What Is Your Name?

Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; when  you walk through fire you shall not be burned….  I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel,  your Savior. – Isaiah 43.1-3

Not until the twentieth century did Americans become particular how they spelled their names.  When Johann Steinbrecher arrived from Prussia at the ports in Philadelphia in 1753, it would only be another generation before his last name was changed by his children to Stonebraker. German immigrants of the 18th century were usually pretty quick to make their names sound “English.”  Muller became Miller, Klein became Kline and so forth.

It wasn’t just the owner of a name that might have changed a spelling, either.  Sometimes a clerk in an immigration office or a census taker standing on the front porch of a farmhouse spelled out a name how it sounded to his ears.   So until the early decades of the last century, it didn’t seem to matter how a name was spelled as long as somebody got counted for something and it was close.  These days, we are quick to correct misspellings of our name. But it has not always been so.

Those who work on their family history (as I do)  get used to this historical ambivalence. You have to look for variants in spelling all the time. Because if you don’t account for all the ways a name might be spelled, you’ll miss a connection.  And that is really what you’re looking for after all – connections.   It’s the bloodline connections you’re really after, more than any particular spelling.  You want to know who belongs to whom and who brought you to where you are today.

In the middle of the sixth century BC, the people of Israel had fallen on hard times. Israel had long ceased to be a nation. Judah was languishing in exile. Even Babylon itself – where the Jews had been living for years – was on the cusp of being overtaken by Cyrus, the upstart King of Persia.  The future looked bleak and the faithful of God’s people wondered who they belonged to.  They tried to remember they belonged to God, but it didn’t feel like it.

In the midst of their despair the prophet Isaiah wrote encouraging words to them.  He told the people that neither the waters of rivers nor the flames of fires would harm them. God was still God, their creator and their redeemer. He would bring them home.  God would care for his people because they belonged to him, they carried his name and he was not going to forget them. His words were: Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. (43.1)

It would not be long before the people were, in fact,  returned to Jerusalem. That God knew their “name” was the people’s connection to God. He had not forgotten them even though they lived, for a while, far from home.

God always knows where we are and how we are doing, too. It does not matter how far from “home” we are. Whether sickness or family discord, financial strains or even our own sins, his love is what connects us to him. His name is Love and we are his family. He will bring us home. 

I have called you by name; you are mine. – Is. 43.1.

– KDS

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What’s In Your Woods?

Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. — Philippians 4.8

My Texas daughter and her family recently moved into a new home in the Piney Woods of East Texas.  Behind the house is a good-sized section of undeveloped land, full of trees and bushes.  When I was there this past New Years day, some of us put on our coats and took the three kids on a hike to explore what might be there.

We didn’t find anything more dangerous than the occasional briar or thistle.  But when we had walked back far enough so that we could no longer see the house, my five year old grandson, Ben, asked his dad if there were any polar bears in the woods. His dad said, no, there are no polar bears in the woods.  To which Ben replied, in his best Protector-of-the-Hearth voice, “Well if there were any polar bears, or even brown bears, I’d fight them.”  And he put up his fists to show how serious his intentions were.

His four-year old sister, Eleanor, the family’s self-appointed Lover of the Arts, said in response, “And if there are any fancy girl bears who like to dance, I will dance with them.”  Ben thought the idea of dancing bears in the deep, dark woods was silly and said so: “There aren’t any fancy girl bears who dance in the woods, Ellie.”  To which Eleanor said matter of factly, “There are in my woods.”

To say that I am pleased at the support which my daughter and her husband give to their children to be creative would be an understatement. In Ben’s woods, there is ursine adventure and the opportunity for courage.  In Ellie’s woods is always the possibility of an elegant ball and the chance to dance.  And if you don’t like your sibling’s woods, well, you can make one of your own.

