My top 10 of 2012

One of my goals this year was to increase the amount of reading that I have done.  And I actually accomplished it!!  I actually more than read enough books to create a top 10 list for the year! Here's my list:

10) Christian Worship by Gail Ramshaw
I will admit that I read this as part of a conversation with the Worship and Music committee at church, but it was a good re-cap of what I learned in my liturgy classes in seminary.  Definitely an introductory text, as is stated in the intro to the book, but good none the less. 

9) God is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens
A pastor reading atheist writings? what?  Well, I'm not the first and won't be the last.  It's always good to get some perspective from those who vehemently disagree with you about the notion of God and faith.  And though I struggled a lot with Hitchen's arguments and disagreed with his practice of taking only the most offensive parts that the religious world has to offer and using them as his proofs for why Religion spoils things, I did appreciate his view point, none the less.  If you want to get a good perspective on how someone from outside the faith realm views religious folks, this is a good place to start. 

8) Out of Oz, by Gregory Maguire
This is the last of the now four part Wicked series.  I found it my least favorite and the slowest going of all four books.  I am tempted to give it another chance, though, after watching the Wizard of Oz and wondering in my mind what Maguire had in mind in sending Dorothy back to Oz.

7) A Lion among Men, by Gregory Maguire
I really liked hearing this tail about the Cowardly Lion.  Getting to hear the Wizard of Oz account from his perspective...plus some other parts of his own story, was really interesting. 

6) Son of a Witch, by Gregory Maguire
What if the wicked witch had a son?  What would he be like? I enjoyed the ups and downs and adventure and intrigue in this book.  It was a good follow up to Wicked.

5) Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
As usual, the original book in a series was the best.  I didn't get through it as fast as I wanted to, but it was a really good read.  Definitely one to go back to at some point now that I've read the other three books in the series.

4) Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins
Good ending to the trilogy.  Wish it hadn't been as violent at the end as it was, but in the end it turned out ok. I'm interested to see what they do with this in movie form.

3) Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins
Couldn't put the book down and then was super disappointed that it was a cliff hanger (though I suppose she needed some way to get folks to by the third book!).  As with the first book, I saw a thread of social commentary running through it that I found quite interesting.

2) The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
Got hooked in to this book right away.  Some interesting social commentary on rich vs. poor...dominant political party vs the rest of us.  The movie wasn't nearly as good, but it helped to visualize what Collins wrote about.  

1) The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
LOVED, loved, loved, loved, loved, this book.  It was the perfect book for someone like me who has an interest in the biological sciences and in history. Skloot did a great job of weaving in the medical history behind the He-la cell line and cancer research with the story of Henrietta Lacks, her family, and Skloot's adventure to uncover the real story about who Henrietta Lacks was.  Highly recommend this book.

I'm currently in progress with The Hobbit and am enjoying it very much.  Then I will move on to "The Paris Wife."

On my shelf for 2013:
A Wrinkle in Time (How did I never read this as a kid?)
Accompany Them with Singing, by Tom Long(I WILL finally finish this!)
The Testament by John Grisham
Lots of children's books :)

A Sermon for Christmas 1

Christmas 1

December 30, 2012

Luke 2:41-52, I Samuel 2:18-20, 26

Shelly was a fighter.  Not in the literal way, she wasn’t a boxer or an MMA fighter or anything.  However, she did spend a good portion of her life fighting herself and those around her, and fighting with God.  You see, at a young age, Shelly had come to a decision on how her life was supposed to be and what path she was going to take.  She was going to go to said college, then she would go to a particular law school, become an intern at a specific law firm and work her way up the ladder and be very successful in her field.  She would be married by 25, have 4 children and 2 dogs by 35, and live a very happy life. 

Shelly’s family didn’t quite see it that way.  They thought that Shelly should get a teaching degree.  It was what all the women in Shelly’s family did.  She was supposed to marry that nice pre-med student that she dated her sophomore year in college and 3 kids were enough, no dogs, dogs are too much work.  And her family made no qualms about letting her know that this was what she was expected to do. 

