Setting Our Minds on Divine Things

Poor Jesus!  He was wanting to be honest and open and transparent, and Peter wanted to play politics.  “None of that honesty, Jesus, let’s say whatever it takes to build influence, you know, friends in high places” Peter said, and Jesus was so committed to brave, bold talk that he got hot under the collar with Peter, and scolded him in public. Hardly a Christian thing to do.  But Jesus was making a point that they weren’t waging a popularity contest or a political campaign, they were building a new way of living in the world.  One of radical rejection of what the world thinks is success, money, influence, power, none of that could hold a candle to what Jesus intended.  We see this still happening in our world on a daily basis, people willing to say anything and promise anything for the sake of fame and fortune.  People willing to poison their political opponents or sabotage their planes, destroy hospitals with children in them for the sake of peace, willing to promise anything in order to get elected.  Or promote misinformation agendas that will hurt vulnerable minorities for the sake of power.  People wanting to eliminate crosswalks intended on showing support to bullied teens.  Jesus flatly rejected and denounced that when he scolded Peter.

Peter wanted Jesus to be as influential as the religious leaders.  Jesus rejected that.  It wasn’t about comparing himself and building up a reputation.  It was not about setting his mind on human things, but on divine things.  What does that look like today?

Last month I had an opportunity to set my mind on divine things with a wonderful group of ministers.  31 United Church clergy from BC to Newfoundland joined with our Moderator the Right Reverend Dr. Carmen Lansdowne in Five Oaks, Ontario, a retreat centre like Naramata Centre in the Okanagan.  Lansdowne is the first female indigenous leader to be elected Moderator, and only the second indigenous leader ever elected to that role.  She is also warm, funny, and passionate about the United Church.  Using her indigenous lens of looking at the world, she brings a fresh perspective to what it means to set our minds on divine things.  We spent a week wrestling with what it means to be a Christian leader focused on taking up our crosses and letting go of the need to be successful, or even worse, the need to be right.  We talked about and learned about leadership best practices, ideas like figuring out what our strengths are.  We talked about what we loved doing and what was not so lovable about our jobs.  We talked about how all of us felt intimidated by the other bright minds in the room and how we all came feeling like we were not good enough to be in such an important program.

We also talked about the world and how it has changed.  In the sixties, ladies wore hats and gloves and dresses to church.  Jellied salads with everything from canned peas, lettuce or marshmallows would show up at potlucks.  No one had microwave ovens and a trip on an airplane was a rare and special event where a complimentary meal was served by women who looked like models.  Today, we still have potlucks, but the hats and gloves are long gone.  And jellied salads might still show up, but they tend not to have vegetables any more. 

We talked about how hard it is to preach good news in this changed world.  It’s like we keep serving jellied vegetable salad and the world looks at it and goes yuck.  Another analogy was that of the goldfish swimming in their bowl.  Do we know what the water tastes like that we are swimming in?

We talked about how worship has become something that is done privately.  And how it’s become something that people spend money on, crystals, candles, and the like.  It’s often an individual focus – my faith in me is what makes me well.  And I don’t need to do it with other people, because that can lead to conflict.  We’ve lost faith in social organizations.  Guides and scouts, Canadian Legion, Rotary, Lions, even the armed forces and the RCMP struggle to recruit new people.  We’ve also lost our sense of the sacred and focus mostly on the practical, the measurable, the obvious. No wonder congregations are struggling in today’s culture!  We stand for values and community and public spirituality.  Everything that our society has moved away from.

Jesus would have said to us, even though Society has moved away from God, even though the world focuses only on the material, even though it’s only about the individual, that we are to set our minds on divine things, not on earthly concerns.  Our last day in Ontario, we heard that message from none other than Rev. Michael Blair, who is the United Church’s General Secretary.  He told us that we have become focused only on the decline of the church, something that has been happening since 1964.  And yet he is seeing new opportunities and new missions rising up.  The church is committed to planting 100 new communities of faith, one of which has already started in Edmonton, a first-nations led group that meets in the old Beverly United Church.  Other projects and groups are doing exciting things in the name of Jesus in our denomination. He said that we are too focused on the cross, and not on divine things.  It’s easy to only believe in death and it’s hard to believe in resurrection.  Even Jesus struggled with that.

