The Gift of a Person

Well, all the Christmas celebrations are now done, unless you are among the people who celebrate Epiphany, or Three Kings Day. For most of us, the wrapping paper will be in the garbage. We’ll be thinking about when to take the tree down and put the Christmas lights away. The stores are busy, but for different reasons. Many of those “perfect” Christmas gifts we got for one another will be exchanged or returned. I once remember being in a “return” line for 30 minutes. What a horrible experience!
Others are trying to figure out where to put all the “stuff” they got. Children are playing with the box their “favorite toy” came in. Just think: all that fussing and anxiety over getting gifts, and for so many, it comes down to this. Think about it: can you remember what Christmas gifts you received a year ago? Can you remember who gave you what? Think about the gifts that eventually end up in the cellar, in the Goodwill bin or even on the curb with the rest of the trash. Gifts have their useful life and then, like all material things, they lose their value.
I was thinking of this a few weeks ago while preparing for a funeral. It was for an amazing woman who had a great impact on the life of her family, her friends, her job and her church. I wanted to say something to the family that would help them get through a tough Christmas season. One thing I thought about was gifts. She was a great gift giver. She was especially famous for giving Christmas gifts.
The thought came to me, though, that these gifts were not the important thing. She was. She was the real gift to them. The best gift they received from her was not the material things she gave them, but herself: who she was, what she meant to them – her very presence in their lives. When all the material things fade away, she will remain with them. Her love, her joy, her example was the gift that would last, the gift that would impact them every day of their lives.
Some justify the giving of gifts at Christmas based upon the gift of Jesus to the world. Yet here again, what Jesus gave us was nothing material at all. The gift of Christmas was Jesus himself. His very presence in this world was a gift beyond comprehension. God chose to live among us, as one of us. Jesus was Emmanuel, God with Us. His presence had a deep impact upon all those who encountered him. But it did not stop there. The gift of Jesus is truly that gift that keeps on giving – for over 2,000 years!
Jesus is still among us. Through Jesus, we now know that God is a personal God, a God who wants to have a relationship with us. He wants us to know that he is with us. We know and feel his presence most powerfully when we come together on Sunday morning to worship, yet he abides with us in our daily lives, no matter what. He is there in our joys and our sorrows. His presence gives us strength and faith, it gives us peace and joy. The greatest gift God gives us is himself, a person.
The next greatest gift we have in our lives is one another. So many times, as a church, we can get so busy doing things: meeting, preparing, cooking, planning, that we don’t have a chance to just be one another, appreciate one another and acknowledge the gift we are to one another. As we go about “processing” our Christmas gifts, let us take time to think of the real gifts to our lives, the people whose very presence in our lives has made a profound impact on us. Let us acknowledge these gifts and let people know what they mean to us. And let us pass this gift on to others, especially the next generation.

Puritans and Christmas

A couple of blogs ago, I talked about how the Puritans not only refused to celebrate Chrstmas, but had it banned for 22 years. I just came by this excellent article in the Boston Globe that does an excellent job explaining why.

The Puritans did have a point!

My Sermon for tomorrow

Well, here we go again. For yet another year, one Advent service is being cancelled due to a severe snowstorm hitting us, right when we would be having morning service. I really hate cancelling church, yet I think it is better to keep safe, especially considering that it might be blizzard conditions for us.

Anyway, I want to post my sermon for tomorrow. It is part of my "Carols of Christmas" sermon series. I started out with "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," followed by "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" and "Joy to the World" (see my last blog).

Tomorrow's sermon is on "O Little Town of Bethlehem," one of my favorites. Here's what I would have said:

If you go to Copley Square, Boston, see one of greatest churches in America: Trinity Episcopal Church. Believe it or not, this big beautiful church was built for the writer of “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” Phillips Brooks born in 1835 in Boston. He came from established Boston family. He was descended from a long line of Puritans, including many congregational clergy. He was educated at Boston Latin School and Harvard.

After Harvard, Brooks decided to go into ministry, and eventually became an Episcopal priest. He started out in Philadelphia, and developed a huge following, based upon his great preaching skills. The Episcopal Church in Boston wanted him to come back to his native city, so to lure him, they promised to build Trinity Church. Today, you can see his statue as you drive down Boylston street. He’s in a pulpit, with Jesus right behind him with one hand on shoulder. Brooks truly was a “prince of the pulpit.” He became, without doubt, the most famous preacher of his day. When he died in 1893, the whole nation mourned.

Just like “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” “O Little Ttown of Bethelehem” was written for a Sunday School. Each year, Trinity’s Sunday School would have a Christmas program and in 1865, he wrote a poem for it. He got his music director to write a tune for it, and the famous carol was born.

The inspiration for poem came three years earlier, while he was on trip to holy land. On Christmas eve, he was in field overlooking Bethlehem in a field reported to be field where shepherd encountered the angels. He could see whole city before him, including Church of the Nativity, where Christ was born.

If you really think about it, the carol has one of most unique takes on the Christmas story. It’s focus is not on the actual event of Christ’s birth, but on the town of Bethlehem, asleep at night time. The carol is about how whole town is sleeping while one of the most significant events in human history is taking place.

This is an astonishing thought: most important event in history of world takes place in tiny little town while everyone is sleeping. While everyone is asleep, the “everlasting light” is shining in “thy dark streets” “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

Perhaps my favorite verse is number 3: “how silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given.” Within that verse lies one reason why the true Christmas spirit can elude us so easily, despite all our preparations and expectations. Both then and now, the gift of Christ to our world is given in amazing silence. There are no public relations campaign, no press releases.

John says at the start of his gospel, “he was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him.” The only ones who knew about this world-changing event were Mary and Joseph and a few shepherds, who were tipped off by angels.

The silence of this wondrous gift speaks of a god who works quietly, silently to work out his plan of salvation for humanity. He does not work this plan through the high and mighty. He goes to a tiny town in rural northern Israel to a common carpenter and a quiet little maiden.