But God had even different plans for Shelly.  When she was a young girl, God had called her into ministry to be with people in their time of need.  As a child, her neighbors could always count on her to stop by with a homemade get well card when they were sick, and as she got older the cards would be accompanied by cookies or other care packages that she had crafted herself.  She had a knack for knowing who needed what when.  When her college roommates needed a shoulder to cry on, it was Shelly who would be there first.  She was always the first to drop of chicken soup, the first to give out a hug, the first to let you know that she was there for you and that she genuinely cared for you and your situation. 

And she was miserable, she didn’t get the grades she needed to get into the law school of her choice…she didn’t into any law school, as a matter of fact.  But she fought it, it was what she thought she wanted to do…should could get a masters degree and try again in two years…but why was it making her so unhappy?   

Then one day during the semester before graduation, she had a meeting with her advisor who had known her since freshman year.  Shelly’s advisor knew her grades in the science department were excellent and that her caring nature would make her the perfect candidate to become a nurse.  They argued over it for about 15 minutes before the advisor finally said “will you put down the boxing gloves and let life take you where you’re supposed to go?”

Shelly listened.  She struggled, but eventually she let go and let God lead her.  And God led her to nursing school and she became a hospice nurse.  For the most part, life fell into place after that and Shelly was no longer unhappy. 

Shelly’s story is not real, but it’s not made up either.  There are a lot of people in our families, in our social circles, in our congregations, who are fighting against something.  And I know from my own personal experience that spending even a small portion of your life fighting against something is exhausting. 

Now, there are the good fights, the fights against wrong doing and injustice that work to make this world a better place.  Those fights have a tendency to energize and fire folks up for the work that needs to be done.  But I’m talking about the personal fights, against who God has called us to be, those are the ones that are tiring and have the potential to make us miserable. 

Our buddy, Martin Luther, fought this fight against his father.  Hans Luther wanted, no, expected that his son would become a lawyer.  When Martin left law school to become a priest, this was seen by his father as a slap in his face and the greatest dishonor that Martin could have put upon his parents.  But, despite this and his own struggles with his sin and the devil, Martin knew that his call into the priesthood was a call from God, for better or for worse, though he probably didn’t know at the time that he became a priest that his call would eventually spark the Reformation.

It can be easy for us to walk through life thinking that we know the exact path that we are supposed to take, that we are in control of whatever life has in store for us.  But when this happens, we can stray from the path that God has laid out for us.  Because of our free will, we are able to do this…but it doesn’t always lead to the best outcome.  It’s when we listen to God’s leading and nudging, that things often go the smoothest.  There are other times, though, when it seems that we are totally lost with no idea where we are headed…after all, not all of us get caught in a lightning storm like Luther did, or get blinded like Paul.  And it can get frustrating…but maybe it’s not time for the call yet…or maybe other things around us distract us from the path we’re supposed to head in.  And that’s ok.  We’re not all called at the same time and in the same way.  Just take Samuel and Jesus for example. 

God called Samuel early on in his life.  In fact, his mother Hannah heard God’s call for Samuel before he was even born.  As soon as Samuel was weaned, Hannah brought him to the temple in order that he might minister in the temple.  And as he grew, Samuel proved himself to be a worthy servant of God, growing in wisdom and insight as he worked with Eli.  I wonder if folks in Hannah and Elkanah’s neighborhood questioned the practical wisdom of giving their first born son over to the temple.  Wouldn’t it have been more practical to raise their son themselves so he could help them with the household chores, and learn Elkanah’s profession so he could take it over one day?  But as it was, Hannah and Elkanah listened to God’s voice rather than the voices of the neighbors, and things turned out just fine. 

Jesus also knew his call early on.  In our gospel text this morning, at age 12, which was considered to be near adulthood at that time, Jesus was found by a very worried Mary and Joseph in the temple where he had been so caught up speaking to the teachers in the temple and asking them questions that he wound up missing the traveling group going back to Nazareth.  It seems that in Jesus’ case, he knew his calling better than Mary and Joseph did…and this is easy to see since he is the Son of God, after all.  But I wonder if at dinners and other such events, it was discussed between the adults that Jesus should have just focused on becoming a craftsman like his father.  I wonder if there was any conversation about arranging a marriage for Jesus to a young woman in town.  Where there certain things that the folks in town, maybe even his parents as well, expected from him as a fully human young adult?  What if Mary and Joseph decided it may have been best for Jesus to stay in the temple for a bit longer and learn (and teach) the teachers, and the neighbors scoffed at them for that? But as it was, Jesus knew the mission that God had sent him to earth to carry out at a young age, and like Samuel, he grew in wisdom and insight as he grew. 