Rev. Blair called us to keep focused on divine things through our faith communities because that's where we find Christ with us.  We are not alone in our spiritual journeys.  God is with us.  We easily forget that as we swim in our fishbowls or serve jellied salads or learn better recipes to serve.  But in the cross and the resurrection, in life, in death, in life beyond death, we are not alone.  Thanks be to God!

Between the Lines

Ever wonder what happened to Mark’s story telling?  He leaves out so many details! He’s like that teenager we try to have a conversation with at the supper table.  “How was your day, dear?”  “Fine” “How was school?” “The usual”.  “How are your friends doing?” “Okay. Can I go now?” And we hear them clomp upstairs to their room then call their friends and have a two-hour conversation about how their day really went, who said what to whom, who talked to the wrong person, or did the funny thing that got the teacher mad or wore the oddest outfit to school.  The conversation that doesn’t really happen with us but happens with others.

Mark takes 6 verses to tell a simple story of the first days of the ministry of Jesus.  Contrast that to Matthew’s 18 verses and Luke’s 15 verses.  John stretched Mark’s five verses on the baptism of Jesus into 8 verses and skipped the temptation altogether.  John had a very lofty idea of Jesus, what professors and theologians call a ‘high Christology’, so high that Jesus would never have struggled with things like power or fame.

So, Mark did the Coles notes version of the start of the mission of Jesus, fast and short so he could get to the good stuff.  His was also the earliest gospel written, 12 to 14 years after Paul started his letters. Matthew and Luke didn’t write their gospels for another ten or twenty years later.  It could very well be that Mark was writing things down so briefly more to jog people’s memories.  “Remember that time when Jesus went and got baptised, then wandered into the wilderness?  Peter, remind us of what he told us happened?  James, what can you add?”  It may have been his way of encouraging people to share the memories that they had.

These stories, some of which were collected into the later Gospels, were stories of great transformation.  They were stories of great courage.  They were also stories of small transformations, the fever healed, the kindness shown women and children.  Sometimes the transformation was fast, like Jesus getting baptised and whoosh God shows up and does a happy dance worthy of a Super Bowl touchdown.  Sometimes the transformation was slow, like 40 days of wilderness wandering where there were no human witnesses to the temptations Jesus faced.

We tend to glorify the fast, the big, the showy transformations, the big turning points in a human being’s life, or in a political movement.  One fellow I talked to said that he didn’t like Black History Month because all we hear about are Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandala, and Rosa Parks and that is it.  We don’t hear about the nameless people who take a stand for change, who want to make a difference in the world, and who have to let go of their fears of failure, or even more insidiously, their fears of success, to make a stand for a principle they believe in. 

A good example of this is a little-known gem of a movie starring Sissy Spacek and Whoopie Goldberg.  It was made in the 1990’s and unlike the Color Purple, Ghost, Jumping Jack Flash, or the many guest appearances Whoopie did as Guinan on Star Trek the Next Generation, this movie was not a comedy hit for her.  It did not win Oscar nominations or huge profits.  It is a movie that falls between the lines.

It's also a movie about ordinary women living ordinary lives according to the norms of the1950’s Alabama society they lived in.  An ordinary housewife married to a successful city leader and her ordinary housekeeper who took care of the children, cooked the food and cleaned the house.  Until the housekeeper started showing up late for work, soaked from the rain, and one day, so footsore that the blood soaked through her shoes.  Many of us know about Rosa Parks, who became famous for refusing to move to the back of the bus.  We don’t know about the quiet folks like Whoopie’s character who boycotted the busses after Rosa’s resistance.  Many people chose to walk to work from the poorer areas of town to the richer parts where their jobs were.  They organized carpools and rode horses or bicycles to work.  Other communities rallied to support the boycotters by sending financial aid or pairs of shoes to replace the  worn out shoes of the boycotters.  This frustrated many townsfolks, from bus drivers driving empty buses, to politicians and business people.  Vigilante acts of violence tried to intimidate folks into once again riding the buses, but people had enough of the disrespect, the racism, the discrimination and the hardship imposed by segregation.  They boycotted the busses for a whole year until the segregation stopped.  A whole year!