This is a something we need to believe in with even greater faith in these times. While great religious and political leaders make decisions, God’s will is silently, quietly being accomplished beneath it all, hidden from the view of most of us. In world where obvious signs give us no hope, where politicians and leaders are just stuck in old ways, this hymn gives me lots of hope.

“How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given. So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven. No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive him still the dear Christ enters in.” It is this pure, holy silence that god gives us his blessing.

When people ask me where god is in their lives, why god has never given them a sign, I often wonder what they expect. Perhaps the parting of the Red Sea, or even a little miracle: something extraordinary, supernatural that reaches from the spiritual world to our world to tell us that we are loved, to hold on, be courageous, for I am with you.

Despite all the stories of miracles we hear about, I agree with Phillips Brooks: God imparts his blessings in a quiet, mysterious silence. We may never notice it. The most important step for those who yearn to sense God’s presence in their lives; and especially in this season, is to heed the advice of the hymn, “Let all mortal flesh keep silence.” In other words, slow down, be still, keep silence in heart and mind and spirit.

It seems to me that the only time i can really feel the presence of Christ at Christmas is late on Christmas eve. By then, the presets have been bought, the cards have been sent, the cookies have been baked, the packages have been mailed, the lights are us, the tree is decorated, as is the rest of the house. There is nothing left to “do.” All that’s left is to settle down in utter exhaustion, and just “be” before the wondrous love of god made flesh in the little Christ child.
Although some might not agree with me, i think this is just how god wants us on Christmas eve: tired and exhausted. Exhausted by our efforts to make Christmas a special season for us and the ones we love. Tired of thinking we could do it all and be all things to all people.

Year after year we come before god with this exhaustion, realizing once again, we have missed the Christmas spirit that moves our souls and brings tears to our eyes. On Christmas eve, we realize that we are finite, limited human beings who can only do so much. We finally become the meek souls that Brooks writes about.

We come before God in need of rest, refreshment and a sense of redemption, of salvation from what we have done to ourselves and one another in the rush and crowds, the frustrations and anger of a month of congestion and traffic, horns blaring and tempers flairing.

“No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.” By the light of a simple candle, and in the singing of the simplest, most profound carol written, god does come down to the meek soul, tired and humble. When we are quieted, silenced, god finally comes to offer us the rest, the peace and the quiet joy of Christmas.

Once we are quiet enough to sense God’s presence, we can move onto another step: letting God move us to a deeper place of silence than we can ever imagine. Most of us here have been moved to silence at one point in our lives. Perhaps at the birth of a child, perhaps the first glimpse of the Grand Canyon, perhaps at the end of a profound, moving concert, perhaps in a magnificent cathedral with stained glass, perhaps some other time. When we are moved to this level of silence, when we are stopped in our tracts, and invited into an experience that moves beyond the normal to the sublime, that is when god touches us with power and life.

Christmas is an event that should bring us to this depth of silence. When we become aware of the wonder of it all: how god, the creator of all things in heaven and earth, the sustainer of all life, became a tiny, vulnerable little baby: this should move us to utter silence and wonder.

This is where God speaks the most profound word of love to us, where we realize that this God has been within and among us all along. “O Little Town of Bethlehem” speaks of a town that sleeps while God’s greatest gift is given. It also speaks about us, about a supreme irony: that although we are awake and busy doing so much, we are actually asleep to God coming to us and dwelling with us.

My prayer for all of us this Christmastide would be that god give us the gift of healing, nurturing, profound silence - that we could be still enough to let God’s profound silence speak to us, not with words, but with a presence and a love that speaks volumes.

Thanks be to God for this glorious gospel. Amen.

The Carol That Isn't a Carol

I am having a lot of fun with this year's Advent sermon series. I chosen to take a Christmas Carol every Sunday and talk about how it came to be as well as what it actually says. This morning, I talked about "Joy to the World" - the carol that seems to capture the sheer joy of Christmas.

To the dismay of the congregation, I told them that "Joy to the World" was never intended to be a Christmas carol. It says nothing of Christmas. In fact, there is no way it could have been a Christmas carol, since it was written by a puritan in 1719, when Christmas was not celebrated by puritans. They didn't celebrate Christmas for two reasons: first, they saw how the Church of England celebrated Christmas with all its pomp and pageantry and it turned their stomach. It was this church which they were trying to "purify" and as a result, they were being persecuted.

Second, they saw many in the community celebrate Christmas with such revelry and downright drunkenness that offended their deep faith. The believed Christmas was to be a truly "Holy Day." Take the popular custom of "wassailing" through town. Basically, a bunch of folks would get drunk on the contents of the wassail bowl, go around to houses, and if they didn't get more alcohol for their bowl, they would vandalize that person's property. This is not too far from the problems we have surrounding the secular celebrating of Christmas. Generation after generation has said that Christmas is too commercialized, that we should bring Christ back into Christmas. Is that too far from what the puritans believed? I know they went too far, but I think they did have a point.

Anyway, I digress. Isaac Watts based "Joy to the World" on Psalm 98. But he recast the Psalm in light of the New Testament, "as if David (the supposed writer of the psalm) was a Christian." He recast Psalm 98 not in light of Christmas, but in terms of Christ's second coming at the end of time. The joy he wrote about was when Christ comes to ultimately and finally redeem the whole world from sin, suffering and death. The end of Revelation does not talk about the end of the world, but the transformation of the world through Christ. When he comes there will be a new heaven and a new earth. Mourning and crying and pain will be no more. Death will be no more. God will dwell with humans. Indeed, the earth will be transformed back to its original state: the Garden of Eden. The curse put on humanity and creation will be reversed.

In the meantime, we live between the two comings of Christ: the first on Christmas, 2,000 years ago, and this second coming. The powers of sin, suffering and death are still with us, even though Jesus came to earth in order to redeem us from these powers. Jesus himself said things are going to get much worse before they get better.