They have a TV in the house, but it’s not on very often. (And no one complains.)  What they do have is a table in the dining room that is always stocked with paints and markers and paper and paste. (An abundance of the color pink is present for Princess You-Know-Who.) There’s glitter and stickers and crayons and play dough. And in the living room, the floor is regularly covered with Legos in the middle of which usually sits the family’s bear fighter making yet another starship. (He travels easily between worlds.)  The kids have their own bookshelf and it is full, if not always tidy.

I don’t think my grandchildren are unique in having lively imaginations. (I am trying hard to set aside my own biases here.) Although their home life of a stay-at-home mom and limited television exposure probably is uncommon, they are not alone.  Most kids, I think, are inventive if you create for them not only the freedom to be creative, and give them the tools to do so, but you give them the right things to think about, too.

Which brings to mind the Apostle Paul’s exhortation to train one’s mind to think about the right sort of things:  Whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable – think about these things, he said.  That the world is full of the opposites goes without saying. Still, the lives which we and our families have are the ones we have created for us and them.  What do you think about most often?  What do your kids think about?   What’s in your woods?
— KDS

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What’s New with You?

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning. – Lamentations 3.22-23

The church office got a request this morning to participate in a survey.  The surveyors wanted to know if we had started a “new worship service” within the last two years.  I was tempted to reply that, indeed, we had; in fact, we had two new worship services just this past Sunday and that we have new worship services every Sunday.  I mean, since we didn’t do the same thing as we’d done the Sunday before, they had to be new services, right?

I knew what they were looking for, of course. (And I admit I was being mildly defensive.) They wanted to know if we had tried to start a “contemporary” worship service, or if we had attempted a Saturday, Friday, Thursday…evening service or if we were doing a service in Mandarin, or if we’d started a Cowboy church, or…. Well, you know.

These are tough days for the church, the argument goes.  We’re in a fight for our lives and we had better start thinking “outside the box” of old hymns, old choirs and old pipe organs.  The attendance in many of our mainline churches is dwindling.  We’ve got to do something new and do something now to bring in fresh members. So, we ask ourselves, “What do people want? How can we give it to them?”  People don’t want the old; they want the new. (Or so we’ve been told.)

As if what is new is always better than what is old.  As if giving people what they want is the operative principle in creating divine worship.  As if evangelism is nothing more than religious marketing. And maybe more to the point, as if people who don’t know God know what their souls really need.  (“If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse,” Henry Ford once explained about his cars.)

Let it be known that I’m quite in agreement with those who think the church ought to be evangelical.  The original mission statement of every church is Matthew 28.19 and 20 and it’s still good:  “Go, make disciples; baptize and teach.”  If you think Jesus is worth listening to, you have to take that command seriously.

Still, I am not so sure that obsessively tailoring our worship services to the latest entertainment and life-style fashions (and so casually abandoning one’s own worship traditions) is what Jesus meant by going and making disciples.  It all seems so adolescent, so much like a junior-high level of insecurity, this wanting to be cool, hip and attractive – wanting to be anything beside than the geeky, awkward, fine-arts loving, potluck-competent, uniquely created and dearly-loved people that God seems to have made us to be.

It also seems beside the point.

It’s beside the point because evangelism isn’t supposed to be what we do inside the church building.  It’s what we do and how we talk at work, at school and at home. It’s how we drive our car and how we treat the waitress at the restaurant. Evangelism isn’t a program we do once a week.  It’s how we live all the time.  It’s letting our lives tell the story of how the grace of God is always new to us. If our ordinary run-of-the-mill lives don’t preach the gospel Monday through Saturday, it won’t ever matter what we do on Sunday morning, regardless of how a la mode we strive to be.

New worship services are not what the world needs to see out of us; it’s new lives, new vocabularies, new intentions, and new habits every morning.  And if the world likes what it sees in us, they’ll follow us wherever we go to church.

