I Wish He Was Wrong Too.

The Huffington Post yesterday posted an opinion piece by Bryan Tannehill, entitled "Is Affirming Christianity Still Relevant?" (click to on the title to read). This post is the beginning of a response.

Tannehill's thesis is that "affirming Christianity as a cultural influencer is more or less dead." His evidence is that affirming churches are declining in numbers, while all the "Christian" messages we see in the media are from homophobic churches and church leaders. "While affirming churches are trying to get their message out, it is no longer being received by the public or decision makers."

When he came to this conclusion, Tannehill "reached out to a number of deeply religious LGBT individuals I knew, hoping somehow that one of them would tell me I was missing something . . . They couldn't . . . and one of them wrote back to me, 'I wish you were wrong.'"

I wish he was wrong too. I wish the "liberal" media presented liberal or affirming Christian voices on the news as often as they feature or discuss hateful, homophobic ones. But even MSNBC, that bastion of the "liberal media," rarely does. This leaves most people with the idea that this is what it means to be a Christian -- to spread hate, hurt, and homophobia.

And many people, faced with this, say to themselves, "If that is what Christianity is about, I want no part of it." Even many people raised in the church say, "If that is what it means to be a Christian, then I guess I'm not a Christian."

But this is not a new phenomena. It was the 80s. I was raised in the church, but from college onward the church, and the religion taught me in my youth, had no obvious relevance to my life. Asked at the time about my religious background, I would label myself an "agnostic." Or to use several current terms: I was "unchurched," a "none."

I was upheld in this position by the media images I saw of Christianity. Anytime Christians were interviewed, or talked about, or shown, or portrayed, at worst they were spouting hate or intolerance, at best they were simple minded objects of derision. I particularly remember seeing good God-fearing church people picketing the Martin Scorsese movie, "The Last Temptation of Christ."

I saw the picketers myself, outside my local theater in Tallahassee. I also saw them on TV, and I remember one reporter asking one of those with signs if they had seen the film, and was told, "No, of course not. I wouldn't watch such heretical filth."

And I thought to myself, "If that is what Christians are like, if that is what it means to be a Christian, I guess I am not a Christian, because I want no part of that."

Then, just because these folks told me I shouldn't go, I went to see the move -- even though I'm not a Martin Scorsese fan. I have issues with it (like it's too long and needed a firmer hand in the editing room), but certain scenes from it stay with me to this day. It continues to be one of the deepest, most personal, expressions of Christian faith, and the experience of faith, that I have ever seen on film.

But my stand on my religion, or lack of same, and my response to Christianity, remained unchanged for years.

It is often difficult to see God at work in the present. It is only when we look back that we see God's footprints in our lives. And so when I look back at my life, I can see the Holy Spirit at work. A nudge here, a crazy idea there. Things I thought I was doing for one reason, only to understand much later that it was really for a completely different reason; it was for me -- part of my own spiritual journey. It was a slow process, an unfolding, that completely changed my life. Much to my surprise, I ended up in seminary, and well -- here I am.

And when I returned to the church, it was to an open and affirming congregation. I remember the Associate Pastor there, who coincidentally had been my youth pastor at a different church, telling me, "There are others who would say I am not a Christian. But I know I'm a Christian. That's what matters."

All of this is to say that while I wish Tannehill was wrong, while I wish the liberal, affirming church's voice was being heard by more people, or even just being made available by the media so more people could hear it, I am less pessimistic than he is. Because of my experience of how the Spirit works.

Throughout history, Christianity has had been at it's worst when it was allied with the dominant power structure -- think the Crusades, think the Inquisition, think the religious wars of Europe, the atrocities committed by missionaries on native peoples, the Salem witch hunts, think of the white churches who supported slavery and later segregation in the American South.

But through it all, there have always been some quieter, more tolerant, Christian voices. Speaking words of God's healing and love and hope. Speaking truth to power -- often with fatal consequences. And gradually, things changed. It wasn't a quick process, it took time. It was an unfolding, a gradual opening of eyes and hearts and minds that led to change. And it is only looking back, with eyes tuned to the Spirit, that we can see God at work in that process.

It is, after all, the model we have in the story of Jesus. It is the foundational story of our religious faith. Jesus had many followers, but they weren't the mainstream -- even within his own tradition. Jesus spoke of love and hope and grace, and practiced an extravagant welcome to all, but even his own disciples often didn't get it. From the margins, Jesus spoke truth to power -- and it got him killed. But that wasn't the end of the story -- the story, and the struggle, continues.

And so it is again. The voices of those in the affirming churches may not be as loud, or given much air time in the public LGBT debate. We may be viewed as the "lunatic fringe" of Christianity, rather than the mainstream, by the media and decision makers. But things are changing -- and they are changing our way. Indeed, after many years of struggling, change is beginning to happen fast. 2013 has been an amazing year -- I mean -- UTAH?

It will be easy to explain all this in reasonable, rational terms that have nothing to do with God, with religion; easy to say these victories happened in spite of religion, not because of it. But me -- I see the Spirit at work in our world. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if, in the future, when we look back at this time in our history with eyes tuned to the Sprit, we can see God's footprints all over it.

So even if Tannehill is right that "affirming Christianity as a cultural influencer is more of less dead," don't count it out. After all, ours is a resurrection faith. Death is never the last word.

