God and Christmas

There are so many people that express their opinions about Christmas, you may wonder why on Earth do I feel compelled to put in my two cents.

Besides the “why not?” response, I realize there are many folks who have heard the handwringing that ‘Christ is being taken out of Christmas’; the anger expressed by some when not every store clerk wishes them ‘merry Christmas’ – or, worse, wishes them ‘happy holidays’; the righteous indignation when public resources can no longer be used to display manger scenes. Without an appropriate response, some are very likely to agree with those expressed sentiments.

There are so many aspects to this. There’s the historic development of establishing Christmas and the many secular / pagan traditions and symbols that were given new meaning. I could come at this from the fact that we live in a nation based on the ground-breaking, history-changing concept of having a complete separation of Church and State. But I’ll look at this from who I am as Pastor of a local congregation and as a minister of the Gospel.

Personally, I don’t think Jesus would want us to make a big deal about his birthday, regardless of what date he was actually born. But, since we do, I think it’s necessary for people who are Christian to do so in the same manner and purpose that Jesus called his disciples – including you and me.

He called them to be in community with one another. He brought people close to him by attraction, not with in-your-face belligerence. He acknowledged who people were at the place they were in life. Instead of demanding the people meet his every expectation so that he felt all warm and fuzzy inside with the threat of ignoring them if they failed to, he interacted with them on their level and in their world view.

If celebrating Christmas is about being completely self-absorbed and self-centered, then complain away. Go ahead and bellyache to the cashiers; bellow about your local government officials; blast ‘this decadent society’; because there’s something that isn’t totally to your liking. And, oh yes – I almost forgot. Announce your displeasure in such a way so the impression might be that you’re offended for Jesus.

But, on the other hand, if celebrating Christmas is about bringing glory and honor to Jesus, then live out your commitment to Jesus during the Advent season just as you would any other time of the year. Model Jesus’ attitudes and demeanor in every aspect of your life. Interact with people in such a way so that people who don’t know might say to themselves, “Was - - was that – Jesus?!?”

In my opinion, that would be the ultimate celebration of Jesus’ life. And birth.

God and Politics

Now here’s something I try to avoid. Those who have worshiped with us might say, “What?!?”

That response is understandable since many people equate speaking about an issue with speaking about politics. The distinction I make is that politicians choose to politicize an issue – either claiming it by putting their ‘brand’ on it or condemning it if the other party (their enemy) has put their ‘brand’ on it. Of course, that condemnation usually extends to that other party.

Looking at any issue through the lenses of our politicians could lead people to think there are only ever two options. And many, many Americans fall for that unspoken assumption. The result is that a person is lead to feel they are either ‘for’ the political party they have given their allegiance to – or they’re ‘against’ their party. Heavens! We couldn’t let that happen!

This brings up at least two major difficulties for me as Pastor and theologian, and another for me as a person.

As a person, I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I’m far from the dullest. And it doesn’t require a lot to realize there are (almost) always other ways to consider an issue and its ramifications than what the two dominant parties put forth. I find it a bit insulting to me that credible persons with a third (or fourth) way are treated so shabbily by politicians.

But that’s not bothersome enough to energize me to blog about it. It’s the part about me as Pastor and theologian that got me to this point.

If we spend enough time with the Old Testament Prophets and even more time in the with Jesus in the Gospels, we may discover that God has a certain way of seeing things. I am not going to say that I know how God sees things, and - please - don’t even assume that. (By the way, I would advise you to run from anyone who tells you they know how God sees things, how God thinks, etc. They would be making a claim that is totally false - and the next thing such a person might try is to tell you what God wants you to do.)

But – we can get an idea of what would be pleasing to God.

I have come to believe that God has a preferential prejudice for the poor; for those who are oppressed; for people who are taken advantage of; for those who are pushed aside with contempt. And, if I may be so blunt, it seems God has a preferential prejudice against those who piously consider themselves to be better than others; those who oppress; those take advantage of others; those who push aside others with contempt.

The message from the prophets to their power structures were all about this. And the message from Jesus to all who would hear goes even further; he takes it all personally. These words of his, “I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me,” are ignored to our peril.

Those words scream to us that God has a stake in almost everything that we do and fail to do – as individuals, as a community of believers, and as a society. I can’t think of any decisions our politicians have made that God didn’t care about.

