My Molded Plastic Baby Jesus

I picked up this ridiculously kitschy molded plastic nativity in a second-hand store a few years ago. The three wise men, Joseph and Mary all have light bulbs stuck through their backs so you can plug them in and they’ll light up. It just adds another element of wrongness that is actually what I like so much about this set. That the baby Jesus got covered up by the snow this year is all the more a reminder to me that I don’t do Christmas right.

What I mean by not doing it right is this: Sometimes I send out cards, sometimes I don’t.  Sometimes I put lights on the bushes outside, sometimes I don’t.  I haven’t baked a single cookie, made candy or spent an ounce of energy cleaning the house.  I did not decorate the tree (my daughter did a lovely job). I spent about 3 hours of actual store time shopping for gifts for my family; the rest I bought online.

By many people’s standards, I have not done the essential things that make it Christmas. But I’m not trying to make a statement or rebelling against consumerism. I’m not saying you are wrong if you enjoyed doing the things I haven’t done. I’m not campaigning to “keep Christ in Christmas” or boycotting stores that don’t greet me with “Merry Christmas” or anything like that. And guess what? It’s still going to be Christmas tomorrow.

Why? Because Christmas has nothing to do with what I do and everything to do with what God has done. “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God” (1 Cor 1:27-29 NRSV).

And what better example do we have than Mary? For God has “looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant” (Luke 1:48). This is good news for those of us with a tendency toward perfectionism, who never quite measure up to our own standards. It is good news for any of us who are afraid we have done it wrong. It is good news for anyone who has tried repeatedly and for anyone who has given up trying. It is good news for those who wonder if they’ve done enough and for those who think they do everything right.

That God in Christ comes to us, to you and to me, without any human doing, not Mary’s, not Joseph’s, not yours and not mine is good news. The Christ child comes to us, for us, to be with us, whether we’ve done it right or not.

Wait For It...

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
    and in his word I hope;
    my soul waits for the Lord
    more than those who watch for the morning,
   more than those who watch for the morning. (Psalm 130:5-6)

I think it’s safe to say we often fail to wait well.  The fact that “express lanes” exist is evidence enough. Watch the cars inching forward next to you at the stoplight. “NoWait” is a phone app that urges users to “Stop Waiting. Get in Line from Your Phone.” Well, actually you still have to wait, but the restaurant can now text you when your table is ready. Maybe it makes waiting easier somehow. When we took the kids to Disney World in 2000, for an additional fee we could bypass the lines at many rides, going straight to the front by showing our “FastPass.” Cell phone companies compete for new customers by advertising shortened periods between phone upgrades. Internet service providers are continually seeking faster download speed. With our third child we are witnessing a new twist in the college admissions process; some colleges now send out “express” applications to select students, promising an acceptance decision in a matter of days instead of weeks.

We just plain hate to wait, and when we do, we complain. After doctor appointments or worse, trips to the emergency room, we feel compelled to report how long we were forced to wait, which we do with mild annoyance at best, indignant anger at our worst.

Related to our aversion to waiting is our love for all things “instant.” Redbox and Netflix offer us movies on demand with no more waiting in theater lines. ITunes gives us immediate access to thousands of music selections. We can get instant loan approval using instant credit applications. With smart phone technology, we can instantly purchase items we see in ads by scanning a code. Online retail giant, Amazon, reported recently that it hopes by 2015 to use unmanned drones to deliver packages within 30 minutes. Instant potatoes, instant pudding, instant coffee, instant oatmeal… the list is almost endless.

Why the obsession with acceleration? Why is it so hard to wait and why do we put so much effort into avoiding it?

One clue has come to me recently by way of observing my mother, who is recovering in a nursing home for an undetermined period of time following a fall in her home. As a registered nurse for 50 years, she is much more accustomed to being in charge than she is being a patient. After spending decades responding to call lights, she is now in the position of having to wait for hers to be answered. If you’ve ever been hospitalized yourself, you know that once you’ve pushed that call button, you don’t have much choice but to wait…and trust.

