It Takes A Church...

A Week Without Multi-tasking

My soon-to-be New Years Resolution is to give up multi-tasking.  I am going to work when I work, play when I play, rest when I rest and blog when I blog and endeavor to never mix them together into a gray mass of activity.  I am hopeful for a year of increased clarity, vibrancy and balance while maintaining all the zeal and vigor for Christ I can muster (the Spirit helping me of course).

The key words here are "endeavor" and "hopeful".   

So, toward that end I will refrain from blogging until January 3.  Call it a Blog Sabbath.  I am enjoying a week of vacation with the family, winding down from a wonderful but exhausting Christmas Eve and Day celebration.  Going to squeeze in two more days of skiing also.

Hope to "see" you all in 2006.

In the meantime, enjoy this quote from Martin Luther courtesy of E-Prism webzine of ESA

Life does not consist in piety, but in striving to become devout; not in health, but in becoming healthy — as a whole, not in being, but in becoming. Not passivity, but practice. We have still not arrived, but we shall. It is still not done; it has not happened; yet it has been conceived. It has not yet shone upon all, but it has stirred all. We are not yet at home, but we are on the way.
- Martin Luther

O How Great that Manger was

O how great that manger was
To confine all of infinity
O how great that baby’s skin
to encompass all divinity

O how clean that soiled wood!
O how pure that human flesh!
For there we find the Trinity
(Omnipotence brought near for thee.)

Tod Bolsinger

Which Christmas Story?

As we consider the real meaning and message of Christmas as given to the shepherds, spend some time on this insightful piece by Will Willimon:

“We love Christmas because, as we say, Christmas brings out the best in us.  Everyone gives on Christmas, even the stingiest among us, even the Ebenezer Scrooges.  Charles Dickens’ story of Scrooge’s transformation has probably done more to form our notions of Christmas than St. Luke’s story of the manger.  Whereas Luke tells us of God’s gift to us, Dickens tells us how we can give to others. A Christmas Carol is more congenial to our favorite images of ourselves.  Dickens suggests that down deep, even the worst of us can become generous, giving people.

Yet, I suggest we are better givers than getters, not because we are generous people, but because we are proud, arrogant people. The Christmas story—the one according to Luke not Dickens—is not about how blessed it is to be givers but how essential it is to see ourselves as receivers.” 

(Will Willimon, from Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas, p. 144)

God is Better than Santa

Every year at this time, we tell each other that Christmas is a time for giving.  That it is a time for giving gifts, for giving to others, for being generous and caring to the less fortunate.  And that is all well and good.  It is a good idea.  But let’s be clear that that is more Charles Dickens than Jesus Christ.  That is more the message of remorseful Scrooge than the renewing Spirit.

Yes, we should be as generous as we can to those in need, to those whom we love, to support the causes and communities that make a difference in the name of the Christ child. 

But let’s be clear here.  What the shepherds teach us when we see them gathered around the manger is that the real “meaning of Christmas” is not about giving, but RECEIVING. 

The real meaning of Christmas is about truly receiving the grace and mercy of God, of recognizing that no matter what we have or what we have accomplished, or no matter how secure we are, or how respected in our world, we are no more deserving of God’s gracious presence, God’s great love, God’s invitation to come to the manger and follow the Jesus the King that a lowly shepherd. 

I know that for some of you, this is a stretch.  Some of you are hoping that your children don’t read this.  You want them to know that there is more to Christmas than the stuff they receive.  You want them to think that Christmas is about giving.  You are afraid that if they hear this message they’ll stop believing that they need to work hard to get ahead in life.  You are afraid of them becoming either greedy or lazy.  You are afraid to believe this “good news” for yourself. Because in your heart you think that really one gets what they deserve. 

So you’ll be generous with a deserving person and you trust that someday God will be generous with deserving you.  We may never admit it, but we assume in our hearts that we deserve this life we have for good or ill.  We have earned what we have, we have reaped what we have sown. 

But my friends, the real problem with Christmas is not giving or receiving but in thinking we are deserving. 