– KDS

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Waiting and Watching: The Two Activities of Advent

It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. – Lam. 3.26

If ever there was a season created to drive the typical  American crazy, it is Advent.  The American reputation for being driven, impatient, goal-obsessed, “let’s get it done” people is not without evidence. It’s been pointed out to us so often how much our lives revolve around instant breakfasts, ten-minute oil changes, self-help books, and microwave ovens, we hardly hear the words as a criticism.  “It’s who we are,”  we say to our critics and to ourselves.  We rarely imagine we could be any different.

If ever there was a season that Americans need more than Advent, I’m not sure what it would be.  We are a materially prosperous people – a prosperity due in no small part to our cultural task oriented-ness.  We are also a spiritually impoverished people. Far too often, if we think of God at all, it is only to include him as a partner in our own plans. And never one with a voting majority in the company.

Advent is the season of waiting and watching for God to act – two activities which are profoundly counter-cultural to our way of life.  Advent is not at all about hurrying up.  It is not about getting anything done. It’s not even about going anywhere.  It is so, as I said, un-American.

For four weeks before Christmas, we try to remember what it must have been like for Israel to nurture the hope of God’s salvation.  We try to wear the hat of a worn out, tired, hungry group of people who are at the end of all their ropes and know they need more than just a stronger army or a more vibrant economy or a new king on the throne.  We imagine what it must have been like to wait, not for a therapist or a professional coach or a consultant to help us manage our lives, but for a savior.  We try to wait, helpless as helpless can be, like they waited for God to come and do what he said he would do.  We try to imagine not our future with God in it but God’s future with us in it.

There is a lot of future-tense language in Advent.  In Isaiah we read words like these:  In the days to come, the house of the Lord will be established…. He shall judge between the nations….  They shall beat their swords into plowshares….  The wolf shall live with the lamb…. The eyes of the blind shall be opened…. And notice it’s all God’s future.  There are no plans of ours.

This is a vision of a very pleasant and comfortable future. It’s a world in which life is good for every person and every creature.  Advent language is all about a world where justice and health is second nature and God is on the throne of government.  It’s a place where the metals of industry are shaped into tools for life and not for death.  Above all, it is a universe of divine order and all living creatures know and are content in their unique place.

The hope of Advent was fulfilled in the Babe of Bethlehem, of course.  God did keep his promise.  Jesus is the reason why we ought to trust God for anything else he has promised, too.  He did it then and he will certainly come through for us again.

Advent probably makes sense only to people who know they need God more than anything else. It won’t work for those who want God sometimes, to help on some projects, or to be present in some places.  But for those who know they need a Savior, it’s a great time of the year.  The watching and waiting are, well, just what God’s people are supposed do.
– KDS

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Turn Around and Give Thanks

Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean?  But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” – Luke 17.18

Earlier this summer, I went to church with about a hundred and fifty prisoners at the state prison in Mansfield.  I knew the preacher would be good.  We had arranged for Rev. Zan Holmes to guest preach that Sunday as a way of closing out another successful year teaching two classes of Disciple Bible Study.  Rev. Holmes did not disappoint.

I wasn’t ready for the music, though.  The musicians were all inmates.  The instrumentalists and singers – about ten total — were as good as any you might hear elsewhere.  It was loud, it was lively, and it was all praise to God – a remarkable experience of worship.

I remember one song, in particular; the chorus went something like this:  You didn’t have to wake me up this morning, but you did Lord. And I praise you Jesus…. We sang that line over and over and as I looked around that cinder block room – a dozen-dozen blue shirted men standing, singing, clapping – I thought, “You’d never know we were here.  These guys mean what they’re singing about. They are happy to be alive right now and they are not shy about are giving their praise to Jesus.”  I was humbled.

Once upon a time, Jesus healed ten lepers on a trip he took with his disciples to Jerusalem.  Somewhere between Samaria and Galilee, ten men – ten social outcasts, sick in body and sick in soul – called out to him as he passed by. “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us,” they called out.   Luke describes sparingly what then happened:  When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed.

