December 20, 2024

 

Dear Friends,

Christmas is almost here—and this is my prayer for this Christmas: that it is rest for you. Many people feel the pressure of the holiday—and some people like the pressure. Some people like taking care of things, making things merry and bright, as it were. For others, the pressure is awful, and they’d much rather make things quiet and still. Both these impulses surround birth: you want to get your home ready for a baby, but when the baby comes, it’s nice to just rest and watch the little baby sleep. Of course, if you’re a new parent, half the time you’ll think your kid is suffocating, and it isn’t all that restful, but still—that’s the goal. And the coming Christmas, I pray, will provide at least one day when you can just rest.

We’ve been looking at Paul’s first letter to the church in Thessaloniki this Advent, and it’s really opened my eyes to the letter. I’m used to hearing it around Advent, since it has a section or two about the coming of Jesus. But I’ve been really struck by Paul’s exhortation to Christian living. And that kind of living, I think, may be the help we need to get through this Christmas time.

At the very end of the letter, Paul tells the church to work hard for one another, to contribute to their communal living. And then he says, “Encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them. See that none of you repays evil with evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” In common parlance we might say, “Be positive.” I prefer Paul’s way of speaking—do good.

Part of Paul’s advice to is accept hardship, difficulty, disappointment, stress, and failure. I joked—well, it wasn’t exactly a joke—that I often react to things with anger. I’m like the guy in Inside Out whose head turns into fire. This is not the way. The way to react to the world is with love. That’s the way God does it. God repays evil with good. And Paul also tells us how to get there—through prayer, practicing gratitude, and celebrating whatever is good. That’s why Joy is the main character in Inside Out—if it were anger there would be no conflict, nor overcoming anything, just meltdown and then darkness.

This week Mary sings about God’s dealing with the world in the Magnificat. One commentator has said, “Thus God cannot place his power at the service of his compassion for the humble and weak, without it coming into conflict with that of the mighty of this world.” Love means conflict, but once it overthrows the mighty and powerful, it makes room for them. It is not vengeance but reformation, not exile but expansion. For those at the top, it can feel distressing when they have to take their place alongside others: but there remains a choice between love and anger.

Love is strong, so strong it takes the side of the weak. It’s like the older brother that picks the worst kids for playground basketball but helps them win anyway. It’s the generous elder that buys rounds for the young kids. And it’s nurtured through prayer, joy, and gratitude.

I guess I have another prayer for you—I pray that you find joy, that you offer prayer, that you take time to give thanks. That will feed your love, which grows in sharing.


Don’t forget: Lessons and Carols on the 22nd at 6:30 pm, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day all coming up!


See you soon,


Pastor John

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December 13, 2024

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Dear Friends,

Two announcements and some reflections on John the Baptist today--

First, tonight from 5pm to 8pm we are pleased that Emon Hassan is having a book showing. Emon is a New York Times photographer and has just produced a beautiful book about Uptown called I Dream of the Heights.  It’s a beautiful book, and the prints look lovely on our walls. There will be cookies and cider and a lot of beauty and wonder, so please brave the cold weather and find some good art. Alert Bennett Avenue residents will see a photo of Steve, our mailman, too. This is all in our Sanctuary, a home for beauty in the Heights.

Secondly, our children are doing their Christmas Pageant this Sunday. Thanks to Maggie Stallings, mom extraordinaire and director this year, our kids are dressing up and showing out. One of my kids has been practicing Hark! The Herald Angels Sing every day for two weeks. I am well-conditioned to hark now, and I hope that all of you will take some time to come on Sunday and hear the story of the Incarnation of our Lord.

Despite that, it’s still Advent, and not quite Christmas yet. And Advent’s themes are well worth hearing this year. Those themes are easily summed up: Wait, and while you’re waiting, get your s$#@ together, because something cosmic is coming.

Consider, for instance, the people in the path of the hurricanes: they board up their windows, they get gas, they consult the evacuation plans, routes, check their tires. They stash cash in their go-bags and stack them by the door. They listen closely to the radio and their phones, and as soon as the notices go out, they get out. 

Maybe we should start thinking of Advent that way—it’s the time to get your go bag stocked, to get gas in your car, and to be ready when God says, “Go.” 

You’ll hear the gospel section this Sunday at Church, before the kids do their pageant, and that’s John the Baptist’s message: don’t rely on the work of your forbears, or rest on reputations. Don’t be the guy that says it all blew over last time. The hurricane—Jesus—is coming. Get your go bag ready. 

John’s message is a hard one: it’s about changing and waiting. He came delivering a message about repentance, about changing your life so that instead of conforming to the standards of the world and the culture, you conform to the highest standard—God’s standard. Don’t fudge your numbers, don’t skim a little off the top, don’t let your heart get hardened in little evils until it’s accustomed to any evil. Break the pattern and fill your go bag with the goodness of God’s love and will.

So, Advent is a penitential time, a preparation time, a preseason training time. When the hymn asks us to “prepare him room” in our hearts, it means that we should have cleaned out all the garbage that we find there. When the hurricane comes, there won't be any safe place for idols.