Advent Calendar 25 -- Sacred Being

This is the Christmas Eve sermon of Rev. Christine Ng
December 24, 2013

Based on John 1:1-5, 10-14

Why?
Why all this?
Why the baby? Why the manger? Why the shepherds?
Why did God do all this?
Why are we here?
Tonight?

For once,
I have an answer.
I don’t have many answers.
Mine is more a faith
Of living in the questions.

But tonight,
I have an answer.
And the answer is . . .
Love.
Just that.
Love.

People like to say,
“Jesus” or “Christ” –
“is the reason for the season.”
And I agree.
But the reason for Jesus Christ
Is
Love.

God wanted us to know
That we are loved.
All of us.
Each of us.
And this love is ours,
Not because we “deserve” it
Not because we’ve been “good” or “nice”
Like God is Santa Claus
“making a list, and checking it twice”
No
This love is ours –
Period.
This love is ours –
Simply because we are.
We are born of God.
We are full of life.
We are born of light.
Our very being is sacred.

All of us.
The messy, fleshy, physical parts.
The parts we don’t like
when we look in the mirror.
The parts we don’t like
When we look at our lives.
The parts that need to be fed.
that need to be cleaned up.
The parts that cry.
as a baby cries,
the parts that smile,
that laugh with glee,
And sing with joy,
And curl up in contentment
And peace.

All of us,
our very being,
is sacred.
And Jesus, God-with-us, in the flesh,
Is proof.

But the problem,
As John writes in his gospel,
The problem is that we don’t recognize it.

All through the Bible,
In story after story,
God tries to tell us that we are loved.
And in story after story,
We human beings keep turning away.
Keep hiding.
Keep running from God.

There is something in us,
That holds tight to the fear
That if God really saw us,
Really knew us,
All of us,
God would reject us.
That our sin, whatever we perceive it to be,
Is too great to be forgiven.
And so we cling
To our own particular darkness.

But in story after story in the Bible,
No matter what we humans do,
God keeps coming back.
Trying again and again.
In love. In forgiveness.
Hoping that this time
This time we’ll get it.
We are worthy.
We are beloved.

Jesus is that message and the messenger.
The Word made flesh.
The Word that is life.
Life with all it’s mess and beauty,
Like the mess of a stable,
And the beauty of starlight.
Life,
With all its mistakes and joys.
Wrong roads taken,
And new life begun.
Life. All life.
Because everything that comes into being, we are told,
Comes into being through the Word.
Everything. Everyone. You. Me. Sacred.

The Word comes to us, each Christmas.
The Word that is light.
Light for all people.
All people. Not just some.
Jesus is that message and the messenger.
To you.

No matter who you are.
No matter what darkness you cling to.
No matter what fear holds you back.
No matter if others may try
to define or exclude you.

The Light is for you.
The Light is you.
You are a sacred being too.

Why Christmas?
Why did God send Jesus?
So we could always know that we,
We humans,
each of us,
We are God’s children.
Not just Jesus. Each of us.
We are loved.
You are beloved.
You.

Jesus, the Word,
Not just spoken,
But sung,
As angels sung to announce the holy birth,
Spreading the good news,
Spreading the message,
Spreading the Word.
As we sing,
Each Christmas.

Or as one writer puts it,*
Jesus is “God’s love song,
Singing life into the world’s babble,
Chaos, and voices of death.”

And what a difference it makes,
If we really believe that.
If we hear the angels sing,
And understand that they sing for us.
If we really believe the miracle of Christmas.
Love.
Love that comes into the world,
In human form.
Love that comes into the world,
In us, through us.
It changes how we see ourselves.
It changes how we see each other.
It changes how we see God.
It changes everything.

If we, like Jesus, really believe
the message of Christmas,
The we are loved,
Born of God,
Then we too become
The message and the messenger.
To others in our world
who need that message too,
But have forgotten God’s love song,
Full of grace and truth.
The song of love,
sung at their birth.
Or those who still can't hear
The angels sing
for them.

And that’s why we're here.
Tonight.
To be reminded.
In a world
Where the messages to us
too often are words
of despair, and cynicism,
And pain,
we need that Word,
that love song.
We can’t hear it too much.
We need to hear again
that we matter.
That what happens to us matters.
That we are loved.
And we need to share that message
With others.

Jesus is God’s love song to us.
His very Sacred Being
Sings to our sacred being.
This Christmas,
Let the Word that is life
Sing into your heart.
Listen, hear the angels sing.
Know
That they sing for you.
Child born of God.
Beloved.

And when you hear,
Sing along.
Amen.


*Thanks to Craig Satterlee

Advent Calendar 24: Do You Hear What I Hear?

Now we are here. On the threshold of Christmas.
It's a time when people gather,
to share the magic of Christmas.
It's a time for angels
to sing to us
of sacred things.
But do we hear them?
Or do the sounds of shopping malls
and crowded grocery stores
and honking horns on busy streets
drown the out?
Just remember,
Angels do a lot of things,
only one of them is sing.
Look for them,
let them speak to you
in sometimes surprising ways.
Do you hear what I hear?
Listen,
and know.
It's Christmas.
Listen,
and
Pray for peace
people everywhere.

