with his solitariness.” There lies the problem: how to talk about the private nature of religion publicly.

Religion is always personal...never private.  We can't learn to talk about it with each other if we mistakenly assume it is a private matter.  We practice talking.  Sometimes we get it right...sometimes we don't.  But we don't stop talking in faith community because when we talk it out there, we can speak God's love in the world.  But you are right that religion and politics are fundamentally different.  If we really used our politics to shape the world as God wants it shaped in the bibilcal text, we would live in heaven on earth--and so would every other person.

What is the solution? The answer, I think, lies in the sort of entrepreneurial spirit that has long defined America, including religious America.

We need a Steve Jobs of religion. Someone (or ones) who can invent not a new religion but, rather, a new way of being religious. Like Mr. Jobs’s creations, this new way would be straightforward and unencumbered and absolutely intuitive. Most important, it would be highly interactive. I imagine a religious space that celebrates doubt, encourages experimentation and allows one to utter the word God without embarrassment. A religious operating system for the Nones among us. And for all of us.

Not all religious communities can live in this straightforward, unencumbered, intuitive, and interactive way.  Many do.  Our community often celebrates doubt...faith that is absolutely certain is not faith at all.  We are always experimenting..."reformed and always reforming."  Sometimes we really screw up.  Sometimes, when our actions reflect God's purposes, we change the world.  So keep looking.  Bring your vision and your energy to those communities open to these ideas.  But also remember that any religion based solely on our personal needs and desires becomes instantly idolatrous--serving to reinforce a worship of ourselves and our preferences instead of a worship of the Other who keeps us focused on gracious, generous, and compassionate service.

I have a new I-phone...and while it's mostly intuitive, I can't figure everything out.  Today, I had a lesson from a friend on how to find a contact.  Duh..but I needed the guidance on what I couldn't do for myself.  And if you'll remember, Steve Jobs did a whole bunch of judging and some degree of smiting to refine his ideas into products that changed the world.    

So, Mr. Weiner, I look forward to reading your book...even though I think you are going to piss me off.  And I hope you will think about all those PC users, those "Apple Nones," or even more sad, all those who refuse to ever use a computer at all, who will never experience the joy of the new, the better, the connection, the (fill-in-the-blank).  I hope you will think about your frustration with those people who decide before they experience the possibilties, who refuse to participate because they've already decided what it will be like.

And, Mr. Weiner, I invite you to become part of one of those religious communities who are very much exactly as you dream.  We are never perfect.  We never will be.  But your practice, and that of your fellow "nones" just might get us closer.  Come up the drive; meet us out serving the world.  We promise not to paint you all with the same brush...will you do the same?

Letting go...

Today, a friend who I greatly admire had to take a sick day from work.  It was a last minute thing...but he managed somehow to leave instructions for every last possibility.  Leave nothing to chance or other people.  It's all important.  Be sure it's covered.

This morning, we heard a remarkable sermon.  I mean, take-your-breath-away-remarkable...a sermon that ushers you into the presence of the Almighty God whose salvation is for us and the entire world.  That God whose works are so extraordinary that the floods and the hills cry out for joy was palpably real in this sermon.  We thought perhaps worship was available, so we took a break after this sermon to see if everyone on campus could hear it...we wanted this Word proclaimed...this Encounter shared.

It was covered.  Better not change it.  And it wasn't bad, but it wasn't take-your-breath-away-remarkable.

Today, I am reminded that God is God.  That when I over-function, God's plans might be slowed.  I am grateful for my encounter with the Holy.  May I never get in the way of an encounter for someone else.

...when we venture into prayer, every word may, at any moment, come to mean just what it means and involve us with a holy God who wills our holiness.  All we had counted on was some religious small talk, a little numinous gossip, and we are suddenly involved, without intending it and without having calculated the consequences, in something eternal...

