Where's the Bears?

Yesterday I was watching the news and one particular story caught my attention. The powers that be are thinking of adding Polar Bears to the list of “threatened species.” If it happens, it would be a first. Why? Because the decline of the polar bears is not due to disease, or over hunting, but rather to habitat loss. In and of itself, loss of habitat is not unique. What is unique is the cause. Typically, loss of habitat is attributed to deforestation or urban sprawl. The Polar Bears are loosing their habitat because of global warming. That’s right! Because of greenhouse gases produced by each of us who drive, not only are the polar ice caps diminishing, but so too is the population of the polar bears.

This is a first, according to the story, but what I wonder is how the federal government will respond. In a normal case of habitat loss, construction must stop. They are quite strict about protecting the habitat of threatened and endangered species. But will those same stringent regulations be applied to greenhouse gas? My guess is no. There is scarcely any sign that the fed is willing to take measures to regulate the emissions of these gasses. Recently, they have balked at the suggestion that the EPA is responsible to monitor carbon monoxide (or maybe dioxide…I can’t remember which it is). Now lawsuits are being brought to force them to regulate these gasses and they are fighting tooth and nail. It will be quite interesting to watch this whole thing unfold.

I am more concerned, however, about my responsibility. I am more concerned about the church’s responsibility. In the creation story there are many questions and uncertainties. Humanity’s responsibility to creation is not one of them.

“God blessed [man and woman], and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”

This story is the story of stewardship. It is the root of every teaching about stewardship. We, man and woman, have been given all of creation for which we must care and over which we must rule. We stand on this terrestrial ball as God’s representatives and must, therefore, rule over His creation with all of His love and care. This ruling is not an opportunity for exploitation for our own good, but rather an exercise in divine love and care. We are responsible for the polar bears!

I am not sure what this means for us. Many environmental extremists would suggest we must all cease driving our cars immediately. I hardly think that is a realistic option. Little can be changed overnight. But Martin Luther King Jr spoke of the trajectory of humanity as being long but positive. In the short term our targets are impossible, but in the long term they are quite achievable. So what can we do to rule over creation as God would rule? Here are a couple of suggestions:

1. Walk or bicycle whenever possible. It will help save the polar bears’ lives and it might just improve yours too.

2. Carpool whenever possible. What a better opportunity to show the love and hospitality of Christ than a 30 minute ride with a captive audience!

3. There are a ton of new hybrids and fuel-efficient cars coming onto the market. Take a look at them.

4. Where possible, support public transportation. We should, as a country, make it a goal to have viable public transportation in every major city, and we should incentivize its use.

5. Alternative fuels must be explored. The future is not in fossil fuels. Despite what the big oil producers (including the Fed) says, there are realistic and reliable options out there right now. Push for these to replace fossil fuel.

6. Please feel free to add your ideas here!

A Christmas Letter From Jesus

I heard this the other day, and thought it was interesting. Thought I'd share it with you.


Dear Children:

It has come to my attention that many of you are upset that folks are taking My name out of the season. Maybe you've forgotten that I wasn't actually born during this time of the year and that it was some of your predecessors who decided to celebrate My birthday on what was actually a time of pagan festival, although I do appreciate being remembered anytime.

How I personally feel about this celebration can probably be most easily understood by those of you who have been blessed with children of your own. I don't care what you call the day. If you want to celebrate My birth, just GET ALONG AND LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

Now, having said that let Me go on. If it bothers you that the town in which you live doesn't allow a scene depicting My birth, then just get rid of a couple of Santas and snowmen and put in a small Nativity scene on your own front lawn. If all My followers did that there wouldn't be any need for such a scene on the town square because there would be many of them all around town.

Stop worrying about the fact that people are calling the tree a holiday tree, instead of a Christmas tree. It was I who made all trees. You can remember Me anytime you see any tree. Decorate a grape vine if you wish: I actually spoke of that one in a teaching, explaining who I am in relation to you and what each of your tasks were. If you have forgotten that one, look up John 15: 1 - 8.

If you want to give Me a present in remembrance of My birth here is my wish list. Choose something from it:

1. Instead of writing protest letters objecting to the way My birthday is being celebrated, write letters of love and hope to soldiers away from home. They are terribly afraid and lonely this time of year. I know, they tell Me all the time.

2. Visit someone in a nursing home. You don't have to know them personally. They just need to know that someone cares about them.