Listen and watch this music video for Third Day's version of  "Do You Hear What I Hear." Maybe hear it in a different way. Did you know it was originally written as an an anti-war song?

Advent 23: Sacred Knowing

Yesterday we began our week of Sacred Knowing by watching our children participate in a Christmas Pageant.  All agreed they did a wonderful job!  We were so proud of all of them and our hearts were warmed by their sweet faces dressed up as barn animals and Biblical characters.  It was a great Sunday for all.

It may have just been a "coincidence" that our week of Sacred Knowing in our Advent series happened to fall on the same Sunday we now call "Children's Christmas Sunday," but as a Christian, I don't really believe in coincidences.  At first, you may not see the connection between children and Sacred Knowing, but when you watch them perform the Christmas pageant, it becomes clear.  Children are vessels of Sacred Knowing.

Children simply know that there is a God who loves them.  They know deeply what a special and sacred time Christmas is, and they feel it all the way down to their toes.  And while I'm making a Excel spreadsheet of all the gifts I have and haven't bought, checking off which ones have been wrapped, I see my son marveling at the beauty of our neighbor's Christmas lights, and seeing that sacred beauty through his eyes reminds me of what children know and I too often forget: this is sacred time, sacred space, sacred story, sacred knowing.  Children know what Jesus and Christmas is all about.

So may you become, this Christmas, as Jesus said, "like a little child:" one with sacred knowing this time of year.

If you would like to see all the photos from our Family Sunday, the full album will be available this morning, including your pictures with Santa, on our website www.centraluccdallas.org.  To view and download photos, click on "Media" on the menu bar, and then select "Photo Gallery."  Or click this link.

Advent Calendar 22: Sacred Knowing

"The angel said, 'Don't be afraid! Look! I bring good news to you -- wonderful, joyous news for all people.'" -- Luke 2:1-15

        When we honor our own wisdom, our own deep knowing, we acknowledge the work of the sacred within us. Our own sacred knowing. When the angels appeared to the shepherds in their fields so long ago, the shepherds had a frightening moment of disbelief that turned into a deep knowing -- knowing that they must make a journey to see the newborn Jesus. The shepherds were just ordinary people, doing their ordinary work like they did every day. And like those ordinary people long ago, we too can listen for the sacred knowing within us, calling us to change our plans, change our very lives, and seek what matters most.
         In Advent Calendar 1, I wrote about a song I used to sing to my baby daughter. It's a song about that sacred knowing, "It's In Every One Of Us." Today, as we move ever closer to Christmas, listen to a version of that song, and listen for the sacred knowing within you. What do you need to do, where and how do you need to seek where the holy is being born in you, in your life, in your world?
 
"It's In Every One of Us" by David Pomerantz

Advent Calendar 21: Winter Solstice

          Today is a special, sacred space and time. it is the Winter Solstice, which has been considered sacred in many cultures for millennia. It is a sacred space because it is a threshold -- a place between. Today is the shortest day of the year, and the longest night. Beginning tomorrow, the days will lengthen. More light will shine. Today marks the change.
          Historically, the Winter Solstice probably had more to do with making Christmas December 25th than some factual record that it was the date of Jesus' birth. It's appropriate, right? It reflects our experience that with Jesus light has come into the world. And that light touches all the dark places in our lives, in our world, with grace.
         A friend of mine posted a link on Facebook to an article on Newgrange in Ireland, a prehistoric site made so that at sunrise of the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, a a beam of sunlight illuminates the floor of the inner chamber.
http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/The-magic-of-the-tombs-at-Newgrange-on-the-winter-solstice-184329441.html

How evocative this is of how this day is a threshold, sacred, where the light reaches out to the darkness, and illuminates and blesses the shadowed corners of our lives, the dark spaces inside us, as it illuminates the sacred space of this chamber. And I am struck that the light of this day doesn't make this inner chamber sacred, it is already sacred, but with the light that sacred space can be seen and experienced. And so it is with us. 

          May God's light touch and bless the dark corners in your life, this Winter Solstice and in the lengthening days that follow.

Advent Calendar 20: Sacred Spaces (con't)

We have been inviting people to send in pictures of sacred spaces in their lives. Here is a beautiful photograph of Kinney Lake. I love how the mountain, brilliant as the sun reflects the snow, is framed by the tree-covered slopes and barren earth, and then is reflected in the water. There is sacred space, the space between, -- between the green times of growth and life and the times of barrenness and darkness. In both, the light of the sacred is seen. And that light is reflected in us. Thank you Tim Reichard for the photograph and the sacred space that looking at it creates in us.

Advent Calendar 19: Sacred Space in the Desert

There is a place where I can feel the sacred spaces within me opening, where I can sense the power and the glory and the grace of the divine, where even the land itself can glow with a special, sacred light. It is the high desert of New Mexico, and particularly that small piece of it known as Ghost Ranch. My thanks to my friend Larry Hastings for the photograph.

--- Rev. Christine Ng

Advent 18: Visual of Sacred Spaces

Today our devotional is not in words, but in images.  I invite you to look at the images below of sacred spaces.  In your mind's eye, travel to these sacred spaces in a moment of meditation.  Use these images of sacred spaces to focus, retreat, and find respite.

Advent Calendar 17: Sacred Spaces

We have invited people to share photo or memories of the sacred space or spaces in their lives. 

