Teer Hardy's Blog, page 19

2019's Top Blog Posts

Photo by Jesus Kiteque on Unsplash

Looking back, 2019 was a burr. I began the year in South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Reservation. I spent some time in Saint Louis for the United Methodist General Conference. I podcasted more than ever with my Crackers & Grape Juice team. Our church became a Reconciling congregation. I graduated from seminary and was commissioned as Provisional Elder. I went on vacation. I published two books. I met with United Methodist Leaders in Kansas City.

On top of all that, I wrote more than I ever have.

Here are the top posts from this blog over the past year. Not surprisingly, the top post was not written by me.

Closed Hearts, Closed Minds, Closed Doors. The United Methodist Church has been home for me for almost half of my life, all of my adult life. I’ve never felt like an outcast or an outsider. I’ve been welcomed into stranger’s homes because of our commonality of being a United Methodist. I’ve baptized our children in the United Methodist Church. I’ve debated theology and polity, I’ve asked hard questions, and every single time it’s been welcomed with open minds and thoughtful consideration.Jesus, Put in a Cage and Denied a Flu ShotIn all we do, in all we post and tweet, in all we pray, may we, Christ’s body the Church, point away from ourselves and to Jesus ChristThere's No Place For YouIn advance of the Special Sex Conference in St. Louis, Jason and I talked with journalist, blogger, and former UMC pastor Christy Thomas. Christy breaks down the various proposals before the UMC regarding sexuality, why the Traditionalist Plan is the Mean Girl Plan, and why there’s no future for me in the UMC.Voices of General ConferenceIn an effort to provide honest conversations from the 2019 Special General Conference, the Crackers & Grape Juice team invited supporters of all of the plans being considered by the United Methodist Church’s governing body to explain why the plan they support is the correct planYou Can't Legislate Away GraceIt is Transfiguration Sunday, the day we recall the fullness of Jesus’ identity being revealed and confirmed, connecting Jesus with the liberators and prophets of Israel’s past. While little of what happened in a once indoor NFL stadium resembled a group of people following Jesus, today, a few days removed from General Conference, Jesus is still the transfigured Messiah, guiding his disciples down the mountain, heading towards the cross

Thank you to everyone who has subscribed and supported this blog over the years. 2020 has great things in store for all of us. Until then, Grace & Peace

Best of 2019 - Crackers and Grape Juice Edition

Photo by Jonathan Farber on Unsplash

Last week Jason Micheli posted the top episodes of Crackers & Grape Juice of 2019. Jason’s list was based on people like you, folks who download the podcast week after week and engage in conversation online.

Since Jason has already dug through the analytics, I figured I would share my top episodes of 2019. Here are my favorite conversations from 2019!Listen to "Voices of the General Conference – Jeff Mullinix and Steve Shamblin-Mullinix: You Are a Beloved Child of God" on Spreaker.Listen to "Episode 197: Emma Green — Because Beth Moore is Their Pastor (GC2019)" on Spreaker.Listen to "Episode 221 - Danté Stewart: Meditations of the Heart" on Spreaker.Listen to "Episode 218 - Phillip Cary: The Meaning of Protestant Theology" on Spreaker.Listen to "Episode 232 : Sarah Condon - We All Get to Go Home with Beth Moore and Jesus" on Spreaker.

Thank you to everyone who has supported the podcast over the past year. If you have not become a patron of the show, please consider doing so. A small amount goes a long way.

Check out our latest book, Crazy Talk: Stories Jesus Told, as well as our swag store. We have a lot of exciting guests and events lined up for 2020. Until then, Grace & Peace.

Yes, There's Church After Christmas

Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

Listen to "Christmas 1A - Unsettled" on Spreaker.

Yes, preacher, you have to preach this Sunday. The Sunday after Christmas may be a low Sunday in terms of attendance, but in the life of the church, the First Sunday After Christmas is anything but low.

Taylor Mertins invited me to share a few thoughts on the lections for the First Sunday After Christmas.

What does life look like after Christmas? Is creation still happening? What is the benefit of knowing the end of the story?