The story’s center, however, has to do with one leprous man (a Samaritan, it is noted) out of the ten who, after initially walking away, turned around and said, “Thank you.”  Actually Luke wrote that he “[Praised] God with a loud voice” and fell down in thanksgiving in front of Jesus.  To which Jesus noted to his disciples, Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?

It’s just a guess on my part, but if that once-leprous Samaritan could have sung, You didn’t have to wake me up this morning, but you did Lord. And I praise you Jesus, he would have.  He turned around to face Jesus and gave thanks for his healing.

He wasn’t the only one cleansed of disease, Luke tells us – the others walked away just as clean. But he was the only one who turned around and gave praise to the healer.  And Jesus observed it with rhetorical questions, “Is he the only one who was healed? Where are the other nine?”

Jesus knows we all need blessings to get through life.  It’s a hard world and we need as much of God’s assistance as we can get. He blesses and wants in return only the recognition that they are just that: blessings.  Not earnings, not entitlements. Blessings.

Not a day goes by that we all shouldn’t be saying thanks for one more day to know the goodness of God.  He didn’t have to wake us up this morning, either. But he did.

— KDS

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The Slow, Sure Path to Faith

Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”— John 20.27

My heart goes out to Thomas, really it does.  Excepting Judas Iscariot, who was the cause of his own problems, no disciple among the original twelve has more often been censured than he.  All because he hesitated to believe the other disciples’ story of Jesus’ resurrection.

John the evangelist says that Thomas told the other disciples, “I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side.”  (Jn. 20.25 NLT)  A week later, Jesus showed up in bodily form to Thomas and let him do exactly what he’d asked for.  Thomas then believed: “My Lord and my God!”

It should be noted that Jesus made a point to caution Thomas about making a virtue of his skepticism.  Those who believed without seeing were blessed as well, Jesus said.  Still, one ought to notice that Jesus does not criticize Thomas (as we often do) for demanding empirical evidence.  Indeed, he honors it.  Thomas’s humble, skeptical mind is not grounds for dismissal from the club of disciples.

As I said, my heart goes out to Thomas.  It’s not easy to have a brain that is so demanding of proof and more proof for what seems such an easy thing to believe by others.  We have usually chalked up Thomas’ doubts to a lack of faith and too much trust in his own intellect.  But Jesus’ response to him implies we ought not to be so quick to judge.  His brain was wired differently than the others and Jesus graciously and patiently accommodated him.

I’d also like to think that Thomas’s reluctance to believe the story of the resurrection was as much the reaction of a broken heart as anything else.  Here was a man who had fallen in love with Jesus, who had left behind his occupation and who had given himself to the discipleship of one he considered the Savior of the world.   Then he saw his master cruelly and unjustly killed.  Just like that, his hopes were gone.  He saw the cross and he witnessed Jesus die.  For a man who demands sensible proof to believe anything, he had it in spades.  His ears and eyes told him more than he wanted to know: Jesus was gone.  And his brain told him it was time to move on.

So when the other disciples came with their crazy, fantastical story of Jesus alive again, Thomas wanted nothing to do with it.  “Don’t get my hopes up again,” he could easily have said.  “My heart can only take so much disappointment.  Forget you ever knew me. I’m going back to my old life.  It wasn’t as exciting as the last three years have been, but it didn’t hurt as much, either.”

But Jesus didn’t forget Thomas.  He sought him out and told him to take his time examining the evidence.  And when he did, Thomas found his faith and his love again.  It wasn’t just Jesus who came back from the dead.  Thomas did, too.

— KDS

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Clear, Well-aged Wine and Choice Beef

In Jerusalem, the Lord Almighty will spread a wonderful feast for everyone around the world.  It will be a delicious feast of good food, with clear, well-aged wine and choice beef. – Isaiah 25.6 (NLT)

Among the images in the Bible of the reign of God is a feast to which the lovers of God are invited.  Isaiah wrote of it.  (See above.)  The history of Israel is memorialized with various feasts to celebrate the acts of God.   Jesus spoke of it in a number of parables (MT 22, for instance).  And then there is the great wedding banquet at the end of time in Revelation 19.

