Today my youngest turns 10, and before he went to school we put his back to the “measuring wall” to see how much he’s grown in the past year. Doing so got me to thinking about how quickly the days and years go by, how it seems I was just welcoming him into the world and now he’s close to finishing 4th grade, and before I know it he’ll be off to college and I’ll wonder yet again where the time went. 
It served as a good reminder to stop for a moment and recognize the gift of the day, to say a prayer of thanks for life and family and purpose. It’s a good reminder to keep our eyes open for the ways God is at work in the world, and to recall that even what seems ordinary is infused with God’s presence and grace. A good cup of coffee in the morning, making lunch for your kids, kissing your spouse goodbye. A good day’s work, lunch with a friend, family gathered again around the dinner table, a walk on a crisp day, watching your granddaughter’s ball game or music recital, the sight of snowflakes settling on the lawn. There is nothing so commonplace but that God is hidden within, and occasionally our eyes are open (or opened!) enough to catch a glimpse of the holiness life offers.
Maybe on this day we stop a moment and take stock. Maybe we look around, really look around for God’s presence, and recognize yet again how precious each day is. For indeed life itself is both gift and grace, given by none other than God.

After worship Sunday a number of you spoke to me regarding the horrific shooting in Arizona. When such things occur it is natural to experience feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. From what you told me it was important not only that I referenced the event during the service, but that we prayed explicitly for those affected and implored God to help us love each other even when (maybe especially when) we disagree.

While we cannot back up time and undue the atrocity, and while we do live amidst those bent on destruction and the desire to inflict harm, we are not without hope. Rather it is precisely times and situations like this that call us yet again to claim and proclaim the good news we have in Jesus Christ. Yet again we are reminded in the first chapter of John’s gospel that sin, death and the devil do not have the last word, that “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it.”

Our focus in this Epiphany season is on such light. We hear that Jesus is the light of the world and indeed place our hope there. Yet we also hear that God continues to send the Holy Spirit into the world and into our lives, and that God would use us (yes, us) to be light to the world as well. Maybe what that means in the aftermath of such senseless violence is that we focus on how to be such light through our actions and words. We can’t change what happened, but we can strive to mold our actions and words in ways shaped by faith. We can disagree with another but we do so remembering that our “adversary” is none other than a sister or brother in Christ. Comedian Jon Stewart said it another way on Monday’s The Daily Show. “Wouldn’t it be a shame if we didn’t use this opportunity to make sure that the world we are creating now [...] wasn’t better than the one we previously lost.”

 There’s a saying in scripture that goes like this: “You meant it for evil, but I (God) used it for good.” Maybe our prayer this day is that God might empower us yet again to illumine another way to live.

I’m taking a few days to work on the “reading piles” that continually sprout up in my office. While some books languish for years, the one I’m reading now was given to me just recently. Entitled Take This Bread, it’s a story of one woman’s embracing a faith she once scorned and details its utter transformation of her life. After a year attending an Episcopal congregation in San Francisco, author Sara Miles has this to say about her experience thus far:

Conversion isn’t, after all, a moment: It’s a process, and it keeps happening, with cycles of acceptance and resistance, epiphany and doubt. As I struggled with bread and wine and belief over the following year at St. Gregory’s, it stayed hard. I began to understand why so many people chose to be “born-again” and follow strict rules that would tell them what to do, once and for all. It was tempting to rely on a formula–”accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and savior,” for example–that became itself a form of idolatry and kept you from experiencing God in your flesh, in the complicated flesh of others. It was tempting to proclaim yourself “saved” and go back to sleep
The faith I was finding was jagged and more difficult. It wasn’t about abstract theological debates: Does God exist? Are sin and salvation predestined? Or even about political/ideological ones: Is capital punishment a sin? Is there a scriptural foundation for accepting homosexuality?
It was about action. Taste and see, the Bible said, and I did. I was tasting a connection between communion and food–between my burgeoning religion and my real life. My first, questioning year at church ended with a question whose urgency would propel me into work I’d never imagined: Now that you’ve taken the bread, what are you going to do?