Throughout history, Christians have used the season of Advent to prepare for Christ's second coming as much as remembering his first. In Advent, these two comings meet. "Joy to the World" works so well as a Christmas Carol because of the profound relationship between these two comings. It stands as a carol that points us from the initial joy of the first coming, to the overwhelming joy at the second coming.

Been too long

Gosh, I never knew how hard it is to both Pastor and blog at the same time. I'll try to do better! Busy season is upon us here at Houghs Neck Congregational Church. I'm in the midst of a Bible Study covering Women in the Bible. Last week, we looked at women heroes of the Old Testament. Among them is Judith, someone I never really studied at all. I didn't even know her story until now. Judith is in the "Apocrypha" a set of books included in the Roman Catholic Bible, but not the Protestant one. Actually, Judith doesn't even make it in the Jewish holy scriptures. Yet I wish she was! Her story was well know, especially in Medieval and Reaissance times, when many artists painted pictures from her story, and composers wrote oratorios about her. The two paintings below, by Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi are just a few of the many masterpieces made of this story. It seems like artists, and perhaps everyone else during these times, loved portraying and viewing the central gruesome part of the story.

Let me just fill you in on the story, and then, please - read it yourself! Judith is a rich widow living in a small town outside of Jerusalem. A foreign army is ready to invade and all the men are up in arms, worrying about what to do. The army is laying seige to the town, and they are running out of water. They give God 5 days to do something or else they'll give up and become slaves (probably). Judith has none of it. She tells them she has a plan, and goes out, with her maid to the enemy. Judith is quite clever and deceitful. She actually prays to God to give her enough deceit to defeat the enemy. In those days, cleverness, trickery and deceitfulness was a positive trait, especially if you do it to further God's purposes, or save your people.

Anyway, she gets into the enemy camp, decked out in her finest, wearing the best jewelry, perfume, etc. She gets the army comfortable with her presence. For three nights, she goes out with her maid for a walk. The general of the army is attracted to her, and wants to seduce her. He plans a final banquet with only her. She gets him drunk on his wine, while drinking her own watered down wine. He falls asleep in a drunken stupor. She gets his sword, and, in two blows, whacks off his head. Her maid places it in a bag with the food they bought.

She returns to town with the head of the general. Now, she has total control over the whole situation. She instructs them to put the generals head on a pole outside the walls of the city. The enemy realizes what has happened to their general. They are devastated. Judith orders Israel to attack, and they do, routing the enemy and sending them on their way.

Judith is praised by all as a savior. She then goes back to her life, living to a rip old age of 105.

Judith is in a line of femal heroes in the Bible, such as Deborah, Jael and Esther. In a time when women were valued mostly by how many male children they could have, these women show another type of value - a heroism that does not depend on her bearing children to be of value. They never bought into the culture's expectations of women. They just stayed faithful to what God was calling them to do, which, in this instance, involved cutting off enemy heads and leading armies into battle.

Giving Blood

This past year I've gone back to donating blood platelets at Dana Farber. I took time off when I didn't have the time while taking care of my daughter. It feels really great to be back doing it, especially at Dana Farber. They have an excellent combination of professionalism and personal touch that makes donations a pleasure. So, first and foremost, this blog is an advertisement, an earnest plea, to donate blood, and if possible, donate platelets. If you are around Boston Contact the Kraft Family Donor Center at Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

I must admit that I felt guilty early on, taking time to do this when there are so many things that need taking care of. Even though I preach the need for sabbath for all, self-care and taking sabbath can be a very hard thing for pastors. For the most part, I justify the time it takes to myself by bringing a boat-load of professional reading to do. Over the hour and a half of donating, I've whizzed through plenty of material and actually got a lot out of it. It is tough to just sit down in the office and even read, but there it is.

Last donation was even better. My technician, who found out I was a pastor, asked me some questions that seemed to be lurking in the back of his head. I have a lot of fun talking to people with these questions. They develop into great times of sharing. I spent the next 45 minutes talking about matters of faith and other questions lots of people wonder about pastors, like, how do I go about constructing a sermon? Where do I get the ideas? What did I think about "The Passion of the Christ"?

The person next to me then heard the conversation and talked to me herself. She was an Episcoplean and we shared stories, too. The lady across the aisle was Jewish and regretted her donation time was through, she enjoyed listening to the conversation.

A lot a grace-filled conversation can happen in a room with reclining beds, machines that beep, tubes, vials and bandages. It was a real privilege.

They say that donating blood saves lives, and when you are doing it, you really don't get a sense that you are saving a life. I'm certainly not pulling a drowning boy out of a lake. As I finish, and look at the plastic bag of my platelets up there, I have no idea where they are going - who is going to receive them. I sometimes imagine how amazing it is that something that was inside me is now going to be inside someone else, helping them heal.

Although we didn't seem to mind talking about "The Passion of the Christ" in a blood donation center, I think there is some sort of connection. Sometimes when I donate, I do think of Jesus shedding his blood.

There are some pretty stark differences: Jesus' blood spilled on the ground as a result of the violence and brutality of the religious and political leaders who put him to death in such a cruel way. His blood was shed for the forgiveness of sins. It was the ultimate and singular act of forgiveness that cannot be matched or repeated. Our blood gets "shed" in the most comfortable and clean conditions, with machines that take out the platelets and give the rest back. It is done by caring, compassionate competent staff.

But the blood we shed does save lives. As a man, Jesus never personally knew the billions of people his blood was shed for (although he knows each one now). Unless the donor specifically donates for a friend or family member, we don't know who our blood goes to. It is just a person in need. In some ways, this is an anonymous act of love on the donor's part, and since it is anonymous, I think there is something special about this love.

I am so grateful for my parishioner who got me back to giving platelets. It is a quiet thing, but it matters.

Saved

It was an ordinary day at a nice, quiet sandy beach on Lake Winnipesaukee. We were having fun in the water. Near us were a few high school aged boys having fun, too. All of the sudden I heard - he's hasn't come up - he hasn't come up! One of the boys, a lifeguard rushes into the water. They pull up a friend. He and his friends were diving off a metal raft floating in our swimming area. They pull him onto shore and start CPR. Then, a man comes flying down the steps toward him, yelling "call 911." He takes over. He keeps asking, "how long was he down, how long was he down."