The Bible is rather fond of the idea of people eating and enjoying company together.  The first miracle Jesus performed was changing water into wine for no better reason than to keep a wedding reception from ending early.  The last time Jesus and his disciples were together before the crucifixion was to eat the Passover meal.

After the resurrection, Jesus showed himself to his disciples when he broke bread with them in Emmaus and again, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he greeted them with freshly grilled fish and bread.  Even the church’s most regularly performed sacrament is about a meal shared.

Yet so often those of us in the church consider our fellowship with one another as little more than a fringe benefit – a nice occasional bonus to the more important duties of service and blessings of salvation.  Of course the forgiveness of sins, the sanctification of life, the call to mission and evangelism and the promise of eternal life are not unimportant.  Not at all.  These are vital parts of the good news we preach and live.

But I have to tell you – all these biblical references to the people of God enjoying feasts and eating together have got me to wondering if we’ve missed something really important, theologically speaking.

I mean, there are more than just a few passages in scripture about this stuff.  The most important things God ever did on our behalf are virtually always marked – and often directed by a command from God – with a celebration of fellowship and good food.

If we took this as seriously as I think the Bible has taken it, we ought to be having supper every time we go to Bible study. We ought to close every Sunday morning service in the fellowship hall with another potluck dinner.  And Administrative Board meetings?  Well, if Isaiah had his way, there’d be vintage wine and aged steaks sitting on top of the treasurer’s report.

I find it hard to believe I’m actually writing this.  We church people are known for eating well.  But – correct me if I’m wrong – we still think of fellowship as something other than central to our discipleship and witness.  I’m not so sure this is right. Our reputation exceeds our practice and our theology.  Maybe we ought to be offering cooking classes for Sunday School.  At the very least, we ought to be eating together more.

So, how do you like your steak? Another glass of wine, perhaps?  We have an abundance to celebrate, you know.

P.S.  For a great take on the marriage of food, family, and Christian fellowship go see Fr. Leo Patalinghug’s cooking website, Grace Before Meals.   http://www.gracebeforemeals.com/

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Joy-to-Stuff Ratio

Then [Jesus] said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.
— Luke 12.15

Jesus told a story about a farmer who produced more than he could use.  When the harvest came, the man tore down his old small barns and built bigger barns to store the excess.  His plan was to store enough  so he would not have to work again for a while.  “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry,” he said to himself.  (v. 19) But the man died not long after and he never got to enjoy his wealth.  So, watch yourself, Jesus said – “a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

Writer and university professor, Donella Meadows, coined the phrase “joy-to-stuff ratio” when she wrote about a group of people in Oregon who had left behind their stressful, high-salaried, New York City professional lives and moved to live more simply together on a farm.  These new farmers were learning how to live frugally, she wrote, because they wanted to live a more meaningful life than the one they had before.  They had already found out that more money for more stuff didn’t work out to more happiness.  So they decided to do something about it. And they changed the way they looked at their money and their possessions.

As she explained, “You’re not really spending money when you spend money….  You’re spending the life energy you put into earning that money. You only have so much life energy. What do you want to use it for? Commuting? Shopping sprees? Going for walks? Playing with your children? Serving your community? Taking that question seriously does wonders for one’s joy-to-stuff ratio: decreasing stuff, increasing joy.”

Then she added, “To be frugal means to have a high joy-to-stuff ratio.  If you get one unit of joy for each material possession, that’s frugal.  But if you need ten possessions to even begin registering on the joy meter, you’re missing the point of being alive.  Frugality is not too much, not too little, but just right… It’s that magic word – enough.”

