Courage at Christmas

Three hundred years after Jesus, a man posed an experiment. His name was Augustine and he wrote this experiment down in a book. People would read this book and ask themselves this question for hundreds and hundreds of years. The dilemma would shape our understanding of God and of how we are saved. This is the experiment:

Imagine that God offers you a deal. God offers you everything: power, pleasure, wealth, honor, freedom, even peace. Nothing will be a sin, nothing will be forbidden or impossible for you. You will never be bored and you will never die. And there is only one condition...if you accept all this, you will never see the face of God.

What would you choose? Would you choose to live your life comfortably and pleasurably for all eternity and never see God's face? Would you?

You see, ever since we fell from God's grace, we have suffered. And the only way back to God, the only way to be saved is to move through suffering and even death. There is no other way to God but through the cross, through pain. And there is nothing that we are more afraid of than pain except perhaps death.

When my father-in-law found out that he had cancer, I don't know how scared he was but we were sure scared. For one thing, he had to shave his head. We all cried together in the hotel room that day. Everything seemed so unknown. I didn't want him to feel pain. I did not know what to say, what the future might hold.

I remember vividly how my husband walked into the bathroom to help his father shave his head. They ran the water in the sink. My father-in-law sat down in a chair in front of the mirror and his son stood behind him. My father-in-law took off his shirt. So did my husband.

"What are you doing, son?" he asked.

"Dad, I can't make this cancer go away but I can be there with you. I am here with you, every step of the way."

And my husband began to shave his head.

The Middle East is exploding. Egypt is burning. Syria is suffering. There is starvation and deprivation all over the world. People are homeless on the streets of Jacksonville and there is talk of a financial cliff. But all this did not touch us directly. It was hard but it was far away or it might not happen or it was the pain of unfortunate people whose lives were somehow different than ours.

But then, a young man walked into an elementary school with guns and shot children as they cried and cowered in a corner. He shot teachers, principals, counselors, little blond girls who were just learning to read, a disabled boy, a playful first-grader, and he looked like any of us. He could live right down the street from our schools from our children. We try to make sense of it, but no one can even begin to imagine any kind of mental illness that could take you that far into evil. No one can even begin to understand why. This is our country. This is our backyard. And we are afraid. That little town in Connecticut had no idea that horror was about to visit them. They had no idea. And neither do we.

Mary was so young. She was only 13 or 14. She had never had a baby before but I'm sure she knew that many women died that way. Giving birth was dangerous, it could be deadly. When we are afraid, we long for familiar settings, for something we know. But Mary had no idea where she was. She had never traveled this far away from home. This was the land of her husband's ancestry. This was Bethlehem. And she didn't have a home.

She could feel the pains coming. They couldn't find a room. She must have felt her fear mounting. Where could she have this baby? How could they stay warm? Would they all die?

The Romans could kill Jews for no reason. King Herod was paranoid and afraid of the coming of a Jewish Messiah. The land was tense, it was about to explode with violence. And Mary was bringing a baby into all this mess.

Mary was afraid. To be human is to be afraid. We do not know how we got here, we do not know when we will die. We dont know why God made us exactly as we are and we dont know when God will take us home. When someone is dying, I tell them that it is so much like birth. You never know when it might happen.

We are not in control of our lives. And we are afraid, deep down inside, afraid of what we do not understand. So we numb ourselves with routines and schedules and comfort foods and rituals and belongings, pretending that we do have control, that our lives are up to us, but the truth is that we are fragile. This entire earth teeters in a balance between good and evil and we never know what is coming next. No matter how much we plan and save, we do not know know what will happen tomorrow.

What does a mother do when her baby cries out in the night, afraid of the darkness? She goes to the child. She is there with the baby. She cannot make the night go away, she cannot make the darkness go away, but she can stand there with that child in the midst of the darkness.

That is why God became human tonight, because we were afraid. Because we still are afraid and we live in a broken world, where we do not know what will happen next. We do not know when a man will walk into our schools with a gun and kill our children. And so Jesus came, not to fix it all, for we must try to do that ourselves, but just to be with us.

And Mary, on that holy night, did not give into her fear. She lived for something more than that. She entered into the pain and the darkness and brought Christ into it and that is what we are called to do.

It is OK that you are afraid. I am too. It is OK to be lonely or sad or frightened. Mary was too. Don't try to erase your fears by drinking or getting really mad or trying too hard to control everything. Just be scared. Let fear knock on your door. But don't let it have the last word. It did not have the last word on that holy night you know, and it didn't have the last word when my father-in-law had to shave his head, or even when those children died. Fear does not win the day. Church bells will ring, Jesus will come.