Isaiah 63.7-9, Psalm 148, Hebrews 2.10-18, Matthew 2.13-23

Before you listen, do us a solid and help out the podcast.CLICK OVER TO HTTP://WWW.CRACKERSANDGRAPEJUICE.COM. CLICK ON “SUPPORT THE SHOW.” BECOME A PATRON. FOR PEANUTS YOU CAN HELP US OUT....WE APPRECIATE IT MORE THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE.

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Peace on Earth

Listen to "Peace on Earth - December 24, 2019" on Spreaker.

The bright, flashy lights of the season have been pulling at us for weeks; for over a month. We have had family obligations, work commitments, and gatherings with friends to balance while at the same time managing to shop, wrap, and decorate. The hectic pace we find ourselves consumed by has left many feeling exhausted.

Tonight, many of us walked through those doors in need of a break.

Tonight, gathering for worship, many of us seek peace from the hectic life we left in the car or on the front porch of our home.

The well-placed and curated Nativity scenes in our homes and here in church along with Charles Schultz’s beloved Charlie Brown Christmas can lead us to believe that the first Christmas St. Luke wrote of was a sentimental, soon to be Christmas card moment. While having a blanket carrying kid read scripture under a well-placed spotlight makes us smile with sentimental glee, the story read by Linus and read for us tonight was anything but peaceful. 

via GIPHY

The Holy Family, Mary, and Joseph were on the move. A census had been called for by the Roman Emperor, and the Holy Family, living under Roman occupation, were traveling to Joseph’s hometown to be counted. The Roman census determined just how much the Holy Family and their Jewish neighbors would be taxed for the luxury of living under the mighty thumb of the Roman Emperor. 

The gospel writer tells us that when Mary was ready to deliver her child there was no room for the Holy Family in the local Motel 6, let alone a hospital or clinic where her child could be delivered. Linus can read these verses - “ While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn.” - reading with the peace of a child and we miss the lack of peace that was present in the moment.

Nativity Triptych, by James Janknegt

Speaking not as someone who has delivered a child, only as a witness to two births, I am confident in asserting that childbirth is not a peaceful moment and if I were to write a soundtrack for the moment, Silent Night would more than likely not make the final cut. The physical act of childbirth aside, the moments after the birth of Christ may not have been as peaceful as the songwriters would like us to believe. 

via GIPHY

Shepherds while tending their flocks by night were told the Good News and traveled to visit the Holy Family. Leaving their flocks in the field, not stopping to bathe before traveling to the manger, the shepherds arrived in Bethlehem, not in the Christmas best we think of today.

Shepherds, by James B. Janknegt

While Mary needed to rest and the Christ child needed to sleep, heavenly hosts and angels worshipping and giving praise to G-d - making a ruckus. The daily routine of the animals around the manger continued. 

The busyness of life continued.

While we may work carefully to create a perfect, hitting the right notes, Norman Rockwell Christmas the busyness we create for ourselves mirrors the first Christmas more than a perfectly arrange Nativity scene or adequately decked halls.

In the midst of the busyness of Christmas, then and now, the Peace of G-d entered the world and took up residence in an unlikely place. While travel schedules dictated by occupying emperors tried to force a schedule, G-d’s redeeming Peace, on G-d’s time, was revealed to the world. 

This is the peace the prophets spoke of, “For a child has been born for us, a son is given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” 

Peace continued and peace continues. 

Tonight we proclaim the Good News - In Christ, born in Bethlehem and placed in a manger, the redemption of all creation began. The work of G-d in the manger was not the final act performed by G-d. 

Listen to "Peace on Earth - December 24, 2019" on Spreaker.The story continues. 

One of my pet peeves about this reading from Luke is that we miss the rest of the story. G-d, in Christ in the manger, entered our world and the redemption of all creation began. All of creation, everything, and everyone will be made new because of this child - because this child will eventually make His way to the cross and then walking out of a borrowed grave.

The hectic and busy scene in Bethlehem brought together a diverse and unlikely group of people. The Holy Family, shepherds, an innkeeper, angels, and heavenly hosts all arrived in the same place, having completed different journeys and reasons to be there. Those present at the manger, while being different and then returning to different lives, shared a common experience - they shared, even if for a brief moment, the Peace of G-d.