Joy-to-stuff ratio:  it’s a good Lenten idea.  Lent is the season for being serious about the things that really matter. It’s not about giving up everything – just the cheap, unnecessary things that attach us too strongly to the world.  It’s remembering that we’re made of dust and we’re going to return to dust.  It’s living in the present as if eternity matters even more.

Loving Jesus more and the world less is how you become free to enjoy the truly satisfying things that come from God: things like family, friends, useful service, and love for creation.  What is your joy-to-stuff ratio?  How much stuff does it take to make you happy?  The message of Lent is that it shouldn’t take much – just enough.
–KDS

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The Village Well

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” – John 4:7

John’s gospel (Ch. 4) tells of a meeting which Jesus had with a woman in Samaria, in the village of Sychar.  He and his disciples were passing through the region on their way to Galilee.  While the disciples went looking for food to eat, Jesus rested himself by the community water well.  It was at this well that Jesus met her.

He asked her for a drink of water because, we read later in v. 11, he didn’t have anything to get the water out from the well and she apparently did.  She was surprised at his request, explaining that he was Jew and she was a Samaritan woman. (John parenthetically and helpfully adds cultural context:  “…Jews do not associate with Samaritans.”)  Still, he engaged her in a conversation which eventually led to the deeper and spiritual matters of “living waters” which Jesus offered to her.  From this conversation came the famous words, “Everyone who drinks this (earthly) water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the (spiritual) water I give him will never thirst….the water I give will become …a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (13-14)

By the time we get through chapter four, we have read that the woman was so affected by Jesus that she told her whole neighborhood about him.  They in turn came out to meet him and they, too, came to believe that he was “the Savior of the world.”  (42)

It’s one of my favorite stories in the gospels.  It’s a story about a conversion (conversions, actually) that rises to no higher entertainment level than a simple conversation between two people.  Jesus initiated it, of course, with a straightforward request about water.  But from there on, anything Jesus said about spiritual or moral matters was only in response to the woman’s desire to know more:

Q. Why are you talking to me?
A. I’m not like other men.
Q. Where does living water come from?
A. Me.
Q. Can I have some?
A. Sure. Go get your husband and he can have some, too.

And so on.

My all-time favorite book title about sharing one’s faith is Bill Hybels’ Just Walk Across the Room.  You don’t have to read the book to know what it’s about.  It’s worth reading, though, but the title sums up all 200+ pages.   Sharing your faith with others doesn’t have to begin with any more complicated a maneuver than being willing to walk across a room (or resting at the town water source) and saying hello to somebody you don’t know, or don’t know very well.  Then you let God and they do the rest.

If they want to know more, they’ll ask. But you don’t force a response. It’s not about making a sale right now or memorizing the Four Spiritual Laws before you get there. It’s being sensitive enough to somebody else’s insecurity that you’re willing to be something they didn’t expect, viz. friendly, unprejudiced, and authentically interested in them as a person.

Been to any village wells lately?
— KDS

The Village Well

Pastor’s Word

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus
said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” – John 4:7

John’s gospel (Ch. 4) tells of a meeting which Jesus had with a woman in Samaria, in the village of Sychar.  He and his disciples were passing through the region on their way to Galilee.  While the disciples went looking for food to eat, Jesus rested himself by the community water well.  It was at this well that Jesus met her.

He asked her for a drink of water because, we read later in v. 11, he didn’t have anything to get the water out from the well and she apparently did.  She was surprised at his request, explaining that he was Jew and she was a Samaritan woman. (John parenthetically and helpfully adds cultural context:  “…Jews do not associate with Samaritans.”)  Still, he engaged her in a conversation which eventually led to the deeper and spiritual matters of “living waters” which Jesus offered to her.  From this conversation came the famous words, “Everyone who drinks this (earthly) water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the (spiritual) water I give him will never thirst….the water I give will become …a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (13-14)

