Everywhere I go these days I run into people who want to tell me how important it is for our society to put Christ back into Christmas. I suppose it has something to do with me being a pastor in Christ's church and Christmas becoming more and more of a secular holiday rather than a Christian holy day. I must admit, as they are talking to me, I am never sure if they are trying to convince me or themselves. The ironic part of all of it is that I am not too worried about whether or not society puts Christ back into Christmas. That may sound terrible coming from a pastor, but hear me out.
I believe that the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ is a holy privilege. I also believe that it only has meaning if you believe and trust in this miraculous gift of God's Word becoming flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. That event derives its full significance if we believe that it was the beginning of a new era in human history where God's reign of mercy and reconciliation is coming to fruition. That seems to be the particularly unique purview of the Christian church.
Consequently from my point of view, if society in general wants to have a special celebration marked by good cheer, a seasonal display of goodwill which can be abandoned for the rest of the year, decadent over-eating and over-spending, and belief in a fictional character called Santa Claus and his band of elves, I think it ought to be able to do so without interference from the Christian church.
Let's face it, what with wars, violence, crime, natural disasters, a disintegrating planet, and collapsing economies maybe society needs a few weeks where it can escape into the fantasy of a better, happier, more prosperous, and magical time.
The Christian church, on the other hand, may need to let the society have its decadence and Santa Claus and return to a way of celebrating Christ's birth that honors what God was up to in being born among us and lives beyond the weeks of December. This should not be that difficult, really. What God did in becoming human and ushering in this new reign of peace and mercy is an everlasting thing. That means when the trees are all dried out and on the trash heap, the colorful wrappings are thrown in the fireplace, the latest toy or piece of technology is old news and doesn't fix our lives, we still have a promise from God that things are being made new. When the wars still rage on, violence escalates, crime statistics go up during the holidays, and all of that spending didn't really do anything to make the bad economic situation flourish again, the reality of Emmanual - GOD WITH US - is still true.
That fact alone should be enough to give us hope and promise not just in these few weeks when society wants to draw us into a grand spectacle of twinkling lights, and 3-day shopping sprees, but when the world seems at its darkest and most hopeless. Living with that kind of hope and celebrating the miracle of God with us changes the way we are - every single day. We can struggle hopefully, live gratefully, love extravagantly, care for others and the world God made and do it all with an internal peace that comes only from life in Christ.
I think that the greatest gift that the Christian church could give the society in which we live is to allow them their Christmas fantasies, but show them a better way of celebrating by living just a little differently during the month of December and all year long. The best gift that we, as the disciples of Jesus Christ, can give to the world is to put the Christ back into "Christian."
Bloom away, my friends -
PK(+)
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Friday, December 9, 2011
When the church beats the Jesus out of you
For the past several months, I have been making a weekly contribution to a blog called "Castle Church Door" - a blog devoted to "all things church." I agreed to do so out of a deep love of and a deep concern for Christ's church. I shared writing duties with several other pastors who are friends, colleagues, and in some cases both. Over time, I found that I was no longer blogging here, a fact that I found concerning. Now I am in no way cocky enough to think that what I say here is so important that my failure to blog was somehow a loss to anyone reading. What concerned me was the reason I was no longer blogging here. It seemed that after reading and writing about "all things church" I really didn't feel at all like talking about faith and spirituality. To steal a phrase from a friend and one of the CCD authors, writing about "all things church" was threatening to "beat the Jesus out of me." That reality spurred me to take a hiatus from writing for CCD. It also breeds in me a deep sense of grief. To be blunt - if just writing about "all things church" can beat the Jesus out of a person, what does that say about the church?
The truth is that many people have abandoned the faith, declared themselves to be "spiritual but not religious," agnostic, or even atheist because of their experiences with what we call "the church." In the past year, I have truly begun to understand that trend. As the denomination in which I serve has struggled with controversial decisions that have spilt the denomination, congregations, and even families, I have witnessed and experienced behavior on the part of individuals, pastors, and congregations that in no way can claim to be consistent with Christ's church. It is just this type of thing that drives people - and pastors - out of the church.
Many of the issues on the denominational level revolve around issues of theology, ecclesiology (how the church is structured/governed), and the lenses through which we read and interpret scripture. Those types of issues and our means of dealing with our differences concerning them give the institution of the church a massive black eye.