One of the reasons songs like Silent Night make more sense on nights like tonight than I would like to admit it because when else can you find a group of strangers, people who most likely disagree on a wide range of issues, come together, lifting candles high and proclaiming that in the manger redemption began.

We gathered tonight to worship with candles lit and hymns are not unlike the group that found themselves gathered around the manger in Bethlehem. The tension, chaos, disunity, and conflict of this world has taken a pause, even if for a brief moment tonight as we gather to worship Emmanuel and share a meal around his table of grace. 

Icon - Nativity of the Lord

Tonight the peace of G-d, the “great joy for all people” overcomes the darkness that tells us that we cannot gather with a group as unlikely as us gathered tonight here to worship to experience Peace.

The birth of Christ was and continues to be Good News for all people.

Good News to the faithful and the skeptic.

Good News to those in need of healing.

Good News to those who long for the status quo to change.

Good News to all who are searching for hope.

So, alongside angelic voices and heavenly hosts, bathing ourselves in the peace of G-d, let us worship and praise Christ together, as an unlikely group of people, on this holy night and in the time to come. 

A great joy, the Great Peace, has come for all people, including you.

Listen to "Peace on Earth - December 24, 2019" on Spreaker.

Dream On

Listen to "Hope | Dream On" on Spreaker.

According to a 2014 letter from the Harvard Neuroscience Institute, there are several factors involved with whether or not you will be able to remember a dream when you wake. First and foremost, we must enter the hypnagogic state. Here, we experience “dreamlike visual, auditory, and physical hallucinations.” The manner in which we wake matters as well. According to Harvard, “we should allow ourselves to ‘float back and remember our dream’ before getting up. Alarm clocks usually don’t allow this luxury.” So, if you are like me and hit the snooze button more often than your partner would like, you now have scientific evidence to support your morning routine.

The purpose and function of dreams in our lives are as varied as the dreams we have each night. According to Sigmund Freud, our dreams disclose a repressed part of our lives or a desire we have been denying ourselves. If you are regularly dreaming about chocolate cake it is because Freud would argue, you have been denying the heart what it wants most - chocolate cake. 

My earliest memory of what dreams are and how they function was provided by Walt Disney’s 1950 classic Cinderella. 

A dream is a wish your heart makes

When you’re fast asleep

In your dreams you will lose your heartache.

Whatever you wish for, you keep

via GIPHY

Perhaps the most famous modern dream can be found as a defiant political stance filled with rich theological undertones. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s  “I Have a Dream Speech”:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. 

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification”, one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. 

Dreams provide us with, according to Walter Bruggemann, “a world other than the one at hand.” In a dream there is an otherness - the dream reveals a reality other than the reality we find ourselves in. MLK understood this, dreaming of a world dramatically different than the world he experienced and we experience today.

So, should she stay or should she go? 

Joseph had a dilemma on his hands. Regardless of how Mary had become pregnant, her pregnancy violated the social and ethical norms of first-century Israel. During this time to be pregnant outside of marriage was a “no-no” bigger than humiliation or social stigma. 

Mary and Joseph were engaged, betrothed to one another. Engagement in this day was more complicated than buying a ring and getting down on one knee. Mary and Joseph were in a legally binding contract. Since Joseph was not the biological father of Mary’s child, the assumption would be made that Mary was guilty of adultery.

What was Joseph to do?

As a righteous man, Joseph had two choices, and frankly, both choices sucked.

Joseph would have been well within his legal rights to have Mary stoned per Leviticus 20:10 or Joseph could have given Mary a writ of divorce, nullifying the contract most likely established between Joseph and Mary’s father. Scripture tells us Joseph was righteous, so he had no choice.

Joseph was not going to dismiss Mary to be harsh or cruel but rather because the Law required him to do so. Before Christ, righteousness was found in one’s ability to follow and obey the Law. 

Joseph did not have a choice.

The ethics of the day would permit nothing less.

Dismissal would have brought as much public shame on Joseph as it would Mary. 

There is a reason Linus opted to read Luke’s account of the Nativity and we will as well on Christmas Eve - Matthew’s account of the birth of Christ is uncomfortable. The dilemma faced by Joseph exposes the scandal of the incarnation during a time of year when we seek out sentimental, Norman Rockwell-like Christmases.