A fun vacation for a group of friends turns into a nightmare. You can feel the panic in the air. Several people have 911 on their cell phones. The friends are in total shock. They don't know what to do. They run up to the road to look for emergency vehicles and run back. You can just feel the desparation.

After a few moments the man beats the boy's back, getting water out of his lungs. A few more moments pass - the man says "we have a heartbeat and spontaneous breathing." A sigh of relief, for the moment. But where is the ambulance? It seems to be taking forever. Police come down. They really can't do much more. Finally, the ambulance comes, with the EMT. The man tells them he is a paramedic and what the situation is. They put an oxygen mask on him and raise his legs onto a chair. They eventually get him on a stretcher and to the hospital.

The boys are shell-shocked. Their friend was not breathing. Almost drowned. Even though he's in an ambulance, there must be questions. Will he survive? Has there been any damage?

From that moment and for the rest of the day, there was a part of us praying for this boy. Thoughts go through my head. What would have happened if he died? What about his parents? What about his friends? It is an absolutely horrifying thought. We all know that teenagers by nature have the illusion that they are immortal. Perhaps more so with boys than girls.

The next day, we go to the beach. The boy was there, looking fine, yet very shy and embarrassed. The man who saved him was there. He asked us if we were there during the incident. We said yes and told him that we were praying for him. The man thanked us. He wanted us to know that the boy was alright. They were going out to celebrate tonight. What a celebration. A celebration of life! He could have been dead, but thanks to the boy and the man, he is alive. He said the boy's body temperature at the hospital was 91 degrees. He was fine, now. He made a few jokes about keeping him away from the water. You could still hear the anxiety beneath the joke.

Afterwards, I remembered what a friend on the Cape Cod told me when I remarked on how beautiful the ocean looked. "Beautiful and deadly," he said. He talked about the drownings that can always be expected on the Cape during the summer season. Every year, people on vacation die.

The ancient Israelites were terrified of the ocean. It was the place where evil dwelt. Demons lived there. Being on a boat on the ocean or even on a lake was a dangerous proposition. Water represented chaos and evil to them. I never thought of Lake Winnipesaukee as a place of chaos and evil. It is far too beautiful. But it is deep. Chaos and death can and does happen.

Yet on further reflection I thought to myself, this is what it really means to be saved. Sure I have seen people saved in hospitals and other places. But these were places where emergency people were within minutes from saving the person. There did not seem to be the panic that we felt that day. On that beautiful somewhat remote beach on a lake, in a small town with limited emergency resources, the stakes seem higher.

The word "saved" is one of the most common in Christian faith. It is at the heart of the gospel. Jesus saves. Through Jesus, God gives us salvation. Are you saved? Jesus is our Lord and Savior. Think of the hymns with salvation in them. Unfortunately, the word saved can be used so much, it's real meaning often fades away. It can get so abstract, removed from daily life.

On that beach, I saw someone being saved. It was a terrifying incident. The fact that the lifeguard and paramedic happened to be there meant the difference between life and death for that boy. He could have been dead, but, thanks to them, he was alive. It was not a life cut short at 15 or 16. His potential, his future, his life was saved. His parents and friends were saved from grief too deep to know.

This is what being saved means. That is what Jesus our Savior is all about. We could have been - should have been- dead. But Jesus came and died so that we might live. It is absolutely amazing grace. Jesus came into our lives, perilously on the brink, and rescued us. That is cause for celebration - a celebration that should be happening every Sunday morning, every day of our life!

At the end of the parable of the prodigal son, the "good son" asks the father why he is giving a huge party for the "bad son," after he took his inheritance and wasted it away. The father replies, "your brother was lost, but now is found. He was dead, but is now alive." This is the celebration that happens in heaven every time someone is "saved." It must have resembled that party those boys had with the man who rescued them.

Fallen Cupcakes

Well, today is John Calvin's 500th birthday! I've already wrote about why we should be celbrating his birthday this year (see Happy 500th Birthday, John Calvin on June 8). Today, instead of explaining why to celebrate his birthday, this is how to do it.

Perhaps start with reading one of his prayer (found at http://homepage.mac.com/shanerosenthal/reformationink/jcprayers.htm). Perhaps read from one of his works.

The highlight of our celebration today was making and eating some chocolate cupcakes in his honor. Here's the recipe (for 12 cupcakes):







1 stick unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
2 oz. bittersweet chocolate (we used Lindt chocolate, since it was a Swiss brand)
1/2 cup Dutch processed cocoa powder
3/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup sour cream

1. Microwave the butter chocolate an cocoa together. Whisk until melted and smooth. Set aside to cool.
2. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin pan with liners. Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together. Set aside.
3. Whisk the eggs and vanilla together in a large bow. Slowly whisk in the sugar until combined. Whisk in the cooled chocolate mixture.
4. Sift one-third of the flour mixture over the batter, then stir in. Stir in the sour cream. Sift the remaining flour mixture over the batter and stir until completely incorporated.
5. Fill the cupcake liners with a rounded ice-cream scoop full of batter. Bake until a toothpick placed in center of cupcake comes out clean, 18-22 minutes.
6. Let cupcakes cool in pan for 5 minutes on a wire rack. Remove and let cool for 1 hour before frosting them.

Frosting:

1 tablespoons half-and-half.
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch of salt
1 1/4 sticks butter, softened and cut into small cubes
1 1/4 cups confectioner sugar
1/4 cup dutch processed cocoa powder.

combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix with a handheld electric mixer until smooth. Scrape down sides of bowl to get all ingredients mixed thoroughly.