They risked everything because they had a clear vision.  They risked losing their jobs because they wanted a better world for their children and grandchildren.  They risked being attacked because they had nothing to lose.  They risked because they realized that they had strength in numbers and deserved to be treated with dignity.  They risked because they knew that if they didn’t, nothing would change for the better.

Sometimes the risk can be small.  A school teacher named Harriet Glickman wrote a letter to a comic strip artist shortly after Martin Luther King was assassinated.  And because of that letter, Charlie Brown gained a new friend named Franklin, changing the world of budding young artists and children everywhere.  Because of one letter she risked writing!

Jesus risked everything for the sake of his vision and because he loved people.  He knew that the discrimination, poverty and oppression they were experiencing was not what God wanted for the world.  Our province is also struggling with poverty and discrimination.  Trans people are targeted, people are living in tents, friends are dying because they can’t get medical care quickly enough.  Can we risk speaking out, writing letters, making calls, signing petitions?  Just like the housewives and housekeepers, it’s those little risks we take together that can change the world.  When we work together with deep spirituality, bold discipleship and daring justice, we can help God change the world once again.  May we have the courage to take risks to stand with all who need to know God loves them.  Amen.

Dazzled and Delighted

Today is Transfiguration Sunday, the day in which we study this mysterious scripture of Jesus transformed before the very eyes of two of his disciples.  They thought they had seen it all.  Healings, exorcisms, crowds of followers, teachings that brought a new understanding to the old scriptures and a renewed dedication to their God.  Then the long climb to the top of the mountain, probably not as tall as the mountains in Jasper or Banff, but still heady enough and high enough that it would have been hard, sweaty work.  And mountain tops are tricky things with weather changing rapidly from one moment to the next.  You know what they say, if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes, and on a mountaintop, that’s especially true.

Thin air, exertion, and who knows, maybe there were some funky mushrooms in the breakfast omelet they ate that morning, but whatever the case, strange things happened on the mountain top.  Strange things often happen on mountain tops.  Maybe even near-death experiences, where people see things and hear things that they least expect.  Like Paul wrote, in the busy lives we live, everything seems veiled, obscured, hard to sort out.  The temptations of this world, the misinformation, the story after story of scarcity or disaster or greed, and soon our view about the world can be totally skewed.  It’s hard to figure out what is important in our lives when we are bombarded by so much news and rumor and gossip.  How do we step back and make sense of it all, how do we take time to think about our own personal big picture, who we want to be, what we want to do with our lives, how do we show up?

One image from a recent Marvel movie shows the power of getting away to figure out the bigger perspective.  The movie Black Panther starred Chadwick Boseman as the hero, King T'Challa of the mythical country Wakanda.  When his father died, T’Challa went through a ritual that brought him to a near death experience, an encounter with his father and the rest of the ancestors that had proceeded him.  It gave T’Challa time to struggle with what kind of leader he was going to be, what his purpose in life was, and how he was going to live out that purpose.  He talked with his ancestors, and even talked back to his ancestors, challenging their motives and their priorities.  He wrestled with how he would provide leadership, not just for himself, his family and Wakanda, but for the whole world.  By connecting with his ancestors and what they had done in the past, living by their highest principles, he was able to make choices for himself, rooted and grounded in his culture, his heritage, and in his highest principles. 

Now this is a lovely image, and helpful in some ways, but it’s movie magic and fairy tale, and not very rooted in reality.  Marvel does tend to be a spectacle of violence and fighting, whether it’s warriors using unimaginable technologies, or two men slugging it out in a subway.  Most of us will never see as Paul puts it, “the god of this world who blinds our unbelieving minds” as a villain to beat up.  And as followers of Christ, we learn that violence only creates more violence, and peace comes through understanding, compassion, listening and prayer.