Do I know what our politicians could do that would make God happy? No. But I do have an idea what would make God unhappy. As I see it, it’s not my job to draft legislation or write public policy. The second I would become party to such activities would be the moment I would no longer be a qualified critic of my own work.

No, my role is to stand outside of such activity and evaluate the impact our politicians’ actions will have on the poor, the weak, the beaten down, the forgotten, the lowly, and the widows and orphans. And then to ask them to go back to the drawing table.

My second objection is when people give their loyalty to a political party instead of to God. Certainly, when the rubber meets the road, we do need to decide which of the two options will be least offensive to God. But to side with an option because it’s presented by ‘your’ political party goes against everything Jesus stands for.

I also think that God does not now and will not ever side with a political party. God isn’t the one that picks sides. People are.

That’s what I think. What do you think?

God and Civility

First, I must apologize for being ‘gone’ for the last month or so. I hit a low spot and, since blogging isn’t my primary responsibility, I focused the energy I had towards my works of ministry.

Like almost everyone else, I am more than appalled over the complete lack of civility in our public discourse. Many point the finger of blame to our politicians, but the ugliness is not just confined to the halls of Congress. Talk radio, cable news, tea party gatherings – and more, I’m sure – all feel free to get into the act. It’s almost as if being vile and uncivil is the current cost of admission for those who feel the need to get attention.

Columnists, pundits, commentators, and others have expressed their opinions about the roots of this current state of affairs. Nobody really knows because people had no idea this is where we would find ourselves, in a downward spiral of mean-spiritedness. So I’m going to throw out my opinion as to the origins where we find ourselves.

First the what.

In Congress, there have always been rhetorical battles waged, with barbs being traded over ideological differences. But, for the most part, the worst of the spoken words were aimed at the ideas expressed, not at the ones expressing the ideas. That has since shifted with the attacks clearly being personal.

That is bad enough. But what made these attacks unacceptably ugly is when the attacker took aim at the spiritual nature of their adversary. When the one on attack presents themselves as being Christian, a man of the Bible, and a spiritual paragon of virtue and characterizes their adversary as being exactly the opposite, the one being attacked has no place to go. The core of their identity as a human being has been dealt a life-threatening blow. The victim is left powerless, and without a leg to stand on.

In my observations, these types of attacks were launched on a consistent basis when the Religious Right was in its ascendancy and became standard fare during the 1990s. And their lashings were relentless. Such brutality is not much different from the days when citizens were dunked or locked in stockades.

For a while, it worked to their political benefit. Their targets found it impossible to defend against the negative assaults, much less push back.

The spiritual attacks may be gone by now, but the legacy of the Religious Right lives on in the unbridled character assassinations we hear every day. It seems the only editing being done is not to tone down the rhetoric, but to ratchet it up.

To me, the worst part is that this was done to achieve power and control over others. That is to say, the ways of the world were used to achieve the goals of the world. And Christ, the one whose name we take as our own, refused to use the ways of the world or to seek the goals of the world.

I suggest the religious community take a public, bold, forceful, and unflinching stand against all personalities who engage in these tactics. Since, as I see it, this was borne from within the ‘christian’ community [I use a lower-case ‘c’ and quotes on that word, because there is absolutely nothing closely resembling the person of Christ in such conduct], it is up to the Christian community to put an end to it.

Why? We all are God’s image-bearers – even those that we do not like. Unless and until Christians are able to break their ties of loyalty to their political party or social ideology and, instead, commit them to God, the image of God and the Church will continue to carry the tarnish of the intolerance, the condemnations, and the display of non-love toward neighbor.

How each of us chooses to take such a solid stand is up to you. There will be countless opportunities for us to do so. It will not be a popular position to take, you will likely be given derogatory labels, and many will not like you. But – and this is important – you will not be crucified for doing so.

What do you think?

God and the Moon

Have you ever allowed yourself to gaze at the moon? I don't mean to glance or look; I mean let time not be an issue and allow your mind drift to wondering about that body in space and what it might be like to experience being right there, on the moon itself. I know I have.

But actually getting there isn’t such an easy task. See, much of what we’ve ‘learned’ about Earth and Moon aren’t really true; they’re approximations. For example, Earth is not perfectly round, the force of gravity at sea level is not the same worldwide. Neither Earth’s orbit nor Moon’s orbit is circular. Neither the Sun, the Earth, nor the Moon orbit in the same plane. And so forth.