Why cupcakes? Why not? John Hesselink, a Dutch Reformed Theologian at Western Theological Seminary in Holland Michigan delivered a paper entitled, John Calvin: The Theologian of Sweetness." In his paper, Hesselink shows the overwhelming occurence of the work "sweetness" when referring to God and God's presence in our lives. This is the kinder and gentler Calvin that we sadly don't hear about. His paper shows Calvin's emphasis on the goodness and grace of God who desires to fill the hearts of his people with joy and love by their knowing and tasting the sweetness of God and his provisions. Hence the cupcakes.

Yet that is not the whole story. You see, I made the cupcakes this morning, waiting for my daughter to be home to make the frosting and decorate. We had a great time doing it. There they were, beautiful cupcakes on a cooling rack, looking so perfect.



After dinner, I announced it was time to have cupcakes. My daughter, excited goes to the kitchen to get our beautiful creations. Then we hear a thud and know what happened. She dropped them. We consoled her and praised her for wanting to bring the cupcakes out. We pick the cupcakes up, still with some frosting on them, cleaned up the frosting stuck to the floor and went and had some delicious cupcakes, singing "Happy Birthday" to a picture of Calvin before devouring them.

Then I realized how perfect it was: fallen cupcakes. That's what we are (according to Calvin). God's creation, created so beautifully and with such delight and joy by God. But then we fell, destroying the original beauty. Yet God did not just throw us into the trash because we fell to the floor. God fixed the frosting, put new sprinkles on us and enjoyed us nonetheless.

Okay, it's not a perfect analogy, but this little event did remind me of why I like Calvin so much and perhaps understood God's providence in having me make fallen cupcakes today.

Happy Birthday, John, this imperfect yet delicious cupcake is for you!

Tour de France 2009

I got addicted to the Tour de France several years ago, when Lance Armstrong was in his prime. The Outdoor Life Network (now Versus) did an excellent job of covering it, with Phil Ligget and Paul Sherwin providing amazing commentary as the bikers sped through France. Each stage of the race takes hours to complete, but Ligget and Sherwin seemed to know how to bring out the drama, even through the mundane portions. They also helped out novice viewers like me to understand the subtle but complex strategy behind the race.

For those who don't know, the race is basically a three week bicycle tour through France, but what a tour. It goes through the burning hot summer countryside of Southern France, over the tallest mountains of the Pyranees and then, if that's not enough, over the taller mountains of the French Alps. Since he semi-retired three years ago, Lance Armstrong has been running marathons, and as you watch him, you know that this is just another training day for him.

The Tour de France seems to me to be the ultimate endurance event in all sports, without questions. It seems like running a marathon a day for three weeks, with the course going over the steepest inclines you can imagine.

The Tour de France reflects both the best and worst that sports has to offer. The best it has to offer is the sheer enormous test it demands of the human body, mind and spirit. It takes someone totally trained in all three areas to achieve success. I'm glad there are things like the Tour, because it inspires the best in people.

Sometimes, we don't want to make life challenging for ourselves, our children, our parishioners or anybody else, lest we think we push them too much. Yet it is these challenges that push our limits that show us who we are, and what we can achieve. I find myself guilty of letting people off easy. I don't demand enough as a pastor and teacher. I want to be pastoral, caring, loving, empathetic. Yet a challenge, a demand pushes people to grow better than anything else.

The Tour de France for me is a reminder that life is about pushing ourselves to our limits, going beyond what we even dream we are capable of. That is what God does with us time and again.

The dark side of the Tour is the other side of the coin. The competition in the Tour is so fierce, the demand to climb mountains in superhuman time has made cycling into the sport with the most flagrant and widespread doping scandals. The Tour has been marred for the past few years with doping scandals. The worst is when American Floyd Landis had to give up his victory crown in the Tour when they found testosterone in his blood.

Theologically, this scandal, along with all other doping scandals throughout sports is one of the primary examples of idolatry in our age. The ancient Hebrews knew all about idolatry. They made the golden calf, Ba'al when Moses was gone too long and their God seemed distant. They worshipped Ba'al only to find out that a golden image is not alive, it is not God. It did not save them - it only made them guilty of breaking their covenant with the real, living God.

These cyclists, like other athletes are much like these idols. More and more is expected of them. They are expected to be demi-gods, superhumans. They pressure must be enormous. Fans invest so much of themselves into these idols. Of course, if they are pushed too far, these idols just can't deliver. They are human, and limited to what they can do.

How hard it is to admit your are a human being with limitations! We want to push ourselves in so many ways to do more, to be more than we can possibly be. Yet time and again, we get knocked down off our pedestals, like the golden calf. The demi-god becomes the lowest of the low with one small positive test for performance enhancing drugs.

There is a balance to be achieved in sports, as in life. Pushing oursevles, challenging ourselves is healthy. But knowing our limitations is also healthy. It reminds me of the first road race I ran. Despite the warnings all the books gave me about starting the race too fast, I did it anyway. How cool it was to pass all those people. I felt on top of the world! Then I started to cramp in my side, and my legs started to feel heavy, and all those other people just passed my by like as if I were going backwards.

The good runner knows that you compete against yourself, not against others. You know your limitations, you stay within your limits, and, when the time is right, you push yourself a bit beyond. Your personal best is all you care about. Now, as I run road races, I'm just happy enought not to finish last. Actually, I don't think I would mind that, either.

Anyway, don't let the doping push you away. Watch the Tour if you get a chance, especially as they go through the Alps. It is incredible.

Driving in Texas

This blog took a break last week while we were in Texas visiting family. The week included a six hour drive from the Hill Country to the Fort Worth area. The relative giving directions pointed us away from I-35, the route Google Maps suggested, and towards going up route 16.

Route 16, for the most part, is a two lane road. I knew this and worried, thinking we'll never get to Fort Worth on this tiny road. My fears subsided when I realized that, since towns are few and far between, the speed limit is 70 miles per hour for most of the trip. I thought, if this road went through Massachusetts, we'd be lucky to get 50 miles per hour.

One thing that impressed me with the trip is how good and courteous Texas drivers are. On route 16, if a car comes up behind, looking to pass, it is common courtesy to pull into the bread down lane (which is pretty wide) and let the car pass. That way there is no one getting upset for miles while driving behind a RV going 45.