So, it’s my prayer this year that this be the strangest, most magnificent, most awe-full, most discomforting Christmas ever. We often focus on the comfort of the cradle, but maybe we need also to remember the roar of the angels and the shouts of the shepherds. I pray that the Sunday School does its part with the pageant—and that Advent becomes the time of repentance and change it can be for you.

See you soon,

Pastor John

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December 6, 2024

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Dear Friends,

I’m so excited for this weekend—it’s our annual Advent Fair and Tree Sale and on Sunday, our friend Pastor Becca Seely is coming to preach and share news about Lutheran Ministries in Higher Education.

Our Advent Fair is a great time—you can get a tree and a wreath, and then come inside to bake cookies, make crafts, and do some advocacy letter writing. It’s going to be a great day for an Advent Festival—wintry and cool. Come and hang out with us for a while.

Becca Seely comes to visit us a couple of times a year. Her work is vitally important to the church—Campus Ministries nurture future lay leaders and pastors in the church. College can sometimes be a very lonely place for a religious person, especially someone who is religiously progressive. But it is also a place where faith is strengthened through intellectual testing and community, especially in a prayerful, open, and service-centered community where people can truly be themselves. Then they have space to work through their questions while serving others. Campus Ministry is one the most important ministries of the church, but like a lot of things that are God’s, the important stuff isn’t profitable, so LMHE needs support.

The texts this week are all about the importance of community for faith: the Gospel tells us of John the Baptist, the Forerunner who prepares the people for Jesus’s ministry. He calls the people to repent, to refocus, to open our ears to the Word we are about to hear, to ready ourselves for good news. There are two aspects of community in this story—first that John is not calling to individuals, but gathering individuals together into a community. And second, even our Savior relied on others. John the Baptist, his disciples, the women who paid for his meals, even Pilate to choose crucifixion. Paul’s letter to the Philippians is a lovefest of a letter—rejoicing in the people who gather around the Word, who are learning discipleship. Christian faith is both a highly individualized, internal experience, but also the connection of all those experiences into a body. Our differences are good, and our uniqueness matters. There’s no one quite like you in the church, and the church needs you, with all your gifts.

Please join us this weekend! The Advent Fair starts at 10 and goes till 3 (or whenever we run out of trees and crafts) and church, as always starts at 11.

And the good news is, if you miss this Sunday, next Sunday is the Christmas Pageant!

Pastor John

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November 27, 2024

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Dear Friends,

What does Mary Had a Little Lamb have to do with Thanksgiving? And why am I asking such a weird question?

The answer to both is Sarah Josepha Hale, the abolitionist, writer, editor, and dare I say chief influencer of 19th-Century America. She wrote to every president she could to establish the holiday of Thanksgiving, which was commonly celebrated at different times throughout New England, but not elsewhere. She was the editress (her preferred word) of Godey’s Lady’s Book, which was perhaps the most widely read and most influential publication in the United States at that time, and spend fifteen years advocating for it, and including an entire chapter in her novel Northwood about what to eat, what to cook, when Thanksgiving should take place, and so on. She’s the one who came up with classic menu of turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie.

We’re accustomed to Pilgrims and hats and poorly depicted Native Americans. But, as I feel like reminding folks every year, Thanksgiving as we know it today came out of the Civil War, when the forces of enslavement were steadily losing to the abolitionist forces from the North. "I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union,” as Abraham Lincoln wrote in his proclamation for the holiday.

Thanksgiving, by its very nature, is not about getting. There aren’t any gifts other than ones for which we are already giving thanks. It’s really hard to commercialize that act. Black Friday, of course, comes directly after Thanksgiving. But there’s one day, one beautiful day, where all you have to do is eat with the ones you love, enjoy the gifts God has made, and breathe, and give thanks.

So I hope you take some time tomorrow to give thanks to God. Even in times of strife, when things are dark, it’s good to give thanks. Giving thanks for whatever God has given—as the Letter from James says—teaches us to count it all joy.

So Happy Thanksgiving. Let God be your light, and let your light shine.


Pastor John

 

to two things: safety and inclusion.

First, safety: at some point crumbling rocks don’t stay in the wall. They fall down. And we don’t want anyone to discover there’s a problem after they wake up in the ER. This house of God is home to many people from all over our neighborhood, from artists to musicians to writers to dancers. There is no immediate danger, but we want everyone to be safe and we’ll do what we need to do to make sure of it. 

Second, inclusion: our building is a home for beauty. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, the Psalm says. And for whatever reason, God has called us to make a place of beauty—not just things that look beautiful, but that are beautiful. A safe place for children to learn music is a beautiful place; the rooms hallowed by song and prayer and praise are beautiful because God has touched the souls of the people who gathered there. The kitchen and upper rooms where people learn sobriety are beautiful because lives change for the better. And all this beauty should say something to you: you can be beautiful. You have a place here. This building is for you because God has invited you here.

This stance is about to become—or perhaps always is—contrary to the powers that be. In place of separation and fear, we believe in uniting in beauty. In place of narrowness of thought, our faith allows us to explore the various ways we can praise God and love one another. It all happens here. 

So watch out for our capital campaign appeal. In the meantime, come on and visit us. Sunday’s coming and we hope you’ll be there. It’s a beautiful place to be.


Pastor John

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