Joyous Christmas Eve

Do you give someone a gift that's practical, or impractical? On this Christmas Eve, I hope you might receive both.

As for the practical:

Put yourself in the position of Joseph on the night Jesus was born. Every once in a while we hear about someone giving birth in a shopping mall, or a taxicab. This was the first-century equivalent of a taxicab delivery.

After the long journey, the labor pains, the anxiety of finding a delivery room and settling instead for a back room, we might imagine Mary – after giving birth – to be exhausted and resting. Maybe even gone to sleep.

Joseph is sitting there – dazed and confused, as are most new fathers – too tired to make sense of what has just happened. Mary has been telling him all sorts of unbelievable things about this baby for months now. Including that he will be a king.

Joseph, a laborer, a commoner, not of noble or royal blood, asks himself, “How do you raise a king?”

Well, I’ll raise him to be a carpenter, he says. That’s what I know how to do. He’ll be a hard worker, he’ll learn a trade, he’ll get calluses on his hands. By his hard work, the boy will grow up to serve his neighbor.

That’s the first gift, the practical one. Jesus, born this night, won’t grow up to be a professionally religious person, a bishop, or a minister with an advanced degree. He won’t look for people to fill the church or to be churchy people. He’ll look for carpenters, and farmers, and teachers, and accountants, and nurses …

Better yet, he’ll look for people whose identity isn’t defined by their job or their career, but for those who are willing to follow his call to be compassionate, kind, gentle, patient – people who will forgive each other and value the really valuable things in life.

That’s the most practical gift of all because that means the one born this night came for you, whoever you are, whatever you do (or whatever you’ve done). He won’t necessarily ask you to change your occupation or your avocation in order to follow him. He might ask you to change your heart, but you don’t have to stop being you. You don’t have to fit a cookie-cutter mold. You’re human. Jesus was human.

It’s not about how much you know that matters. It’s about how much you trust – how much you trust this Jesus.

As for the second gift, the impractical one, the one you can't hold or put your arms around …

Why is this night different from all others? The Scriptures tell us that it was a star that cast a different light in the sky. You know what we would do today with that star? We'd use our scientific minds to figure it out. There's a theory the Star of Bethlehem was actually Jupiter appearing in the constellation of Aries about the time of a lunar eclipse.

This isn’t a knock against science. I loved my college astronomy course. But there’s a time for facts, and there’s a time when facts can’t explain mystery. That's the second gift I hope you receive tonight: the sense of mystery.

Tonight isn’t just December 24, 2009. It is a night that is connected to all the Christmas Eves we’ve ever known. Christ’s birth was the night the world changed.

Our Christmas memories go back to our childhood, maybe our parents or grandparents. But we serve a Mystery that neither you nor your father’s father or mother’s mother began. The laughter and the tears that accompany this night are not born of our own traditions, as precious and wonderful as they may be. They are reflections of the Mystery of God, written across the stars in a sky of luminous brilliance. A million million times we can stare into that sky, and it will still remain a mystery.

Christmas Eve is the night we are invited to stand together, elbow to elbow, parka to parka, shivering knees to shivering knees, and gaze into that infinite sky, beyond all the things we know and understand, to contemplate what we don't know or understand. And God says it is good. It is mystery, and it is holy.

Merry Christmas!

Thanks to Jerry Camery-Hoggatt and William C. Martin

Original posts at http://wrigleypreacher.blogspot.com

John Wesley was a blogger

Well, of sorts.

John Wesley, founder of Methodism, kept a journal -- the contents of which are in the public domain. Cedric Poole of Cape Town, South Africa, blogs a daily journal entry of Wesley's, keyed to today's date. (For example, today's entry would be from Wesley's journal dated Dec. 12, although the year will vary.)

Poole and I agree on this, in his words: "I am a firm believer in the relevance of John Wesley's teachings and theology for the postmodern era that we live in. My goal with this project is to bring the man described as a 'Plain man for plain people' to as many plain people as possible."

Original posts at http://wrigleypreacher.blogspot.com

Bedside table

I just crossed another one off my reading list: The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope and Love. The author (Augustine) hasn't written much lately, but his books have staying power.

So I asked the question you probably would. What's an "enchiridion?" Turns out it's Greek for "handbook" or "manual." So it's essentially a handbook on Christianity, written in the fifth century.

If you wanted a contemporary "Handbook on (fill in your faith tradition)," what would you want it to include? That is, if you kept a book about your faith on the bedside table, what questions would you want it to answer? Which topics covered? Which terms defined? Which mysteries uncovered?