And even as the townsfolk rejected him during his years of ministry, Jesus carried out the mission and the ministry that he was sent to do.  To free people from the bonds that shackle them so that they could be free to live and to walk the path that God had set out for them, regardless of when or how the call comes. 

Jesus carried out his mission by dying on the cross and rising from the dead so that we could be free from the sin that binds so in order to live out the callings that God has for us, be it in our home life or our work life or the parts of life in between.  And he did so without the shoulds and shouldn’ts that have a tendency to weigh us down and load us up with guilt over what we have done and what we have failed to do, where we’ve succeeded and where we have messed up.  We are free to put down the boxing gloves, and live.  We are free to stop worrying if our life is measuring up to others expectations, and live.  We are free to stop beating ourselves up over meeting our own personal deadlines, and live.  It’s what God is calling us to do.      

"Pondering..." A sermon for Christmas Eve

December 24, 2012

Christmas Eve

Luke 2:1-20

I have a theory that Mary, the mother of our Lord, was an introvert.  Now scripture never comes out and says this, nor much else about her personality, but we do know one thing.  It is said more than once in the Gospel of Luke that Mary “treasured these things and pondered them in her heart.”  Mary was one to ponder, to process things internally and therefore, I don’t think I’m too far off in thinking that Mary was most likely an introvert.

And there was quite a bit to process in this night. Mary’s birth story was anything but the romantic scenes painted on the faces of nativity sets. It probably wasn’t a clean stable filled with fresh hay, well behaved livestock, or even a nicely made manger.  Mary gave birth to Jesus probably a cave or a barn, no midwife or birthing stool, and commandeered a feeding trough to use as a bed.

And beyond that, there had been a lot to ponder in regards to the events that had transpired the past 40 or so weeks that Mary was pregnant.  First, Mary had been betrothed to a carpenter named Joseph. Then, she is visited by an angel who tells her that she, a virgin, was not only just going to bear a child, but the child she would give birth to would not be the child of her fiancé. On top of all that, Mary is also told that the child would be the long awaited savior of the world. Despite all of this, Mary consents to risking both her life and her marriage in order to carry out the will of our Lord. Consent might be the wrong word for Mary, as we knew she embraced the fact that she would bear God’s son.

We know Mary embraced the responsibility she was given because while visiting her cousin Elizabeth, who was also miraculously pregnant, she sang a beautiful song of praise to God for choosing her to bear God’s son.

That was about forty weeks ago. In the past week, Mary and Joseph had taken a journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the Roman census. Normally, it would be a 4 day journey on foot for 2 healthy and non-pregnant individuals, so there was probably a few extra days tacked on there. Like all good family trips, the trip doesn’t exactly go as planned since no one checks with unborn children about when they would like to be born. It may have caught her off guard when the contractions started, her water broke, and any birth plan flew out the window.

To make it more complicated, with literally everyone and their brother in Bethlehem for the census, there were no vacancies in any of the inns in town, so unlike her cousin Elizabeth who probably had a midwife, it was just Mary and Joseph, who most likely hadn’t been present at a childbirth class since at that time being a birthing coach was a job reserved for women, assisting Mary in her labor and delivery of the baby.

However, they find a way to make it work. Mary gives birth to Jesus, wraps him in bands of cloth, and laid him in whatever makeshift bed they could muster. Soon after, a group of random shepherds appeared to Mary and Joseph and told them that they too, had been visited by angels and informed of the Holy nature of this child that had been born and they had to see it for themselves.

All of this would have been a lot to process, but there is so much more for Mary to ponder in the years to come. The implications of giving birth to the Son of God must have weighed heavily, embraced or not. 40 weeks passes by fast, but seems like forever at the same time.