That is the problem with so many people in our world and the problem with so many thoughts that roll around in our heads.  We think we deserve love and security, we think we deserve Ipods and cell phones and x boxes and playstations.  We think we deserve God to simply appear to us and say that everything is okay. 

Or we think that we the only way we can get all things that we want in this world is by doing something or accomplishing something that will make us worthy of deserving life as God intended it.

“Deserving” is the problem.  Entitlement is the problem.  Earning is the problem.  Assuming that we deserve what we have, or assuming that we have to deserve what ever we will get. 
Somehow you think that the shepherds deserved their special show and you will get what you deserve.  But that is not the meaning of Christmas.  It is not deserving.  It is neither entitlement or earning. 

Christmas is not about getting what you deserve, but being offered everything you really need.

That’s why I like God more than Santa Claus.  God doesn’t “make a list and check it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty or nice.”  God offers us the gift of Jesus because we are naughty, and not nice. 

And that is really what we need. 

If It's Good News for Them, it's Good News for Everyone

Every time I hear the story of the angels appearing to the shepherds, something within me can’t help but notice what a colossal waste of resources this is.  I mean, you trot out all the heavenly fire power to make the greatest announcement in history and who is the audience?  Shepherds.  Out in a field.  Outside of Bethlehem.  Who was the advance team on this?  It doesn’t make sense. 

If you are going to announce the birth of a king who promises “peace on Earth, and good will to all” then shouldn’t you do it in the capital city at a palace?  But it’s not announced in Rome, not even in Jerusalem, but some little backwater place called Bethlehem. 

But you don’t just make the announcement in Bethlehem.  You make it outside of Bethlehem.  Could you imagine this today?  You can almost see the skeptical television reporter, can’t you?  “Well, it seems, in a trailer park just outside of Yuma, Arizona, that a bunch of people are reporting that they saw angels who announced the coming of a King who promises peace to everyone. Hmm.  Back to you in the studio, Bob!”

But that’s how the story goes, right? The Shepherds are watching their fields by night outside of Bethlehem and an angel of the Lord shines before them saying, “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news of great joy for everyone! The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born tonight in Bethlehem, the city of David!”

And then a multitude of heavenly hosts say, “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and peace on earth to all..”  It’s about peace on earth, and good will to everybody, right? It’s not a local thing.  It’s big. 

Okay, Bethlehem.  Not exactly the center of the world, but why tell this to a bunch of shepherds?  What can they possibly do about the lack of peace in the world? What difference will an announcement make to them.  Shepherds were the lowest economic class of people in Jesus’ day.  They had no power, no influence, most of them, no homes.  It would be like Jesus showing up at 6 AM to a group of day laborers and making an announcement about changing the world.  I mean its good news and all, but why tell them?

Why the shepherds?  Why them?  What could they possibly have, What could they possibly have done to deserve this?  Why would God announce the coming of the savior of the world to a bunch of poor, lowly shepherds? 

I asked this question to some kids.  Some smart kids. These kids have all been in our Sunday School and come from Christian families.  I told them all about the shepherds and how poor they are and how insignificant some people would have thought they were.  I told them that in that society they would be somewhat like the people who sometimes cut our lawns or clean our homes or dig the ditches or work as bus boys or at car washes.  And then I asked them, why do you think that the angels appeared to them? 

And you know what they answered?  Because they are nice.  Because they are humble.  Because they are simple and kind and hard working.  I was really touched.  Here was a bunch of pretty rich kids in one of the most expensive towns in the wealthiest country in the history of the world and they could see the goodness, the worthiness, the dignity of people who like shepherds don’t often get a break in life and they said, in effect, “The angels appeared to the shepherds because they deserved it.  That’s who God should send his angels to tell.”

It was very sweet.  And, really, it was the wrong answer. 

I am so glad that those kids could respect and genuinely appreciate those who have so much less than they do or may come from another country or may struggle to speak English, but who work hard and love their families and are grateful for what they have.  I am glad they could see the dignity in all people.  It’s the same experience we had going to Africa last year and see so many poor people who have so little but were so generous, so filled with faith. 