Original posts at http://wrigleypreacher.blogspot.com

A preacher, reporter and teacher walk into a bar ...

I couldn't remember who said it: a preacher should carry a Bible under one arm and a newspaper under the other. Turns out the quote is probably apocryphal but most often attributed to 20th century German theologian Karl Barth.

I'm willing to invoke Barth's support of the two arenas in which I've spent most of my life, the newspaper business and the church. It appears there's another advocate,* none other than Ben Franklin. In a letter to the Ministry of France in March 1778, Franklin reportedly wrote:

"A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district -all studied and appreciated as they merit -are the principal support of virtue, morality, and civil liberty."

Old Ben apparently saw that a thriving society looked something like the three-cornered hat resting upon his head, with faith, a free press and education making up the three. May your Bible be tattered with use, your newspaper subscription never lapse, and your local school a source of pride.

* In addition to the First Amendment, which had something fairly important to say about religion and the press.

Original posts at http://wrigleypreacher.blogspot.com

If Jesus had a Twitter account ...

None of what follows is mine, nor is the provocative title above -- "If Jesus had a Twitter account, what would his 160-character bio say?"

The question was posed by Susan Hogan, with whom I once was honored to share the title of "colleague" in the fraternity/sorority of daily newspaper religion writers. Her latest venture is Pretty Good Lutherans, in which she tells stories of faith so that their messages may become "tools of spiritual transformation."

Last week, she asked the above question.

Among the responses were several by Randy Schatz, whom I do not know and know nothing about (except that his Facebook bio identifies him as an "ELCA Lutheran in an ecumenical sort of way.")

His responses to "what Jesus' Twitter account would say" are the best summation of the Gospel I've read in a long time. Here they are:

"No time to tweet 2nite! Got a dinner date with some prostitutes, then to a movie with a gay freind. Peace! JC"
Wed at 8:43pm

"Meeting some dancers @ Ihop after they get off work. Like 3AM. Join us?"
Wed at 9:39pm

"Can you take the 3AM Ihop? I gotta stay up with a teen cutter in the psyc ward...step dad was messing with her. I sit with him in court 2morrow. JC."
Wed at 10:16pm

"On my way to Starbucks 2 meet college freshman started class yesterday...and found out she is pregnant...deciding what to choose."
Thu at 7:19am

Just passed churchy protesters with signs that say "God Hates Fags!". WTF?!?
Thu at 7:19am

@LarryKing & @Pope want to interview me. Maybee tomorrow, kinda busy 2day.
Thu at 7:20am

"Cutter made it through the night OK. Hanging w mom after step-dad's court thing...mom has tons of guilt. Gonna b a long day."
Thu at 7:22am

"Court is done. Heading 2 homeless shelter 2 start dinner. MEATLOAF =) Swing in if U R free. JC"
Thu at 1:26pm

"Volunteers had dinner started-thanx. Gotta go visit college gal's BF, he's got a ton of shame going. Maybe I'll give the M.N. Twins a little miracle 2night, just for fun =). JC"
Thu at 2:07pm

"Change of plans. Going 2 JV football game of a freind. Dad drinks the grocery money, mom has a black eye. Twins will have 2 win on their own. JC"
Thu at 2:38pm

"OK, so that field-goal was a miracle, what are you trying to say? Sat by that goofy dad. Nice guy, but seems lonely. His kid was the kicker.JC"
Thu at 3:03pm

"I find great humor in my followers who have GoodWill pick up the rubish sale left-overs. What part of 'first-fruits' is hard to understand? I'm just saying. JC"
Thu at 3:16pm

"Rejoycing with an industrial strength sinner who finally gave me a call. I had been hoping to hear from him soon. JC"
Thu at 4:32pm

Thank you Randy, Susan and Jesus.

Original posts at http://wrigleypreacher.blogspot.com

Haiku

I'm attending a spirituality conference in Plymouth, Mich. (where I am supposed to be in quiet contemplation so as to not be aware of things such as the Cubs losing on a bottom-of-the-ninth-inning home run last night out on the West Coast).

Anyway, one of our exercises was to respond to our learning utilizing some art or literary form "outside our comfort zone." Hence, my attempts at Haiku:

~

Breathing stale cave air.
Trapt in Plato's dark shadows.
Freed to turn and see.

~

Canopies of pine.
Green haven, sanctuary.
Risk the desert's call.