Do you want to see the face of God? Begin by looking at that baby and then watch him grow. Model your life on his life, do as he did. Give your life to him and you will see the face of God, you will.

Amen.

The Truth about Christmas

After Friday morning's tragedy, is there anyone here who does not believe that this world has fallen from God's grace? Is there anyone who still thinks that there is no such thing as sin or brokenness? Is there anyone who does not think that there is such a thing as evil?

Like you, I have spent the past forty-eight hours in shock and sadness and prayer. I cannot fathom how anyone could walk into a school and shoot children. It is a horror like the brutality of Nazi Germany. I cannot get my mind around it. It is the slaughter of the truly innocent.

All over Facebook and the news, people have started to try to reason and explain it. If it we only had for gun control...we should have better locks on our schools...and people have pondered how this young man must have been mentally ill as if we should be feeling sorry for him, as if we are heartless if we don't feel that way.

I know that Jesus calls us to pray for our enemies, but I have not gotten there yet. There is a time and a place to mark atrocity, to say, with every ounce of our being, that this was EVIL and WRONG and that nothing can change that. Nothing can take away the horror of this event. It is a scar that will mark us forever. There is no understanding it, no justifying it, no reasoning can approach it. It is...horror.

I overheard a man in a store say, "Yeah, and all this happened at Christmas! It just wrecks Christmas!"

We have tried so hard to makes Christmas into a sweet and fuzzy holiday, compete with pretty wrapping paper and snow covered hills. We do with Christmas what we do with Christianity and with Christ himself, we domesticate them and try to use them as comfort blankets. But Christ cannot be tamed. The event of the incarnation was not a fairytale.

Remember that Jesus came into a world where King Herod was killing babies. Remember that he was born in the dirt. And remember that there was a man who came before Jesus to get us ready. John the Baptist.

Into our broken world, John comes screaming. He does not tell us to get out our stockings and our decorations, he tells us that the world is about to be torn apart. Torn apart!! He likens Christ coming to an ax being laid to the root of a tree. We will all perish unless we change our lives and follow him.

To be Christian means to stand against everything that happened on Friday morning. It means to devote yourself, body, mind and soul, to serving God and to protecting the innocent. You have been baptized with the fire of the Holy Spirit. The ax is lying at the root of the tree and you must decide for yourself: are you in or are you out? Will you bear fruit for God?

Do you want to be part of a community that devotes itself to trying to help solve issues of violence? Then get on board. Do you want to teach children that they are loved by God and that, no matter what, Jesus loves them? Then join us. But don't think for one second that you can just come here on Sunday and go home and be comfortable. Because once you are baptized with fire, God has invited you into a radical new kind of life, a life in which you are no longer the first priority. God must come first. You must give of yourself, all of yourself. Your life is no longer your own, for we cannot sit still so long as tragedies of this nature continue to occur.

I know that there are many political views in this country right now, but let us not misunderstand that most good Americans are trying to stand for justice and we all want what's best for our children. Our enemies are not those who disagree with us, we have a much larger, darker, and more broken world to focus on. Let us not waste time on our political arguments and neglect the true issues that surround us.

When the crowd asks John the Baptist what they should do to be ready, he talks all about money and stuff. Give up your extra cloak, collect no more taxes than the amount prescribed, give away food, be satisfied with your wages. Live a just and generous life. Live a just and generous life.

And focus on love. At the same time as we stand up to the horror at this tragedy, let us look to the doctors, nurses, counselors, fellow parents, teachers, firefighters and all others who are in the trenches serving and loving the wounded and the grieving. Let us remember that the world is not so full of darkness that there is no light. Love is real and it is all around us.

In a moment, Father Perry will bless the marriage of two people who found one another in times darkness. Liesl was a drinker who loved parties. Paul had suffered in a terrible car accident and had been in a coma for six months. Half of Pauls brain no longer functions. Liesl saw in him a man who was struggling to be whole again. And she found peace in loving him and helping him. By loving Paul, Liesl found herself again.

That is the miracle of the Christian life, that when you give your life away, God gives it back, and a much better version.

When that little baby is born in a manger, remember that you belong to Him. We are the followers of a holy child and we will strive to serve children and the poor, those less fortunate, those vulnerable and helpless- because we see that little baby within them. And he calls us every single day of our lives asking us to help make this world a better place.

Practice Awareness

About seven years ago, a cat wandered into our driveway. At least, that is what Jacob, my son, tells me. We took the cat to the vet and the vet told us that she was a fine cat. We named her Cocoa.