We want life on our conditions, not on God's conditions.  Praying puts us at risk of getting involved in God's conditions.  Be slow to pray.  Praying most often doesn't get us what we want but what God wants, something quite at variance with what we conceive to be in our best interests.  And when we realize what is going on, it is often too late to go back.  Be slow to pray. (Eugene Peterson, Working the Angles)

Advent...purported to be a season of prayer, preparation, and waiting.  I hope you are avoiding prayer with your busy schedule.  I am trying to.  Being involved in something eternal...getting us to what God wants...do we really want to go there this Advent season?

Quiet Times...

Not much to say today.  I've listened and read, keeping in mind I need a blog post.  Nothing.  Usually it's pretty easy to find a focus if you are listening, but not today.

As I sat down this morning, I heard a word.  Maybe preparation means being quiet sometimes.  Maybe today I need to listen instead of worrying about what to say...

The end.

Details...

I have a child buying her first house.  Aside from feeling really old to have a child buying a house, it is entertaining to watch her struggle with the minutiae involved in securing a loan.  First they tell her one thing, then another...and every change holds the potential to slow the process or push back the closing.

Welcome to the real world, huh...

I remember as a young teen beginning to understand that the world was difficult.  It happened first at church for me.  When I was 12 we got a new "preacher."  He was pretty entertaining, but he began to preach a message opposite everything I had heard.  "Once saved, always saved" became "Yes but, if you aren't doing these things or believing these things, then you weren't really saved the first time."  "For God so loved the world" became "God loves those who love HIM (only a male God, of course), and everyone else will suffer eternal judgment and punishment."  "Trusting in God's grace" became "working to earn God's love."  I just didn't buy it...at all.  That just wasn't the God I saw in scripture... then or now.  And that doesn't even get to the hours and hours we spent examining the end times in the Revelation of John.  Didn't buy that one either.  (Though when the church remodeled the sanctuary and huge holes were carved out of the ceiling for lighting, the joke that the church was creating holes to heaven to give themselves a head start when the rapture came...that was funny.)

I love Christmas...and Easter...and Pentecost...and birthdays.  But we don't get to a birthday without living in the messy minutiae of the other 364 days in the year.  So even more, I love Advent, Lent, Ordinary Time. That is where God meets me in the difficulty.  And that's when I need the promise of God's coming...new life...resurrection.

God in the real world...that's the God I need.

Advent Lessons in Cleaning...

I've been doing a lot of cleaning lately, and I'm reminded of some lessons I've learned over the years:

• You cannot make time stand still.  All those cute little school projects I saved for my children are unwanted and unneeded.  They have moved on.  As much as I would love to preserve those ahwwww moments, I cannot.  The macaroni self-portrait Claire made when she was 4 with straight spaghetti on one side and curly noodles on the other (reflecting her unique hair) cannot hold up, attracts bugs, and is completely unwanted by the artist.  Instead, it's a story to be told that shapes our present and future.  Celebrate the moment, then throw the paper away.  Another moment is coming.
• Too much stuff is as difficult as too little.  If there is nowhere to put something away, 1) you don't need it or 2) you need to get rid of something else.
• Identify the present task and stick.  to.  it.   Attention Deficit Cleaning Disorder is deadly.  (If you clean, you know what I'm talking about.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, you better help your spouse/parents clean more!)
• It never ends.  Something always needs to be cleaned out, straightened up, made right.

The temptation of Advent is to hurry it up.  Most churches can't follow a straight Advent celebration.  The temptation to jump to Christmas is strong...too strong.  We know the good news is coming, why shouldn't we just skip the preparation stuff and celebrate.  Wouldn't that be what God wants us to do?

Christmas doesn't make time stand still.  God "moving into the neighborhood" (as Peterson puts it in his paraphrase of John 1) happens again and again.  It is not a cute little project.  It is  a story told that shapes our present and future.  It is a story that comes and goes and comes again, completely beyond our control.  Don't hang onto the past moments.  Celebrate and look for the next one.  