On a smaller scale, local congregations and individual Christians have their own issues which lead to differences and impossibly unChrist-like behaviour. Watching it occur in the congregation where I serve has made me question whether I really want to be a pastor at all.
SO I return to blogging here as a pastor, theologian, and child of God who feels both called and compelled to speak and write of the marvelous works of God, the grace we have in Christ Jesus, and the new thing that God has done in ushering in the reign of God with the incarnation of Christ. At the same time, I return to blogging here as a child of God and theologian who has deep doubts and concerns about the ability of the institutions that we think of as "the church" - whether on a congregational or denominational level - to make the inbreaking reign known.
What I hope to accomplish - for myself - is to keep awake to the ways the God continues to be at work in the world and discover "the church" in the people who are actively participating in that work. They may not meet together in a single assembly. They may not look they way "church people" are expected to look. But when I keep my eyes open and expected to be surprised, I trust that I will discover the marvelous works of the Holy Spirit happening all around me.
Finally, I hope that I discover that my life can be a response to the gospel concerning Jesus Christ that bears witness to that gospel outside of my "official" capacity as a pastor in ways that offset the ways that "all things church" threaten to beat the Jesus out of me.
I hope that you keep reading. I hope that my journey, my struggles, my questions, doubts, and stumbling in the dark toward the light of Christ may shine just a little of that light into your struggles, doubts, and struggling.
Still blooming -
PK (+)
The truth is that many people have abandoned the faith, declared themselves to be "spiritual but not religious," agnostic, or even atheist because of their experiences with what we call "the church." In the past year, I have truly begun to understand that trend. As the denomination in which I serve has struggled with controversial decisions that have spilt the denomination, congregations, and even families, I have witnessed and experienced behavior on the part of individuals, pastors, and congregations that in no way can claim to be consistent with Christ's church. It is just this type of thing that drives people - and pastors - out of the church.
Many of the issues on the denominational level revolve around issues of theology, ecclesiology (how the church is structured/governed), and the lenses through which we read and interpret scripture. Those types of issues and our means of dealing with our differences concerning them give the institution of the church a massive black eye.
On a smaller scale, local congregations and individual Christians have their own issues which lead to differences and impossibly unChrist-like behaviour. Watching it occur in the congregation where I serve has made me question whether I really want to be a pastor at all.
SO I return to blogging here as a pastor, theologian, and child of God who feels both called and compelled to speak and write of the marvelous works of God, the grace we have in Christ Jesus, and the new thing that God has done in ushering in the reign of God with the incarnation of Christ. At the same time, I return to blogging here as a child of God and theologian who has deep doubts and concerns about the ability of the institutions that we think of as "the church" - whether on a congregational or denominational level - to make the inbreaking reign known.
What I hope to accomplish - for myself - is to keep awake to the ways the God continues to be at work in the world and discover "the church" in the people who are actively participating in that work. They may not meet together in a single assembly. They may not look they way "church people" are expected to look. But when I keep my eyes open and expected to be surprised, I trust that I will discover the marvelous works of the Holy Spirit happening all around me.
Finally, I hope that I discover that my life can be a response to the gospel concerning Jesus Christ that bears witness to that gospel outside of my "official" capacity as a pastor in ways that offset the ways that "all things church" threaten to beat the Jesus out of me.
I hope that you keep reading. I hope that my journey, my struggles, my questions, doubts, and stumbling in the dark toward the light of Christ may shine just a little of that light into your struggles, doubts, and struggling.
Still blooming -
PK (+)
Friday, December 2, 2011
She's Baaaack!
It would be hard for you to not have noticed that I have not made an original post to this blog in several months. I have been chasing my tail with another blog and life in general and found my thoughts too fragmented to even contemplate writing about what it means to be a person of faith.
HOPEFULLY, that is about to change! I have freed up my schedule a bit and intend to renew my commitment to writing about the journeys of faith on which we find ourselves.
If you read and follow, I pray that you will continue to do so and find something in here of value. If not - I can live with that. It is the writing that helps me sort out meaning in the journey, so I mostly do this for me!
Chist's peace to you all.
PK (+)
HOPEFULLY, that is about to change! I have freed up my schedule a bit and intend to renew my commitment to writing about the journeys of faith on which we find ourselves.
If you read and follow, I pray that you will continue to do so and find something in here of value. If not - I can live with that. It is the writing that helps me sort out meaning in the journey, so I mostly do this for me!
Chist's peace to you all.
PK (+)
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