But that’s not why the angels appeared to the shepherds.  In fact, there is not one reason given.  Not one rationale about their faith, or humility or trust in the midst of their outcast condition.  Not one place does the Bible say that in anyway the shepherds were better people than the high priests, or Pharisees, or townspeople or the inn keepers who had no room for the baby Jesus. 

They are not better.  They were blessed.  The angels didn’t appear to the shepherds because they were blessed, the shepherds were blessed because the angels appeared to them.

It’s like infant baptism.  When we baptize a baby we are not saying that the baby is somehow better than other babies (though the proud mom and dad may think so!).  We are also not baptizing the baby because it is good, or innocent, or because we know he is going to live well for Jesus someday.  The baby is not better, the baby is blessed.  In a world where so many children have no one who loves them or prays for them, no one

My children have been prayed for every single day since the moment we knew we were expecting them.  (I can promise you that because when I saw the pregnancy test result, I said, “Oh my God!) They are not better but they are blessed.  They are blessed to grow up surrounded by all of you, they are blessed to be part of this community of faith.  They are blessed to have surrogate grandparents and Sunday school teachers and youth leaders and examples of the faith all around them to encourage them, watch over them and yes, tell their parents if they even think about going down the wrong road in life. 

But they don’t deserve this blessing.  No one deserves it.  It’s just grace.  The same is true of the shepherds on that most Holy Night that Christ was born.  They didn’t deserve this grand visitation one bit.  It was nothing but grace.  Merciful, grace.  God’s unmerited favor.  God’s completely undeserved presence.  God’s unwavering and unconditional love.  That’s what the angels declared to the shepherds that morning.  That is the “good news of great joy for all the people.”  The grace and mercy, acceptance and love, care and commitment of God is available to you and to me freely. 

If we will simply receive it. 

Adding some voices to the Christmas Chorus

In light of the recent conversations on churches closing on Christmas, and for your Christmas and worship edification: A classic voice (HT: Jollyblogger) and a not-nearly-classic voice on the importance of corporate worship and communal Christian life (on Christmas morning or otherwise). 

If nothing else, this should make for interesting discussion amongst the many voices who will be here in January. 

Christmas "Take Out"

Reporting on the number of megachurches who are "skipping Christmas services" the Orange County Register mentioned that a number of the churches who closed for Christmas day cite a desire to be consistent with their "innovative" and "family friendly" approach to Christianity. 

Rock Harbor church in Costa Mesa is giving Christmas gift bags with a CD "old time radio drama" about the message of Christmas that they can play at home while sipping hot cocoa and sucking on a candy cane, all provided.  6000 bags were prepared by the congregation volunteers, so the staff has decided to give them the day off from worship. A church spokesperson explained,""Hopefully, it will bring them to reflect on God and Christmas and Christ...Christmas is a time to be with family and friends."

At Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., (called by the OC Register, "a pacesetter among megachurches") they are handing out a DVD it produced for this occasion, featuring a contemporary Christmas tale.

"What we're encouraging people to do is take that DVD and in the comfort of their living room, with friends and family, pop it into the player and hopefully hear a different and more personal and maybe more intimate Christmas message, that God is with us wherever we are," said the communications director at Willow Creek.

Now, in one sense, I love their innovative and creative approaches to ministry.  It's their theology, ecclesiology,and witness that disturbs me. Yes, God is with us wherever we are, but still we are called by that God to worship together as a people and that includes more than just MY family and MY friends.   

(By the way, OC megachurch Saddleback Community Church IS having worship on Christmas morning.  Like our church they will only have one service, but the fact of having worship, not the numbers of services is the point.)

As Ben Witherington, professor of New Testament interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky.has written, "I see this in many ways as a capitulation to narcissism - the self-centered, me-first, I'm going to put me and my immediate family first agenda of the larger culture. If Christianity is an evangelistic religion, then what kind of message is this sending to the larger culture - that worship is an optional extra?"