3. Instead of writing George complaining about the wording on the cards his staff sent out this year, why don't you write and tell him that you'll be praying for him and his family this year. Then follow up. It will be nice hearing from you again.

4. Instead of giving your children a lot of gifts you can't afford and they don't need, spend time with them. Tell them the story of My birth, and why I came to live with you down here. Hold them in your arms and remind them that I love them.

5. Pick someone that has hurt you in the past and forgive him or her.

6. Did you know that someone in your town will attempt to take their own life this season because they feel so alone and hopeless? Since you don't know who that person is, try giving everyone you meet a warm smile; it could make the difference.

7. Instead of nit picking about what the retailer in your town calls the holiday, be patient with the people who work there. Give them a warm smile and a kind word. Even if they aren't allowed to wish you a "Merry Christmas" that doesn't keep you from wishing them one. Then stop shopping there on Sunday. If the store didn't make so much money on that day they'd close and let their employees spend the day at home with their families.

8. If you really want to make a difference, support a missionary--especially one who takes My love and Good News to those who have never heard My name.

9. Here's a good one. There are individuals and whole families in your town who not only will have no "Christmas" tree, but neither will they have any presents to give or receive. If you don't know them, buy some food and a few gifts and give them to the Salvation Army or some other charity which believes in Me and they will make the delivery for you.

10. Finally, if you want to make a statement about your belief in and loyalty to Me, then behave like a Christian. Don't do things in secret that you wouldn't do in My presence. Let people know by your actions that you are one of mine.

Don't forget; I am God and can take care of Myself. Just love Me and do what I have told you to do. I'll take care of all the rest. Check out the list above and get to work; time is short. I'll help you, but the ball is now in your court. And do have a most blessed Christmas with all those whom you love and remember.

I LOVE YOU,
JESUS

The Week of Peace...the week of fracture

I am just fuming! I spent my day preparing one of two sermons I will preach on Sunday. The first is from Micah 5. It’s context is the Fourth Sunday of Advent – The Sunday of Peace. Peace = Shalom. Shalom is a very broad Hebrew concept. It includes non-violence, but it includes the much broader understandings of wholeness and unity. So on this Sunday when we look forward to the Kingdom ethic of peace – ie unity – and commit ourselves to work doggedly to bring peace to our world, I tune in to The News Hour with Jim Leher and find this story,

“Schism:

A reporter discusses why seven Episcopal parishes in Virginia decided to leave the Episcopal Church and form a rival denomination in the United States.”

This just makes me puke! We are the CHURCH who stands as the presence of God’s kingdom in God’s world. And yet we continue to fracture ourself rather than healing our fractures. Will we ever learn? None of the great reformers ever wanted more than a reformation of the CHURCH. And yet we ended up with thousands of denominations rather than a CHURCH. Luther? A Roman Catholic priest seeking to reform the Church. Now we have the Lutheran Church and its splinters. Wesley? An Anglican who sought only revival in the Church of England and now we have the Methodist Church and all her offspring.

Will we never figure out that peace (unity) can never be made by violence (fracture)? There is a clinical word for people who intentionally break their own body. We lock them up for their own safety because it is simply crazy to break one’s own body. Yet it is somehow OK for us to break the body of Christ? Those who break off do so in with the dillusional grandure of being holier than thou. They split as a reaction to some great “evil” or “sin” in the church. Does it ever dawn on them that there just might not be anything more evil or sinful than breaking the unity of the Church?

How do we preach to the world a message of hope and love, peace and joy when we cannot ever practice those things within our own family?

Well, here’s to a peaceful Christmas. I’ll leave you all with the words Nick reminded me of from the amazing Longfellow:

I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I tho’t how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along th’unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head.
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong, and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men.”

Till, ringing, singing, on its way,
The world revolved from night to day –
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime,
Of peace on earth, good will to men!

The week of love...stream of consciousness ramblings from the second week of advent

Many of you got the email I sent about the family from St. Paul's. Cody, Travis, Keegan, and Kelli were friends. Their grandmother brought them to church, often making the long drive just so they could go to church. Antonina taught them in Sunday School and Sharon helped me with the youth group for a little while. Kelli died. She was just a kid. She was trapped in a house fire that the boys got out of. But Kelli didn't make it. Sharron, Bob, Larry, Emily, Cody, Travis, Keegan. We mourn with you.

How do we deal with this kind of thing especially at this time of the year?