Sacred Space...This is a perfect picture of Mira playing with her cousins at Placerville Family Camp in SD.  I've gone more summers than not in my life to spend time with family, friends, and God.  For me there is no space more sacred than playing around and having fun in nature.  Even though this camp is only one week a year, I can always reflect on memories of my family and not going feels like I'm missing a part of me.  My mom probably has a picture that is more reflective of the natural beauty.

-- Kiira Russell

P.S.  Mira says that she is going to go to college at UNC Chapel Hill because it has a Chapel like Placerville (she is hilarious!)

Bear Creek, New Mexico near Silver City.   Rustic.   Quiet.   Peaceful.   No distractions.
-- Nancy Blatchley

Advent 16: My Sacred Space

Sacred Space

When I think of sacred space, one of the first places that comes to mind is a small cabin in the Ozark Mountains.  Since Jude was born, every fall around Halloween, my family and I have retreated to the Ozark Mountains for a week to see the fall colors.  The cabin immediately became sacred to us, and we started calling it "our cabin."

Rob and I are "go-go-go" kind of people.  We love life, our friends, and our church, and so we often pack our calendar full of church, social, and family events.  When I see a white space on my calendar, I start thinking of all the fun educational things there are to do with Jude in Dallas, or projects I could start.  But there are times when a "Carpe Diem" treadmill can absolutely wear you down, and you just need to retreat.  This cabin has been that for us.  For one week each year, we go to our little cabin in the woods with no agenda except to be together.  We cook in the kitchen, and explore the woods.  My son's nap times are never used for laundry, emailing, or cleaning as they are at home: I actually lay down and doze off or read these amazing things called books.  It's glorious!

So it's about 5am right now and I've been up since 3:30am and went to bed at 11pm.  The baby woke up to eat, and I just couldn't go back to sleep because my mind is racing with all the things that I have to do before Christmas.  And I've been loosing things lately -- putting them down and forgetting where.  Sleeplessness and forgetfulness are classic symptoms of stress for me -- telling me that I've bitten off more than I can chew, and that I need to slow down.  I need to retreat, and I so I remind myself that I have an Oasis locked into my memory in a sleepy wood in the Ozark Mountains.  So I close my eyes, and I am there again, at "our" cabin....

Advent Calendar 15: Sacred Space

"When Elizabeth heard Mary's retying, the child leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit." -- Luke 1:39-56


          Sacred space. In our lives. In our hearts. Places where God's love and grace break through. Thin places. Places where the holy can be conceived, germinate, grow, emerge.
          They can be places of great joy, comfort, peace. But they can also be places that have known great sorrow and pain. Because God is in all those places.  Because even the darkest places can be wombs from which something holy and sacred can be born.
          The stories of the pregnancies of Mary and Elizabeth remind us this Advent of the new things, the miracles of life,  that are begun in the darkness of the womb.
          This weekend, on the first anniversary of the shootings there, the sacred place most on my mind is Sandy Hook Elementary. A place baptized in the blood of the innocent, in bravery, in tragedy, and in pain. And it is my hope, my prayer, that the darkness of that place, the darkness that filled our hearts that day, can through God's grace be a a womb for new hope to be born.

Advent 14: Christ was a Fool

Today I had a sweet neighbor post on Facebook that she was mad at herself.  Basically a stranger asked her for help, and out of her kind heart she helped him, only to later realize she had been taken advantage of.  She was upset that she was tricked and blamed herself for trusting a stranger.  Another neighbor commented below her post, "I would never trust anyone at all... so sorry that happened to you."  Others agreed about the depravity of people...etc..

And I thought, how sad is this!  How sad that trust is being equated here with foolishness.  How sad that so many of us have come to the conclusion that wisdom means turning away from a stranger who asks for help.

Hebrews 13:2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

Going out on a limb for another person is never foolishness, it takes pure courage.  It's scary to be vulnerable, and it doesn't always turn out the way you would have hoped, but it is in these leaps of faith that we meet the Divine.  God did not choose to come to Earth as a warrior, a king, or even an ordinary person.  God took the weakest, most vulnerable form of all: that of a newborn.

And as I sit here on typing with my four-month-old laying next to me, I am amazed to that her very survival depends on me.  She trusts me to feed her, protect her, change her, and take care of her every need -- in fact she just almost rolled off the sofa and I had to catch her!  And during this season at Advent, we should never forget to marvel at the foolishness that at one time, our great omnipotent God became a tiny and impotent newborn...lying in feeding trough!  What foolishness it was for God to take mortal form, to come to earth, and to allow himself be taken advantage of by tax collectors and sinners!  He had to have seen it coming!  It could only end badly!  And sure enough, the very people who he had given his life to save turned against him, humiliated him, and sentenced him to capital punishment.

But after all was said and done, when it was clear he had been betrayed, was the lesson the risen Christ drew out of it -- "Don't ever trust anyone!  Look what happened to me!  They'll always let you down!"?

No.

It was "love one another as I have loved you."

It was "go, and do likewise."

Go out on a limb for one another.  Go out there and be a fool for Christ.  Let love dismantle all your "wisdom."  And even if it doesn't end well, keep on loving others anyway.