~

Do no harm. Do good.
Gather at the table long.
Stay in love with God.

~

Original posts at http://wrigleypreacher.blogspot.com/

Born again

Former NBC news anchor John Chancellor brought two phenomena to the fore during the 1976 presidential campaign. He was the first to coin "red state" and "blue state" as descriptors for how states voted in a presidential election. He also introduced the American public to what it meant to be "born again." As in "born-again Christian."

Actually, it was born-again candidate Jimmy Carter who brought evangelicals out of the political underbrush and "born agains" into the light of day. But it was Chancellor, in a nationally televised interview with Carter, who elevated the term into public discourse by asking what much of Middle America wanted to know: What exactly is this business of being "born again?"

(Ever the intrepid journalist, Chancellor prefaced his questioning with the reportorial assurance: "We've looked up born again, and it is nothing new." Columnist Cal Thomas wrote years later, "The term wasn't invented by Jimmy Carter, though the one who coined it had the same initials.")

It seems a silly question now. For nearly 30 years, abetted by the success of Carter's successor Ronald Reagan and his political operatives, evangelicals became major players in U.S. politics. Born again was no longer a foreign-sounding phrase.

But like so many religious concepts made into sound bytes, "born again" has been caricatured and delimited until it seems only to define a demographic with a penchant toward conservative politics.

Deep religious truths don't fare well when they become slogans, especially when appropriated for political reasons. It was refreshing, then, to come across these lines this week from Diary of an Old Soul, by George MacDonald:

"But we who would be born again indeed,
Must wake our souls unnumbered times a day."

Being born again is nothing less than committing one's self, day by day, moment by moment even, to being in conscious awareness of God. That is a deeply spiritual exercise. Once engaged, we may or may not say we are born again. But we can always say we hope to be.

Original posts at http://wrigleypreacher.blogspot.com

The Julie/Julia Project

Something about the movie has stayed with me, like the richness of coq o vin that lingers on the palate. Julia Child was little more to me than an easy voice to impersonate until I watched the film. (I've not attempted French cooking, personally, although Chicago's now-closed Ambria made me a fan.)

But it's Julie's story as much as Julia's that intrigues me. Is it because Julie Powell wrote herself out of a cubicle job into fame as a writer? Perhaps. But I think it's more because she connected with her passion, followed it, believed in it even when she questioned it, and somehow – perhaps most miraculously – brought those she loved along with her.

Here’s Julie Powell’s original blog:

http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/2002/08/25.html

And here’s her current blog, What Could Happen?

http://juliepowell.blogspot.com/

Bonne lecture!

Photo of Julie Powell by Salon.com

A pearl in a gold mine

I go looking for gold and instead find a pearl. So it goes every week as I craft a sermon.

You've done it, too, although maybe not sermonizing. You know, you're looking for a missing earring underneath the dresser, and instead you find a $5 bill.

Sidney Harris, a syndicated journalist, used to write an occasional column called "Things I Learned While Looking Up Other Things." He also found pearls while he was looking for gold.

So this week's find -- while I was researching Christian unity (or disunity) -- was this bit of wisdom about the church's willingness to change.

It's from the Alban Institute's Daniel P. Smith and Mary K. Sellon, authors of Pathway to Renewal: Practical Steps for Congregations (courtesy of Homiletics Online):

“Your congregation is what it is today not because of what a bad pastor did to it, or because the neighborhood has changed or because our culture is going to hell in a handbasket. Although those occurrences and many others have had an impact, your congregation is what it is today because of how it responded, or failed to respond, to the realities it faced.

"What your congregation will be in the future is up to you and the other members and how you work together to create something new from the realities you face. What you do or don’t do now will make the difference. Your actions will either reinforce the patterns that have become established in your congregation or start to counter and shift them. The leadership provided by your pastor can help or hinder, but it cannot make your congregation succeed or keep it from ultimately achieving the goals you set for yourselves.”

If you're part of a church, that's food for thought. If you're not, and you've read this far, maybe there's a congregation nearby whose newly discovered reality includes you.

Original posts at http://wrigleypreacher.blogspot.com
Image by NaturalyPure

Purls of Wisdom

Today's entry on my wife's knitting desk calendar reads:

"Knitters are frequently accused of being obsessed with the process and the stuff we use to do it with. I think that sounds sort of negative. Instead of describing myself as 'obsessed with knitting,' I prefer to think of my lifestyle as exquisitely focused in a very narrow direction."

Knitting, baseball, God ... fill in the blank. It works.