But even more thought-provoking than the Marvel movie, was how it was made, and the response that people had to it.  Firstly, it was written and directed by African Americans, the first Marvel movie to do so.  Black story telling from the deep understanding of what it is like to live in our world with a skin tone that is often perceived as less than, or a reason for discrimination.  The story showed two perspectives, the people in Africa who live in sophisticated cities, and the people in the slums of the U.S., still suffering from the legacy of slavery.

That movie view of the world from those two perspectives was so surprising that countries in the Sub-Saharan nations had a 3 million person rise in tourism the year that the movie was released!  It was nominated for eight Oscars, some of whom had never had an African American nominee in that category.  People adopted the slogan ‘Wakanda forever’ as an inspiration when they needed the courage to challenge racism.  But even more inspiring was the example of the lead actor, Chadwich Boseman.  Unbeknownst to any of his fans or his cast members, Chadwich had been diagnosed with colon cancer the year before shooting Black Panther.  When the fan response went wild, he connected with as many people as he could, to inspire and encourage them in their struggles.  In one interview, he broke into tears telling of two boys undergoing cancer treatment and how they took courage from the movie.  All that time, whether it was surprising fans with his presence, or going on talk shows to respond to the wild enthusiasm that the movie had created, he never said a word about his cancer, and acted as regally and compassionately as his character, t’Challa.  He was only 43 years old when cancer ended his life, and that unexpected loss shocked many. If you happen to see the sequel, “Wakanda Forever”, it is a powerful tribute to grief, to continuing the vision and dreaming of the future. His legacy of hope continues to inspire all who knew and saw him. 

For us, Jesus is the one that transforms our lives in ways too surprising to understand.  We too have ancestors of our faith, Moses and Elijah, Peter and James and John.  We too have had mountaintop experiences or near-death encounters that changed and challenged our priorities.  Our Sunday mornings hopefully are mini mountaintop experiences that inspire and encourage, empower and include all in the vision that Jesus and Paul had for the world. May these ancestral visions shine in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God’s transforming vision for the world!

Two videos of Chadwick Boseman and his fans that you might like:

https://youtu.be/6J-D86wfxiE

(15) Chadwick Boseman Surprises Black Panther Fans While They Thank Him - YouTube

Healing the broken hearted.

Step right up, come and see, for one day only, the spectacular, the miraculous, the amazing Jesus of Nazareth, Healer extraordinaire, to cure all your troubles right before your eyes!

Ever wonder if this is what Peter and the other three disciples had in mind when they went searching for Jesus the morning after the miraculous healing?  How they didn’t just look for him, they hunted him.  And when they found him, they wanted to bring him back home, where the whole of Capernaum waited.  The disciples were excited.  They knew they had a hit on their hands, and they could probably have set up shop in town and sell tickets to see the one and only greatest healer on earth.  Obviously, Jesus realized it too, and maybe just maybe he got up early because he needed to turn to God to figure out what to do next.  Should he settle down and get rich and famous, like most doctors did back in those days?  Or was he to be more than a local healer?

He knew that places like Capernaum didn’t have a lot of doctors or good healthcare.  Doctors were for the rich and powerful Roman elite who could afford a Greek physician.  Hospitals didn’t become widespread until Christianity was made legal by Constantine.  They didn’t become separate from the church until
King Henry the 8^th, that infamous fellow with disposable spouses, took over monasteries and churches alike.  In fact, even today, one of the best run hospitals in Alberta, Lamont, still is affiliated with the United Church and its mission statement boldly proclaims access to all people, a faith in God and a trust in the healing ministry of Jesus as well as the United Church Crest on their walls.

So back to our scriptures, healing has always been a core element of prayer and ministry of the ancestors of our faith.  Healing all people is part of the understanding of what we are to be about as Christians.  Our worship time is to be a chance to check our spiritual pulses.  Are we running an emotional fever? Are we needing a check up with God?  How are our love skills, our forgiveness reflexes, our justice impulses?  Do we need a booster shot in our immunity to evil and oppression?  Do we need stronger doses of prayer?

