The New Year us dawning. As I write this week's blog, I am looking forward just a few days to 2016. Frankly, it scares me. This post was to have been about my top ten wishes for 2016, but I find myself unable to write it. Instead, these are my top ten fears about the coming year.
In 2016, I am afraid that:
10. Politics and economics will continue to divide us. The level of name-calling, intolerance, personal attacks and outright lies that pass as truth will increase instead of diminish. We will become more divided.
9. Violence and hatred will increase, especially against Muslims, who are the coming year's enemy of choice. While it may be true that much of the violence being done around the world belongs to Muslim extremists, the key term here is "extremist" not "Muslim." It's just easier to lump all Muslims together, you know, kinda like all Christians are the same.
8. More mass killings are on the horizon. It seems so easy now for persons to take out resentment, anger, exclusion or affliction on others that killing all of "them" seems reasonable. The more divisive we become, the more I can imagine these kinds of attacks.
7. War in the Middle East is inevitable. I see no end to the extremism that we see in the Middle East, much of which we, as a nation, have caused. As the tension of the political season mounts, I can imagine greater vitriol and even sterner warnings of annihilation. I see that such threat can be used, by groups like ISIL, as a recruitment tool for extremists. The more hateful and exclusionary the rhetoric, the more the U.S. sets itself us as "the enemy."
6. People will continue to struggle and suffer here in the United States. Homelessness will continue to increase, as will food endangerment. While we increase giving to ASPCA and other animal rights campaigns, we experience a continual increase in the numbers of men, women and children who lack proper shelter, enough to eat and a living wage.
5. Body image will lead to rejection. People will increasingly be judged according to their body shape and their "fitness" capabilities. Good fitness may allow us to live longer, but we may well live by hating our own bodies and criticizing the bodies of others. Here is yet another tool for social divisiveness.
4. We will continue the trend toward individuality, away from personhood. What matters most now seems to be what an individual has to gain from something. Others are in competition with my self for goods, positions, power, affluence, success, fame and esteem. People are commodities, things to be used to attain my own ambitions. Personhood, that which ties us together as a single entity, will continue to wane.
3. Protectionism will continue to scale upward. Protectionism is personal, cultural, political, economic, and social. If I spend all my time, energy and talent on getting and protecting my things, my ways, my assumptions, I close myself off from the open experience of encountering others. I am too afraid. The experience may require a diminishing of my "stuff, " my position, my power, my time, my energy, my safety. The mind set seems to be, increasingly, "I have gotten my stuff. Let everybody else get theirs. Oh, but they can't have any of mine."
2. Gun sales will increase. Do not get me wrong. I believe that guns can be used for protection of others, as safety against destruction. Increasingly, however, we are seeing mass murder that is committed by persons who use guns to perform acts of destruction instead of defending against them. While guns are not the causal factor, their prevalence is an ever-present danger. I fear some who carry guns, precisely because they seem so eager to use them in destructive ways.
1. Churches, that could be the locus of social discourse about all these issues, will continue to shrink and disappear, mainly because they refuse to be sites of such discourse. Churches will be seen as increasingly irrelevant, institutions of archaic practice of meaningless rite, ritual and liturgy to which only the ignorant melancholy few cling.
You see, I also think that we can turn all of this around. I think that 2016 holds great promise. In order to fulfill that promise, however, the Church must alter its purpose and behavior into a means of societal and cultural change. It must stand, with Christ, for issues of social justice, world peace, the equality of every person, the inclusion of diverse ways of believing, living, thinking and being. The Church can engage community in conversation, clinging to the hope that was in Christ Jesus (and other religious, social, political, economic, civil rights and legal figures). 2016 can be watershed year, where the Church makes a grand resurgence. Or we can shrug our collective shoulders and watch our worst fears be realized.
Here's to an important, meaningful 2016!
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Monday, December 21, 2015
Christmas!
It is Christmas week. Hopefully, the shopping is done, some presents are under the tree (while others await special delivery), celebrations are planned and gatherings are scheduled. Everything is ready. We are ready for you to come into our hearts and our minds again this Christmas, O Lord.
Wait. What? You write in mixed metaphor, there, Mr. Pastor, sir. What in the world do presents, celebrations, gatherings, decorations and ugly sweaters possibly have to do with the coming of Christ Jesus into our hearts and minds? What does any of it have to do with Christ coming?
Well, let me see if I can do this without making too great a mess of it.
Why do we decorate? Why do we gather? Why do we give and receive gifts? Why all those ugly sweater parties? Is it not because we are recognizing that something of extreme importance is taking place? As with bunnies and eggs at Easter, the means of our recognitions do not necessarily directly reflect the precise meaning of the celebration. We use them to express joy. We use them to articulate our happiness. But, lacking the words and the ability to speak to the depth and scope of the celebration, we perform more secularized, mundane means of articulation. That does not mean that we take for granted or ignore the true meaning of the season. It simply means that we have found common ways to practically express that meaning.
