Guns & Jesus

It becomes increasingly obscene to balance the American desire to cling to guns with the message of Christmas. We observe a holiday centered in the birth of a powerless and vulnerable child who lived a life of nonviolence. He chose weakness over power, love over force, sacrifice over self-will. How this life squares with the insistent demand to own weapons without restrictions is beyond me.

And while today’s church is obviously made up of human beings who live in the “real world” of the 21^st Century and not first century Palestine, trying to square the message of Christmas holiness with the “God-given” right to arm ourselves grows increasingly offensive.

We are confronted with two stories to live. There is the “American” story that offers violence, force and self-protection at all costs and that clamors for our rights as means to our salvation. And there is the story of Jesus Christ, one who was born in vulnerability and lived in trust. That story insists that ultimate victory belongs to “the lamb who was slain” by the violence of the world. That story insists that our responsibilities trump our rights, that community trumps self, and that forgiveness trumps retaliation.

Only one of these stories is true and worthy of our commitment. We cannot have it both ways.
 

Pastor Larry

Grace in the Twinkling of an Eye

I had a minor outpatient procedure this week, one that involved anesthesia for a brief time.  (Actually, I wasn’t planning to say “colonoscopy” here at all. But it’s an opportunity to say to you:  Please do not neglect this!  If you’ve never had one or are overdue, it’s no big deal – and it could save your life.  I’ve done too many funerals to believe otherwise. Go. You are too precious to God not to.)

Okay – now back to Tidings.  The most wondrous thing about this to me was the experience of the anesthesia.  I said it’s really a form of time-travel:  One second you’re in this room; the next second you’re in another room and an hour has gone by.  Zip!   It’s that immediate – and that amazing.  So many of you have had the same experience, maybe more often and for longer than mine.

But it got me pondering.

I give God great thanks for the gift of anesthesia and God’s trained practitioners. I also wondered if the gift of death is anything like this experience.  Your eyes close involuntarily.  Consciousness drops away. You lose any conception of earthly time.  You trust others to take care of your body. You are not in pain. You awaken in another location, seemingly immediately and yet much later.  You’re beckoned by soft voices that welcome you into a different reality from the one you left.

I take this as a glimpse of the mercy God has prepared for us. I know the reality is probably far more complex.  I believe in a time of judgment, for example (which this experience didn’t include).  But even in preparing for that moment we’re urged to remember that the One who judges us most finally is the same One who loves us most fully.

Christmas is obviously about the birth of Jesus, not his death. But our final encounter with Jesus can come at any moment.  A lot of us have lost family members over these past weeks, too, so any musing about death is always timely.  

So Paul writes to the Corinthians: 

Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye… and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. (1 Cor. 15:52)

Amazing things happen in the twinkling of an eye. Much to give thanks for.

Think Small

The opening verse of our Scripture reading for Sunday is a word of hope from Isaiah:

            A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,

          and a branch shall grow out of his roots.   (Isaiah 11:1)

Odd words, aren’t they?  There’s a lot of hidden metaphor in that verse.  Jesse was King David’s father.  His “family tree” had come to an end.  Jesse’s clan was no longer the “royal family” – David was gone, his sons were dead or disgraced – and the prophet Isaiah likens his once-great family tree to a stump.

But Isaiah is saying that the longed for Messiah – God’s special chosen one who would lead Israel back to glory – would be a descendant of David nonetheless. He would come from this stunted family tree. The dead stump would send out a shoot.  Hope would peek out like a small bud or a twig or tendril.  This tentative growth would develop into a branch, and that branch become the lineage of the unexpected Messiah.

Notice the littleness of this new beginning.  A small shoot of new growth. A tender bud. Fragile, barely noticeable, easily overlooked. These are the ways of God. The world of commerce constantly shouts and screams; it tries to shock or dazzle or outrage.    But God enters quietly.  Jesus is born in a hidden stable, far away from the royal power brokers of the capital city.

That’s why Jesus constantly says, “Watch.” Hope will be born in your midst. 

You just have to think small.

 

Pastor Larry