Jesus didn’t just heal people from a poor community.  It was startling in who he had healed.  Simon Peter’s mother-in-law.  Aside from the fact that this means the first followers of Jesus were married, it also points to the fact that he reached out to a senior, and a female at that.  While men were measured by how hard they worked and how many fish they could put on the table, women were often not even mentioned by name unless they were extraordinary.  And a mother-in-law living with her son-in-law would have been very unusual to say the least.  It must have been a full household if Simon and his brother lived there as well as a mother-in-law, and we might assume a wife and maybe even some children.  Mothers lived with their sons more than their daughters and were not seen as a contributor to the household coffers.  Even today, seniors can struggle to find a place to live, some end up bouncing from one household to another, living with different children who take turns, having no stability or ownership over who they live with. 

Peter’s mother-in-law had a fever, something that they had no aspirin to treat.  Some fevers went away, some fevers spread throughout the household and the whole community.  Some lasted days, some hours, and some were dreadfully fatal.  And in that day and age, people were helpless to treat it.

Jesus wasn’t helpless.  And he wasn’t dismissive of this senior in need.  He showed compassion and reached out with words of comfort and inclusion.  Words of healing that touched her soul and reminded her she still had gifts to share.  Healing that transformed her into a giver of hospitality and generosity.  She became the welcoming hostess who greeted and fed the newcomers to her household and helped them feel at ease.

In fact, she became the first convert to Christianity.  We are all called to love and serve others with compassion and justice.  She started in with joy and enthusiasm to just that.  The four disciples didn’t serve, they didn’t do anything we can see that was loving, except grouse at Jesus that he had abandoned them to sneak out and pray.  They chose to be grumpy and controlling instead of generous.  They chose not to think about what Jesus was doing and why he was doing it, they didn’t want to know how to pray or how to care for others, they just wanted to bring him back to the waiting crowds like a pet monkey that would wow the audience and mark them as the heroes of the town.

In the end, Jesus wasn’t called to stay put and stay local.  He heard the call to be a messenger of hope and love to those who didn’t fit in, who were ignored or dismissed or bullied by society.  He heard the call to preach wholeness to everyone who would listen.  Healing was not the core purpose of his ministry, nor was it going to be commercialized or politicized.  It was a free gift he was offering.

Who are the people who need a welcome today?  Who are the people feeling victimized by politics, who are being told that their access to healthcare will be controlled by politicians?  Who are being told that their minds and hearts and souls are not as important as their reproductive organs?  Who are having their hospitals bombed as retribution for terrorism?

Just as Lamont Hospital welcomes all that come through their doors, just as Jesus healed everyone who came to him, just as God heals the broken-hearted, let us be a safe space of welcome for the fearful, the lonely, the ostracized, the alienated and the desperate. God loves them all and wants to heal them, heart, mind, body and soul of their fevers of fear and anxiety.  May we, who have been healed, welcome and serve all who come into our lives!

Searching and knowing

There is a t-shirt that used to be in bible stores with a caption of “Moses was a murderer, Noah was a drunk, Jacob was a con man, Isaiah preached in his birthday suit, Job went bankrupt, Rahab was a prostitute, Martha was bossy, Mary Magdalene was mentally ill and Mary, Jesus’ mom was an unwed pregnant teen who became a refugee.  If God called them, how do we know that God isn’t calling us?

It's a great t-shirt.  We often may struggle with the idea that God is calling us.  How can God call me when I am not whatever I think God really needs?  Surely someone else, anyone else is better than me.  And we put off answering that still small voice, that nagging sense of being lured into a bigger vision, a bolder idea, a stronger stance.  “No, not me! I’m not called to run for town council, join the library board, speak up about racism, knit mitts for homeless people, buy Tylenol for Ukrainians, attend a rally in support of school boards, fill out a survey about pensions, put solar paneling on my roof, drive an alcoholic home, sit next to a hurting person, sign a petition about the environment or get out and vote on a contentious bylaw.  Somebody else is being called to do that.  Not me.  And yet every day people here in this space do exactly this.  They buy that cup of soup on a cold day for some stranger they just met, they buy granola bars for folks who have no homes to go to, they jumpstart stalled cars or push them out of snowbanks.  Ordinary people called to do what seems like something insignificant, yet what may be insignificant to us may be huge to those who see it or experience it.