So I wrote below my neighbor's post that she should instead be proud of herself, not mad.  Proud that the world hadn't taken away her kindness, and that she went out on a limb for a stranger.

And so I leave you today with a famous poem from Mother Teresa:

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

Advent 13: December Light by Nancy Rockwell

All this magic is worked within
the earthy Mary, where the Child
is filled with grace and born with marvelous
capacity, alive and kicking, growing,
laughing, breathing, speaking, waxing wise.

Knitting the eternal into dust,
Mary makes a life that can outlast a lifetime –
mortal, with tired eyes and weary feet,
and immortal, shining, sustaining
even a body broken.

The earth, too, within her deep storehouse,
mothers strength to grow beyond winter,
ponders possibility and providence,
contemplates fruitfulness,
Mary-ing another springtime for this world.

In gathering shadows December cloaks
the cold ground with everlasting light.
We wander among miracles as
the hopes and fears of all the years are met in us.
And it is Christmas, once again.

-from December Light by Nancy Rockwell

Advent 12: Think Twice Before Toy Drives

So I'm going to say something today that might tick a few people off.  This holiday season, I want you to think twice before giving toys to charity.  I'm not saying don't do it -- just think twice.

Let me explain.  I used to be part of a church where I observed a very typical dynamic that those who work in nonprofits across the country will describe.  Throughout the year my church would do various drives: drives for school supplies, drives for canned goods, drives for toiletries for the homeless, drives for coats, etc.  For each of these drives, we'd get the same small handful of people contributing items, and the donations were always very much appreciated.

For Christmas, however, we would do a toy drive for a local charity.  The response to the toy drive every year was absolutely astounding.  We literally had truckloads filled with wrapped toys -- hundreds of them.  We had so many toys, they all had to be immediately driven by several volunteers with trucks, because there was simply not enough space to store them all in the church for even a day.  It was heart-warming to see the huge outpouring of generosity each year, but at the same time I wondered...

...Where were you the rest of the year during all our other drives?

...Perhaps some of these toys will be going to homes with empty pantries and hungry children?

...Perhaps there is one child who actually asked Santa Claus for a home...

...or to be able to play outside without worrying about gangs and guns...

...for the cost of all these toys, we could truly literally save the lives of many children living overseas in abject poverty.

As an educated, white woman of privilege, I know that my perspective can be out of touch.  To me, children going without toys on Christmas mornings seems tragic.  But then again, tragedy was foreign concept to my childhood.  I never knew what it's like to be a child living in a household with food insecurity.  I've never known what it's like to not have my basic needs for clothing, shelter, and safety met.  And I've never known the deep pain of not being able to adequately provide for and protect my children.  So perhaps, I could be out of touch with what many children -- and their parents -- actually are wanting this Christmas.  Many children are probably wanting things that my children will take for granted.  Things like food, shelter, and safety... but a Buzz Lightyear on top of that wouldn't hurt.

Buying toys is fun!  Seeing children's faces light up when they receive that special toy from Santa is pure magic.  So please understand me that I'm not saying don't buy toys for children in need this Christmas.  But perhaps when we buy that toy, we should reflect on how we've given to those same children the rest of the calendar year?  Perhaps we shouldn't forget that the very children who will be receiving these toys probably also have a lot of basic needs that their families are struggling to meet.  It's certainly not as fun to buy canned beans for the food drive, or write a check to Heifer international, but Christ commanded us to protect the widow and orphan, and to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, so those needs should start receiving our primary outpouring of time and resources -- not toys.

Advent 11: BC:AD

Advent 11:  BC:AD

U.A. Fanthorpe (born 1929)

BC:AD
This was the moment when Before
Turned into After, and the future's
Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.

This was the moment when nothing
Happened. Only dull peace
Sprawled boringly over the earth.

This was the moment when even energetic Romans
Could find nothing better to do
Than counting heads in remote provinces.

And this was the moment
When a few farm workers and three
Members of an obscure Persian sect
Walked haphazard by starlight straight
Into the kingdom of heaven.