Either way, you slice it, because of the culture and social norms, Joseph could not dream of doing anything else when Mary told him she was pregnant.

What Joseph was to do had been settled long before Mary told him what was going on.

Just when Joseph had settled on what course of action he would take, God intervened on Mary’s behalf, on behalf of God’s own son - “As he was thinking about this, an angel from the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because the child she carries was conceived by the Holy Spirit.’”. While Joseph may have had no part in the conception of Jesus, Joseph would be 100% part of the Messiah’s arrival. The divine message, delivered by a dream crashing messenger grafted Joseph, a descent of David, Israel’s mighty king, into the story by asking Joseph to adopt the coming child, passing his family lineage onto the Savior of the World.

Listen to "Hope | Dream On" on Spreaker.

So, the angels delivered the heavenly message - you know the story - Mary was saved from the shame of divorce and pain of stoning. The only Family was intact and they made their way to Joseph’s hometown to be counted in the Roman census. 

Joseph heard the story, God’s plan for salvation, a plan he and his ancestors had been dreaming about and he, Joseph was changed.

God’s revelation, God’s dreams rearrange our lives, disrupting the trajectory of what we have set for ourselves, just as an intruder in the middle of the night has the ability to suddenly, without warning rearrange the layout of a home. 

Disorienting.Shocking.Uneasy.Swift.Abrupt.

Divine messengers move in this manner, are sent in this manner to grab our attention, shaking us from the norms we have been conditioned to so that we might be changed. Joseph was not the first to experience the sudden arrival of G-d in the dead of night.

Back in Genesis Jacob was visited in a dream and promised redemption from sin and companionship with the divine. Rulers were approached by God: the Egyptian Pharaoh and King Nebuchadnezzar had their power deconstructed and were reminded of God’s ultimate power and intentions through dreams.

Divine realities revealed in dreams leave the recipient and us the recipients of their stories scratching our head because G-d is not interested in the social norms we have been conditioned to accept. God’s concern is the redemption and salvation of all people. All of creation’s renewal. 

Often divine dreams seem idealistic and improbable. Take the dream of the prophet Isaiah: 

Lion and Oxen, Leopards and Lambs, Wolves and Cattle all laying together in peace. The peace many experience in the forest or in a field extended to all of creation. The nations obeying God, all of creation reordered and redeemed. 

All of this sounds great, sign me up, but it can feel as though (fully) realizing this dream is beyond us. Even in our wildest dreams, it seems restoration and redemption escapes us, is beyond us. 

God’s dreams seem beyond us because they are.

This is the work of God that we get to be a small (very small) part of. The beginning of the dream Isaiah saw was revealed to Joseph. The scandal of the incarnation is that in Christ, God is prepared the rearrange the ordering of creation - beginning not with power and political might but rather through a child born in a manger, and eventually on the cross and in an empty tomb. 

While scientists can debate the purpose and function of dreams in our lives, God’s dreams have a specific purpose. In Joseph’s dream, we relinquished control and on the cross and in the empty tomb God’s plan for the redemption and salvation of all people was revealed. All of creation will be made new.

As the shadows of Advent begin to give way to the Light revealed at Christmas, we recall the beginning of the Kingdom of God in a child and in doing so we await the full realization of a dream bigger than we can imagine but not so big that any of us will be left out.

We can dream on because behold, a Savior has come and will come again.

Listen to "Hope | Dream On" on Spreaker.

Borrowed Time

“We’re living on borrowed time.”

The church I serve is like most churches in the United States in that we have an aging infrastructure that requires more maintenance and repairs each year. The HVAC system we have was designed for a usage period of 50 years. We are on year 60.

We are truly living on borrowed time when it comes to replacing this critical piece of infrastructure. After all, we live in Virginia and during the height of the summer, it feels more like hell than anything or anywhere else. We are not looking at if the system fails and needs the be replaced we are forecasting when. 