How do we know we are called?  How do we know what we are called to?  Knowing is complicated, and when we hear the claim that God knows us can be both a gift and a challenge. 

If you have ever tried to study a foreign language, the word “to know” can be tricky. In French, they have two different words for knowing, connais and sais – connais is more about relationships with people and places, and sais is more about facts and skills, knowledge.  Hebrew is the same way, there is “Yada” which is know, and “Bantah” which is understand. So if you hear someone saying "yada, yada, yada", it means, "I know, I know, I know".

It’s one thing to know someone or something, it’s another thing to understand them. When we read Psalm 139, it is both yada and bantah.  God knows of me and God knows me.  In detail.  In depth.  Right down to the dna level and right up to how I will respond to anything that happens.  The thought of God knowing me both Yada and Bantah is, well, quite honestly, more than a little unnerving.  There’s a limit to how much I want anyone to know me.  Even spouses don’t know each other at that level.  Parents find their children to be mysteries, and siblings who have known each other all their lives can be surprised by choices and thoughts.  No one we know are in our lives from sunup to sun down.  No one we know have been in our lives since we were conceived.  It’s an extraordinary claim for an extraordinary faith in an extraordinary God.

That much transparency is uncomfortable.  We humans have been hiding from being known like that as long as we’ve been telling stories.  Some rabbis say that the day God wandered into Eden looking for Adam and Eve and realized that they were hiding from him, trying to cover their nakedness from him and each other, that’s the day God cried.  We even hide from ourselves.  M. Scott Peck wrote a book about people who lied so much they started to believe themselves!  He said that those kinds of people are really hard to help because they are so committed to their own lies.

That’s very different than Nathanael, the one Jesus praised for his honesty and transparency.  Nathanael had no guile in him, which means he was not sneaky or underhanded or manipulative.  He was honest to the point of rudeness when he said, “can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  Nathanael was described by Jesus as a model citizen, the kind of person we would think deserved to be called to some kind of holy ministry.  He’s special, he’s honest, he’s transparent.  And yet, he’s not mentioned again other than that he was in a group that saw the resurrected Jesus.  He didn’t write any books, he didn’t found any churches, he didn’t go on any missions, he didn’t have any hymns written by him or about him.  This perfect paragon of an Israeli disappeared from the bible completely.

Instead, Peter with his wishy washy faith, the big stinky fisherman who denied Jesus before he died, and Paul who hunted Jesus followers down in order to lock them up and torture them, these are the people that were called to turn the world upside down with.  Once again, the perfect people, the beautiful people, the people who had in their yearbook “most likely to succeed” were not the ones God turned to.  God called the ones who didn’t know their own potential, ones with self-doubt and insecurity.

God called, in other words, people like you and me.  Flawed, imperfect, impatient humans.  God still calls us because God knows us and wants to be in relation with us just as God once had a relationship with Adam and Eve.  God sees us just as we are, as beautiful creatures that can share love and hope and joy to everyone we meet.  God calls us to share our light of hope in daily acts of random kindness, to stranger and family alike.  God calls us to tiny acts and large acts alike.  May we have the courage and the faith to trust that God calls us because God sees us as we really are!

Whose sign is it anyway?

Remember when almost three years ago, we couldn’t find toilet paper anywhere, for love or money?  Or the great sugar shortage of 2023?  Or how people were dumping ice buckets on their heads for charity? Or when people were learning how to make sourdough bread?  We jump on bandwagons at the drop of a hat.  We look for trends like adopting pets we don’t know how to take care of, or washing our floors with laundry detergent, or jumping into icy waters on January 1^st.  And we look for people we can trust, who will tell us what to do and how to do it.