And maybe that is the real crux of the problem for us. Waiting means not being in control. It makes us anxious and so to relieve that discomfort we try to do something, anything to maintain the self-deception of power over our situation. But in working so hard to avoid waiting, we deprive ourselves of a spiritual practice that can teach us things we do not learn through instant gratification. When we rush headlong into the pre-celebration of Christmas before the frost is even on the pumpkin, we deprive ourselves of an opportunity we have to practice waiting well. We are grabbing with our own hands something that belongs to God.

While it’s true John the Baptist cries out to “prepare the way of the Lord,” I wonder to what extent our preparations for Christmas serve to feed our desire to effect an outcome. When we say we are “having Christmas” on this day or that one, are we expressing a desire to control and perhaps missing out on an opportunity to receive? Could John’s scolding of the crowds who came to be baptized be more about their need to check an item off their “to-do” list? Maybe he was all worked up because repentance is more akin to receiving than it is to doing.  

I have my own challenges when it comes to waiting faithfully, but these words from Isaiah offer assurance that this discipline, instead of being a waste of time, can be a gift like no other.

            It will be said on that day,
            Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.
            This is the Lord for whom we have waited;
            let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. (Isaiah 25:9)

            Amen.

             

A Gift Received

“So… you’re taking off now?” I heard her voice from the kitchen just as I grasped the doorknob.

            There it was. That was my cue.  Initially, this had looked like it might be an in-and-out troubleshooting job. Exchanging a faulty power cord is about as quick and easy as these calls get. But this visit held the promise of something more personal.

            In the years that I have been putting help button units in client’s homes, I’ve become aware that there is very often much more going on than what appears on the surface to be simply an installation of equipment. This has happened to such an extent that it is now my practice to precede each of these opportunities with prayer and the expectation to encounter the Holy in some way.

            Over the next 20 minutes or so, I learned quite a bit about this lady; her community involvements, favorite restaurant, favorite food, where she grew up, how long she’d lived in her home, her maiden name, her deceased husband’s name, and how many children they had together. Lastly, she shared with me her disappointment in no longer being able to enjoy her favorite hobby because of arthritis.

            “What was it you liked to crochet?” I asked. “Open that drawer,” she pointed, “the top one next to the stove.” I nearly couldn’t; it was stuffed so full of potholders, all crafted from a bright palette of yarn. Admiring aloud her work, I lifted up one after another from the drawer.  “This one reminds me of the fields before harvest. This one has the colors of the beach.”

            “You like that red one? Take you a couple more. I have plenty.” I chose two and thanked her for them.

            “The best way to understand sacraments is to think of them as visible words. They are the way that God says, “I love you.” God says this to us in bread, wine, and water – the simplest things of everyday life.”[i]

            Do you see the connection that I do? Since I’m not being graded here, perhaps I can risk creeping a little further out on this limb.  With no one to receive them, my client’s handmade potholders held no value to her. The packed kitchen drawer held hours upon hours of time that had gone unfulfilled. But in having her gift received, a kind of consummation took place.

            “This is my body, given FOR YOU,” “This is my blood, shed FOR YOU for the forgiveness of sins.” “Here you have both – that is Christ’s body and blood and that they are yours as a treasure and gift. Christ’s body cannot be an unfruitful, useless thing that does nothing and helps no one.”[ii]

            Those of us who communicate via text messaging certainly shouldn’t miss Luther’s strong emphasis; the use of all caps is the equivalent of shouting. The whole point of the sacrament is FOR YOU to receive it.  It is through this means that Christ is present with us today, fulfilling God’s purpose of communion with God’s people.

            Listen for it this week. “In the night in which he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus took bread…” That’s your cue that a promise is about to be fulfilled, but it can’t happen without you.

---

[i] Crazy Talk: A Not-So-Stuffy Dictionary of Theological Terms, edited by Rolf A. Jacobson, published by Augsburg Books, 2008, p. 151.

[ii] Martin Luther, The Large Catechism, “The Sacrament of the Altar,” 64-65, 29-30.

Passing Through Class V Waters

There's a very good reason I am not in this photo. 