Advent Calendar 10: With Gratitude to a Sacred Teacher

          Many of you know that I have practiced Taoist Tai Chi for many years. Twenty-eight actually. Which means I have practiced it long enough to have been blessed by having met and learned from a Taoist monk named Master Moy Lin Shin, the founder of the Taoist Tai Chi Society. When I think of a sacred person I have met in my life, he immediately comes to mind.
         You can read his basic story and watch a video of him here. But it's my memories of him I want to share. I learned many things from Master Moy of the years -- the importance of community; that life means constant change so we need not only to learn to adapt to change but to embrace it; that there can be stillness in motion; that a smile can change your whole being; to watch each other, be yourself while at the same time moving together; that the mind and body are connected; that movement can be spiritual; to trust myself and what I feel and experience; that you can only learn what you are ready to learn; that the important thing is to help others -- and much more.
         In the Gospels, Mary and Joseph accepted the challenge given them by God, gave of themselves in their lives so that something holy, something sacred could be birthed in this world. Something that could be life-changing for others, something healing in a world full of brokenness. They didn't do it because they thought it would make them famous or rich. It wasn't about them at all. They allowed themselves to become vessels for the sacred, that through them God could work to heal the world.
          Moy Lin Shin wasn't a Christian, he would not have conceived of God in the same way as someone from the Judeo-Christian tradition. But from my experience of him, I believe he saw himself in much the same way -- as a vessel for the healing of others, and ultimately the world. When he taught, it wasn't about him -- it was about helping the student he was teaching. And he taught us to take what we learned and use it to help others. This was his calling, his vocation, his life. He slept on the floor of one of the Taoist Tai Chi Centers. Travelled around the world to teach, even when his health became poor in later years. His teaching, his knowledge and understanding and experience, were gifts and he just gave them away. All the time.
         In return, he didn't ask us to pay him -- he founded a non-profit organization instead -- but he asked us to pass it on. To give these gifts to others. And with each individual who is helped, the world is made a little better place. And so the world is healed -- one person at a time.
         Even at a high profile event, like the opening of a new center, he stayed in the background. It wasn't about him. And in all he did, he gave birth to an organization that has helped thousands, perhaps millions at this point, all around the world, improve their physical, mental, spiritual health.
         Master Moy Lin Shin was not a Christian, but practicing the arts he taught and learning from his example has made me a better Christian. I continue to mourn his passing, and strive to do what he asked -- pass it on, work to help others, heal the world. So for me, Master Moy was a sacred person like Mary and Joseph, because through his actions healing was brought to broken people and a broken world. But he was also a messenger of the sacred, like the angel who visited Mary and Joseph, whose teaching challenged, and continues to challenge me to do what I can to bring about healing and wholeness to my world. And I will be forever grateful.

Advent 9: Nothing is Impossible

**Apologies, this was supposed to have been posted yesterday!**

When the angel visited Mary and told her the news of the baby Jesus on the way, Mary asked, "How could this be since I am a virgin?"  And the angel replied that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and overshadow her.  The angel said even her cousin Elizabeth, who was said to be barren, is now pregnant and in her sixth month, "for nothing with God shall be impossible." (KJV)
For nothing will be impossible with God.  (NRSV)
Nothing, you see, is impossible with God.  (The Message)

However you translate it, that beautiful phrase from Luke 1:37 gets a lot of air time.  It's one of those verses in the Bible that can hold you up through hard times.  It can give you the courage to take a leap of faith, or have hope when there feels like none.  There are countless pieces of apparel that you can wear with this verse emblazoned upon it.  Many people even have tattoos of it on their body!  It means a lot to a lot of people.

Recently, however, I followed a little footnote in my Bible next to that verse.  The footnote told me that some manuscripts of Luke actually don't say "for nothing with God shall be impossible."   Some manuscripts of Luke instead say something like, "for the Word of God will never fail."  Even the NIV translates the verse this way.

Wow.  "For nothing with God is impossible" and "For the Word of God will never fail" are NOT the same idea at all!  One seems to suggest that I can do anything at all in life as long as I have Jesus in my corner, and the other seems to say that God keeps God's promises.  I like the version better that seems to build me up, not the Word!  Ha!

Is that selfish reason why some manuscripts claim that nothing is impossible with God, and other manuscripts don't?  Or is there another story behind the discrepancy?  I imagine some drowsy monk sitting at his desk years and years ago, copying Luke late at night.  I wonder if in the dark flicker of candle light, he couldn't quite see what he was copying, and he wrote the "wrong" thing, and his sleepy slip-up perpetuated itself through subsequent copies?

...Or I wonder if that same monk came across the verse and his pen stopped cold.  I wonder if his eyes widened as he asked himself, "For nothing with God is impossible? How can that be true?  How can nothing be impossible with God?  Because I have seen monks of great faith not be able to pray themselves out of death... and I've seen others try again and again to spread the Kingdom and fail each and every time.  We can't give people false hope like that, telling them that nothing with God is impossible!  It will make them do brash and foolish things..."

But as for me, I still choose to believe that nothing with God is impossible... even after reading the footnote.  Maybe I'm just attached to what I've heard all these years.  Sure, it isn't always factually true, that nothing is impossible.  For example, it is impossible for me to keep my house clean!  (Just kidding... kind of.)  Life can give us examples of things that truly are impossible.  But on some level, even if the verse isn't scientifically true, I still believe it is Truth.  God's Word is Truth and Light -- a gift sent to hold us up through hard times, give us courage to take a leap of faith, give us hope when there feels like none, and motivate us to do brash and foolish things for Christ as neighbor.  The Word, while perhaps not factually true, is Truth, and so it never returns void...

And now that I think of it, I have just argued for both manuscripts' translations; I believe in that nothing is impossible with God because it resonates as the true Word of God for me, and the Word of God never fails.

Advent Calendar 8: Sacred People

"The stories of Mary and Joseph -- two seemingly ordinary people -- and their willingness to answer the call of God inspires us . . . to see our own walk upon this earth as a call to be sacred people who usher in the presence of love. It also invites us to see others as sacred, full of the potential to be messengers in our lives." -- Dr. Marcia McFee.

Based on Luke 1:26-38; Matthew 1:18-25

I love the way Luke and Matthew begin their Gospels, with the stories of two ordinary people, from an ordinary village. A young girl, probably a teenager, just beginning her adult life, soon to be married, just like other girls her age. A grown man, a carpenter, just trying to make a living, have a family, take a wife, just like other men of his village. Two ordinary people, trying to live their lives like everyone else.
But to them comes an opportunity – an opening – to take a chance and make a difference in their world. And the result is extraordinary.