Consider these. The Moon is moving away from Earth at a rate of 1 1/2 inches per year. The difference between nearest point of the Earth-Moon distance and its farthest point is about 26,230 miles. And the difference between the nearest point of the Earth-Sun distance and its farthest point is about 3.1 million miles. This means that the orbital velocities of both Earth and Moon are variable.

Earth’s axis is tilted 23.5 degrees, which makes it appear to wobble relative to the position of the Moon. The tilt of the Moon’s axis is 1.5 degrees, meaning it has a slight wobble, too – but these wobbles are not in sync with each other. Moon's orbit tilts about 5.1 degrees relative to the earth's orbit. Earth's orbital tilt relative to the Sun is 7.1 degrees.

Gravity on the Moon is about 1/6 that of Earth’s at sea level. But, the force of gravity varies from place to place, on both bodies, due to uneven distribution of mass. The Moon orbits Earth once every 27 ⅓ days relative to the stars – and once every 29 ½ days relative to the sun.

And, Earth is slightly flattened and somewhat pear-shaped.

So, what does all this stuff mean, and why should it matter to you? If all you care to do is sit back and admire the moon, it doesn’t matter one bit. All the precise ‘facts’ you’ve been taught will keep you satisfied that you have the moon figured out.

But, if you were ever interested in having a meaningful experience with the Moon – if you think you might like to be truly connected with the Moon – why, then all this (and much, much more) would be vitally important. In preparation for your encounter, you would quickly learn that there’s an awful lot more that you don’t know about the Moon than you do know. Look how long it took NASA to finally put astronauts on the moon – and bring them safely back again. Along the way, there were lots of failures.

I think it works the same with God. There are things that some people think they ‘know’ about God and are satisfied with sitting back and admiring God. They enjoy talking about what they ‘know’ and are satisfied with the belief that they have God figured out based on their collection of precise ‘facts’ about God.

But when people become interested in having a meaningful experience with God – if they truly want a vital connection with God – they have to be willing to set aside some, or all, of what they think they know about God.

If a person took a shot at going to the Moon based on their collection of precise, black-and-white ‘facts’, who knows what would become of them? And if a person thinks they’re going to be hooked up with God because they’ve got a handle on all there is to ‘know’ about God – well, who knows what might become of them? I can’t say this happens all the time, but I know some who are hard-hearted, cold-blooded, judgmental, bullies and are ready and willing to cut the legs out from under anyone who does not see things their way. Sad, really.

All I know for certain about God is that – for some strange reason – God cares enough about me that, the moment I yielded control and humbly and sincerely gave God permission to take control of my life, God was right there.

No, my life problems were not eliminated; the consequences of my actions were not short-circuited; I did not step into a wonderland of problem-free living. But – I was at peace, for the first time in years. And, I was given the inner strength, the desire, and the inspiration to slowly but surely, change the direction of my life – one step at a time.

Oh. There’s one more thing I think I know for certain. If I thought I had God figured out and knew how to get God to work for me (some refer to this as “calling the Father to action” – seriously, they do. I’m not kidding!) I’d still be languishing in the mess I had created for myself.

What do you think? What’s been your experience?

Deepwater Horizon and God

The BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has sure gotten a lot of press. And almost as much ink has been spilled about it. OK, I exaggerated a bit. But because it’s such a huge catastrophe and has yet to be brought under control, the on-going reporting and opinion-writing is a necessity. We do need to be informed – and we need to be exposed to a variety of ways of looking at the tragedy of this event.

With few exceptions, the analysis and comment all seem to focus on money. Now, money is important in our society. There’s no question about that. But it seems money has been placed at the top of the list of how all things are measured in our society. With money as our national standard for all matters, it’s fairly easy to conclude that money is our national god.

Looking at BP’s blown-out well illustrates this quite clearly. The well-documented decisions that BP managers made as they cut corners in drilling the well were based on money. The demands to keep the government out of the affairs of corporate enterprise are also based on money and also very well documented. Past efforts by government agencies to regulate private industry for safety and for environmental protection have been lampooned, ridiculed, and mocked because it “costs too much” money. And for that reason, money, regulatory laws and agencies have been gutted, ignored, or both.

The reason we continue to have an almost total reliance on oil is because of money. Secret meetings of federal government and oil industry representatives to determine long-term energy policy have resulted in continued significant subsidies to the oil industry along with the continued snubbing of R&D funding of alternative energy sources – because of money.

