January 4, 2017

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me eleven pipers piping

Frederic Austin, 1909

Merry Christmas! on this eleventh day of Christmastide.

As I've said before elsewhere, this has been a holiday season unlike any other I've experienced. I won't restate those reasons here; but one of the reasons this holiday season has been so different is because of various posts and/or comments I've seen on Facebook. I'm not talking about politics or weird news stories that show up or any of that. Instead, I have been taken by surprise at how many comments I've seen from people who apparently had no idea that the 12 Days of Christmas began on Christmas Day.

I can't remember a time when it seemed to me that so many people were unaware of this fact. To make matters worse, most of those comments were made by people on any number of clergy posts. At one point I asked myself, “What are we (clergy) doing wrong that even our Facebook friends don't know Christmas Day is the first day of the season?”

With this past Monday being a holiday, Joelene and I took the opportunity to run some errands. One of the things we did was exchange a gift that was too small for a proper size and to pick up a couple of gifts for the Epiphany party this coming Friday night. We also needed to buy wrapping paper since that was an item we opted to leave behind in the move. The wrapping paper and all things Christmas had been moved to the back corner of the store as the employees were busy cleaning out every reminder of Christmas and making room for their Easter displays.

Yes, Easter.

It's no wonder people don't know the Christmas season begins on December 25 and runs through January 5 what with the stores removing decorations as fast as they can to begin prepping for the spring candy-fest that is still just over three months away. It's not only the stores. A house I pass every day really gets into holiday lights – I first noticed them at Halloween. They even go to the trouble of synchronizing their lights to music played on 89.5 FM. It's actually kind of fun to watch. But even that holiday light show has come down.

The Church year, though, gives us a different rhythm. Instead of frantically clearing out and cleaning up from the most recent holiday to begin prepping for the next one on the horizon, the Church year asks us to sit with the season for a time. Advent gives us a slow, methodical time of preparation. Christmas is a 12-day celebration of the arrival of God Incarnate. Epiphany is a time for us to make known to the world what we witnessed during Christmas. Lent, Holy Week, Easter, and the Season after Pentecost all have their own focal points.

This is the genius and the blessing of the Church year – that it allows us to step back from how the world thinks things should be run to seeing another way. It really is a counter-cultural system.

As we move into 2017, maybe we should resolve to pay more attention to the rhythms and cycles of the Church year and pay less attention to the frenetic pace of a world focused on what's next.

Amen.

December 28, 2016

Receive, we pray, into the arms of your mercy all innocent victims; and by your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love, and peace . . .

Collect for the Feast of the Holy Innocents

Today is the feast day of the Holy Innocents. It is that day on the Church calendar when we remember the Holy Family's terror-driven night flight from Bethlehem to Egypt in a desperate attempt to escape the murderous rampage of an out-of-control despot. It is that day when we read from the Gospel of Matthew of Herod's attempt to eliminate his preordained successor by killing all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and younger.

Unfortunately Scripture isn't all rose petals and people playing nicely with each other. We tend to overlook those nasty bits of Scripture, especially Christians who want to focus on the nice, loving God of the New Testament. But in the second chapter of Matthew we hear of a loss of life that shocks us. We hear of innocent children being killed for no other reason than that they were born at the wrong time. We hear of the Holy Family's skin-of-their teeth escape from persecution, themselves becoming homeless refugees seeking shelter in a foreign country.

This is a hard day to celebrate. Questions abound as to why this had to happen? Couldn't God have foreseen this and done something to stop it? Did Jesus and Mary ever suffer from PTSD or the Why Me syndrome that causes one to wonder why they got to live while everyone around them died?

Within this story we need to understand that this wasn't God's doing. God can't stop people from doing evil things. God never promises to wave a magic wand and make everything all better.

What God does, as I've said earlier, is promise to be with us. It then becomes our job to understand that God's desire is for a rule of justice, love, and peace; and it becomes our job to work for those things.