You probably began reading this Advent-ure devotional not expecting to consider church maintenance as we prepare for the coming of the Lord. As we gather for worship on Christmas Eve, just a few days away, most will not be thinking about HVAC systems and deferred maintenance. The glow of the Advent wreath, with the center-Christ candlelit, will fill rooms and hearts with the Peace we expect on the coming Holy Night. But while you are lighting your candle to sing Silent Night systems will be failing around you. Worse is a scenario, the system operating on borrowed time will fail on Christmas Eve, during Silent Night and not the following Sunday when attendance will be (slightly) below what it was on Christmas Eve.

Repairs needed for aging infrastructure are nothing compared to the repair humanity requires. Sin is everywhere. 

Sin has touched every corner of creation and we, Christians, have allowed the shadow of sin to overcome our willingness to be part of God’s dream for a redeemed and restored creation.

We see the shadow side creation every time we drive down the street and pass by someone holding a cardboard sign.

We see the glaring holes in humanity when we see a tragedy on television and think to ourselves, “thank God I don’t live there” and then neglect to pray for those living in that place or situation we are thankful to not be a part of.

We see the repair needed in humanity every time we turn away from the grace of the manger, opting for the security and might of the empire.

The damage has been done by our unwillingness to follow the example of Christ and now, we are living on borrowed time awaiting the day when, as we say in the UMC, “Christ will come in final victory and we (will) feast at his heavenly banquet.” 

When that day comes we, the Church and those who claim the mantle of a disciple of Jesus Christ will have some questions to answer. 

“We simply must learn to see the world in which we live as the world that the Father created and redeemed through the Son.” - Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew

Staring at us, head-on, as we prepare for the birth of Christ is the reminder that Christ was born, lived, died, and rose again. For us now, we are living on borrowed time, awaiting Christ’s final victory. We are living in a world in need of redemption. Christ has promised the restoration of all of creation. That means, to quote Mufasa, “everything the Light touches” and will touch will be redeemed.

via GIPHY

Nothing is beyond the reach of Christ’s ultimate victory and redemption. This extends into the places we want Jesus to keep his divine nose out of, as Dr. Hauerwas notes, “a politics that challenges our most fundamental assumptions about the way things are.”

During my first Christmas at my first appointment, our senior pastor was chastised by a parishioner after service three of five because his Christmas sermon was “political.” The politics in question was an acknowledgment that a church in the D.C. area is one of the last places where people from differing political tribes willing to gather together.

We do not want politics in our Christmas. We are will to consider politics playing a part in Advent to appease a young pastor but at Christmas, we want Linus, Charlie Brown, and some good old fashioned sentiment (all in under an hour because we have parties to get to).

Something new is on the horizon.

Regardless of what we think God is doing, or the plans God has for us, if we can learn anything from the season of Advent and the preparations we make for the coming of the Messiah, it is this: God will do what God will do, and the timing, however much we like to think we can control, is not up to us.

The new creation we think will come at the end of time has already come. It arrived in Bethlehem and was laid in a manger in bands of cloth.

We’re living on borrowed time in the sense that Christ has already come once and we now live in a time of preparation for his return. We await the redemption of all of creation in Christ’s victory.

The new creation we find in Christ does not threaten the change the world, to change us, it already has. The waters we were baptized in changed our politic and the meal we share at Christ’s table of grace is our outward participation on our part of the redemptive work Christ has done and will continue to do. Living on borrowed time when it comes to infrastructure can scare any group of church trustees, but when we look at our borrowed time in relation to God’s promised redemption we can be at peace know that the grace of Christ is a “great joy” (Luke 2) for all of creation, including those who were told they would not be included.

Christmas is Coming

Listen to "Christmas Eve [A] - We Didn't Start The Fire" on Spreaker.

Christmas is coming. Seriously!

I joined Taylor Mertins on Strangely Warmed to discuss the lections for Year A, Christmas Eve. The lections are Isaiah 9.2-7, Psalm 96, Titus 2.11-14, and Luke 2.1-20.

Should the church be political on Christmas Eve? How important is the passing of the peace? How small is our all?

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Crazy Talk

The fine people who produce the Crackers & Grape Juice Podcast have done it again! A new book has been added to the bookshelves and all I can say is this one is crazy.