Although there have been environmental concerns mentioned in relation to this mess, most of them have been connected to the loss of business. Beaches will be spoiled – so tourist industry money will be lost. Fishing grounds are off-limits – so the fishing industry will lose money. Shrimp beds are being spoiled – which is costing the shrimping industry plenty of money. Supporting and related business are being devastated and losing money.

Certainly, money is important. There are hundreds of thousands – maybe millions – of families who are feeling the severe economic pain of lost jobs and damaged property. But is that all that’s been lost?

In a few conversations lamenting the damaged beaches, I thought I might hear a different value other than money or self-centeredness. As it turned out, the sadness was because they couldn’t go to their favorite beach and enjoy it.

We got to this point of being money-centered and ego-centered over several generations. Because this was a gradual process that evolved over time, it now seems like the normal way to look at things. Our entire economy and social system is built around this focus. I should hardly expect to hear anything different. And changing our system to one that would be more God-honoring would probably take a few generations. There would be, as you can surely imagine, a lot of resistance. And so we continue.

As a result, our economy puts a value of close to $0.00 on God’s created order. The only exception is when a part of Creation can be exploited to feed the profit margin of some corporate entity. But it appears that no part of Creation has any intrinsic value and, so, can be ravaged with impunity.

The odd part is that some among us assert that God has given us the “authority to dominate”, which – manipulated to suite the status quo – gives people the freedom to do as we wish. Some even claim that God would never allow us to destroy creation – that if God didn’t approve of what we were doing God would stop us. I’m not making this up.

What would it take for us to adopt a view of Creation similar to that of the Native American? What if, instead of looking at our natural surroundings and seeing endless opportunities for exploitation and making money we instead saw endless opportunities to show our respect towards all of what God has provided and to find many ways to show our gratitude? Could our needs for fuel, food, shelter, and clothing still be met? Certainly! There would probably be a lot fewer of us, and our economic system would likely be structured in such a way that the worth, dignity, health, and well-being of each and every person would have a higher value than fuel, shelter, or any other object.

And what if we would honestly believe that each person is created in the image of God – meaning, it would be obvious in how we live and relate with other persons? Would it be obvious in how we would provide for the weak and vulnerable among us? Would the attitude of “it’s mine, I earned it, I deserve it, and I’m keeping it!” still permeate society as it does today?

What do you think?

God and Baseball

I wonder about God a lot. I wonder about exactly who God is. I wonder about how God thinks about us – about me – about what our perception of God is. I wonder how much of what we think we know about God is more a reflection of who we want God to be than it is about who God really is. I guess a better way to put it is that the older I get, the less I think I know about God and the greater a mystery God is to me.

As a Christian – and especially as a pastor – I have had occasion to meet quite a few people who claim to know a substantial amount about God. Some even claim to have no questions at all, they’re that certain about what they think they know. Usually, the final claim is that their way is the only way of knowing God.

Good for them – I think. But, maybe not. [More about this in a future blog session.]

For now, I want to give this a deeper look. Talking with a person with that frame of mind is like talking with a baseball fanatic who thinks that baseball is the epitome of athletic endeavor. There may be other athletic outlets a person could engage in, but unless a person is skilled at baseball – well, they’re not a real athlete.

Starting at tee-ball, a person can learn a few things about swinging a bat. In little league, they learn a bit more – but have quite a few rule modifications to make it easy and understandable. Now, a lot of people never play beyond little league. Those who move on – Babe Ruth, Legion, high school – continue to learn more and more about the sport. There are fewer numbers of people who play at those levels – and a lot fewer who ever make it to the pros. And hardly any make it to Major League Baseball.

Most people who stopped at the lower levels continue to enjoy baseball as a spectator sport. Others become umpires, managers, owners, etc., and really, really love the game.

Imagine, though, meeting the kind of person who thinks that football players, tennis players, swimmers, golfers, etc., cannot possibly be athletes. Such a person might say there’s only way to become a true athlete and that’s to engage in the sport of their choice, not of the athlete’s choice. And, such a person may not have ever gotten beyond little league.

See my point?

What do you think? How about your experience with God? In your opinion, is God the Major League Baseball Commissioner and only cares about baseball players? Or does God really care what athletic endeavor you’re involved with? Does it feel as if it puts you out of the mainstream way of thinking about God?