Can we read this terrible story of the Holy Innocents and see it played out today? Are there children suffering at the hands of unjust rulers and laws? Are there people persecuted simply for being who they are? Are there innocent people dying because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time? Are there systems in society that allow for innocent people to be mistreated? Are people of God fleeing persecution, on the run, and looking for asylum?

If this story of the slaughter of the Holy Innocents does anything for us today, may it open our eyes to any number of problems and injustices still faced by people today; and may it help us to, in the name of God, resist evil tyrants and work to establish systems of justice, love, and peace.

Amen.

December 21, 2016

Merry Christmas.

It's the fourth week of Advent. More often than not this fourth week of Advent gets shortened to a few days, which can cause all kinds of additional pre-Christmas stress. This year, however, is one of those rare years when we have a full week of Advent before Christmas; and that, for me, is a good thing.

It means we have a full four weeks of Advent in which to prepare for Christmas in a new place, with new friends, in a new parish, far from what we have known. Thank you to everyone who has helped, knowingly or unknowingly, get us settled and welcomed here. Merry Christmas.

But “Merry Christmas” also has baggage associated with it. It has become a battle cry in a non-existent “war on Christmas” that some people want to inflict on all others, regardless of their religious leanings. During the campaign, our president-elect promised to mandate everyone say, “Merry Christmas,” much to the delight of a certain segment of people and totally ignoring this country's religious diversity.

Sometimes those words that have as their foundation a sense of hope and peace and goodwill brought into the world through a young woman and fulfilled in the Christ child lying helpless in a manger fall on deaf ears. I was at a Christmas event when I was approached by a man who associated me with everything wrong with the church and why he would never grace the doors. I wished him well in his new endeavor and we parted. I happened to walk past him at the end of the event and said, “Merry Christmas.” He harrumphed and brushed me aside.

And sometimes this time of year, and those words, ring hollow or painful. How do the people who will attend our Community Cafe this week view this time of year and those words? Or the people who are left lonely, homeless, or on the verge of homelessness? We have three parishioners who have had less-than-happy times this holiday season: a daughter's cancer diagnosis, the death of a brother, the death of a spouse. “Merry Christmas,” can be far from merry.

There's a lot that “Merry Christmas” can conjure up this time of year. But with all of that said, I pull words from Sunday's sermon and the Gospel of Matthew: Emmanuel, God is with us.

In this holiday season when we celebrate so much, may you have a blessed Christmas. May family and friends uphold you and give you strength. May the colors of the season bring a smile to your face. May the birth of our Lord in a lowly manger to parents unsure of their place in life give you hope. May the glory of the angels brighten your dark nights.

May you remember these words – Emmanuel, God is with us.

In all of your joys and sorrows, in all of your good encounters and trials, I wish you the best in this season and in the coming year.

Merry Christmas.

Amen.

December 14, 2016

Dear People of God: In the season of Advent, it is our responsibility and joy to prepare ourselves to hear once more the message of the Angels, to go to Bethlehem and see the Son of God lying in a manger.

Bidding Prayer for Advent Festival of Lessons and Music

This coming Sunday, December 18, will be a Sunday of Advent Lessons and Carols at the 10:15 service. We will hear a variety of scripture passages that span from Adam and Eve disobeying God in the garden to the Annunciation of Christ to Joseph. In the re-telling of those stories, we will be reminded of the A to Z arc of the scripture narrative in which God is working toward the return of all his people.

In the above bidding prayer we are reminded that Advent is about preparation. We certainly get a sense of that preparation as we gear up for Christmas – buying gifts, planning for parties, baking cookies, sending out Christmas cards. We see the preparation of the season as Mary and Joseph draw steadily closer to the manger scene. And we prepare theologically for the coming of the Messiah as we count down the days to his first arrival in Bethlehem while also actively waiting for his coming again in glory.

But notice something about what this bidding prayer is asking us to prepare for. We are being asked to prepare ourselves to hear the message of the Angels. We are being asked to prepare to go to Bethlehem. We are being asked to prepare to see the Son of God lying in a manger.

