Rejoice at the Coming of Peace

December 23, 2016

If there is one word that describes Advent and Christmas, it would be peace. We use that word often in December. Of course, then we file it away with the Christmas decorations until next December.

I have two foundational principles–peace and justice. These guide my political decisions and theological reflections. If Christmas is peace, Easter must be justice.

Thanks to ever present news and efficient news gathering, we are constantly presented with violence events everywhere in the world. We could easily think that the world is “going to hell in a hand basket.” It is depressing. Just picking up my phone with the latest iOS operating system, the screen lights up and I see notifications. Guy was shot in Milan. Someone was shot somewhere else.

Did Jesus really usher in an era of peace? Would his birth have made it on CNN? A breathless Wolf Blitzer, “Here I am live in Bethlehem…” OK, probably not. As they say in the news business, if it bleeds it leads.

If you can cleanse your mind for a bit of all those news pieces, you can see that the world really is getting better over the centuries. Overall we live better. We recognize peace and justice more than ever.

However, like the author William Gibson observed, “The future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed.”

Pause and reflect over the big picture. Jesus’ birth leads to death and then resurrection. But that’s not all. It all points to the New Heaven and New Earth. The New Jerusalem. Jesuit priest and philosopher Pierre Teilhard (one of my favorites) called it the Omega Point.

Augustus Caesar called himself the Prince of Peace. He didn’t last long. Jesus was called the Prince of Peace and he guides us toward peace still some 2,000 years later.

Merry Christmas, and Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward all humans.

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He Was A Righteous Man

December 22, 2016

If someone were to describe you with a phrase, what would it be?

We have so few facts about Joseph, Jesus’ father. I took a speculative path recently about the trust issue. His first reaction to Mary’s pregnancy was distrust. He figured she had sex with another man. That happens often in today’s America. Back then…not so much.

But the writers say, Joseph, being a righteous man…

He had a vision. It complemented Mary’s vision. Must be God at work.

They formed a family. There were brothers in the house. They followed Jewish religious customers (we can infer because the writers say they went up to Jerusalem as was their custom for Passover.

They lived with Jesus for 30 years.

Yet, they didn’t figure him out.

Joseph disappears from the record after the trip to Jerusalem when Jesus was 12.

Mary pops up a few times, seldom in a supporting role.

James, a brother who like Jesus is steeped in Wisdom teaching, became a leader of the church–but not until after the resurrection.

Joseph was a righteous man who taught his sons well.

What will they say about us?

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Who Do You Say I Am?

December 21, 2016

Jesus is ________.  –sign at a church in downtown Seattle

Jesus and his guys were hanging out at a notorious pagan-influenced area northeast of the Sea of Galillee. They were just chatting around about what people were saying.

Then Jesus asked them, “But who do you say I am?”

One of my news feeds last night served up a headline that brought back up the “Jesus was a hoax” meme. That thought is hardly original. Paul the apostle refuted that one soon after the events.

I was at a technology conference several years ago where the company was showing off technology that could detect wave forms in a signal previously undetectable. The conference theme–“Some things must be believed before they can be seen.”

If your mind is fogged over by cynicism, doubt, negativity, ignorance (willful ignorance?), then you will not see.

John offers seven “I am” statements:

  • The bread of life
  • The light of the world
  • The good shepherd
  • The gate
  • The resurrection and the life
  • The way, the truth, the life
  • The vine

This week I offered the thought “for everyone.”

But this just talks around the issue. (And don’t we love just talking around the issue rather than confronting our own thoughts and feelings?)

How would you fill in the blank? Who do you say Jesus is?

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Who Did Jesus Come For–Why Everyone, Of Course

December 20, 2016

“9The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11He came to what was his own,c and his own people did not accept him. 12But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.” — Gospel of John, chapter 1

When we talk about Jesus, who he was, what he did, and his invitation, do we digest what John says? “Which enlightens everyone.”

Do the people have different appearances than us? Different lifestyles? Different gender roles?

I thought for years that John was quite Greek in thinking. After all, he began with the Greek word Logos. Translated as word, it is steeped in Greek philosophic meaning. But that was probably just influence by the German theological movement of the late 1800s and early 1900s that strove to remove the “Jewishness” from the New Testament.