        But when the opportunity first presented itself it wasn’t that extraordinary. It entailed some risk, especially for Mary, but the acts Mary and Joseph were called to do were not so out of the ordinary: Mary to have a child, Joseph to take a wife. The extraordinary part of the story was taken care of by the Holy Spirit.  Mary and Joseph’s part was relatively simple, well within their human ability, and through those ordinary acts God was working to change the world. Mary and Joseph just had to do their part.
         It’s easy to see Mary and Joseph as “sacred people.” I mean, they’re in the Bible – and through them Jesus was born. They’re religious celebrities. If this were to happen today the media would be camped outside their house, interviewing their friends and neighbors. Their faces would be on every newspaper, magazine and tv screen. Well, the religious establishment over time as done essentially done the same thing to them by making them famous, canonizing them as “saints,” setting them apart – not your ordinary, everyday people anymore. Something special, something extraordinary.
         But that’s not the story we are given – the story of special people doing special things. No, we’re given the story of ordinary people, doing ordinary things – albeit in extraordinary circumstances. And this is important, because if the whole story of the coming of Jesus is about a special baby being born to special people two thousand years ago, then we are nothing more than passive observers watching the story of God’s past supernatural activity. Interesting, and heartening, like any good news story, but what does it have to do with us?
         And then, when opportunities come to us, openings for us to do something to help, issues we see need to be addressed, when the world needs to be changed in ways large or small, we continue to passively stand aside and watch – and wait for someone special to show up. We pray that God works to fix things – through someone else, some other chosen one. Because if we don’t see ourselves as “special” like Mary and Joseph, it’s not our job to worry about those problems, not our job to change the world. After all, anything we did would be small, insignificant, ordinary.
         And so we miss the whole point of the story. The very ordinariness of Mary and Joseph is what makes their story so extraordinary. Because they could be us, any one of us. Because we are all like Mary and Joseph. We are all ordinary, sacred people.
         Mary and Joseph didn’t become sacred people, favored ones, because they were visited by an angel, or because they said “yes” to God. They were already sacred people – the angel calls Mary “favored one” right up front, before he even tells her the deal. Right up front, the angel says, “the Lord is with you.”
         God’s messengers come to us, probably most every day, presenting us with a choice to do something – something relative simple, at least to start – and trust that God will use that to do amazing things. Those messengers – the Bible calls them angels – come to us in many ways. To Mary they came in person; to Joseph, they appeared in a dream. To us they may come in the person of someone we meet on the street, or something we see on television or read in the paper, or an offer from someone at church. It may just be that nagging idea you’ve had for a while that just won’t go away.
But, too often, we think something like:  I couldn’t do that; or who am I to try that, I’m no one special; or don’t bother, it won’t really help. Who are we? We are sacred people. We are all sacred people, “favored ones” to use the language of today’s scripture, and the Lord is with us.
         We say it all the time:  “The Lord be with you – and also with you.” But do we really believe it? Do we really believe that God is with us – each of us? Working in us, through us? Choosing us over and over to do God’s work in the world? Active in our own lives?
         Walter Bruegemann says that “few of [us] imagine God to be an active character in the story of [our] lives.” It’s not that we don’t believe in God, but that on a daily basis God seems more of an a background figure. Kind of like the refrain from that Bette Midler song:  “God is watching us, God is watching us, God is watching us . . . from a distance.” Not actively involved in our lives, up close and personal.
         But what if we really saw ourselves as sacred people? Felt that God is not just watching us, but with us, everyday? Not just in the background, but a part of our very being> Offering us opportunities, openings, everyday to act as the sacred people we are – like Mary and Joseph. Not so that we can do miracles – but so that God can do wondrous, marvelous things through us – even if our own part seems ordinary or small. Because nothing is impossible with God. And God is not working just through us, but through all of us, ordinary, sacred people; each of connected to each other, as Mary and Joseph were connected. But it’s up to us, like Mary and Joseph, to say “yes.”
          For the past couple of days, the world has mourned someone who said “yes”: Nelson Mandela. Not a saint. An ordinary, if complex, man, in extraordinary circumstances who accepted a calling and remained true to it. But he didn’t do it alone. All along the way were people, some of whose names we will never know, who also helped make the miracle that was the end of apartheid and a transformed South Africa happen. In ways big and small, by their actions they changed their world.

         Nelson Mandela is often talked about in South Africa as being the perfect embodiment of “unbuntu” – a Bantu word that roughly translates as “I am because we are.” Bishop Desmond Tutu explains that “ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can’t exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can’t be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality – ubuntu – you are known for your generosity and for recognizing everything and everyone as sacred.”