We look for role models, heroes, signs, or coincidences.  We look for people who will do our thinking for us so we can relax and follow along.  We don’t always know how to pick the leaders and heroes that are good for us.  History is full of people who followed cult leaders or elected dangerous individuals into positions of power, like Hitler, Mao Zedong or Mussolini, to name a few.  History is also full of great leaders, like Gandhi who freed India from Colonial Rule, Churchill who inspired resistance to Hitler, Martin Luther King Junior, or here at home people like Terry Fox or Christ Hatfield.  They did courageous things and inspired others to do similar acts of courage and leadership.

Our challenge, as ordinary humans, without superpowers or magical wands or tricks up our sleeves, is to learn if we are following leaders who are leading from their own need for power and control or leading from a passion to do better by the people who need them.  How do we figure out if we should be protesting for carbon taxes or against them, for a provincial pension or against it, for SOGI or against it for Israel or for Palestine or any other hot button topics bound to rise up in 2024?  And what about those of us who don’t get caught up in news stories?  Should we support Aunt Matilda or Anty Becky in the dispute over Great Grandma’s silver teaspoon?  Should we soak our feet in rice to lose weight like that commercial on Facebook?

The ancient Hebrew people were caught up in a similar problem.  They jumped on the bandwagon of wanting to have a king like all the other countries did.  It’s hard to tell from the biblical narrative if this longing for a king was like trying to keep up with the Joneses when they get the latest virtual reality equipment, or if it was more of a political move for survival.  The prophets predicted that the people would stop putting their trust in God and start putting their trust in the men who wore the shiny gold crowns, which was pretty much what happened.  In fact, that’s probably why Psalm 72 was written.  It’s a description of what the prophets and the poets and the priests and the ordinary people like you and me hoped they would get in their kings.  They didn’t have movie stars or Taylor Swift to admire and emulate.  All they had were kings and they had all turned out to be disappointing.  Even beloved David wasn’t perfect, Saul had frightening mood swings were, and Solomon seemed wise enough but his choice in wives caused trouble and his son was not accepted by many as the new king, which led to a divided country.   As a side note for you science fiction fans, the split away group became known as the 10 lost tribes of Battlestar Galactica fame.

So, when the psalmist describes the kind of king they want, that description comes from first-hand experience.  They want a ruler who will promote fairness, protection, and prosperity.  A king that will put the interests of the weak on equal footing with the powerful, and that will be so honorable, so just, so capable and so kind that people will come from around the world with presents to show their respect.

Matthew would have been familiar with this scripture when he wrote his Gospel.  He had no shepherds watching flocks and no census to tell us about.  He looked at psalms like this one, and the story of Moses whose life was in danger because of the ruler of the day, Pharaoh, threatening to kill male babies.  He drew connections between the scriptures and stories his people already knew to the stories of the new Messiah Matthew had met and learned from. Jesus was the kind of leader, who like Moses, grew up to challenge state powers and leaders to account for how they treated the powerless.  Jesus threatened the leadership of people like Herod Matthew did not see Herod or his sons or Caesar as the promised ruler people were seeking.  Matthew wanted to highlight the kind of king he saw Jesus, one so inspiring, so kind, so powerful in his gentleness and his focus on God, that Matthew hoped to inspire his readers to leave everything behind as the Magi did. Unlike our society that loves trends and fads and tictoc videos, Matthew challenged his people to think about what kind of leader they wanted, and encourage them to follow Jesus, the only king who had measured up to the wish list of psalmists and prophets alike.

The magi were bold disciples.  They left their comfortable homes and prosperous lifestyles, banded together for support, and traveled into the unknown future to an unknown place to meet an unheard of king.  Many didn’t jump on their bandwagon, certainly the scholars they got directions from did not offer to join them and show the way to Bethlehem.  But the magi continued on, past many obstacles and temptations, following the star until they found what they were truly looking for.  May we too join the camel caravan of hope, may we consult wisely, follow our stars of inspiration and travel together towards the new year full of fairness, boldness, equality and respect.