What is the message of the Angels? The first message of the Angels to the shepherds, and the first message spoken to almost everyone whom Angels meet is this: Be not afraid. The world, then as now, can be a scary place, full of violence, disarray, and problems of every kind. But all these things must come to pass and no one knows the hour or the day; so remain steadfast in the Lord and be not afraid.

We are asked to prepare to go to Bethlehem. And what was Bethlehem like at this point in the story? It was a place inundated by outsiders. It was a place that couldn't offer housing for everyone who entered the city. It was a place where at least one person offered shelter to the unknown outsider. Are you prepared for, or can you help St. John's prepare for, the arrival of unknown outsiders needing assistance?

And we are asked to prepare ourselves to see the Son of God lying in a manger. For me, this means understanding that God chose to break into our world in the form of a helpless child. It means that we are required to care for this child, feed this child, educate this child, and introduce this child to the world. If we can see that child as the Son of God, how might we do those things for God in the world today? And furthermore, what would it look like to the world if we cared for God the way we cared for an infant?

The overall theme of Advent is preparation. As Christians we have a responsibility to prepare ourselves and the world for the coming of the Messiah. But as Christians, let us never forget that we make these preparations with joy.

Amen.

December 7, 2016

God is whatever [you] put above other things.

St. Augustine, Teaching Christianity, Book 1, Section 7

In the sermon this past Sunday I said that Advent was about four things: preparing, staying awake and alert, actively seeing the in-breaking of God into this realm, and change. It's possible that the first three are relatively easy to focus on. We can work at preparing for the coming kingdom of heaven, we can take steps to stay awake and alert, and we can use both of those as a basis for seeing the incarnate God breaking through into our realm in new and exciting ways.

But that last one . . . change . . . that is another matter altogether.

It's difficult to change our habits. It's difficult to commit to things that require us to give up that which we've become accustomed. It's difficult to change life patterns that have slowly built up over time to such an extent that we can't imagine life differently. It's difficult to change routines that have become ingrained into our daily lives.

As I examine my life, there are habits, attitudes, and vices that have risen to a level where they begin to take precedence over other more healthy and beneficial things, sometimes even over God himself. It can be the difference between opening up the cookie jar instead of the vegetable bin for a snack because the cookie jar involves fewer steps. It can be the difference between watching TV instead of reading because watching TV doesn't require as much thinking. It can be the difference between spending time on the computer instead of in the Bible or in prayer because I want to mentally check out.

But it is those very things, those habits, attitudes, and vices, that I have put above other things that, at one time or another, become my god of the moment.

Don't get me wrong . . . I'm not trying to guilt anyone into a more pious life or shame people for not being focused on God every second of every day. As the saying goes, “When you point a finger, there are three pointing back at you.”

In this season of Advent when we are asked to examine our lives and make changes in preparation for the coming of the Lord, what might be one thing, one habit, one routine, you can change in order to draw closer to God? As John said, “Bear fruit worthy of repentance.”

This Advent, how might the changes you make be fruitful? And more importantly, how might the changes you make restore God to his rightful place in your life?

Amen.

November 30, 2016

All in

Moving is a hassle. And this move in particular has seemed to be more of a hassle than my previous moves. There was the 3500 mile trip from Oregon to Maryland. There was the three weeks of living out of suitcases in a different place seemingly every other night, hauling stuff to and from the car, and figuring out what we were doing with the cats. And then there was receiving all our goods, finding a place for them, getting the utilities hooked up, new drivers licenses, and I'm still dealing with the MVA to get the cars licensed.

And then there was the office. The moving company delivered the office goods the same day we received our household goods. I spent the next week unofficially in the office figuring out where to put everything, where to hang my pictures, and Joelene helped me hang my cross collection above the fireplace. I did some pondering and decided I needed to move furniture around, which was more work than it originally sounded like. And for the remainder of the month, the office has been one good bookcase shy of being finished.