But, we also must not forget about Joseph, and all he had to process as well. Here he is, far from home, alone with Mary who is bearing a child, but not his, but that of God. The social implications, the circumstances of where Mary is giving birth, with probably little knowledge of what it is he had to do to help. The stepfather to God’s son is an awfully big responsibility that Joseph did not get much say in. However, he does what he has to do because that is the kind of person he is.

            We all know the story of how Jesus came into the world, and how complicated things were in their time. A baby by itself is a lot to think about in 40 weeks, but that is what makes this story special. All those pregnancy milestones we take for granted in their time must have been truly amazing. Seeing little kicks and punches, feeling Jesus moving around, preparing himself for what will come. On top of all of that, Mary and Joseph accomplish so much, despite many odds against them.

            For us, we should take the time to ponder with Mary what it all means.  And it’s not some easy to identify little nugget that we can simply pull out and wrap nicely with a little bow on top.  Because for some of us, Christmas is not the joyous holiday that is sung about in Christmas carols.  We may have come here, we faithful…but joyful and triumphant might not be an accurate statement if we’re totally honest.  For others of us, this truly is a most wonderful time of the year with the kids jingle-belling and being filled with good cheer.  And others of us could probably take it or leave it either way.  It seems that Christmas now is sometimes just as chaotic and unromantic as it was 2000 years ago, even with the poinsettias, the lights, and the trees. 

            But I don’t think that God was going for orderly and romantic when he sent Gabriel to Mary to let her know that she would be the one to bear his son.  Sure, God is the expert at turning chaos into order, but there is the reality of what comes with pregnancy and childbirth…birth plans fly out the window and sometimes you have to settle for a cave because all of the birthing suites are full.  No, I think that when it came to the birth of Jesus, God was going for what is real.  And that meant the king of kings would be born in a cave instead of a palace, that meant that he would be born to peasants instead of royalty, that meant that unnamed and often shunned shepherds would be the first to hear the most wonderful birth announcement, not a royal court of the select elite. 

            And it was all so that whether we see Christmas as a painful time, a joyous time, or an “ehh” time, when we look into the manger there is something there for all of us.  There is the reminder that God is always up to something new and a promise of life and light in the midst of darkness and grief.  There is joy abundant found in the face of a newborn child.  There is an invitation to come and be a part of the mystery of God’s Word becoming flesh in the person of Jesus.  In the face of the newborn Jesus, there is something for each of us to treasure and ponder in our hearts.  That this child was born for you and for me…and that this child would die for you and for me.  The love from which this all came about is indescribable.  But it’s there for you and for me.      

Death, Guns, and God

I was in 10th grade when Columbine happened.  Less than a week after the shootings there, we spent an entire morning sitting on the bleachers of the football field because someone had called in a bomb threat at my high school.

I've since lost count, though someone had posted the number yesterday, of how many school shootings have taken place since April 20, 1999, but it's been far too many.  Even one school shooting is one school shooting too many.

I grew up with the understanding that, for the most part, school was a safe place.  I cannot imagine that this is the case any more.  Now there are schools that require students to pass through a metal detector to get in.  Now there is a greater police presence in schools that I ever remember seeing when I was in school.  Now, places of learning are just as likely to be places of violence (physical and non-physical) and death.  And I grieve over this.

When I heard the news about the shooting in Newtown, CT yesterday, I was waiting for my coffee and food at Dunkin Donuts. I just happened to glance up at the television to see images of the children being escorted from Sandy Hook Elementary school.  And my heart sank as I watched little innocent faces being rescued from what is likely to be the worst day of their lives.  These children are the age of a good chunk of the kiddos that I work with at Trinity...20 of them now robbed of their futures.  And I heard the words of Christ from the cross, crying out in the words of Psalm 22, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"

But then I felt a little nudge from the inside...from my unborn child who began a little dance inside my belly.  At 24 weeks of gestation, Jellybean is my constant reminder that death never has the final say, Christ's victory over death and God's wish for us to have life abundant do.  And the words in my head turned from the lament in Psalm 22 to the plea of the song "E'en So, Lord Jesus," by Paul Manz.
       "E'en so, Lord Jesus, quickly come, and night will be no more.  They need no light, nor lamp, nor sun,  
        for Christ will be their all."

