Month: December 2023

Epiphany is the odd season that can feel like nothing more than a place holder in the empty space between Christmas and Lent. It’s supposed to celebrate the light of Christ spreading into the gentile world.  The impact of God’s incarnation in Jesus changed first century lives and it should change ours, but let’s face it, there is an emotional letdown after “the holidays”.  It’s easy to put the babe, angels and shepherds away for another year.

Epiphany should be a time to turn to the greater question of what the season’s lessons might mean for everyday life in 2024. In what way will Christians bear the light of Christ into the new year?  It’s a question of mission.  The mission field is ripe and the laborers are few.  And with that thought, minds will turn to missionary stories of old, both the good and bad, about preaching the Word in farthest, darkest foreign places among uncivilized peoples.  Other minds might turn to more local missionary experiences like tent revivals, door knocking Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, or short term mission trips to underserved places. If presented with it, the dreaded push for more evangelism will be evaded with feigned enthusiasm for someone else to do it. What I would like to see us do more of is focus on what it means to bear the light of Christ into the ordinary daily lives we lead.

The mission field is not somewhere else.  It’s  where each of us lives and works among the people we encounter each day.  A missionary is not a calling reserved for a few men and women well suited to the task.  It is a calling of every Christian, each according to their abilities.  In my former congregation, a lighted candle was presented to each newly baptized person with the words, “Let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Matt 5). What good works?  Jesus sent his new, poorly informed, reluctant disciples into nearby villages. No doubt they were places well known to them in which they would be recognized as familiar faces.  What were they to do?  Extend greetings of peace, offer words of healing, leave with a word of blessing.  I think it was far from the door knocking calls we all know about. I imagine that when they were invited into a house it was because someone there had a story they needed to tell and a person to tell it to who would listen patiently as if Jesus himself was listening.  How simple is that?

You and I are unlikely to canvas the neighborhood in quite the same way, although we might.  What we will do, and do every day, is encounter strangers, friends, co-workers, and every other sort of person within our ordinary lives. It is each of those encounters that we can, if we will, extend a greeting in God’s peace more by our attitude than in anything we say.  When it is called for, we can listen patiently, as if Jesus himself was listening.  We can offer words of healing grace, less with advice than with empathetic presence. If asked, and if within our fields of competency, we may offer words of wisdom and counsel.  The kingdom of God will have come near just in doing these simple things in the course of the day. 

 In his letter to the Romans, Paul asked,”But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’” (Romans 10)

The curious part of Paul’s advice is that you don’t have to be a preacher like Paul.  You just have to ‘be’ in the way Jesus sent out his new disciples: offer peace, listen, provide words of healing either silently or aloud. No bible thumping, no problem solving advice, just your presence bearing the light of Christ. Questions will come in their own time. When they do you can tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love in your own words.  It will be enough.   The season of Epiphany is the perfect time to give it a try.  It’s a short season lasting from January 7 to February 14 this year.  Let the light of Christ shine in what you do and with whom you do it for a few weeks and see what happens. 

Share what you know about the year you were born.

DThe dawn of hpe broke during the early weeks of 1943. Britain had not fallen. America had been in th war for just over ayear. Early defeats had been followed by moments of cictory. By year’s end it would be clear that the Alllies would win, eventually, at great cost. I would be three years old by the time it was over. Blind guy Typiing: stevenwoolley.com

“I wonder as I wander out under the sky, ‘bout poor human folk like you and like I” is the refrain in an old spiritual.  Each year in the Christmas season I wonder as I wander out under the sky about the impossible thing that began its fulfillment in the annunciation to Mary so many centuries ago. Unlike the White Queen in Alice Through The Looking Glass who could believe in six impossible things before breakfast, I can believe in only two impossible things: that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, and that dead and buried he rose bodily, fully revealed as the Word of God made flesh.  Really impossible?  Of course they are, in human terms, but not for God, the great “I Am” through whom creation itself exists.  For Christians Christmas is the hinge on which all history swings.

The problem with the Christmas season is that we expect too much and it delivers too little. I suppose some of it is due to the romantic sentimentality made of it by stories and movies defining the “meaning” of Christmas that has dominated America’s entertainment for over a hundred years.  Even the annual remembrance of the birth of Jesus, the “prince of peace,” has become a disappointment because we are enticed to expect God will finally deliver peace on earth and good will to all, only to enter January and discover the same old broken and flailing world.  What happened to the promise of peace and good will?  Hallmark movies end in happy fulfillment of holiday wishes.  Why doesn’t Christmas?