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
   I have called you by name, you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
   and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; (Isaiah 43:1-2 NRSV)

It is no accident, I’m sure, that our professor chose this text for us to practice one of the ways to pray with scripture. As new seminary students, we shared varying degrees of uncertainty and anxiety. And there would be more opportunities for fear and doubt to gain hold this past year as we struggled to articulate our faith, first thrust out into the wide-open spaces of pluralism and finishing within the strict confines of systematic theology. It has been quite a ride.

Yet, these verses were virtually forgotten until after this summer’s youth mission trip. The guided whitewater rafting excursion we took on West Virginia’s New River bore little resemblance to Garrison Keillor’s leisurely pontoon boat ride on Lake Wobegon. That is, until the familiar story’s 24 Lutheran ministers aboard “gave their lives to Christ” and found themselves standing helplessly in water up to their chins while pondering the meaning of it all. Keillor’s clever phrase is a little misleading, though. You see, neither the pastors in that story nor I decided we would rather be in the water than on the boat. Maybe Peter wanted to get out and try to walk on the water like Jesus, but that was not my plan. In a similar way, 3 years ago I had no intention whatsoever of being in ministry.

So, how in the world did I end up in seminary? In the course of the candidacy process, we are asked to share that story multiple times. For myself, the image of a river has emerged as a metaphor. Its beckoning was unremitting. Worn down by something not unlike the sound of a dripping faucet, I sought relief, but not by diving in head first or taking a running leap. No, I behaved like anyone else afraid of the water. First dipping in a toe, then a foot, then wading in slowly up to my knees. I took one trial class, then one more, before eventually applying for full admission.

The girls who watched from the raft thought I appeared remarkably calm. But honestly, even while wearing a life vest, it was all I could do to keep my face above the surface of the churning bath. Just catching my breath after being tossed from my seat took priority over trying to swim to the shore. All I could do was float along until our rafting guide reached down and hauled me back in.

What kinds of waters threaten you? Isaiah does not offer advice on how to avoid getting caught in their flow. In fact, it would appear not only that they are inevitable but that God knows we will be tempted by fear. We can take comfort, though, in the promise of God’s presence, which is no small thing. Notice, too, that neither God’s claim of us nor God’s presence is dependent on our asking. They are stated as an absolute given. No room is given for us to screw that up. Therefore, we can trust in God’s promise that we “shall not” be overwhelmed by these things.

Gracious God, whether your children splash happily in the shallow eddies or find themselves immersed in a powerful and frightening current, may we find peace in trusting that you are with us always, regardless of how well we think we can (or can’t) swim. Amen.

On Martha and Bread

As you might infer from this little sign I have in my house, I never felt the slightest kinship to Martha in Luke’s gospel reading from this past Sunday (Luke 10:38-42). Nope, that clearly isn’t me. I can easily ignore dishes piling up on the counter and crumbs on the floor without feeling the least bit guilty. Those thoughtful invitations to the latest-and-greatest household cleaning product parties don’t get a second glance from me because cleaning just isn’t a priority. I can always find better things to do.

In an earlier generation, how well women kept house was tied so closely to their self-worth that I’ve even seen it mentioned in their obituaries, no kidding. Me? It’s a good thing housekeeping isn’t one of the criteria I use to judge myself. I have enough other ammunition, I guess.

To be perfectly honest, Mary and Martha is one of those bible stories that I had almost quit paying attention to because I was so sure I already knew what it was all about. When you reach that point of arrogance, you’re pretty much asking God to give you an attitude adjustment. At least that’s how it works with me.

This time around, instead of sitting there with Mary and laughing while Martha runs around like a chicken with its head cut off, I see Martha in a different way. I feel sorry for her now, because all the time she’s desperately trying to prepare, she is missing out. Behind the façade of playing the good hostess, I think Martha is afraid. She is afraid of being judged by her actions, or more precisely, by what she hasn’t done. Martha does not trust Jesus. Mary does and Martha can’t stand it. Getting something for nothing isn’t the way Martha’s mind works. Jealous of the easy relationship that Mary has with Jesus, Martha tries to derail it.  Mary simply receives Jesus.