So what about all this talk about the secularization of Christmas being an attack on its true meaning? Doesn't all the commercialization get in the way of the genuine meaning of the season?
It can, certainly. We can reduce the celebration of Christmas to gifts and families and friends and decorations and carols and "bells on bobtails ring," whatever in the world that means. We sometimes supplant the genuine reason for celebration with the means by which we celebrate. Even then, it is no attack on Christmas or on Christians. It is, in the vast majority of examples, the ignorance of honoring traditional practice without serious reflection. There are those who would never ask why we celebrate. They simply do so because it is done.
What I am getting at here is that the birth of Jesus is due cause for extreme celebration. It's okay that we have occasionally gone way overboard in our decorations, gift giving, celebrations, parties and gatherings. It is appropriate that we express the joy that we feel. Remember, however, that not everyone feels joy at Christmas. Some mourn losses. Some experience only suffering. Some feel only exclusion and rejection. If our celebrations leave them out, then the means of our enjoyment have eclipsed the meaning of the season. That is precisely why we do so much mission around the Christmas season, focused both here and abroad.
So celebrate. Have fun. Sing. Dance. Tear open those presents! Enjoy! But remember why! Remember that God's Son comes into the world, in and through us, again this Christmas season. Set aside guilt and shame for the celebration of the great good news of Jesus Christ.
Merry Christmas!
Wait. What? You write in mixed metaphor, there, Mr. Pastor, sir. What in the world do presents, celebrations, gatherings, decorations and ugly sweaters possibly have to do with the coming of Christ Jesus into our hearts and minds? What does any of it have to do with Christ coming?
Well, let me see if I can do this without making too great a mess of it.
Why do we decorate? Why do we gather? Why do we give and receive gifts? Why all those ugly sweater parties? Is it not because we are recognizing that something of extreme importance is taking place? As with bunnies and eggs at Easter, the means of our recognitions do not necessarily directly reflect the precise meaning of the celebration. We use them to express joy. We use them to articulate our happiness. But, lacking the words and the ability to speak to the depth and scope of the celebration, we perform more secularized, mundane means of articulation. That does not mean that we take for granted or ignore the true meaning of the season. It simply means that we have found common ways to practically express that meaning.
So what about all this talk about the secularization of Christmas being an attack on its true meaning? Doesn't all the commercialization get in the way of the genuine meaning of the season?
It can, certainly. We can reduce the celebration of Christmas to gifts and families and friends and decorations and carols and "bells on bobtails ring," whatever in the world that means. We sometimes supplant the genuine reason for celebration with the means by which we celebrate. Even then, it is no attack on Christmas or on Christians. It is, in the vast majority of examples, the ignorance of honoring traditional practice without serious reflection. There are those who would never ask why we celebrate. They simply do so because it is done.
What I am getting at here is that the birth of Jesus is due cause for extreme celebration. It's okay that we have occasionally gone way overboard in our decorations, gift giving, celebrations, parties and gatherings. It is appropriate that we express the joy that we feel. Remember, however, that not everyone feels joy at Christmas. Some mourn losses. Some experience only suffering. Some feel only exclusion and rejection. If our celebrations leave them out, then the means of our enjoyment have eclipsed the meaning of the season. That is precisely why we do so much mission around the Christmas season, focused both here and abroad.
So celebrate. Have fun. Sing. Dance. Tear open those presents! Enjoy! But remember why! Remember that God's Son comes into the world, in and through us, again this Christmas season. Set aside guilt and shame for the celebration of the great good news of Jesus Christ.
Merry Christmas!
Tuesday, December 08, 2015
Christ in Christmas
The post on Facebook read, "If your religion causes you to hate anyone, then you are practicing the wrong religion." I might think of that same sentiment differently. I might suggest, "If your form of Christianity causes you to hate anyone, then you are not walking with Christ."
I realize well how passionately some will reject this sentiment. I hear the contrary refrain sung every week, in politics, in the media, on the pages of editorial op/ed pieces, on Facebook and at church. I hear precisely how desperate we have become in protecting Christianity from the secular, ecumenical, unifying voice of a shared faith-in-practice. There is an attack on Christmas, I hear. Christianity is under siege, I see. We have to do something to protect ourselves from Muslims, from terrorists, from enemies of the country who would attack our way of life. I hear the call to hate and reject and exclude, to blame and to demonize.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is not a Christianity that walks with Christ. This may be a religion that is founded in Christ's name, but it is far afield from the peacemaking, loving, compassionate Jesus Christ of history and reality. This Jesus pours himself out for all people, both those like and unlike himself, Jews and Greeks, slave and free, male and female. We can extend that thought to include the poor, the homeless, the desperate, the hopeless and the rejected, expelled, excluded masses. It includes Muslims, gays, homophobes, conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats ( even Independents and Libertarians). It includes the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless, those who live in mansions and those who sleep under newspapers on our city streets. It envelopes every race, every kind, every clan, every nation, every philosophy, every ignorance, every privileged and advantaged one, every gender, every life-style, every hair color and make-up choice. It does not exclude anyone on the basis of skin color, body shape, height, weight, ability or disability. Everyone is included in Christ's love. Every one!
