The Friday Letters
19 December 2008
Snowed-In Edition!
(and the last Friday Letter of the year)

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

You don’t have to look very far to find someone pleased by the recent weather in my house. Mora, my Samoyed, has been leaving tracks in the snow that go like this: paw-paw, paw-paw, tongue; paw-paw, paw-paw, tongue; repeat (until owner is frozen). I wonder if the Israelites were this excited when they woke up one morning to find the ground covered in a flaky, edible substance?

This will be your last Friday Letter of the year, as next Friday is the day after Christmas and I’m taking a holiday. The following Friday will be 2009! Therefore, I feel I should take this opportunity to thank you for a wonderful year. It seems a bit early to get reminiscent of 2008, it not yet being Christmas and all, but even a preliminary look-back reveals any number of excellent occasions and happenings. So thank you; thank you for your support and involvement in our community, thank you for the many moments of beautiful worship, and thank you for sharing your lives with me and each other.

I’m very much looking forward to our celebrations of Christmas next week. As we prepare for the ending of Advent we acknowledge that for us, Christmas is not an ending of the year, the season, or anything else; Christmas is the beginning. Christmas is the start of something God did long ago, and of something that God continues to do within us even today. As you celebrate Christmas this coming week, celebrate it with more than just the usual family traditions and church services. Celebrate Christmas with your heart. Mark it within you as the beginning (again) of something new—as the transformation of what is into what God intends to be.

A blessed Advent and Joyous Christmas to you, and to yours, and to all God’s Children.

Peace,

Ben.

View archived copy here.

A sermon by Benjamin J. Newland on the Third Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
Psalms 126
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8, 19-28

I could have picked a better Gospel reading for today. Nobody asked me, of course, but if they had, I could have picked a better Gospel reading for today.
Nothing wrong with the Gospel of John, even though they did one of those cut-and-paste jobs, taking three verses from the prologue and ten verses from later on. Always makes me suspicious when they do that, but in this case it makes sense, I suppose. Trouble is, we heard about John the Baptist last week. The climax of this Gospel passage is lifted directly from last week’s Isaiah portion: “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,” etc., etc.
Isaiah has already moved on. This week the prophet says,

The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;

Last week we were preparing the way of the Lord, but this week the Lord is upon us, ready or not. If I had been asked, the Gospel reading I would have chosen for today would have been Luke 4:16-30. You probably know the story: Jesus has returned home to Nazareth and is in the synagogue. He stands, takes a Torah scroll, and reads from Isaiah. He reads from Isaiah the same portion we read this morning from Isaiah, and he reads it in the first person, as it is written.
You probably remember the end of this story too, that Jesus’ hometown fellows get enraged and try to throw him off a cliff. He escapes, of course. It is easy to forget why they got so upset. It wasn’t that Jesus was claiming that Isaiah was talking about him. Indeed, the Nazarites seem pleased by that idea. No, it isn’t until Jesus connects this passage to two other stories that they get upset. Jesus tells of Elijah bearing God’s mercy to a widow and Elisha bearing God’s mercy to lepers. Sounds fine, you think? Yes, except that in those stories neither the widow nor the lepers are of the tribes of Israel. Jesus uses Isaiah’s words to claim that he (Jesus) is anointed of God, and then he tells everyone that the anointed of God is not here for the exclusive benefit of the people of Israel. That’s what really cheeses them off.
I suppose the lectionary pickers (whoever they are) didn’t pick this Gospel lesson because Jesus is the wrong age in it. Obviously it goes with the Isaiah reading, but this is Advent and we’re supposed to be concentrating on Jesus as a baby. A bit jarring to have him show up as a young man aggravating the hometown crowd until they try to kill him.
Still, I say it works anyways. The bite to that Gospel story is that God is sending his son to all people, not just the Israelites who get him started. That works with Advent pretty well, really, as we settle in to celebrate the gift of God’s child to all of us.
The portion of Isaiah that we read this morning, and which according to Luke Jesus read in the synagogue at Nazareth, has a lot in common with another portion of Luke that we’ll hear next week: the Song of Mary (Luke 1:46-55). In her Magnificat, Mary tells of a God who lifts up the lowly, fills the hungry, and remembers mercy for those who respect him while scattering the proud in their conceit. Mary’s song is a perfect counterpoint to Isaiah’s song of good news to the oppressed, liberty to captives, and release to prisoners. Mary and Isaiah sing a duet of God’s words in Advent.
It is our predisposition to hear the words of scripture as if they were written to us. Perhaps we are not being physically oppressed right this moment, but spiritually maybe we are, or have been. Like those Nazarites listening to Jesus so long ago, we assume that God is addressing us, which is fine, until we further assume that therefore God is not addressing anyone else.
God’s song of Advent is sung not only for us, but for all people. If we want that song to ring out over all the earth, then we must makes sure it is heard not just by those of us gathered to listen for it, but by all who need to hear it but for whatever reason are not listening.