John’s writing is obviously quite Jewish (I have read explications of Revelation that relate the narrative to Jewish Temple worship). It must have pained him deeply to write “his own people did not accept him.”

We make the simple and miraculous too complex.

“To all who received him.”

Yesterday I talked of invitations. Last week of gifts. Both are implicit in these simple opening verses of the Gospel.

And there are no conditional clauses. No “if…then…else” statements.

Receive Jesus. Believe in his name. Become born a second time–born of God himself.

In December we recreate the invitation and the gift in our worship and study. Do we receive the gift? Do we pass along the invitation to the gift? To everyone?

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An Invitation To A Way Of Life And A Life

December 19, 2016

I thought, wow, this is one heck of a poor invitation.

At the airport last week traveling on a vacation, I spotted one of those religious pamphlets someone left behind. It said something about going to Hell.

I had been lost in thought, or maybe non-thinking, and the headline jarred me back to consciousness.

Is that any way to invite someone into a better life?

We are in Advent season–the annual time of reflection upon the miracle of Jesus. Something we think we can understand, but really we can’t.

But isn’t the coming of Jesus an invitation? An invitation into a better life now, as well as “life” in a philosophical or theological sense?

The shepherds were invited to participate in the birth story. The Magi were invited through the special star they saw, contemplated and followed.

Later we have John (the Baptizer) who invited people to turn their lives around and live spirit-filled lives.

Then we have two sides of Jesus. He was the teacher who updated Wisdom teaching to a new level. He invited people to live a new life and taught how to do it. Then came death and resurrection and the invitation to life after death.

Jesus’ invitations were not without risk and challenges. But he always invited people. Disappointed many times as people fell away or refused to accept the invitation, to be sure, but the invitation–that was always out there.

And I don’t think he left pamphlets in restrooms shouting out that we’re all going to Hell.

Advent is a time of invitation into a fuller, richer life with-God.

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Overcoming Distrust Within Families

December 16, 2016

When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.

Not only had Joseph and Mary not lived together, yet, but they also must not have engaged in some of that “heavy making out” without actual intercourse. There was no physical way Mary could have become pregnant–at least by Joseph.

So Joseph’s first reaction was disbelief. The only possible thing that could have happened was illegal, immoral, unethical.

Imagine she comes to him. “I got pregnant. I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but God said it was through the Holy Spirit.”

“Riiiggghhhhttt” he said.

But then he’s visited in a dream. It’s OK, go ahead and marry her.

So, in a normal marriage, how often would the wife remind her husband about that initial distrust? Weekly? Daily?

But there is no indication of any further marriage problems. We hear almost nothing about Joseph. Couple of mentions. We have a lot of useless speculations. But when we don’t know, we don’t know.

But I thought how great it is to be open to new revelations. We never know when we’ll hear a whisper, have a dream, get slapped up against the side of the head to get our attention by the Spirit?

If we are open even though it forces us to reconsider our opinions and prejudices, we listen.

Yesterday I talked about mindfulness. Being present in mind when we’re present in body. This is part of it. If we slow down and are present to the possible whispers of the Spirit, the whole trajectory of our life can change.

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Living in Anticipation or Living in Frustration

December 15, 2016

Wherever I go, there I am.

Are you totally present right now? Just focused on reading this post?

Or, are you looking at this post while your mind races off in many directions?

That ancient phrase I quoted packs a lot of meaning.

This time of year is flooded with anticipation. But it is often the anticipation that leads to frustration.

We anticipate giving just the right gift that elicits exclamations of joy. We anticipate joyful family gatherings.

But…

The picture of the good, old-fashioned, Griswold family Christmas (from the movie Christmas Vacation) spring into our minds. All the old family bickering comes out as everyone is frustrated by being together. Nothing goes right. The turkey is over cooked.

They are all living in future expectations.

But just to be in the moment. Yes, we have anticipation, but we are present in the now. We experience the lights, the trees, the songs, the one time in the year when people are nice to each other.