John D. Witvliet, director of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., points out another pastoral angle that is all too often overlooked: "What about the people in society without strong family connections - the elderly, single people a long distance from family, or people who are simply lonely and for whom church and prayers would be a significant part of their day?" he asked.

But perhaps the best comment comes from another blogger, Mark Daniels, who reminds us, "the weekly little Easter is far more important to remember than even the birth of Jesus."  Leave it to a Lutheran to remind us all that as good as Christmas is, the cross and resurrection reneactment of Easter is the real reason why we worship on Sundays.

The Cross and Resurrection. NOT being "creative" and "relevant". And if we only get one Christmas every decade or so to combine both cross and creche in one stunning feast, why on earth would we skip it for take out?

Barth on Believing

Next post I will give my perspective on one "answer" to skipping Christmas day services offered by those who are closing the doors on December 25, what I am calling "Christmas Take Out".  But to prime the pump of our thinking, here is Karl Barth on believing.

“Believing is not something as special and difficult of even unnatural as we often suppose.  Believing means that what we listen to, we listen to as God’s speech.  What moves us is not just our concern, but precisely God’s concern.  What causes me worry, that is God’s worry, what gives me joy is God’s joy, what I hope for is God’s hope.  In other words, in all that I am, I am only a party to that which God thinks and does.  In all that I do it is not I, but rather God who is important.  Imagine if everything were brought into this great and proper connection, if we were willing to suffer, be angry, love and rejoice with God, instead of always wanting to make everything our own private affair, as if we were alone.
Just imagine, if we were to adapt everything that gratifies and moves us into the life and movement of God’s kingdom, so that we personally are, so to speak, taken out of play.  Simple love! Simply hope!  Simply rejoice! Simply strive! But in everything, do it no longer from yourself, but rather from God! Everything great that is hidden can indeed be great only in God.” (emphasis mine)

Karl Barth, (from, Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas, p. 137)

The Savior Reigns

"Joy to the earth! the Savior reigns"

That is our hope and ultimately our Christmas calling: To let the Savior reign in and through us.  To let the salvation that we have experienced in Jesus’ coming make a difference for Christ in every place where God has placed us in this world.  This is Christmas faithfulness, Christmas stewardship. 

What should we do about this?  Mostly believe it.  Most of us are convinced that this whole Christmas thing is nothing but a giant hell-for-heaven transaction for human souls.  We think that the good news boils down to nothing more than getting our personal tickets punched for a one way ticket to heaven after we die. 

But I hope you are beginning to understand that the Gospel is far more than that.  God did not come to this earth to rescue us from earth, to take us out of earth, to swoop us all to heaven, God came to earth in Jesus to transform all of creation, all of heaven and earth into the new creation, the new eternal home, the peaceable and wonderful kingdom of which we get mere glimpses now in the midst of the frailty and fallenness of our day. 

If you want a practical step for something to do, then consider an advent spiritual disciplines that helps you practice letting the Savior reign through you to all of our frail creation:

Give your dog a big bone for Christmas.  Try to be nice to a cat for Jesus’ sake. 
Plant flowers, or work in the garden.  Pull a big weed or pick up trash as an act of devotion to the King of all the earth.  Surf and sing a carol while you do, ski a mountain slope and listen in your heart to the “sounding joy” from all of nature, take a walk, breathe in the cool air and pray for God’s will to be done in the whole creation, starting with your very life.

Hold the hand of someone whose body is giving out and remind them that they will soon be clothed with a new body.  Visit someone who can’t get outside and bring them a Christmas poinsettia. 

As you are considering your end of the year Christmas giving, send an extra Christmas gift to World Vision to support their work in Louisiana, Mississippi, Pakistan, South East Asia.  Or give an extra Christmas gift for our next Malawi mission team, who will travel next spring to bring good tidings to our friends who have felt the ravages of the drought that was just beginning when we were there last year. 