Stinky Night, Holy Night

Ever wonder what that first night was really like?  What it would be to travel back in time to Bethlehem when everything was happening, the chaos of a baby’s birth in such a strange place in an insignificant town in a tiny remote province of the great Roman Empire?  It wouldn’t have been as pretty as a Christmas card, that’s for sure.  The mom and dad were wandering from place to place, looking for a roof over their heads for the night and not even finding a tent to keep the snow off.  No cell phone to find an Air BNB either.  The desperation Joseph felt searching for somewhere safe, the frustration Mary had, and maybe fear of having to go through an ordeal she had never personally experienced before, and to do it far from her family and community, is not what we talk about when we think of the first Christmas.

And the stink would not have been mentioned either.  Animals kept indoors will do what animals do.  No litter boxes back then, no paper training or air freshener there.  No toilet paper either.  All the time travel novels don’t mention that the hardest part of going back in time would be the smells because our plumbing systems and soap for personal hygiene didn’t become popular or affordable until the crusades!  

We don’t think about stinks and spirituality combining, and yet isn’t that the picture we see when we look deeply at a Christmas card?  A holy baby, glowing with a special radiance, right beside the animals, the cows and sheep and donkeys and camels and probably a few rats as well, hiding in the hay.  That is the scandal of the Christmas message.  The scandal that when something so special, so unusual, so surprising, so hopeful comes into our world, that you would think belongs in palaces or beautiful places, that’s not where it comes.  It comes into our messy everyday lives even in the midst of chaos and confusion.  We may be living the stress of finding a place to live, or the frustration of feeling out of control of our world.  We may be living in the fear of what may happen next, of politics being done to us rather than with us, of decisions being made far away that will impact our daily lives.  All these frustrations and fears and anxieties were present in Mary and Joseph’s world.  They knew war and hunger and strife.  They lived in a land where they had no vote, where the only police were the occupying army, and where there was only justice and law for wealthy Roman Citizens.  Into this time of uncertainty, a baby was born.  He grew up to be a man of such extraordinary ideas and incredible vision that his followers wrote stories to try to put into words all that he meant to them.  In a time when very few people had the skills and knowledge to read, never mind write, this would have been astonishing.  More writing was done about Jesus than any other person until that time.  Writing was also for keeping track of records or sending instructions and was expensive.  Hard-working peasants who had to work to keep from starving, were not going waste their precious time or money to get someone to write down their memories of some guy they knew, any more than they had time to take a bath with a bar of soap.  

And yet this man turned their world of fear, anxiety, hopelessness, and conflict on its head, so much so that they wrote that on the day he was born, the first good news was that humanity was not to be afraid, that there were tidings of great joy.  This surprising message of hope was delivered to the stinkiest place in town, a stable full of animals and homeless refugees.

We need tidings of great joy.  We may have soap and sanitizers and air fresheners, but our souls, our character, our thoughts may be needing a thorough scrubbing.  What would it look like if we could hear those words of the angels with fresh ears, “be not afraid” in ways that gave us life and energy?  These words have inspired great change and great hopes.  Where would Gretta Thunberg be if she let fear hold her back?  Where would Barack Obama be if he let fear hold him back?  Where would Mother Theresa have been if she had let fear hold her back?  Where would Volodymyr Zelensky be if he let fear hold him back? 

In 1961, Dr. Howard Thurman wrote: The symbol of Christmas… is the brooding Presence of the Eternal Spirit making crooked paths straight, rough places smooth, tired hearts refreshed, dead hopes stirred with the newness of life. It is the promise of tomorrow at the close of every day, the movement of life in defiance of death, and the assurance that love is sturdier than hate, that right is more confident than wrong, that good is more permanent than evil. And from a German prison during World War 2, Dietrich Bonhoeffer said: “Human beings are dehumanized by fear but we should not be afraid.”  Living fearless compassionate lives changes the world for the better.

The surprise of the Bethlehem story is that the strength to live fearless lives comes even in the strangest, stinkiest places, and if it comes in a manger, that surprising gift of hope will come even into our lives no matter how chaotic or painful, like the most gloriously surprising song of angels and shepherds, cows and sheep.  Thanks be to God for this wonderful Christmas present, given freely to us all! Amen.