In our Tuesday Staff Meeting we talked about the coming Christmas season and how easily we ignore/dismiss/fail to see the radical, unbelievable, flat out crazy way God chose to come into the world. In this season of fruitcakes and tinny music, do we dare read Luke 2 with Mile’s question in mind? Now that you’ve welcomed the Christ child (taken the bread), what are you going to do?

We find ourselves in the season of Advent, considered the beginning of the church year and a time to prepare for the coming Christ child.  One scripture passage that helps us do so comes from Matthew 3:1-12, and highlights to ministry and message of John the Baptist. I recently came across a quote (source unknown) that puts this text in nice perspective.

We prepare for Christmas by repenting. Repenting in the Biblical sense is more than having a change of heart or a feeling of regret. It is more than a New Year’s Eve resolution. Repentance is a turning away and a turning back. A turning away from sin and a turning back to God.
Bishop Joe Pennel of the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church, once attended a Christmas worship service in Bethlehem at a place called Shepherd’s Field. As he heard the songs of the season, he thought to himself and later wrote: “I did not look to God and say: See how virtuous I am. I did not utter: God, pat me on the back for all of the good things I have done. I did not pretend by saying: God, look at all of my accomplishments, aren’t you proud of me? Indeed, I found myself asking God to forgive me of my sins. That is how it works. The more we turn away from Christ the more enslaved we become to the power of sin. The more we turn to Christ, the more free we become from the bondage of sin. Turning toward Christ enables us to repent.”
Someone once said half jokingly: If we are not careful, John the Baptist can take all of the fun out of Christmas. I disagree. I think that it is John’s message that puts the joy into Christmas. For it is his message that calls us not to the way that Christmas is, but that the way Christmas ought to be. Christmas ought to be free from guilt and self-absorption. For that to occur there must be repentance.

Here’s to preparing for Christmas with joy.

Pax

Kind of a strange title for my first post…let me explain.

My car’s idiot light went on two nights ago, and a message appeared on the dashboard that read, “maintenance required.” It typically comes on after so many miles reminding me to change the oil, and since I was due to have my tires rotated as well I decided to bring it in to the dealer.

Pulling into the garage, I was met by a friendly guy who promptly took my information and hung a tag from the mirror. While waiting for his computer to retrieve my car’s vitals, he started chatting about the slippery driving and cold temps, and then proceeded to tell me about his new puppy and how fun it is to watch the dog play in snow for the first time. I know–so what? Happens all the time, right? What made the encounter stick was two things:

1. as we spoke, the guy seemed genuinely interested in my responses, looking me straight in the eye as I spoke.
2. he appeared to enjoy his job and interacting with people. The very nature of the conversation suggested he was being more than just polite (or doing more than just his job)

Same thing happened when he checked me out–friendly, looked me in the eye, thanked me and wished me a good day like he meant it.
One of my favorite authors (Walt Wangerin) talks in his book Ragman about God’s ability to work in all kinds of people and situations, and argues that, in his experience, he finds God more often than not in the small, seemingly everyday things of life, things like talking over the fence with your neighbor, making your family breakfast in the morning, chatting with a clerk or receptionist or waiter while waiting for the bill. If we’re indeed created in God’s image as both Genesis 1 & 2 suggest, then it’s not much of a stretch to think that God is at work in us both in ways we know and (probably more often) in ways we don’t.
If that’s the case, God was part of my conversation with the Toyota guy this morning, even though we never mentioned God or faith by name. It was simply one of God’s creatures interacting with and respecting another of God’s creatures. God was, and is, already at work in the world, and occasionally my eyes are open enough to see it.

Blessings to you and yours as we approach the thanks-giving holiday. May it be a time for precisely that.

Pax