For the New Year

Here's a chance for Christian cooperation:  95% of Christians believe, together and in common, 95% of Christian doctrine.  The 5 and 5 outside of that generally disagree on very minor issues (which they often make into HUGE issues), giving the appearance of disunity.

Here's one fundamental agreement:  there was one day that changed everything, a single day that has had more impact than any other day in all of human history.  Jesus' last earthly day:  Last Supper to Gethsemane to Crucifixion.  That 24 hour period has influenced more people, for more years, than any other day.  And the significance of that DAY was underlined by the HOUR of the discovery of Resurrection!

A friend said it this way:  "I just missed seeing the biggest bass that ever was in this lake, but I DID see the splash!"  An unbeliever with an open mind searching for historical verification of the whole event has to objectively consider the SPLASH, even when no camera took the pictures.  After all, that's the only proof for any event we didn't personally witness.  (All of history, sacred and secular, agrees on that level of proof.)  And it is sufficient.

We don't follow Jesus blindly, or just with a dedication to high hopes, or just because Grandpa did!  We follow Jesus when the objective reality of that unique combination of events is totally verified by the witness of the Holy Spirit.  That convinces.  God did that.

And that is the core of Christian unity:  when the Spirit verifies the record.  Other things?  Lots of them are in the pile that says "I can take it or leave it."  This one is the Christian fundamental that underlies all the rest of Christian doctrine.

So, tell yourself "Happy New Year".  God did it.  2000 years of human history teaches us far too much about  conflict and division based in human nature, but it also confirms for us that God did it, for you and me!

Go celebrate.  Toot a horn.  Make a cheerful resolution.  Spend time with your best friend.  And smile as 2010 gives way to 2011.  It's another good year on God's calendar.  Thank God for Jesus!!

Granny Sez......

..."always tell the truth, then you don't have to remember what you said!"

A little like Jesus said:  Let your yes be yes and your no be no.

Every gathering brings entertainment, you know.  Like the friend who wants to reminisce about a long-ago childhood.  Year by year, that childhood has changed.   (Do you have a friend  like that?)   The birth family that once was dysfunctional, poor, and sent my friend to live with others (not so dramatic as with strangers), has changed.  Over the years, that family has become a model of excellent farming, prosperous, mutually supportive and loving, a pathway for young women to find their way into the Daughters of the American Revolution.  And next year, there will be "enhancements" for every detail.

In my first pastorate, there was a woman who was a certified hypochondriac.  She was always "sick".  Ask her how she feels today;  the answer was always the same:  "Oh, I been sufferin' death!"  And then one day, she got sick.  Real sickness.  No-fooling-sickness.  And she didn't have words to express it, but that was just fine, because no one was asking anymore.  She had found that particular kind of loneliness that follows on never telling the truth.

It's like the folk-story of the boy who cried "wolf" until people quit responding, and then he met a wolf along the road.  Uh oh.

(And in a polarized political climate, all of us meet the people who never stop manipulating, but never remember yesterday's story, which often wasn't true either.  Their conversation is often a collection of bumper-stickers, strung end to end.)

I find that some conversations fade away.   I stop listening to those who are always sick, always fearful, always "pitiable", because often they are just acting out their own need to manipulate the social scene.  Because that filtering is actually the only way to keep open to those who are ACTUALLY living out a real drama, not one of their own inventing.

So, who do you and I listen to?  We like the plain-spoken.  I need the conversation with the one who truly cares about issues, real life, is concerned about the well-being of their neighbor, is celebrating life's conquest of whatever difficulty is met along the way.  I need conversation with the real person.  If we are to deal with real life, real and credible conversation is a powerful tool.  When my friend has conquered, it strengthens me.

 Granny got it right:  just tell the truth, it's so much simpler than trying to remember what you said yesterday!  Just keep it simple, plain, and honest.  (Feel free to copy my Granny and send to anyone you think might not have yet gotten the memo on this!)

The Guide, OR Who Did Jesus Come For?