God told us through the prophets of old what the way of peace and good will was and how to live into it.  When the time was right, the way of peace and good will was demonstrated in the birth, life and death of Jesus Christ whose authority as God incarnate was manifested in the Resurrection.  If the promise of peace and good will has not been fully received, it is because we expected it to be delivered to us as if a present under the tree.  We did not expect to have to live into it through our own effort aided by the Holy Spirit.   The gift of peace and good will can be received only by living into it. “It came upon a midnight clear that glorious song of old, from angels bending near the earth to touch their harps of gold , peace on the earth, good will to ‘men’,from heaven’s all gracious king, the world in solemn stillness lay to hear the angels sing. …“Yet with the woes of sin and strife the world has suffered long; beneath the heavenly hymn have rolled two thousand years of wrong; and warring humankind hears not the tidings which they bring; O hush the noise and cease your strife and hear the angels sing.” 

Where is the peaceable kingdom?  Jesus said it was near at hand for those willing to receive it.

To be certain that one is right and never back down sounds virtuous and courageous but that may not be. It might be nothing more than stubborn refusal to challenge one’s own long established beliefs and attitudes regardless of evidence to the contrary.  It might be steadfast adherence to social and political conditions that benefit one’s self regardless of the harm caused to others.  For too many it is determination to remain loyal through a leader or cause out of ambition, fear, emotional appeal or ignorance, unwilling to do the hard work of close examination of underlying values and intent.

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Political moral courage demands that public officers be present not only for their own sake, but for he sake of all others. It is a form of courage that cannot be unwavering in loyalty to an ideology or any single political leader.  That sort of loyalty is not courageous. It can turn out to be a pigheaded, obstinate refusal to hear the voice of the other or respond to the multiple needs of society —a society that yearns to be secure, free and able to pursue happiness, without discrimination and for the common good.

Any act that dehumanizes the other, especially the vulnerable other, is an act of moral cowardice, not courage.  As important as a secure border is, the failure to recognize the alien immigrant as a potential source of energizing renewal of society is not political courage but political avoidance of America’s historical truth – every flow of unwanted immigrants has strengthened the nation.  Steadfast defense of a sanitized “patriotic” version of American history is not political moral courage. It is moral cowardice fearful that a more honest history will undermine fundamental American virtues.  It won’t.  It will strengthen resolve to more fully live up to them.  

It takes moral political courage to confront those who would highjack the needs of the people and the legislative process, demanding ransom in the form of capitulation to non-negotiable ultimatums that cause harm to the nation’s best interests.  Above all, political moral courage is made evident by a determined willingness to enter good faith negotiation with others to resolve what is possible now while looking forward to what may be more possible in the near future. It is recognition that urgent demands of justice can make the impossible, possible.

A final note.  Moral courage is not a virtue that can be exhibited at all times, under all circumstances.  Courage is tested each time an important decision has to be made. Courage sometimes fails and sometimes the courageous decision is unclear. It fails sometimes in even the most virtuous, and few of us are among the most virtuous.  Ego, self interest, parochial demands, and unexamined assumptions work to check moral courage.  To honestly recognize failure and strive to do better is what makes political moral courage possible. 

Country Parson explores the relationship between religious faith, public policy, and politics. Conventional wisdom declares that pastors should stick to religion and leave politics to others. It can’t be done.  God has a great deal to say about public policy, what is moral and what is not. Failure to heed God’s words never leads to the good of the people and history is the story of peoples refusing to do just that. God has given us the way to godly justice and opportunity for wide spread prosperity.  Yet what God has revealed in holy scripture has nothing in common with today’s so-called Christian nationalism.

2024 will be the most important election year in my lifetime. By the end of November we will know whether we still have a democracy or  something more like fascism under a false flag of Christianity. 

What God has said about public policies leading to godly justice is revealed in stark words through the prophets and sealed by the words of Jesus Christ. In short, the rich are not to take advantage of the poor, no one is deprived of their human dignity, and justice is to be utterly impartial, always erring on the side of mercy.  More specifically and in summary, God’s prescriptive commandments are:

• To honor the right of the less affluent to be secure from efforts of the wealthy depriving them of their means of livelihood.
• Without discrimination, to assure security of person for all.
• Even against enemies, the food of the people is not to be used as a weapon.
• To refrain from ethnic cleansing.
• To maintain integrity in international dealings.
• To respect legitimate civil authority.
• Insure taxes and related economic policies are fair to all.
• Usurious banking, loan and credit practices are not to be used against the poor.
• To assure fair and honest practices in all areas of trade, commerce and personal relations.
• To remove public and private barriers preventing anyone from the opportunity to succeed.
• To receive the alien, for we have all been aliens.
• To demand integrity from public officials and a moral standard expected of all persons.
• To see that taxation is equitably and fairly distributed.
• To prevent anything that places undue burden on the poor.