But mostly, continue to allow Jesus to work in and through your lives in every sphere of life so that the joy of Christmas is stretched through all the world wherever there is need.  And the next time you sing Joy to the World, thank God for the coming of Jesus and how broad and vast are the "wonders of his love." 

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found.

And Heaven and Nature Sing

Joy to the world! the Lord is come;
Let earth receive her King.
Let ev’ry heart prepare Him room,
And heav’n and nature sing,
And heav’n and nature sing,
And heav’n and heav’n and nature sing.

A favorite Christmas carol, perhaps the most resounding song of the sheer excitement of Christmas ever.  But let me ask you a question, to answer honestly in your heart:  When you sing “Joy to the world” and “Let earth receive her King” don’t you assume that what it really means is “Joy to the PEOPLE of the world” “Let the PEOPLE of earth receive her King”? 

Now it is understandable if you do.  The very next line of the song is certainly encouraging people to “Let every heart prepare him room.”  But what about the last lines, “And heaven and nature sing”?   You see, I believe that what this carol does (that is almost universally overlooked) is point to the universal dimensions of the salvation brought in Jesus. The carol is a call to worship to the whole world, to the whole earth, to all of creation, including nature to join in the Angels praise. 

As we continue our trip around the manger, we consider perhaps the most unexpected characters on that night when Christ was born.  With Mary and Joseph, the Angels and shepherds, are another bunch of witnesses to the good news that is great joy for all the earth:  The animals. 

Now, we should be clear here.  It’s the song, “Little Drummer Boy” that tells us that “the ox and ass kept time”, not the gospel accounts.  Indeed, while Luke and Matthew both tell us that Jesus was born in a manger, they don’t actually mention any animals.  But in almost every nativity scene we honestly and understandably assume their presence.  Indeed, of all the creatures who would have been most comfortable that night the Babe was born in the straw, the only one’s who were truly at home were the animals who actually made room in their “inn.” 

So what do we make of their presence?  Are they simple props?  Are they just bystanders to a drama that is unfolding only amongst the people of earth and the God who made them? 

Think about it a bit further.  Is the gospel, the good news of the reign and rule of God only about human souls?  Indeed, was the whole creation story, the fall in the garden, the choosing of Abraham and his family, the rescue of the Hebrews from Egypt, the reign of David, the the coming of God to earth in the incarnation simply to set up a divine transaction so that human souls can escape this earth someday and “make it to heaven”?  Or is there something grander, larger, greater at work in the birth of the Baby, the coming of the Earth’s King?  Doesn’t make much more sense to think that the God who made creation in so many shapes and colors and with so many scents and tastes, with so much variety and abundance and who declared at the beginning that it was good, had actually come to this planet to make it all of it, every bit of it, every creature, every thing right—again? 

This is the good news that is announced to the whole world by the angels the night Jesus was born and as this "announcement" takes hold in the hearts and lives of the people of God and we are renewed, then ultimately all of creation will be experience the renewal that it is "groaning for."

Indeed that is what is promised in Romans 8.

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

If we keep this verse before us, we will then recognize that the salvation and sanctification of humans, is for the sake of the whole world.  And as NT Wright points out, the hope of the incarnation and pentecost is both the good news to the world and the answer to the challenge of Paganism (especially as it is so often seen in the environmental movement.)

In the climax of Romans 8, Paul sees the whole creation, not as itself divine – that’s the mistake of paganism – but as God’s good creation which is designed to be flooded with God, renewed by the Spirit, to experience its own Exodus when the children of God are themselves raised from the dead. That which paganism has wrongly worshipped will one day share the freedom of the glory of God’s children. Paganism is, after all, a parody of the truth, wanting to steal the beautiful empty chalice instead of waiting for it to be filled with the wine of God’s love.

As Christians, we must realize that our "adoption" and "transformation" by the Spirit of God is more important than almost anything...the WORLD depends on it. And our stewardship of God's good creation is not only a responsibility born of creation, but an expression of our faith in the new creation to come (Rev. 21).