Cocoa was loving and sweet but she had one terrible habit. She liked to pee in the corner of the living room. What a horrible stench! I ran to the grocery to stock up on cleaning supplies but she would not stop.

One evening, Jacob called me to my bedroom. He had cocoa on her back, happy and purring. He pointed to a distinctly male looking private part.

"Mom, what is that?" he asked.

"Jacob, the vet said that cocoa was a girl."

"Well, then what is that?"

"I have no idea..." I said.

Jacob called his dad in and JD too reiterated that the vet told us she was female. JD too had no idea what that thing was.

Finally, out of desperation and now convinced that the stench in our house would prevent anyone from coming the visit again, I returned to the vet.

"Oops!" he said. "Actually Cocoa is a boy. And he needs to be neutered. That will stop the spraying."

So we had Cocoa neutered. And now we call him THE COCONATOR.

And we no longer go to that vet.

What is Advent? The word means The Coming. It is the four week period before Jesus comes into the world. It is four weeks of waiting. Advent has everything to do with how we see the world and whether or not we are really awake and looking at life itself.

You see many of us live our lives without really looking at each moment with an open heart and mind. We think that we know how our lives should proceed, so we live mostly unconsciously, unaware of God's ever-changing presence around us.

While the rest of the world rushes on with their Christmas carols and jolly songs, ancient Christians used to pause and wait. They would read stories from the Old Testament, stories that promised that a Messiah would come to save then and adopt them as His own. They would hold onto those stories for dear life. They would look up, expecting that, at any moment, Christ could walk through the door and call them home. It was a wholly different way of living.

To wait in this life means to admit that you do not belong here. It is to admit that you find this world beautiful and meaningful but that it is not home, that we don't belong here, that we are waiting for something better. We wait for a place where there is true peace, where we can see God face to face.

Many of us don't realize that we are waiting until our bodies begin to fail. Once our bones begin to crumble or our heart is weakened, we begin to wonder of God might have something more complete in mind for us, a place without pain or hunger. To be a Christian means to wait.

I have begun to believe that the quality of our awareness is as important as faith itself. I would not ask a person, "Are you saved?" as much as I would ask them, "Are you awake to God's presence?"

Are you waiting for a day when you can see God face to face? Are you waiting for a kingdom in which there is no hunger or fear or poverty or suffering? Do you long for that? If you do long for it, how do you wait?

Christian waiting is not passive. We don't simply believe that Christ will come and rescue us. Jesus was quite specific when he told us that we must be alert, that his coming will happen quickly. We must practice awareness of his presence now if we are to run into his arms in the day to come.

There is nothing that puts us to sleep more than our own business. We plan out our days and schedule everything. We know exactly what each moment is supposed to look like. And we no longer see anything.

That is why we must practice awareness. It is essential, in this day and age, to schedule time with God alone. Sit down alone and listen for God. Picture Christ walking towards you. Read scripture. Like physical exercise, the heart must be trained to unburden itself of worries and distraction if we are to be alert to Christ's coming. You must practice your faith daily by praying, by listening to God. It is imperative.

Carinette is just one of fifty-seven dark-skinned, bright-eyed, Creole-speaking children who live at the orphanage in Haiti. She is seven. She eats mainly rice and beans. She plays with the rest of the kids. She sleeps under a tin roof with the other girls. She hears the Haitian rain pounding on the tin roof at night. But she is unlike all the other children. Carinette has been adopted.

Carinette's parents came to meet her. They are Americans who raised three children and decided to adopt another. They came giving her a bear, photos of their family, cookies and granola bars. She stored the teddy with the director so it wouldn't be ruined (toys don't last that long at the orphanage). She shared the granola bars and cookies. And she walks about clutching the pictures. Her parents had to return to the States to finalize the paperwork. They should come for her in a month, maybe two. So Carinette lives looking up. She is awake and alert. She has a home and they are coming for her. It could be any moment and she will be going home.

That is how we Christians must live, just like Carinette. We must cling to the pictures that we have been given, the stories from Scripture, the promises that Jesus made. We must be alert and awake, for we do not belong here. Our Lord is coming to take us home. What kind of pictures can you carry with you to remind you to look for the coming of Christ? Can you practice daily thanking God? Can you sit alone in silence? Can you watch the sun rise every morning and strive to really see it?

Be on guard that your hearts are not weighed down, Jesus says, or that day will catch you unexpectedly.
Practice awareness. It is the only way.