The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon all of us,
because the LORD has anointed each and every person here;
God has sent us to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners.
God has sent us to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor.

AMEN.

The Friday Letters
12 December 2008

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

The weather has finally decided to act like winter is here; as I write this a cold rain is falling on the carport roof outside my window. The metal roof makes the rain sound metallic and sharp and gives weight to the prediction of colder temperatures to come. It might snow this weekend.

We naturally connect the weather to our holidays, even if the original event that spawned our holiday wasn’t necessarily held in that kind of weather. Christmas is linked with snow by a hundred carols, movies, paintings, and memories. When I was a kid a Christmas without snow was disappointing, even though Eastern Washington is not likely to have snow on December 25th. Somehow Western European weather patterns have become inextricably linked with the birth of Jesus.

Does it often snow in Bethlehem on December 25th? Did it two thousand years ago? The manger scene is cozier if we imagine that it was snowing outside, but how likely is that? We celebrate Jesus’ birth on December 25th, and there is a chance he was born that day. A one-in-three-hundred-and-sixty-five chance, to be precise.

None of this is particularly pertinent of course. We have our own traditions, our own memories, and our own ideas about what a holiday should feel like. I’ve had more brown and grey Christmases than white ones. As I’ve gotten older the feel of the holiday has become less influenced by the weather and more by a spirit. This Christmas is more likely to be green than white, but the real color of the Christmas holiday for me will be love (if that is a color) and joy (which is many colors).

It is cold outside. The days are short and the darkness great. Yet we are Advent people, and we wait for the light which we know is coming. O come, O come, Emmanuel.

Peace,

Ben.

View archived copy here.

The Friday Letters
5 December 2008
Clement of Alexandria

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

The quiet season of Advent is upon us, accompanied by its unruly younger brother the not-so-quiet season of holiday shopping. I hope both are going well for you.

I’ve been doing some reading this week about St. Nicholas. I’ve read about things he probably really did do along with things that legends about him say he did. Also there were a couple things he did after he died that were quite impressive. The evolution of St. Nicholas, primarily a European saint, into Santa Claus, an American Icon, is fascinating and informative. I’ve given up my combative stance of Church vs. The World during December (not that I was very attached to it in the first place) and decided that Santa and St. Nick are going to have to work together. Still, it won’t be Santa showing up at church this Sunday. It’ll be St. Nicholas, whose feast day is tomorrow, and not December 25th.

As always this time of year there is so much going on. In addition to the Children’s Sermon this Sunday at 10am, there are many more events, worship services, opportunities, and activities listed in this week’s edition of The eClarion. If you don’t receive that eMail, or have already deleted it, you’ll be able to see it online at our website once it has been published. Please do read it over and take in all the wonderful things that are part of this community during this time of year.

I’ll leave you this week with the collect prayer for St. Nicholas day:

Eternal God,
in your great love you gave your servant Nicholas a perpetual name for deeds of kindness on land and sea. Grant that your Church may never cease to work for the happiness of children, the safety of sailors, the relief of the poor, and the help of those who are tossed by tempests of doubt or grief; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

With the Peace of Advent,

Ben.

View archived copy here.