“Ah, c’mon, “one might say, “God didn’t really command any of this.”  Oh yes, God did, in great specificity.  It’s articulated all through the prophets and is tightly condensed in the prophet Amos.  God has left little waffle room for our usual menus of ‘yes, but’ and ‘nice sentiments but impractical,’ and ‘God belongs in church, not on Wall Street or Main Street.’ God reveals no preference for and form of government, but has high expectations for the moral content of what government does. 

Nothing in God’s holy Word suggests the U.S.A. or any nation should be a Christian nation, nor can anyone slap a Christian label on any social value they want to specifically impose on someone else.   What God has said is neither conservative nor liberal. It is godly, plain and simple. Under the American form of democracy, Christians are to hold themselves and the candidates they support to God’s standards of godly justice regardless of the religion they might follow.

Doing that runs into several obstacles. Candidates tend to present themselves as icons of civic virtue with high moral standards. Verifying their integrity means examining the track records of their lives and the wisdom they have demonstrated in their relationships. Any candidate, charismatic or not, assuming the persona of political messiah or promising to personally solve problems only addressed through democratic negotiation, cannot be trusted.

“All we like sheep have gone astray” and that includes candidates for public office. Never expect perfection, but do expect informed empathy for constituent needs and determined effort to work for the common good.  Voters mislead themselves when single issues determine who they will or will not vote for.  No single issue, no matter how important, is the linchpin on which the nation’s well being depends.  Too many voters are swayed entirely by emotional appeals that prey on their fears and prejudices.  Christian voters must weigh emotional appeals against the commandments to love God, neighbor, and self in the way Jesus loved them.

Demanding instant solutions to issues or inerrancy in public policy is a non sequitur in American democracy and has led only to national ruin in every authoritarian regime. It can be said of  every administration at every level of government that the best record always leaves behind important matters of justice and the public good that have not been addressed.  It’s not failure, it’s life.  We keep  at it, sometimes making huge leaps forward, sometimes only small steps, and getting this right more than half the time is success by any standard.   

Celebrating Jesus’ birth first began in Egypt around 200 c.e. with an emphasis on the visit of the Magi and the holy family’s time in Egypt.  Christmas on December 25 began in Rome about 336 c.e. with the expectation it would replace the traditional festive holiday honoring the sun gods. It didn’t work. The sun gods may be gone but the old Roman festival is still with us as the secular side of Christmas. We can enjoy both.

The Christmas story will be told time and again over the next few weeks.  The most familiar will be the children’s pageant that packs in every gospel theme rolled into one story. Others will be entertained by Hallmark movies revealing the true meaning of Christmas with sentimental romance, lots of magic, and not a mention of Jesus.  Skeptics will proclaim the whole thing is a fabrication third century Christians made up to explain where Jesus came from.  After all only two gospels have a birth narrative, each quite different from the other. 

I doubt that any follower of Jesus used their imagination to make up the Christmas story. The record indicates determination to tell the true story as best they could with what they had available. Let’s take a brief survey to see what was going on at the time.  

Neither Mark nor John has a birth narrative.  Mark’s gospel is short and spare. He wrote it five or six years after the execution of Peter and was possibly the one who had recorded Peter’s teachings. It was in the middle of the Jewish war or rebellion against Roman rule and shortly after the destruction of the temple.  My guess is that the writer was unsure whether he would live to complete a full gospel narrative so concentrated on sketching out the core facts as he knew them. Whether or not he intended to fill it in later, he didn’t.  

John was written very late in the first century.  He was well aware of what Mark, Matthew and Luke had written and saw no reason to repeat them.  More important to John was to expand on events and teachings to clearly illustrate that Jesus was the Word of God made flesh. 

Matthew and Luke did not make things up using their imaginations.  They knew Jesus was born in Bethlehem of an unmarried virgin.  They knew that Mary’s pregnancy was not natural and came through the power of God’s presence taking form in her womb. Skeptics have a problem with that because it introduces the supernatural, and it doesn’t even follow the myths about gods seducing women to produce semi-divine godlets.  Well, that’s their problem. Our religion is supernatural and understands the indwelling of the supernatural with the natural. 

That Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, would enter the world in the most vulnerable way possible, dependent entirely on Mary to nourish him with her own body and blood, and on Joseph to protect him when he was a defenseless baby and toddler is a really shabby way to invent a new myth about the savior of the world. No one would write it if there was no truth in it.  The whole idea is too preposterous.

True, Matthew and Luke have different versions.  In Matthew, Joseph is the lead character.  He has little to say but makes all the decisions. The Annunciation comes to him, not Mary. There is no mention of Nazareth as the starting point.  Jesus may have been two or three years old when the Magi visited.  After a sojourn in Egypt the holy family did settle in Nazareth.  Who knows? Nazareth may have been the starting point and Matthew just didn’t mention it. 

Luke’s birth narrative is more familiar because it’s the foundation of our modern day “Charlie Brown’s Christmas.”  Mary is the lead character in Luke.  It is she to whom the Annunciation is made; she travels south to visit her kinswoman Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist.  The journey to Bethlehem, the birth in a stable, the visit of shepherds and angel choirs singing in the sky are in Luke’s account. 

I believe Mary and Joseph stayed in Bethlehem for at least forty days or so.  Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day and thirty days later Mary, Joseph and Jesus were in the temple for the rites of purification for a new mother.  Luke says nothing about whether they stayed longer or went to Egypt before going home to Nazareth.

We take the two accounts as bearing truth according to facts as the writers were able to gather them. Frankly, for all the differences, the two stories are more coherent than some of the stories my wife and I tell about events we’ve attended together.  The two versions do not have to be the same to be true.  

In the end, what bothers skeptics the most is God’s invasion of ordinary human life. It just doesn’t make sense, but God is not bound by human limitations and what makes sense in the ordinary way of things.  Well, so be it.   When will we learn that God does not conform to our expectations?  We are expected to conform to God’s expectations as best we can. As for our household, we rejoice in celebrating the nativity of Jesus Christ who came to serve and save in the most improbable way possible.

I have heard the argument that religion is the cause of war, but for religion the world could find a way to live in peace.  I find that thought lacking in merit. Since the beginning of recorded history, war has been the pastime of kings and tribal chiefs fighting to defend and extend territory from a position of dominance over their own people. To be chief of chiefs and king of kings you have to, in the words of one recent wannabe dictator, “dominate.”  It’s the driving ambition to dominate others that paves the way to war.

Religion, as causation, has seldom been more than a useful crutch. The favor of the gods was sought as a pretext for moral justification.  Did chiefs and kings take the gods seriously?  I imagine some did, but they all knew that the gods had to be paraded before the people if an army was to be raised and motivated. What ever roles the gods played in getting things off the ground was reinforced by appeals to tribal honor and the glorification of courage in battle against an evil enemy to be subjected to harsh rule or eliminated.  The assurance of a god’s help against an evil enemy is the same propaganda appeal made to the emotional fear of the ‘other’ that has motivated military conflicts in our age. 

The late medieval and early modern era European wars of religion used religion as the moral justification for plain old greed, selfishness, lust for power, and position.  If the masses could be convinced they were doing God’s work, so much the better, but that was just the hook to get things going.  There have been exceptions. 

The Crusades were, in some sense, religious wars.  The lower classes were incited by appeals to recover the Holy Land for Christianity.  The upper classes were in it for the glory.  Too much of it devolved into barbaric pillaging and murder along the way.  

The ancient Islamic empire was created on a religious foundation, but conquered peoples were seldom forced to convert and most established religions were tolerated, their adherents living in reasonable security. The empire was, in the end, about empire not religion.  The horrific wars of the 20^th century were entirely about empire and global domination on one hand and rebellion against colonialism on the other. 

What about Christianity?  Political leaders and operatives have often used appeals to promote or defend Christianity to whip up emotional fervor for war. But the prophetic theme of holy scripture, the life, teaching and example of Jesus Christ, and the inspired guidance offered through the letters to the early church by his apostles go in another direction. They reveal that God’s way is for healing, reconciliation, economic and social justice that works for peace on earth and good will to all humanity.  They take the form of commandments, not sentimental platitudes.  To believe that Jesus is the Word of God made flesh who was crucified, died, and is resurrected, and to follow Christ in his way of love provides no excuse for war or the justification of war. 

Humanity, it turns out, has proven itself unable and unwilling to live in harmony. To accommodate the predictable outcome of humanity’s brokenness taking the form of greed and lust for power, the church worked out a just war theory. Yet, a just war theory cannot defend war as a moral good. It can only minimize the evil when war is the lesser of evils that cannot be avoided.