In the Christian tradition, our Advent hymns cry out for Christ to come and reconcile us to one another.  "O Come, O Come, Emanuel, and ransom captive Israel, who mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appears.  Rejoice, Rejoice, Emanuel shall come to you, O Israel."  And we cry out to God on behalf of the fallen in Newtown, CT with tears and words of anger, with tears and words of pain and sorrow, with tears and words of lament.  But we do so knowing that though God is always present among us.  God held those who were killed in his arms and comforted them in their last moments. God was with all of those students who huddled in corners and their teachers who calmed their fears by reading them stories, ready to protect them at a moments notice.  God was with the first responders who came to the aid of  Sandy Hook Elementary school.  And God's mercy rests now over the victims and their families, and over the shooter.

And so the question becomes "what now?"  What do we do when innocents are slaughtered by someone who, himself was just a child who suffered from mental illness?  Well first, we keep on praying, we keep on lamenting and mourning.

But we also need to start talking.  We need to have reasonable conversations about ways in which this nation can become safer through gun control laws (Note: I grew up around guns, my husband and I own a gun, I am an admirer of guns, and I respect 2nd amendment rights, to a point).  We need to have healthy conversations about ways in which we can, as a nation, better care for those who suffer from mental illnesses but for whom services have not been as readily available since the 1980's.

There are also somethings that we shouldn't do.  Turning the shooter, a young man with a mental illness, into an evil villain is not helpful. Saying guns don't kill people, people kill people is also not helpful in this incident...there would be 28 people still alive today if Adam Lanza hadn't had access to multiple weapons. Saying God allowed the shooting to happen because we have taken prayer out of schools is probably the least helpful and most harmful thing that could be said in the aftermath of this horrific tragedy (Shame on you, Mike Huckabee).

It is my prayer in these coming days and weeks that we can come together as a nation, forget the labels that divide us, and work to make this nation a safer place for our children.  And I pray that there will be an end to gun violence...an end to all violence in this country and in this world.

May God have mercy upon all of us.

“Waiting”

Advent 1

December 2, 2012

Jeremiah 33:14-16

 

It’s happened once again, we’ve come to the beginning of a new church year.  It has seemed a little different this year with Thanksgiving having been so early that there has been a slight disconnect between the Thanksgiving holiday and the beginning of Advent.  If you think about it, though, the way in which things fell this year is very appropriate for the spirit of Advent.  It is the time of the year when, as the church, we are called on to be totally counter-cultural.  Instead of the Christmas rush, we are called up to hurry up and wait.  To be patient in our preparations, to take our time as we take in the sights and sounds of the season.  It’s also a time when we are called to go against the clutter of the Christmas season and take some time to do some “Advent cleaning” and simplify how we do things while we wait for the celebration of the birth of Christ. 

But why would we do this?  What is the point of going against the current that is trying to pull us into the mad rush of Christmas?  Well, first, in the middle of the jam packed calendars that come with the month of December, isn’t it nice to have someone suggest that maybe we take a time out to slow down and enjoy what this season is all about? And second, we’re preparing to celebrate a birth, which takes some time and patience…but we’re also taking part in a story that has involved a lot of waiting and preparation.  So why not jump in and make ourselves fully involved in this story rather than just being bystanders who look in and say “oh, isn’t that nice?” 

When we talk about waiting, the prophet Jeremiah, and the Israelites in exile give us a good perspective on that this means.  Jeremiah conducted his ministry during a time filled with lots of waiting in the life of Israel.  The people were waiting for freedom from their Assyrian captors, who although they had been peaceful, were captors none the less.  143 years after the people had become captives to the Assyrians, however, King Nebuchadnezzar II and the Babylonians defeated the Assyrians and took control of the kingdom of Judah.  When the Babylonians took control, the king of Judah and other major leaders in Jerusalem were taken to live in exile in Babylon.  Meanwhile Nebuchadnezzar named a new king to rule over Judah, and in doing so, tore apart the kingly line that had been promised to David.