         Everything and everyone is sacred. Each of us is sacred, and we are a sacred people together. Nelson Mandela’s death is a great loss not just to South Africa, but to the world. But in life, and in death, he was also a messenger through whom other sacred people heard God’s call, and answered it – and continue to answer it today.
         Take a moment and consider the idea that God is at work in you, or through you, or wants to be. What might that look like? Imagine one concrete place where you can make a difference between now and Christmas? Maybe you think it’s small – driving a friend to a hospital, donating bedding to Family Gateway, signing up to volunteer at a homeless shelter or greeting people on Christmas Eve at church.     But if you really believe that God is working through you, that you are a sacred person, and that we, working together, are sacred people – then it’s not the size of the act that is important, just that we do it; that we act as the sacred people we are – and trust God to use our work well – even if we, ourselves, never see the results.
         You are Mary. You are Joseph. That idea that came to you is your opportunity, your opening – whatever the messenger. On our Advent prayer table there are slips of paper with a message to help you remember and make that commitment – to help you say “yes.” They say:  “I am favored by God. Indeed, God wants to do great things through me. One of those things may be: ______” Take one, fill it out, do it.
         But maybe it would help us see ourselves as Joseph or Mary if we put ourselves in their place, make the story our own. So using Luke’s gospel as a guideline, (and with thanks to David Lose) I’m going to play the part of the angel Gabriel – I’m God’s messenger today. Put yourself in the position of Mary or Joseph by saying the words in bold:

Greetings, favored ones. The Lord is with you and intends to do great things through you.
How can this be? We are ordinary, everyday people.
Do not be afraid. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, guide you, and work through us to care for this world and its people God loves so much. For nothing is impossible with God.
Here am I, a servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word.

“Let it be with me according to your word.” It’s a powerful statement. Life changing. World changing. And because nothing is impossible with God, and God is with us, we are powerful beyond measure. Each of us. Ordinary and sacred.
And if we can really believe that, of ourselves, and of each other. If we can develop in ourselves the quality of ubuntu, of seeing the sacred in everyone and everything, including ourselves, and act as the sacred people we are – then God will do great things through us. Amen.

--- Rev. Christine Ng

Advent Calendar 7: Time After Time

          The Advent and Christmas season is a sacred time -- not because we commemorate an event that happened long ago, but because it reminds us that this event happens time after time. The holy, the sacred birth is always happening. Christ is always coming. God is always waiting to be born in us, in our lives, in our world.
          We name Jesus "Emmaunuel" -- God with us -- not because it happened once, but to remind us that God is always with us. As close to us as that ordinary, messy stable next door, or our own messy lives right here.
          We speak of Advent as a time of waiting, but it's not just we who are waiting, it's God -- waiting for us. Waiting for us to turn to him; waiting for us to answer her call; waiting for us to open our eyes and see, open our ears and listen, open our hearts and feel the sacred all around us.
           I am reminded of the words to the chorus of a Cyndi Lauper song, "Time After Time", and can imagine God saying them to us, through the story of Jesus:

If you're lost and you look, 
then you will find me
time after time.
If you fall I will catch you,
I will be waiting,
time after time.
Time after time.

Time after sacred time.

Amen.

Advent Calendar 6: All is Calm, All is Bright

"All is calm... all is bright..."

These are the words that came to my mind last night, as I sat in front of our Christmas tree. Rob and the kids were all asleep, and I was having one of those rare moments alone, when I was neither working nor sleeping.  In fact, the whole city felt like strangely still -- everyone gone to bed with no school or morning plans due to an usual Texas ice storm.  So I just sat there -- in the dark silence, looking into our brightly lit tree.  It's a memory tree:  every branch loaded with ornaments from my childhood, with souvenir ornaments from vacations, with gifted ornaments from friends, and now with precious trinkets made in preschool.  It's gorgeous to behold.  I sat there for a very long time just looking at it, and felt calm for the first time in a very long time.

"Calm" is not a part of my wonderful life these days.  I remember after having my son, I thought, "All those times I thought I was working hard or was stressed out before now -- I wasn't.  I've never truly known stress or hard work until having a child."  And now that I have two children, I think, "all those times I thought I was working hard or was stressed out before now -- I wasn't.  I've never truly known stress or hard work until having two children."  Life now is so rich and wonderful, but it's also really hard and stressful.

So given my life right now, I wonder... was that first night really a "silent night... all calm and bright" for Mary?  Or did she cry out in labor pain as I did, and shout with tears of joy when she saw her newborn son?

I wonder, was the little Lord Jesus so tender and mild that he made no cry at all in the manger?  Or was he up all night as most newborns are, screaming with hunger every 1-2 hours?

I wonder, did the little town of Bethlehem really lie still under silent stars?  Or did it quake with the joy at the Savior born within its walls?

I wonder... because the Bible never says that Jesus was born at night, or that it was calm, or still, or even cold for that matter.  Over the years, we have filled in the holes in the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke to rescript Christ's birth as the very picture of serenity.  And we've told the story this way for so long, that we just assume it's there in the text, but it's not.  I wonder, why do we retell it this way?

Perhaps because I'm not the only human being who could really use a silent night?  Perhaps because I'm not the only person in the history of creation who has known the real meaning of hard work and stress?  Perhaps the folklore surrounding Christ's birth tells a lot about what we all spiritually need; we need a silent night.

I pray that you find a silent and holy night this Advent.  You probably need it as much as I do.

Advent Calendar 5: It's About Time

It's about time.
It's all about time.
It's a gift we're all given.
But we're only given so much.
Sometimes it moves so slow.
Sometimes it seems to race by.
And often, too often,
we look back
and wonder where it's gone.
But if we realize
that it is
a gift
each second, each minute, each hour
then perhaps
we will cherish it
and treat it like it as what it is:
precious,
sacred,
time.

-- Rev. Christine Ng