As we rush from crowded store to crowded store, frustrated at the inability to be inspired by any gift suggestion.

It’s time to stop, children, what’s that sound….

We stop. Take a deep breath. Actually notice what is around us. Experience the sights, sounds, smells.

Tomorrow will take care of itself. Today I am present.

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Visions Dancing In Their Heads Come Christmas

December 14, 2016

The “first Christmas” wasn’t Christmas, of course.

The celebration came years after the event. Christians had conquered Rome. An unthinkable event at the time of the events we celebrate. And then Christians conquered a big holiday by making it a celebration of Jesus’ birth. A triumph over paganism, if you will.

The phrase of the old poem recurs. “While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.”

Do you ever wonder what was “dancing in the heads” of Joseph and Mary? Maybe, “Please, God, allow us to have a safe child birth?” After all, child birth was a dangerous event in the life of a woman in those days. And they were not around supporting family (we think).

We know that there were many visions dancing in the heads of Jewish people at the time.

They expected a Messiah (Anointed One, King). But like all visions of the future, there were many competing versions.

Some thought King–as in replacement of King Herod with a real Jewish leader who would restore the empire.

Some thought prophet who could perform might acts of God–like an Ezekiel or Elijah.

Both Mary and Joseph had been given visions. What could have been dancing in their heads as the little boy was born? Certainly not what happened some 33 years later.

Jesus later explained from Scripture why it pointed to him (think the walk to Emmaus). But even today Jewish scholars dispute that reading of their Scriptures.

As we approach Christmas, what visions are dancing in your head? We each have our own. I hope more than candy.

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That Moment When We Realize God’s Gift

December 13, 2016

coyote-cliff

There is that moment of sudden realization. That “Oh Crap” moment. Or on the other hand the “Ah Ha” moment.

Those old cartoon characters–they run off a cliff. But they don’t fall. At least immediately. They fall when they realize there is no ground under their feet. They give us a look. Then, zip. The looks we get from Wile E. Coyote are priceless comedy.

Kids enter December with anticipation of gifts. OK, many adults do, too.

Paul the Apostle talks about gifts. He talked about the “free” gift of grace and eternal life that God gives.

He said that it comes because of our faith–in the resurrection.

But Jesus talked often of faith and eternal life–before the death and resurrection. The way he talked about it, he meant that eternal life started right then.

Today there are many who preach that eternal life begins when we die “and go to heaven.”

You can’t get that from reading Jesus’ words.

I think we can look at eternal life a little like Wile E. Coyote’s experience–except in reverse.

It is at that moment when we are open to God through faith and we realize we’re not falling. Or, maybe we’re falling like that old Hank Locklin country song, “Please help me I’m falling, In love with you.”

The gifts we give are in remembrance of the gifts the Magi gave to Joseph and Mary for Jesus. Or, they can be.

And maybe we get that sudden realization of the moment when we know we can live life more fully the way Jesus meant for it. Here. And Now.

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Jesus Can See Us As We Really Are

December 12, 2016

So many people came to Jesus with a picture of themselves in their minds. I’ve been thinking about Jesus’ encounter with the rich young man. But there were Pharisees and religious leaders who all thought of themselves as pretty great.

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Some people are delusional. Some just clueless. Maybe their parents kept telling them how special they were. They never learned the other side.

Jesus would hold a mirror up to these people that showed them their reality.

On the other hand, sometimes he flipped those pictures (to hold the metaphor). There were people who came to him thinking they were like the bottom picture, and Jesus told them that actually they were better.

Think of Levi the tax collector and his friends. The father who said, “I believe. Help my unbelief.”

Jesus didn’t always tear down; he also often built up.

Depends upon how they came to him.

During the energy crises of the 70s when we had oil shortages and long lines at gas stations, a speaker told a conference “the biggest energy shortage we have today is human energy.”

Rather than focus on tearing down pompous people–which our media loves to do, maybe we should be focusing on the Levis of the world. And those anguished fathers. And those adolescents who feel so insecure and worthless.

We can hold up a different picture for them. It’s a picture of possibilities. A picture of what they can do with their lives while living the with-God life. That’s what Jesus did. And we are followers, right?

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