Maybe this story isn’t about doing as much as it is about trusting. Last week, we heard the lawyer ask Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 10:25) Jesus knows the way this guy thinks and gives answers that speak to him on his own terms, “…do this and you will live”(Luke 10:28b)and later, “Go and do likewise.”(Luke 10:37b)

If we choose to be judged and to judge others by what we do, we will be like Martha, living in fear and frustration, forever trying to prepare and never quite ready. We will always be putting something in the way of our relationship with Jesus.  Mary, on the other hand, is simply present in the moment.

A former pastor advised me to “let go and let God” more than once, which proved counterproductive because it would invariably aggravate me all the more. I wondered later why that phrase would generate such a strong response in me, but I think Luke’s story has shown me something I hadn’t noticed before. Maybe I’m not a clean freak, but I can still put on a pretty good Martha. Sure, I may love to talk grace, but have plenty of difficulty receiving it without trying to prove to myself I am worthy in a dozen other ways.

When we pray as Jesus teaches in the next chapter of Luke, “Give us each day our daily bread,” we know from Luther’s Small Catechism that “God gives daily bread without our prayer, even to all evil people…” So, why bother to ask? I think it’s because every day is a struggle for us to trust God.  This is less a petition and more a statement of trust.

And it goes far beyond having something to munch on. In John’s gospel, Jesus calls himself the bread of life. A devotional book I received from my synod is titled, Bread for the Day.  “There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”(Luke 10:42)  Mary didn’t cook, bake, dust or wash a blessed thing. Mary simply received her bread.

Please and thank you, Lord.

No Instructions Needed

I like to think I know what I’m doing. I’ve been setting up help alert units for people in their homes for several years now. It’s not that complicated, akin to hooking up an answering machine before phones had them built in. If it was too hard, the home health agency wouldn’t be letting volunteers like me do it.

The latest units now have an automatic step-by-step installation menu that starts talking as soon as you plug it in. It’s helpful, I suppose, for people who pick one up from the agency and take it home to install themselves. But I don’t need any directions, thank you very much, because I already know how.

“Twenty minutes,” I told the woman. “I’ll be in and out of your house in twenty minutes.”  I should have known better. To start with, it took some time to locate a second phone jack. Once that’s accomplished, it’s usually a piece of cake from there. So, I set about hooking everything up. For some reason, the tangle of wires seemed to be fighting me, but I got them plugged into their appropriate receptacles and hit the switch. Being the expert that I am, I did not want to have to go through the installation for dummies menu, so I bypassed it with a couple nifty button pushes and went ahead with the test run.  Except…it didn’t work. I unplugged everything and plugged it back in again. Still nothing. 

Only after I had exhausted all my troubleshooting tricks without any results did I finally give in. I turned the damned thing off and turned it back on again, and I let it go through the whole instruction menu. On the floor, behind the recliner, on my knees, I listened.  And it worked, just like it’s supposed to. If I had just been patient enough to do that the first time instead of trying to rush through the process, I would have saved myself from a lot of time and frustration. But I knew better, right?

This experience made me recall how my middle son would ask me questions as a preschooler. He had a lot of questions, but invariably, when I would try to give him an answer, he would tell me I was wrong. He was a four-year-old authority on every subject under the sun. Exasperated with his impertinence, one day I finally asked him, “Why do you bother to ask me if you are not going to listen to my answer?”

Why, indeed?  Did you hear that whack I got upside my head?

We love to ask questions, but sometimes we don’t like to listen to God’s answers. The disciples didn’t really want to listen, either. Jesus tells them he’s leaving and gives them final instructions, but they don’t want to hear it, just like my four-year-old and just like me. 

The cross is not the answer the disciples are looking for and isn’t what we want to hear, either. It certainly would be easier to fast-forward through the Holy Week menu, skip over the unpleasantness and celebrate Easter.  But there’s a reason for this process.  If we have the humility to listen, we might learn something. 

A Fist Fast

Those who have heard me tell the story about punching a boy in the lip out at recess in first grade probably think that this post is about fighting and you are partially right.  When I say I am going on a “fist fast,” I mean something a little different than that.  Punching people isn’t something I have trouble with anymore, though I’ll admit sometimes I still feel like it.