By the time we get through chapter four, we have read that the woman was so affected by Jesus that she told her whole neighborhood about him.  They in turn came out to meet him and they, too, came to believe that he was “the Savior of the world.”  (42)

It’s one of my favorite stories in the gospels.  It’s a story about a conversion (conversions, actually) that rises to no higher entertainment level than a simple conversation between two people.  Jesus initiated it, of course, with a straightforward request about water.  But from there on, anything Jesus said about spiritual or moral matters was only in response to the woman’s desire to know more:
Q. Why are you talking to me?
A. I’m not like other men.
Q. Where does living water come from?
A. Me.
Q. Can I have some?
A. Sure. Go get your husband and he can have some, too.
And so on.

My all-time favorite book title about sharing one’s faith is Bill Hybels’ Just Walk Across the Room.  You don’t really have to read the book to know what it’s about.  It’s worth reading, though, but the title sums up all 200 pages.   Sharing your faith with others doesn’t have to be any more complicated than being willing to walk across a room (or resting at the town water source) and saying hello to somebody you don’t know, or don’t know very well.  Then you let God and they do the rest.  If they want to know more, they’ll ask. But don’t force it. It’s not about making a sale right now or memorizing a number of Spiritual Laws before you get there. It’s being sensitive enough to somebody else’s insecurity that you’re willing to be something they didn’t expect, viz. friendly, unprejudiced, and authentically interested in them as a person.

Been to any village wells lately?
— KDS

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Simply Christmas

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” – Luke 2:15

In Bethlehem is the famous Church of the Nativity.  The Roman emperor Constantine’s mother, Helena, built it in the fourth century to cover and protect the site of the true manger.  The church is one of the oldest in Christendom and is a regular tour stop for pilgrims today who travel to Israel.

But it is not a particularly beautiful building.  The typical first-time visitor to the church will remark on how worn out, even dirty the place looks.  Even more, the inside of the church is a hodge-podge of devotional trappings that have been placed there over the centuries by one Christian group or another.  It’s a virtual landfill of candles, icons, tables, lamps, wires, and chains.

The reason people go to the church, of course, is to see where Jesus was born.  Inside the church, down a few narrow steps, beneath the altar, and on the floor is a fourteen-pointed silver star that marks the site.  Pilgrims pass by it, perhaps pause and kneel down, and then move on, allowing others to do the same.  In a few more minutes, everybody’s back outside, squinting in the sunshine.

I’ve been there four times and each time, someone has asked me what it’s all for. (Tradition.)  They ask, “Why can’t they clean up the place.” (Don’t know.)  Or they ask, “Is this really the place where Jesus was born?” (Probably not, but it’s close.)

When Americans go to Bethlehem, they want the simple story of Christmas – as they understand it – to be affirmed.  They want Jesus and Mary and Joseph and maybe the shepherds and a few animals. And not much more.  At the very least, they want the place cleaned up.  All the candles and lamp stands and overhead wires are confusing and detractive.  “What does this have to do with the birth of Jesus?” they ask.  I can’t say I blame them.  It’s a lot to overlook.

But as distracting as the lamps and the candles and all the chains that hold them up may be, it’s worth pointing out – before we get too uppity – that we do the same thing, in our own way, to our own Christmas.   Here, it’s not icons or lamps or chains.  But it is gift buying, card sending, party attending, house decorating, and tree trimming that do little but drive us to exhaustion and make us forget that we are commemorating the birth of Jesus, the coming of God into the world.

Really, now don’t you wonder what the neighbors must think?

Your neighbors who know you as a God-fearing, church attending Christian all the rest of the year, they look at the snow globe Santas on your lawn, hear you complain about your hectic schedule, see you pull out of your driveway heading to the store for yet another round of shopping or yet another Christmas party, and they must think, “What does any of this have to do with Christmas?  Can’t they at least clean the place up?”

We could, of course, try to explain what this and that thing are for and why we do them.   But we may never be asked.  The impression is already made.   Besides, should we have to?

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