History is filled with the destructive stories of sectarian religious groups engaging in violence and hatred. Wars have been waged, Crusades enacted, interments ordered, cultural divisions created, exclusions made, heretics named and names called...all in the name of religion.
While human beings tend to fall into patterns of protectionism, especially when it comes to our religious heritage and traditional practice, to protect our institutions when doing so leads us astray from the foundations of the faith is wrong. Christ is the foundation of our faith. We base ourselves in his grace, his mercy, his forgiveness and generosity, universally and cosmically, individually and personally. We are called to be his reflections, to embody him, to practice what he showed us.
If hate is what we choose, then we are not in and of Christ, even if we are the most faithful of church attenders and the most active of church participants and the staunchest defender of church values, traditions and practices. If rejection, division, fear and loathing are at the core of the ways that we live, then we do not live in Christ.
We have got to stop listening to the very loud voices of fear and loathing. We have to begin listening to Christ, instead, and to the direction of God's Spirit, which speaks powerfully and tenderly from within. We have to work at connecting the ways we actually, concretely, practically live with the example that we have seen in God's Son. If our form of Christianity causes us to hate anyone, then we are not walking with Christ. If our religion causes us to hate anyone, then we are practicing the wrong religion.
I know that we can live faithfully in relationship with the real Christ Jesus. When we bring him to life within us, we overcome the hate and divisions of the world in which we live and testify to God's will. What if that were our Christmas gift this year? What if that were our New Year resolution? What if we were to walk with Christ, even when the world would have us live differently? The earthly realm and reign of God would be within our grasp.
Reject the hate and walk with Christ!
I realize well how passionately some will reject this sentiment. I hear the contrary refrain sung every week, in politics, in the media, on the pages of editorial op/ed pieces, on Facebook and at church. I hear precisely how desperate we have become in protecting Christianity from the secular, ecumenical, unifying voice of a shared faith-in-practice. There is an attack on Christmas, I hear. Christianity is under siege, I see. We have to do something to protect ourselves from Muslims, from terrorists, from enemies of the country who would attack our way of life. I hear the call to hate and reject and exclude, to blame and to demonize.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is not a Christianity that walks with Christ. This may be a religion that is founded in Christ's name, but it is far afield from the peacemaking, loving, compassionate Jesus Christ of history and reality. This Jesus pours himself out for all people, both those like and unlike himself, Jews and Greeks, slave and free, male and female. We can extend that thought to include the poor, the homeless, the desperate, the hopeless and the rejected, expelled, excluded masses. It includes Muslims, gays, homophobes, conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats ( even Independents and Libertarians). It includes the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless, those who live in mansions and those who sleep under newspapers on our city streets. It envelopes every race, every kind, every clan, every nation, every philosophy, every ignorance, every privileged and advantaged one, every gender, every life-style, every hair color and make-up choice. It does not exclude anyone on the basis of skin color, body shape, height, weight, ability or disability. Everyone is included in Christ's love. Every one!
History is filled with the destructive stories of sectarian religious groups engaging in violence and hatred. Wars have been waged, Crusades enacted, interments ordered, cultural divisions created, exclusions made, heretics named and names called...all in the name of religion.
While human beings tend to fall into patterns of protectionism, especially when it comes to our religious heritage and traditional practice, to protect our institutions when doing so leads us astray from the foundations of the faith is wrong. Christ is the foundation of our faith. We base ourselves in his grace, his mercy, his forgiveness and generosity, universally and cosmically, individually and personally. We are called to be his reflections, to embody him, to practice what he showed us.
If hate is what we choose, then we are not in and of Christ, even if we are the most faithful of church attenders and the most active of church participants and the staunchest defender of church values, traditions and practices. If rejection, division, fear and loathing are at the core of the ways that we live, then we do not live in Christ.
We have got to stop listening to the very loud voices of fear and loathing. We have to begin listening to Christ, instead, and to the direction of God's Spirit, which speaks powerfully and tenderly from within. We have to work at connecting the ways we actually, concretely, practically live with the example that we have seen in God's Son. If our form of Christianity causes us to hate anyone, then we are not walking with Christ. If our religion causes us to hate anyone, then we are practicing the wrong religion.
I know that we can live faithfully in relationship with the real Christ Jesus. When we bring him to life within us, we overcome the hate and divisions of the world in which we live and testify to God's will. What if that were our Christmas gift this year? What if that were our New Year resolution? What if we were to walk with Christ, even when the world would have us live differently? The earthly realm and reign of God would be within our grasp.
Reject the hate and walk with Christ!
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