The freeways are the same. When traffic has to merge, cars "zip" with respect for one another, taking turns. There are no cars trying to get ahead of the rest, which usually causes backups anyway.

The freeways going through the cities are magnificent to watch. It is common to see two highways going over another highway, in what looks like a roller coaster ride. It actually does look beautiful.

Why all this travel talk? Well I have thought over the years that you can learn much about people, individually and as a culture, by the way they drive. Somehow, the trappings of "niceness" disappear in the car. I once heard an expert on this subject say that, since you cannot see the face of the other person, since you cannot make normal human contact, something more primal often comes to the surface. Think of it: if you bump into someone on the street or at the office, the first thing to come out of your mouth is "sorry!" It's almost automatic. Not so on the road. Somehow, more of who we are, in all its ugly truth, comes out on the road.

No doubt, Texas is a completely different culture from Massachusetts. Teenagers still refer to their elders as "sir" or "ma'am." A huge percentage goes to church regularly. Families matter, and family rituals matter. Parents have time for kids. Values are passed down.

These might sound like vague generalizations, and I certainly know that Texas does have its share of problems, including problem families and agressive, mean people. Yet I think about this drive through Texas and then think about our drive home from Logan airport, back to Quincy. It was the 4th of July. A minivan and a suv were in front of us. The minivan, in front stopped as a light turned yellow. The suv in back slammed its breaks. The driver blaired her horn. You could see road rage all over the driver - just because the car in front of her obeyed the law.

Driving does say a lot about a culture. Perhaps Texas can teach us a few things. Slow down, you don't have to rush to everything. Take it easy. Enjoy the things that matter in life. Be kind in the most ordinary things you do. Even if you cannot see the face of the person in front of you, he or she is a human being and deserves the love and respect that all humans should have. Perhaps they had a really bad day, maybe a tragic one - who knows?

One thing I do know, life is much better when people are courteous and obey the law on the road and during the rest of our lives.

Christian Liberty

Being the 4th of July weekend, I preached a sermon this morning entitled "What Is Freedom?" I thought of the idea a while ago, but since then I had an occasions to help me think more deeply about the whole idea of freedom, both as a Christian and as an American.

The occasion was the annual Barth Seminar for Pastors, which I attended last month. Each year, about 15 pastors get together to discuss the theology of Karl Barth. We take a passage from his Church Dogmatics, a monumental work of theology, and try to understand it. This year, however, since we are celebrating the 500th anniversary of John Calvin's birth, we chose an earlier work of Barth, which amounts to his lectures on John Calvin.

The particular passage was on "Christian Liberty." Oddly enough, the whole passage was about the Church's relationship with the State: what is the Christian's obligation to the government? It doesn't sound much like freedom, but then I got a deeper lesson.

The leader helped us understand this by outlining two types of freedom: negative freedom and positive freedom. Negative freedom is to be free to do anything you want, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. It is freedom from being restricted to do things. It is freedom "from something." This sounds like a typically American understanding of freedom.

Positive freedom was harder for me to understand. The way it was explained to me was "the freedom to fulfill your potential." It is a freedom "towards something." As I see it, positive freedom is the freedom to love, the freedom to be responsible toward our fellow human beings.

I noted this morning that freedom begins with God. The very essence of God is love, and that, in love, God created humans in his image. That means, at the depth of our being is this potential to love as God loves. The grace-filled freedom that Christ gives us through the power of the Holy Spirit is the freedom to love our neighbors as our selves.

Positive freedom is the freedom that Christ can give us to overcome the "powers and prinicipalities" that enslave us - the forces in our world that seem to overwhelm our lives and lead us to give away our freedom. It is a very subtle thing, but these forces have a way to deceive us and to make us give away our freedom. These forces may be marketers, convincing us that we are lesser people without what they have to sell. They may be family and friends, exerting peer/family pressure over us. They may be all the things we are addicted to (alcohol, drugs, shopping, sex, sports - you name it!).

All of these forces seem to have a deceptive way of telling us that, although we have given power over to them, we are in control, and looking after our best interests. They compel us to be self-centered, self-indulgent people.

Ironically, people most possessed by these powers and principalities are usually those who think they are free, doing what they please.

Christ can have the power to free us from these delusions, and to lead us to true freedom: the freedom to fulfill our potential, the potential to love in the way that Christ loved.

During the weekend we celebrate freedom, let us remember Paul's words to the Galatians, "For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, "you shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Bloomsday in Ireland

Our time in Dublin just happned to include June 16 - Bloomsday. Bloomsday is the holiday that celebrates the great Irish novelist, James Joyce. His great novel, Ulysses takes place on June 16th. Although I was not in the "right" part of Dublin to take in the celebration, I did see a the banners celebrating Bloomsday and a few people dressed up in Edwardian clothes, going to the sites included in the novel.

I have to admit that I tried and failed at Ulysses. I barely got by a few chapters until I just couldn't figure it out. I have enjoyed Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man as well as his first book, Dubliners, a collection of short stories. I decided that, since I was going to be in Dublin, I would take Dubliners with me for another read. It was an amazing experience. All the streets, the parks, the pubs of Dublin became a bit more real to me as I read Joyce and his descriptions of his city.

While on the bus ride out to Newgrange, I picked up the book and read the first story, The Sisters. All of the sudden, I remembered the impression it left on me when I first read it. It is a story of a young boy, who finds out that an ailing priest whom he had befriended, died the past night. He is angry at how superficially all the adults are taking this. The priest made a huge impression on the boy. The boy reflects, "the duties of the priest towards the Eucharist and towards to secrecy of the confessional seemed so grave to me that I wondered how anybody had ever found in himself the courage to undertake them."

The priests decline toward death started when he dropped a chalice. One of the sisters recalls, "It was the chalice he broke...That was the beginning of it. Of course, they say it was all right, that it contained nothing, I mean. But still...They say it was the boy's fault. But poor James was so nervous. God be merciful to him!"