That bookcase arrived today courtesy of Roger and Ellen Collins.

Since I didn't really have anything on my schedule for Monday, I spent the majority of the day getting the shelves in the right spot, moving books around from one bookcase to another, and reorganizing the space left over. That included getting the last of the books and clutter that have decorated my office floor during November off the floor and up where they belong. It also meant moving the conference table to a more appropriate spot and placing my files in the file cabinets.

The only problem with all of this is that the mess that is my desk and conference table are all that more noticeable. But, if you look past the mess on the desk and the tabletop disaster, you'll notice something important . . . I'm all in!

My office basically looks like I am a permanent fixture at St. John's . . . I'm all in.

I have easy access to both doors . . . I'm all in.

People can stop wondering when I'll get settled . . . I'm all in.

This little adventure in the office reminded me of Advent. We spend Advent preparing for an arrival. Sometimes it's hard to focus on that arrival when there is so much to do around us. Sometimes it's hard to focus on things that need to get done when you'd rather it were all over and here. Advent reminds us that we need to focus on both. We need to focus on preparing for the arrival, but we also can't be so focused on the arrival that we miss what needs to be done in the present.

This Advent may God grant you the grace to see how your preparations are important to the arrival, and the wisdom to focus on those things which are most important.

And if you can do that, if you can be present and patient, if you can anticipate what's coming without anxiety, if you can live with a few areas of disorganization while being mostly ready, then you'll be able to live comfortably in this time of Advent. In other words, you'll be able to look at Advent and say, “I'm all in!”

Amen.

November 23, 2016

All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above; then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord for all his love.

Hymn 291, chorus

This is probably my favorite Thanksgiving Day hymn, even though it doesn't really fit for the people of most churches, what with its verses of plowing fields, scattering seed, and sending harvests. However, it's a catchy tune, and somebody has to scatter, plow, and reap. But what I really like are those words of the chorus.

Thanksgiving Day is tomorrow. Some will be with family. Some will be with friends. Some will be with friends and family. Some will be with neither. Some will be invited. Some will be ignored. Some will go elsewhere. Some will have nowhere to go. Because of this, Thanksgiving can be a stressful time of year for many of us.

But, just for today, I would like to put on my Pollyanna glasses and hope that everyone reading this will be involved in a drama-free, food-full Thanksgiving Day celebration. And as you are participating in this uniquely American event that officially kicks off the holiday season, take some time and reflect on the words of Hymn 291.

There are good gifts all around us. From friends and family, to homes and jobs, to the food we eat. Pay attention to those good gifts and remember that they are but peripheral items in our God-centered lives, and remember to give thanks for all those gifts and all God's love.

For my part, I am thankful for the Profile and Search Committees – for their dedication to getting it right, for their days and nights working on a vitally important task, and for their willingness to look outside generally accepted parameters. I am thankful for the parishioners of St. John's who were willing to follow the necessary steps in calling a new rector. I am thankful for everyone who took the time to listen to the whisperings of the Holy Spirit.

I am thankful for those who made this move possible. I am thankful for those who made this move, if not perfectly smooth, tolerable and mostly painless. I am thankful for those who are helping me and my family get adjusted to life on the other side of the country. I am thankful for a moving company that only broke two things and lost none.

I am thankful for a junior and senior warden who worked to see we were cared for. I am thankful for Mark who not only oversees a fabulous choir, but who works to ensure every liturgy is well-crafted. I am thankful for Melonie who does more than anyone knows. I am thankful for Margaret and her work with the children. I am thankful for all of the liturgical ministers and altar guild who have kept me on track these first few Sundays. I am thankful for the enthusiasm of everyone in the pews.

I am thankful for my wife and daughter who have taken this move in stride and are learning just where it is they fit in. I am thankful for the people who remember to include them.

All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above. I am thankful God sent me here.

Happy Thanksgiving.