In Crazy Talk: Stories Jesus Told the CGJ team explores the parables of Jesus and examines them as though these stories are not about us but rather about Jesus.

Here’s the book description:

In Crazy Talk: Stories Jesus Told, you’ll find pastors doing what pastors do, which is trying to get congregations to laugh. Only professors are thirstier for giggly affirmation from students than clergy from churchgoers. No, but seriously, folks. The excellent sermons collected here walk the reader through the unrelenting message of the gospel parables: that Jesus Christ the Risen Lord is here and in charge. We, humans, are here, too, but we mess everything up. Not to mention, we cannot understand Jesus to save our lives.

Our last book was an Amazon #1 New Release because of you, the folks who support the pod. Head over to Amazon and get your copy today and when you do leave us a 5-star rating.

I’d love to see your thoughts about the book on Amazon. Send me a screenshot of your review and I’ll send you some podcast swag.

At War in Advent

This post was written as part of the Cracker & Grape Juice Advent-ure with Stanley Hauerwas:

We find ourselves in the midst of the adventure of war. It began as soon as the turkey carcass was picked clean and turned into broth many turned away from the Thanksgiving table and towards the bright lights of Christmas. Water dripped from the plates now resting in the drying rack as many found themselves on ladders desperately battling in the annual tradition of untangling and hanging Christmas lights on gutters and in shrubs. With Thanksgiving in the rearview mirror, it was off to the races as Christmas peaked over the horizon. The battle is on.

I am fairly certain those closest to me are tiring of hearing my daily (hourly?) reminders that we are not yet in the season of Christmas. The bright lights of Christmas seem to drown out the season of Advent. Rev. Fleming Rutledge rightly states that the season of Advent begins in the dark but year after year Christians set aside the darkness of Advent in exchange for the bright lights of Christmas.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not a self-righteous critique. It is a much easier sell to invite friends or co-workers to a festive Christmas party than an Advent party in the dark (minus the lights on a tree or cheerful egg nog serving dish). Can you imagine Clark Griswald serving egg nog to cousin Eddie in the dark?

via GIPHY

While immersing ourselves into the season of Christmas we have bypassed, overlooked, and neglected the season of preparation. Like Lent is to Easter, Advent prepares us for the coming of Christ. Responding to John cry in the wilderness, we are preparing the Lord’s way - both in our own lives but also in the places we find ourselves engaged in life (ie. Our neighborhoods and churches).

This is probably coming off as a rant on the war on Advent but what I want to point out is not that there is a war on Advent, but instead that we have forgotten about Advent altogether. While waging battle against the rush towards Christmas, the siege has not been laid against Advent. While many Christians rail on the secularization of Christmas, I wonder if the collective Christian shrug of the shoulders and apathy towards the season of preparation is more problematic than stores like Target or Macy’s offering free two-day shipping.

“Christians look different from other people’s lives.” - Stanley Hauerwas

The Church during Christmas looks no different from the secularization of the holiday we often hear has a war waged against it.

If we are going to look and behave differently, that sounds like a new kind of holiday law Christians are to follow.

Rather than a new list of rules to follow, living a life that looks different from the rest of the world is an invitation to step out of the bright lights of Christmas and into the grace extended to us during Advent.

This is where we turn from Advent being the season warming us to the bright lights of Christmas and instead view Advent as a season similar to Lent. A season where we take seriously the ways in which we as Christians are guilty of not taking seriously our vocation to point away from ourselves and to Jesus Christ in all things.

There is a reason the season of Advent begins with a call to repentance from John the Baptist. John’s entire life had a singular focus - to proclaim the coming of the Messiah. That was it. In an effort to fulfill this singular focus John lived differently. The Gospel writers tell us John lived in the wilderness, outside the protections of the city. Today we might refer to this location as the frontier, well beyond the comforts of “civilized living.”

Echoing the words of the prophet Isaiah, John the Baptist called those who would listen to “repent” and “Prepare the way for the Lord.” Just as is the case in Lent, during Advent we have the opportunity to turn away from the sin we have committed and to turn towards the Lord. We have the opportunity during Advent to put aside the ways in which we have aligned ourselves with the empire and to step into the frontier, beyond the safety of the city gates.