In Budapest, she took up her little banner and led us from the bus to the patriotic Hero's Square, and began. At once, we realized that our guide was NOT politically neutral, intended to hit LOTS of "hot buttons", and was passionately patriotic.

As we toured squares and churches, we asked each other, "I wonder what faith our guide holds?"  Bit by bit, while  we weighed the conversation, she talked about the decline of the church, and the heritage days of shamanism. Soon, our opinion began to firm. 


From a Catholic family, raised during the strictest days of Communism, never much to practice Catholicism, intensely patriotic with a love for Hungary's older heritage..........she had a deep respect for shamanism. And what religious element survived, within her materialism, was that ancient connection to the shaman.

The individual and community spiritualism in Hungary that endured the barbarians, the Huns, the Romans, the Turks, the Holy Roman Empire, the Nazis, the Communists, and now endured modern materialism took the shape of the "old reliable" and surfaced in her conversations.

She might only pray when she needed to, but when that happened, it seemed clear that it would be in the framework of the old gods. 


In our time, the football coach might say: "We gonna dance with who brung us." In every time, people go with who and what they trust. In our culture, materialism seems to be winning the day, with a polite nod to the Christian vocabulary, but material to the bone! In a culture, like Hungary (or ours!), that has been tossed from one set of absolutes to another, one of the systems will win.


So, the question: for her, who has every good reason to trust nothing OTHER than shamanism, does God turn away from her or still do His very best to love HER? She'll never use the LANGUAGE of either church or mosque, because she doesn't trust either one. 


BUT..........................................
And Jesus said: "I have other sheep not of this fold..........."
A very provocative short statement in John's Gospel............................ including WHO?

Judge? Nope. Just do my best to walk by the light given to me.......................


Jesus was born in Bethlehem FOR?   God so loved the WORLD that He gave His Son......  The whole world, all of it, in all its varieties and differences.  God loves the people who don't trust Him, just yet, because they've not seen a trustworthy DISCIPLE.  I wonder how God feels about that?


And I wonder if this is not the BIGGEST question for disciples .................... am I being trustworthy in the sight of those around me??????  Not really "Who's right?" and "Who's wrong?"  But.......do I show Jesus in a trustworthy fashion?


Blessings for Christmas, the gift that's still mysterious!

Christmas Adoptees

Part of the celebration of Christmas is the celebration of beautiful branches grafted onto the sometimes-older vine.  Things such as evergreen Christmas trees, St. Nicholas, even the December dating, are all "add-ins" to the original story, each bringing/brought by believers who were then new to the faith.  Some of the things are older, some younger, but all are gifts to you and me in our time.  And every one has brought new believers along.

If you were to count the religions that interpret winter solstice as a significant promise of new life, first harbinger of spring, it would be the whole list.  If the most insightful psychology says that we are hard-wired for faith in God, then surely this is one of those points built into us. 

As the days stop their shortening and slightly begin to lengthen, astronomers ancient and modern have pointed to the event.  From the astronomical observatories at Chaco Canyon to the Central American religions, to the Egyptians and Greeks, ancient astronomy was hardly primitive on this point.  And it has fascinated the children of God in every age.  "The LIGHT is coming back!!!"

On what day was Jesus actually born?  I don't know.   On what day did the early Christians decide to celebrate His birth?  Within the solstice festival, when "the light is coming back"; that's when we celebrate the birth of the Light of the World. 

Over and over, festival days, heroes, and theology come to be grafted into the story.  Thank God for that.  Christmas is always expanding!

When the Baby Grew Up in a Hard, Hard World

Traveling in Europe last fall, we came to one small town where there were three small square brass labels in the stone sidewalk, just outside the thresh-hold of one front door.  It marked where a Jewish man, his daughter, and grand-daughter had lived,  They gave the dates the three were taken away, and the dates they died in the Holocaust.


It was a reminder that evil triumphs when good people are too silent!  