I was visiting Tilly, a 90 year old shut in from our church. Her son is a business prof. at Ashland and was a superb basketball player at WVU. I asked her if she had any grandkids. She said "No, and I'm glad I don't." I inquired at this seemingly strange assertion and she told me, "when I look at the world and what those kids would have to go through, I think I'd rather not have them go through it."

I reflected with her about the love of God the Father who knew what the world would put the Son through. Knowing what must come, God became one of us anyway. The incarnation is incredible in itself, but in light of the cross it is so much more incredible. What love the Father has lavished upon us!

This weeks lectionary texts included Malachi's imagery of purity as a refiner's fire and a launderer's soap. We think alot about the imagery of refiner's fires. There are two men at my church who retired from steel mills where they worked in a blast furnace. The purifying work of Christ is powerful and dangerous. But it is also loving. A launderer's soap is gentle and soft. It is intimate and close. It evokes images of a mother who works endlessly trying to get every spot out of a child's grass stained jeans. Christ's coming brings about our purity, if only we will follow John into the waters of repentance. His purity is powerful, but it is always loving!

Peace be with you all this Advent season. May Christ bring purity into your life.

The Week of Hope…stream of consciousness ramblings from the first week of advent

In case you hadn’t noticed, Thanksgiving has passed. Which means of course that Christmas is here. Well, that’s what secular culture and most evangelicals tell us. However, Christmas Day is not until the 25th. True, Christmas is a season, not just a day, but it is the season initiated on the 25th and lasting for 12 days. From December 25 until January 6, we celebrate the birth of Christ.

The coming of Christ certainly means that there is much preparation to be made. And that is where Advent comes in. For the four weeks leading up to Christmas, we celebrate Advent. As a child I had no notion of Advent. I knew that we couldn’t prepare for Christmas until December 3rd (because Adam’s birthday is December 2nd). I also knew that Christmas was coming because hanging on the back of the front door was a long strip of red felt with many pieces of candy tied carefully by small lengths of green yarn. Each day we got to have a piece of candy. On Christmas morning, we ate our final Tootsie Roll and knew that Christ had come. I didn’t realize it, but we were celebrating Advent.

Perhaps our children have a much better grasp on Advent than we do. They just can’t wait for Christmas. On Christmas Eve, they can’t sleep. We all remember waking Mom and Dad at some obscene hour on Christmas morning, and all of us without children have vowed to ourselves to lay down the law and lock our kids into their rooms that one night each year so we can get some sleep.

So how do we celebrate Advent? It is a question I struggle to answer. One easy criticism is that we sing Christmas songs way too early. We never sing “Up from the grave He arose” until Sunrise Service. To do otherwise would offend our sensibilities. But it is quite OK to sing “Joy to the world the Lord is come” before Christmas? Perhaps part of the problem is that for the 12 days of Christmas (including 2 Sundays) there are 28 songs in the hymnal, but for the four weeks of Advent (including 4 Sundays) there are only 5. How do you all differentiate between Advent and Christmas in your churches?

Another difficulty is that we think the Holy Days are a time to spend less time at church rather than more. For the first time in recent years (since I am now a pastor), I understand that feeling. However, I despise the fact that I would rather not have a Christmas morning service. What kind of Christian am I? I wake to the church bells starting morning Mass at the Catholic church next door every morning at 7:30am. The other RCC in town has a Mass every morning at 6:30am. And we complain about too much church at Christmas time? Last year there was a huge debate about whether churches would have worship on Christmas day because it was a Sunday. This year I have actually heard people debating whether or not they should cancel Christmas Eve service. In one breath church leaders discuss canceling a Christmas Eve service so people can stay home, and in the next breath they complain about Christmas being taken over by corporate greed. It was not taken over – it was given over!

But Advent is a season for hope. Despite our inadequacies. Despite our faults. Despite our failures. No matter how badly we botch our preparations, Christ still comes. He came that Holy Night in Bethlehem and he comes daily to be born anew in us every day. Our hope is Christ. And nothing we can do, or fail to do, can keep him from coming to us. And so we pray: Come, Lord Jesus, come!

Hear Ye ... Hear Ye ...

From this date hence, sermons will not be posted here. They will be posted at torontonaz.blogspot.com (see link at the right). I will try to continue my ramblings and begin doing the around town pics again. And may God Bess Ye Merry Gentlepersons!

PS If you can think of any appropriate links for the church page, let me know.