When the Babylonian captivity began, Jeremiah had been doing ministry for 30 years.  He was called by God into ministry in a time when many felt that God was silent and holding a grudge against them for the wrong doings of their ancestors.  Jeremiah was not a very well liked man, however. He preached to the people around him about their need to turn away from the worship of idols and return to worshipping God…and he did so to the point of being obnoxious.  The people didn’t listen, in fact they disliked what Jeremiah had to say so much that they threw Jeremiah into jail because of his prophecies.  Little did they know that these prophecies that were beginning to come true. 

It was not known at the time, but soon, Zedekiah, the king whom King Nebuchadnezzar II had placed on the throne in Judah, would rebel and in response, the Babylonian army would lay siege to Jerusalem, destroying the entire city, including the temple that king Solomon had built, and take more people into exile.  

This is the context in which Jeremiah was living.  The people in Jerusalem were living in fear, they had lost the promise of the Davidic line and now they were about to lose their families, their homes, their livelihood and many would lose their lives.  On top of all this, the holiest place in all of Jerusalem, a place that was thought to be invincible by the people of the time, would be destroyed.  The people in Jerusalem were in desperate need of hope in the midst of great loss…and they were waiting…waiting for deliverance from the situation in which they were in…waiting for deliverance from God.

2600 years after Jeremiah, it seems like we’re still doing a lot of waiting and that we’re still in need of some hope.  We’re waiting for the economy to bounce back, we’re waiting anxiously right now to see if congress is going to let us fall off that fiscal cliff, we’re waiting to see how that blood work turns out, or if a loved one finally got that job they’ve been struggling to find for a couple years, we’re waiting to see if the predictions surrounding the Mayan calendar are right…which, I can pretty confidently say they’re not…just ask a descendant of the Mayans.  But there is so much waiting that we do.  Maybe Advent makes us uncomfortable because we do so much waiting that the Christmas rush and getting things checked off our list sometimes bring us a little comfort, as if maybe there is something that we have control over. 

But there is something else which can bring us great comfort and hope in the midst of all the waiting.  “In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety.”  In the midst of the destruction of the kingly line of David, in the midst of the impending destruction of Jerusalem, there is a promise.  There is a promise that the line of David will be restored to the throne.  A righteous branch, meaning a legitimate heir to the throne of David, will spring up and bring forth justice and righteousness, restoring Judah and Jerusalem.  These are words of radical hope in the midst of impending disaster, words that brought comfort to a people in the middle of waiting.  And though this prophecy was not fulfilled in the time of Jeremiah, or the exile, we have seen the fulfillment of this hope coming into our midst. 

This is the hope for which we wait and prepare for in this Advent season.  A hope in one who rose up from the line of David and brought justice and righteousness with him.  We have seen this hope realized in the birth of a child.  A child born in an unlikely place to unlikely parents, a child that did unlikely things and died in an unexpected way.  This is our advent hope.  One that grows each week, symbolized by the lights on the advent wreath, each week bringing more and more light into our midst until all five candles burn brightly together. 

A manger is probably the last place that one would go to as a place where hope comes from.  And yet, each year, that’s where we go to, to a feed trough, and from this most unlikely and unpleasant place, we find the source of our hope, wrapped in swaddling clothes.  Jeremiah didn’t know it, but this child would be one who would execute justice and righteousness, redeeming Jerusalem and Judah through the sacrifice of his own body and blood.  This is the hope that Jeremiah clung to.  A hope that endured through the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, the holiest place in the kingdom of Judah.  It is a hope that endured through the years of waiting during which Judah lived under the captivity of Babylon, it was the hope that brought Simeon and Anna to the temple each day to pray and wait for the Messiah, it is a hope that brings light into the midst of the all the waiting that we seem to be doing. A light that will never fade, even in the midst of all the waiting and hoping. 

This Advent we have a great opportunity.  We have an opportunity to wait, to slow down and prepare ourselves for the celebration of the birth of Christ.  It is the perfect opportunity for a New Year’s resolution or two.  Maybe it means taking more time to just be, or not rushing to get Christmas over with.  Or maybe, it means scheduling in some extra time to spend with family at home, away from the rush of the world, where you can slow down and together prepare for the celebration of the birth of Christ.  Let’s see if this year we can find hope in the midst of the waiting.  Blessings to you in this new year. Amen