I always held that image in my head as I went into ministry: dropping the chalice. For me, it was a symbol of that moment when a person consciously or unconsciously decides to stop the struggle to live and look forward to death. I've seen it time and again in ministry. People put up a valiant fight, then one day, it just gets too heavy - death is more preferrable to life.

Rereading it, dropping the chalice reminded me of the weight of ministry. Often, ministry is so filled up with the day-to-day, the mundane ordinary stuff that has to get done, that I don't realize what my calling is. I then am reminded of my seminary days, when I was in awe of what I was called to do, and filled with a sense of unworthiness. Nonetheless, God did call me, as God called other men and women to somehow handle these sacred mysteries - to handle the body and blood of Christ. To preach God's Word to people. To be a vehicle of God's presence. No wonder the priest dropped the chalice, no wonder he got so nervous.

In some ways, I think God blesses us with the ordinary, so that the awsome mystery and gravity of what we do as ministers does not overwhelm us. T.S. Eliot said that "humans cannot take too much reality." I think that is what happened to the priest. Ultimately, the reality got to him, it overwhelmed him with its weight and sent him to his death.

James Joyce had a lot to say to me in Ireland. He really is a writer that plumbs the depths of our life. He understood the gritty reality of life as well as the spiritual side. I am grateful that I had the perfect occasion to encounter his writings once more. Now, perhaps with a lot of help from a companion book I can try to work on Ulysses again.

A Dutchman in Ireland

I never really imagined going to Ireland. There are many other places in Europe and elsewhere I'd rather go, but since my wife had business there, I tagged along. I have to admit, I went there with trepidation. I am half Dutch and, from early in life, my father gave me a strong sense of what it means to be of Dutch heritage. Unfortunately, part of that heritage is a strong suspicion of anything Roman Catholic. With Ireland's history of religious conflict, I was a little skittish about being a Protestant minister with Dutch ancestry in that country.

The first impression I had was the remarkable similarity between Ireland and America: two countries that had to battle to get rid of the English. In some sense, there is a shared tradition of independence. There are statues all over Dublin of men who fought to liberate Ireland, just like Boston is filled with statues of men who fought to liberate America. I was feeling a bit better.

One day, we took an excursion that passed by the famous sight where the "Battle of the Boyne" took place in 1690. The tour guide explained it to me. It was an ordinary looking meadow next to the river Boyne, with cows lounging around. Yet it was a battle that still has an effect on life in Ireland.

It seems that when James II ascended the throne of England and Ireland, he turned the country back to Catholicism. This angered the protestant nobility, who eventually threw him off the throne in what was called "the glorious revolution." They crowned his daughter, Mary II, who was protestant and married to William III, or William of Orange, the King of the Netherlands (this is where the Dutch problem comes in).

James II retreated to Ireland and tried to gather up Irish forces to retake the throne. When William III heard of this, he sent his troops to Ireland. In the Battle of the Boyne, William III soundly defeated James II. Since Irish catholics rallied around James II, they were persecuted by William and Mary, and by the British monarchs ever since. It took almost two hundred years for Irish Catholics to be able to vote, to send their children to school or to own land. It took even more time for Ireland to gain its independence.

In some way, my Dutch heart leaped as we passed the sight of the Battle. Part of me was pushing for William III. Then I realized what his victory meant for the Irish and felt ashamed of my pride.

James II and William III entered into my trip later in the week, when I came to Christ Church. This church was originally a Viking church, and rebuilt by the Normans when they invaded. There is much history there. You can find the church treasures stored downstairs in the crypt of the church. This includes communion ware and candlesticks given by James II when he came to Ireland to view his domain and celebrate Mass. It also includes even bigger gold communion ware and candlesticks given by William III when he came to England as its conquering monarch and attended protestant services there.

As we came up from the crypt, one of the ministers of the church let visitors know that they would be having a prayer service for peace in one of the chapels. He told us that since Ireland has had such a bloody history of conflict involving religion, and since the Christ Church has had a historical part in that conflict, they pray for peace every day at noon.

When I heard this, I felt humbled. It brought it all back home. In my twenties, I began to get over a lot of the Dutch anti-catholic rhetoric of my childhood to see the beauty, depth and faith in Roman Catholicism. There is a lot of history that needs to be reconciled, work that is being done in Christ Church and other places. This is one reason I work for ecumenical bodies, and consider the reconciliation of all denominations as the number one priority of the church today.

Flying back, it really came to me. The reason so many Dutch are anti-catholic is because the Netherlands spent hundreds of years fighting to liberate their country from Roman Catholic Spain with William III's father and grandfather their national heroes. In a deeper sense, The Dutch and the Irish (and the Americans) do have something in common - the yearning for liberation from the oppression of a foreign power. And religion gets mixed up into the whole mess.

History is with us. The Battle of the Boyne still affects the Irish, just like the battles with Spain still affects the Dutch. Yet history does move on, miraculous things happen: liberation and peace comes to Ireland. Irish Protestants and Catholics pray for peace. Another tour guide explained the Irish flag this way: the green symbolizes the Catholic Nationalists, supporting an independent Ireland. The orange (as in William of Orange) symbolizes the protestant Unionists, the protestants who yearn for a reunion with Great Britain. The white in the middle symbolizes peace. The white expresses a hope that the green and the orange can find reconciliation and peace. This is my hope and prayer, too.

The Long View

This weekend, I was attending an ecclesiastical council of one of our association students in discernment. It was a great occasion. In the bulletin was a prayer attributed to Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was assassinated while serving Mass in a small chapel in a cancer hospital. If you haven't seen the movie, "Romero," starring Raul Julia, I highly recommend it. Romero was made archbishop of El Salvador because he seemed so timid, so humble, he probably wouldn't cause waves. Were they in for a surprise. When Romero became archbishop, he witnessed the suffering and oppression of his people at the hands of a brutual government and became the tireless voice of justice on their behalf.

In any case, this prayer spoke to me that day, and speaks to all of us who often get frustrated when our efforts seem like a "drop in the bucket."