Stanley is right - “Christians should look different from other people’s lives.” Advent is our opportunity to not only look different by singing hymns and lighting candles but also by setting aside the secularized diminishment of Advent and embracing this season as an opportunity to prepare the way of the Lord.

via GIPHY

Prayer:

Almighty God, you emptied yourself for our sake. During this season of preparation, by the power given to us by your Spirit, may we step out of the trappings of bright lights and inflatables and into the wilderness around us. Reveal your coming to us in the places we least expect so that we might look different than those around us. In looking different may we point to you in all we say and do this season of Advent and in all seasons. Amen.

Jesus, Put in a Cage & Denied a Flu Shot

It’s been one hell of a week in December. This Second Week of Advent has played host to a host of head-scratching headlines with the actions and reactions of Christians taking center stage. Being a fan of Aaron Sorkin’s work on The West Wing, the storyline outlined below seems to be made up, but I kid you not, this stuff really happened.

via GIPHY

Getting things started, a United Methodist congregation and this pastor in California set off an internet storm when their display of the Nativity scene depicted the Holy Family in separate enclosures (you could also read this as separate cages). No, the firestorm was not because the congregation placed sweet baby Jesus in the manger before Christmas, bypassing Advent alright, but instead, the uproar was because (for some) depicting the Holy Family separated and caged was an unfair critique of the current United States policy to separate immigrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Rev. Karen Clark Ristine invited folks to come into Claremont United Methodist Church where they would see “this same family reunited, the Holy Family together.”

Christians across the theological spectrum chimed in on the image which has been shared across every major news outlet and social media platform. The congregation and pastor have been praised for their witness and at the same time received threats of violence from those (Christians?) opposing the display.

Jump ahead (not even 24-hours) and a group of doctors and nurses extended an offer to the U.S. government that many taxpayer could not refuse: free, no cost to the taxpayer flu shots for those being detained (caged) at the U.S.-Mexico border.

I receive a free flu shot each year at the suggestion of my doctor and since it is free I don’t complain and accept the opportunity to avoid illness happily. Now as the father of two young children who spend the better part of the day in a petri dish I am grateful for the opportunity to receive this basic medical procedure on a routine basis. Better yet, my free flu shot comes with a $5.00 gift card to Target - win win!

The Trump Administration thought its better to forego free health care and opted for what is sure to be a flu epidemic at the U.S.-Mexico border.

According to C.B.P. people are held less than 72 hours in these holding facilities meanwhile the C.D.C. remains concerned about the spreading of the flu in these facilities.

A self-described “religious person” and champion of the Christian faith, President Trump could reverse the decision of the agencies he overseas however according to the New York Times, “Under the Trump administration’s new, more restrictive policies, thousands are being sent back to Mexico, where many wait in teeming, unhealthy border camps.”

Like I told you, this seems more like a Sorkin storyline than real-life but friends, these are the times we find ourselves living in.

Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour

Jump ahead to Tuesday afternoon - Christian pastors and worship leaders in the oval office. On first glance this image appears to show a more diverse group of clergy/leaders than any United Methodist clergy gathering I have attended, the timing of this gathering could not be more important.

Just hours before this meeting basic healthcare we denied to those in the custody of the United States government. Hours before this group of pastors and worship leaders reach to touch the hem of Trump’s garments the vulnerable and the poor were denied care by an administration committed to (in the past) care for Christian refugees.

If those being held (like animals) in cages at the U.S.-Mexico Border knew a group of Christian leaders would be meeting with the President of the United States, it would have been a safe assumption on their part to assume the Christians would appeal to the President to come to their aid.

Instead, here is what came out of the meeting:

"When America is strong, the world is a better place. What a great opportunity it's been to see some of the initiatives that are happening to help freedom of religion." @BrianCHouston pic.twitter.com/NAzBDsFF9t

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) December 9, 2019

And…

.@karijobe and @codycarnes shared about their visit to the White House with fellow worship leaders! pic.twitter.com/wTQE6EEvVr

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) December 9, 2019

Thank you @realDonaldTrump for an epic time in the Oval Office the other day! Incredible moment getting to pray for you!