There are things in our lives that function as barriers in our relationship with God.  We have allowed them to interfere with that trust by, in effect, making those things into our gods.  For some of us, it could be material things; stuff we buy to just to satisfy our impulsive desires or stuff we consume that does not contribute to a healthy life.

But attitudes and behaviors can be walls that we erect and then lean on, first for support, then out of habit.  We can use almost anything as a means of avoiding God without realizing it.  We so fill our time with activities, well beyond the tasks that we must do, that we leave nothing for prayer.  Rather than turn to God for help, we substitute something else we think will make us feel better, at least for now. They can be things that are not harmful in and of themselves, but when we use them to replace God, we have not only cheated ourselves but also the neighbor God calls us to love.

Have you ever offered a toddler some kind of treat to get them to let go of their death-grip on something you didn’t want them to have?  How can God give us good things if our hands are always full?

Habitually criticizing ourselves, making excuses for our accomplishments, or deflecting compliments are all reliance upon habits that are not life-giving.  Think of them as closed fists, hands that are unable to receive the good things God wants to give us.

As for me, like that little girl on the playground, I have made fighting into a habit; not using my fists in a literal sense, but figuratively.  In my defiant struggle for independence, to do everything my way, I have been defensive against suggestions that I perceived as attempts to control my life.  You can try telling me what you think I ought to do (I did eventually learn to at least be civil and won’t punch you now), but my internal fists will clench up and I will likely stop listening. 

After I withdrew from the nursing program I was enrolled in for a year, my mother told me she never thought I would have made a good nurse anyway.  “Why didn’t you tell me that before I started?” I said.  “You wouldn’t have listened,” she replied and I knew it was true.

So my fist fast is intended to be a prayerful recognition of those times I am tempted to grip other gods too tightly and asking God to open my hands to receive the life offered us all at the end of these 40 days.

Lighting Candles

On weekdays, he drove either a red pickup or a green tractor, wearing a blue chambray shirt under pin-striped overalls.  The pale head, normally covered by a seed corn cap, was only revealed on Sundays, when Herman* would put on his best dark suit, crisp white shirt and tie, shoes shined.  He was a constant in the church, more predictable than the squares of Jello at the funeral lunches. 

Oh, there were other people assigned to be greeters, of course, but Herman would never think of giving up his post in the narthex each Sunday.  He would be there to meet you as soon as your foot hit that top step, take your hand into both of his rough ones and look you in the eye as though he had been searching for you for a long, long time.

Herman was the first one to show up at church on Sunday and made sure he was there early for funerals as well, to help the funeral home staff make all the necessary preparations.  On wintry days, even after the custodian had cleared the walks, he was out sprinkling extra grit on the icy spots so that no one would fall.  Candle lighters were readied and lit for the acolytes as he cautioned them each time about holding the angle so as not to let wax run down inside where he would have to dig it out with his pen knife.  As the youth began to show up less frequently for their appointed duties, Herman took it upon himself to light the candles.

 

Ushering was his joy and he took great pride in directing the collection of the offering and the orderly procession to the communion rail.  He used that footage with the efficiency of a man who had worked many a field carefully from fence to fence. Without fail, he calculated correctly how many people could kneel there comfortably next to one another without crowding and had the next phalanx ready to advance as soon as the ones ahead of them received their blessing and rose to exit (to the sides, please.)

Woe to the secretary, who at the beginning of the year when new officers took over council positions, also left a description of ushering responsibilities in his mailbox.  He marched into the office in his overalls with that piece of paper in his hand, shaking as he shouted about what an insult had been dealt him.  No amount of apologizing would console him, and we walked back out, spent, his head down.

Yet it was the secretary he called at home one Saturday night in the spring, after the corn had been planted.  “I don’t think I’m going to make it to church tomorrow” he said, his voice uncharacteristically soft.  “I just don’t feel good at all.  Will you make sure the candles get lit?”  “I will, Herman," I said. “Don’t you worry. The candles will be lit.”

Herman never lit those candles again.  But the light that was Herman’s life had been passed on countless times in his 80-plus years, multiplying exponentially as it went.  You may not have known him, but chances are you’ve received that light from someone who received it from someone who received it from someone…who received it from Herman.

*(not his real name)