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.

Amen.

Happy 500th Birthday John Calvin

July 10th marks the 500th anniversary of John Calvin, one of the greatest (if not the greatest) reformation theologian. When I tell people that I will be celebrating this, I get a lot of strange looks. One of the great gifts Princeton Seminary has given us this year is a website devoted to the reading of the entire of Calvin's "Institutes of Christian Religion," his theological masterpiece, in one year: http://www2.ptsem.edu/ConEd/Calvin/. Each day, the website gives you the reading and commentary on the section of the Institutes being read that week. You can even get the Institutes read on a podcast. I talk about this with great excitement with my friends, and again get strange looks. I know what they're thinking: isn't this the John Calvin who gave us the horrible doctrine of predestination? Isn't this the man who preached fire and brimstone, and intimidated the good people of Geneva into living a strict, joyless life?

Many times when people give me these and other misreadings of John Calvin, I ask them if they ever read anything by him. For the most part, the answer is either "no" or "not for a long time." This is quite unfortunate. When I started reading Calvin in seminary I was shocked to find someone who wrote with beauty and depth and grace. He was a man who would talk about the "sweetness of the Lord" as much as anything else. Calvin was educated at the Sorbonne in Paris. Part of his classical education was the art of rhetoric. Unfortunately, rhetoric is no longer taught as much as it should. Rhetoric is the ability to put your point of view forward with as much conviction, art and grace as to thoroughly convince the reader or listener of your point of view. This is why the preaching professor at Andover Newton is a professor of "Sacred Rhetoric." Calvin was suspicious of art in general. He was an iconoclast at heart, believing images without thoughtful reflection and explanation have a way of making too powerful impression on a person. The faculty of reason is always needed to balance out these nonverbal messages. His art was the art of rhetoric, the art of words and reason, and he used his art with the utmost beauty.

I used to joke in seminary that our church history class theme was "he wasn't such a bad guy after all!" Week after week I would find my professors trying to reclaim the goodness of a figure in church history who has been judged as bad by our modern minds. John Calvin fits this mode. Calvin did indeed pastor and teach in Geneva, yet his authority in town was never as great as many think. He was actually born in Noyon, France, and came to Geneva partly by invitation, partly by exhile. French protestants in his day were being slaughtered by the Catholic government and he was a marked man. It took years for Calvin even to have citizenship in Geneva. Up to that point, he could not even vote in civil matters. He was constantly battling with the city government over the rights of the church versus the state.

It is true that Calvin did believe and teach the doctrine of predestination. Yet we must remember that everybody else, with the exception of a few thinkers, also believed in predestination, including Roman Catholic theologians like Thomas Aquinas. If you actually read what Calvin says about it, you might be surprised. It has a place in his Institutes, but not a high profile place. In essence, he believed that Christians should not discuss this doctrine or talk about it too much, as it causes far too much anxiety. He also believed that no one really knows his or her fate in life. You could be the best Christian churchgoer and still be headed for damnation. This totally eliminates all the judgments that we humans make about ourselves and others. Ultimately, he encourages us to act as if we are elected by God for glory and leave the rest to the mystery to God. Obviously, a lot of theology has been done since then to give us a better understanding of heaven and hell, and God's election, but for his time, Calvin offered a theology that actually had pastoral overtones to them. Unfortunately, after Calvin died, his "followers" took this doctrine and made it a central pillar of "Calvinism." They used it as a litmus test of orthodoxy, and strayed far from Calvin's original intentions. Sometimes, I wonder if Calvin would actually be a "Calvinist."

Yet Calvin, was also someone who "told it like it is." He was not about to be blinded to the reality of human sin. He took it very seriously, and if we have a problem of with his understanding of sin, perhaps it says as much or more about us than it does about Calvin. He was a man afflicted by many illnesses in life. He was also a man in the midst of a religious battle that had more than theological implications. It involved governments and wars, about persecution and freedom. If his writings seem far too anti-Catholic, we have to realize that he was writing for the survival of a people of faith to believe in what they believe. In this country, we take this far too lightly. In his time, what you believed was literally a matter of life or death.

Calvin was a brilliant thinker, versed in the ancient classics. He knew ancient Hebrew, Greek, Latin and other languages. He read the Bible in its original languages. He wrote his most famous works in Latin and then translated them into French. He took reformed doctrines that were being preached and written about and organized them in a systematic, coherent order that stands the test of time. Many politidal writers say that Calvin was the father of modern democracy, that much of America's founding documents owe a great debt to Calvin.

John Calvin was a monumental figure. He was a theologian who represented a milestone in Christian thought. So as July 10 approaches, please think of him. Offer God a prayer of gratitude for his gift to your life. Whether you know it or not, your life is probably better because of John Calvin.

Let's start at the very beginning

A great theologian (I can't remember who!) said where you begin is crucial to your theology. To begin here, we must begin with Jesus Christ, the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. In the beginning was the Word, namely Jesus Christ. As the Barmen declaration so aptly put it: Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death.

Over my years of study and ministry, I have encountered many theologians and spiritual writers who have influenced me. John Calvin, whom we are celebrating the 500th anniversary of his birth is a fundamental influence. Karl Barth is the "modern" theologian who influences me the most. I am also a student of Reformed Church history, and have been duly influenced by the great Puritan "divines" of the 17th century.

Yet, as a pastor, I am also influenced by the lives of the many saints in my congregation. I live in the Houghs Neck section of Quincy, Massachusetts, a peninsula that juts out into the bay. It is a beautiful place to live, with magnificent views of the water and a great perspective on the Boston skyline. Many people here in Houghs Neck have lived here all their lives: they could not think of living anywhere else. There is a sense of community and stability here that is sadly lacking in many other places in our world. I often joke that everyone in my congregation is a "lifetime member." Their faithfulness and commitment to this small church is inspiring.

I am totally new to blogging and hope that this might serve as many people out there as possible. I pray for God's grace and peace to you all.