Christmas can't come if there is too much other stuff going on.  Advent is the preparation work for the good news.  If our lives and hearts are stuffed full already, God has no place to come into.  Advent does the hard work of clearing out...of making room.  If Christmas comes too early, there is no place for it to stay.

We need to stay focused.  It is incredibly hard not to worry about the "what's next" while we ignore the needs of now.  

We are human.  Until the ultimate coming of God's Kingdom we must always be preparing.  We always hang onto the past.  We always collect too much stuff.  We always to be cleaned out, straightened up, made right.

So while we are cleaning up in preparation for our Christmas festivities, let's not forget the importance of our Advent cleaning.  So Advent during Advent.  Christmas during Christmas.  Both will be better.

For Now...

Stealing one from my daughter.  She babysat recently for a cute seven-year-old who was more than slightly obsessed with the world of spies.  "Stand over there," he commanded, conspiratorially, of course.  "Stand over there and act normal."  So, she did...as best she could.  Later, she sidled back up to him and said, "How was that?  Pretty normal, huh?!"

"Yeah," he replied.

"'Cause I am normal...really...just normal,"  she says.

He looked up at her, as only a seven-year-old spy could.   Pause....

"For now."

That's the season of Advent, isn't it?  Our life...for now...waiting for the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God.  Come quickly, O God...come quickly.

And we will wait...for now...

Missed a day...

My goal is to post every day during Advent.  Notice I didn't make that public.  And yesterday, I missed a day.

Already.

Day 6.

Saturday.

I mean, come on.  Saturday?  Of all days you would think there would be time to post a blog....Saturday?! 


So now it is Sunday and I am preparing for Sunday school with children and youth who are working on a Christmas program....and some unsuspecting adults who will be tapped.  I am preparing for worship...each Sunday a walk through death and resurrection...each Sunday an opportunity to claim, live into,  and practice new life.   And then we are going to dedicate the "white house"...another opportunity in this community for healing and new life.  It looks great...I'll try to post a picture tomorrow and you can compare the before and after.

My point in all this is...well I don't really know.  What I do know is today and every day I have a promise of new life.  I live in a forgiven state...for the things I do and the things I have left undone as they would say in most Presbyterian Churches...

And it is still Advent.

Open Season...

At a worship service deep in the south...really deep.  The service focused on the text from Matthew 19 where Jesus suggests that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.  The sermon was okay, the music was pretty good, but the lay commentary from a wealthy member who loves to hunt was the best interpretation of this text.

"It's not open season on the rich, it's open season on people who don't use their time and talents."  Money is a gift that some people have.  All of us have financial resources and a call to give generously in gratitude to God.  Statistics show that the wealthiest American Christians give only .2% more of their income to charitable causes than the poorest American Christians...those who make up to 12,499 a year give 5.5% of their income (average) and those making $90,000+ give 5.7%.  Everyone in between gives even less.

This wealthy member sees wealth as a responsibility and a gift.  His perspective is that with great wealth comes great responsibility.  That man is putting camels through needle eyes--and example for all of us.

Accomplishments...

As you prepare for a party, you tend to make lists and check off accomplishments.  As I am up at the crack of dawn with a dog who must go outside and several chores to be done, I am watching Newt Gingrich list a multitude of accomplishments...many of which are being discounted by the press.  It is almost comical to watch any politician try to find just the right action which will appeal to the voters and transform them into the super-politician that can sweep us off our feet and solve all our problems (ha!).  Whether it is fighting the cold war or inventing the internet, images of a five-year-old waving an art piece in your face for ultimate approval emerge.

At the end of the day--yep, party day--I will wait for guests to arrive with a list in my head.  Reasonably clean, check.  Decent food, check.  Pretty tables, check.  Pants zipped, check.  And whether I want to or not, this will be the list I am waving in my very human effort to earn my keep, to get "their" approval.

During Advent, are we waiting with our lists clutched in our hands , looking at our checkmarks to see if we will be primary in the coming Kingdom?  or do we wait with open hearts for the work of God to become visible to our eyes when we raise them from what we have done to what God is doing...