While a student, I had a chance to meet and to hear Pastor Martin Niemoller, an opponent of Hitler and his plan to finance the German church, thus intending to silence any word about justice for all people.  Speaking about the beginning of the terrible times, Niemoller said:


“When the Nazis came for the Communists, I didn't speak up, because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I was a Protestant, so I didn't speak up. Then they came for me ... and by that time, there was no one left to stand up for me.”


He survived, because they came for him very late in the conflict.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a colleague of his, was hanged just days before the liberation of Berlin.  Feeling such guilt over his silence in the face of Hitler, Niemoller became a ferocious combatant against Communism in East Germany.  He was never silent again in the face of oppression for any of God's people


The parable in this?  If you live like Jesus, you tend to say some of the same things the grown-up Jesus said!  That means you often find yourself an advocate for the poor, the outcast, the whole "lower rung" of society.  (Every society defines a lower rung, and it's pretty easy to find Jesus there!)  Some folks were (and are) greatly angered by Jesus' care for the poor; but then you know the rest of the story.  It was (and is) a hard, hard world to which God sent the angels to sing!
Is this ancient stuff?  Not at all.  It is current events with Jesus, every day.


Blessings.

One Happy Tradition

December has some special traditions/tasks around everyone's house.  One of ours is a year-end Christmas gift.  We finish our gifts to the church, to special ministries like UMCOR, a gift to Haiti relief, and a couple of charities we've supported for a long time.

Then, we have the "family collection" from all our extended family.  We go to the Heifer Project website.  Based on what different parts of our family put in, we pick a gift for subsistence farmers.  I like their plan, because they require gift recipients to share the gift, giving away seeds, or the off-spring of animals, passing on the help and creating a network of people helping people.

We make four cards for the grand-children to read at Christmas lunch.  This year we give bees, ducks, chickens, trees and one extra wild card (a pig) as a thanksgiving and gift for others.  As a gardener, I truly enjoy doing this for someone else!

As a Methodist, I like contributing through the regular budget for missions, for the American Bible Society, for colleges and universities, for evangelism, and to support pastors in sometimes impoverished situations, and all the rest.  There are lots of things to feel good about in this Christmas season.

Heifer Project is just a personal one that colors the celebration in fine ways for us.

I hope you have happy traditions when your family gathers, as well.

Blessings for all your celebrations.

If Necessary, Use Words

There are a couple of varieties of the slogan about showing Jesus to the world around us.  All varieties say that words are secondary!  It's the visible communication that matters.  Christmas decorations communicate well.  This year, there is so much less decoration in yards than I've seen before.  I like the lights and the messages, and I'm not sure why there are so few this year.  (I'm not too keen on the "deflatables" that lose air and fall over in the yard - - - not sure what THAT message is.)

Long ago, the Greeks decided what God was like by philosophy (strange and shaky ground for knowing God);  the Hebrews decided what God was like by what He DID.  They didn't have any philosophical framework for the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, but they were absolutely sure of the God who DID it.  And the re-telling of the story of God's deeds, over and over, shaped a thousand years of confidence.

We communicate without words.  In a study session in my doctoral program, the presenter was asked about his own training: where he did his doctorate, and what his language study was.  Hugh Halverstadt (born in Africa to a missionary couple) said simply:  "Not German or French, but Body Language".  For a moment, that froze the group, as we were all very aware he could understand what we DIDN'T say.

Body language, the communication without words, says all the positive and negative things we feel.  There are welcome signs, affirming signs, acceptance signs, calming and comforting signs.  And there are the negatives.  We all understand the rolling of the eyes and the looking down the nose, and the long sighs to negate something we've said.  Every good salesman and persuader becomes very attentive to the signals.

I used to wonder how we could control that body language.  Lots of it, almost all of it, just happens, as we show what's really in our hearts.  And if we try to manipulate it, we find that's almost impossible to do, believably.   If our hearts are pure and we do love Jesus, that colors everything we proclaim.

For this Christmas, proclaim Jesus, and if necessary, use words.